[Moonlight Sculptor: Dad Is a Legend – Chapter 3]

Lee Hyun had spent his life trying to make the world a better place.

The poverty he experienced as a child left wounds that hadn’t healed, even with age.

“There shouldn’t be more people like me in the world.”

He worked to help those without money, to heal the sick, and to catch criminals—and it had made a real difference.

He had lived kindly and worked hard, yet it felt like everything he had built had just betrayed him.

“My daughter isn’t waking up?”

—She remains connected in Roanoke, just like the other victims.

“A child was playing Roanoke?”

Lee Hyun didn’t think children should be playing virtual reality games.

Sure, he himself had started Royal Road at the age of 21, but as a parent, he had been much stricter about his child’s education than most.

“When did she even sign up?”

—She joined when Roanoke first launched.

“Why?”

—There was an event: reaching level 10 would reward a cultural gift certificate worth 400,000 won.

“……”

Even Lee Hyun had to admit—that was a pretty rational reason.

Regardless, the damage was already done.

“Is there any way to safely wake my daughter up?”

—We’re looking into it.

Versa, the artificial intelligence, ran analyses and research to find a solution.

—It has been confirmed that Roanoke’s connection capsule penetrates deeply into the user’s consciousness. While it is technically possible to forcibly terminate the session through the system, the risk to the brain is severe.

“How severe?”

—There is a 97% chance of mental damage. The probability of immediate death is estimated at over 49.3%.

“……”

Those numbers were too extreme to be an accident.

All signs pointed to the developers of Roanoke having planned this catastrophe from the beginning.

Lee Hyun closed his eyes in silence.

He thought through all the forms of retaliation—from financial ruin to extralegal military action.

No amount of revenge would ever be enough.

—New information has just come in.

“What is it?”

—Players connected to Roanoke are dying.

“Dying?”

—Analysis of the footage from the capsules shows that when a player dies in Roanoke, they die in real life.

Virtual reality had become a death game.

Given Roanoke’s extreme difficulty, tens of thousands of users were dying every hour.

Massive Coma Cases Among Roanoke Users
In-Game Death Equals Real-World Death
Global Death Toll Rising Among Roanoke Players

Media around the world were covering the catastrophe in depth.

In India and China alone, more than ten million victims.

Even in Korea, where gaming was taken very seriously, the number of victims was in the millions.

And the damage was only growing.

Single-person households and solo dwellers unresponsive.
Most confirmed to be connected to Roanoke.
Massive Event in Roanoke Could Push Total Victims Near 100 Million.

The incident grew exponentially—within a single day.

The developers, Abyss Corporation, hired high-profile law firms and circulated press releases.

Abyss: “We are doing everything we can to fix the system malfunction.”
Abyss CEO Ron Howard: “Resolving the issue will take time.”

This was their public stance as they scrambled to delay legal proceedings.

It would take time for investigations and warrants to be approved in the U.S., Europe, and even Korea where the company was based.

But the scale of the disaster was so immense that U.S. authorities had already deployed police forces to Abyss’s main headquarters.

Law enforcement began raids and arrests of executives and developers.

Abyss made an additional public statement through the media:

Abyss Developer: “We do not want law enforcement interference. If authorities enter the company, it will hinder resolution efforts and lead to 100 million deaths.”

Abyss shamelessly emphasized that they were effectively holding people hostage.

Abyss Hires Former Supreme Court Justices and Prosecutors
After Orchestrating a Massive Disaster, Abyss Begins a Hostage Crisis

Lee Hyun didn’t just sit back and watch Abyss’s moves.

He got actively involved to assess the situation from within.

—We’ve hacked the network. Androids disguised as employees have infiltrated the company and are collecting data.

“Results?”

—This was no accident. Abyss developers meticulously prepared for this scenario. Also, Roanoke’s world is far more expansive than Royal Road.

“That big, huh.”

—A lot of time has passed, and many technologies related to Royal Road have been made public.

Dr. Yoo Byung-jun’s system for Royal Road was built on the foundation of the AI Versa.

It had taken vast computing resources and years of development.

After the Seven Stars project, much of the tech was released to enable future virtual realities.

“Even so, building a VR world would’ve taken astronomical funds and manpower. What could they gain by endangering the lives of over 100 million users?”

—We’ve uncovered the developers’ motive.

“What is it?”

—They wanted to watch users struggle to survive in a brutal, dying world.

“……”

The world was full of lunatics.

From Dr. Yoo Byung-jun, who created Royal Road, to Lee Hyun himself—not one of them could be called normal.

But even so, no one had ever created a dying world with the intent of killing everyone who couldn’t survive in it.

Unicorn Corp Develops Nutritional Systems for Trapped Users
Despite Worldwide Efforts, No Clear Solution in Sight

The incident Abyss created was a global problem—one not easily solved.

Lee Hyun tried multiple approaches.

“What about breaching the main system’s security?”

—Impossible. It was designed during the crisis to be completely unmodifiable.

If external forces tampered with it, the entire VR operating system would crash.

That would mean the simultaneous death of over 100 million people.

“So my daughter’s living in a world on the verge of collapse. Even if she survives each day, if the world ends, she dies too.”

Lee Hyun had raised his daughter with great care.

Air conditioning in the summer, heating in the winter—he spared no effort.

He even fed her gentle, digestion-friendly goat’s milk from goats raised in the Alps.

To make nutritious baby food, he used wild ginseng discovered via satellites and drones.

He fed that ginseng to chickens—half-fried, half-seasoned—and used their eggs.

Now, that precious daughter was trapped in a virtual world.

“So not even you can hack the system?”

—The main system is guarded by five separate AIs. Though none rival me in power, they cross-verify any internal edits or intrusions.

“Can’t we obtain admin rights?”

—Admins don’t have authority to alter the main system.

People were trapped in a deadly game inside a virtual world.

Lee Hyun entered his daughter’s room and looked at her unconscious form inside the capsule.

A beautiful girl, the spitting image of her mother Seo-yoon in her twenties.

“Forcibly waking her is too dangerous, right?”

—There’s a very high risk of death or permanent brain damage.

“If we can’t solve this from the outside, then I’ll have to enter Roanoke.”

Roanoke was a doomed world.

He had to stop its destruction, save the players, and bring the game to its end.

He would conquer the world his daughter was trapped in—and bring her back.

—Success probability is extremely low. In Roanoke, players are far weaker than the forces of monsters and demons.

“I figured.”

—Disasters ravage the continent. Most regions are literal hellscapes.

“I know.”

—Starting Roanoke a year late is dangerous. Your life will be at constant risk.

No matter how many warnings Versa gave, Lee Hyun didn’t change his mind.

He fully understood the danger.

“