Fynn's eyes flew open.
He was on his back, wedged against cold, cracked concrete. A bitter wind whipped across his face, bringing dust that stung his skin. Everything was dry, silent—off.
Above him, the sky was damaged. Gray clouds drifted slowly, rent by odd, shimmering streaks of light. There were ruins of a city around him—cracked streets, twisted streetlights, buildings torn open like paper. Everything seemed dead.
He climbed up slowly, his heart racing. His clothes were ripped and dirty, but his body wasn't injured. No cuts. No bruises. He touched his face, dazed. "What the hell." His voice was clogged, little more than a whisper.
And then he saw it—a black tattoo on his arm, a barcode shape. It was glowing softly, as if it was alive.
His gut churned. He doubled and vomited onto the cracked earth. The bitter taste lingered in his mouth, but it wasn't illness that caused him to vomit. It was fear.
He searched around once more, his eyes wide. "Where am I?" he asked nobody, the silence exacerbating.
He rose unsteadily, legs trembling. His head reeled, memories coming back fragments. Cold. Hurting. The stench of damp concrete. The patter of rain and the sound of footsteps behind. Then—sharp. A filthy desk. A man with rings on his fingers, grinning too far.
"Sign here, kid. Easy money."
Fynn recalled the trembling pen in his hand. He'd simply wanted a new phone. To brag. To feel important.
Then the collectors came. Heavy footsteps behind him. An alleyway. Hands pulling him down. Ribs kicked. Blood on his lips. That same one again, voice smooth and cold:
"You should've read the fine print."
He recalled lying in freezing water, unable to move. His sight fading away. His dying breath slow and agonized. And one last thought:
If this world is built on debt… then it owes me everything.
His knees buckled. He slumped against the ruined wall, panting.
"I should be dead," he muttered. "I was dead."
His tone was a monotone. An empty shell. The enormity of it all struck him at once.
Then, quite unexpectedly, he heard something. A voice—not from outside, but within his mind. Clear. Composed. Robot-like.
Initializing SSS-Rank Skills.
[Issue Debt]
[Collect Debt]
His body clenched, muscles stiffening simultaneously. His lungs seared. His chest was being squeezed. For a moment, everything turned white—so white he couldn't think.
Then, as suddenly, it ceased. He gasped, stepping back, blurring through the dissipating light.
And then, in front of him, suspended in mid-air like a hologram, were words:
----
[Welcome, Collector.]
World: Zone-045 – Earthfall
Population: 2.7% Human | 97.3% Desire-Inflicted
Status: Stable
Starting Resource Pool: 0
Objective: Build Debt Flow
----
Fynn gazed at the screen, the heartbeat in his ears.
"Collector…" he muttered. "Earthfall.?"
Fynn crept slowly down the devastated street, the emptiness closing in on his ears.
No creatures. No humans. Only wind, dust, and vacant husks of structures.
Then he heard it.
Labored breathing. Slurrying, wet.
He turned a corner—and froze.
Not ten feet from him, a monster loomed.
Its body was too long, too bloated with muscle. The skin was drawn over its limbs like it was about to burst at any moment. Its jaw dangled open, spilling a thick yellow drool. Sunken eyes flickered in its direction.
It had obviously once been human.
Fynn didn't breathe.
I'm dead.
I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead—
But the creature didn't flinch.
It looked at him. Snuffed at the air. Its enormous arms tensed ever so slightly… and then dropped.
It turned away.
Lumbered down the road.
Left.
Fynn staggered back and almost fell over shattered pieces of rubble, panting.
"What the hell. why didn't it attack me?"
His words shook.
He looked at his arms, chest—was he bleeding? Was he ill? Did he reek too much?
Nothing.
"No scent? No threat? Or maybe…"
His mind reeled, racing now. And then something strange, like a clarity, struck him.
This is real.
This world… it's real.
This is not a coma. This is not a dream. I really did get Isekai'd.
A sour laughter burst past his lips.
"No way. This is exactly like the stories…"
He recalled reading webnovels back in Earth. Watching anime where nobodies received overpowered systems. Where reincarnated losers were suddenly selected.
And here he was now. No longer dying on an alleyway. No longer helpless.
He tightened his fists.
I didn't flee. I didn't cry out. And that creature didn't attack me.
I must be different now.
He remembered the words in the air:
[Collector Initialized]
[Establish Debt Flow]
"If this is how it works… then maybe I'm not prey anymore."
He looked down at his glowing barcode tattoo, then at the direction the monster walked off to.
Fynn stared at the screen.
[Passive Field: Collector's Presence]
Status: Active
Effect: Desire-Inflicted entities perceive Collector as "Ineligible Prey"
Cause: Unquantifiable Karmic Debt Surplus
So that's why the monster didn't pay him any mind. Whatever the system did to him—he wasn't something those things would want to lay hands on.
He dropped his arm. That accounted for one thing. Barely.
Then he began walking.
The streets were clear for the most part, but buildings on either side were destroyed. Metal beams stuck out of walls like shattered bone. Signs hung by a strand of wire. Glass bit at the bottom of feet. The scent of decay clung in the air, like something dead a long time ago was still rotting close by.
Several blocks later, he spotted a house.
Half the roof was gone, but the doorframe remained intact, and it seemed untouched—no forced entry marks, no drag marks. Dusty, but not damp, inside. A good place to take refuge.
Fynn entered and scanned the corners out of habit. Old survival reflex. No one. No monsters. Silence.
He walked through the rooms. Shattered furniture. A broken mirror. A little shredded clothing on the floor. Nothing of use, but nothing hazardous either. The second floor was better still—less destruction, and a half-broken window giving a reasonable view of the street.
He sat beside it, knees drawn in.
His belly rumbled.
Right. Still human. Still required food and water.
Through the window, he looked out along the road. A couple of hundred meters down, he saw it—a tiny mart, the type that had occupied every corner in his hometown. The windows were still standing. That was either a sign that one of two things was true: it was already robbed, or was not worth robbing.
He waited.
Ten minutes went by. Nothing stirred.
He stood up.
The front door of the store was jammed, so he crawled in through a ruptured side panel. Piled-up shelves and most of the food were inside. But whoever had been there had overlooked the back storage freezer.
Inside: bottled water, canned goods, protein bars, even an untouched first aid kit. Jackpot.
He grabbed what he could carry and quietly crawled out again. Every few paces, he glanced back over his shoulder.
Nothing trailed behind.
Back at home, he organized the equipment. Tidy up a place in the corner and stored all of it underneath a table. He filled a little pot with water and sipped slowly, cautiously.
Not until his thirst was assuaged did he observe something out of the ordinary outside the window.
Something was crawling.
Far down the road, crawling on its belly between shadows—a woman-form creature with glass-like skin that glimmered like polished mirror. Her legs were broken. She pulled herself up by her arms, leaving a trail of wet streaks behind her. But what caught your attention wasn't the body.
It was the voice.
Soft. Gentle. Repeating the same words over and over in a low, pleading voice.
"Do you love me…? Please… love me…"
The voice wasn't natural. It was too smooth, like a damaged recording of someone attempting to be sugary.
Fynn slipped back behind the wall.
He peered from the edge, muted.
The mirror-woman never glanced in the direction of the house. She continued to pull herself forward, repeating the same line, repeated and repeated, until she disappeared behind buildings opposite the street.
He remained quiet for a great while.
Then another noise. Quick footsteps. Unstable. Like something leaping on two legs too quickly for coordination.
He peered again.
Another creature.
This one was the size of a child, crouched forward, head too big for its neck. It was spattered with strings—strings of red thread drawn taut over its body, jerking whenever it jumped. It was laughing as it ran, high and cracked.
Its eyes were stitched up.
But it had halted just beyond the mart he had pilfered before, cocking its head. The laughter ceased. The stringing on its arms quivered in brief jerks, as sniffing.
Fynn froze.
It took a few seconds before it passed. Disappeared among the ruins.
He leaned back against the wall, eyes shut.
He wasn't solitary here. This wasn't a new beginning.
It was a dead world—filled with things corrupted by what they once desired too intensely.
That mirror-woman must have wanted to be loved.
That thread-creature… perhaps control? Perhaps perfection?
It didn't matter.
They were here. And now so was he.
He eyed the supplies once more.
He had food. Water. Bandages. Painkillers. The sort of things people would murder for.
And because of the system, he didn't have to give it away for nothing.
The screen re-emerged:
[Resource Detected]
Inventory Updated:
- Clean Water x4
- Canned Protein x6
- Basic Medpack x1
- Painkillers x12