Saejin Heights looked worse than Jiyon remembered.

Peeling paint on the stairwell, mold-black vents, broken lights that flickered like cheap horror set pieces. The front buzzer didn’t work, but the door still clicked open when you jammed your thumb into the panel just right.

Some things never change, and the state of apartment buildings in his locality was truly a sight to behold.

He took the stairs instead of the elevator. The whole building smelled like wet laundry, microwaved garlic, and mild human failure. Floor 4. Unit B.

He stood there for a long moment.

The door was cracked open just slightly—ajar, not broken. A pair of mismatched sneakers was outside the threshold. A delivery bag from Bburinkle Chicken sat untouched next to them, grease darkening the paper. No sign of life inside.

But Jiyon knew he was home.

Kim Doohyun. Age: 23. Job: none. Status: online 20 hours a day.
A NEET. A shitposter. A meme dealer. And about to be history’s most unintentional war criminal.

Jiyon knocked twice.

No answer.

Then again, he hadn’t expected one.

He tried the knob.

The door creaked open with a soft, oily sound, as if it regretted allowing this moment to happen. He stepped inside.

Dark. Blinds drawn. One monitor glowed in the far corner. A second flickered. The room was stacked with empty ramen bowls, soda cans, and promotional merch from games that wouldn’t survive the coming year. A box fan rotated silently in the dark like it had seen too much.

And there he was.

Kim Doohyun. Slouched in a gaming chair, headset still on, chin down, mouth slightly open. Half-asleep. Maybe fully asleep. Discord open on one screen, a YouTube playlist on the other.

On the desk, his phone vibrated once.

Just once.

Jiyon's gaze sharpened.

He walked over slowly, quietly, and looked at the screen.

[AUCTION SYSTEM: First-User Sync Detected. Processing Orientation Protocol...]

There it was.

No countdown yet. Just the very first handshake.

Jiyon picked up the phone gently, held it to the light, and turned it to the side, checking ports, model, and biometric scanner location. Same as he remembered. A basic OS model with no firewall. Easy to spoof.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a matching phone. Pre-wiped. Identical model. Identical case.

He held both in his hands for a moment. Weighed them like sins.

Then he made the switch.

Doohyun snored.

The real System phone slipped into Jiyon’s pocket. The decoy dropped into place on the desk.

“Sleep tight, Fireball,” Jiyon muttered. “You’re going to wake up a legend in a world that never happens.”

He glanced around once more—old pizza boxes, a framed poster of an anime girl with a flamethrower, and a calendar pinned to the wall with only two dates circled.

Tomorrow’s date was one of them. In red ink.

“Try it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Jiyon smiled thinly, shut the door behind him, and walked down the stairs.

He already knew exactly what the worst was.

And this time, he was stealing it first.

Yoon Jiyon sat in a narrow booth at a coin laundromat three blocks from Saejin Heights. It was 1:46 AM.

The washing machines hummed softly around him like bored insects. He hadn’t brought laundry.

He was here for the bathroom.

More specifically, the farthest stall—where the lock didn’t work, the mirror had been removed, and the vent overhead hummed just loud enough to mask the startup tone of a System terminal.

[Device Confirmed. Auction Interface Rebooting...]

The screen on Doohyun’s stolen phone pulsed gently in the dark, resting on a toilet tank lid.

It looked harmless. Unassuming. As if it wasn’t about to upend the world.

Jiyon leaned back against the cool tile wall, arms folded, expression unreadable.

He could’ve warned the kid.

He could have.

It would’ve taken ten seconds to shake him awake and say, “Don’t bid. No matter what it says. Turn off the phone. Burn it.” He could’ve smashed the device. Left a note. Disappeared before sunrise.

That would've been a story.

The saviour timeline.

The selfless regression.

The hero reborn.

Instead, Jiyon had walked out with the prize, left the dumb kid drooling in a chair, and made his way to a public restroom to claim the power like a man stealing someone’s birthday cake before the candles were lit.

Not once, in all the time since he left the apartment, had he thought about saving Kim Doohyun.

And the real truth?

He hadn’t even noticed he hadn’t thought about it.

There wasn’t a hollow space where guilt should be. There wasn’t a moral debate. No hesitation. Just silence. A mechanical, practical sort of silence. The kind that only exists in people who’ve died before and stayed dead long enough to stop pretending goodness matters.

Doohyun would wake up a little groggy, check his phone, and think the System had glitched. If he even remembered it at all.

Either way, he wouldn’t be the First Bidder.
Wouldn’t trend.
Wouldn’t die.

And Jiyon?

He’d be holding the fireball that started it all.

[AUCTION SYSTEM: Welcome, First Bidder.]
[Item #0001: Fireball Spell (Common Tier)]
[Bid Cost: One Finger | Confirm?]

He almost laughed.

There it was again—the original price.
One digit, in exchange for a flame the size of a backpack sneeze.

Jiyon flexed his hand. Five fingers. No loss yet.

He reached into the duffel, pulled out a frozen chicken wing from a bag he’d stolen from the corner store earlier, and pressed the phone against it.

[Biometric Accepted.]
[Fireball Spell Acquired.]

The frozen wing hissed.
Then burst into flames.

Jiyon tossed it into the toilet and flushed it down with the sizzling sound of cooked regret. He just wished he could have used it for himself a bit more.

He stared at the screen as it blinked once, then faded into the now-familiar gold glow of the Auction interface.

[Congratulations. You are now eligible to receive Tier I Listings.]

He stood, slid the phone into his jacket, and left the stall.

The city outside was quiet. Soft. As if it hadn’t just been stolen from the jaws of disaster.

Jiyon pulled his hood up, walking into the neon-lit streets without a backwards glance.

The world was just starting, and this time he had control over it.

Yoon Jiyon had three minutes to go viral.

He stood in the aisle of a 24-hour convenience store with two dozen security cameras, a panicked clerk, and a live stream running from a burner phone strapped to the counter with chewing gum and black tape.

Viewers: 14
Title: “🔥Fire Magic? Real?? Found this insane new app lol”
#AuctionSystem #GlitchHack #LiveSpellTest

He watched the number climb.

17

18

19

The convenience store clerk—some university kid in a Pikachu apron—stared at him like he was deciding whether to call security or film him for TikiTak.

“You can’t be in here with that,” the kid said, gesturing to the lighter Jiyon had palmed earlier, now resting on the counter.

“That’s not a lighter,” Jiyon replied, loud enough for the phone mic to pick up. “It’s a detonator.”

The kid blinked.

Before he could respond, Jiyon raised his hand.

[Spell: Fireball]
[Target: Front Door Sensor | Output: Minimal]

His fingers twitched once. A sharp gesture, like flicking water from his palm.

The fireball launched.

Small. Controlled. Flashy.

It streaked through the air like a comet and burst against the motion sensor over the entrance with a satisfying WHUMP of heat and sudden flame.

The store door blackened. The lights flickered. The power surged, then held.

The security footage caught every frame.

The livestream doubled instantly: 84. 176. 380.

The clerk screamed and ducked behind the counter, but Jiyon didn’t move.

He turned to the camera, eyes cold, smile razor-thin.

“Auction System’s real,” he said. “And I’m your first successful bidder.”

He held up the phone.

“I paid one finger for this.”

“Your turn.”

Then he dropped the device and walked out.

By the time he rounded the corner, the stream had already been mirrored.

Clips posted. Subreddits lit. Telegrami groups buzzed.

He could feel it—like heat radiating from a fuse, just before it reached the charge.

He checked his actual phone, the real System-linked one. No notifications. Not yet.

But it was coming.

The world had just seen its first public magic.
They just didn’t know who to follow.

Not yet.

He ducked into a nearby alley, pulled the hoodie lower, and vanished into the maze of backstreets before the sirens arrived.

Let Doohyun wake up and wonder why nothing happened.
Let him live.

Yoon Jiyon had just rewritten history.

This time, the First Bidder lived.

And he had plans for the rest.