Level 4 Human in a Ruined World - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1 1. The Chaebol Transform into Dragons (1)

Young-woo thought drowsily.

What would have happened if he hadn’t quit his job six years ago?

If he hadn’t jumped into internet broadcasting, claiming there was no future living as a salaried worker for life.

‘Actually, I knew it too. That it was gambling to escape reality.’

But he wanted to try gambling before it was too late, Young-woo muttered.

Of course, the carelessly started gamble eventually ended in failure.

And Young-woo experienced firsthand how fatal a career break could be for replaceable manpower.

He lived as a job seeker for two years, and the next year he worked two part-time jobs to earn living expenses urgently.

Being grateful that he could even find two part-time jobs.

And now, another year later from then.

“Young-woo! What are you doing! Get up quickly!”

He was lying in the factory dormitory in Gumi, Gyeongsangbuk-do, wandering through dreams.

“Hey! I said get up!”

“Mmm…”

Young-woo realized the owner of this voice was his day-shift roommate only when the other person roughly shook his shoulders.

“This isn’t the time to sleep! Something really big happened!”

The word “big” pierced his ears.

Young-woo finally opened his eyes narrowly, then suddenly felt his whole body shiver as he bolted upright.

“Huh! Wh… what time is it, hyung? I’m on night shift today.”

“Hey, is going to work important in this situation?”

“…What?”

When Young-woo made a dumbfounded expression at the unexpected line, his roommate spoke in an urgent voice.

“You, quickly spread out your right hand. Let me see how many you have.”

“Wh, what are you talking about, right now?”

Young-woo belatedly realized something was strange.

His dormitory roommate. That is, the 38-year-old man Im Bong-hee’s expression was too bright.

No, beyond bright, he even seemed to be filled with some kind of ecstasy.

“Dude, the world is completely turning upside down right now! Chaebol and everything else are all about to be screwed! This isn’t a dream, right?”

“What have you been saying since earlier…”

The rest of the words “what nonsense” couldn’t be continued.

Because Young-woo also discovered ‘that thing’ caught in his vision.

―[Chaebol Chairman-Kim Dong-ho] Would you like to nominate for elimination? If you agree, consume karma points to exercise your right.

Some blue text was hanging in the corner of his vision, slowly rising upward.

Then soon after, other phrases followed in line below it.

―[Actor-Hyun Song-ae] Nominate for elimination…

―[Serial Killer-Kim Eung-pyo] Nominate for elimination…

―[Internet Broadcaster-Lee Ho-yeon (Puppy)] Nominate for elimination…

“Wh, what is all this…?”

When Young-woo reached out into the air trying to touch the text, Bong-hee looked at his palm and opened his eyes wide.

“What’s wrong, why are you like this?”

“What?”

“Look at your right hand now. You only have 3 points.”

At this, Young-woo hurriedly spread out his right hand to look.

Then he could see the number ‘3’ glowing brightly on his palm.

“…?”

Was this a dream? No, everything was too vivid to think of it that way.

“Wait a minute. So right now this is…”

“Hey, seeing your reaction, I can definitely tell this isn’t a dream.”

Bong-hee, who had been carefully watching Young-woo’s stunned expression, came to his own conclusion and held out his palm.

Whoosh.

「9」

“Can you see it? This is what’s left after using a lot. At first it was 20 or so.”

“You used this?”

Young-woo asked this while shifting his gaze to the problematic text.

―[Politician-Kang Hong-se] Nominate for elimination…

―[Singer-Im Gwang-tae] Nominate for elimination…

‘No way.’

Now that he looked, the people the text was pulling up had one thing in common.

That was they had all caused social controversy, big or small.

For example, the chaebol chairman Kim Dong-ho mentioned earlier had issues with verbal abuse toward his driver, and movie actress Hyun Song-ae was criticized after her past abuse of power toward stylists was exposed.

In other words, what the blue text was showing as elimination candidates were those who had earned public hatred.

“…”

Young-woo, having grasped the minimum situation, took a deep breath and blinked.

This was a ritual he performed when he needed to make the most rational judgment possible.

“If this isn’t a dream, what exactly is happening?”

When Young-woo asked this, Bong-hee responded as if he’d been waiting.

“You must be seeing the same thing as me… isn’t there something above your head or somewhere like that?”

“Above my head?”

Swish.

When Young-woo followed Bong-hee and raised his head, a fist-sized Blue Sphere entered his vision.

“…Huh?”

And finally, the guidance text he had missed while sleeping began to fill his view.

「Greetings, this is an announcement from The Board.」

「On Tuesday, June 10, 2025, at approximately 10:12:08 AM, an ‘imbalance’ state has arrived.」

「This means that humanity with hostility toward the world has exceeded the majority, and accordingly the reset function has been forcibly activated.」

Humanity with hostility exceeding the majority.

Simply put, it meant that about 4 billion humans were dissatisfied with the world, so measures would be taken.

‘What, what is this saying…?’

Young-woo made an expression of disbelief while inwardly feeling startled.

Things like imbalance and reset… seemed to be pointing exactly at his own delusions.

Of course, it wasn’t particularly unusual thinking.

It was just timid grumbling he did when seeing articles about chaebol with ruined character or hearing news that some BJ had purchased a supercar.

Thoughts that something was a bit unfair and wrong.

So very occasionally, it was true that he had fantasized about what would happen if the world was greatly turned upside down.

But even so, would that be interpreted as ‘having hostility toward the world’?

‘Something seems to be going very… very wrong.’

Young-woo unconsciously gulped.

And even amidst all this, the message left by the self-proclaimed Board continued.

「The first stage of the reset is ‘filtering’. In this stage, we filter out and eliminate the main culprits who brought the world to an imbalanced state.」

「Therefore, an elimination vote will soon be conducted for this purpose.」

「The main culprits of imbalance as deemed by the majority of voters will be listed as candidates, and among these, candidates who receive sufficient votes will be eliminated, mutated, or dismantled.」

Votes.

At this point, Young-woo looked down at his palm again.

‘So they’re telling us to use our Karma Points to target celebrities? This is just a witch hunt.’

Among those who became candidates, there were indeed some truly heinous individuals, but there were many cases where that wasn’t true.

No, in fact, that was the majority.

“If this proceeds this way, it’ll be a disaster…”

Young-woo tried to tell Bong-hee that they should stop voting for now, but it was already too late.

Bong-hee’s Karma Points, which had been 9 just moments ago, had somehow decreased to 6.

“Oh! Found him, that bastard!”

Flash.

Bong-hee’s points decreased to 5 again.

“H-hyung? Who did you just vote for?”

“Toboy, you know, that BJ I always watch. That bastard was already annoying me with how he hits on women.”

“That pickup broadcast? But hyung, you always watched that religiously…”

When Young-woo said this, Bong-hee, who had been staring into space, frowned.

“Ah, well, that’s true. But even while watching, it was secretly fucking annoying. If he hadn’t made it as a broadcaster, he’d probably be working at some host bar.”

“…But does that mean you vote to kill him?”

“There’ll be plenty of people voting for him even without me, right? And if not now, when else would we get to snipe guys like this?”

“…”

Even as Young-woo’s expression darkened, Bong-hee paid no mind and cast another vote.

Flash.

Now he only had 4 Karma Points left, and around this time, a notification appeared in both their fields of vision.

「5 minutes remaining until elimination candidates are finalized. Activating Search Function for faster voting.」

Along with this, a small search bar appeared at the bottom of the candidate list.

“Hey, don’t waste your votes either. If there’s someone you want to get rid of, find them quickly. You’ll regret it later.”

Bong-hee left these words and turned his head back to the air.

Young-woo pondered for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the search bar.

Then he saw that the keywords he was thinking about in his head were being input directly.

#murderer

#serial killer

#rapist

The crimes Young-woo considered ‘deserving of death’ were murder and rape.

However, surprisingly few people appeared in response to these keywords.

Even combining all the candidates, there were only 5, and they were all serial killers without exception.

‘…Why?’

After thinking for a while, Young-woo recalled the explanation he had seen earlier.

—The main culprits of imbalance as deemed by the majority of voters will be listed as candidates…

‘My God. The others had relatively low nomination rates. That’s why only famous ones became candidates.’

Then what’s the point of all this?

There must be hundreds, thousands of living murderers, but executing only five famous ones and moving on—what kind of ‘filtering’ is that?

‘This really isn’t a dream but reality…?’

Young-woo couldn’t believe it. If all of this was ‘real’, wouldn’t the entity behind the reset be far superior to humans?

Whether it was a god or something else.

But handling things this way…?

While he was in shock, Bong-hee beside him was rapidly reducing the number on his palm.

From 4 to 3, then from 3 to 2… next to 1, and finally…

Flash!

When his remaining Karma Points reached 0, the number completely disappeared from Bong-hee’s palm.

“Ha, I really spent them all satisfyingly.”

Meanwhile, Young-woo was still looking at the candidate list.

「1 minute remaining until elimination candidates are finalized.」

His current Karma Points remained at the original 3.

‘Even if I use all of these, I can’t even handle the five guys on the list.’

Moreover, since they were such famous individuals, countless votes must have already poured in.

“…”

After much deliberation, Young-woo looked away from the list in front of him without casting any votes.

He didn’t want to participate in this insane act in any way, and for some reason, it felt unsettling.

Shortly after, a notification appeared announcing the end of voting time.

「Elimination candidate finalization is complete.」

「Shortly, each candidate’s elimination status will be determined based on vote count.」

「Candidates confirmed for elimination will choose one of the following: elimination, mutation, or dismantlement.」

“What? They don’t necessarily die?”

Bong-hee’s eyes widened after checking the closing message.

However, what he should really worry about happened next.

「While vote counting is in progress, we will proceed with the second stage of reset: ‘individual filtering’.」

Individual filtering—the name itself sounded ominous.

“Huh…?”

Sure enough, Bong-hee showed an anxious expression, and soon a new notification appeared in everyone’s field of vision, including his.

「From now on, you can spend Karma Points to send Death Strike to desired targets.」

「One Karma Point is consumed per Death Strike, and you can also spend your Karma Points to block Death Strikes sent to you.」

「Please note that failure to block a Death Strike will result in certain elimination.」

“W-wait… what are they saying right now?”

Bong-hee seemed to think there would be Death Strikes coming his way.

As soon as he finished reading the notification, he started trembling.

“What’s wrong, hyung?”

Young-woo asked casually, even though he suspected there was a story behind it.

Then Bong-hee looked at Young-woo in surprise.

Then he noticed the number ‘3’ remaining on Young-woo’s hand and showed a hopeful expression.

“Oh, Young-woo…! You still have points left, right? Can’t you use these to block Death Strikes for me too? It should work, right?”

“I’m not sure. Why would Death Strikes come to you, hyung? Who would bother spending points to…”

“W-well… they might not come… but you never know, right?”

“Really? Then I should save mine too, just in case.”

When Young-woo showed an indifferent reaction and tried to sit back down on the bed, Bong-hee grabbed his shoulder with an unusually rough motion.

“No!”

“…?”

“I said no! Death Strike will definitely come!”

He was so excited that Bong-hee’s jaw was trembling.

“So… why? If you give me a proper reason, I’ll help you as much as I can.”

“I, I….”

Just as Bong-hee, who had finally decided he had no choice, was about to say something.

Whiiiish!

A sound came from the ceiling, no, from somewhere beyond the sky, and soon a pure white light shot down.

Precisely toward the top of Bong-hee’s head.

“Aaah!”

For a moment, tremendous fear flashed through Bong-hee’s eyes, and Young-woo soon saw the text that appeared above his head.

―[Rapist-Im Bong-hee] fails to block Death Strike and is annihilated.

And then soon.

Swoosh.

Bong-hee’s body disappeared as if melting into thin air.

And Young-woo still had 3 Karma Points remaining in his hand.

Grade 4 Human of the Ruined World (Serial)

Author │ Oetu

Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong

Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.

Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok

Address │ Digital-ro 288, Room 204, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daeryung Post Tower 1)

Email │ [email protected]

Website │ www.jayplemedia.com

ⓒOetu2023

※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and no part of the content may be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.

Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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