The world lurched again, that same sickening twist of reality. Ji-woo felt himself pulled backward through the tear in space, the abandoned subway platform vanishing like a bad dream. One moment he was surrounded by darkness and dust; the next, he was stumbling onto the grey Seoul street where he'd started.
Dawn had barely progressed. Maybe a minute had passed in the real world, while he'd fought for his life for thirty minutes in that nightmare place.
His phone buzzed insistently.
[DUNGEON CLEAR REWARDS]
[DEBT REDUCTION: ₩10,000,000]
[CURRENT DEBT: ₩837,000,000]
[BONUS: FIRST CLEAR - ADDITIONAL ₩5,000,000]
[CURRENT DEBT: ₩832,000,000]
[ITEMS ACQUIRED: TUNNEL RAT LEATHER x23, RAT TEETH x47, ALPHA RAT PELT x1]
[THESE ITEMS HAVE BEEN DEPOSITED IN YOUR INVENTORY]
Fifteen million won. In thirty minutes, he'd earned what would have taken him six months of brutal double shifts. Ji-woo's hands shook as he stared at the numbers.
His debt was still astronomical, but for the first time in three years, it had actually decreased.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up from his chest. He was standing on a Seoul street in a blood-soaked convenience store uniform, having just fought giant rats in a pocket dimension, and he was laughing about debt reduction.
"Excuse me, are you alright?" An elderly woman had stopped, concern etched on her face.
Ji-woo looked down at himself. His uniform was shredded and soaked with blood, but his skin underneath was unbroken. He must have looked like he'd crawled out of a horror movie.
"I'm fine, grandmother. Just... just had a rough night at work."
The woman didn't look convinced, but this was Seoul. People minded their own business. She hurried away, glancing back once.
Ji-woo needed to get home. He needed to think. He needed to understand what the hell had just happened to his life.
His phone buzzed again.
[TUTORIAL COMPLETE]
[SYSTEM FUNCTIONS NOW FULLY UNLOCKED]
[YOU MAY NOW ACCESS: SHOP, SKILLS, QUESTS, LEADERBOARD]
[WARNING: YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED A MANDATORY QUEST]
[QUEST: DEBT REAPER'S BURDEN]
[CLEAR 1 DUNGEON PER WEEK OR FACE PENALTY]
[CURRENT DUNGEONS CLEARED THIS WEEK: 1/1]
[PENALTY FOR FAILURE: DEBT INCREASES BY ₩50,000,000 + LEVEL REDUCTION]
Ji-woo's relief curdled into dread. Of course there was a catch. The system gave with one hand and threatened with the other. Miss a week, and not only would his debt balloon by fifty million won, he'd lose levels—lose the power that let him survive in the first place.
It was like the loan sharks. Once you were in, you couldn't get out.
His tiny apartment was only a fifteen-minute walk away. Ji-woo kept his head down, avoiding eye contact with the few early morning commuters. Seoul was waking up around him—coffee shops opening, delivery trucks making their rounds, the subway rumbling beneath the streets.
Normal life. Like nothing had changed.
But everything had changed.
Ji-woo climbed the stairs to his fourth-floor apartment—the elevator had been broken for months—and fumbled with his keys. Inside, the studio was exactly as he'd left it: a sleeping mat in the corner, a small desk with his laptop, a kitchenette barely large enough for one person. The walls were thin enough that he could hear his neighbor's TV.
This was what ₩847,000,000 of debt bought you. A box to sleep in.
No. ₩832,000,000 now.
Ji-woo stripped off his ruined uniform and examined himself in the bathroom mirror. Not a scratch. The level-up had healed everything. Even old scars from his warehouse job had faded. He looked healthier than he had in years—the dark circles under his eyes were gone, his skin had color, his muscles seemed more defined.
The system didn't just heal damage. It improved you.
His phone sat on the bathroom counter, the screen still showing his status.
[KIM JI-WOO - LEVEL 2 DEBT REAPER]
[HP: 100/100]
[MP: 50/50]
[STRENGTH: 8]
[AGILITY: 7]
[VITALITY: 10]
[INTELLIGENCE: 12]
[UNALLOCATED STAT POINTS: 5]
Five points to distribute. Each stat presumably did something different. Strength for damage, agility for speed, vitality for health, intelligence for... magic? Did he even have magic?
Ji-woo focused on the MP bar, and information flooded his mind again.
Mana Points. Used for skills. He currently had one skill—Desperate Strike—but the system implied there would be more. And intelligence increased his maximum MP and its regeneration rate.
He needed to think strategically. This wasn't a game where he could respawn if he made a mistake. This was survival.
After several minutes of deliberation, Ji-woo allocated his points: 2 to Vitality, 2 to Agility, 1 to Strength. More health meant more room for error. Agility would help him dodge attacks and react faster. Strength was less important—his knife did the same damage regardless, for now.
[STRENGTH: 9]
[AGILITY: 9]
[VITALITY: 12]
[INTELLIGENCE: 12]
[HP: 120/120]
His health had jumped by twenty points. Not bad.
Ji-woo opened the Shop function next.
[DEBT REAPER SHOP]
[CURRENCY: DEBT REDUCTION VOUCHERS (DRV)]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 0 DRV]
The shop was divided into categories: Weapons, Armor, Consumables, Skills, and a mysterious section labeled "Special." But everything was greyed out.
[TO UNLOCK SHOP FUNCTIONS, CLEAR 5 DUNGEONS]
[CURRENT PROGRESS: 1/5]
Of course. The system wanted him to prove himself first.
He checked the Skills menu.
[AVAILABLE SKILLS]
[DESPERATE STRIKE (ACTIVE) - LEVEL 1]
[COST: 20 MP]
[EFFECT: NEXT ATTACK DEALS 200% DAMAGE]
[DEBT SENSE (PASSIVE) - LEVEL 1]
[EFFECT: DETECT NEARBY DEBTORS AND DUNGEON ENTRANCES]
Debt Sense was new—it must have unlocked when he leveled up. Ji-woo focused on it, and suddenly he could feel things he hadn't noticed before. A faint pulse from the apartment above him—his upstairs neighbor owed money, though not as much as Ji-woo. Another pulse from across the street. Debts lit up in his awareness like dying stars.
And there, about a kilometer to the east, a stronger pulse. Different from the debts. That was a dungeon entrance.
The city was full of them. Dungeons hidden in plain sight, waiting for Debt Reapers to challenge them.
How many other people have been chosen? Ji-woo wondered. How many other people are fighting for their lives in pocket dimensions while the world goes on around them?
His phone buzzed with a new notification.
[LEADERBOARD UNLOCKED]
[GLOBAL RANK: #2,847]
[NATIONAL RANK (SOUTH KOREA): #193]
[DEBT REMAINING: ₩832,000,000]
[LEVEL: 2]
Twenty-eight hundred Debt Reapers worldwide. Nearly two hundred just in South Korea. All of them fighting, killing, surviving to erase their debts one dungeon at a time.
Ji-woo scrolled through the leaderboard. The names were hidden—just ranks and debt amounts. The number one player globally had reduced their debt to ₩23,000,000 from an unknown starting amount. They were level 47.
Forty-seven levels. If each level came from clearing a dungeon, that was forty-seven dungeons survived. How long had the system been running? How long had these people been fighting?
A private message notification appeared.
[PLAYER #193 (SEOUL DISTRICT 7) REQUESTS CHAT]
[ACCEPT?]
Someone was trying to contact him. Another Debt Reaper, based on the designation. Ji-woo hesitated, then accepted.
[PLAYER #193]: saw you just cleared your first dungeon. congratulations on not dying.
[PLAYER #2847]: Who are you?
[PLAYER #193]: call me Reaper 193. been doing this for four months. thought id reach out before you make stupid mistakes and get yourself killed.
[PLAYER #2847]: Why help me?
[PLAYER #193]: because the system gets harder. dungeons scale. and dead reapers cant reduce their debt, which means the system looks for replacements. every reaper that survives means fewer new people dragged into this hell.
[PLAYER #193]: meet me tomorrow night. hangang park, near yeouido bridge. 11pm. ill teach you what i know.
[PLAYER #193]: or dont. your funeral.
The chat closed before Ji-woo could respond.
He stared at his phone, processing. Four months. This Reaper 193 had been fighting for four months. How much debt had they cleared? How many dungeons had they survived?
And why were they willing to help?
Ji-woo's exhaustion finally caught up with him. The adrenaline was gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness that no amount of coffee could fix. He had three hours before his warehouse shift started.
He set an alarm and collapsed onto his sleeping mat.
As sleep claimed him, his last thought was of the number: ₩832,000,000.
Still impossibly high.
But fifteen million lower than yesterday.
For the first time in three years, Kim Ji-woo fell asleep with something resembling hope.
[END OF CHAPTER 3]