My Bad Karma

Freza Peina let out a long, jagged breath, watching the fine grey dust settle on his faded green duster. Sukamaju Village—or what was left of the place—was a total dumpster fire. It was just a graveyard of charred wood and broken dreams, the aftermath of a "Total Karma Default" he’d supposedly just "mitigated." The air tasted like burnt rubber and desperation, the kind of smell that sticks to the back of your throat. Across from him, the village head, a guy named Kartono, was slumped on a half-shattered brick. His face was a roadmap of exhaustion, his eyes staring at the wreckage like he was looking into his own grave. "So, Mr. Freza... is this really the only way out? For real?" Kartono’s voice was like sandpaper on a wet floor. Freza gave him a thin, razor-sharp smile. He looked way too young and way too chill for a guy standing in a disaster zone. "Look, Kartono, I already broke it down for you. Karma? It’s just like cash. Sometimes you’re flush, sometimes you’re broke. Right now, Sukamaju is deeper in the red than a maxed-out credit card. You’re not just in debt; you’re bankrupt." "But we tried, man! We put in the work!" Kartono snapped, his voice cracking. "We did the charity stuff, we helped the neighbors with the harvest, we—" "Yeah, yeah, I hear you," Freza cut him off, waving a hand like he was swatting a fly. "And look, the books show you tried. But you’re missing the big picture. The bad juju your ancestors piled up? The shady calls made three generations ago? That’s like high-interest compound debt, pal. It’s been snowballing for a century. You can’t pay off a billion-dollar mortgage by returning a few lost wallets. It doesn't work that way." Kartono’s shoulders slumped. He looked like he’d aged a decade in ten seconds. "So that’s it? We’re just wiped out? Same as all those other towns that got hit with a Karma Foreclosure?" "Not if I’m on the clock," Freza said, his voice dropping into that smooth, practiced tone of a guy selling a used car with a hidden engine leak. "I’m a Debt Collector, yeah. But I’m more like a... Karma Consultant. I find the loopholes. And this move? It’s a literal life-saver." He flicked his wrist, and a roll of parchment snapped open with a sharp clack. His first "Karma Lending" contract. This was his ticket to the big leagues. "This contract right here? It reroutes the whole mess," Freza said, pointing a slim finger at a cluster of glowing symbols. "It doesn't make the debt vanish—physics doesn't work that way—it just shifts the liability. Instead of the whole village taking the hit, we move the burden onto one pair of shoulders. Specifically... yours." Kartono blinked, his mouth hanging open. "Me? Look at me, man. I’m just a village head. I can’t carry that kind of weight." "Actually, that’s exactly why it works," Freza chuckled, leaning in like he was sharing a secret. "You’re not 'just' anything. You’re the boss. The captain. In the eyes of the universe, you’re the load-bearing pillar. If the pillar is solid, the roof stays up. If the pillar is junk? Well, look around. You’re already living in the debris." "But I’m an old man. I don't have the mojo. My spiritual tank is on empty." "This ain't about muscles or mana, Kartono." Freza’s eyes did a weird flicker, something dark and hungry passing through his pupils. "It’s about the will. The 'I’ll take one for the team' energy. That’s premium-grade karmic fuel. It creates a vacuum, a perfect vessel to suck up the village’s debt. Meanwhile, the town gets to breathe again." Kartono looked at the scroll, then at the rubble that used to be his house. Hope and terror were having a fistfight on his face. "So... I sign this, and the village recovers? No more bankruptcy? No more komet strikes?" "In the short term? Absolutely. In the mid-term? I’d bet my life on it," Freza lied through his teeth, his grin widening. "You’ll see. The soil turns black and rich, the wells fill up, and the houses start going up. People will come back. They’ll treat you like a god, Kartono. A freaking hero." "And what happens to me, specifically?" the old man whispered. Freza shrugged like it was no big deal. "You’ll feel a little... heavy. Maybe some back pain. Maybe your luck runs a bit dry. People might start getting your order wrong at the deli, or getting annoyed at you for no reason. Small price to pay for saving every soul in this zip code, right?" He shoved a quill into Kartono’s shaking hand. "What do you say, hero? You ready to step up?" Kartono stared at the pen, then at the horizon where his grandkids were huddled in the cold. Tears started carving tracks through the soot on his cheeks. "For the village... for the kids... sign me up." With a hand that wouldn't stop twitching, Kartono scratched his name onto the bottom of the scroll. The second the ink hit the paper, the parchment gave off a dim, sickly glow. Freza snatched it back and rolled it up before the light even faded. "Perfect," Freza breathed, the satisfaction in his voice almost impossible to hide. "Don't sweat it, Kartono. I’ll be keeping an eye on you. You’re the prototype, man. The living proof that karma is just another variable we can tweak. Best investment you’ll ever make." He stood up, his coat snapping in the wind. "Alright, my work here is done. Time to go handle the 'delivery'." "Delivery? What delivery?" "Just shipping the package to the right address. Won't take long. You’ll see the results by morning. Trust me." Freza winked, gave a mock salute, and started walking. "See ya around, Hero!" As he walked away, leaving Kartono alone in the dirt, Freza’s smirk turned into a full-blown predator’s grin. Phase one: complete. His first successful Karma Swap. It felt like dodging a bullet and winning the lottery at the same time. In another dimension, way past the mountains and the clouds, something was screaming through the atmosphere. A massive komet, trailing a tail of silver fire like a shroud, was locked onto its target. This was the "Penalty"—the cosmic repo man coming to collect on Sukamaju’s debt. It was supposed to level the village and leave nothing but a crater. But mid-flight, something glitched. An invisible hand gave the komet a nudge. Just a few degrees. A tiny correction in the cosmic GPS. Instead of the village, the komet locked onto the peak of Mount Gold. Up there, surrounded by eternal snow, Maha Guru Jian was sitting in deep meditation. The guy was the real deal—pure white robes, an aura that could light up a city, and a spirit so clean you could eat off it. He’d just hit the absolute peak of his cultivation. He was in total harmony with the universe, a blissful smile on his face as he touched enlightenment. Then the sky turned inside out. A light more blinding than a thousand suns slammed into the mountain peak. It wasn't a physical explosion; it was an energy dump. All that concentrated "Karma Bankruptcy" that had been meant for a whole village was suddenly funneled into one guy. Maha Guru Jian didn't stand a chance. His spiritual body hit the floor, vibrating with a frequency of pure agony. His peaceful expression shattered into a mask of shock. The dark energy—the raw, unfiltered debt of a thousand sins—drilled into his soul like a swarm of hornets. His white robes didn't just get dirty; they started turning pitch black. His golden aura curdled, replaced by a roiling, oily cloud of shadow. That enlightened smile? It twisted into a grotesque, jagged sneer. His eyes, once full of wisdom, snapped open. They were glowing the color of fresh blood, pulsing with a sudden, uncontrollable rage. Mount Gold, usually a place of zen, suddenly felt like a haunted house. The birds circling the peak screeched and dropped dead mid-air. The snow didn't just melt; it turned into black slush that smelled like rot. Maha Guru Jian—the man who was supposed to be the world’s savior—stood up. His hands had curled into claws. He felt a new kind of power surging through his veins, something dark, heavy, and absolutely toxic. He threw his head back and laughed, but the sound wasn't his. it was deep, rasping, and full of a bitterness that had been fermenting for centuries. "So... this is what it feels like..." he hissed, his voice sounding like gravel in a blender. He clenched his fist, feeling the negative energy humming in his bones. "I’m gonna burn it all. Every single person who lied to me. Every soul that cheated the system." Below, at the base of the mountain, a girl named Giyani was staring at her charts. She was an Observer, a scholar of the stars and the strings of fate. She’d felt the shift. It was like a needle jumping on a record. "What... what just happened?" she whispered, her hands trembling as she grabbed her quill. The "Bad Luck" signature she’d been tracking over Sukamaju had just blinked out of existence. And then, a second later, a massive spike of pure darkness had exploded on Mount Gold. "The debt disappeared from one place... and reappeared somewhere else, ten times stronger?" She shook her head, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts. "That’s impossible. You can't cheat the Law of Karma. It’s a closed loop. Unless..." She started writing frantically, documenting the anomaly. She didn't know it yet, but she’d just witnessed the biggest cosmic scam in history. And Freza Peina was just getting started. "This is gonna break the world," Giyani muttered, her eyes wide with terror as she watched the black clouds swallow the mountain. "Someone just hacked the universe." Back in the ruins of the village, Freza popped a piece of gum and looked at the sky. The komet was gone. The contract was buzzing in his pocket. He felt lighter than air. "Man," he said to himself, kicking a piece of rubble out of his way. "I love this job. The commission is killer." He didn't look back. He had a whole world of debt to 'reorganize,' and as long as there were desperate people like Kartono and arrogant gurus like Jian, he was never going to run out of business. The universe was one big bank, and Freza Peina had just found the master password to the vault. He hummed a little tune as he disappeared into the woods. The "Hero" of Sukamaju was waiting for his miracle, and the Guru on the mountain was busy becoming a monster. And Freza? Freza was just looking for his next client. "Who’s next?" he whispered to the wind. "Who wants to be a hero today?" The wind didn't answer, but the dark glow of the contract in his pocket was enough of a response. The game was on.