Chapter 60 - #60: Madeline and Yor’s Journey

Chapter 60: Chapter #60: Madeline and Yor’s Journey

Exactly seven days later, Yor Forger followed Ethan Vale back to their company hq to officially join the company.

On her very first day at the office, a few of the junior employees were visibly surprised by her facial scarring.

However, absolutely no one displayed any negative emotions or made her feel unwelcome.

Ethan also took the time to formally introduce her to his college roommate and studio co-founder, Marcus Shaw.

When Yor finally sat down at her new desk and opened the master game design document Ethan had provided, she fell completely silent.

She looked up at Ethan in pure astonishment. "Is... is the blueprint actually this comprehensive?"

"Yup!" Marcus nodded heavily, seeming to perfectly understand exactly what was going through her mind.

"You have absolutely no idea how much of a psychotic perfectionist this guy is. The master plan he handed us for the flagship title is actually even thicker than that." Marcus laughed, casually pulling a massive binder of previous game design documents from his own workstation to show her.

Up until that exact moment, Yor had secretly suspected that Ethan was just giving her extreme special treatment out of pity. Since when was developing a video game this incredibly streamlined?

But if Ethan was capable of drafting a master document this flawlessly comprehensive, literally anyone with basic management skills could lead the production team. Why would he specifically need to recruit her?

Noticing the sudden, insecure dimming in her eyes, Ethan quickly shot Marcus a subtle wink. Marcus immediately picked up on the cue.

"Honestly, before he handed me my first blueprint, I had a really hard time accepting my role here too," Marcus said, rolling up the thick planning document in his hand and pointing it playfully at Ethan.

"Back then, I seriously wondered if he just viewed me as a completely useless charity case," Marcus admitted.

"That was until I realized that literally every single design document he writes is just this terrifyingly detailed," Marcus added with a warm smile.

"Think about it, Yor. Why would he hand over a master document this valuable to a stranger he couldn’t completely trust? Only close, ride-or-die friends like us are actually willing to put up with his insane demands."

"Besides, we actually get to learn a massive amount of technical skills while actively leading these strike teams."

"Look, I’m just physically way too busy right now. The main studio is pouring all our energy into Bloodborne, but we need to release smaller indie titles to plug the massive gaps in our launch schedule," Ethan quickly explained.

"Plus, during the winter holiday, I explicitly promised my dad I would personally code him a realistic hunting simulation. If you don’t step up and help me manage this project, I’m literally going to drown in my own backlog," Ethan added, aggressively exaggerating his workload.

"Alright, you don’t need to try so hard. I’m not actually that sensitive," Yor smiled lightly, a wave of genuine relief washing over her.

When Ethan had initially handed her such a flawless blueprint, she really had been overthinking the gesture. But after seeing Marcus’s massive stack of identical design bibles, her professional confidence immediately recovered.

She desperately wanted to work hard and earn a normal, functional life, rather than just being a fragile object of special corporate pity.

Ethan was profoundly relieved to see the light return to her eyes. His greatest fear was that her psychological state was still incredibly fragile following the trauma of the fire.

After all, he still carried the heavy, agonizing memory of her suicide from his previous life.

"Yor, honestly tell me... have you ever seriously considered ending your own life?" Ethan asked carefully, taking advantage of the lighthearted atmosphere to slip in the heavy question.

"Yes," Yor sighed softly. "But those thoughts are completely gone now. Don’t worry, Ethan. I am going to live a very good life."

Yor looked down at the thick stack of planning documents in her hands, her expression shifting into one of absolute, razor-sharp focus.

She hadn’t even confessed the darkest truth to her own father. Shortly after being discharged from the burn ward, she had desperately submitted her resume to dozens of software firms.

But the absolute second the recruiters saw her facial scarring during the preliminary webcam interviews, she was ruthlessly rejected. After a dozen identical rejections, she had felt her entire life plunge into a gloomy, hopeless abyss, and she hadn’t stepped foot outside her apartment since.

Ethan looked deeply into her eyes, finally nodding his head after confirming that her spiritual resolve was genuinely solid.

"Just remember to communicate with me constantly during the development cycle. If the code drifts too far off the blueprint, it’s a massive nightmare to rip it out and redo it later," Ethan reminded her.

Marcus nodded vigorously in agreement. He had a deeply agonizing, firsthand understanding of that exact pain. "This sadist is a terrifying perfectionist. If you are ever unsure about a mechanic, you absolutely have to ask him for clarification immediately."

"Thank you, guys," Yor whispered, gently wiping a stray tear from the corner of her unscarred eye.

...

That night in her new apartment, Yor stayed up reading the master design document until the sun began to rise.

She was incredibly eager to memorize every single mechanical detail of the project, desperately hoping she could execute the vision flawlessly without making a single programming error.

But as she read deeper into the narrative framework, she slowly realized a profound, heartbreaking truth.

Ethan had explicitly designed this entire game specifically for her.

The realization fully cemented when she read a highly specific mechanical note buried in the pacing section.

’The mechanical penalty for every in-game death must be incredibly minimal. Ensure the respawn load times are shortened to the absolute technical limit, organically encouraging the player to try again and again.’

Sitting in the quiet dark of her room, Yor felt as though every single line of dialogue in the script was Ethan speaking directly to her broken heart.

Through this master design document, she could clearly see something profoundly beautiful and incredibly moving.

At that exact moment, an overwhelming, frantic desire to build this game consumed her entire soul.

She didn’t put the heavy binder down until the early morning light began bleeding through her window.

She booted up her smartphone and lazily scrolled through the trending social media tags surrounding Ethan.

Almost every single gamer on the internet was aggressively accusing the black-hearted sadist of having absolutely zero human empathy.

Yor placed her phone facedown on her mattress and smiled warmly. How could a developer who meticulously crafted an entire video game strictly to heal his childhood friend’s trauma possibly lack a heart?

...

Over the next few weeks, Yor’s dedicated strike team made blistering progress on the game’s production.

However, she humbly attributed their staggering speed to the fact that Ethan’s underlying blueprint was structurally flawless.

Halfway through the development cycle, Yor found herself heavily struggling to select the perfect ambient soundtrack to match the emotional weight of the platforming.

Noticing her creative roadblock, Ethan casually messaged her a compressed audio file containing an original orchestral score.

The absolute second the new music tracks were embedded into the game engine, the entire atmosphere of the project was miraculously sublimated into pure art.

Just breathe.

Following the on-screen text prompts and the swelling, melancholic background music, Yor took a slow, deep breath of her own.

’Madeline, you can do this.’

...

Exactly three months later, the final build of the game was officially compiled and locked. Even Marcus couldn’t help but whistle in sheer disbelief. "You guys pushed this through way too fast, Yor."

"Yeah... that really was an incredibly fast turnaround," Ethan agreed, rubbing his chin.

He had heard hushed rumors from the other studio employees regarding her leadership style; Yor had been practically living at the office, frequently pulling grueling all-nighters to polish the code.

Yor just smiled lightly, brushing off the praise. This software wasn’t just a game; it was Madeline’s agonizing journey to find herself, and by extension, it was Yor’s journey too.

"You’re the project lead. Go ahead and pick an official release date for the storefronts," Ethan said, looking over at Yor.

"Today," Yor replied, looking dead-center into Ethan’s eyes with absolute, uncompromising seriousness.

"Wait, what? Don’t we need to run a dedicated marketing cycle first?" Ethan was genuinely taken aback.

A proper, multi-week PR campaign was standard industry protocol to maximize a game’s launch-day popularity.

"I believe that the Sprout Studio banner is more than enough marketing on its own," Yor said, taking a slow, steadying breath. "I just really want to share this journey with the world as soon as possible."

"Alright, let’s do it!" Ethan nodded.

He possessed absolute, unshakeable confidence in the quality of Celeste.

"You do the honors. Click the publish button," Ethan said, sliding his wireless mouse across the desk toward Yor.

Marcus stood beside them, laughing warmly as the deeply nostalgic, chaotic indie dev energy filled the room once more.

[Upload Successful!]

[The developer ’Sprout Studio’ has just released a brand-new game! Click here to check it out!] [Do you think it would be easy?]

Yor had deliberately tagged the launch post with Ethan’s iconic, community-enraging catchphrase.

When she had first joined the company, she hadn’t understood reference behind the meme, but now she found it incredibly, genuinely hilarious.

At exactly 4:39 PM, the game officially went live across all global platforms.

"Wait, what?" Silver muttered.

He glanced down at the sudden push notification lighting up his smartphone screen, then quickly checked the time.

His brain completely short-circuited for a full second before he violently snatched the phone off his desk in sheer shock.

"What the hell is the sadist doing dropping a stealth launch on a random weekday afternoon?!"

( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°)

Brothers and sisters, are y’all trying to cure me of my uploading addiction? There are too few stones, it’s like y’all are tryin’ to rehab me or somthn...

... If we achieve 200+ power stones...

You can support me at patreon.com/Chaos_King and read 15 advanced Chapters.