The sky over Seoul didn't turn red when the world ended. It didn't turn black or fill with the fire of descending angels.
It turned a sterile, boardroom white.
It was the color of a blank spreadsheet, a blindingly bright void that made your eyes ache if you looked at it for more than a second. And right there, etched into the atmosphere in font that looked like it belonged on a corporate contract, was the Ticker.
[Total Global Equity: 0.00012%]
[Warning: Margin Call Imminent. Initiating Asset Recovery...]
I stood on the roof of a half-collapsed apartment building in Mullae-dong, the wind whipping the smell of ozone and burning plastic into my lungs. Below me, the city was a graveyard of numbers. Every person screaming in the streets had a glowing value floating over their heads.
A businessman in a tailored suit: $840,000.
A student clutching a backpack: $12,400.
A stray dog limping through the glass: $14.
The "Debt Collectors" were already among them. They weren't demons with pitchforks; they were twelve-foot-tall entities of polished chrome and geometric light. They looked like statues designed by a minimalist god. They moved with a silent, terrifying grace, their hands—long, spindly fingers of liquid mercury—reaching out to touch the "Assets."
When a Collector touched you, you didn't bleed. You didn't even scream for long. You simply... subtracted.
I watched a mother huddle over her toddler in the alleyway below. The child was glowing with a soft, blue light—a 'High-Growth Potential' tag. The mother was worth almost nothing, her value depleted by years of labor and a failing heart.
The Collector didn't even look at the mother. It swiped a finger through the air, and the child vanished into a burst of golden data-pixels. The mother reached for the empty air, her mouth open in a silent, jagged cry, before the Collector stepped on her chest.
Not because it hated her. But because she was "Liquidity" now. A nuisance in the ledger.
I took a final drag of my cigarette, the tobacco tasting like ash and chemicals. My lungs burned. It was a good feeling. It was the only thing I had left that felt real.
I looked up at my own reflection in the cracked glass of a solar panel.
Over my head, the box was gray. Not blue, not gold, not even the sickly red of a 'Deficit' asset. Just a flat, dull gray that seemed to absorb the white light of the sky.
[Name: Han Seo-jin]
[Status: Non-Asset / Error]
[Value: 0.00]
"Ten years," I whispered, the smoke curling around my face. "Ten years of being the ghost in your machine. And you still can't find a price for me, can you?"
The World Market had appeared in 2022. It had promised a meritocracy—a world where your worth was finally, objectively measured. The "Sovereigns," the cosmic entities who ran the Market, said it would bring order to the chaos of human greed.
Instead, it turned the planet into a slaughterhouse.
If you were born with a 'Unique' talent, you were a Blue Chip. You got the skills, the items, the immortality. If you were born 'Common,' you were just fuel. You worked until your Value dropped below the cost of your maintenance, and then you were liquidated.
I was the only one who didn't fit the math.
The Collectors ignored me. One of them stepped onto the roof, its chrome feet crushing the concrete inches from my boots. Its sensor-eyes—two horizontal lines of white light—passed right over me. To its programming, I was the same as a pile of rubble or a gust of wind.
I wasn't a person. I wasn't even a number. I was Zero.
I dropped the cigarette and crushed it under my heel. "Time to close the account."
I didn't run. I walked.
I walked through the ruins of Seoul, passing through the legs of the Collectors, weaving through the screaming crowds of 'Assets' who were being harvested like wheat. I walked toward the center of the city, where the Gwanghwamun Plaza had been replaced by a structure that defied physics.
The "Central Terminal."
It was a black monolith that stretched into the white sky, its surface flowing like ink. It was the heart of the System, the localized node that managed the Earth's "portfolio."
The security drones—spheres of obsidian that fired beams of concentrated "Devaluation" energy—swarmed the air around the Terminal. They were vaporizing S-Rank heroes who were trying to make a final stand. The 'Heavens' Gate' guild, the strongest group in Korea, was being erased in seconds. Their golden armor and legendary swords meant nothing against a drone that could simply change the 'Value' of their atoms to zero.
I walked right past the drones.
One of them hovered three inches from my face, its red sensor-eye whirring as it tried to identify me.
[Scanning...]
[Result: Null.]
[Action: Ignore.]
I climbed the steps of the Terminal. The air here was so cold it turned my breath into shards of ice. The weight of the System's presence was like a physical hand pressing down on my skull, trying to force me to my knees.
In the center of the monolith was a single interface. A screen of light that showed the global countdown.
[Time Until Total Liquidation: 00:04:12]
I placed my hand on the screen.
In the future, they would tell stories of the heroes who fought the System. They would sing of the Kings who died with their swords in their hands. They wouldn't sing about me. I wasn't a hero. I was a man who had spent ten years in the dark, watching the math, learning the logic of a God who thought in percentages.
[Unauthorized Access.]
[Attempting to Identify User...]
"Don't bother," I said, my voice cracking. "You've been trying to value me for a decade. You can't. You can't calculate a soul that doesn't want anything from you."
I reached into the "Logical Core" of the terminal. It wasn't a physical act; it was a mental one. I took every memory of my mother dying in a hospital bed because her 'Insurance Value' was too low. I took every moment of hunger, every indignity of being 'Zero.'
And I forced it into the equation.
If the System was a perfect machine, then I was the sand in the gears.
"If you want to liquidate everything," I growled, "then let's see how you handle a Division by Zero."
The Terminal shuddered.
The black ink of its surface began to boil. The white sky above Seoul fractured, long cracks of purple and gold spreading like a broken windshield.
[CRITICAL LOGIC ERROR]
[Denominator: 0.00]
[Result: Infinity / Undefined]
[Safety Protocols: FAILED]
The screaming of the people in the streets was replaced by a different sound. The sound of the universe's source code tearing itself apart. It was a high-pitched, digital shriek that made my ears bleed.
[Initiating Emergency Rollback...]
[Attempting to Restore Previous Version...]
"Oh, no you don't," I whispered, my vision starting to fade as my body began to dissolve into gray pixels. "Don't just go back. Go all the way back."
I grabbed the 'Time-Stamp' of the system—the moment it first connected to Earth.
[May 14th, 2022]
I didn't want to save the world. I wasn't that delusional. I just wanted a chance to be the one holding the ledger.
The white sky turned black. The coldness of the Terminal was replaced by a sudden, crushing heat. My consciousness was stretched across a decade of pain, pulled thin like a wire until it finally snapped.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of a leaky faucet.
The smell of moldy wallpaper and cheap, spicy ramen that had been sitting out too long.
I opened my eyes.
I was staring at a ceiling fan that was wobbling dangerously, its blades covered in a thick layer of dust. I was lying on a mattress that felt like it was stuffed with rocks.
I sat up, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard it felt like it might bruise them. I looked at my hands. They were thin, calloused, but they were there. They weren't dissolving into pixels.
I reached for my phone—an old model with a cracked screen—and checked the date.
[May 14, 2022]
[09:42 AM]
I let out a breath I'd been holding for ten years.
I stood up and walked to the small, grimy mirror over the sink. I looked like a mess. Dark circles under my eyes, hair that hadn't seen a barber in months, and a tattered hoodie that had more holes than fabric.
I looked up, just above the crown of my head.
The gray box was there. It was waiting for me.
[Name: Han Seo-jin]
[Value: 0.00]
Outside, the first chime of the Market began to ring. It was a sound that only I could hear—the sound of the world's soul being appraised.
In eighteen minutes, the "Great Valuation" would begin. Millions of people would be given their ranks. The Kings would rise, and the Slaves would be marked.
I walked over to the stack of unpaid bills on my desk and picked up a pen. On the back of an eviction notice, I wrote three names.
Kang Min-ho. (The King of Interest)
Park Hae-in. (The Saint of Debt)
The First Dividend.
I looked at my reflection one last time. In the old timeline, I had survived by being invisible. I had been the bug in the system that they couldn't squash.
This time, I wasn't going to be a bug.
I was going to be the Market Crash.
"09:43," I muttered, grabbing my keys. "I'm already late for the opening bell."
I stepped out of my basement apartment, the humid Seoul air hitting my face like a physical weight. The world looked normal. People were waiting for the bus. A delivery driver was zooming past on a scooter. They had no idea that their lives were about to become numbers.
I started to run.
The Zero was back on the board, and this time, I wasn't selling. I was buying everything.
[System Note: First-Time User Detected.]
[Applying Tutorial...]
[Error: User already has 'Sovereign' authorization level.]
[Bypassing Tutorial.]
[Good Luck, Investor #000.]