Chapter 69: The reason why Yoo Da-hee had to die

After chatting noisily like that for about ten minutes.

Rosy’s chatter subsided for a moment.

Just moments ago, she was bursting with cheers and showering Jina with praise.

But now, she hesitated, her avatar’s eyes cast downwards.

To say she was just tired now… the temperature difference was too great.

Rosy’s current appearance was.

As if she had something to ask of Jina.

“…But, Jina. Until a little while ago, I was just excitedly talking.”

Rosy caught her breath and quietly opened her mouth.

“Actually, there’s more I haven’t told you.”

Unlike before, her tone was lower, making the cheerful SD-style avatar seem somewhat downcast.

“Um… I tried really hard to put 2D illustrations into ChatRPG somehow, but I failed completely, so I had a really hard time for a while.”

Because text alone has its limits.

Because visual elements ultimately increase immersion.

“But, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds~”

Rosy smiled bitterly and confessed her inner thoughts.

“Setting aside the fact that the character’s face in the pictures changes every time… the time it took from text output to image generation became a problem.”

“That’s right. Illustration generation AI surprisingly has a large overhead.”

There’s no dating sim game where it takes tens of seconds to move from one scene to the next.

Users steeped in the ‘ppalli-ppalli’ (hurry-hurry) culture won’t wait even a few seconds.

“I tried various things, but it didn’t work out, so in the end, I threw my hands up and gave up.”

A considerable amount of disappointment was mixed in her playful voice.

“Still, the advantage of infinite freedom was clear, so I thought it was a project that could definitely change the world… but as expected, not being able to provide visual satisfaction held it back.”

Rosy shrugged lightly.

Despite being a small SD character, an unknown bitterness was conveyed.

“Just chatting with the chatbot, it felt no different from chatting with SimSimi.”

In the end, immersion is the problem.

No matter how rich human imagination is.

It’s inferior to directly hitting the eyes with images and videos, and the ears with sound.

“So I was thinking ChatRPG just wouldn’t work… but when I saw the real-time illustration generation AI model that Jina made, I was truly surprised!”

The moment she saw someone else accomplish what she had tried and failed to do.

Rosy felt awe, not jealousy.

At the same time, she felt relieved.

That her dream wasn’t a delusion.

She felt relief wash over her chest, knowing she could continue researching and carrying on.

“Well… strictly speaking, I used a bit of a shortcut.”

However, Jina didn’t think what she had accomplished was that great.

“A shortcut… you say?”

Because in a story-centric game, the number of characters appearing is limited anyway.

“So, after embedding a few 3D template models, inputting parameter values there, and then…”

“…You converted that 3D model into a 2D illustration?!”

Jina nodded lightly.

Rosy blinked blankly, then burst into cheerful laughter.

“Ahahat!! Jina, how is that a shortcut?!”

“…Then what is it?”

“We decided to call that ‘new technology’~”

Rosy said in a thoroughly excited voice.

Not only maintaining character consistency.

Being able to freely change costumes and poses.

Above all, generating illustrations in real-time.

Jina had created an AI model that had never existed before.

It might have been an unsolvable problem for those buried in 2D.

But for Jina, who deals with the 3D world, it was a simple matter of just pressing down on the avatar.

“Thanks to Jina, this Rosy! Can move towards a grand dream again! I can’t just stop at a mere text-based RPG game!”

“A grand dream…?”

At Jina’s casual question, Rosy clapped her hands as if she had been waiting and let out an eerie “Eheheh-” laugh.

“Yes, yes~ Someday! Definitely! I want to create a ‘Full-Dive Virtual Reality Game’!!”

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Full-Dive Virtual Reality Game.

At Rosy’s words, emphasized letter by letter, Jina’s mouth hung half-open, frozen.

“So… you mean you want to create not the virtual reality for deception like here in VR Chat, but a ‘real’ virtual reality that could be called another reality?”

“Yes! You know, like in game fantasy novels or animations, the virtual reality games you play by entering a capsule! I really want to try making something like that someday.”

She was about to retort that it was an absurd delusion, a fantasy, but stopped herself.

It wasn’t particularly to protect Rosy’s innocence(?).

Rather.

‘It’s not… entirely impossible, is it?’

Of course, it’s impossible with current technology.

But in the long run, maybe several decades.

In the short run… perhaps ten-odd years.

If technology continues to advance at the current pace.

…And if Jina pushes her body a bit.

The thought suddenly struck her that it might be possible.

“The beginning of that was the chatbot-based game platform, ChatRPG.”

Rosy raised her short arm, displaying a small window in the air.

On the hologram screen, the text ‘Project VR – ChaTRPG’ caught the eye.

“Thanks to Jina-nim, I succeeded in combining 2D illustrations and text choices, but honestly, I feel even this is insufficient to immerse the user.”

“Meaning, you want to link a real-time 3D generation AI model to ChatRPG.”

“And all the text into voice! The display not on a monitor, but a VR device!”

In the end, it means creating a VR game with high freedom.

“I’m confident in things like text parsing, natural language processing, and text-to-speech conversion.”

Hearing that she received her doctorate by publishing a paper on it, Jina unknowingly flinched.

It’s sudden, but Jina ‘completed’ the doctoral program, not ‘graduated’.

Meaning, she’s Dobby (a s*ave) who escaped without receiving her sock (diploma).

“I’m designing a system where ‘this world’ can receive input when the player speaks or types and react immediately.”

Rosy’s voice tone started rising again.

This woman was seriously excited.

“But the problem is, that reaction shouldn’t be simple text or illustrations, but needs to be shown as a 3D model in virtual space.”

For example, if the player says ‘A dragon appeared’.

A dragon actually appears in front of the user’s avatar.

“It probably… won’t be easy. It’s not just about loading one model.”

Displaying an ordinary 3D model in virtual space is certainly possible.

But displaying a 3D model that immerses the user is a different story.

Skinning work connecting the skeleton and the model.

Defining physics engines for natural movement.

Handling collision areas considering object interactions.

Besides that, various other things.

There are dozens of things to consider just by loading a model.

“So, I thought Jina was absolutely necessary!”

Rosy lowered the interface floating in the air and turned her gaze back to Jina.

“Having top-tier practical skills in design! And outstanding enough in the AI research field to publish papers in Q1-level SCI journals! It’s something only Jina can do!”

“I appreciate the compliments, but even for me, this seems a bit difficult…”

Of course, separate from the difficulty.

“…Still, it looks interesting. I don’t have any big projects right now, so I can dedicate enough time.”

Jina mentally punched the calculator.

GPU load, network synchronization, model generation speed.

There were quite a few obstacles.

But if she set strict limitations and gave up on certain things, the calculation showed it could somehow be done.

“Here’s the planning document I briefly organized~ I plan to start the world very small at first.”

It seemed Rosy happened to have the same thought as Jina.

Although dreaming a dream close to delusion.

She was thinking more realistically and seriously than anyone else to achieve that dream.

“For example, like the ‘Save Yoo Da-hee’ session. Make it so the user can only focus on one core NPC.”

Jina unknowingly gave a reluctant smile.

What a vicious planning intention.

“If the user behaves abnormally, forcibly end the session to prevent unnecessary resource generation beforehand.”

She was expressing the idea of killing Yoo Da-hee if the user does something foolish in a very academic way.

“…Isn’t this a setting that limits user freedom?”

“Anyway, I allowed them to freely input choices, didn’t I? I even allowed them to kill Yoo Da-hee creatively.”

Watching Rosy speak with a bright smile, Jina unknowingly swallowed dryly.

The world’s cutest SD-style avatar… felt incredibly brutal today.

‘She traded her PhD for a normal person’s way of thinking.’

There’s a saying that to get a doctorate, you have to be prepared to ruin one part of your body.

Whether your eyesight worsens, you destroy your liver, or burn your butt.

It means you have to grind your body that much, but Dr. Rosy seemed to have sacrificed her brain.

‘Still, with these limitations, it’s worth trying.’

Separate from the ethical(?) issues of the implementation method or the cruelty problem.

She thought that following Rosy’s proposal would likely result in quite a decent outcome.

“Then, before starting work right away… the specific schedule, contract terms, how…”

“Don’t worry about that! I’ll make sure the compensation isn’t disappointing. This project is practically Jina-nim’s main role, isn’t it?”

“Still, this is our first collaboration. Could you send a separate document to me… no, separately to Youngjun-nim?”

Just as Youngjun looks for Jinaemon whenever something comes up.

Jina, too, ever since the collaboration with Prierose Lingerie, would first look for Youngjun-emon if a contract seemed somewhat large.

This contract bot was truly remarkable.