Read Rebirth Auction: I Sell the Apocalypse :: The Error That Walks Away

The internal codebase didn’t even want to name him anymore.

Not “Jiyon (Contradiction-Class)”
Not “Subject: Unresolved”
Not even “Ghost Instance”

Now he had a new designation.

[NEGATIVE ZERO]

A class never used. Never defined. Never expected to exist.

In theory, a “Negative Zero” was a placeholder for logical contradiction with recursive memory presence—a subject whose timeline loops couldn’t be pinned to any single continuity, yet couldn’t be invalidated without risking collapse of higher-layer data dependencies.

In short:

He wasn’t just unkillable.

He was indeletable.

That made the system nervous.

Because deletion was its answer to everything.

So it did what the system always did when it didn’t understand something:

It built a container.

A divine-tier auction, called under false clearance, was issued through Moderator Kang-ho’s relay line.

Public enough to draw the high bidders. Private enough to bury whatever was inside.

Location: An offshore zone once levelled by divine conflict. Now rebuilt. Clean.

Invitation-only.

Sealed bidding only.

“Event-class: CRADLE RESET”

The item was listed as:

Lot 0.0: [Concept Entity — Error-Class Echo]
Description: Fragment of paradox origin. Unstable. Possibly sentient. May contain critical unresolved auction-state data.
Status: Non-interactive.
Risk: Contained.
Origin: System anomaly classification “Negative Zero”

Only Kang-ho and three divine-tier handlers knew what was actually inside.

But even they didn’t know he had let himself in.

Because Jiyon wasn’t captured.

He volunteered.

Inside the containment chamber — cold white light, damp energy fields pulsing in long arcs — Jiyon sat on a low plinth, hands loosely folded.

Unshackled.

Unmoving.

Watching.

The chamber was shielded against memory leakage. Conversation was discouraged. Sensory data was dampened. But the guards kept glancing at him anyway.

He looked too real.

Too intact.

“This is the error?” one whispered.

“Doesn’t feel like an error.”

And in the control room above, Kang-ho stood behind the auction glass, eyes locked on Jiyon’s face.

Still. Untouched. Calm.

Kang-ho leaned closer.

“He walked in on his own,” one of the moderators said. “Triggered the failsafe. Sat down before we even deployed the binding loop.”

“Maybe he wants to be bought,” another joked.

Kang-ho didn’t laugh.

He pressed a command key.

The auction began.

High-tier bidders — many masked, some myth-class, a few moderator-lords — sat before luminous displays of the item. Jargon scrolled. Warnings blinked.

Lot 0.0: Error-Class Echo
Opening Bid: Tier III soul-anchor
Active Bidders: 7

As the bidding opened, Jiyon looked up.

Directly into the auction lens.

No smile.

No signal.

Just a slow breath.

Then he spoke.

The audio wasn’t routed.

There were no microphones.

But every bidder heard it.

Not through speakers.

Through the system itself.

“You’re bidding on an error you can’t comprehend.
But it’s not me who’ll be corrupted by this listing.
It’s you.”

Bidding froze.

Terminals flickered.

System lag surged for exactly 2.3 seconds.

Then:

[Warning: Data loopback detected in bidding core.]
[Lot 0.0 has altered host system.]
[Bid invalidation pending.]
[ERROR: You cannot auction something that is already inside you.]

Kang-ho’s screen blanked.

And for the first time since his resurrection loop, he stepped back from the glass.

Inside the containment room, Jiyon stood.

The lights dimmed.

The auction platform flickered, its threads of divine gold going slack.