The silence in the booth was sharp. Surgical.

Jiyon folded the page again, slowly and clean, and slid it into his jacket.

Rina didn’t move. Her head tilted slightly, waiting—not for denial, but for something simpler.

Acknowledgement.

"You died," he said finally.

She nodded. "You watched."

"Back then... I didn't know your name."

"You still don't."

He stared at her through the mask. "And yet, here we are."

She tapped the side of the porcelain. “Not everyone breaks cleanly when the timeline folds. Some of us… tear.”

“You’re saying you remember a timeline the system erased.”

“I’m saying I lived a version of my life where you left me to die in a collapsing Bidfield during an Auction rupture,” she said, calm as if she were describing the weather. “You were holding an item I tried to steal. I don’t remember its name. Just that it screamed when you put it down.”

That memory hit him harder than he let show.

Because it was true.

It had happened during the Third Collapse. He’d used a cursed amplification relic to draw out the final divine-class bid in the Gwanak District—and when the system ruptured, she had been caught on the edge of the blast.

He’d walked away.

No witnesses.

He thought.

But now she stood in front of him. Fully alive. And more terrifyingly aware.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“Because I’m not the only one,” she said. “There are others. Bits of memory are leaking into places they shouldn’t. Ghost timelines. Glitched knowledge. I don’t know what’s causing it.”

“You think it’s me.”

“I know it’s you. The system knows it’s you. But I don’t think you did it on purpose.”

She reached into her coat and pulled out something wrapped in cloth.

It looked like a bid scroll—thin, dark parchment sealed with system wax.

She tossed it to him.

“I want to make a trade.”

Jiyon caught it, still watching her.

“What kind?”

“A memory for a truth,” Rina said. “I give you what I know. You give me something you haven’t told anyone else.”

He studied the scroll.

It wasn’t standard. No tier, no bidder class, no expiration.

This wasn’t sanctioned.

It was something older.

Something before the System learned to clean up its messes.

“What happens if I refuse?” he asked.

She smiled behind the mask.

“You won’t.”

And she walked out.

The scroll unwrapped itself as soon as Jiyon touched it.

The wax seal hissed softly, evaporating like dust caught in sunlight.

Inside, the parchment was smooth, black as dried blood, and written in a thread-thin font that pulsed like a slow heartbeat.

No tier. No timestamp.

Just a single offer.

“One betrayal, in exchange for future loyalty.”
“Consent must be given freely. Bid cannot be undone.”

[Accept] / [Decline]

He’d seen cursed scrolls before—plenty of them.
Ones that stole breath.
Ones that stole away memories.
Ones that rewrote names.

But this one didn’t reach him. Didn’t pulse or growl or burn.
It waited.

That was worse.

This was a system artefact that acted like it could trust him.

And trust was never free.

He stared at the word betrayal. Let it sit in his head.
So many candidates. So many past versions of the word.

Hadn’t he already betrayed enough?

Did it even mean anything anymore?

He tapped [Accept].

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the ink faded from the scroll like breath on glass.

And in its place, a new phrase appeared.

“Bid accepted.”
“One betrayal will now be required.”
“The name of the loyalty you’ve purchased will be revealed later.”
“You may not recognize it at the time.”

The scroll burned to ash in his hand.

Not with fire.
With certainty.

A warmth passed through him—faint, but strange. Like something had just adjusted behind his spine. A door closed that he hadn’t known was open.

He stood alone in the curtained booth.
No proof.
No item.
No witnesses.

Just the scent of ozone, and the silence that followed when a system decided it was satisfied, for now.

He looked up.

Rina was gone.

The room above the closed gimbap shop smelled like damp paper and old wiring.

Jiyon sat on the floor with two burner phones, one cracked tablet, and a disassembled node array, fingers stained with thermal ink. The official auction interface had gone quiet—no new listings since the Moderator incident. No messages. Just status:

User ID: Yoon Jiyon
Tier I
Status: Contradiction
Observed

Watched, but untouched.

Which made the vibration that buzzed through the black market tablet all the more strange.

That tablet wasn’t logged into anything.

No active node. No SIM. It wasn’t even powered on. He’d pulled the battery an hour ago.

But it was glowing.

White screen. Black text. Plain.

“Shadow Auction: Invitation Confirmed.”
“No tier required. No system clearance needed.”

“Listings will not be regulated.”
“Moderators are blind here.”
“Time moves differently within the thread.”

“You may bid. You may list.”
“There is no protection. Only participation.”

[Next Auction Item: One Unkillable Name]
[Time Remaining: 23:59:41]

Jiyon stared at the phrase.

Unkillable Name.

He knew what that meant.

Not a person.
A concept.
A memory that couldn’t be removed.

Something… like him.

There was no sender. No traceable path. The screen didn’t flicker gold. No system glyphs. No verification window.

And yet—he felt it in his chest.

A tremor.

A tension.

A sense that whatever game he’d thought he was playing…

…he wasn’t the one who started it.

He reached out and tapped the screen.

And the countdown began.