The rabbit's meat was gone. Only clean-picked bones remained, stripped so thoroughly they looked as if ants had eaten them, not a human.
Yan Kesh wiped his mouth. His stomach was full, nutrients beginning to flow through his blood. Logically, his body should have felt comfortable.
But he knew the rules now.
"I ate while delaying hunger. I killed while delaying pain," he murmured softly, his eyes fixed sharply on empty air. "Now it's time for repayment."
Yan Kesh lay flat on the hard ground. He bit down on a piece of wood so his teeth wouldn't shatter when the screaming came. He took a deep breath, then consciously released the mental lock that had been suppressing all bodily sensations since noon.
Boom.
Not a sonic explosion, but an explosion of suffering.
The exhaustion accumulated over three days, the burning pain from thorn scratches, the muscle ache from throwing the stone, and the residual hunger his nerves hadn't yet processed—all of it crashed down at once.
Yan Kesh's body convulsed violently, like a fish thrown onto scorching land.
Cold sweat flooded every pore within seconds. The veins in his neck bulged grotesquely, tinted a horrifying blue. The wood in his mouth cracked from the force of his bite.
He didn't faint. His consciousness was instead forcibly held awake by the black stone nearby.
Amid the physical torment, the sound of stone cracking rang out again—this time louder, closer, as if the fracture were occurring inside his own skull.
KRETEK.
Yan Kesh's eyes flew open. His vision blurred, the world spinning into a gray vortex.
And then, he heard it.
The sound of pages being turned.
One page. Two pages. A hundred pages.
The scrape of a quill pen dragged harshly across dry parchment.
The slam of a stamp against a wooden desk. Bam! Bam! Bam!
The sounds didn't come through his ears. They echoed directly inside his mind, crushing his conscious thought under the weight of thousands of tons of information.
"Ghh—aargh!"
Yan Kesh groaned through clenched teeth. Fresh blood dripped from his nose.
This wasn't an ordinary soul attack.
This was an Audit.
Within the darkness of his mind, a vision formed. Not divine light, but a colossal book floating in the void. Its cover was made of unrecognizable hide, black as a starless night.
The book opened on its own. The pages were blank—until Yan Kesh focused, and blood-colored ink began to appear, crawling like living worms.
---
[PROVISIONAL LEDGER: YAN KESH]
The script was ancient, difficult to read, yet Yan Kesh somehow understood it. There were no numbers. No experience points. Only two massive columns opposing one another.
LEFT COLUMN: RECEIVED
One forest rabbit life (Low Quality).
Pain delay (Duration: 4 hours).
Muscle fatigue delay (Duration: 4 hours).
RIGHT COLUMN: OWED
Muscle tissue damage (Settled – via suffering).
Minor karmic imbalance (Unsettled).
Delay interest (Unsettled).
Yan Kesh's head felt like it was about to split as he tried to read the final line.
[AUDIT STATUS: UNBALANCED]
[ACTION: FORCED COLLECTION INITIATED]
"Forced… collection?" Yan Kesh thought through the agony.
Before he could react, an icy sensation stabbed into his spine. Not physical pain—but loss.
He felt a small portion of his luck being stripped away.
He felt a portion of his body heat being taken.
In the real world, the small fire he had lit to roast the rabbit suddenly went out—without wind.
The rock he leaned against cracked sharply, its edge slicing into his shoulder.
A freezing wind blew from nowhere, solidifying the sweat on his skin and sending violent shivers through his body.
The universe around him became slightly more hostile. Slightly more unlucky.
That was the price.
Because he had taken a life (the rabbit) and deceived his own body (delay), the world took comfort and fortune in return.
Yan Kesh's breathing grew ragged. The vision of the massive book slowly faded, leaving behind a dull, rhythmic headache—like a sledgehammer pounding at regular intervals.
He spat the wood from his mouth. Panting heavily, red-eyed, he stared up at the imaginary ceiling above him.
"Hah… hah…"
Yan Kesh laughed.
A dry, hoarse, insane laugh.
"This isn't a divine inheritance," he whispered, wiping the blood from beneath his nose.
"This is a loan shark."
This power didn't grant free energy. It only gave him the authority to borrow. He could borrow strength, borrow time, borrow lives—but the bookkeeping was transparent. The audits were merciless.
If he didn't repay with suffering or sacrifice himself, the world would forcibly collect through misfortune or disaster.
Yan Kesh slowly pushed himself upright. He stared at the black stone once more.
The cracks on its surface had formed an intricate pattern. And for the first time, Yan Kesh felt that the stone was alive. It wasn't an object—it was a terminal, a small gateway to an unseen bureaucracy governing the laws of reality.
"You recorded 'Minor Karmic Imbalance' because I killed a rabbit to survive?" Yan Kesh asked the stone.
"Then what happens if I kill a human?"
The question hung in the air.
Yan Kesh realized the terrifying potential of this power.
If he could manipulate the 'Owed' column… perhaps he could transfer the bill to someone else.
Perhaps, he wouldn't have to pay his own debts at all.
"Interesting," Yan Kesh smiled, though his face was pale as a corpse. "Very interesting. If this world is a ledger, then all I need is to become a sufficiently crooked accountant to be invincible."
The night grew deeper. The headache remained—a permanent reminder that inside his mind, The Audit was always watching, its quill poised to record every breath he took.
---