A crimson warning flickered at the edge of his vision.

  [STATUS: RED LEVEL]

  Entity 404—the one he had shoved into his pack back at the scrapyard—was gnawing through the logic circuits of the rig.

  If the limit hit zero, even Si-woo didn’t know what would happen.

  The pack might detonate, or his very existence could be wiped from the database.

  All he knew was that he had less than twenty minutes left.

  Si-woo headed for the skyscraper on the main boulevard, a needle of steel piercing the clouds.

  Avoiding the elevators, he slipped into the emergency stairwell, vanishing into the shadows.

  In a city that worshiped efficiency, stairs were the ultimate waste—a dead space ignored by the System.

  But that was exactly why Si-woo needed them.

  Step. Step. Step.

  His footsteps echoed in a rhythmic pulse.

  He reached the 5th floor, approaching a worn-out door labeled 'Server Management Room'.

  His rig pulsed with a rhythmic red light like a heartbeat, and as if responding, the door flickered and clicked open.

  The moment Si-woo crossed the threshold, his retinal GPS signal died in a burst of static.

  His coordinates vanished.

  He had entered through a door on the 5th floor, yet before him lay a dizzying, high-altitude landscape.

  This was the Blind Spot—a place beyond the System's reaching gaze, known only to him.

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  [TIME REMAINING: 00:45]

  Si-woo slammed the rig onto the workbench.

  The pack, pushed to its absolute limit, let out a high-pitched metallic shriek.

  "Transfer," he commanded.

  Blue particles shimmered across the rig's surface as data began to pour out.

  The essence of the legendary blade and other high-value spoils were dismantled in real-time and moved to dummy modules.

  But then, the control panel flashed a violent red.

  [ERROR: ENTITY 404 - TRANSFER REFUSED]

  [WARNING: LOGIC CONFLICT DETECTED. COMMENCING FORCED EJECTION.]

  "What? Hey, wait!"

  The space around the rig distorted violently.

  The internal subspace buckled as if vomiting, and a small, fragile silhouette was spat out onto the workbench, manifesting into physical form.

  It was 404.

  The moment she materialized in reality, freed from the frozen time of the subspace, her body began to crumble.

  Even here, where System interference was blocked, her ego collapse wouldn't stop.

  [STATUS: EGO COLLAPSE IN PROGRESS (92%)]

  The rig returned to Green Level, but he couldn't put her back inside.

  The pack's security protocols now recognized the once-ejected data as an 'error value' and refused it.

  "Dammit... my luck is just great," he hissed.

  If the collapse finished, she would be gone.

  His clues to his sister, his chance at a fortune—all of it.

  With trembling fingers, Si-woo opened the secret safe beneath the workbench.

  Inside lay a small, golden sphere emitting a faint, divine glow.

  The [Absolute Isolation Sphere].

  This was his treasure, his retirement fund.

  Si-woo looked between the crumbling girl and the golden sphere, his brow furrowing in agony.

  "Listen, if I use this and you don't pay me back later, I'm chasing you to the ends of the earth".

  Holding back tears, he hit the activation switch.

  The golden device swallowed 404, freezing her static noise in place.

  [SPECIAL ISOLATION COMPLETE]

  [STATUS: COLLAPSE TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED]

  Silence filled the room.

  Si-woo stared at the empty safe and muttered hollowly,

  "I'm crazy. I've officially lost it. Do you know how much that cost...?"

  He collapsed into a creaking chair, his shirt drenched in cold sweat.

  He stared at the ceiling for a long time, catching his breath, before looking at the now-silent rig on the desk.

  "Maybe I should have just let the limit break,"

  he whispered.

  "It would’ve been a cleaner end. No more of this hell. Right? Don't you wonder if the gates of hell open once that limit is crossed?"

  There was no reply.

  He grabbed a lukewarm drink from the fridge and tried to steady his heart.

  "Hell? No. My money. My precious retirement fund is what's burning"

  He sat back down and pulled the chair close.

  On the screen, the 'Essence of the Legendary Blade' moved to the dummy module was displayed.

  He immediately launched his data filtering tools.

  [WARNING: OWNERSHIP AUTHENTICATION CODE DETECTED.]

  "Of course there is. Those high-rankers and their paranoia," he grumbled.

  He inserted a precision probe into the heart of the data.

  He was tearing away the 'digital brand'—the System's tracking code.

  Selling this on the black market with the brand intact would lead the authorities straight to him, or at least get the price slashed to nothing.

  One by one, he dismantled the logical barriers protecting the code.

  As the probe sank deep, a burst of red noise flickered on the monitor,

  followed by a new prompt: [OWNERSHIP UNAUTHENTICATED].

  It was a perfect laundry job.

  He dragged the stripped tracking code into a folder labeled 'X'.

  The folder was already filled with countless other stolen codes.

  Now, this data had been transformed into a 'pure energy source' with no traceable origin.

  The estimated market value flashed on the screen.

  Looking at the numbers, a thin smile finally touched Si-woo's lips.

  It was more than enough to buy the parts needed to stabilize 404 and the equipment to track the [0214-X] code—the trace of his sister.

  Si-woo grabbed his coat from the wall and opened the door.

  His destination was the back alleys where the System's law didn't reach—the black market.

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