The Weight of Gold
I got dressed and trudged down the mountain.
After I "caressed" a few of them, the organ harvesters quickly gave up and fled in a panic.
I wanted to chase them down and interrogate them for drugging me, but the anesthesia was still holding my body hostage.
The only van they had was already gone, carrying the fleeing harvesters away.
Waiting there for the police or an ambulance was out of the question; an investigation might reveal that I wasn't a registered resident of this world. I had no choice but to make my way down the mountain alone.
“The life of an illegal immigrant is truly exhausting,” I muttered.
It took me several hours of walking just to reach the base of the mountain.
Suddenly, next to a bus stop ahead, a small kiosk that looked just like the convenience stalls at Seoul Station caught my eye.
“What's that?”
> It's a lottery kiosk.
“A lottery?”
> It's a form of gambling where money is awarded through a random drawing.
I approached the kiosk.
It was 1,000 won per game.
The current accumulated jackpot had reached billions of won.
Coincidentally, I had exactly 2,000 won in my pocket.
> Are you going to try it?
“There's something I want to test.”
I pulled out the Ring of Strong Luck I had taken from Kang Sihyeon's house and slipped it onto my finger.
Item Grade: A
After enduring 100 instances of misfortune, it grants a stroke of good luck massive enough to reverse them all.
> 'A stroke of good luck massive enough to reverse 100 instances of misfortune...' You would have to buy it 100 times. That would only cost 100,000 won.
I handed over my 2,000 won and bought two games.
A moment later, the bus arrived in front of me.
“The Internet world is a terrifying place too...”
At the end of that very week, which had started with the failure of my first part-time job...
I won the first-place jackpot.
“Mmmgh...”
The Sprout guild office was enveloped in a heavy, contemplative silence.
Guild Leader Yoo Hyeyeon, Kang Yeolchan, and Daenyang-i sat around the table, each occupying a corner with deeply furrowed brows.
With their arms crossed, they stared at the small slip of paper resting in the center of the table as if it were a live bomb.
A red lottery ticket.
The very ticket that had won me the first-place jackpot.
Daenyang-i spoke up.
“I've never seen one in person. So people actually do win first place...”
“You said it was the Ring of Strong Luck, right? May I see it?” Yoo Hyeyeon asked.
I took off the ring and handed it to her.
Item Grade: A
After enduring 100 instances of misfortune, it grants a stroke of good luck massive enough to reverse them all.
“And you said you won first place almost immediately after putting it on?”
“Yes.”
“I think there are two ways to interpret this,” Yoo Hyeyeon said, her soft cheek dimpling slightly under the pressure of her finger as she spoke.
“First, the simplest explanation: the original owner, Kang Sihyeon, had already suffered through one hundred misfortunes and stored the ring away. He probably intended to use it when he desperately needed a stroke of good luck. And Juhyeok-ssi happened to trigger that luck this time.”
“But there's another interpretation. Winning first place is the misfortune. It could just be the first step leading to an even greater disaster... And that's exactly what we're worried about.”
“To claim a first-place lottery prize, you have to go to the bank and open an account.”
Kang Yeolchan chimed in, building on Yoo Hyeyeon's point.
“You can open an account as long as you have an ID. But as you know, we aren't residents of the Internet, so we don't have official family registries in this world. Instead, we carry forged identification.”
Yeolchan pulled out his wallet and showed us his ID card.
The photo was indeed Yeolchan's, but the name was completely different. The birth year was listed as 1988—which made me wonder, just how old was he supposed to be in this world?
“If winning the lottery is part of the misfortune, the forged ID might be exposed while opening the account, leading to an arrest. If that happens, there's a non-zero chance that F might intervene...”
“Why don't we just ask Player Kang Sihyeon?” Daenyang-i suggested. “We can ask if the Ring of Strong Luck he gave Juhyeok-ssi had already accumulated those one hundred misfortunes. Wouldn't that solve the mystery?”
It was a remarkably simple and effective solution.
However, Yoo Hyeyeon shook her head.
“We can't contact Player Kang Sihyeon anymore. He's gone missing.”
Missing.
I recalled the middle-aged man who had bought me meat.
A man who had married a virtual wife—a resident of the Internet—and could now never be seen again.
The letter he had asked me to deliver was filled with his final goodbyes to her.
“It's already hard enough to track down someone in Maetan who doesn't have a neck-hub... but he's nowhere to be found. Either he left Maetan, or...”
Yoo Hyeyeon trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.
As citizens and employees of Maetan, we were required to log into Intra-Maetan every single day, excluding holidays, to clock in.
A single unexcused absence would result in disciplinary action, and repeated offenses meant being fired from Maetan. Your employee ID number would simply cease to exist.
So, what happened to Maetan employees whose neck-hubs were extracted?
The corporate enclave of Maetan didn't fire them immediately just because their neck-hubs had been ripped out.
For a few days, they could go on living a life similar to before.
However, without their neck-hubs, they couldn't log into Intra-Maetan to clock in. Consequently, they were marked as absent without leave.
Only then would Maetan fire them—not because their neck-hubs had been extracted, but officially due to "unexcused absences."
It was a cold, bureaucratic loophole.
Once fired, they lost their company housing, and Maetan confiscated all of their virtual assets stored within Intra-Maetan.
And what became of a person who was fired from Maetan and left without a neck-hub?
No one knew.
No one knew what kind of life they lived afterward, or if they even chose to keep living at all.
Still, there were those like Han Deungki, the man who had helped me find my current apartment, who managed to carve out a living even after having their neck-hubs extracted.
“S-Should we... go try to claim it first?” Yoo Hyeyeon picked up the lottery ticket with trembling hands.
“Mom?”
“We can wait outside... and if things start looking suspicious, we'll grab Juhyeok-ssi and run. It would be a shame to lose the jackpot, but as long as we escape before F shows up... and if all goes well, we might actually get the money...”
“That's a good plan. This sum is far too attractive to give up just out of caution,” Daenyang-i agreed.
The first-place prize was 2.2 billion won.
“…Let's go.”
“I'm here to claim a lottery prize.”
Nonghyup Bank Headquarters.
I walked up to the reception desk in the lobby and stated my business.
“Our lucky customer! Congratulations! Please head up to the third floor!” the female receptionist said with a bright, beaming smile.
“…Let's go,” Yoo Hyeyeon whispered, her arm tightly linked with mine.
She practically dragged me toward the elevators.
“Congratulations, sir.”
A security guard stationed on the first floor pressed the elevator button for us.
I gave a polite nod. Guild Leader Yoo Hyeyeon remained completely stiff, her grip on my arm tightening.
The moment the elevator doors closed, I spoke up.
“Guild Leader, you're hurting my arm.”
“Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry! I'm just so nervous...”
Yoo Hyeyeon slightly loosened her grip.
It was rare to see her this tense.
Even when facing a multi-legged tank, she hadn't frozen up like this.
“It's my first time coming to Nonghyup to claim a lottery jackpot... I mean, obviously I'm not the one who won, but since you're a member of our guild, it feels like a victory for all of us...”
She was genuinely overwhelmed by the sheer reality of stepping into the bank headquarters to claim a lottery prize.
Just before the elevator reached the third floor, she whispered,
“If anything goes wrong, I'll smash through the wall and we'll make a run for it. Don't worry.”
She was speaking to me, but it sounded more like she was reassuring herself.
As the elevator doors slid open, a bank employee was already waiting for us.
We followed the employee down a narrow corridor and were guided into a private waiting room.
The room contained a small sofa and a low coffee table, which was littered with brochures for various investment products offered by the bank.
Sitting beside me, Yoo Hyeyeon began flipping through the brochures with an incredibly solemn expression.
A moment later, a staff member from the inner office called my name.
I locked eyes with Yoo Hyeyeon.
She gave a firm nod and squeezed my arm.
“Congratulations! You seem remarkably calm,” the employee remarked.
“It doesn't feel like my money yet.”
“Many winners say the exact same thing. They worry about all sorts of things—whether there's a mistake, if the ticket got damaged... They only truly relax once they see the balance in their bank account.”
Explaining that we needed to set up an account, the employee took my ID and the winning ticket.
The ID was a fresh forgery created specifically for today. Yoo Hyeyeon had assured me they used the registry of the cleanest, most untraceable person they could find.
The employee smoothly transitioned into pitching various investment opportunities.
I waved my hand and quietly shook my head. It was time to deliver my rehearsed line.
“I have to pay off my debts first.”
The employee handed over a few pamphlets but stopped pushing.
I signed the documents the employee placed in front of me. I almost wrote my real name by mistake once or twice, but each time, Yoo Hyeyeon gave my arm a sharp, warning squeeze.
“Please wait just a moment.”
The employee left the room, leaving Yoo Hyeyeon and me alone.
“My mouth is completely dry...” Yoo Hyeyeon was actually breaking out in a cold sweat. “Juhyeok-ssi, aren't you nervous at all?”
“I am nervous.”
“I feel like I'm going to die... Whew, if I'm this anxious over someone else winning, I'd probably have a literal heart attack if it were me.”
Yoo Hyeyeon stood up and inspected the wall next to the window.
She was measuring its structural strength, preparing to break through it if we needed to escape.
It was a fairly thick wall, but with a few punches enhanced by Strong Arm, she could easily blast a path out.
A moment later, the sound of footsteps stopped right outside the door.
Yoo Hyeyeon scrambled back to her seat next to me.
The door opened, and the beaming employee walked in carrying a tray with a bankbook and my ID.
Yoo Hyeyeon's grip on my arm tightened even further.
Crack. Ah, I think my bone is about to snap.
“Congratulations. Here is your first-place prize of 2,384,803,112 won, after taxes.”
The employee opened the first page of the bankbook to show me.
The funds had been successfully deposited. Perhaps infected by Yoo Hyeyeon's anxiety, my own heart began to race.
I asked the employee,
“Is everything complete?”
“If you'd like, we can arrange an investment consultation.”
“No, thank you.”
I stood up. If we didn't leave soon, Yoo Hyeyeon was actually going to break my arm.
We took the elevator back down to the first floor.
I braced myself, half-expecting a swarm of police officers, but there was only the same security guard who had helped us earlier.
The guard and the receptionist bowed politely, offering their congratulations once more.
And just like that, Yoo Hyeyeon and I walked out of the bank.
“…Thank goodness nothing went wrong.”
“Dae-nyang-ssi! Over here!”
Yoo Hyeyeon waved as she stepped toward the street, and an SUV parked across the road made a U-turn and pulled up in front of us.
Dae-nyang-ssi was in the driver's seat, and Kang Yeolchan was in the back. Both of them stared at me with sparkling eyes.
“We got it.”
“Whoa!”
“Get in, quick. Let's get out of here first...” Yoo Hyeyeon hurriedly climbed into the passenger seat.
Dae-nyang spoke up.
“Guild Leader, you can relax now. If they were going to catch us, they would have done it inside. Why would they wait until now...”
“Just go! Step on it! Get us out of here, fast!!”
Dae-nyang stepped on the gas, and the SUV accelerated smoothly.
Kang Yeolchan opened the bankbook and gasped.
“I've never seen this much money in my life.”
Neither had I.
We returned to the Sprout guild office.
The moment we stepped through the door of the fourth-floor office, Yoo Hyeyeon finally let her shoulders drop and exhaled a long sigh of relief.
“…Congratulations, Juhyeok-ssi! You're a rich man now!”
“Congratulations!”
“Congrats.”
I scratched my head in embarrassment.
Yoo Hyeyeon, her previous anxiety completely vanishing, asked in high spirits,
“Juhyeok-ssi! It's 2.3 billion won! 2.3 billion! Oh my goodness... what are you going to do with it?”
“I haven't thought about it yet.”
“Whatever you do, don't invest in stocks.”
“Honestly, there's no need to spend 2.3 billion won all at once. All we really need is transit fare and a few entry fees... If you want to experience a virtual reality that's on a completely different level from Intra-Maetan, you could use that money to travel around and enjoy yourself.”
Yoo Hyeyeon spoke with genuine excitement, as if she were the one who had won.
I stared quietly at the numbers stamped in the bankbook.
I should have been ecstatic, but a bitter taste lingered on the tip of my tongue.
Noticing my expression, Kang Yeolchan asked,
“Hyeong-nim, what's wrong?”
“Nothing... It's just, looking at these numbers reminds me of my house back in Maetan that got blown away...”
“Ah...”
The atmosphere in the room instantly turned solemn.
Not long ago, the reconstruction estimate had been finalized and delivered to me.
1.7 billion points.
It was an astronomical debt I could never hope to pay off, even if I worked in Maetan for the rest of my life.
“If only this money could pay off my debt in Maetan...”
A single tear silently rolled down my cheek before I even realized it.
