Legendary Moonlight Sculptor
Volume 1
Chapter 1
The Birth of a Dark Gamer
Just imagine a noble, elegant and picturesque life in poverty that you might find nowhere else but in a soap opera. No matter how poor you are, it does not discourage you from showing unconditional love for strangers, and even a piece of bread is there to be shared with a warm smile.
If anyone claimed that such an illusion existed in reality, Lee Hyun would beat him to a pulp, and strike once more to finish him off.
Life was too cruel for the poor. The Labor Welfare Law revised by Parliament made all jobs unavailable to minors. Illegal though it was, Lee Hyun had worked in every kind of trade imaginable.
From the age of 14 he took to sewing stitches in a factory. The salary could only be called meager, but he was able to eat for free.
However, underground with only 2 ventilation fans running, his health extremely deteriorated. Thanks to his damaged lungs, he gained heavy medical bills.
Then it was a job at a gas station and occasionally he even went around pulling a handcart collecting and selling recyclables.
But no matter how hard he had worked, the money left in his pocket was chump change.
As a minor, he was forced to get a job illegally. This fact was used by his employers to mercilessly work him to the bone.
He lived this life of exploitation until 20 years of age. Thanks to it, Lee Hyun knew very well the value of money. However, things would be different now. Finally an adult, and with it came an ID card that would allow him to legally work.
Inserting the ID card in his wallet Lee Hyun mumbled.
“I have to work until my body practically breaks down. I should be able to deal with 3 jobs a day.”
When he was a kid, his parents died, his family now consisted of only his grandma and sister.
“Alright. From now on we’ll be rich.”
Lee Hyun pledged to do so and returned home.
“Did you come just now?”
His grandma was lying down snuggling in a blanket. After falling down the stairs a few days ago, she got a dislocated hip rendering her unable to go to work.
Although taking medicine, with the household struggling she could not go to the hospital to receive proper treatment and thus could only rest at home.
Not receiving treatment, every night she could only groaned painfully.
Whenever Lee Hyun entered the house, he felt his chest suffocating. It was a lifeless home with an aloof little sister and an old grandma. Even if he didn’t know it, it was probably why he disliked coming home even more.
“Hayan?”
“I have no idea. She went out and didn’t return. She might be hanging around with the bad crowd again, not sure.”
Lee Hayan was his little sister. He had not seen her face very often recently.
“It’s going to be okay. What could happen?”
“You are her one and only brother. A brother should protect his little sister.”
“Yes.”
Lee Hyun smiled wryly and went to his room. Even if he was forced into physical labor or driving a taxi, he wanted to send his little sister to college.
For a while now she had been drifting off the rails, but she was bright and intelligent, unlike Lee Hyun. He believed that in college she would meet a good husband and be able to live well. He also wanted to repay his old and ailing grandma for all she sacrificed to raise Lee Hyun and Lee Hayan.
“Right, look for work tomorrow. There will probably be an employment test as well…….”
Muttering, Lee Hyun turned on the computer. The old computer buzzed to life. As soon as it connected to the internet, as routine, he accessed a game. That game was Continent of Magic. A classic game released 20 years ago. An online game that once created a frenzy of gamers in the Republic of Korea.
That game remained at the pinnacle until just 3 years ago. Lee Hyun’s antiquated computer assembled by combining parts from here and there was not capable of handling most games. Nothing but Continent of Magic ran smoothly.
It was the first game he’d ever played, but only during the game could he have a feeling of enjoyment.
Lee Hyun’s playing style was very peculiar. He did not associate with the people around him and instead hunted all day long. After killing monsters and raising his level, he headed to harder hunting grounds. He did not participate in sieges or guild wars at all.
He found pleasure in the game by gradually improving his character’s abilities and upgrading equipment. He once hunted for 200 hours straight without catching a wink of sleep. It wasn’t unusual for him to struggle for a month to raise one level or catch a single monster.
Some might question what kind of fun he was looking for, but for him it was fun watching his character grow stronger and when he was able to defeat monsters he was previously unable to, he was thoroughly delighted.
In a short period of time, Lee Hyun had reached the highest level. He had attained the ultimate state where levels no longer rose.
In the decades of Continent of Magic, it was the first and last record in history. When Lee Hyun looked around back, he found none who could rival his character in supremacy. In hunting grounds where others struggled as a party, he singlehandedly wiped out all the monsters.
After climbing to the highest level, he alone hunted all the ultimate monsters, including Dragons.
Though, for Lee Hyun, he had lost all interest. Nowadays with the technological advances, the ultimate goal of every game was to equip itself with the virtual reality system.
A truly splendid game named Royal Road, referred to as the standard for virtual reality. Beginning with a fully implemented world, the game contained tens of thousands of races and users. Over tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of skills.
You could enjoy adventure as you desire or even go sea fishing with friends for days, as long you don’t encounter whimsical typhoons of course.
The massive scale of freedom was amazing, but best above all was the wondrous game’s system. Royal Road had the reputation of inducing the ultimate fun a human could enjoy in a game.
“Well for me, that’s all just a pie in the sky.”
What could Lee Hyun expect from a computer slowed down by a slightly more complex web page?
Popular as it was, to install the equipment that realized virtual reality would cost over 10,000,000 won. If he had that kind of money, under any circumstances, his grandma’s medical bills, otherwise it would go to his little sister’s college tuition. And now to diligently earn money, the game had to end.
Lee Hyun brought the mouse cursor over ‘Yes’. Now, with a single click of the mouse, the treasured character he raised would disappear forever. The moment he flexed his finger, a thought raced through his mind.
‘Can I sell my character for money? Account sale I think.’
Somewhere it seems. A newspaper or something said buying and selling characters was common. And that story meant money. It dawned on Lee Hyun that if he was going to delete his character anyway, it wasn’t a bad idea to sell to others.
Lee Hyun began searching through the internet looking for a character trading site. One search resulted in dozens of sites, and among them he located and entered the one with the largest trading volume.
“So I just post my character here for a price and it’s done?”
Lee Hyun uploaded pictures along with his own character.
Highest level in Continent of Magic with the best equipment coming from Dragons that was worth 30 trillion marks.
He decided to begin the auction with the initial price of 50,000 won. He was afraid no one would bid if he asked for too high a price.