Once again Ren was running through the pouring rain with Renu, sharing a big umbrella while also wearing baggy raincoats, to B Puff, one of the largest game domains in the country, and their primary objective is one of the few game studios within, a studio that Ren had previously quit due to a now wrong belief that the games he made would disappear if he deleted them.
That was horribly wrong, but now they came very early in the morning to check out the backup of the game that Renu came from, 'EVERYONE HATES CANDLE', which was initially a revenge romance story, to which they now had to change. They had to change because of the message Ren had gotten due to summoning Gao Ming or his abilities if he lets people know of his pain.
That line was now sparking something in Renu to see if the same effect could happen to her. Since Ren was no longer an employee of Big Daddy Studios, Renu had to use her employee card to enter the candy-colored studio, which still felt warm despite being empty. She sat down at her computer and booted it up while they removed their raincoats.
"I have never been this early," Ren remarked.
"You think I like to be here this early, too?" Renu responded.
Ren was now curious about the actual plan. "Fair point, so what's the plan exactly?"
Renu organized the original storyline of the 'EVERYONE HATES CANDLE', a game he thought Pope had deleted:
The game follows a male character- Candle, who goes a bloody adventure of fighting for his life from nine of his exes who want to, in cooperative bloody aggression, eliminate and make him have a painful death, taking place in a multiple-scenario based fighting format.
It was a simple yet flexible plan, with Renu serving as an extra enemy/ally character who was obsessed with Candle. She would be a one-dimensional yandere character, but here she was in the flesh, planning how to make herself more powerful, which he wasn't so sure he wanted. She was the only one he could fully trust on this journey, but he still didn't feel safe near her or anyone.
"I will just make the nine exes quickly go through horrible deaths so that I am the only one alive, plus we will re-adjust the game to make sure that players will know of my pain," Renu said, opening a note app to input her ideas furiously. It made sense; the aim was to maximize the time her character spent with players while also ensuring there was no risk of a character stealing the player's attention.
"You really don't like the exes?" Ren asked, finding it a little comedic as Renu rolled her eyes in response. Ren joined in pitching the idea of the game should be, Renu typed everything that came out of his mouth regardless to build a large draft of ideas while also choosing the ones that made sense to focus on after for further game designing all while still fighting off sleep still creeping into them, as they had to have something tangible to show Pope when she came to have a better chance to negotiate with her on working on, and publishing this game.
They entered the office at five in the morning, and now it was seven, as they were still working. Pope had entered the office, dressed in a knee-length lime dress, and Ren looked at Renu to see who would stand up to talk to her, and not even up to three seconds did Ren make up his mind to be the one to meet Pope, as he decided he had a lot to catch up with her.
Ren didn't bother to fake a smile, or do anything to appear happy as he was still feeling tired from being dragged from his sleep early, it didn't help that he had no solid statement on what to tell her on why he now wants her to work on the game that he required to be deleted, and put the remaining employees to work on this game and publish it over any other game they were working on.
He just walked over to her and nodded; she looked a bit shocked at seeing him.
"Good morning, ma'am." Ren greeted, showing a bitter smile. She looked behind him to see Renu typing something on her computer.
Pope gave a suspicious look. "I don't like what this is looking like."
Ren raised his hands in surrender. "I don't have anything good to say, but I just want to pitch something. I became very paranoid, so paranoid that I did a lot of things, but the thing is, I thought of our game. You still remember it?"
Pope's face showed no trace of any emotion after being asked. "The game that is about the guy who has to face off all of his exes in a bloody fight simulation."
Ren showed a thumbs up, "Yes, that one."
Pope's face still showed no emotion. "What would have happened if I didn't have extra backups of the game?"
Ren didn't have anything to respond to that and didn't want to anger Pope, as he hadn't even gotten to his request yet. "I can go on my knees to apologize, but I know that wouldn't solve anything. I am so wrong for that, but can you listen to this idea?"
Pope was many things to many people, but one thing that nobody could deny was that she was genuinely interested in this business and also passionate about making games. For her to be the head of Big Daddy Studios alone, with no influential family member, and to have closet secrets to be blackmailed with, says a lot.
Renu came over to join him. "Good morning, ma'am?"
Pope nodded. "See, you became friends with Ren."
Renu nodded and smiled, while Ren was praying that Renu would make Pope more interested in their idea.
"We need to talk to you about Everyone Hates Candle," Renu begged with a smile, and Pope huffed, nodding.