9 Renovatio II

  It was not. Without realizing it, David remained on his computer for nearly three hours, just trying to complete the first mission. The mechanics of the game were somewhat different; its graphics were so good that he felt like it was a weird movie shot with a high-definition camera.

"Why is this thing so difficult? Why is it so complicated?" David complained in frustration.

[The game isn't difficult, however, it was designed in a manner that allows each character to make decisions depending on the situation, and each one is designed with a backstory.]

"So basically, I should play it like these are actual human beings, right?"

[In simple terms, yes... It makes the game more complicated and entertaining. It also means that no player will have the same ending. If you do have the same ending with another person? It can be interpreted as you and said person having the same personality]

"You managed to fit all that into 4.3 gigabytes... Wait, each character in this game has a backstory and, basically, a life. Does that mean the player's missions are based on the people they meet and the decisions they make?"

[Yes]

"All that decision-making would surely take up too much space in the future, right?"

[Normally, yes, but due to the optimization process, the storage the game would take up at the end should be about 10.2 gigabytes, which is still nothing compared to some games.]

"That's good then," David said, even though he didn't understand how that would work.

He just left it for the Omniscient, known as Nous. It was the one who created the game and understood how it truly worked. If every character could make its own decisions like a human, then that meant that there were no NPCs in the game, just background characters or extras.

With the belief that he was playing against other humans, David's decision-making process changed, and soon the first mission was completed. However, since he felt he could do better, he replayed it, only for the ending to be completely different from the original one he just got.

The other team members who were to withdraw the money were transferred to the bank, betrayed, and ran away with the money. In the other ending, they stay behind. He had no idea why these drastic changes were made, but he knew that it had to do with something he had done, so he replayed the mission again, but this time he was betrayed by his team members as they shot him after they had managed to escape the police.

"Okay? This game is addicting, so how do you plan to advertise it?"

[I can create a website for the game to be downloaded from, but there are already several existing websites that will allow for much better sales; however, a $100 fee will need to be paid.]

"Just create our own website. I think you should be able to make it work right; I don't have that kind of money"

[Naturally, then can I have permission to create a company account on all social media platforms?]

"Go ahead? Just make sure to avoid exposing our location or situation."

[As you wish, sir] Nous replied as it went to work.

David became interested in seeing where each possible end to the mission was and continued playing the game for hours after that.

The graphics, the details, the story, and the entire setup made him adopt the mentality of his character. He also noticed that in certain situations, he was required to type in a reply as though he were actually talking to the characters themselves.

There were conversations between the characters. These conversations were smooth and sounded like something he would actually hear somewhere. Since the game supported a headset, David immediately equipped his, removing the need to type in a reply.

While playing the game, David started feeling like he had to create some sort of motion capture suit to bring out the true beauty of the game. There were many actions he had to perform in the game that he felt would be better if he were wearing such a suit.

While David spent his time totally engrossed in the game, Nous, in its infinite wisdom, began its plan for advertisement. It knew its master would never agree to the fee, so from the start, it had already created a plan to advertise the game in the most efficient way possible.

====

In the early hours of the morning, a young man could be seen scrolling through his phone in search of more entertaining content on the now incredibly popular app known as TikTok.

"That should be impossible; have I seen all the TikToks?" the man said as he continued to scroll through the app.

"Five thousand following!I should really try to reduce that number," the man thought to himself as he went through his profile before returning to the 'For You' page.

After refreshing it, the first video that appeared was one of some movies; however, unlike most movies he had seen on this app, there was no song in the background or soap-cutting video beneath it. It was just the movie, which meant that it was surely a funny part of the movie or some important part of it.

"Oh? It's a military respect video; which nation is this?" The man asked as he went through the full video.

Interested in seeing more, he opened the profile of the owner of the content, and as usual, he dropped a follow since he enjoyed watching things like this. He may not want to be part of the military because he didn't want to die, but he still enjoyed watching their edits because he was fascinated by their courage and overall coolness.

The man scrolled through to the bottom of the videos posted by the user and began watching them; however, the contents weren't the same as what he expected, but he still enjoyed what he saw.

He quickly found out that each video was an introduction to a character in a game, and the video following said introduction moment seemed to be an edit of their cool moments.