Winter. Age 23.
My military service had finally come to an end.
"Honor and nation! Corporal Eren Li, formally discharged!"
My voice rang out in the frosted silence of the office, sharp and rehearsed—but inside, it felt surreal.
A few officers followed me out to the checkpoint. One clapped my shoulder.
"You did good, Li. Don't let the world out there wear you down."
I smiled faintly. "Thanks."
But inside, I was thinking: Too late. The world already did.
The ride back home was uneventful. A cold, shaking bus. Sleepless passengers. Faded cities outside the window.
Home was now a half-buried shoebox of a room in the city's old quarter—damp, claustrophobic, and almost forgotten by the sun. Rent was low for a reason. Mold coated the window frame, and the walls sweated even in winter.
On the foldable kitchen table sat a small meal, some wrinkled banknotes, a prepaid phone, and a note written in hurried pen.
"Welcome home, Eren.
I'm working a shift—didn't want to miss rent.
Left some food and a bit of cash.
Let's talk tonight.
—Mom"
I chewed through cold rice and soup, alone on the dusty floor, wondering when life had started feeling like a bad play.
Flashback. Before Everything Crashed.
We once lived in a proper house. Two stories, decent yard, a car that never stalled. Sunday family dinners were a thing. My father, Daen Li, ran a small factory he built from scratch. Nothing flashy, but it paid the bills.
I went to a good business school. The plan was to learn, graduate, and take the reins.
Then the contracts vanished. Our biggest client pulled out overnight. The factory teetered. Dad scrambled to save it. Worked nights. Lost sleep. Lost weight.
And then—he collapsed. Cerebral bleed. Never woke up.
The bankruptcy took the house, the car, and the rest of our old life.
College became a memory. With nothing to fund it, I enlisted. The military would feed me. Shelter me. Give me structure when life was chaos.
Now I was free—but I'd never felt more lost.
That room was colder than barracks. Smaller too. After removing the junk, there was barely enough space to stretch.
I checked my phone. Missed calls. Dozens. All from the same number.
Taejin Rowe. My oldest friend.
We hadn't spoken in a while, but we used to be inseparable. His parents worked night shifts, so he was basically family growing up.
I hit redial.
"Yo, Taejin. What's up?"
"You finally picked up! Discharged today?"
"Yeah."
"Bro. You sitting down? This is wild."
"Wild how?"
"Remember ByteReserve?"
Flashback. ByteReserve Coin.
In middle school, Taejin sold all his in-game stuff for a niche cryptocurrency called ByteReserve Coin—or BRC. At the time, it was basically digital trash. Ten thousand units got you a used controller at best.
He forgot about it until high school, when the price spiked.
Suddenly, his trash coins were worth millions of won. But in classic Taejin fashion, he had lost access to the wallet. No password. No recovery key. It was like forgetting the PIN to a safe full of gold.
He spent a week grieving like someone had died.
"You didn't…" I whispered.
"I found the recovery drive. It was behind a drawer, jammed between my old games."
"Seriously?"
"No joke. I plugged it in. The wallet's still there. Fully intact."
"What's the market price?"
"Last check? 1.1 million won per BRC."
"…You had 11,000, right?"
"That's… over 12 billion won."
The room swayed for a second.
And then, it happened.
A faint shimmer—like a mirage—flickered in front of me. Floating text, crystal-clear.
[Pinnacle Vault: Bankruptcy Notice — 03:25 AM]
"What the…"
I blinked. It was gone.
"Hey," I snapped. "Which exchange did you say the coins are on?"
"Uh… Pinnacle Vault. Why?"
My chest tightened.
"SELL. RIGHT NOW."