Trading Day (1)

I don't know if other insomnia sufferers are like me, but I was in absolute hell because of my insomnia.

Before the world went to shit, my daily life was already a struggle thanks to this goddamn condition.

No matter who I talked to about it, I could never get any real empathy.

"Can't sleep? Try exercising."

"You must not be living your day right."

"Stop using your phone before bed."

Most of them just spat out the same useless bullshit, so I stopped bothering with people who mindlessly yapped like that.

But when the world ended and that stupid-ass window popped up, asking me to choose a skill—I found my salvation in it.

Sleep Skill.

Just the sight of those words made my heart race.

You can put people to sleep? You can make them sleep whenever you want? That… That means I can sleep too, right?

There were countless other skills, but none of them even registered in my mind. Without hesitation, I chose the Sleep Skill.

This… this has to work, right? I'll finally be able to sleep when I want to?

"Sleep."

I cast the skill on myself without a second thought.

And nothing happened.

A creeping anxiety rose from the pit of my stomach. No way… Even with this fantasy-like skill, I still can't sleep?

"Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!"

I spammed it, but still—nothing.

Doubt and despair slowly wrapped around me.

I can't sleep, and now I've wasted my skill choice on this garbage. I'm screwed.

Am I even using this right? Am I just making a fool of myself?

I wanted to check the skill's details, but I had no idea how.

What kind of sick bastard designed this system? How is any of this even possible?

And if they had the power to do something like this, they must be some kind of god or omnipotent being—so why the hell did they make it so inconvenient and user-unfriendly?

"Status! Status Window! Personal Screen! Menu! Profile!"

No matter what command I shouted, nothing changed.

Fuck. I always hated game developers who made tutorials as useless as dogshit, but whoever did this didn't even bother with one. At least give me a fucking manual or something.

"Settings! Options! Configuration! Menu! Environment Settings! You fucking piece of shit!"

If an options window popped up, I could at least check the keybinds or settings—but nope. Nothing.

"Skill."

Oh, shit.

Something finally appeared in front of me.

Fuck, I'm an idiot. If I wanted to see skill info, I should've opened the skill window. Why was I trying random shit?

The problem was, even though the skill window opened, there was barely anything in it.

Just the skill name and proficiency level—no description or any other useful info.

Hah. I really want to see the face of the bastard who made this.

If I die, will I get to meet them? If I'm going to die anyway, I'll make sure to hunt down the fucker who designed this.

The only useful info in the skill window was the proficiency level.

A proficiency of 0.4 meant the skill had activated.

Okay, so the skill isn't completely useless, right? It's just that my proficiency is too low, so it fails most of the time?

I lay back down and started spamming the skill again.

"Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep."

The proficiency went up.

This meant one of two things—either my skill had a dogshit success rate, or my insomnia was just that severe.

As I kept using it, another question popped into my head.

How does skill activation work? Do I have to say "sleep" for it to trigger?

"Sleep."

The proficiency increased.

Nice, this is faster.

"Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep."

After spamming it a few more times, I finally passed out.

***********************************************************

When I woke up, I groggily sat up.

It was already evening.

How long did I sleep? Since I crashed right after getting home from raiding that underground mall, it must've been over ten hours.

I got up and checked the bunker's status.

First, I made sure the lock on Minji's room was intact. Then, I peeked through the cover on the door's window.

Minji was just sitting there, motionless.

Still alive. Good.

I closed the cover again.

No need to deal with her today.

As usual, I grabbed a cup noodle, poured water in it, and headed to the monitor room.

After confirming nothing unusual was happening on the monitors, I slurped down the noodles, broth and all.

"Sigh."

Finally—the day I get to see Yeji.

Why am I so excited?

No, of course I'm excited. Who wouldn't be when they're about to get their hands on that tight little body?

I stripped, took a shower, and scrubbed every inch of myself clean.

Pathetic? Maybe. But who cares?

As I dried off, dressed, and prepped to leave the bunker, I couldn't shake the feeling of rushing.

Obviously. Just thinking about Yeji has me rock-hard already.

I stepped outside, moving through the empty alleyways toward her officetel.

My heart pounded, my steps light—like a kid on a field trip.

But then, footsteps echoed ahead.

I ducked into the shadows of a side alley and watched.

Four men, chatting among themselves, hadn't noticed me yet.

Why do people in groups never pay attention to their surroundings?

Why do men get so recklessly bold when they're together?

If I stayed hidden, they might pass by without spotting me—but I couldn't be sure.

What to do? Stay quiet and hope they don't notice?

No.

In the past, I would've avoided unnecessary conflict. But not now.

Four men would've been an instant retreat before, but not anymore.

When they were closest to me, I put three of them to sleep instantly—leaving only the oldest-looking one awake.

I lunged at him silently.

"Hey!? What the—!?"

The man panicked as his buddies collapsed. Before he could react, I swung my machete at his neck.

Older men had one flaw—in a crisis, they didn't instinctively use their skills. They defaulted to what they knew best: basic defense.

He raised his arm to block, but that didn't stop the machete from carving halfway through his throat.

As he crumpled, he muttered something—then a laser-like beam shot from his fingertip toward me.

Holy shit.

It missed, but my heart nearly stopped.

He counterattacked while dying? What kind of skill was that?

Whoever designed this system, I gotta hand it to them—this is creative as hell.

The man gurgled blood before vanishing, his spilled blood disappearing with him.

Yeah, this is why people kill without hesitation now.

[6,112 Coins Acquired.]

I took his coins, then sent the other three after him.

[605 Coins Acquired.]

[594 Coins Acquired.]

[819 Coins Acquired.]

What the fuck? Were these guys just his lackeys?

It had been a while since I'd seen three-digit coin drops.

They were already gone, so I couldn't confirm their relationships—not that I cared.

Men aren't my concern anyway.

If I'm out here slaughtering people, others must be too—but there are still plenty of survivors. Maybe people aren't as bloodthirsty as I thought.

Or maybe Koreans are just like that.

I wonder what happened in places like South America or China—countries where violence was already normalized. No way to check now, though.

Anyway, taking down four men at once—even if it was reckless—felt good.

A rush of confidence flooded me, intoxicating.

This is usually when people get themselves killed.

I got to be careful.

**************************************************

I entered the officetel's basement and carefully made my way up the stairs.

The closer I got to Yeji's floor, the harder my heart pounded.

Why does this staircase feel so long and steep today?

As I neared her floor, I heard loud banging.

I tried to ignore it, but the noise was coming from Yeji's hallway.

I pulled out a mirror to check—three men were pounding on a door.

Fuck. That's Yeji's place.

"Hey! Nobody home!? Seriously!?"

"Told you. She's been gone for a while."

"Ah, damn it! Then where the hell are we supposed to get beer!?"

"Fucking waste. I wanted to kill that bitch too."

"Wait, you fucked her?"

"Dumbass, I said kill, not fuck. If I'd fucked her, I'd be bragging, not complaining!"

"Yeah, right. Like she'd let a piece of shit like you touch her."

"The fuck you say? You wanna die?"

"Ooh, scary. You? Kill me?"

"This little bastard's got a mouth on him. Cut that shit out."

They sounded like they were joking around, but I wasn't sure.

At least Yeji wasn't exposed—but if these assholes kept banging on her door, she'd be terrified inside.

Wow, I sound like a jealous boyfriend.

Either way, these guys were useless.

I might be a sociopathic bastard myself, but trashy, low-tier scum still pisses me off.

Three targets—easy.

I put them all to sleep.

They collapsed in front of the door. I walked over and nudged one with my foot.

"Pathetic fucks."

A swing of my machete, and all three were done.

Hah. Seven people wiped off Korea's population today.

[3,131 Coins Acquired.]

[2,024 Coins Acquired.]

[3,201 Coins Acquired.]

Coins only dropped when you killed someone.

At the start, the shop gave everyone 500 coins as a baseline.

So if someone had more than 500, it meant they'd killed at least one person.

No sympathy for these bastards.

I laughed at my own hypocrisy.

Too late for moralizing now.

With everything ready, I took a deep breath and knocked.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

A brief silence—then the sound of locks being hastily undone.

Click.

The door swung open.

Yeji stood there, her eyes red, tear streaks on her cheeks.

The moment she saw me, she lunged forward and hugged me.