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Moonlight Sculptor: Dad Is a Legend – Chapter 13
Masterpieces. Masterpieces. Masterworks. Masterpieces again.
Just like pressing fish-shaped buns out of a mold, Weed smoothly continued replicating sculptures he had previously made.
[The goddess Sarasvati, who governs art, music, and wisdom, is delighted by the emergence of a great sculptor.]
[The goddess rejoices, believing that art may once again bloom upon this devastated continent.]
As a bonus, he was being showered with the goddess’s hopes and blessings.
‘It’s a shame there’s a shortage of good, sturdy, finely grained wood.’
Weed had created masterpieces using nothing more than ordinary wood.
Sculptures like those of Bingryong, which required massive amounts of ice, or Goldenie, made from gold and jewels, were still out of reach.
The carving knife he’d gotten from the goblins wasn’t sharp enough, and his sculpture skill proficiency wasn’t quite there yet either.
‘I don’t have enough time to remake all the sculptures I crafted in Royal Road.’
In Hellfire difficulty, time was more valuable than gold.
He couldn’t afford the kind of long, careful effort it took to create grand masterpieces like he had in Royal Road.
‘I’ll keep sculpting right up to the final day to earn Legendary Points. The battle comes last.’
Weed believed the key to conquering Hellfire difficulty was becoming as powerful as possible early on.
To survive the remaining stages, he would have to sweep through the enemies in the abandoned fortress.
Flawlessly. Without giving them a chance to run.
(Abyss Inc. is preparing a live streaming service. Launch is imminent.)
‘Huh?’
(It will allow people to watch the lives of users currently in Roanoke.)
Weed received a report from the AI.
People were preparing to watch the life-and-death struggles of the Roanoke users for entertainment.
(Should we forcibly block the service?)
The Roanoke developers were about to launch a new streaming system.
Even if laws were enacted to stop it, there were thousands of ways to get around them.
But if Weed wanted, he could exclude every single video from Abyss from the global network.
‘Let it be for now.’
There was no need to reveal this side’s power to the Abyss developers just yet.
‘Whether people watch or not—that’s a matter for politicians and citizens to decide. But the families of the victims… if it were me, I’d want to see how my daughter is living too, even while worrying.’
After a catastrophe of this scale, many people would want to confirm their loved ones were safe.
‘But I do have one request.’
(Yes, please tell me.)
‘In the livestream footage, make me look taller. Around 12cm should do. Smooth out my skin, sharpen my nose, add some reverb to my voice, and bulk up the muscles a little.’
Human greed knew no bounds.
(A drastic change in appearance may raise suspicion, especially among developers.)
‘Then just 3cm…’
(I don’t understand why you need 3 more centimeters.)
‘It’s like… the last shred of my pride.’
Before launching the Roanoke incident, there were a lot of worries at Abyss.
“We’re building the ultimate stage, but the users might not react the way we hope.”
“They could hole up in the forts and play it safe with a defensive strategy.”
People might just stay in the cities out of fear, wasting away their time.
Only at the final hour—when extinction was at their doorstep—would they flail in desperation and be annihilated.
“They might just stall for time and go extinct without even trying.”
“People are well-educated now. Even if disputes arise, they’ll try to reason and talk things out.”
“If they actively try to prevent annihilation… it might end up looking too moral. That’d be boring.”
They feared that despite creating a life-and-death arena, users would act too rationally and spoil the fun.
But those worries were quickly proven unfounded…
“The Vanish Guild has launched a surprise takeover of the Broken Engagement Fortress. The defenders are all dead.”
“The Icarus Guild attacked a neutral faction. They publicly executed seven of the neutral leaders in the plaza.”
“Mass slaughter is underway in the desert kingdom of Pashuram.”
“Looters are springing up everywhere!”
“The continent is swarming with thieves!”
The operations team at Abyss was overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up with all the chaos erupting across the continent.
Users who had been fighting before…
On the first day—likely stunned by the revelation of a death game—they had been oddly quiet.
But from the second day on, they had gone mad, desperate to kill.
“Just this morning, there were hundreds of guild wars between rival factions.”
“Forgiveness? Reconciliation? Everyone’s itching to strike first.”
“Their survival instincts are pushing them to murder each other. Extremists are running rampant.”
“Alliances are waging war over floodplains where they can secure food in the desert.”
“Refugees are being denied entry to cities. Some regions are expelling low-level users from urban areas.”
“Top-ranked users are abusing their power, trampling the weak.”
“We’re seeing a surge in users with infamy levels over 100,000.”
Even Roanoke’s core developers hadn’t expected people to change and adapt so drastically.
In just a day or two, blood flowed across the entire continent.
“At this rate, the world will collapse from users killing each other before anything else even happens.”
“No kidding.”
Abyss had intended to create a ruthless survival stage in Roanoke.
To let people kill for small gains.
To sell their souls for survival.
To create a world filled with lies, betrayal, and manipulation.
Faced with death, people could only show their true selves. Even so, the users’ activity had exceeded expectations.
“Good thing we secured so many users thanks to Unicorn Corp.”
“They’re an incredible company.”
Unicorn had quickly developed and mass-produced a capsule-based nutrition system.
They rolled out global aid at scale.
Without charging a cent, they distributed over 100 million systems.
Abyss had estimated that over 20 million users could die early from starvation—but Unicorn had saved the majority of them.
“Everything’s ready now.”
“Once we show the world the footage of Roanoke’s users… the reaction will be something else.”
The developers and staff at Abyss could barely contain their excitement.
They were about to present an achievement unmatched in history.
The moment Roanoke would become not virtual reality—but true reality.
Martial arts and sports would seem like child’s play in comparison.
“Launch the live streaming service!”
Countries around the world had suffered massive casualties from the Roanoke incident.
Each nation had tens of thousands to millions of victims.
Unicorn Corp was actively providing medical aid for Roanoke players.
Governments were rushing to legislate safeguards to prevent future incidents.
While media and public attention surged, Abyss launched their live streaming system on their website.
People could now watch Roanoke users in real time.
Public interest in Roanoke had never died down.
—Are they having a battle royale in there?
—Probably worse. Murder, looting, total chaos.
—Back in my day, we at least shared barley bread.
—Eh, in Royal Road, people wouldn’t even eat barley bread—you had to give it away.
—If I were in there, I’d be fighting to survive every single day.
—This is true hardcore mode gaming…
—No one can be trusted. In there, survival means doing anything.
—Anyway, top players probably feel like gods.
—Gods?
—They’re living in a world where they’re the absolute best.
People all over the world were curious.
And then, a new window appeared on the Roanoke homepage:
Roanoke Live Streaming
—Live broadcast?
—Can we really see users inside Roanoke?
—This a scam?
—It’s real. You can watch everything in real-time.
First hour was free.
After that, a monthly fee of 200,000 won. But nobody could resist.
—Let’s check it out.
—The cities… Whoa, it’s crazy.
—There are corpses.
—So many war zones everywhere.
—Whole villages are burned and destroyed.
Viewers quickly realized Roanoke surpassed their wildest imaginations.
Drunk people stumbling through cities. Illegal goods, drugs, and women being traded in alleyways.
—So many users in cities.
—Everyone rushed to the cities once it got dangerous.
—Some rare players are hunting at risk. That’s nuts.
—Putting your life on the line to level up… this is what it feels like.
—Anyone who played Roanoke knows: most villages are on the brink of annihilation. You can literally see monsters outside the walls.
—Look at Hadel Fortress. They’re preparing for a full siege against the monsters.
As word spread, Abyss’s homepage exploded with traffic from people wanting to view the livestream.
Within days, tens of millions around the world were watching.
—This is so intense. What have we even been watching until now?
—Watch it quick before they make it illegal.
—Even if they do, there are workarounds. No country can block everything.
People could now freely view war, carnage, prostitution, and desperate survival in Roanoke.
Top-ranked players became a hot topic of search.
—Rankers are on the frontlines.
—Or out there murdering someone.
—They’re committing real murders.
And some people… still couldn’t forget Royal Road.
The game they had burned their youth on.
They started searching for names from its golden age.
Black Knight Bardray. Dwarf Warrior Oberon. Lafaye, the leader of the Hermes Guild. Pale, Weed’s companion and later ruler of the North. Dragor the tailor. Pet, painter of watercolors. Steiner the Bandit King. Bard Maray.
And of course, many searched for the name Weed.
Since Royal Road ended, someone had always used the name “Weed” in every new game.
‘Well, it’s a famous name. Of course there’d be a Weed in Roanoke.’
People searched out of nostalgia—and found an active user by that name.
A new post quickly hit the Roanoke community forums.
—There’s a Weed in Roanoke. Looks like they’re taking the character creation trial.
It quickly went viral among forum users.
—It’s real.
—But no way it’s the real Weed. There’s been no word from him since Royal Road.
—I dunno… looks just like the old videos.
—Identical, actually. Though maybe they just customized it really well.
—They’re sculpting. At ridiculous speed… like a human copy machine.
—If they’re making sculptures too… could it really be the real Weed?
—Wait, no way this is for real…
