“Just place it right there.” I instructed the movers. They slowly placed the heavy VR capsule right next to my RoyalRoad capsule. “Perfect.”

From the inside the capsule, is your everyday standard VR gaming capsule. However, the outside has been designed to resemble a fancy coffin - I wonder what were the designers thinking when they made this. From what I read up online, you can choose to have a wooden or a metallic finish. What I found particularly eye catching was the blue stone on the lid of the capsule, it seems to only serve as a decoration.

Laureta Inc. – that’s the company that sells this along with it’s game ‘Valor’. Unlike Royal Road’s popularity, Valor’s popularity is almost non-existent. I am not sure if that is a bad thing for Valor, however, it does help my investigation A LOT! My hypothesis is that the person involved in the kidnappings must be a fellow Valor player or at least some how related to Laureta Inc. That is the only connection between the missing people – the game. With a game played by so few - this significantly lowers my suspect pool.

I crack my knuckles and sit down in front of the PC. It’s time to begin some solid research. The first step to a good investigation is knowledge. What I lack is knowledge about this game.

My browser is quickly filled with multiple tabs about the game Valor. The most popular headline is the US$ 50 Million reward for any person or group of people who defeat the game. I am stunned. Why have I never heard of this game before???

That’s an insane amount of money to be given away for a game! There must be a catch, there is no free lunch in this world.

I continued reading on – “Since it’s release 2 years ago, no one has defeated the game Valor. The number of players joining the game continues to grow and so does the prize money. Whilst, the game has been described by many players as the most challenging game that they have ever played, many are confident of defeating the game.”

Confident my ass. I knew that there was no free lunch here. I continue scrolling through the articles and my fingers freeze – I see Bong-Chol’s photo from an interview about the game from CTS Media. I quickly open up the video:

Interviewer: “Today, I have with me the pioneer adventurer, Bong-Chol. For our viewers who have not heard of Bong-Chol – he is ‘Gold’ ranked in the 4th cycle and a 1st generation Valor player.”

Bong-Chol: “Hello, everyone!”

Interviewer: “Bong-Chol, thank you so much for making time for us today. I understand that you and your team have finally captured someone from the Shadow Syndicate. Can you confirm this?”

Bong-Chol: “Yes, we captured Majora alive”.

Interviewer was stunned for a moment and then spoke up again, “Oh wow! You captured the General! This must place Korea far ahead of the other teams.”

Bong-Chol: “To be honest, this was a group effort. Everyone worked together to solve this. The difficulty of the game is exactly the reason why we all have decided to collaborate. No one is ahead.”

The interviewer smiled wryly, “Of course, I know. I was only joking about who’s ahead. However, we all know you were crucial to the success of the operation. Do you believe the collaboration will continue after Majora’s capture?”

Bong-Chol: “Unfortunately, we haven’t thought about that. Capturing Majora is only a small step towards defeating the game.”

Interviewer: “I am sure the competition across countries will intensify as you make more progress.”

Bong-Chol simply nodded and took a sip of water from his bottle.

Interviewer: “Bong-Chol, a new VR game is coming out – Royal Road. Do you think you will switch out?”

Bong-Chol: “I might have switched out if we weren’t successful in our mission today. I was very much tempted and have been secretly studying Royal Road. Ultimately, the two games are very good but very different. I think I prefer Valor more.”

Interviewer: “Oh? How come?”

Bong-Chol: “I think Royal Road is a more creative and flexible game. There is no story line or real purpose in the game. The game itself is also very easy compared to Valor.”

Interviewer: “But do you not think that Valor’s rigid story structure and difficulty level would make the game less accessible?”

Bong-Chol: “Yes, I agree it would make the game less accessible to the public. However, I do not think the developers at Laureta care about this. They are looking for the world’s best players.”

Interviewer: “Which is why the game is invitation based?”

Bong-Chol: “Well mostly invitation based. Most Valor players have been invited either by Laureta or their friends, who were invited initially by Laureta. There is the small minority that stumble across the game and purchase an invitation from Laureta.”

Interviewer: “We actually looked into the prices of an invitation. It’s currently priced at W850,000 (approx. US$850). Do you not think this is overpriced?”

Bong-Chol: “Relative to the prize money? No.”

Interviewer: “One last question. Would you recommend others to play Valor?”

Bong-Chol paused and laughed. “Hahaha, you got me. The game is good but I don’t think I want more competition – competing with the world’s best gamers is already very difficult.”

The interview ended there. I took a look at a bunch of other news clippings and forums before switching off my laptop and taking a break.

***

I stared at the giant pin board hanging on my wall. There were a few printed cut outs of some of the things I read online and some were my own notes. Compared to Royal Road, the players of Valor did not share much information about the game with each other. Even media houses such as CTS Media stopped covering the game with the launch of Royal Road.

From the little that I gathered, I concluded that Valor is similar to those old school game – a simple story line and no endless world building. The end goal is to prevent the conquest of evil and annihilate the main boss. The only catch is if your character dies – it’s the end for your character in that cycle.

That brings me to the other major difference between Valor and another game that I have played – the ‘Cycle’. One Cycle in the game is a single iteration of gameplay till a critical objective is failed. For example: If some strategic kingdom is left leaderless, the game resets. Similarly, if evil succeeds in wiping out more than 90% of the continent’s population, the game resets. There are multiple such objectives which need to be balanced while trying to succeed. So far, the game has reset 22 times across 4 years. The longest cycle before the game reset was 8 months and the shortest 3 days. The duration of a cycle really depends on how players successfully manage objectives – the shorter cycles are usually experiments or someone trolling.

That brings me next to the players – most of the players are professional gamers and they have been invited by the developers of the game to play the game. The game started with 400 players: 2-3 from nearly every country. However, as of today the game has 6,000 players and only 1% play from Korea. So, my initial suspect pool is down to 58 individuals, assuming the criminal wasn’t an international player.

I didn’t find any apparent information that would connect Bong-Chol with Juan Lee (Chong-Hoon’s friend) but I would suspect that they played for the same team. Physically combing through both their homes, mobile phones, and email addresses, I found no traces of contact between each other. Hence, I am guessing that they only ever contacted each other through the game.

I stare at the gaming capsule in front of me. It seems I need to log-in if I need to progress any further with this investigation. I am hesitating because in light of the current situation the idea of lying in a capsule that looks like a coffin is rather distasteful.