Time Mansour - Chapter 96
Only Noblemtl
Episode 96: Inevitably
Bam.
The tongs rise again, clutching the air, forlornly.
“Youngjun···? Are you planning on doing more?”
It was the tenth. No. The eleventh.
Just caress the doll several times.
Still.
I couldn’t pull out a single doll.
It’s harder than I thought.
I think it would be okay if we just did a little more.
Still not coming to my senses.
I put my hand in and searched my pockets.
There was nothing in my hand.
so.
“Do you have any cash?”
Look at this manager.
Director Lee shakes his head as if he is in disbelief.
“Are you really going to do it again?”
“I almost pulled them all out.”
“It’s an addiction. It’s an addiction.”
The manager looks at me with a smile.
“I think we just need to do it a couple more times…”
“Okay. Get out of the way. Now watch what I do.”
The manager cuts me off and takes out some bills from his wallet.
A very confident look.
He opened his hands once, keeping his fingers crossed.
Knock, knock. After adjusting the position by touching the stick, I carefully pressed the button.
And then.
“Wow. Seriously. It’s almost done.”
Sounds like me.
It wasn’t a waste at all.
This is what it feels like when you look at it from the side.
“Just wait. I’ve almost finished picking.”
The machine took the bill and then spat it back out.
I guess so.
It seems like God gave this CEO one last chance.
“Okay. I’m in.”
Unfortunately, I missed that opportunity.
Even after that, bills were put into the machine several times.
Without ever succeeding.
All I did was stroke the doll’s head with the tongs and it came up.
Does it make you feel good when I stroke your head?
A teddy bear smiling brightly.
He puts a thread on his lips and smiles.
at last.
“··· Is this broken? I definitely caught it…”
The manager makes a poor excuse.
Anyway, after much effort by Director Lee and I, we were able to drag the doll almost to the front.
Just once.
I think we just need to do it one more time.
That moment when I look at the doll and feel regret.
“This is my last day too.”
The manager takes out a bill from his wallet.
Just enough money to play two more rounds.
Looking at that, I make a suggestion to this director.
“Once each. How about that?”
“No. It’s my money.”
Director Lee shakes his head while smiling playfully.
As expected.
Because the feedback is not very good.
“I’m saying this because I think I can really win it. If I win, I’ll give the doll to you, Director Lee.”
I had no choice but to make a better offer.
The director slowly nodded to my last suggestion.
And then take a step back.
“Then go ahead.”
“Okay. I really got the feeling. Just trust me.”
After answering so confidently.
after.
He holds the stick with a solemn expression.
The tongs go down.
After grabbing the doll with a thud, he slowly climbed back up.
There is a doll attached to the end of the tongs.
Gulp.
I swallowed without realizing it.
The doll-holding tongs were shaking precariously. The doll was hanging slightly on the end of the tongs. It slowly approached the entrance, trembling.
like that.
in the end.
Bam.
The doll fell into the machine’s entrance.
“I saw it. I told you that if you get used to it, you can do it.”
After a long struggle, he bent down and took out the doll.
A palm-sized teddy bear is smiling.
A smile appears on the director’s face as well.
“Hey. I almost took them all out.”
“Okay. Then let’s say the two of them choose.”
Let me raise both hands and answer as if I were doing a favor.
match.
The director also raises his hand and claps his palms together.
Director Lee and I high-fiving over something really trivial.
to be honest.
With the money we spent, we could have bought a few more dolls like that.
Still.
I don’t know why though.
I didn’t feel too bad.
A smile appears on my face.
**
I followed this manager because he said he had a place he wanted to go today.
I put more effort into my clothes than usual.
I was a bit curious about where to go.
Well. I thought maybe we should go to an exhibition or something, and I followed this manager.
“You wanted to come here?”
“yes.”
“Are you dressed like that?”
Because I couldn’t understand it at all, I looked at the manager and asked again.
“Clothes don’t matter. I told you. It’s been a while since I’ve been out and about.”
“But isn’t the air murky here?”
“I wanted to breathe this murky air.”
Then, the director takes a deep breath.
PC room in the basement.
The smell of cigarette smoke coming from the smoking room tickled my nose.
I looked around to see if there was anything different, but it was a PC room with nothing special about it. It was a common sight in any PC room.
I didn’t understand at all, so I asked the manager again.
“Why on earth do you go to a PC room?”
“I’ve always wanted to come here.”
“You’ve never been to a PC room?”
This time, I was the one who was surprised.
“Yes. I’ve never been there before.”
“why?”
“Just like that.”
I’ll just repeat what I said. I was speechless at this director’s answer. Yes. That’s right. I can just not come. There’s no particular reason needed.
On the one hand, I think that could be the case. Everyone has a different way of living.
So while I was trying to understand this CEO.
“You come here often, Youngjun? That’s surprising. Do you usually play a lot of games?”
The manager turned his head and asked me.
“No, that’s not it. I used to come here quite often because of work. When I went to a client’s office, I had to wait nearby. When I didn’t have a laptop, I usually came to the PC room and worked.”
In cases where the client was in the financial sector, there were many cases where there was no laptop in the bag.
So, when I was really busy, I spent all three meals at the PC room.
“What about this manager? What game do you play?”
“I hardly ever do that. I just play mobile games sometimes.”
“Yes? Then why did you ask me to come here?”
“I watched a mukbang on YouTube. The food looked delicious.”
“···”
Oh, I see.
You came to eat.
I was momentarily taken aback by Director Lee’s words that he had come to the PC room to eat.
“No. Let me understand. That could be the case.”
While repeating that to myself over and over again, I come to my senses again.
“But how do I order? Do I just ring the bell?”
The manager looks around with a bright smile.
“It’s on the screen. It’s on the screen.”
I moved the mouse to bring up the menu. Various snacks and meals appeared on the monitor screen along with pictures.
“Wow. There’s a lot.”
“There are a lot of menus here. What would you like to eat? Ramen?”
“What’s delicious?”
In response to the question posed by the manager, I quickly glanced at the menu.
“I like the octopus fried rice. That’s the best.”
“it is delicious?”
“I don’t know about the taste, but in my experience, this is the least addictive.”
I’ve eaten a lot of meals at PC cafes, but octopus fried rice was my favorite menu.
“What about drinks then?”
“Youngjun.”
“I’ve decided. It’s Doctor Mapper.”
“Do you have any drinks like that?”
“I’ve never seen it anywhere else. But it’s always in PC rooms.”
I nodded to the director’s question.
I’ve never seen it anywhere other than PC rooms.
I guess you could say it’s a signature menu item only found in PC cafes. That’s why I only drink Doctor Mapper at PC cafes.
This manager ordered the same menu as me. Octopus rice bowl with Dr. Maper. He added one chicken skewer to his order.
I was wondering whether I should play the game or not, and this manager was right next to me.
“You went to school in the US, so you’ve never been to a PC room before?”
I spoke to this manager just with the intention of having a conversation.
“Yes. Because I went there when I was young.”
“Still, I would like to live in the US. I used to dream of going to Silicon Valley.”
“Why? Because of the salary? Or the fame? But Youngjun, you’re not the type of person who’s that greedy, are you?”
“Sister. I hated being with you so much. Rather than thinking about achieving my dreams… I just wanted to run away.”
The expression on the director’s face darkened at the words he blurted out without thinking. The mood became unintentionally dampened.
While I was wondering how to change the mood.
Finally.
The food I ordered came out.
“Oh! The visuals are nice, right?”
“That sounds pretty plausible.”
The manager looks at the rice bowl and chicken skewers as if they are curious.
And then, without even waiting, he immediately scoops up the rice bowl and eats it.
“Wow. This is just frozen. It’s surprisingly delicious.”
After eating octopus rice bowl, your expression brightens.
Fortunately, it seemed to suit my taste.
As expected, I know a lot about taste.
When I say something is delicious, it usually is.
I was so proud.
After drinking a beverage.
“··· What kind of drink is that? It’s so weird.”
Frown.
“This is it. It’s something you drink with emotion. What doesn’t this director know?”
He shook his head at the director, making a tsk-tsk sound like an old man.
Then I took a sip of the drink. The carbonation burst in my mouth.
As expected, it tasted good to me.
The unique scent of Doctor Mapper tickled my nose and made me forget the smell of cigarettes.
**
It’s a first in my life.
I literally just ate rice at the PC room.
After such a unique experience.
Back to normal again.
An ordinary day of struggling with code.
I spent several months like that in my sister’s room.
I realized what the problem was.
“There is no problem with the app.”
There was no problem with the program.
It seems like we’ve been solving a problem that has no answer so far.
It felt strange. There was no way I could have spent this much time not finding it. It wasn’t that I was overly self-conscious, but I was really confident in finding the error code.
Still, this was the first time I’d ever had a headache like this.
‘Of course, I’m not saying there were no problems at all.’
Even though I optimized it poorly when writing the code, the response speed was too slow.
‘Well, this is a common occurrence.’
As long as the program runs, developers originally coded without worrying about performance. It was a kind of convention.
But even so, this is the first time I’ve seen data get blocked and then explode at the same time.
If a data bottleneck occurs, there is another cause.
And that’s probably it.
“It must be a network problem.”
It’s not a cloud, it’s not a server, and it’s not a program issue…
There is nothing outside the network.
however.
Why did this CEO suspect the development team? Of course, I suspected the development team too. Well, I just saw them once that day. This CEO has been seeing them all along.
An ominous feeling is slowly rising.
“No way. No way.”
This is probably not a development issue.
‘It’s like a political fight.’
I doubt that would happen, but if the network team intentionally caused the outage, things get even more complicated.
A war between the development team and the network team. If the network team intentionally touches the equipment to kick out the development team.
“If that’s really true… I don’t want to be played around with by this rhythm.”
If the network team didn’t know the cause, then I would understand. If it wasn’t intentional and they didn’t know about it, then there’s nothing they can do about it.
Or maybe this representative set a trap to catch the development team.
All sorts of thoughts started to come to my mind. I was the only one who let my imagination run wild.
Performance optimization that I thought of as a second-best option. It will definitely be effective. I will have to test it to know, but I designed it so that the server can withstand bottlenecks.
“But if I catch the error in this way···”
Then the development team will use dumbass.
The network team that actually had the problem will be safe.
The more I think about it, the more my head starts to hurt.
I didn’t want to get involved in this kind of thing.
But it’s not a problem that I can solve by worrying about it alone.
I had no choice but to press the representative’s contact number.