[System Warning: ...Error 404. System Not Found.] [Vault Pressure: 0%.] [Net Worth: ¥0.]
Yuto woke up screaming.
He bolted upright on the cheap mattress, his left hand desperately grabbing his right arm. He expected to feel the agonizing, bone-melting heat of 75,000 Vita-Fragments and a Mythic Chest. He expected his veins to be glowing with radioactive purple light.
His arm was completely normal. It was a little pale, and scarred from years of digital burns, but it wasn't a localized black hole.
Yuto hyperventilated, swiping his hand in the air to pull up his Ledger. Nothing happened. He checked his Stigma. The golden barcode was gone.
"I'm broke," Yuto gasped, his pupils dilating in pure, unadulterated panic. "I'm completely liquidated. Where's the principal? Where's the compound interest?!"
"Yuto! Breathe!"
Rin rushed into the bedroom, holding a spatula. She wasn't pixelating, and she wasn't wearing a tattered hospital gown. She was wearing an oversized apron and looked entirely, wonderfully human. She sat next to him, gently prying his hands away from his arms.
"You're not in the Tower," Rin said softly, her silver eyes warm and grounded. "The Bank is gone. Omni-Corp is bankrupt. You spent the Vault to free everyone, remember?"
Yuto blinked, the memories of the lunar crash rushing back. He looked down at his hands. "I... I spent it. I spent all of it. On purpose."
He looked like a man who had just realized he left the stove on for three years.
"Good morning, Alpha!" Kurenai boomed, ducking her massive Oni horns as she squeezed through the bedroom door. She was wearing a dirt-stained construction hardhat and a high-vis vest over her armor. "You slept for three whole days! I was starting to think you were trying to save calories!"
"Kurenai," Yuto wheezed. "Why are you dressed like a municipal contractor?"
"Because the physical world is amazing!" the Oni laughed, tossing a heavy canvas bag onto Yuto's lap. It jingled with a heavy, metallic sound. "I got a job at the Sector 4 scrapyard! They pay me in these little metal circles and paper rectangles! I crushed four minivans into cubes with my bare hands and the foreman gave me a bonus!"
Yuto opened the bag. It was full of physical, real-world yen.
"Filthy fiat currency," Shion scoffed, floating into the room. The succubus was wearing a pair of blue-light blocking glasses and aggressively tapping on a salvaged smartphone. "It's not backed by anything, Master! I'm currently on the real-world internet trying to start a decentralized crypto-token based on pictures of Ayase's sword, but the latency is atrocious!"
"Shion, please stop trying to reinvent the economy," Isabella sighed, walking in with two steaming bowls of white rice. The gladiator had traded her Colosseum armor for a comfortable, slightly too-large sweater. "If you mint another currency, Yuto is going to have a panic attack."
Yuto stared at the bag of physical coins. He didn't feel the crushing weight of universal debt. He didn't feel the predatory gaze of the Babel System tracking his every breath. He just felt... hungry.
"Get dressed, Alpha," Ayase said, appearing silently in the doorway, her katana sheathed at her hip. "Today, we face the ultimate trial of the physical realm. The Rite of Sustenance."
"We're going to the grocery store," Rin translated with a smile.