The morning sun, which should have brought warmth, now felt like the glare of an interrogation lamp searing the spine of Suka Makmur Village. In less than twenty-four hours, the community once famed for its prosperity and ringing with arrogant laughter had transformed entirely into a living hell of utter despair.

The sound of women weeping hysterically, the frustrated shouts of heads of households, and desperate curses echoed back and forth across every corner of the village lanes.

In front of the village hall’s coffee stall, now dead and deserted, Kasim and Mardani sat huddled together on a wooden bench, staring blankly ahead. Their eyes were ringed in black, their clothes caked in dried, foul-smelling mud, and their hands trembled violently as they gripped a red warning notice from a district private bank.

"What do we do, Mardani... what do we do?!" Kasim whimpered in a raw voice, clutching his own hair tightly. "The bank notice is here! They said if that three-hundred-million-rupiah loan isn't paid off in three days, my house deed is going to be seized and put up for forced auction!"

Mardani let out a bitter, cracking laugh—a desperate sound resembling a sob. He stared hollowly down the quiet village road. "Three hundred million from where, Mang Kasim? There's barely ten rupiah left in my piggy bank! All our savings were wiped out buying those expensive imported seeds from Pak Darma!"

"That's right! Pak Darma! Where the hell is that old loan shark?!" Kasim suddenly leaped to his feet, his eyes bulging with rage. "He's the one who forced us into taking out seed loans! He's the one who swore that melon harvest was a guaranteed goldmine! We've got to march down to his house right now and demand answers!"

Without waiting for Mardani’s reply, Kasim broke into a frantic sprint down the village road toward the luxury residential enclave at the northern tip of the settlement—where Pak Darma’s palatial estate stood.

Meanwhile, inside the high-walled courtyard of his grand mansion, Pak Darma stood frozen on the tiled veranda. The heavy-set man adorned in a gold chain looked as pale as a corpse. Cold sweat poured down his face, soaking the batik shirt he had worn rumpled for days.

Before him across the clean ceramic floor lay dozens of thick brown envelopes and official billing notices bearing major bank logos and the red stamps of corporate loan sharks from the outer city.

Pak Darma dropped weakly to his knees, snatching up one of the envelopes with trembling fingers. He scanned the staggering figures printed across the notice through ragged breaths.

"Three billion... four hundred million rupiah... due today...?" Pak Darma stammered wildly, his eyes blown wide in horror. He flung the letter away in panic. "This is insane! Where am I supposed to scrape up that kind of money in such a short window?! City loan sharks don't give a damn if our fields turned to rotting mud!"

Suddenly, a heavy pounding shook the outer gates, followed by a roar of fury from outside the courtyard.

"Pak Darma! Show your face, you scamming loan shark!" Kasim’s voice bellowed from beyond the gates, backed by dozens of local residents who had begun gathering to besiege the mansion. "Get out here and take responsibility! You've destroyed our lives!"

Pak Darma jolted in terror. He whipped his head toward the gates, gripped by white-hot panic. The arrogance and absolute authority he had relished for so long vanished instantly, leaving behind a terrified old man utterly unequipped to face a debt-crazed mob.

"D-don't look at them... don't open the gates!" Pak Darma whimpered frantically to himself, crawling backward into the house while clamping both hands over his ears to block out the escalating screams of the vengeful villagers pounding on the perimeter wall.

Out in the streets, total chaos reigned. Dozens of villagers scurried around like lost souls. They pounded on each other’s doors in desperation, begging to borrow spare cash or a handful of rice just to scrape by tomorrow.

"Mbok Min! Please... do you have any cash savings left? My husband's bank loan is due, lend us just a million, please!" a housewife wept hysterically at her neighbor's threshold.

Mbok Min stood in her doorway with a heartbroken expression, slowly shaking her head as she wiped her tears. "I'm sorry, child... there isn't even a single grain of rice left in this house. We're drowning in the exact same nightmare..."

"Pak RT! Please help us! The city collectors are already down at the security post looking for my husband!" a young woman sobbed, clutching little Pak RT's hands in absolute despair.

Pak RT let out a long, heavy sigh, fixing the woman with eyes full of profound, crushing sorrow. "It's useless, child... don't waste your time hunting for loans across this village. Not a single soul can save you, because every single resident is trapped in the exact same fate: Bankrupt down to the last scrap."

Hearing that bitter verdict, the young woman collapsed limply onto the dusty road, weeping unrestrained over the cruel destiny crushing their family.

Suka Makmur Village had truly collapsed into a sea of tears and a suffocating trap of deadly debt.

Amid the mass chaos, weeping, and paralyzing despair gripping every inch of the settlement, time dragged on heavily.

As evening approached, down a quiet narrow alley far from the angry mob besieging Pak Darma’s estate, stood a modest yet serene bamboo shack—the rundown home of Danu’s family.

Inside, the atmosphere was dead quiet. Danu sat at his wooden table organizing a few minor system logs, while Pak Slamet sat in silence by the window, contemplating the miserable fate of their neighbors who were now reaping the bitter fruit of their own arrogance.

Suddenly...

Tap... tap... tap... tap!

A sharp, firm, and frantic knocking rattled the front door over and over, as though the visitor outside was driven by a desperate mix of panic and deep-seated regret.

Danu paused his work. He glanced toward the front door, while Pak Slamet raised his head with a furrowed, bewildered brow.

"Who on earth could be coming to visit at this hour, Dan?" Pak Slamet rasped, staring at his son with mounting anxiety. "Could it be... are the villagers who drove you out back to cause more trouble?"

Danu shook his head slowly, his expression entirely calm and blank. Rising from his chair, he walked across the creaking floorboards and slowly pulled open the wooden front door.

As the door swung wide, the sight waiting on the threshold left Pak Slamet gasping in shock behind him.

Standing on the doorstep, a middle-aged man with a trembling frame and mud-caked, filthy clothes threw himself down, dropping straight to his knees before Danu. The man looked up with swollen eyes drenched in an ocean of agonizing remorse, whimpering the name of the very youth they had pelted with stones just a day prior.