I left my suitcase in a storage locker at Seodaemun Station and walked out through Exit 6.
Before me loomed the main office of NongHyup Bank—a building that looked as though it had been constructed from the blood and tears of farmers.
I was back again.
The first time I stood before this facade, I had been shaking with a mixture of excitement and nerves, just like any other jackpot winner.
Now, it still felt good. But that trembling—that simultaneous rush of ecstasy and fear—was gone.
This was the fourth time I had claimed the top prize.
I wondered if there was anyone else in the world who had gone through this ritual more than I had—stepping through those gleaming glass doors where a slip of paper is transformed into a fortune.
I hope I never have to come back here again...
It sounded like a spoiled whim, but I was serious.
I had died five times. I had returned five times.
Yes, I had been given another chance—I hadn't vanished without a trace, and that was lucky enough. But it was time for this circus to end.
This time, I would survive. No matter what.
I had told myself the same thing last time—right here.
I had failed again, but I had held out for five years. At the very end, I had even heard the news over the radio: Seoul had been reclaimed.
Today, I came for twenty billion won.
In January of next year, another jackpot awaited me.
I would have more money than ever before. I could prepare far more thoroughly.
This time... let’s make it to the end.
To the very end of this cursed apocalypse...
I pushed the thoughts aside, shoved the glass door open, and stepped inside.
At the counter, I explained my business.
The security guard didn't even blink. He escorted me as per protocol.
The VIP elevator. Upward. Into the lottery consultation room.
"Welcome."
Just like before, a man in his thirties stood to greet me.
Ordinary features, an ordinary haircut, an ordinary suit and tie—the quintessential office worker.
But the look he gave me, and the wide grin plastered across his face, felt... provocative.
"Please present your ticket and identification."
As per procedure, he verified the ticket with my details on the back and checked my ID.
"Yes. Confirmed. I sincerely congratulate you on the first prize. While we open your VIP account for the disbursement, may I suggest a few products to help with your wealth management?"
The question mark at the end was a pure formality.
He didn't even wait for an answer. He spread a stack of brochures across the table like a fortune teller laying out Tarot cards.
He opened them one by one, pouring out long explanations in a dense, soulless, practiced voice.
Useless savings plans. Pointless pension schemes. Funds...
When I came here for the first time, I was shaking. I was terrified they wouldn't give me the money. That they would take it away. That something would go wrong.
I couldn't even sit comfortably on the sofa—I was that stiff and nervous. And he just kept pushing, unfazed.
It felt as though if I didn't sign something, he would prattle on until the end of the world—until the next ice age arrived and the last human being turned into an icicle.
Phrases like "I’ll think about it" or "I don't have time right now, let's do this later" didn't work.
He would raise his voice, claiming the product was too good to pass up, and stubbornly pressured me to sign.
While he held the ticket, I sat on pins and needles, dreaming only of taking the money and leaving.
Like a game where you can't progress without buying from a specific merchant, I had been forced to sign up for a pension product just to get him to open the account.
Even after that, he had tried with sickening persistence to sell me a non-guaranteed fund.
Back then, I thought it was just his job: catch the newly rich guy and hit his quota.
Now, I sat leaning back, observing him calmly—and I saw something else.
It wasn't just "quotas" or "performance metrics." My eyes caught the small details, and they added up to something unpleasant.
An unkind, sharp glint behind the polite smile. A tone that suggested he was cornering me. Acidity in his words. A hidden irritation in his intonation.
The instincts of a survivor who had spent ten years seeing people in situations where their true nature is stripped bare told me one thing:
This is malice.
Actually, it wasn't surprising.
If you live on a fixed salary and sit across from a lucky bastard who stumbled into tens of billions every week, something inside you is bound to shift.
Facing a sum you couldn't accumulate in a lifetime makes your own work and the value of your years feel meaningless.
And it wasn't even the result of effort—it was pure luck.
I suppose it felt the same as looking at the children of the ultra-rich, born with silver spoons in their mouths.
Resentment. Envy. Self-loathing. Disgust...
He couldn't take my winnings. But he could subject me to this torture—making me uncomfortable, making me squirm, watching me "sink," and gloating internally.
And he could hit his quota at the same time.
"That’s enough for today. I have a meeting with the branch manager, Kang Sojin, after this. I’m going to be late," I said.
The name, rolling off my tongue out of habit, worked instantly.
The man flinched.
"...You know Branch Manager Kang Sojin?"
"Yes. He was a classmate of my older brother. He even tutored me a bit back in high school. When he heard I won, he said we should meet up. Time is short. So let’s finish up and process the payout."
He blinked, glanced at his desk phone, and then back at me.
I watched him calmly.
I knew he wouldn't pick up the phone.
Just like last time, all he could do was process the payment according to procedure.
A branch manager isn't a position where any random employee can just call and get a direct line.
Even if he found out I was lying, nothing would change.
I wasn't trying to secure a loan under a false name. I was here for a legitimate prize.
I could just say I blurted it out of irritation—and that would be that.
"...Very well."
He finally nodded, looking like a man who didn't want to mess with a manager who had a reputation for being a hot-tempered psycho. He cleared away the brochures.
He sat at his computer.
Clack, clack, clack.
"It is done."
I took the bankbook and checked the amount. For the first time, I truly understood why people suffocate themselves over crypto and real estate.
From twenty billion... down to three—they took 22% in taxes. From the remaining seventeen—33%.
In the end, the amount that hit the account was...
13,730,000,000 won.
I won with odds slightly higher than the chance of Karina suddenly making eye contact with me and acting cute on a date—and this was it?
They should have added another zero to the total...
As it stood, this wasn't enough to truly change a life.
If I stayed in Seoul, it would buy one apartment. That was it.
Making a shelter in a single apartment was a great way to slowly wither away among hundreds of thousands of zombies.
In both peacetime and the apocalypse, the capital was the center of all the country's glory and all its filth.
Once the zombie outbreak hit the point of no return, Seoul—with its population density—would become hell in a matter of days.
Even if you miraculously survived, you’d be pinned down by hordes of zombies, then snowstorms, unable to stick your nose outside. And then it gets even better: from the North, the living and the dead would move together—pushing through the armistice line and swarming down, dark mouths agape: "Well, we need to eat too."
The safest option remained Jeju.
Everyone thought that, which is why everyone clung to the idea of crossing south over the sea.
But Jeju was an island without a proper industrial base. It would drown under the weight of starving refugees.
The apocalypse was a global phenomenon. Whether you sail to the US or Japan, you’d be met by the same zombies and scavengers.
The best option, just like in my previous life, remained Busan.
Busan was also a metropolis—three million people. But if you could hold out for just six months, rumors of a radiation leak would drive many out of the city: survivors, scavengers... and even the zombies.
"Perhaps you already have a wealth management plan? Our bank has a high-yield model for VIP clients..."
"Enough."
He belatedly pulled out another brochure, as if loath to let his prey go, but I had neither the reason nor the desire to listen any further.
I gave a short smirk and stood up.
I left him there, in his world of hourly wages, while I tucked the bankbook with 13,730,000,000 won against my chest and walked out calmly.
At the station, I retrieved my suitcase, traveled to Suseo, and boarded the SRT to Busan that I had booked in advance.
The train departed exactly on schedule.
Burned-out landscapes flickered past the window, and the vast, cold city that had never given me so much as a crumb of hope was left behind.
One small part had fallen off the assembly line—but I knew, and the world knew: nothing would happen yet.
Even if you know the future, it doesn't mean you can stop what is meant to be.
Ahead lay five years.
I replayed my previous life, where at the end I had heard the news of Seoul's reclamation on the radio, and I checked my survival plan once more—point by point.
The train flew toward Busan, toward the brutal future that awaited me, moving as fast as my thoughts.
Like an arrow released toward its target.
*****
Two and a half hours later, the train arrived at Busan Station.
I caught a taxi, went to the Hotel Nongshim in Oncheonjang to drop off my things, and then headed to Seonnumsa in Puamdong.
The columbarium, which was always the first place I visited whenever I came to Busan, felt like home to me.
In the photograph in front of the small ceramic urn, Mom and Dad looked just as they always had.
The moment I stood before them, the words "I’m back" swirled on my lips.
Mom and Dad died in an accident.
A heavy eight-ton truck, speeding, the driver asleep at the wheel. He drifted into the oncoming lane and drew a line between us: life and death.
The driver’s guilt was obvious.
But he wasn't the only one who pushed our family into the abyss.
When I was in my second year of high school, we lived in Masan. We ran a Chinese restaurant and lived a decent life. Then we lost everything and were forced to move to Busan.
It happened right after one of our neighbors—the one who always smiled and sometimes even slipped me some pocket change—finally showed his true face. A swindler.
At that time, the whole country was going crazy over football. Fans were throwing hysterics every morning over Park Jisung and Ferguson, oscillating between ecstasy and despair.
And we were "tested" too—on our trust.
We were conned and crushed. Betrayed so deeply that it still turns dark inside me.
The house and the business went under the hammer, everything spiraled—and a wave hit my life, which was now devoid of any dam.
I got into university on a scholarship, but there was no money to live on, and for four years until graduation, I worked without stopping.
During breaks—at the factory.
That was how my "youth" passed: my early twenties spent in part-time jobs for minimum wage, resulting in a diploma from a provincial university that I was embarrassed to even put on a resume.
After graduation, I tied my laces tightly every morning, trying to turn my life toward the light... but it was like a treadmill: running with all my might only to stay in the same place.
Even now, when I remember it, it feels darker inside than when I was fighting for survival in the apocalypse.
I still don't understand how someone can wear the mask of a "kind neighbor" for years for the sake of money, living on nothing but malice.
I don't understand how deeply it must have struck Mom and Dad back then.
"No matter where you go—always be careful with people."
We paid for that lesson with everything we had—and he was right.
Of my five deaths, only one was caused by a zombie bite.
The other four were because of goddamn people.
Malicious, weak, arrogant, cowardly people.
Until a bird takes flight, you don't think about its wings.
And while your parents are alive, you don't realize what they mean to you.
Now I understand.
The starting point. The base. The environment from which my habits and character grew.
All my strengths came from them, and my weaknesses were mine alone...
...I wish I could say that.
But the truth was far more human.
Mom and Dad were people with shifting seasons inside them.
In spring—warm. In summer—hard-working. In autumn—somber. In winter—sharp.
And they too once had a time when they were smooth and round, like pebbles just lifted from the bottom—no matter how hard you squeezed, you wouldn't get hurt.
Now, I can't reach them.
But if I grow, if I become stronger... maybe someday I can embrace happiness again—wholly, with both hands.
In the photograph, where the colors were still vivid, Mom and Dad were smiling just like that—the way people who believe in such things smile.
Every time I stand here, thoughts crawl in on their own—because I don't remember them that way.
What did they see back then, to smile so brightly?
I’m not in the picture.
But they were already middle-aged—so the photo was taken after I was born.
Were they looking at me—at the one taking the picture?
Not at each other, but in the same direction... They say that’s how you live a long time together. Maybe that’s why they were together until the end.
Because I existed...
I reached out and touched the glass of the urn.
Behind the surface, cold as a dead star, their eternal peace receded into the distance—to a point that could never be reached.