Chapter 1
#001
1.
Taking risks is important.
If Adam and Eve hadn't taken the risk of stealing the fruit of knowledge.
This world would have been a goddamn boring Garden of Eden, with none of the sweet thrills of porn, gambling, or power trips.
-Pyoong pyo-pyo-pyoong
The night view blurred in the rain.
I leaned my back against the fall-prevention fence, one leg hooked over the railing.
I alternated between cigarettes and straight soju, tapping away at my smartphone.
[Commander! This one definitely feels good! Should I go for an 11-pull summon?]
My last paid currency vanished frighteningly with every tap.
[I, I am loyal! Reporting in. Griffin Battalion 4, attached to... ]
[Did you call for me? Ufufufu]
[Boss! You're late, aren't you? I'm here now!]
What I got for that money was all rare, rare, normal, rare, and an unwanted super rare.
A bundled trash item that only made me irritated and furious.
Even so, my thumb, by pure inertia, pressed the 11-pull summon button, praying for hope amid this chain of despair.
The diabolical gacha model, created after experts from every field put their heads together in a high-level conference to ask, 'How do we turn users into debt-ridden deadbeats and ruin their lives?'...
Because it mechanically exploits even the user's rage and despair.
How much currency did I burn through?
[Thump! Thump! Big chance!]
On the final 11-pull, the screen flashed rainbow-colored along with the effect.
The effect shown only when an SSR is guaranteed.
"Did I actually get it this time?"
Three seconds.
A time that wasn't particularly long, yet felt absurdly long, passed.
[I-I didn't come here because I like you, master or anything?]
A tsundere maid voice, performed by a famous Japanese voice actress, rang out.
The character's Live2D illustration, boasting a monstrous 0.002% pickup rate, filled the screen.
"There you are. About time you finally dropped."
This is it.
A riot of rainbow-hued current and chemical signals coursed through my brain.
The light of my life, the flame of my existence, my sin, my dopamine.
Honestly.
I honestly had no idea what this busty maid character's lore was or how good her stats were.
As always, it was the resonance of the soul you only feel after breaking through a wall of impossible odds.
This was what I wanted.
For a moment, I was soaked in pleasure that made my brain tremble.
"Ha."
A bitter laugh escaped me for some reason.
What the hell was I even doing in the middle of all this...
It wasn't because I was being contrary or anything. I had miserably climbed over the rooftop fence in the rain for one reason only.
To kill myself.
A guy who's about to die cackling over a gacha win looks pathetic even to me.
When I turned off the game, the noisy, raucous BGM went off with it.
-Ding ding
Instead, reality turned on.
[Unread messages 99+]
Irritable vibrations and notifications lined up across the top of the screen.
It was the reality I'd been ignoring.
[CowCow Financial] Mr. Kim Jeonghwan, your repayment due on August 24 is overdue.
[Quick Money] Mr. Kim Jeonghwan, if you don't deposit by today, we're filing a provisional seizure immediately. This is no joke.
[Blocked Number] You son of a bitch, Kim Jeonghwan, answer the phone. You said you'd repay it after winning? You really want to die?
[Quick Cash Capital] If you keep stalling like this, we'll come to your workplace. We'll have no choice but to contact your parents too.
What time do they think it is, hounding me about debt?
Loan sharks act like they're above the law.
"Well, sorry about that."
I threw the phone that had been ringing obnoxiously.
A while later, the smartphone shattered with a loud crash, as if shouting, 'You bastard, master! I'll definitely get revenge!'
I hope it doesn't resent me too much.
Your master will be joining you soon enough.
"..."
How did it come to this?
Where did things go wrong?
When I got sick of casinos, junket rooms, pachinko, and illegal gambling dens and turned to coin futures?
When I made a fortune of 80 billion won from those coins?
When the perfect short setup I had analyzed with cold logic turned into a grave plot with a single tweet from the American president?
When I went all-in on that pre-dug grave and, not content with that, even took out a full loan to make up for the seed money I had blown?
No.
'Mr. Jeonghwan... your problem isn't just gambling addiction.'
'Gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, gacha games, extreme sports, even investing in women... the forms differ, but the essence is the same.'
'Your brain's reward circuitry is broken. It's been overly conditioned to dopamine as a reward signal.'
'As a result, you have an attention deficit for anything outside your interests, along with impulse-control disorder and all kinds of addictions. Ordinary stimuli won't satisfy you, so you keep looking for new ones.'
'Simply put, it's a state almost identical to a drug addict's brain.'
'You're already at a point where you can't stop on your own. Inpatient treatment is urgent.'
'...So you're saying I should do drugs? Are you insane?'
I had dismissed it as the sales pitch of some quack from a provincial medical school...
And in the end, this is what I got.
"Heave-ho."
I stopped my pathetic regret and stood up.
The rooftop of a high-rise building gets blasted by fierce winds.
I only glanced down for a moment, but the dizzying bird's-eye view made me lightheaded.
This is goddamn high.
At this height, I'd be too mangled for creditors to come pay a hospital visit.
With only a few steps left until the long-awaited escape from debtor life.
-Ding
Another notification rang out.
"Fuck."
A reminder text right at the very end?
I did have a conscience, so at first I wasn't completely without guilt...
But after being tormented for about three months by that relentless, motherless harassment, curses just came out on their own.
"...?"
Come to think of it, hadn't I thrown my smartphone earlier?
There was no way I should be hearing notifications.
"What is this?"
When I looked straight ahead in confusion, over a translucent window in front of my eyes...
[ 1. Leap down with all your might ]
[ 2. Jump into that square box over there ]
Golden letters were sparkling.
As if I were choosing a game option.
"What the hell is this?"
Did I pound down too much soju on an empty stomach?
Or, with death drawing near, were random thoughts not enough and now I was seeing hallucinations too?
But even after rubbing my eyes and shaking my head hard...
The options stayed fixed at the center, floating there as if begging me to choose them.
"...Into the square box?"
-Whoooooosh!
"No, where's a square box even..."
I poked my head out through the wailing blade-like wind and looked down.
"...There is one."
More precisely, the ground far, far below. A single vacant parking space.
It was far enough that I couldn't just jump; I'd have to leap down like a vault just to land there.
"What a fucked-up preview of my life flashing before my eyes."
I stopped thinking about it seriously.
Is suicide a joke to you?
"..."
But suddenly.
A line I'd seen in a book came to mind.
Doesn't everyone confront their true nature at the final moment of life?
My nature.
A moth-like life, from the moment I was born, bewitched by primal desire and fleeting stimulation.
Even if I knew it was meaningless.
A life that flew toward ruin, bewitched by an ecstatic light.
"Ha..."
It looks like that doctor's words were right after all.
"I'm going to fall anyway, so should I grab some extra points before I go?"
I brushed off my trouser legs.
The 'throw' in investment is the 'throw' in tossing.
An investor who fails at investing and ends his life with a vigorous leap to his death might be a fitting ring composition.
"Fine, I'll try getting inside the square once."
When I chose an option, golden particles scattered and the window vanished.
Since it had come to this anyway.
Let's make it art to the very end.
You know wingsuit jumps, right?
I would show them a perfect jump that might earn me 100 missed calls from Red Bull.
In the silence, where even the sound of rain had vanished...
I inhaled, gauged the distance to the parking space, and made a leap of faith.
"Aaaagh!!!!!"
Floating, freedom, falling.
The place to plant my feet vanished, and the wind brushed past my ears at terrifying speed.
It felt less like air and more like slicing through successive thin membranes.
I'm falling longer than I expected?
No. The ground is rushing closer at an insane speed.
The beautiful clusters of city lights were being sucked into my dilated pupils.
Ah, it feels like I'm being swallowed.
I'm scared.
It's scarier than I imagined.
Still.
To get a wingsuit license, you need 200 skydives.
Which means I've enjoyed freefall plenty of times.
I think I can make it into the square box.
-Crack
With a loud impact, a shock more intense than anything I'd felt in my life engulfed my entire body.
"Ah... ugh... aah..."
It hurts.
It hurts.
I could only see half my field of vision, but I could tell instinctively that my body was wrong.
It's that kind of pain.
"Guh..."
And this isn't instant death?
It's the 52nd floor—does that even make sense?
When I turned my barely functioning eyes, I saw a shattered half of the smartphone.
I writhed in pain, twitching like an insect.
It feels like time has stopped.
When will I die?
Even though every fluid in my body is leaking out in real time...
I'm alive.
My heart is beating.
As if it wants to live.
As if it doesn't want to die.
"Gh... ghaa..."
My past life, kneaded together with every kind of stimulation and pleasure.
I had never regretted it until now.
I was born that way, and I lived that way.
I had answered in my heart that it was fine even if the end was self-destruction.
And yet.
So this is why they tortured prisoners in the Middle Ages.
Rolling around in this fucked-up pain, I could feel a desire to repent creeping up on me.
If there is a next life...
Gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.
Let's not touch any of it and live as a wholesome Christian according to God's word.
Or, as Buddha taught, since suffering comes from desire, let's shed it and enter nirvana.
With that resolve.
Death swallowed my consciousness like a black sea.
======
『 ED 0. The Crossroads of Choice 』
What do you desire?
A mental image is the eye with which one sees the world, the apex of aesthetics or of ruthless obstinacy.
Waxen wings headed toward the sun.
You have proven your qualifications through a 'special choice.'
<Run Summary>
▶ Achievement : 「0th Death」 achieved
- ■■■■(LV.0) is activated.
- Your 'understanding' of death increases slightly.
- 50pt are awarded.
▶ Title : 「Pleasure Seeker」 acquired
- 'Self-control' decreases.
- 'Luck' increases slightly.
- 10pt are awarded.
May you arrive at transcendence at the end of arrogance and folly.
======
I heard laughter.
2.
Count Montlaven, a middle-aged man dressed in fine formalwear, sat with his chin in his hand, lost in thought.
The House of Montlaven bears a grave responsibility.
Their duty is to manage the water supply for Aden, the cradle of humanity and ark city standing against the apocalypse.
Compared to other key posts, the task of inspecting water treatment facilities and supply equipment was a rather unglamorous one...
Still, it was an important role all the same.
Humans die without water.
Even if it was a dead-end post unbefitting the title of 'count,' Count Montlaven remained true to his convictions and performed his duties.
He was an excellent head of the family, and a father with a clever son and a sharp-witted daughter.
That is, until just a month ago.
"Where did Cedric go?"
"Young master appears to have gone to the casino again today."
"He went there again? Without even saying hello before leaving?"
"He left early this morning. He'll probably return at dawn tomorrow."
The old head butler and the count shared a sympathetic sigh.
A month ago.
Cedric, their son, who had lost consciousness for three years due to some accident, woke from his coma.
It had been a miracle that occurred when even the famed high priest of the Holy See shook his head and no improvement came despite pouring out Manneunghwa like water...
"You're awake, my son!"
"Who are you?"
Their reunion was the worst.
Cedric, who got up from his sickbed, did not have all his memories intact.
What's more, as soon as he woke up, he started looking for alcohol and cigarettes, roamed the red-light district, and squandered the family fortune.
Now he'd completely fallen into gambling.
The count understood that indulgence.
It was enough that he had come back alive.
Since he had returned after having one foot on the threshold of death, the count thought of it as a brief drift formed in reaction to the ordeal.
He believed that, as Cedric's memories gradually recovered, he would return to being his old self.
But even firm trust in one's son has its limit.
"My lord, isn't it about time to admonish the young master? He already squandered 50 million Bios in just a month."
"F-Fifty million? I never gave him that much money..."
"It seems he sold the treasured items taken from your private vault and handed the whole lot over to the casino...."
"Fuck."
Count Montlaven clutched his head.
How had his son, who had lacked talent but been dutiful, become such a notorious rake?
He hadn't expected him to follow the path of magic like his sister, but he at least hadn't wanted to hear that he was smearing the family's name.
"This may be presumptuous of me, but... may I make a suggestion?"
"A suggestion?"
"The young master changed after suffering that major accident... so if he suffers another major accident, wouldn't he return to normal?"
"...?"
The head butler, who managed the family's finances, had a grim look in his eyes.
It doesn't sound like a joke.
"I will take drastic measures."
The count made up his mind.