[Alert: Hostile Audit Initiated.] [Action: Turning the Admin Key.]
The Chairman panicked. The servers around the room began to glow red as he diverted the power from every city on Earth to create a "Total System Wipe."
"If I cannot tax you, I will delete the platform!" the Chairman screamed. "I will crash the entire planet's reality! Everyone will default at once!"
The moon began to tremble. Down on Earth, the lights of every skyscraper flickered and died. The "Debt-Cloud" Rin had turned into healing mist started to turn back into poison.
"Yuto!" Rin cried out, her silver aura flickering. "He's pulling the 'Life-Equity' from everyone! He's going to bankrupt the human race just to balance his own books!"
Yuto looked at the Mythic Chest. For three years, he had been the ultimate miser. He had starved, bled, and watched his friends suffer just to keep this one item sealed. He had treated it like a weapon, a shield, and a thruster—but he had never treated it like a Gift.
"Isabella. Kurenai. Ayase. Shion," Yuto called out.
The four girls, now almost entirely transparent, looked at him.
"I'm sorry for being such a cheapskate," Yuto said, a faint, tired smile crossing his face. "But the rainy day is finally here."
Yuto grabbed the Admin Key with his left hand. With a roar that shook the very foundations of the lunar base, he turned the key and slammed his thumb onto the "Confirm" prompt that appeared in his vision.
[OPENING MYTHIC CHEST...] [Processing Potential Value...] [Result: THE GRAND REFUND.]
The chest didn't explode. It didn't release a god-tier sword or a nuclear blast.
It released a tidal wave of Unspent Time.
Every fragment Yuto had hoarded, every bit of compound interest he had weaponized, and every "Potential" stored in that chest was suddenly "Spent" all at once—but not on himself.
The golden light surged out, filling the Lunar Sanctum. It hit the Chairman's servers, not as a virus, but as a Pre-Payment.
"What... what is this?!" the Chairman shrieked as his holographic eye turned white. "You're... you're paying everyone's debt?! All at once?! That's impossible! The math doesn't work!"
"It works if the Bank goes out of business," Yuto said.
The wave of energy traveled from the moon to the Earth in a heartbeat. Every person who had ever been "taxed" by the Babel System suddenly felt their "Debt" vanish. The terminal in every person's hand flashed a single, beautiful message: [ACCOUNT CLOSED. BALANCE: FREEDOM.]
The Chairman's holographic form began to dissolve. Without "Debt" to feed on, he had no "Value." He was a CEO with no employees and no customers. He was just a ghost in a machine.
"You've... you've ruined everything..." the Chairman whispered as his code unraveled. "You're... penniless..."
"Yeah," Yuto said, falling to one knee as the 60% Vault Pressure finally vanished, leaving his body feeling light as a feather. his right arm stopped glowing. The Mythic Chest crumbled into harmless wooden dust. "I'm broke. And it feels great."
The Lunar Sanctum went dark. The servers went silent.
Isabella, Kurenai, and Ayase regained their solid forms, their armor and weapons now glowing with a soft, permanent light that didn't require "Maintenance." Shion let out a long, happy sigh and fell asleep on the spot.
Rin walked over to Yuto, helping him stand up. The silver aura was gone, replaced by a warm, human glow.
"We're clear, Yuto," Rin whispered, looking up at the Earth through the hangar bay window. "The audit is over."
Yuto looked at his empty hands. No Ledger. No Stigma. No Vault.
"Come on," Yuto said, leaning on his sister. "Let's go home. I think I have just enough change left in my pocket for five bowls of ramen."
"Actually," Isabella smiled, holding up a single, non-vaulted gold coin she'd found on the floor. "I'm buying."