72 hours.
550,000 Won...
He laughed.
It wasn't a laugh. It was a short, dry, ugly sound that ripped out of his chest and startled him in the dark, silent room. Laughing? Of course. What else is there to do? The universe doesn't just kick me, it stomps my head into the curb.
Mrs. Ahn. The landlady. He remembered his last conversation with her, just last week. A tired old woman, worry lines etched deep around her eyes.
"Ji-Won-ah," she'd said, her voice thin, "I know you're a good boy. I know about your sister. But I... I can't give you any more time. The bank won't give me any more time."
And I begged her. God, I begged.
"Please, Ajumma," he remembered saying, head bowed. "Just until my Harmony day. Please. I'll get an Echo. I'll take the initial 'Walker' loan and pay you back everything. I promise."
She believed me. She gambled on me. And now... I've failed her.
She wasn't a monster. If she were a monster, it would be easier. But she was just another person being crushed by the System, same as him.
72 hours. Three days.
In three days, I won't just be Echoless. I'll be Echoless and homeless.
And suddenly, it wasn't funny at all.
The first number [2,000,000 Won] collided with the second number [550,000 Won]. Two and a half million won. A mountain of money that seemed as impossible as seeing a dragon fly over Seoul.
And what about Hyun-Soo?
Ice flooded his veins, colder than the floor.
If I'm evicted, where do I go? A shelter? What if Hyun-Soo is discharged? What do I tell her? 'Welcome back, by the way, we live in a cardboard box under Mapo Bridge'?
He hit the power button on his phone. The screen flickered... [Battery: 4%].
Great. Just great. Even my damn phone is giving up.
[4%]. Just like his chances in life.
Ji-Won stood up.
His legs moved on their own. There was no conscious decision. It was just a reaction. To sit in the dark was to die. And now, dying meant Hyun-Soo would die, too. No. Not yet.
I can't give up.
He paced his tiny room like a caged animal. Two steps to the wall. Two steps to the door. He tore open his only closet. A few worn-out clothes. Nothing worth selling. He looked under his folding bed. Dust. And an old shoebox.
He pulled it out.
Inside was his savings. Everything he had in the world. Folded bills, coins. He'd counted it last week.
78,000 Won.
Seventy-eight thousand won. Enough for two weeks of ramyeon. Not enough for anything.
He closed the box.
He stood in the middle of the room, the darkness wrapping around him again.
The rules.
He thought of the word. I've lived my whole life by the rules. Study hard. Be polite. Work hard. Wait for your turn at the Harmony Tower. And the 'System' will take care of you.
They lied.
The System doesn't care. The rules were made to protect people like Park Seon-Jin, with his goddamn golden aura. The rules exist to keep people like me at the bottom, drowning in the mud.
72 hours.
[2,000,000 Won.]
[550,000 Won.]
The numbers were spinning in his head. The rent debt. The hospital debt.
If the rules don't apply to me... then why should I follow them?
He felt something inside him shift. The coldness he'd felt turned into something... solid. Sharp. Like a piece of ice had formed where his heart used to be. The despair was no longer hot and tear-filled. It had become cold. And quiet. And logical.
I can't earn the money. The System won't let me.
...So I have to take it.
No.
No. What am I thinking? Stealing? Am I crazy? I'd be caught in a second. An Echoless robbing a 'Walker'? That's a joke that ends with a funeral.
There has to be... another way.
He suddenly remembered the poster at the convenience store: [Part-timer wanted... Stamina-Echo preferred].
Even the lowest jobs required an Echo.
...Unless...
...Unless it was a job no one advertised.
A job no one talked about in the light of day.
A job for people with nothing left to lose.
He remembered rumors he'd heard in cheap cafes, whispers from older men who'd lost their powers in the 'Rifts.' "Cleaner" jobs. "Salvage" jobs.
'Corpse Hauler.'
The name made him shiver even as he thought it. Going into low-ranked 'Gates' after the official teams were done, to drag out bodies and broken equipment for a few thousand won. An illegal job. A highly dangerous job. Leftover monsters, toxic gases...
...A job that didn't require an Echo.
Because they expected you to die.
72 hours.
It was the only option. It wasn't a choice. It was a sentence.
Ji-Won moved toward the door. He grabbed the cold handle. His phone's dim light illuminated his face for a moment.
There were no tears. There was no fear.
Just hollow, cold eyes, and a man with nothing left to lose.
He opened the door and stepped back out into the dark hallway, into the night that had just swallowed him. But this time, he wasn't walking aimlessly.
He had a destination.
The 'Walker's Association' building. Not the shiny front entrance.
The dark back alleys. Where people like him crawled, looking for work in the shadows