"I swear, Big Bro, if you spend today disrupting the household chores or pulling that vacant, spaced-out stare like an absolute zombie, I am selling your phone to the scrap metal dealer down at the end of the alley!" Rara threatened, straightening the straps of her school backpack with a thoroughly scowling face.

Bagas, who had been lazily draped across the bamboo cot in the convenience store, could only offer a soft groan, rubbing the back of his neck as the chilling memory of the mysterious purple symbol hovering above the loan shark boss’s head flashed through his mind. "Yeah, yeah, naggy Chief Financial Officer. I'm coming to the village field. I won't embarrass you."

"Good! Because today Suka Maju Village is hosting a massive bazaar and Independence Day festival, so every single resident is required to participate and pump up the energy—not stage a mass horizontal strike!" Rara snapped, physically hauling Bagas up by his arm to force him out of bed.

Not long after, Bagas and Rara were trapped deep inside a churning sea of humanity packing the Suka Maju multipurpose village field. The atmosphere was a chaotic, sensory-overloading spectacle. The sweet aroma of traditional market treats like pink cotton candy, boiling peanut-sauce cilok dumplings, and the pungent smell of collective public sweat blended heavily beneath the punishing afternoon sun.

Lined up around the perimeter of the field were rows of bustling local SME market tents, while the village mosque’s loudspeaker blasted a jarring mashup of patriotic anthems and maximum-volume remix dangdut. Spectators roared and cheered in high-pitched excitement as they watched various folk games unfold, ranging from mothers' sack races to advanced-level kerupuk-eating showdowns.

"Whoa, it's packed, Big Bro! Hey, look over there—they're hosting the grease-pole climbing competition with the grand prize of a rusted mountain bike with flaking paint!" Rara griped, pointing toward the center of the field. "The prize is a remarkably accurate match for the blood, sweat, and tears of the competitors."

Bagas followed the direction of his sister's finger. In the middle of the field, a towering pinang tree trunk had been heavily coated in thick black motor oil until it gleamed dangerously slick. At its peak, various prizes waved tantalizingly in the breeze. Right at the front row of spectators stood Mr. RT (Mr. Mul), looking commanding as he clutched a megaphone, pulling double duty as honorary referee and impromptu play-by-play commentator.

"Come on, pull yourselves up! Don't let up now! And you guys at the bottom, stop acting like a living mattress and form a proper human pyramid!" Mr. RT roared through the megaphone, his voice echoing with fierce athletic encouragement.

Bagas offered a weak, fleeting smile at the crowd's infectious enthusiasm. But that smile vanished within a split second when his gaze accidentally drifted toward the group of athletic young participants preparing at the base of the greased bamboo pole.

Bagas's heart violently crashed down to his ankles.

Among the oiled-up, muscle-bound contestants stood a scrawny young man wearing a red cloth headband—a last-minute rookie recruited to replace a participant suffering from severe stomach cramps. Floating directly above this young man's head was a translucent, blood-red string of digits ticking down at a blinding, vicious speed, indicating a catastrophically collapsing lifespan:

000:00:00:03 000:00:00:02 000:00:00:01 000:00:00:00

Zero seconds?! Bagas screamed hysterically inside his head, his entire body turning ice-cold.

"Oh, no... This is bad! A major disaster!" Bagas muttered in absolute panic.

Before Rara could even ask what was wrong, Bagas launched himself forward, plowing straight through the dense wall of spectators crowding the edges of the field.

"Hey, excuse me! Watch out, coming through! Let me pass!" Bagas shrieked frantically, shoving past the shoulders of several middle-aged men who were deeply engrossed in the match.

"Hey, kid! Don't just plow through people like that! Are you trying to join the grease-pole climb too?!" a local man wearing a political party t-shirt barked angrily.

Bagas ignored him entirely. He sprinted with every ounce of strength in his legs, tearing through the sea of onlookers until he skidded to a halt right next to the oiled bamboo pole. The final round had just kicked off, and the competitors were scrambling upward, clawing their way up the slippery trunk using their absolute last reserves of physical energy.

The young man with the red headband—whose countdown had already hit absolute zero—was leading the front line, using his teammates' shoulders as a stepping stone to reach the summit.

"Hey! Get down! Climb down from there right now!" Bagas yelled hysterically from the base of the pole, waving his arms frantically while hopping up and down.

The red-headed youth clinging to the slick bamboo trunk glanced downward, his face smeared with black grease, staring back at Bagas with sheer bewilderment. "Huh? What’s your deal, Big Bro? I'm hunting down a mountain bike here, stop breaking my concentration!"

"Forget the mountain bike! Your life is in mortal danger! Get down right now before the bamboo collapses or something terrible happens!" Bagas ranted wildly, his voice nearly swallowed whole by the roaring cheers of thousands of spectators.

Mr. RT, standing not far away, instantly flared up, lowering his megaphone to glare furiously at Bagas. "Hey, Bagas! Don't cause a public disturbance in the middle of an official village sporting event! If you're looking for attention, go join the rusty sack race instead!"

"I'm not looking for attention, Mr. RT! I swear that kid is going to get wrecked this exact second!" Bagas pleaded, practically on the verge of tears as he lunged forward to grab the contestant's ankle.

"Stop grabbing people, are you out of your mind?!" nearby spectators protested angrily, shoving Bagas backward by his shoulders.

"Listen to me! I swear on anything..." Bagas stammered in a blind panic.

Yet, all of those warnings arrived a fraction of a second too late.

Fueled by blazing competitive spirit and the thunderous roar of the crowd screaming his name, the red-headed youth lunged upward with his final reserve of power, stretching his right arm as high into the air as humanly possible.

Slap!

His fingers successfully locked around the small red-and-white flag planted at the very peak of the pole.

The entire field instantly erupted into a deafening explosion of victory cheers.

"Hooray! He won! First place!" thousands of villagers roared, filling the air with sound as victory anthems blasted from the loudspeakers.

The young man smiled triumphantly from the peak of the pole, hoisting the victory flag high while waving down at the spectators.

Yet at that exact second of glorious triumph, Bagas watched the translucent numbers above the young man's head flicker once, then completely vanish into thin air. At the exact same moment, the equilibrium of nature seemed to violently shift: the aging bamboo pole, buckling under the excessive weight distribution at the top, let out a piercing crack of splintering wood.

Creeeak... crash!

The base of the bamboo pole snapped instantly under the overload, causing the ten-meter-tall bamboo structure to tilt violently and crash sideways, smashing directly into a stack of sponsor gift boxes lining the edge of the field.

"Aaaaa!" the crowd shrieked in blind panic, scattering in every direction to save themselves.

Fortunately, the red-headed youth managed to leap downward just in time, plunging into a soft pile of padded sacks beneath before the pole completely flattened the earth. He walked away with nothing more than a scraped elbow, flashing a wide grin as he clutched the victory flag in his fist. The villagers cheered wildly once more, entirely convinced it was all part of an extreme stunt show.

Bagas, however, felt zero relief.

Because the exact second that bamboo pole slammed into the dirt, a sharp, piercing ring pierced Bagas’s eardrums. The echoing chime of the mysterious hourglass digital clock detonated straight inside his head, reverberating repeatedly at a punishing volume.

A cold, formless voice whispered softly deep within Bagas’s consciousness:

"The first target's time has expired. The curse selection round is now officially underway."

Bagas stood frozen stiff on the spot, his breathing coming in ragged gasps, while Rara sprinted up to him with a panicked expression, violently tugging at his sleeve. "Big Bro Bagas! What is wrong with you now? Why are you as pale as a walking corpse?!"

Bagas stared down at his younger sister with a blank, hollow gaze, coming to the horrifying realization that he and his family had just been dragged far deeper into a game of destiny far larger and more lethal than he could have ever possibly imagined.