Chapter 1

The Chaebols Turn into Dragons (1)

Yeong-woo thought drowsily.

What would have happened if, six years ago, he hadn’t quit his job?

If he hadn’t jumped into internet broadcasting, convinced that there was no future in spending his entire life as a salaried employee.

"To be honest, I knew it too. That it was a gamble—an escape from reality."

Still, Yeong-woo muttered to himself that he had wanted to take that gamble before it was too late.

Of course, the poorly planned gamble ultimately ended in failure.

And as a result, Yeong-woo learned just how devastating a career break could be for someone who was easily replaceable in the workforce.

He spent two years as a job seeker trying to get re-employed.

Then, for the next year, he worked two part-time jobs at a time just to earn enough money for living expenses.

All the while feeling grateful that he had even been able to find two part-time jobs.

And now, another year had passed since then.

"Yeong-woo! What on earth are you doing? Get up, hurry!"

He was lying in a factory dormitory in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, wandering through a dream.

"Hey! Wake up!"

"Mm..."

Yeong-woo only realized that the owner of the voice was his daytime-shift roommate when the man began shaking his shoulders roughly.

"Now is not the time to be sleeping! Something really big has happened!"

The words "something big" immediately caught his attention.

At last, Yeong-woo opened his eyes slightly. Then, in an instant, a chill ran through his entire body, and he shot upright.

"Gah! What time is it, Hyung? I'm on the night shift today."

"Hey, do you really think going to work is what's important at a time like this?"

"...What?"

Caught completely off guard by the unexpected remark, Yeong-woo stared blankly.

His roommate then spoke again in an urgent voice.

"You, quickly—hold out your right hand. Let me see how many you have."

"W-What are you talking about?"

Only then did Yeong-woo realize that something was strange.

His dormitory roommate—38-year-old I m Bong-hee—looked far too cheerful.

No, more than cheerful; he seemed to be filled with a kind of exhilaration.

"Man, the whole world is being turned upside down right now! The chaebols and everyone else are all about to go down! This isn't a dream, is it?"

"What have you been talking about all this—"

Yeong-woo couldn't finish saying, "What nonsense are you talking about?"

Because he, too, had just noticed it in his field of vision.

Then, immediately afterward, more lines of text appeared one after another beneath it.

Nominating [Actor – Hyun Song-ae] for elimination...

Nominating [Serial Killer – Kim Eung-pyo] for elimination...

Nominating [Internet Streamer – Lee Ho-yeon (Pupi)] for elimination...

"W-What is all this...?"

As Yeong-woo reached out into the air, trying to touch the floating text, Bong-hee looked at his palm and widened her eyes.

"What the—? What's wrong with you?"

"Huh?"

"Look at your right hand. You only have three points."

At that, Yeong-woo hurriedly opened his right hand and looked at it.

There, glowing brightly on his palm, was the number '3.'

"...?"

Is this a dream? No, everything felt far too vivid to be a dream.

"Wait a second. So you're saying this is...?"

"Hey, judging by your reaction, I'm certain this isn't a dream."

After carefully observing Young-woo's dumbfounded expression, Bong-hee came to her own conclusion and held out her palm.

Flash.

「9」

"Can you see it? Even this is after I've used quite a few of them. At first, I had about twenty."

"You used these?"

Young-woo asked back as he shifted his gaze to the messages in question.

– Add [Politician – Kang Hong-se] to the elimination candidate list...
– Add [Singer – Im Gwang-tae] to the elimination candidate list...

"No way..."

Now that he looked more closely, the people selected by the messages all had one thing in common.

Each of them had, in one way or another, been involved in a public scandal.

For example, the conglomerate chairman Kim Dong-ho, whom he had seen earlier, had been embroiled in a controversy over verbally abusing his chauffeur. Actress Hyun Song-ae had been criticized after revelations surfaced that she had bullied and mistreated her stylist.

In other words, the people currently being displayed by the blue messages as elimination candidates were all individuals who had become unpopular with the public.

Having grasped the situation at least to some extent, Young-woo took a deep breath and blinked.

It was a habit he had whenever he needed to think as rationally as possible.

"If this isn't a dream, then what's actually happening here?"

As soon as Young-woo asked, Bong-hee replied as though she had been waiting for the question.

"You should be seeing the same thing I am... Is there anything above your head or somewhere around there?"

"Above my head?"

Whoosh.

Following Bong-hee's lead, Young-woo raised his head and saw a blue sphere about the size of a fist floating in his field of vision.

"...Huh?"

Then, at last, the notification messages he had missed while asleep began to fill his vision.

「Greetings. This is a notice from the Board.」

「At approximately 10:12:08 a.m. on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, a state of 'Imbalance' was detected.」

「This signifies that more than half of humanity has come to harbor hostility toward the world, and accordingly, the Reset Function has been forcibly activated.」

"W-What is this even supposed to mean...?"

Even as Young-woo wore an expression of disbelief, he felt a pang of unease deep down.

The talk of imbalance and reset sounded as though it were pointing directly at his own fantasies.

Of course, they weren't particularly unusual thoughts.

They were nothing more than the kind of timid grumbling one might have after reading articles about corrupt conglomerate heirs or hearing that some internet streamer had bought yet another supercar.

The sort of thoughts that made you wonder whether something in the world was unfair or fundamentally wrong.

And, truth be told, he had occasionally indulged in fantasies about what might happen if the world were turned upside down.

But even so, did that really count as "harboring hostility toward the world"?

"Something is seriously... seriously wrong here."

Without realizing it, Young-woo swallowed hard.

And despite his growing unease, the message left by the self-proclaimed Board continued.

「...will be identified and removed.」

「Accordingly, an Erasure Vote will soon be conducted for this purpose.」

「Those whom the majority of voters consider responsible for the world's imbalance will be placed on the candidate list. Among them, candidates who receive a sufficient number of votes will be erased, mutated, or dismantled.」

Votes.

At that point, Young-woo looked down at his palm again.

"So, you're supposed to use these Karma Points to target celebrities and public figures? This is basically a witch hunt."

Among the people nominated, there were certainly some truly vile individuals.

But many of them weren't.

In fact, most of them weren't.

"If this keeps going like this, it's going to be a complete disaster..."

Young-woo was about to tell Bong-hee that they needed to stop the voting immediately, but it was already too late.

The Karma Points displayed on her palm, which had been 9 just moments ago, had somehow dropped to 6.

"Oooh! Found the bastard!"

Flash.

Bong-hee's points dropped again, down to 5.

"H-Hyung? Who did you just vote for?"

"Toboy, you know—the BJ I watch all the time. That jerk has always annoyed me with the way he hits on women."

"You mean that pickup-artist stream? You're the one who never misses it..."

At Young-woo's words, Bong-hee, who had been staring into empty space, frowned.

"Yeah, that's true, but he still pissed me off while I was watching. If he hadn't made it as a streamer, he'd probably be working at some host bar or something."

"...And that's enough reason to vote for him to die?"

"Come on. Even if I don't vote for him, plenty of other people will. Besides, when else are we ever going to get a chance to take shots at people like this?"

"..."

Despite the dark look on Young-woo's face, Bong-hee paid no attention and cast another vote.

Flash.

Now, Bong-hee had only 4 Karma Points left.

At that moment, a notification message appeared in both of their fields of vision.

「5 minutes remain until the Erasure Candidate List is finalized. To facilitate faster voting, the search function has been activated.」

At the same time, a small search bar appeared at the bottom of the candidate list.

"Hey, don't waste your votes. If there's someone you want gone, hurry up and look them up. You'll regret it later."

Leaving those words behind, Bong-hee turned his attention back to the empty air.

Young-woo hesitated for a moment before shifting his gaze to the search bar.

As soon as he did, the keywords he had only been thinking about began entering themselves automatically.

#Murderer

#Serial Killer

#Rapist

To Young-woo, the kinds of crimes that made someone truly deserving of death were things like murder and rape.

However, surprisingly, very few people appeared in response to those keywords.

Even when he combined all the candidates that showed up, there were only five, and every single one of them was a serial killer.

"…Why?"

After thinking about it for a while, Young-woo recalled the explanation he had read earlier.

"Those whom the majority of voters consider responsible for the world's imbalance will be placed on the candidate list..."

"Good grief. The others must have had relatively low recognition. That's why only the famous ones made it onto the list."

But if that was the case, what was the point of any of this?

There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of murderers still alive.

How could executing only five well-known ones possibly qualify as "filtering"?

"Can this really not be a dream...?"

Young-woo couldn't believe it.

If all of this was truly real, then the force behind the Reset had to be a being far superior to humanity.

Whether it was God or something else entirely.

But to handle things in this way...?

While Young-woo stood there in shock, Bong-hee, sitting beside him, continued rapidly spending the numbers on his palm.

From 4 to 3, then 3 to 2...

Next came 1, and finally...

Flash!

When his remaining Karma Points reached 0, the number on Bong-hee's palm disappeared completely.

"Hah, that felt good. Spent every last one."

Meanwhile, Young-woo was still staring at the candidate list.

「1 minute remains until the Erasure Candidate List is finalized.」

His own Karma Points remained unchanged at 3.

"Even if I use all of these, it won't be enough to deal with even those five people on the list."

Besides, they were all infamous enough that countless votes had probably already been cast against them.

"..."

After a long moment of deliberation, Young-woo looked away from the list without casting a single vote.

He had no desire to take part in this madness in any way, and for some reason, the whole thing left him feeling deeply uneasy.

A short while later, a notification appeared announcing that the voting period had ended.

「The Erasure Candidate Selection has concluded.」

「Shortly, each candidate's fate will be determined according to the number of votes received.」

「Candidates confirmed for erasure will be given a choice between Erasure, Mutation, or Dissolution.」

"What? So they don't automatically die?"

Bong-hee's eyes widened as he read the announcement.

However, what he truly needed to worry about came next.

Individual Filtering.

Even the name sounded ominous.

"Huh...?"

As expected, Bong-hee's expression turned anxious, and soon a new announcement appeared before everyone's eyes, including his.

「From this moment onward, you may spend Karma Points to send a Killing Curse (to kill) at a target of your choice.」

「One Karma Point is consumed for each Killing Curse sent. Likewise, you may spend your own Karma Points to block any Killing Curses directed at you.」

「Failure to block a Killing Curse will result in certain erasure. Please take caution.」

"W-Wait a second... what did it just say?"

It seemed that Bong-hee immediately assumed there might be people who would send Killing Curses at him.

The moment he finished reading the announcement, his body began trembling uncontrollably.

"What's wrong, Hyung?" asked Young-woo.

Even though Young-woo had already guessed there was something behind Bong-hee's reaction, he asked casually.

Bong-hee flinched and looked at him.

Then he noticed the "3" still remaining on Young-woo's hand, and a hopeful expression appeared on his face.

"Oh, Young-woo...! You still have points left, don't you? Maybe you can use them to block the Killing Curses aimed at me. I bet that's possible, right?"

"I'm not sure. Why would anyone be sending Killing Curses at you in the first place? Who would go out of their way to spend points just to..."

"W-Well... maybe they won't... but you never know."

"Really? Then I should probably save my points too, just in case."

As Young-woo responded indifferently and started to sit back down on the bed, Bong-hee grabbed his shoulder with a forcefulness he had never shown before.

"No!"

"...?"

"No, that's not it! They're definitely coming!"

He was so agitated that even his jaw was trembling.

"Then... why? If you tell me the real reason, I'll do what I can to help."

"I will."

"I-I..."

Just as Bong-hee, having apparently decided he had no choice, was about to say something—

Fwoooosh!

A strange sound came from above—the ceiling, no, somewhere beyond the sky—and then a beam of pure white light shot downward.

Directly onto the top of Bong-hee's head.

"Aaaah!"

For an instant, overwhelming terror flashed across Bong-hee's face.

A moment later, Young-woo saw a message appear above his head.

– [Rapist – I m Bong-hee] failed to block the Killing Curse and will be erased.

And then—

Slowly...

Bong-hee's body began to disappear, dissolving into thin air as though melting away into nothingness.

And on Young-woo's hand, the three Karma Points still remained untouched.