The transition back to the basement was a crushing descent. The smell of the damp linoleum and the low-frequency hum of the city's traffic felt like physical blows. Si-woo sat up, his head swimming with a neural migraine that made every pulse of blood in his temples feel like a hammer strike.
His phone, a screen-cracked budget model, sat on the floor. He fumbled for it with trembling fingers. He didn't have time to recover. In the high-stakes world of Murim Online, gold was more than digital currency—it was a global commodity.
He opened a hidden "Item-Bay" application, a grey-market exchange where players sold gold for real-world Korean Won. Usually, it took hours to find a buyer, but the purity of the spirit pills he had refined had generated a high-grade gold credit.
[Listing: 300 Gold]
[Status: Sold]
[Transaction: 3,200,000 KRW transferred to account ending in -8821]
The notification ping was the sweetest sound Si-woo had heard since the accident.
"Si-woo?"
The door to his room creaked open. His mother, Sun-young, stood there. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she looked as though she had aged a decade in a single morning. She was holding a small bowl of rice, her hands still shaking.
"I... I'm going to go to the association office," she said, her voice hollow. "Maybe if I beg Director Ma's boss... if I show them my hands... they'll give us until next month."
"You don't have to go, Eomma," Si-woo said.
He reached out and grabbed her hand. It was cold and rough, the skin calloused from years of washing other people's clothes. He pressed his phone into her palm.
"Look at the balance," he whispered.
Sun-young squinted at the screen. She blinked, then wiped her eyes, thinking she was seeing the phantom numbers of a fever dream. "Three... three million? Si-woo, where did this come from? Did you... did you take another loan?" Her voice rose in a frantic pitch. "Tell me you didn't go to the shadow banks!"
"It's from the game, Eomma," Si-woo said, trying to keep his voice steady despite the exhaustion clawing at his mind. "I found something rare. A 'spirit root.' The pro-gamers in Seoul pay millions for this kind of thing. It's legal. It's clean."
Sun-young sank to the floor, clutching the phone to her chest as if it were a lifebuoy. She began to sob—not the quiet, hopeless weeping of the morning, but a violent, racking release of months of terror.
"We can pay them," she gasped. "We can pay them and still have enough for your medicine. And Mi-rae... she can go back to her academy classes."
Si-woo watched her, his heart tightening. The Golden Immortal within him felt a strange, unfamiliar warmth. In his past life, he had ruled millions, yet he had never felt the weight of a single person's relief like this.
Two hours later, Director Ma returned. He didn't knock this time; he simply kicked the door open, expecting to find a broken woman and a sobbing girl.
Instead, he found Han Si-woo sitting in his wheelchair in the center of the room. Sun-young stood behind him, her face pale but her back straight.
"You're early, Ma," Si-woo said.
"I decided I didn't like waiting until Friday," Ma sneered, stepping into the room. He held out a thick, meaty hand. "Where's my money, or do I start packing the girl's bags?"
Sun-young stepped forward and handed him a neat envelope.
Ma's eyes narrowed. He ripped the envelope open and counted the crisp, fifty-thousand-won notes. His expression shifted from predatory confidence to genuine confusion.
"Two million... and five hundred thousand for the interest," Ma muttered. He looked at the family, his eyes lingering on Si-woo. "Where did a laundress get this kind of cash in two hours?"
"The debt is settled," Si-woo said, his golden eyes locking onto Ma's.
For a second, Ma felt a strange, paralyzing chill. It was as if he were standing in front of something far larger than a crippled boy—a presence that made the air in the basement feel thin and electrified. He took a half-step back, his fingers twitching toward the knife tucked into his waistband.
"Yeah," Ma grunted, stuffing the money into his pocket. "It's settled. For now." He turned to go, but paused at the door. "Don't think this makes you big time, kid. People who find money that fast usually find trouble even faster."
The door slammed shut.
The silence that followed was heavy. Mi-rae came out of her room, looking at her brother as if he were a stranger.
"Si-woo," she whispered. "That game... can you really make that much money in it?"
"I can do more than make money, Mi-rae," Si-woo said.
He looked at his legs. He could feel the tiny, persistent warmth at the base of his spine. It was growing. The Qi he had refined hadn't just evaporated when he logged out; it had left a seed behind.
"I need to go back in," Si-woo said. "The 'spirit root' was just the beginning. To fix this... to fix everything... I need to reach the First Gate."