Published: August 31, 2025
Stars streak across the sky.
Many of them, one after another.
Have you ever seen a shooting star?
Some are captivated by its fleeting beauty, others make a wish—everyone has their own way of seeing it.
But have you ever personally witnessed a meteorite tearing through the sky and crashing down?
The roar as it slices through the air, smashing into the earth with immense mass and overwhelming speed.
Some may have seen it on TV or video sites... but no one would want to see it fall so close, right?
Right now, nearly a hundred meteorites are striking the ground before my eyes, one after another.
No, it’s not something to speak of as if it’s someone else’s problem. The one who caused this natural disaster is none other than myself.
A thoughtless choice made about ten minutes ago has now turned into falling stars, gouging into the earth.
The meteors pierce the ground a dozen or so kilometers ahead, ravaging the presumed "enemies" there; the radar dots at the edge of my vision vanish, and lives are extinguished at the impact points.
And as most meteors disappear into the earth, the delayed sound of impacts finally reaches me, followed shortly by the trembling rumble of the ground.
Just before the wave of dust rising along the earth's surface arrives...
Suddenly, a punishment-like intense pain strikes me.
As if my skull is splitting open.
As if my body is being torn apart limb by limb.
Right after losing consciousness from that pain, my body was swept away by the wave of dust.
◇
Time rewinds a bit.
I was working overtime on a weekend to meet the deadline for a seriously delayed project. I am a programmer at a subcontracting company that develops smartphone game apps or PC browser games upon request from big companies.
No matter how harsh the company is, normally one person wouldn’t be assigned more than two projects. But due to frequent specification changes and numerous bugs, a junior programmer vanished right before delivery! How lamentable!
Because of the high turnover rate, there were only two programmers left in the company: the junior and me. There was no chance to quickly hire anyone, so I had to clean up not only my own project but also the junior’s troubled one.
"Alright, all classes' input/output and comments are done. Next up, create documentation and correlation diagrams from the source code using autodocument, then do a thorough bug hunt."
I stretched a little and cracked my neck.
Looking around, everyone was at work despite it being a weekend, as usual. The debugging outsourcing leader next to me was muttering to himself while working, but no one gave him strange looks. Probably no one had the luxury for that. Designers and planners around us had lifeless, vacant eyes as they silently worked on their tasks.
When I returned with coffee, the PC had already finished processing and displayed that the debugging materials were outputted.
Still, no wonder the work exploded without proper documents.
Complaining about the junior who was thrown into the trenches without training was pointless. When the junior joined six months ago, there were four programmers—now just me alone. Honestly, it’s questionable for the company.
"Uh... Suzuki, we got a complaint from the client that the difficulty in WW is too tough for beginners. What should we do?"
That was almost "Sato," you bastard. We’ve been a team for half a year, don’t slip up now!
Turning around, the director and planner, Mr. Metabo, asked with his usual troubled expression.
And yet, despite the trouble, he seemed somewhat pleased. Why are so many developers masochistic?
WW is shorthand for "WAR WORLD," a PC browser game currently in intense development. It’s a straightforward strategy game with a bit of social interaction added.
"Didn't you say lowering the difficulty any further would make the main target audience stop playing?"
That difficulty was set after many meetings with the client. Was all that wasted time really pointless? It’s frustrating.
"How about giving players some bonuses like the previously scrapped character’s initial all-map enemy detection and three map-clearing bombs? If they clear without using them, they get a rare title as a reward. That way, veterans will naturally avoid using them."