One day, without warning, a game appeared in the world.
No one knew where it came from. No one claimed ownership. No one could even agree on what the letters MG truly stood for. People simply began calling it a Multi-Playing Game, and the name that stuck was *Sinner and Cleanser*.
The moment a person accepted the invitation, they vanished from the real world and reappeared inside another one—a world that looked like a game. Monsters prowled ruined cities. Quests floated in the air like glowing script. Strange powers bloomed inside human bodies. Treasures waited in places that should not exist. And death waited everywhere.
There was only one way to avoid it.
Refuse the invitation.
Those who refused remained ordinary humans in the ordinary world. But the ordinary world was no longer ordinary. Society had split cleanly in two: Players and Non-Players.
Players entered the game and returned with wealth, influence, and power that ordinary people could only envy. Non-Players stayed behind. Some refused out of fear. Some never received an invitation at all. Some simply wanted a quiet life. Society decided their value quickly enough: almost nothing.
Sozo was one of them.
He had been an orphan for as long as memory reached. He grew up learning how to survive on scraps of kindness and the hard edges of necessity. Yet somewhere in university, something soft and unexpected found him. He fell in love. For the first time, he allowed himself to believe that fate might not be entirely cruel.
He married her.
After finishing his B.Ed., they began building a small life together. It was not luxurious. It was not perfect. But it was theirs—two people, one rented room, shared meals, quiet evenings. Then her parents died. The thin financial support that had once cushioned them disappeared. Sozo worked every shift he could find. Part-time jobs. Temporary contracts. Anything that put money in the house while he hunted for a permanent post.
The problem was simple and brutal. Jobs for Non-Player candidates were scarce. Companies preferred Players. Even the lowest decent positions demanded years of experience that most Non-Players never had the chance to gather. The choices narrowed to two: take a loan and start a small business, or suffer.
Sozo already carried a loan from his degree. He still tried. He walked into banks with carefully prepared files. He smiled through interviews that ended the moment someone noticed the Non-Player mark on his record. He struggled for two full years after graduation.
Then, one year ago, his wife finally secured a proper job. For a brief stretch of months, Sozo allowed himself to hope. She was promoted. And shortly afterward, she asked for a divorce.
He did not understand at first. He wanted to stop her. He wanted to ask her to stay. In the end he listened to the words she had spoken, and he realized she was not entirely wrong. He could not give her the life she wanted. She had her own dreams. She was human. He could not keep her chained to a marriage simply because he still loved her.
Sozo agreed.
The divorce was finalized nine months ago. That was when the truth arrived like a delayed knife. His wife had been having an affair with her manager—the son of a wealthy family, a second-generation rich kid. And now she was entering the game world with him.
That was not what broke Sozo.
What broke him was the memory of her voice, years earlier, soft and certain in the dark of their small room:
"We shouldn't enter the game world. We'll die. Let's stay here instead. We can build our own little family. We can live happily together."
She had been the one who made him dream. She had been the one who convinced him their small life was enough. And now she was abandoning that dream for someone else.
For days he stopped working. He stopped eating properly. He barely slept. He smoked until his throat burned and then he started drinking. He was quietly destroying himself when his friends found him.
Ramesh came first. Muntejul Laka came with him. They had not known the full story—only that Sozo had vanished, that calls went unanswered, that something was wrong. They found him in the rented room in Sonarpur, the air thick with smoke and the sour smell of cheap liquor.
Ramesh did not ask permission.
The first slap cracked across Sozo's face hard enough to turn his head.
"Sozo!"
The second slap followed before the sting of the first had faded.
"Wake up!"
Sozo stared at him, eyes bloodshot and empty. Ramesh grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him once, hard.
"You still have a life. You can still struggle. You can still become something. And one day, if you become successful, she will be the one who regrets leaving you."
The words reached him slowly, painfully, like light leaking under a closed door. From that day onward, Sozo began the long work of rebuilding himself.
Most of their circle had already entered the game world. Muntejul had gone. Nearly everyone had gone. Only Ramesh remained a Non-Player, still teaching, still waiting for an invitation that never came. Sozo began his own struggle alone. For seven months he traveled wherever rumor suggested a job might exist—Kolkata, Suna, Bahai. Every door gave the same answer. Non-Players were not wanted. Society believed that anyone who had rejected the game, or never been invited, should simply survive without help. A few companies still hired them. The vacancies were almost nonexistent.
And Sozo carried another reason for refusal. His ex-wife had once told him they should stay in the real world. Build a family. Grow old together. He had refused his invitation because he believed her. Then she divorced him and accepted her own invitation again—with a rich man.
He worked while the memories followed him: fear, sadness, regret, and above everything else, a cold, steady rage.
Then something appeared before his eyes.
A translucent blue window hung in the air as if the world itself had decided to open a menu.
Sozo stopped walking in the middle of the crowded footpath. People flowed around him. He stared.
Words formed, clean and precise.
«[Welcome to Marchend of Market System.]
[As a sign-in reward, you are invited to play the 100x Rich Game.]
[Spend money and receive 10x cashback.]
[Trial duration: 7 days.]
[After the trial period, this function can be purchased from the Market.]»
Sozo blinked once. Twice.
A system.
He had read enough manga, watched enough web novels and series, to recognize the shape of it. Instead of terror, a sharp, almost giddy excitement rose in his chest. His eyes widened.
"Spend money…" he whispered, rereading the line, "and get ten times the money back?"
Silence stretched for a heartbeat.
Then his mouth opened and the sound that came out was pure, unfiltered disbelief mixed with rising hope.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
He stretched it longer.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
People nearby turned to stare. Sozo did not care. He yanked his phone from his pocket, opened Google Pay, and stared at the balance: ₹5,000. Two SIM cards. He recharged both of them, draining every last rupee.
A soft chime sounded in the air only he could hear.
«[₹5,000 spending detected.]
[Cashback: ₹50,000.]»
Sozo froze. He looked from the phone to the floating window and back again. His voice came out thin.
"It's real."
Then louder, cracking with the first real emotion he had felt in months.
"It's real!"
Tears filled his eyes. He laughed, a broken, disbelieving sound that turned into something brighter.
"Oh God. Thank God."
For the first time in months, Sozo cried from happiness.
₹50,000. Fifty thousand rupees. Actual money. His mind leapt forward.
"What can I buy?"
He opened Flipkart with shaking fingers and bought the first phone that looked expensive enough—₹50,000. The system answered instantly.
«[₹50,000 spending detected.]
[Cashback: ₹500,000.]»
His jaw dropped. Five lakh. Five hundred thousand rupees sitting in his account as if the world had simply decided to rewrite the numbers.
Then memory cut through the daze.
"Ramesh."
He owed Ramesh one hundred thousand. He transferred it at once. Then the loans. The smile that curved his mouth turned sharp and dangerous.
"I have loans too."
He paid the loan sharks. He cleared the bank loan. Money still remained—absurd, growing piles of it. His eyes drifted toward the financial markets.
"Gold."
He began buying. One transaction. Another. Another. Within the hour, through the quiet efficiency of the market system, Sozo had acquired roughly five percent of the world's available gold-related shares and holdings. His bank account still showed an impossible figure.
₹50 billion.
He stared at the number until the digits blurred. He checked again. Then he whispered, almost afraid the words would break the spell,
"I think I'm rich."
A second later the whisper became a shout that made strangers jump.
"I'M RICH!"
---
Sozo boarded the metro with the intention of returning to the rented room in Sonarpur. Halfway there, the thought of that room—its thin walls, the lingering smell of old smoke, the weight of every failed day—became unbearable. He changed direction.
"Bangkok," he muttered to himself. Why Bangkok? He did not know. He simply wanted somewhere far enough that the past could not follow.
Before he left the room that morning, however, he had glanced at a newspaper left on a tea stall. A special bank was auctioning a half-completed project: two massive towers, a twin-tower development in Kolkata. The auction was scheduled for seven o'clock at City Plaza.
Sozo decided to go.
By the time he reached the area it was five. Instead of heading straight to the plaza, he walked into the nearby mall. His first stop was a salon. His hair was a neglected mess, the outward sign of months spent not caring whether he lived or died.
He sat in the chair and let the stylist work. Cutting. Washing. Treatment. Styling. When he stood and looked in the mirror, a different man looked back—dark hair neat and sharp, face clearer, shoulders no longer curved inward with defeat. He looked younger. He looked like someone who might actually matter.
His phone rang. Ramesh.
Sozo answered with a calm he had not felt in years.
"Where are you?!"
"What happened?" Sozo asked, already smiling.
"What happened?! You sent me five hundred thousand rupees!"
"So?"
"SO?! Did you sell your kidney or something?!"
Sozo laughed, the sound free and almost light. "No, no."
"You better not be joking!"
"You misunderstood."
"Sozo, what the hell is going on?"
Sozo glanced around the bright, expensive mall. "Come to Kolkata tomorrow."
"What?"
"We have capital now."
"What capital?"
"Enough to do something."
"Explain!"
"I'm a little busy right now."
"Sozo!"
But Sozo had already decided the phone was the wrong place for the truth. "Come to Kolkata tomorrow. You'll understand."
He hung up.
A soft chime sounded again.
«[₹10,000 spending detected.]
[Cashback: ₹100,000.]»
Sozo looked toward the salon counter and laughed under his breath. "This system is insane."
He continued shopping. Clothes. Shoes. A belt. A watch. Brands he had only ever seen on other people's wrists and collars. Every rupee spent multiplied. By the time he finished, his account had crossed one thousand billion.
Another notification appeared.
«[Congratulations.]
[Based on your current financial status, SBI has upgraded your account eligibility.]
[Premium VIP Credit Card application unlocked.]»
Sozo glanced at it and shrugged. "Later."
Tonight he had somewhere to be.
---
7:00 PM. City Plaza.
The auction hall was already packed when Sozo entered. He received his seat number and walked inside without hurry. The space was enormous—high ceilings, polished floors, the low murmur of serious money. Rich businessmen. Investors. Real-estate tycoons. Bank representatives. Politicians. Everyone had come for the same prize: the twin-tower project.
Sozo took his seat and leaned back. For the first time in years he felt strangely calm. No debt. No fear. No desperate search for employment. No wife. No begging. No helplessness. Only money, and a mysterious system that answered every expenditure with more.
Then the lights went out.
The entire hall fell silent. A single spotlight bloomed on the stage. A man in an expensive suit walked to the podium and smiled the practiced smile of someone who had conducted many such evenings.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen."
The auction was about to begin.
And nobody in that room knew that the poorest man who had entered the hall had already become the richest.