Chapter 1
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Mayor's Melancholy
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Was it overtime from hell, or hell like overtime?
No, same difference.
Either way, I'd finally clocked out. The mechanical beep of the front door lock signaled the end of today's torment.
I tossed my bag carelessly and yanked off my tie.
Even unbuttoning my shirt felt like work. Work after work.
Finally, I could breathe.
Weeeeng-
The microwave's dry hum shattered the silence of my studio apartment.
Convenience store lunchbox. 1 minute 30 seconds. A wait that always felt a bit too short.
I shoveled the lukewarm rice into my throat and turned on my smartphone.
Escaping into that square frame was the only drug and salvation permitted to modern man.
Not that I'm waxing poetic— I just meant reading comics.
Scrolling down, a familiar thumbnail caught my eye.
[Neo Heroes]
The one hero comic I religiously followed. The joy of my life.
The latest chapter's thumbnail showed the silhouette of an angry mob.
And at its center, a tiny figure of a man.
Lee Garam, mayor of Neo Incheon.
The comic's ultimate cancer of a character. A monumental piece of trash who'd tripped up heroes with every corruption and incompetence, pocketing taxpayer money without a care.
I cackled as I scrolled further.
The latest chapter was simple.
The bastard was crashing and burning spectacularly.
All of Lee Garam's corruption laid bare for the world. Furious citizens swarming city hall.
Angry faces twisted in rage. A hail of rotten eggs and stones slicing through the air.
And at the epicenter, Lee Garam in his ruined bespoke suit, pathetically begging for his life.
"Ha, serves you right. Feels damn good."
Retribution, karma, just desserts, the inevitable judgment.
In the end, it wasn't heroes or villains who judged him—it was the everyday citizens he'd dismissed as pigs and dogs.
The perfect downfall. What could be more satisfying?
"Guys like this deserve to go out exactly like that."
Catharsis. My chest felt wide open.
The absurd frustrations of real life washed away, if only a little, by the villain's pathetic end in the comic.
Time for bed.
I set down my phone and chucked the empty lunchbox container into the trash.
I collapsed straight onto the bed. Exhaustion dragged my eyelids shut.
Tomorrow: more hellish commute, or commuting hell waiting...
...Where am I?
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw wasn't the dingy yellowed wallpaper of my apartment.
An unfamiliar ceiling.
High, stark white, adorned with ornate, antique moldings.
The smell assaulting my nose wasn't musty dust, but a faint aroma of leather and aged paper.
As I sat up, I realized I wasn't on a hard bed, but an excessively plush leather sofa.
The clothes on me weren't my stretched-out tee—they were a perfectly tailored suit of fine fabric. A gleaming watch hugged my wrist.
Head spinning in confusion, I scanned the room.
Mahogany desk. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, a breathtaking cityscape sprawled out.
"...A dream?"
Yeah, had to be. I must've been exhausted yesterday.
Stumbling to my feet, I spotted a full-length mirror propped against one wall.
I approached it.
And locked eyes with the man in the reflection.
"......Who are you?"
The mirror showed me.
But not me.
Slicked-back hair glistening with oil, sharp jawline, a handsome face that bordered on sleazy.
A pretty boy vibe, yet somehow sinister and shady.
Nothing like my face, ravaged by days of all-nighters—different down to the DNA. A total parasite prince.
The guy from last night's comic, stoned to death.
Lee Garam, mayor of Neo Incheon.
"...No way."
My trembling hand pinched my cheek.
It hurt.
The sharp pain proved it wasn't a dream.
"No, no, no!"
In a panic, I bolted to the desk and snatched up the nameplate.
[Mayor of Neo Incheon, Lee Garam]
I'd become Lee Garam.
"No way! Why am I Lee Garam?!"
I clawed at my hair, pacing the mayor's office who-knows-how-many times.
At first, it was pure terror at the miserable end awaiting me.
Stones, rotten eggs, citizens' curses. Horrifying just to imagine.
But they say humans adapt.
As the fear peaked, a coldly pragmatic thought sprouted in the corner of my mind.
'No need to panic yet. This is still early in the original story.'
I glanced out the window at the cityscape again.
Songdo's skyscrapers still intact, no major destruction visible in the old downtown.
In the original, Lee Garam dies in the late-game, far into the plot.
At least a few years before that.
What could I do in that time?
'Wait. Lee Garam... this guy had slush funds, right?'
Massive hidden cash siphoned from taxpayers, stashed everywhere.
He died without touching a dime, but it had to be somewhere.
A new plan flashed in my head.
'Decided. I'm outta here!'
Heroes? Villains? Citizens?
Screw 'em. None of my business.
I'll grab as much cash as I can from this filthy city and live my best life.
Buy a whole sun-soaked island in the South Pacific. White sands, emerald seas. Surrounded by beauties, sipping cool cocktails in leisurely retirement. Yeah, that's the dream!
I scanned the office.
Money. Where's the money?
I flung open every desk drawer. Just papers and pens.
Ripped down a cheap landscape painting on the wall. Solid marble behind it.
Tempted to slash the plush sofa, but saved that as a last resort.
Then my eyes locked on the bookshelves.
Republic, The Prince, Wealth of Nations... Classics a phony like Lee Garam would never touch. Obvious camouflage.
And among them, one book that stood out.
What Is Justice?
'Bingo.'
The perfect prop symbolizing Lee Garam's hypocrisy and pretense.
I pulled the spine.
Click-
With a mechanical whir, the entire shelf slid inward, revealing a massive vault door.
It needed a code.
I racked my brain. A minor detail from the original popped up. Lee Garam always bragged about his independence fighter lineage.
Of course, pure political tool—no real patriotism.
So the code was obvious.
0, 8, 1, 5.
Beep-beep.
The thick steel door slid silently aside.
Inside...
Neat stacks of 50,000-won bills. Gleaming gold bars. Unidentified gems. And in one corner, a crypto hardware wallet.
"I'm rich!"
I crawled inside, laughing like a maniac.
The scent of paper and ink had never been so intoxicating.
Yes! This is life! This is what it's all about!
South Pacific! Palm trees! Cocktails! And bikini babes, heh heh... No, keep it clean. Clean thoughts.
The point is freedom! Total freedom, no one's watching!
Lee Garam, you idiot. Hoarding all this and dying without enjoying it. Oh wait, I'm Lee Garam now.
I hurled a stack of bills into the air. 50,000-won notes fluttering down.
Like a movie scene, a rain of paper blessings cascading over my head.
I rubbed a gold bar against my cheek.
Gold! The crystallization of humanity's desires through history!
"Kuh."
Heh heh heh. Couldn't stop laughing.
This is what they call a life reversal.
Hellish overtime? Ancient history now.
I'm no longer a cog in the machine. I'm the master of my fate.
Click.
The sound of the door opening.
A tiny, dry noise intruded on my bright future plans.
No knock. Brutal intrusion.
Frozen in my ridiculous pose hugging the bills, I turned toward the office door.
A woman slipped through the gap.
Pale pink hair cascaded softly to her waist. A impeccably tailored black suit accentuated her long, slender figure.
And her eyes.
Cold turquoise irises. Polished glass orbs holding no emotion.
Reflecting in them: my pathetic self, Lee Garam.
She silently scanned my face once.
The ransacked bookshelves and wide-open vault once.
The scattered papers and 50,000-won bills on the floor, one by one.
With every shift of her gaze, the room temperature seemed to drop a degree.
Finally, her eyes fixed back on me.
"Mayor."
Even her voice was ice-cold.
"Is turning the room into a pigsty first thing in the morning your new hobby?"
I know this woman.
On the surface, just a pretty secretary eye-candy. A decorative flower vase beside Lee Garam.
But her true nature was entirely, fundamentally different.
Seria Park.
Officially, Lee Garam's chief secretary.
Neo Incheon's top elite at city hall.
And...
Leader of the secret society 'Erebos'.
The real mastermind pulling the strings on Neo Incheon—no, the entire world—from the shadows.
That was Seria's true identity.
Cold sweat trickled down my spine. The gold bar in my hand suddenly felt like lead.
Run? Where? How?
Ditch this woman?
Impossible.
In the original, Lee Garam was a convenient puppet.
Using his mayoral position to sabotage the Hero Association, poking holes in the city's systems—a faithful chess piece. Seria orchestrated it all from behind.
Even his pathetic stoning death was likely her plan. Disposing of a useless pawn without dirtying her hands.
'If I run...'
It wouldn't just be getting caught.
Dumped in a drum barrel into Incheon's bay somewhere, or entombed forever in a construction site's concrete pile.
"Uh, ahem! Seria. This is, well..."
Words tangled. My mind went blank.
Excuse, need an excuse. Something plausible for this mess!
"Oh, uh, see... I was rearranging the room. Y'know, feng shui! Yeah, feng shui! Felt like the energy was blocked here! To let money and power flow smoothly! Haha!"
Even I had no idea what nonsense I was spouting.
"I didn't know the mayor was so versed in Eastern philosophy. In that case, may I ask what principle leaves the secret vault wide open?"
"N-No! That's... like a passage for energy circulation! If it's too clogged, everything rots!"
Doomed.
The more I babbled, the more pitiful and suspicious I looked.
"Energy circulation."
She murmured softly.
"Then perhaps I should make a passage in the mayor's brain too. Seems like blocked neural circulation has tanked your cognitive abilities. And rather than room layout blocking wealth, isn't the greed clogging your frontal lobe the bigger issue? If you'd spent that time on Eastern philosophy reading one more line of the budget report, the city's fiscal self-reliance would've risen 0.1%."
Can't take this. Change the subject. End this hellish interrogation!
"Ahem! Anyway, enough of that! What's on today's schedule?"
As dignified as possible.
As authoritative as possible.
Infusing maximum 'I'm your boss' vibes.
Didn't forget the throat-clearing.
"......"
Seria stared at me in silence for a moment.
1 second, 2, 3.
An eternity.
In that brief silence, I died and revived ten times over. Finally, she activated the tablet PC in her hand.
"10 AM: City council budget settlement committee report. Request to increase recovery budget for the 'Gravity Zero' terror incident. Of course, you haven't read the materials I gave you yesterday."
She recited the schedule flatly.
"2 PM: Meeting with Hero Association president. 4 PM: Exclusive interview with local broadcasters. They'll demand explanations for your rock-bottom approval ratings."
"...R-Right."
"I'll clean the room later. Please tidy your appearance and prepare for the meeting."
Seria turned without further grilling and headed for the door.
Phew.
Survived.
Thank god. Finally breathing easy.
Guess my perfect acting fooled her. This woman ain't all that...
That was when.
Seria halted at the door.
She slowly turned back to look at me.
"By the way, Mayor."
"Y-Yeah?"
Why's she turning back?
Did she read my mind? Spot something more suspicious?
Act casual. Natural as can be.
I forcibly pulled my facial muscles into the world's most awkward smile.
A brief silence.
"Is it just me?"
Her turquoise eyes scanned me up and down.
"You look especially stupid today."
Bang.
"Haa..."
As Seria shut the door behind her, I collapsed right there.
Ruined. Totally ruined.
Just yesterday, I was a diligent office worker... How did this happen?
The scene of Lee Garam getting stoned, that future, flashed vividly before my eyes.