Chapter 1: The One Who Came at High Noon

The crown prince was born at high noon.

It was the exact moment when the sun’s white edge, settling over the long eaves of the palace, cast the darkest shadow of the day.

The empress had a Buddhist shrine built in the central palace and held a personal ritual every year on the crown prince’s birthday, spanning from the moment the first star rose at dawn until the sun reached its zenith.

Throughout the half-day ceremony, the crown prince knelt motionless.

In the inner chamber of the central palace, where no one else was allowed entry, the scent of agarwood hung thick and heavy.

Sitting upright without a single flicker of movement, he looked less like a living person and more like a breathless wooden doll.

“Take off your mask, Your Highness.”

The empress broke the silence.

Only then did the prince move.

The mask, crafted from thinly carved birch, completely covered his face from forehead to chin.

With practiced hands, he untied the intricate knot at the back of his head that kept it secure.

Beneath the mask, his eyes remained covered with a white cotton cloth.

The empress stepped forward and removed the cloth herself.

Layer by layer, as the multiple wraps of the blindfold fell away, his face was finally revealed, pale and clear.

The empress gazed at his beautiful face for a moment before speaking again.

“Open your eyes.”

The prince opened them.

“…It is done.”

The empress’s tone was entirely calm.

As she turned her head away from him, the monk who had presided over the ritual spoke.

“Your Highness must hurry out to perform the remaining rites before the appointed hour.”

No sooner had he spoken than the eunuchs opened the door to clear the path.

The prince rose.

As he walked out, the empress called out to his back.

“Please do not think your mother is heartless. All of this is for your sake.”

The prince paused for a brief moment.

His reply came quietly over his shoulder.

“…I know.”

Over a decade ago, a rumor had briefly circulated through the imperial garden.

In the deep recesses of the palace, even the most startling rumors rarely spread to the outside world.

Thus, it was not unusual for a fleeting rumor to quickly die down.

Especially one so dreadful that anyone who dared speak it could not guarantee their life, an assertion too terrible to even utter aloud.

‘The empress gave birth to a monster.’

As time passed, as always happens, the rumor no one dared speak of vanished without a trace.

As the prince’s coming-of-age drew near, a festive atmosphere filled the capital.

The streets were decorated with five-colored banners, envoys arrived from all regions, and the imperial family distributed gifts even to common households.

Yet the gates of the Eastern Palace remained tightly closed.

As always, it was silent and dark.

The prince entered the main hall of the Eastern Palace.

In the courtyard surrounded by high walls, the eunuchs stood waiting.

All were the empress’s trusted confidants, individuals who had performed this exact ritual for years.

They had long since been silenced by having their tongues cut out, and without needing orders, they knew precisely what to do.

The prince stepped onto the platform and stood before them.

He glanced at the whips in their hands and knelt on the stone pavement.

The flagstones, once light in color, had long since been replaced with a dark gray so that stains would not show, saving the palace maids in charge of cleaning from constant trouble and questioning.

The eunuchs bound his body tightly and poured cold water over his clothes.

The cold water was intended to make the pain more vivid, while binding his body prevented him from thrashing and creating wounds in places where they shouldn’t be seen.

Finally, a sharp whip tore through the wind.

The empress believed that the demon dwelling inside her son’s body would leave if subjected to enough pain.

Pain was familiar, so he was not afraid.

He was merely tired.

It was a midsummer day, with a long time left until nightfall.

Beneath the clear sky where the white sun of the empire rose, the prince thought to himself.

When will this life finally end?

Jeong Yun-jo’s life almost came to an end when he was twenty-two.

“Yun-jo, aren’t you sleeping?”

He looked up from his phone screen, startled.

He gave a small bow to the nurse on duty who poked her head through the door.

“Hello, ma’am.”

“Long time no see. How are you feeling?”

“I’m managing.”

Jeong Yun-jo shrugged.

When your body has been broken for so long, you forget what it feels like to live without pain.

Partly, the heavy painkillers had dulled his senses.

Even that faint sensation existed only in his upper body and right leg; below his left knee, there was no feeling at all.

Jeong Yun-jo was what doctors commonly called a spinal cord injury patient.

It had happened three years ago, when he was twenty-two, in a devastating accident.

The situation was so severe that even the surgeons said there was nothing they could do immediately.

After multiple surgeries, they managed to stabilize his bones and save some nerve function, but one of his legs could never work properly again.

They said sensation might return over time, but after three years, his left leg remained completely numb.

For nearly a third of every year, he practically lived in the hospital, relying on heavy painkillers to endure the frequent neuropathic pain and severe muscle stiffness.

Still, thanks to relentless rehabilitation, he could barely manage daily life on his own.

He could walk a few steps without crutches now, a massive improvement from when he needed help just to go to the bathroom.

He had been admitted today for surgery.

It was a relatively simple procedure to remove inflammation, scheduled for tomorrow morning, but he had to check in a day early for pre-op testing.

Having been in and out of hospitals so often, even after nearly a year away, the medical staff were familiar enough to exchange lighthearted jokes.

From his phone resting on the corner table, a faint blue light cast across the dark room.

The nurse glanced at it and offered a warm smile.

“Is it really that interesting? You’re always glued to that phone whenever I see you.”

, The screen displayed an active game window.

Jeong Yun-jo hadn’t exactly been ‘playing’, but rather ‘staring’ at it endlessly.

It was too complicated to explain, so he simply smiled back.

He couldn’t sleep, and with nothing else to look at in the room, he had been killing time for hours.

“No, not really.”

“What is it? Is that Eternal Sun? I play that one too.”

“No, just an old game. You wouldn’t know it.”

The interface looked similar to a title she had been playing recently, and the nurse showed a hint of curiosity.

However, when Jeong Yun-jo brushed it off, she didn’t press further.

She checked his vitals, asked if he needed anything else, told him to get plenty of rest, and closed the door as she left.

Jeong Yun-jo looked back down at the screen.

At the bottom, the stylized logo for ‘Eternal Sun’ was visible.

Eternal Sun was a massive open-world game released about seven or eight years ago.

The core concept was simple: a character gets dropped into another world and does whatever it takes to survive, offering absolute freedom to do whatever you wished.

You could till the land and farm, become a ruthless mountain bandit, save up money to run a business, or woo a lover and get married.

The system was extraordinarily simple.

There were no mandatory goals or required quests.

Many people initially wondered what fun could be found in such a purposeless, time-wasting game, but Eternal Sun gained massive popularity precisely because of that freedom.

In its earliest version, it had been a simple time-killer: you arrived at a random location, gathered items, and used them to build huts or hunt wild beasts.

The characters looked as simple as wooden spoons with stubby limbs, and the rate of leveling up or gaining traits depended entirely on which items you picked up first.

Jeong Yun-jo had created this game when he was back in high school.

At first, it was just a fun side project, and thinking it might be nice if a few people played it, he uploaded it to the app store for free.

He had titled it, without much thought, “Otherworld Survival.”

He expected maybe ten downloads at most, and for several months, no one paid any attention.

Eventually, however, word of mouth spread about its strangely addictive nature, and it rose to the top of gaming community search rankings.

Not long after, an established game development company reached out.

He happened to be desperate for cash at the time, so he sold the copyright in exchange for a modest one-time payment.

The game was relaunched under a new name with added features, and it unexpectedly became a massive hit.

Even years after its launch, it still topped popular game charts, receiving regular updates.

The small startup that bought it raked in vast fortunes and grew into a properly listed corporate giant.

As the original creator, Jeong Yun-jo never became rich from it.

Neither he nor the company had anticipated the game would blow up, so the payout he received was trivial compared to the massive revenue Eternal Sun ultimately generated.

Still, it was a substantial sum of money for a high school student, and thanks to that lump sum, he was able to cover his college tuition until graduation, so he considered himself lucky.

Jeong Yun-jo had an easygoing, optimistic nature and rarely dwelled on regrets.

In fact, he had barely given the game a second thought after it left his hands.

It wasn’t until five years later, when Eternal Sun had turned into a household name, that he remembered it again.

After his terrible accident, he spent an agonizingly long time in the ICU.

Only three months later, when he was finally transferred to a rehabilitation ward, did he have the mental energy to sort through his personal belongings.

He asked his aunt to bring a few items from home, including the old phone he used back in high school.

His recent phone had been completely destroyed in the crash and disposed of, and having no urge to buy a new one, he powered up the old phone just to see if it still worked.

And there, saved deep inside its storage, he found the original closed beta version of Eternal Sun completely intact.

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