Chapter 5
"First, get rid of that worthless apartment. Then you'll probably need to lie down on an operating table once. You've been thinking about that lately, haven't you?"
Kim Dong-su silently nodded.
At the very least, he wasn't denying reality.
His situation was simple.
He had borrowed against his apartment in northern Seoul twice.
One hundred million won from a bank.
Another hundred million won from a savings bank.
Then he had borrowed another forty-five million won in unsecured private loans.
At this point, the debt attached to the apartment was greater than its practical value.
Even selling it wouldn't be enough to keep up with the interest.
That was why it was underwater.
But if he sold the apartment and used the money to clear the two secured loans, he could eliminate both bank debts.
Then, if he repaid part of the private loan, around twenty million won would remain.
Twenty million won of debt?
To ordinary people, that might sound like something you could repay if you worked hard enough.
But private debt was different.
You could work yourself to death and still fail to repay it.
With private loans, the interest eventually became larger than the principal.
It was a system where the tail grew larger than the body.
That was the essence of private lending.
The interest kept growing.
The principal remained untouched.
If all your income went toward monthly interest payments, you could never repay the principal.
That was how private debt worked.
Even legal lending companies...
The legal interest rate was sixty-six percent?
Very few companies truly followed it properly.
The paperwork might say one thing.
Reality was different.
The reason loan sharks are terrifying...
Was because illegal practices were everywhere.
There were cases where the effective interest rate exceeded one thousand percent.
It sounded absurd.
But it was real.
That was why trying to repay private debt could sometimes drag someone even deeper.
They worked to pay interest.
Then borrowed again.
Then repaid another loan.
And they became trapped inside the same cycle forever.
"Ah..."
Kim Dong-su let out a short sound.
It wasn't exactly a sigh.
It wasn't a curse.
It was simply grief toward his own life.
A reality he didn't want to accept but couldn't deny.
That was where he stood now.
"Quit gambling first."
For one brief second, Kim Dong-su looked offended.
Noticing things quickly...
Was another useful part of my ability.
"Or leave the person who's gambling. If you can't do that, you'll end up exactly like this."
Kim Dong-su looked startled again.
Sometimes, the person who couldn't leave a gambler was even more dangerous than the gambler.
They collapsed together.
And they reached the end together.
"If you refuse both choices, there's no solution. Just be reborn. Otherwise, nothing will change."
I turned my attention to Kim Mi-hwa.
She had spent the entire time anxiously watching us.
She probably understood at least half of her situation.
"Grandma."
"What?"
"I don't think that woman came here to borrow money."
"If she didn't come to a private lending office to borrow money, then why is she here?"
"She was dragged here. That's what her face tells me. Even if I'm wrong about that, I still wouldn't lend her money."
Grandma silently stared at me.
"I would."
Grandma looked once at Kim Mi-hwa before turning back toward me.
"Are you a devil? Is this hell?"
"Why?"
"A truly predatory loan shark would definitely lend money to that woman. She's still pretty. Women are merchandise. You wouldn't even need to care about recovering the principal. The interest alone would be more than enough. If that's how you do business, then coming here was pointless for me."
Grandma burst into laughter.
"Hohoho! Hohoho!"
"What are you laughing at?"
"Because you're saying you want to become a loan shark."
"I'm going to practice romantic private lending."
"Romantic private lending? What kind of romance exists in this business? You have no idea how rough this world is."
"I know. I know it's terrifying. The people who come here are desperate, aren't they? They're people with no choices left. For many of them, a place like this is the final stop after hitting rock bottom."
"So what exactly are you planning to do?"
"I believe some of those people can stand back up if someone gives them just a little help. I'll help those people and earn interest from that help."
"People who thought like that all went bankrupt. This world doesn't run on your kind heart."
"I won't go bankrupt. Because real private lenders don't make their biggest loans to ordinary people. They lend to companies."
"Corporate private lending?"
Grandma tilted her head slightly.
Her expression became complicated.
There was doubt.
But also interest.
The true core of private lending wasn't necessarily lending to individuals.
At the highest level, private money targeted companies and chased high-risk, high-return opportunities.
On paper, they might appear to follow legal interest rates.
But in reality, additional risk premiums appeared depending on the company's credit.
That was private lending too.
Another form of finance.
Personally, I think the structure itself is rational enough.
My opinion was clear.
Private lending wasn't automatically evil.
If you could give someone an opportunity after properly understanding their situation, receiving compensation for that risk wasn't wrong.
Ultimately, whether the loan destroyed someone or saved them depended on the judgment of the person lending the money.
"Enough. Anything else you want to ask these two?"
"Of course. I started this, so I should finish it. Miss, what's your name?"
"K-Kim Mi-hwa."
"You were dragged here, weren't you? Looking at your face, your Peach Blossom Fate is strong, so you probably made decent money. But now you have a Calamity Fate coming in. You're going to lose a lot financially. If this keeps going, you might end up crossing the river whether you want to or not."
Calamity Fate?
How did I know something like that?
I had prepared a way to explain my ability without revealing it.
I had memorized words that shamans often used.
One of them was "Calamity Fate," one of the Twelve Fates.
If I used terms like that, my explanation sounded more convincing.
People found it easier to believe.
"C-Cross the river?"
"Or maybe you'll cross into the afterlife. If you keep running away from your own fate, who would ever trust you, Kim Mi-hwa? Tsk, tsk."
