Judul: "DEATH MORTGAGE: The Hunter's Liquidation"

Chapter 6: The First Bill

The first thing that hit Jihan's nose was the smell of expensive antiseptic mixed with lavender.

His eyelids felt glued shut. It took a serious effort just to pry them open. The white light from the fluorescent lamp above stung his eyes, but slowly, his vision began to focus. Jihan was no longer on the cold asphalt, covered in his own black blood. He was sinking into an incredibly soft orthopedic mattress layered with white silk sheets.

Twenty-four hours had passed since the incident in the Crying Cave courtyard.

Jihan turned his head slowly. The hum of the air conditioner was steady. An IV tube fed a clear fluid directly into a vein on the back of his left hand. The room was insanely luxurious. A hundred-inch flat-screen TV was mounted on the wall, a genuine leather sofa sat in the corner, and a giant glass window revealed the Jakarta skyline.

This wasn't the third-class ward where his sister, Dian, was being treated. This was a VVIP room where a single night's stay could cost a porter a kidney.

The TV in front of him was on but muted, showing a 24-hour news channel. Jihan fumbled on the nightstand next to him, found the remote, and pressed the volume button.

"...The Central Hunter Association is still refusing to give an official comment regarding the White Tiger Guild's negligence," a female reporter's dramatic voice filled the room. The screen replayed the footage of Jihan dropping the S-Class Core in front of Bagas. "However, the public has already made its decision. A petition to revoke Bagas's license reached two million signatures this morning. Meanwhile, Han Jihan, the genius Hunter who disguised himself as a Porter, is now being hailed as the 'Hero of Crying Cave'..."

Jihan let out a soft laugh. The sound vibrated in his right chest, which had been neatly stitched up by high-level medical magic.

"Hero, my ass," Jihan muttered, his voice still hoarse. "This world is full of idiots. All it took was one core and a little bit of bullshit, and suddenly they're worshipping me."

He leaned back against the pillow. The pain in his leg was almost gone. An elite healer from the Association must have fixed him up while he was unconscious.

On the same nightstand, Jihan's phone with its shattered screen lay next to a fruit tray. Jihan picked it up. When he turned on the screen, a barrage of notifications hit him. Hundreds of missed calls from unknown numbers, a dozen exclusive contract offers from endorsement agencies, and tens of emails from mid-tier Guilds begging him to join.

But that wasn't what made Jihan hold his breath.

His eyes locked onto a single text message notification from his mobile banking app at the very top of the screen. The message had arrived three minutes ago.

[National Hunter Bank: A deposit of Rp 1,500,000,000 has been made from the Central Hunter Association Escrow Account. Description: S-Rank Raid Compensation and Exclusive Core Auction Rights.]

One and a half billion.

Jihan's hand trembled. His thumb swiped across the cracked screen again and again, making sure the string of zeros wasn't a hallucination left over from the dungeon's miasma.

One billion, five hundred million rupiah. Liquidated. Deposited into his personal account. The Association had really decided to sweep the incident under the rug, choosing to give him hush money that doubled as a grand prize.

Jihan swallowed hard. His eyes began to burn. He didn't care about the sting in his throat. His brain immediately started doing the math.

"Twenty million for my sister's overdue ICU bill. One hundred million to hire the best surgeon. Two hundred million to buy a small house in the safe zone. The rest… with the rest, we can live in peace, kiddo," Jihan whispered to the empty room.

A tear escaped the corner of his eye, falling onto the white sheets. It wasn't a tear of sadness. It was pure euphoria. For years he had eaten leftovers. For years he had crawled under the weight of elite Hunters' gear, been insulted, kicked around. And now? He had won.

That Death Bank System? To hell with it. It was just a damn cheat that had luckily saved his life. Jihan felt like he had successfully tricked reality itself. He had escaped death, turned the tables on Bagas, and was now filthy rich.

Jihan wiped his tears away roughly, a wide grin spreading across his face. "I did it, Dian. I'm coming to get you this afternoon. We're switching hospitals. To hell with the smell of blood in the Hunter world. I'm going to retire…"

BZZZT.

The flat-screen TV in front of him suddenly went black.

Jihan frowned. "Huh? An expensive TV like this is already broken?"

BZZZT. CLICK.

The fluorescent lights on the ceiling flickered wildly, making a crackling sound like a short circuit. The next second, the lighting in the VVIP room changed drastically. The bright white light died, replaced by a deep red glow that illuminated every corner of the room like the warning lights in an execution chamber.

"What the hell is this…"

Jihan tried to get up, but the phone in his hand suddenly felt like it was on fire, its temperature skyrocketing.

His cracked phone screen no longer showed the mobile banking app. It had been completely taken over by lines of binary code forming an interface that Jihan despised. A neon red dialog box reflected directly into his retinas. The system didn't use machine language. It used a sickeningly corporate tone.

[DEATH BANK COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT]

[Client: Han Jihan.]

[Automatic Execution Notification: Your Free Trial Period has exceeded the 24-hour limit.]

Jihan froze. His smile vanished. The air in the room suddenly felt as thin as it would on a mountaintop.

New lines of text continued to appear, typed out with a mechanical sound that echoed like terror in his eardrums.

[Initiating auto-debit withdrawal for the First Day's Loan Interest…]

[Scanning Client's financial assets…]

[Asset found: National Hunter Bank Account Balance.]

"No. No! WAIT!" Jihan shrieked in panic. He squeezed his phone, his fingers mashing the screen violently, trying to close the damn application. The screen was unresponsive.

A small pop-up window appeared in the middle of the red screen. It was an indicator of his real-world bank balance, synchronized directly by the dimensional system.

Current Balance: Rp 1,500,000,000

"That's money for my sister, you bastard! Don't touch it!" Jihan roared. He threw the phone to the floor so hard the screen peeled off, but the neon red projection remained floating in the air, needing no physical device to haunt him.

The number on the screen began to count down. At an insane speed.

Rp 1,000,000,000

Rp 650,000,000

Rp 100,000,000

Rp 0

In seconds, the billions he had possessed for all of three minutes evaporated. Vanished. Not a single cent remained.

Jihan stared at the zero, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His chest heaved violently.

"YOU FUCKING SYSTEM! GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK, YOU DAMN LOAN SHARK!" Jihan screamed at the top of his lungs, pounding the orthopedic mattress until the bed frame creaked. "I bled for that money! You already made me vomit blood yesterday! Wasn't that enough?! HUH?!"

The system was completely unfazed. The screen responded to Jihan's outburst with a cold, rigid financial report.

[Confirmation: Financial assets valued at Rp 1,500,000,000 have been successfully liquidated into the Death Bank's treasury.]

[First Day's Interest Bill Status: INSUFFICIENT PAYMENT.]

Jihan's breath caught in his throat. His brain failed to process the last two words. "I-Insufficient? One and a half billion… you're saying it's not enough?"

The red screen expanded, covering Jihan's entire field of vision as if to crush his ego flat against the ground.

[Clause Explanation: The S-Tier 'Knight of Light' power has a dimensional value equivalency that far exceeds frail human paper currency. You have only paid off 2% of the total interest for the first day.]

[As the client is declared to be in DEFICIT, the system reserves the right to activate secondary asset seizure as per Article 4, Section 2.]

[Redirecting remaining balance to Biological Collateral: Motor Nervous System & Internal Organs.]

[Executing seizure…]

"Wait! Don't—"

Jihan's sentence was cut off by the sensation of an explosion at the base of his neck.

It wasn't the pain of a physical blow. It was as if someone had injected molten lead directly into his spinal cord. Jihan's back arched unnaturally. His eyes shot wide open, the veins in his forehead and neck bulging until his skin turned a purplish color.

"A-AARRGGGHH…!" Jihan tried to scream, but his vocal cords were paralyzed. Only empty air came out of his gaping mouth.

His arrogance from yesterday, his hero's mask, the euphoria of having billions, it was all shattered in a single second of execution. Reality slapped Jihan with brutal force. He wasn't the main character in an RPG who got a generous system. He was a slave to a hellish banking corporation. This system didn't give him miracles. It squeezed him dry to the very last drop of blood.

The sensation of molten lead flowed downward.

Jihan felt his toes go numb. The numbness spread up to his calves, paralyzed his knees, and then shut down his hips. He couldn't feel the lower half of his body anymore. His brain gave the command to move his legs, but his nerves had been severed by the ghostly accounting system.

Absolute panic took over. Jihan used both his arms, which were still responding, to drag his body backward. But his frantic movements sent him tumbling over the edge of the bed.

THUD!

Jihan's body hit the VVIP room's white marble floor with a sickening, fleshy sound. The IV needle in the back of his hand was ripped out, tearing his vein and spattering fresh blood on the metal stand.

He lay on his side on the cold floor.

"He… lp…" Jihan whimpered hoarsely.

His eyes stared at the red emergency button on the wall, less than two feet from his face. He just needed to press it, and a nurse would come.

But the numbness from his waist was now crawling upward. His right arm went limp. His left arm became as heavy as concrete. His neck stiffened. The paralysis spread absolutely, trapping Jihan's consciousness inside the prison of his own body.

Jihan, the Hero of Crying Cave who had single-handedly defeated an S-Class monster, was now lying on the floor like a dying cockroach, unable to move a single muscle.

The system's red screen flickered again, projecting text right in front of Jihan's face, which was pressed against the marble.

[Interest Seizure Complete. Client Status: Total Motor Function Disability (Duration: 24 Hours).]

[Thank you for your payment. Please remember to prepare your deposit for tomorrow's bill.]

[A pleasure doing business with you!]

Cough!

Jihan's stomach contracted violently. The valve in his throat refused to close.

He vomited blood. Not the red, fresh blood of a human, but a thick, jet-black fluid that smelled like sulfur and rotting meat. The black blood flooded the white marble floor beneath his face, staining the room's luxury with pure suffering.

Jihan couldn't wipe his mouth. He could only stare at the reflection of his own eyes in the pool of black blood. His eyes were bloodshot, tears of frustration streaming down, mixing with the filth.

His bank balance was zero. His body was completely paralyzed. And tomorrow, his sister would be kicked out of the hospital because he didn't have a single cent.

This defeat felt a million times more painful than when Bagas had broken his leg. The system had truly shown him the real hierarchy of the food chain.

In the middle of his choked sobs and breaths that sounded like a leaky pipe, Jihan's hearing picked up something from outside the room.

The sound of high-heeled footsteps. Click. Clack. Click. The steps were precise, firm, and not rushed like a nurse's.

The footsteps stopped right in front of his VVIP room door.

CLICK.

The doorknob turned. The thick oak door swung open slowly.

Jihan couldn't turn his head to see who entered. He could only see a pair of shiny black stiletto heels step inside, stopping right at the edge of his pool of black blood.

"So, this is the true form of our new hero?"

A woman's voice cut through the room's silence. Her tone was incredibly cold, sharp, and held not a single shred of sympathy.

"You fooled an entire country, Han Jihan," the woman continued. The tip of her stiletto nudged his shattered phone on the floor. "But you can't fool the Association's mana fluctuation data. Explain to me what kind of dark magic you used in that dungeon, or I will personally ensure your sister is removed from the ICU tonight."

Jihan stared at the tip of her shoe with what was left of his consciousness. He couldn't even spit. The loan shark from hell had just tortured him, and now, the executioner from the human world had arrived to skin him alive.