Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 865: Even If It’s Just a Novel, That’s Fine!

Including Kazuo Murakami, nearly 90% of the people in the company were Final Fantasy fans.

After all, the game had evolved generation after generation—whether in story depth or gameplay mechanics—and by now, Final Fantasy stood as a genre-defining RPG series, sitting comfortably in the "Tier 0" echelon.

So when that breathless employee burst in talking about an FF7 Easter egg, the entire room fell silent.

"An Easter egg? In Final Fantasy VII? After all this time, is there really anything left to find?"

"Well, it's not impossible. Takayuki is the god of games. Even the oldest titles he's touched can still surprise people."

Murakami stood up at once. "Let's go check it out—no, forget it. Let's just look it up right here, all of us together."

Someone quickly pulled out a laptop and hooked it up to the projector, navigating straight to the Gamestar Electronic Entertainment official forum.

At that very moment, the forum was clearly lagging—traffic was spiking fast.

After a few minutes of scrolling and refreshing, they finally found it:

"I Found an Easter Egg That's Been Hidden for Over a Decade—Right Inside Final Fantasy VII. It Might Reveal a Secret Continuation of the FF7 Story!"

Posted by: 'Nice One, SE!'

What a weird username.

That was everyone's first thought.

But no one really cared. They clicked in to read the full post.

"That's program code," someone in the room immediately pointed out.

It was unmistakably a block of Final Fantasy VII source code. The average player would have no idea what they were looking at—even if they stumbled upon it by accident, it'd look like gibberish.

But there were a few people in the room who did understand programming.

Following the post's step-by-step decoding guide, the code was sorted and interpreted through a specific pattern... and a hidden line of dialogue emerged:

Aerith: "Cloud... we meet again. This time, I hope we can change everything."

Everyone went quiet again.

Then slowly turned to look at one another.

"What does this mean?"

"It seems literal—Aerith says they meet again. Does that mean she's... alive?"

"She hopes to change everything...? Is the story between Cloud and Aerith not over yet?"

90% of the people in the room had played Final Fantasy. For at least half of them, FF7 was their favorite in the entire series.

Some had even chosen their career paths—whether in game development or media—because of that game.

Final Fantasy VII had changed lives.

And now it seemed to be coming back in a big way.

"Wait, what if this is just a prank? It's not even an official account. Can someone confirm this?"

Even Murakami looked anxious now.

He too had been deeply moved by FF7.

Back then, when Aerith was killed by Sephiroth, he'd been heartbroken for a long time.

Even now, remembering that moment still brought a dull ache to his chest.

There'd always been urban legends about FF7. Some said there was a hidden route—a true happy ending where Aerith survives, Cloud defeats Sephiroth, and he ends up happily ever after with either Aerith, Tifa, or maybe both.

Murakami had believed those rumors back in the day. He played FF7 over twenty times trying different methods, following every obscure online trick.

But he never found the hidden ending. Eventually, he gave up and dismissed it all as baseless fantasy.

So he didn't want to get his hopes up too quickly again. He wanted someone to verify that the Easter egg was real.

A few employees sprinted to their desks and returned with laptops.

Others had gathered around to watch.

Some experienced programmers began downloading the original Final Fantasy VII.

"I've got it!"

"Great! Test it! Just follow the instructions from the forum post!"

"On it!"

He dove into the game's source files, located the line of code mentioned, and rearranged it according to the method outlined in the post.

A few minutes later, he stared at the screen.

"Well?! Is it real?"

"It's... it's real!"

The same exact line from the post appeared on his screen. Aerith's hidden dialogue.

This Easter egg was buried deep. Unless someone was both a dedicated programmer and completely obsessed with Final Fantasy VII, they'd never have found it.

Whoever this poster was, they must have analyzed the game's source code from top to bottom—line by line—to uncover this.

"There really is a hidden ending!"

"No—maybe not an ending. Maybe it's a hidden trigger. This could be for a movie or something."

"Or... maybe a novel?"

"It could be anything. But what if it's a new FF7 game?"

"No way... That seems unlikely, right?"

Murakami was quiet for a moment. Then said, "Why don't we just ask Gamestar directly?"

"Right! Let's call them!"

They quickly dialed Gamestar's media contact line—

But the line was busy.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

Clearly, others had already begun bombarding them with questions.

"This is a new Final Fantasy VII story!"

"And it might even change the ending! Maybe Aerith survives!"

"Even if it's just a novel, I'll take it! I've always wanted to see a perfect ending for FF7!"

"Me too! That game left me with so much regret. I need closure!"

People were already getting worked up.

They just wanted to know one thing now—

What exactly was Gamestar planning to do?