Chapter 1
Five years ago.
The real world changed to resemble a game.
No signs. No reason. No logic.
None of it made sense.
Every attempt to explain it scientifically ended up meaningless.
People simply adapted to the new world.
And so did I.
───
<Quest Log>
(Weekly) Clear Goblin Dungeon
Reward: 10 Diamonds – Complete!
───
{A contract has been activated.}
{According to the contract, the quest reward will be transferred to <Holy King (Rank 1)>.}
The rewards for quests I complete are all transferred to someone else.
And I can only watch the message appear.
“Good work today. Your daily wage will be deposited tomorrow morning. Please confirm if this is your account number.”
Payment: 500,000 won.
Not a small sum for just one day of work.
“Then I’ll be counting on you again next week, Awakeners.”
I am one of the chosen.
I can see a “status window.” I receive quests.
The one that makes money is the weekly diamond quest.
Diamonds are a special currency usable only by Awakeners.
The rich strengthen their abilities with them, while commoners like me sell them for cash.
Direct transfer of diamonds isn’t possible, but through a “contract,” quest rewards can be handed over.
That’s how I earn money: running the weekly diamond quest.
The price set, as you saw earlier, is 500,000 won per 10-diamond quest.
By working only four days a month, I make 2 million won.
With additional requests and dungeon raids, I bring in 3–4 million won monthly.
All just because I’m an Awakener.
But.
Even so, I still can’t escape renting a tiny single-room apartment.
Because Awakeners spend money as easily as they earn it.
[MS-117 Thunder-attribute Spear]
[Price: 49,900,000 won]
One weapon costs the same as a car.
And that’s for gear suitable only for my level—the lowest-ranked dungeons.
But I can’t avoid buying new weapons either.
Even to maintain my current status, the upkeep is enormous.
For an Awakener, a monthly income of at least 10 million won is needed just to breathe easy.
Of course, once you reach that point, life changes drastically.
Until then, 99% of Awakeners—including me—are nothing but larvae inside cocoons.
[Proceed with payment?]
“Hoo…”
On an online weapon shop I browsed on my smartphone, I clenched my resolve and pressed the purchase button.
With this, maybe I can attempt higher-level dungeons.
“When will the day come that I can use diamonds with my own hands?”
For now, this is the best I can do.
Just getting my equipment together is overwhelming.
Actually spending diamonds—that’s something only people of the heavenly class can do.
For them, billions of won are just the baseline, and to really achieve something, they need trillions.
So for me, it’s not even a dream I dare entertain.
To me, 10 diamonds are just 500,000 won.
The children of chaebols usually bring to mind negative images:
Power abuse, arrogance, debauchery, dissipation.
Of course, some really are like that.
But that’s not because they’re rich—just because they’re rotten human beings.
It only becomes a bigger issue because their wealth amplifies the damage they cause.
True heirs of the top chaebols, though, are often reserved.
The so-called “royal families.”
They act carefully, if only to protect their vested interests.
—“Baek Sun-yul, the 4th-generation heir of Baeksan Group and the holder of the title <Holy King>, has returned to Korea today after completing a subjugation campaign in Japan.”
On a giant screen at the train station, I saw the man who is the main client for my diamond quest contracts.
I’ve never met him in person.
I only ever deal with low-level employees.
Anyway, he’s once again worked for world peace and the protection of humanity.
Gates appear periodically, spilling out monsters that invade human settlements.
He defends against them and returns home.
Powered by the diamonds collected one by one from ants like me.
Of course, it all ties into corporate image and profit, but…
What matters is that everyone praises him.
While I, compared to him, am just a background character.
Cleaning up from below, so heroes like him can shine.
‘Ah… so envious.’
What must it feel like to live such a life?
The life of the protagonist.
If only I could experience it, just once.
It’s probably a delusion everyone imagines at least once.
‘Turns out I was actually born into a chaebol family’ kind of fantasy.
Yeah right. As if some soap opera cliché would happen to me.
Click.
“Huh?”
As I stood to board my train, I felt something strange under my foot and looked down.
“Agh, crap!”
A smartphone.
I had stepped on one someone had dropped.
‘Is it okay?’
I picked it up and checked. Thankfully, no cracks.
‘Phew… but whose is it?’
I looked around to return it.
But strangely, no one was nearby.
Despite the crowd in the station, the space around me was empty.
‘Weird…’
So I figured I’d just drop it off at the lost-and-found.
That’s when—
Ding!
A notification popped up.
The message stood out so much I couldn’t ignore it.
[How long are you going to just lay the floor for others?]
“…”
A sentence stabbing right at my heart, as if written for me.
Not a text. Not an SNS message.
It was the name of an app.
‘What, is this some kind of joke…?’
I stared blankly at the notification.
What kind of cosmic coincidence was this—that this alert appeared just as I picked the phone up?
I let out a bitter laugh.
But then—
“Wait, what’s going on?”
The phone began moving on its own.
The lock screen unlocked, and that oddly named app launched automatically.
The screen filled with streams of strange code.
[Syncing… 99%… 100%.]
[User: <Yoo Shin-woo>, synchronized.]
My real name appeared, registering me as the user.
‘What the—? How did it know my name?’
I hadn’t done anything.
I just held the phone.
Yet it worked by itself, even calling me by name.
‘What is this?’
At first, I thought maybe the phone’s owner just had the same name as me.
Weird app names exist everywhere.
But then I saw the line that froze me.
[Diamonds owned: 23]
The exact number of diamonds I had bound to me.
Once, I tried gathering diamonds without contracts—through quests and hunting.
A stupid idea.
One gacha roll required 300 diamonds.
Equivalent to 15 million won.
And the rates were abysmal. Far better to spend the money on equipment.
I realized that too late, after the diamonds were already bound to me.
So I was left stuck with 23 useless diamonds.
And this app showed: “User Yoo Shin-woo — Diamonds: 23.”
‘That’s too exact to be coincidence…’
The chance that it’s just some random match is zero.
An Awakener named Yoo Shin-woo with exactly 23 diamonds—and I just happened to pick up this phone?
Impossible.
Someone must have deliberately targeted me.
But how? I’ve never told anyone I had 23 diamonds.
Still, the only explanation that made sense was that this was intentional.
And the app had an even more suspicious feature.
[Purchase Diamonds]
It showed a currency called “Gold,” which could buy diamonds.
And gold could be bought with real money.
‘A scam, obviously.’
The payment system was even linked to direct bank transfers.
Too blatant.
There’s no such thing as buying diamonds with cash.
Diamonds can only be earned through quests.
‘Who’d fall for something this dumb?’
Yet… my eyes kept drifting back.
Especially to the words written boldly at the top:
[How long are you going to just lay the floor for others?]
‘…Is that me?’
Eventually, I decided to test it.
‘If I only spend a tiny amount, I can see if it’s fake.’
I used a bank account I rarely touched, just in case.
Transferred 1,000 won into it, and then paid 1,000 won in the app.
‘But how much gold do you even get for 1,000 won?’
Then—
[Gold owned: 1,000]
1,000 gold appeared. Simple.
1,000 won = 1,000 gold.
‘So if I exchange this…’
Exchange rate: 100 gold per diamond.
Meaning 1,000 gold = 10 diamonds.
I pressed it.
‘Let’s see what scam you’re pulling, bastards.’
Not suspicion, not belief.
Just half-joke, half-curiosity.
But then—
{You have obtained 10 diamonds.}
This time, the message appeared not on the phone, but in front of me as a hologram.
That meant it came from the actual system of this world.
“No way…”
I immediately opened my diamond inventory.
{Diamonds owned: 33}
It had increased.
Not just on the app, but in reality—10 more diamonds bound to me.
“This is… a scam in reverse.”
Remember: a 10-diamond quest pays 500,000 won.
I just spent 1,000 won and gained 500,000 won worth of diamonds.
A 500x profit.
‘Unbelievable…’
Chills ran down my spine.
It wasn’t a dream—I pinched myself. Pain. Real.
So I tried again. This time, 10,000 won.
That gave me 10,000 gold.
Converted, my diamonds shot up to 133.
‘Wait, what’s my bank balance again?’
I quickly checked.
After buying that weapon earlier, I had 5.52 million won left.
Multiply that by 500… that’s 2.76 billion won.
