Chapter 55. Urobuchi Gen is Worthy of Being Urobuchi Gen
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Once the decision was made, his mind naturally felt much clearer. Kiyoshi Yuuma's hands danced swiftly as he typed line after line into the document.
Knock, knock, knock.
Just as Kiyoshi Yuuma was immersed in drafting the proposal for Diablo, a hand knocked on the office door.
He looked up and saw that it was Urobuchi Gen.
"Wada, is there something you need?"
In fact, Kiyoshi Yuuma had been planning to seek him out.
Aside from gameplay, Diablo's story was also exceptional. Within the game, one could feel the dread and despair of a demon king descending into the world, the suffocatingly terrifying atmosphere present everywhere, and ultimately the sacrifice and redemption that elevated the entire narrative.
In some sense, it was even a little like The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1. Different in form, but similar in spirit.
For such a large-scale project, a truly talented writer was essential for handling the script.
And Urobuchi Gen had an extraordinary gift for suspense and tragic storytelling.
Kiyoshi Yuuma had intended to finish polishing the story outline before approaching him, but unexpectedly, the man had come knocking on his own.
"President."
Urobuchi Gen hesitated, then stepped forward holding a stack of documents with both hands.
"This is a new game proposal I've written recently. Please take a look."
"Huh?"
Kiyoshi Yuuma blinked in surprise and accepted the document from him.
Opening it, he saw the title on the cover in bold characters—
"Heart of the Mermaid."
Eh?
It was a work of Urobuchi's that he had never even heard of before.
As expected—
The timeline was already starting to shift.
Kiyoshi Yuuma nodded slightly and began reading carefully.
The proposal read:
[This is a text-and-image-style romance adventure game.]
[In this game, players will experience a brand-new, worldview-shattering storyline.]
[Which world is the real one? This is the truest experience we hope to bring to the players.]
The following is the script content:
[In the Eastern Pacific, a violent storm rages across the sea.]
[A luxury cruise ship tosses and sways violently.]
[With a deafening crash, the ship collides with an iceberg.]
[A huge gash tears through the vessel, and seawater surges in.]
["Oh no! The ship is going to sink!" someone shouts loudly.]
[In Yamazaki Teru's eyes, a giant bolt of lightning ripped across the distant sea.]
[Before he completely lost consciousness, a flawless, beautiful face appeared amid the phosphorescence of the water.]
[The surprised eyes of a girl looked directly at him.]
[Then a massive fish tail swept past.]
…
The story itself was fairly simple: it told of a boy named Yamazaki Teru, who, during a sea voyage, was caught in a shipwreck and then encountered the heroine, Suzune, who was a mermaid.
The two of them began a beautiful romance beneath the sea.
But as the exploration went deeper, the protagonist discovered that the truths of the undersea world and humanity were not as they first appeared.
Clues and subtle details wove together a veil of mystery over his heart.
As Kiyoshi Yuuma read carefully, he couldn't help being drawn into the story.
As expected—this was Urobuchi Gen's style.
A straightforward love story, impactful visuals, multiple heartwarming endings, and a powerful healing quality…
From the perspective of Urobuchi's writing career, Heart of the Mermaid was undoubtedly a great success.
The text wasn't long, just a little over 100,000 characters—an hour of reading was enough.
"Hm… the story is quite good," Kiyoshi Yuuma said after finishing, setting the manuscript down, his emotions still unsettled.
"But… only one heroine? Wouldn't that make it less like a galgame? After all, in players' minds, since a galgame is a romance game with beautiful girls, shouldn't there be several different types of heroines to choose from?"
Urobuchi Gen sat upright, responding earnestly: "I did worry about that at first, but after thinking long and hard—without this approach, I couldn't deliver the impact I wanted. Compared to multiple romances, a single, beautiful heroine better highlights the beauty and value of love."
"And the ending… does it really have to be so heartbreaking?" Kiyoshi Yuuma pressed on. "Can't you give it a happier one?"
Honestly, Urobuchi Gen was worthy of being Urobuchi Gen. After reading his work, Kiyoshi Yuuma wanted to strangle this guy right there.
Wasn't he being far too cruel to the protagonists?
But Urobuchi Gen was firm about this: "Without that ending, the game would lose its charm. In my design, Suzune's beauty represents the protagonist's yearning for the human world. Without the bond of love, the sharp contradictions in the story wouldn't reach their peak—so the emotional impact and sense of shock would be greatly diminished."
Good grief, to write something like this—wasn't there something wrong with your own thinking?
His knife was merciless.
The sense of suspense was, as always, first-class.
Truthfully, Kiyoshi Yuuma's first instinct was to reject the proposal outright.
But the words stuck in his throat.
Thinking carefully, if he bent his own human sensibilities a little, then Suzune's story was actually quite good.
Of course, whether it was "good" or not didn't really matter.
What mattered was that Kiyoshi Yuuma thought of Mikami Shinji, who would soon be joining the company.
Mikami Shinji and Urobuchi Gen—one specialized in crafting suspenseful games, the other in writing imaginative, suspenseful yet healing scripts.
If the two worked together, perhaps they could take that sense of suspense to the absolute extreme.
And besides, if it was released under Pokeni's galgame brand, sales might just take a turn for the better.
"…Alright, I understand your resolve. I'll consider it," Kiyoshi Yuuma said.
"Thank you, President."