Debt-Collector of the Apocalypse

CHAPTER 5: The Arbitrage Loop

The humid air outside the pawnshop had grown heavier, carrying a metallic taste that lingered on the tongue. In the distance, sirens across Incheon began a synchronized alert cycle, their prolonged wails usually reserved for civil defense drills or approaching typhoons.

Min-jae ignored them.

He ducked beneath the half-lowered security shutter of a twenty-four-hour internet cafe, pulling a shivering Yoo Seo-ah inside with him. The cafe was nearly deserted, its rows of gaming monitors casting a sickly blue glow over empty leather seats. The few teenagers still there shouted at their screens, growing increasingly frustrated as their connections lagged and stuttered.

"Min-jae, the whole city is going crazy," Seo-ah whispered.

Her eyes were fixed on a television mounted above the counter. A local news broadcast showed live footage of downtown Seoul, where gridlocked traffic had brought the highways to a standstill beneath a swirling violet sky.

"The government is telling everyone to stay indoors."

"Staying indoors is how forty percent of the population dies in the first wave," Min-jae replied, sliding into a corner terminal.

He logged in and began typing, his fingers moving swiftly across the mechanical keyboard. He didn't bother checking the news forums or social media. Instead, he opened three digital brokerage accounts, an online gold exchange platform, and his primary banking interface.

With 85 Cosmic Units remaining in his pool, he summoned his personal vault.

The interface pulsed with a dark, oily glow.

Manifest. Rank-D: The Merchant's Counterfeit Ledger.

[80 Cosmic Units Consumed.]

[Manifesting item...]

A thin, leather-bound notebook materialized in his lap. Its yellowed pages were brittle and crumbling, making it look like an old diary salvaged from a basement fire.

The moment Min-jae opened it, glowing strings of binary code appeared across the blank pages. They shifted continuously, mirroring the active data fields on his computer screen.

The Merchant's Counterfeit Ledger was a rare utility artifact from an advanced magical civilization that had collapsed under the weight of its own economic system.

Its function was simple but powerful. For a limited time, it could spoof digital networks by intercepting data packets and manipulating how transactions were recorded. An asset could appear to have been transferred, cloned, or multiplied without the corresponding funds actually leaving their source.

In the future timeline, the System's Global Currency Liquidation protocol didn't verify bank balances against physical gold reserves. At midnight, it scanned digital ledgers and used the recorded figures to calculate each survivor's initial Karma Point allocation.

The System cared about what the records said.

Min-jae knowing fully well how it works intended to exploit that weakness.

"Fifty-four million won," he muttered, entering the routing details for his primary brokerage account.

He began moving the funds through a series of high-leverage trades. He purchased digital gold certificates, liquidated them into corporate bonds, and then converted the proceeds back into cash. Throughout the process, the Counterfeit Ledger rested against the computer tower, its pages glowing faintly.

A low-frequency hum filled the space around him.

On the monitor, the account balances began to glitch.

The numbers didn't merely move. They multiplied.

54,120,000 Won.

108,240,000 Won.

216,480,000 Won.

Each time a transaction passed between the local bank server and the digital trading platform, the ledger duplicated the relevant data signal. The same financial value appeared across multiple accounts without the original funds being withdrawn.

To the banking infrastructure, it was a massive financial anomaly, the kind of exploit that could trigger an investigation and freeze every account involved.

To the incoming System, however, it looked like wealth.

"Min-jae..." Seo-ah gasped, leaning over his shoulder. The rapidly increasing figures illuminated her face. "The number isn't stopping. Are you hacking the bank?"

"I'm not hacking anything," Min-jae replied, his expression tense beneath the blue glow of the monitor. "I'm establishing a liquidity loop before the entire concept of currency gets deleted from human history."

BZZZ!

The terminal monitor suddenly flared with a violent, white static.

The ledger in his lap grew scorching hot. Smoke curled from its binding as the yellowed pages began to blacken at the edges.

[Warning: Modern Digital Infrastructure unable to sustain high-density data anomalies.]

[The ledger will disintegrate in 30 seconds.]

[Current Artificially Inflated Liquidation Pool: 541,200,000 Won ($410,000 USD).]

Min-jae didn't push it any further. Greed without calculation was what killed high-tier survivors. If he inflated the balance past half a billion won, the bank's automated fraud-detection system would trigger a manual security freeze on his account, completely locking the assets before midnight.

He slammed his hand onto the enter key, consolidating the fragmented lines into one final, unified holding statement.

The ledger burst into a harmless flash of gray ash, scattering across his denim jeans. On the screen, the numbers locked into place.

Total Combined Assets: 541,200,000 Won.

Min-jae checked his phone interface. The Blue System overlay was nearly complete, the icons for his apps melting away into runic symbols

[Global System Integration Countdown: 02 hours, 14 minutes, 05 seconds.]

[Detected Pending Payout: 5,412 Karma Points (Awaiting Midnight Conversion).]

Five thousand, four hundred and twelve Karma Points.

Min-jae exhaled slowly. For the first time since waking in the warehouse breakroom, he allowed his shoulders to relax.

In his previous life, the highest-ranked guild master in the entire Asian Sector had entered the apocalypse with roughly 3,000 Karma Points. The heir to a massive technology conglomerate had used that fortune to purchase a Rare-grade Class and a complete set of steel Vanguard armor on Day One.

Min-jae had just surpassed that starting fortune with a borrowed crowbar, a scavenger's monocle, and an artifact that had destroyed itself in the process.

"We're done here."

He stood and brushed the ash from his jeans before turning to Seo-ah. She stared at him, her expression caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief.

‘Where exactly did he get knowledge about what is happening around?!.’ Seo-ah thought to herself.

"We have two hours left. Now we need to buy the only physical asset that matters before the sky shatters."

"What physical asset?" she asked, barely managing a whisper.

Min-jae reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the cold, green F-Rank Mana Core he'd taken from the hound.

Through his violet monocle, he watched the red fractures spreading across the streets. They had grown thicker, vibrating like taut strings on the verge of snapping.

"Real estate," he said.

He slipped the Mana Core back into his pocket and started for the exit.

"Specifically, a building sitting directly on top of a Grade-1 Safe Zone Node."