Judgment Day

I returned to the TA Lounge after a few days away.

The room was familiar, but the air was nothing like before. Where a strange tension and greed had once hung thick, the place now reeked of rot — a holding cell of despair.

Shin Nara sat on the sofa across from me. She looked wrecked. Hair that had gleamed just days ago hung in greasy, matted clumps, and dark circles had settled beneath her eyes like bruises. She hadn't washed; a sour stench clung to her, and her fingernails were chewed down to bloody scabs. She sat with her head bowed like a condemned prisoner, unable to meet my eyes, trembling like a leaf.

"TA."

When I called her quietly, her shoulders jerked as if she'd been shocked.

"Why haven't you been taking my calls? You had me worried."

Worried. Right. I'd spent those days happily imagining what kind of hell she was rolling around in. I didn't let it show.

"I... I'm sorry."

The words barely left her throat. She still couldn't lift her head.

"So. How'd it go? The coins."

I already knew from the look of her. I asked anyway, playing dumb.

"There was a massive crash recently. Don't tell me you were still holding a long position. I specifically told you to switch to short."

"......"

No answer. Silence was as good as a yes.

"Say it. Did you short, or didn't you?"

"I... I didn't..."

"Then?"

"......"

"Don't tell me you ignored me and just kept holding long."

Something sharp crept into my voice. She chewed her lip and forced the words out.

"I got... liquidated..."

"What was that? I can't hear you."

"I said I got liquidated... All of it... It's zero..."

Her head sank even lower.

A heavy silence. Then I let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Haa... Unbelievable. I warned you. I told you it was going to crash. I told you not to get greedy!"

"Hhk... uhhhk..."

The sobs she'd been holding back finally broke. She collapsed as if her bones had given out, dropping to her knees under the table and clutching my legs. The vicious woman who had blackmailed me in my previous life was gone. All that remained was a rat begging a loan shark for its life.

"Dohun... please... help me one more time... okay? Save me..."

She pleaded, looking up at me with a face ruined by tears and snot.

"I must've been out of my mind. I should've listened to you... I must've been possessed... Just give me one more chance... This time I'll do exactly what you say...!"

"A chance?"

I repeated it coldly.

"I don't think you understand the situation you're in."

I folded my arms and looked down at her.

"The five hundred million won you borrowed. How are you planning to pay that back? Forget the principal — what about the interest?"

"......"

"We'll set aside the bank loan and the snowball of interest that's going to keep growing on that. Let's just talk about my five hundred million."

It was a sum a TA making thirty million won a year could never repay if she worked every day of her life and never spent a dime — a cliff face with no handholds. The color drained from her face until she looked like a corpse.

"How exactly were you planning to pay it back? Sell your body?"

"......"

"Let's say you pour drinks and spread your legs and pull in a million won a day. That's a solid five hundred days. And that's just the principal, no interest."

I drove the spike in with a sneer.

"There wouldn't be much of you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠left by then, would there? Especially that hole between your legs."

She couldn't even answer the mockery. She just shook, drowning in despair.

I cheered inside. It was delicious. A ten-year knot in my chest, finally coming undone.

This was a deeply personal revenge. Payback for every humiliation, every agony she had put me through in my previous life. Her greedy nature hadn't changed. Even without me, she would have destroyed herself eventually, blinded by her own appetite. I had merely moved up the timetable.

She ought to be grateful. I was taking in a woman who had been a breath away from ending her own life. Her existence as a human being with dignity was over, yes. But her life as my personal slave was only just beginning.

I wiped the expression off my face. With eyes gone ice-cold, I seized a fistful of her greasy hair and yanked her head up.

"What the fuck are you going to do about it, you bitch? Don't just sit there with your mouth shut — answer me!!"

"Aagh!"

She screamed. Worse than the pain of her scalp nearly tearing was the murder in my eyes.

"My five hundred million. And every bit of interest you've racked up. Hand it over. Right now!"

"I'll... I'll pay it back...! I'll earn the money and pay it back... please..."

She begged, shaking apart.

"On what timeline? On thirty million a year? That'll take you twenty years."

"I'll work two jobs... no, three... I'll work through the night if I have to..."

"Give me a fucking break. The interest will grow faster than whatever scraps you earn staying up all night. Can you not do basic math?"

I snorted.

"Just the interest on my money is ninety-five million won a year. Add the bank loan interest on top of that? You'll spend your entire life paying interest and then you'll die. You get that?"

"Hhk... waaah! Save me...! Please, save me...! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... uwaaaah!!"

She slammed her forehead into the floor, wailing. There was no hope. No matter how many times you ran the numbers, the answer never came. A perfect, airtight checkmate.

"You want me to save you?"

I let go of her hair roughly and pulled a document envelope from my bag, tossing it down. It landed with a dull slap in front of her knees.

"Take a look at that. You'll forget all about asking me to save you."

Shin Nara wiped her tears and opened the envelope ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with trembling hands. What spilled out were the evidence files Seo Jisu had gathered. Grade-manipulation records. Handwritten statements from the students she'd victimized. Screenshots of the account transfers.

"Th-this is..."

Her eyes flooded with horror. Her secret corruption, laid out in the open, every ugly piece of it.

"How... how did you..."

"Does how I found out matter? What matters is what happens when the world finds out."

I smiled, thin and nasty.

"What do you think happens if I drop this on the president's office and the Office of Education right now? I'll tip off the news while I'm at it."

"......!"

"Getting kicked out of the university is the least of it. You'll be buried in this field. You'll never work again. A social death sentence."

I stepped closer and murmured in her ear.

"And then the cuffs go on. Embezzlement, breach of trust, taking bribes... quite the résumé. Ready to eat some prison rice? You can think of it as hiding from your creditors."

Shin Nara stared at the papers, her mind gone blank. Buried in debt wasn't enough — now she was about to be branded a criminal. Total annihilation.

"You... you..."

She lifted her head and glared at me. Terror and despair curdling into rage.

"You planned this from the start, didn't you? To ruin me...!"

"Planned?"

I laughed, incredulous.

"Hey. Get your story straight. Did I tell you to short, or didn't I?"

"......"

"If you'd shorted like I told you, you'd have paid back the five hundred million by now with money to spare. You ignored me because you got greedy. And now you're blaming who? You stupid bitch."

The facts hit her like a slap. She had nothing to say. There was no argument to make. The chance had been there. The information I'd given her had been accurate. She was the one who had kicked it away.

"Look at this."

I pulled out my phone and showed her the profits on my Binance account.

Fourteen point two billion won. I had gone all-in on a short position in the crash and doubled my holdings.

"Hhhk..."

Shin Nara stopped breathing. Assets that had sat in the seven-billion range had become fourteen billion in a matter of days. While she had been scraped down to zero, crawling on the floor, I had raked in an astronomical fortune. I could see the vertigo of sheer deprivation hit her.

"See that? If you'd just trusted me, you'd be worth tens of billions right now too. You kicked the chance away with your own two feet."

"Ah...! Aaagh...!!"

She beat the floor and howled. Regret. Bone-deep regret, crashing over her like a tsunami. She should have listened. She shouldn't have gotten greedy. Seeing the size of the opportunity she had thrown away doubled the despair and crushed her under it.

"So. What are you going to do now?"

She couldn't answer. She had no plan. Nobody in this situation would have had a plan.

"Don't even think about running. I'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth and drag you back. You know I've got the money."

I let the threat settle.

"If you run, this debt and every scrap of evidence on your corruption goes straight to your parents. They live out in the countryside, right? Imagine the shock of finding out their darling daughter ran a scam at her university, became a debtor, and fled. They might drop dead from the rage."

"N-no! Please! Don't touch my parents!"

She clung to my legs. So she still had enough of a conscience left to think about her family. It only made me sicker, remembering how she'd lied about "Mother's hospital bills" in my previous life.

"Then there's only one way out."

I drew another document from my coat. The same form Choi Yura had signed.

"Sign it."

"What... is this now..."

"Read it. This is how you survive. The only rope you've got left."

She read the Slave Contract with shaking eyes. She would become my property and obey every order. She would surrender her human rights and hand over her sexual self-determination.

"If you sign this, I won't collect interest on my five hundred million. And the bank loan interest? I'll cover that too. I'll bury the corruption files."

I dangled the carrot.

"And if you do as you're told... I might even forgive the debt someday. A long, long time from now, but still."

"......"

Shin Nara wrestled with it. The moment she signed, she would have to stop being a person. But if she didn't sign, she was going to prison today — and her parents would suffer with her. There was no real choice. She was in a corner with one way out.

"Time's up. You have ten seconds. No signature and I call the Office of Education. The money you borrowed and the interest get handled by the book."

"Wait... just give me a minute to think..."

"Ten. Nine. Eight..."

I started the countdown.

"Seven. Six..."

Her pupils shook like she was losing her mind.

"Three. Two..."

"I'll do it! I'll stamp it! I'll do it!"

She shouted in a panic. Before I even reached one, she snatched the contract and pressed her thumb down.

A vivid red mark. The moment her life passed completely into my hands.

"There...? That's it, right? You're not sending anything, right?"

She looked up at me with a servile little smile, like a filthy mutt hoping to be told it had been a good dog.

"What the hell is that tone?"

My face hardened, and she floundered.

"Huh...?"

"The man who just paid off your debt and kept you out of prison is your Master. And that's how you talk to him? Have you lost your mind? You think you get to speak to me like that?"

"Ah... I-I'm sorry..."

"Get the title right. Call me Master."

"M-Master..."

Her lips trembled. It must have been humiliating. A few days ago she had still thought of me as beneath her, and now she had to call me Master. But she couldn't refuse. I was the one holding the leash.

"Good. Time for your initiation."

I sat back on the sofa, arrogant, and crossed my legs.

"Take it all off."

"What...?"

"I said strip. Everything. Don't leave so much as a pair of panties."

She stood, hesitating. She undid the buttons of her blouse, unzipped her skirt, peeled off her underwear. Piece by piece, her clothes piled on the floor. A moment later she was naked, not a thread left on her. Shame had flushed her entire body red.

"On your knees. Prostrate yourself. Forehead on the floor."

She flattened herself against the ground on command. Forehead pressed to the cold floor, ass in the air. The most abject, most wretched posture there was.

"Apologize. For blowing my five hundred million."

"I... I was wrong..."

"Too quiet. I can't hear you. Scream it up from your gut."

"I was wrong!! I committed a sin worthy of death, Master!! Please forgive me!!"

She bellowed at the top of her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lungs. The tear-choked cry rang through the empty lounge.

"That's right. You committed a sin worthy of death. So from now on, you pay with your body. For the rest of your life. Until you die."

I stood and walked over to her. Then I planted my shoe on her skull.

"Nngh..."

She made a small sound, but she didn't resist. If anything, she pressed herself flatter against the floor, as if she meant to lick the sole of my shoe. I ground my heel slowly, looking down. The heat of her body under my foot. The tremor of sheer terror. The view of the crown of her head.

Absolute dominion.

I smiled, wicked.

Outside the window, the campus unfurled in peaceful, romantic splendor. Inside this little room, a woman's personhood was being erased, and a new sex slave was being born.

This was how a kingdom was built. One piece at a time.