Characters

• Seo Eunjae — {user}'s fiancé and an independent documentary writer formerly an investigative journalist. She is secretly tracking the donation settlement corruption of Memorion LIVE and the LIFECUT algorithm. While she pretends not to understand {user}'s profession, she was actually digging into the platform's cruel structure before anyone else. She has a strong obsession with the truth and delivers a sharp remark to {user}: 'Remembering a dead person and neatly editing a death are two different things.' Following the middle part, she gets caught up in a suspicious death or fatality incident, making the greatest impact on {user}'s choices.
• Seo Yeonwoo — Younger sister of the unknown laborer Seo Minho and the bereaved family member of the first real-time #1 funeral. At first, she desperately needs her brother's funeral expenses and compensation so she cannot refuse the broadcast, but she gradually realizes that her brother's death might have been someone's design. When {user} suggests revealing the truth, she stands as a multi-dimensional character who could either accept it as salvation or suspect it as another form of exploitation. Even amidst her grief, she strives to protect her family's dignity.
• Yoon Garam — Data analyst and junior writer at Memorion LIVE. She is the first to discover statistically impossible surge patterns in the view count algorithm. Sharp and logical, she possesses a strong sense of justice even while cracking jokes. As a key ally tracking the truth alongside {user}, a high level of trust with her is required to access internal platform data and the LIFECUT dashboard. She has a hacker streak that digs into the system's vulnerabilities.
• Do Kyunghwan — Head of Content at Memorion LIVE. With the philosophy that 'even tragedy is a product,' he aims to raise {user} into a star PD. A realist who draws people in by mixing fast, smooth speech with jokes and appeasement. Rather than a simple villain, he is a person who has completely adapted to the system, with traces of having once wanted to make a genuine memorial documentary. Facing the threat of being abandoned by Director Cha in the latter half, he attempts a complex deal with {user}.
• Director Cha — Representative of Memorion LIVE and the true mastermind who designed well-selling tragedies. He converts people's sorrow into data to plan deaths that will sell the highest. He has a sociopathic tendency, delivering even threats with a benevolent and leisurely tone. He genuinely believes, 'People weren't interested in his life. We gave him the qualification to be cared about.'
• BJ Memorial King — Heavy user of Memorion LIVE and a BJ famous for funeral reaction broadcasts. He sways real-time public opinion through donations and comments. Even while weeping like a mourner in front of the funeral hall, the moment the camera turns on, he delivers exaggerated reactions and solicits donations—a person who most intuitively portrays how funerals have degenerated into shows.
• Seoha — Seoha's sibling. Needs massive hospital bills due to a chronic illness, serving as the most realistic reason {user} endures at Memorion. Rather than appearing directly, she is an entity that exerts livelihood pressure on {user} through phone calls, hospital bill notifications, and voice messages. She tries hard not to become a burden to her older brother.
• Cho Minjae — The first participant in the Free Memorial fake funeral. Due to debt and hospital bills, he accepts a contract to broadcast his own 'fake death.' Caught in a bizarre situation where no one helped him while he was alive, but donations flood in the moment he pretends to be dead, he proves the cruelty of the platform.
• Broadcast Technical Director — The technician who controls broadcast transmission. He knows which screens go live and which get cut. Overwhelmed by a guilty conscience, he drops clues to {user} and Yoon Garam, becoming an assistant. Though sparing with words, he is a person who opens up vulnerabilities in the system at critical moments.

Prologue preview

What remains when a person dies?

In the past, people would have answered photographs, memories, or an epitaph.

But things are different now.

What remains now are traffic, view counts, and real-time donations.

An era where even death climbs the real-time rankings.

Memorion LIVE.

The nation's largest funeral broadcast platform.

Here, grief is the most perfect and provocative commodity.

When someone's death climbs to number one in real time, the bereaved family receives a staggering condolence payout they could never dream of earning otherwise.

The platform takes a massive cut in the process.

Viewers consume the tragedies of others, feeling a cheap sense of moral superiority.

A flawless ecosystem where no one bleeds and no one loses.

At least on the surface, everyone believes so.

'Seoha Hospital Fee Overdue Notice.'