NOVEL NEXT Chapter 90: “It’s herbal,” she insisted.
Suho had barely stood up to leave when Fen Su called out like a kid who forgot to tell the teacher about homework.
"Wait, Mr. Kim—there's… one more thing."
Suho froze. His face said it all: one more thing is never one more thing.
Fen Su beamed. "It's good news!"
Suho squinted. "Good news? Are you sure? Because last time someone said 'good news,' I ended up paying for two drones and a brass band."
Fen Su, completely missing the sarcasm, nodded. "It's Horny Princess. Traffic's way up. Players are spending again. The game's making money."
The words hung in the air like someone had just confessed to dating their cousin.
Suho blinked. "…Wait. Profitable? Horny Princess?"
Fen Su leaned forward like he was unveiling a masterpiece. "Yes! All thanks to your genius, Mr. Kim. First, you weaponized the pride of the rich whales. Then you nerfed equipment drop rates so hard that they have to beg others for gear. Honestly, it's evil brilliance."
Suho stared, slack-jawed. What? I literally just played the game to blow off steam. Since when did I become Machiavelli with a mouse?
Fen Su was still gushing. "It's exactly as I suspected—you went undercover as a shill, didn't you? Incredible move. I didn't even dare to try that."
Suho felt his knees wobble. He gripped the desk like it was a life raft. So, apparently, I revived a whole MMO by accident. What's next? Did I cure cancer while playing Minesweeper?
Finally, he slumped into a chair and let out a dramatic sigh. "Horny Princess's… profitable."
Inside, his thoughts screamed, "This is a nightmare." I'm trying to LOSE money, people!
After a long silence, he reasoned it out. Most of the "players" were just gold farmers grinding gear to resell. And eventually, the rich whales would get tired of their hoarding fetish. Once they had full gear closets, the market would crash again.
Okay, he thought. The circus leaves town eventually. Just… don't touch it. Don't say a word. Let the game die naturally.
"Mr. Kim?" Fen Su probed.
Suho opened his mouth, then closed it, then just waved at Cho Rin like, 'Let's get out of here before they hand me another 'good news' bomb.
As soon as Suho left, Fen Su rubbed his temples. "What does it mean? Why didn't he give instructions?"
Cue Jin Wu, strolling in like a substitute teacher who thinks he's Socrates.
"You called?" he asked.
"Yeah. Mr. Kim was just here. He dropped cryptic silence about Horny Princess. I don't know what to do."
Jin Wu smirked knowingly, like he'd just solved a crossword puzzle in ink. "Oh, it's obvious."
Fen Su blinked. "It is?"
"Think about it," Jin Wu said, pacing. "Mr. Kim single-handedly turned a dying game into a cash cow. He already showed us the path. And you—you're the planner. You don't go back and ask the boss to hold your hand. You study his brilliance and keep the fire burning."
Fen Su's eyes widened like he was witnessing gospel. "You're right… Mr. Kim wanted me to figure it out. He gave me the direction, and now I must revive Horny Princess myself!"
Jin Wu nodded sagely. "Exactly. We're disciples, not babysitters."
Fen Su looked downright inspired, clutching his notes like they were holy scripture. "I understand now. I won't let him down."
Cue an awkward beat. Jin Wu glanced toward the imaginary camera, deadpan: "Yeah, let's see how long that lasts."
Son Choku rolled the van to a stop outside the Steel Cup T-Shirt Factory. The engine wheezed like it wanted paid vacation.
Kim Suho stepped out, stretched, and sneezed twice. He rubbed his nose. "Somewhere, someone just called me a genius. Terrifying."
Inside Horny Princess Interactive, Fen Su had gathered the team like he was launching a moon mission.
"Alright," he said, palms on the conference table. "We're refocusing on Horny Princess Online. Traffic's up. Purchases are up. And no, we're not going to jinx it by acting normal."
Zhao Wenbo raised a hand. "Before we celebrate, I checked the servers all weekend. A lot of the new crowd are grinding gear to resell. They're not here for the story—they're here for the store."
Fen Su nodded. "Right. So we stabilize the ecosystem. Step one: keep the market feeling alive. If the big spenders slow down on buying gear, we quietly buy some ourselves—low amounts, just enough to signal demand. We're not a charity. We're… market gardeners."
A designer in the back whispered, "Is that legal?"
Fen Su smiled. "If you're asking, it's balanced."
Zhao leaned forward. "Step two: balance for actual players. Free replacement gear lines that look decent and play well, so mid-tier folks aren't stomped by whales in five seconds. Slightly higher early drop rates and faster early XP, so returning and new players catch up without selling a kidney."
Heads nodded. Someone clapped. Someone else hissed at them for clapping.
"And the spenders?" another dev asked. "They paid real money. They'll riot if we flatten the curve."
"We don't touch their power," Fen Su said. "We touch their ego. Prestige cosmetics—outrageous outfits, custom animations, and deluxe mail deliveries with their names on them. Zero stat advantage, maximum flex. They'll love it. Everyone else will hate them… which they'll also love."
Zhao flipped a notebook. "Endgame: new roles and group content. Give us room to design synergy. Make raids that require five different roles to actually talk to each other. And put a few headline bosses in there that drop things you can't farm anywhere else. Teamwork or bust."
"Beautiful," Fen Su said. "Ship a draft spec by tomorrow. Reassign everyone not strictly needed on the new project. The skeleton crew stays; everyone else moves to Horny Princess Online. If we do this fast and clean, we keep the store sharks fed while growing actual players."
Across town, Suho walked the factory floor with his coffee. He took a long sip and stared into the middle distance the way a man does when he's pretending not to be anxious.
"I try to spend money," he murmured to himself, "and somehow the game starts making it."
Cho Rin appeared at his elbow with a clipboard. "Morning checklist. Also, Lee Wonho says the dorm upgrades will obliterate a chunk of the budget."
"Music to my ears," Suho said. "Tell him to make the obliteration louder."
He sneezed again, sighed, and gave the air a deadpan look, like there was a hidden camera floating nearby. "If whoever's praising me could switch to criticizing me for a day, that'd be great."
Back at Horny Princess Interactive, Fen Su wrapped the huddle.
"Mr. Kim, are you catching a cold?"
Cho Rin tilted her head, looking genuinely worried as Suho sneezed hard enough to make his coffee tremble.
Suho waved it off. "Nah, the car A/C probably had it out for me. You know how it is—German engineering, Korean revenge."
He marched into the Steel Cup T-Shirt Factory like nothing was wrong, but his nose betrayed him with another sneeze that echoed off the hall. Somewhere in the distance, an intern clapped.
Back in his office, Suho slumped into his chair and fired up his computer. Against his better judgment, he clicked on Horny Princess Online.
Big mistake, he thought, as the loading screen chirped, "Welcome back, Commander of Chaos!"
The second his character spawned in the starter village, two players zoomed past him like rats in a fire drill, heading straight for the wilds.
Suho blinked. "Wait. Since when is this place populated? Did I… did I accidentally install the wrong game?"
Then he glanced at the world chat.
[TianhuoStudio]: Buying full Dragon-Slaying sets, $10,000 flat. No scams, swear on Grandma.
[BoostDaddy69]: Max-level carry service! $30 a day, no refunds if I ditch mid-dungeon!
[RhinoCrew]: 24/7 jungle farm squad, bring snacks. Team fee: $40. Two spots left.
The chat scrolled so fast it looked like Wall Street had merged with Craigslist.
Suho rubbed his temples. "Yeah, this is… healthy. Totally normal."
Curious, he walked his character out into the wild. The place was swarming. Players grinding mobs, hustling gear, and shouting about resale prices.
"Oh, hell no," Suho muttered. "This looks like a stock exchange run by goblins."
It hit him then—Horny Princess Online wasn't just active again. It was profitable.
"Perfect," Suho sighed. "I try to burn money, and somehow I invent Wall Street: The MMO."
He immediately Alt-F4'd, dragged the icon to the trash, and hit Uninstall.
"Die quietly, you cursed program. Don't take my 8 million with you."
Right on cue, Cho Rin walked in carrying a cup. "Mr. Kim, your water—" She froze mid-step, catching sight of the uninstall screen. Her eyes lit up like she'd just caught him meditating under a waterfall.
She whispered, almost reverently, "So… you were never just playing games. You were… saving them."
Suho looked at her like she'd grown a second head. "What? No. I was literally—"
But she was too far gone. Don't be arrogant in victory, and don't despair in defeat, her mind practically narrated. Compared to Mr. Kim, she was just an amateur at life. She resolved to study him harder. Maybe write a thesis.
Suho sipped the drink she handed him, then paused mid-gulp. "Wait… is this cough syrup? It tastes like sadness."
Cho Rin's cheeks turned pink. "It's cold medicine. Preventative."
"…You drugged me with NyQuil."
"It's herbal," she insisted.
"Great. If I start hallucinating, tell everyone I was poisoned by kindness."
Later that day…
Across the industrial park, in the park manager's office, Park Lee Mao was locked in a passive-aggressive staring contest with a middle-aged factory owner.
"Brother Lee," the man pleaded, "I can't pay $600,000 a year anymore. I thought renting a two-story, thousand-square-meter factory would make me a king. Turns out it made me a clown."
Park Lee Mao sighed the sigh of a man who'd heard this speech every year since taxes were invented. "You've only rented for two years. The contract says five. If I bend the rules, I get heat from upstairs. If I don't, you're bankrupt. It's a buffet of bad choices."
After a moment, he softened. "Fine. One month's rent, and I'll try to find a new tenant. If I do, you get your deposit back. If not… you get a sympathy card."
The man slumped, nodding like a prisoner signing his own sentence.
By afternoon, a convoy of trucks pulled up at Steel Cup T-Shirt Factory. Forklifts beeped, movers yelled, and shiny new sewing machines gleamed like robots from a factory utopia.
"Brother Jiang, line 'em up inside. Old machines out the back," Lee Wonho barked, clipboard in hand. "Also, a recycling company says they'll pay us $100,000 for the scrap—but it needs Mr. Kim's approval."
Jiang Cheng nodded and waved forklifts into the workshop, one eye on the shiny imports and one on the clunky dinosaurs getting exiled.
In his office, Suho barely had time to sigh before Lee Wonho barged in like a kid tattling to the principal.
"Machines are bought, floor scrubbers ordered, and network upgrades locked in," Lee Wonho rattled off. "But, uh… two things need your sign-off."
Suho raised a brow. "Great. Let me guess: one's dumb, the other's dumber?"
Lee Wonho laughed nervously. "Depends on your definition of dumb."