The 12th Chief of a Dying Village

Girin-myeon, Inje-gun, Gangwon-do. Wolan-ri.

"A village this empty oughta be ashamed of itself, makin' a twenty-year-old the chief."

"Well, when official papers fly in from the township, somebody's gotta read 'em an' answer 'em, don't they? None of us can make head or tail of 'em even if we squint."

"Our Daesik's got a bit of a rotten temper, I'll grant ya, but that boy's had a sharp head on his shoulders since he was knee-high."

Girin-myeon, Inje-gun, Gangwon-do. Wolan-ri.

Total population: thirty. Working-age youth: exactly one.

A backwater on the verge of extinction, even by the standards of Gangwon Province — and that single, absurd fact, one youth in the population count, was the entire reason I'd become the 12th village chief of this dying hamlet.

Well, whatever. How hard could it be?

I figured village chiefing couldn't amount to much.

Alter common sense?

I looked back and forth between the window floating before my eyes and the elders seated around the community hall. What the hell was I supposed to do with that in this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠godforsaken one-horse village?

If they wanted to give me something, they could've handed me a farming skill instead.

That absurd inauguration ceremony was already three years in the past.

The power called 'Common Sense Alteration' turned out to be far stricter and stingier than I'd first expected.

It was no omnipotent cheat like the heroes of those run-of-the-mill adult-alteration manga, who could just spray semen everywhere and declare, "From today, all women are my slaves!"

Rule zero, the most basic of all: it only worked inside Wolan-ri.

After three years of plowing fields while punching various ideas into my head, I'd managed to figure out three major rules.

One. It is impossible to designate an individual person as the direct subject of an altered common sense.

Two. The broader the target population, and the more the content violated social norms or ethics, the higher the required Common Sense Index climbed.

Three. The more plausible a justification or rationale you attached, the lower the required index dropped.

Rule one was simple. For instance, something like:

――It is common sense that Grandfather Kim never talks back to me.

――It is common sense that I leave the village before he does.

The moment I tried registering a sentence like that, the system would throw up a warning window.

Yeah, that part was easy enough to understand.

The real headache was rules two and three — in other words, the whole question of cost.

Every new piece of common sense came with a registration fee, and even after it was registered, a monthly maintenance fee kept trickling out. And I couldn't pay in money. It could only be settled with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Common Sense Index I received each month for running the village.

Let me give you an easy example.

――It is common sense that all women live in the nude.

The moment I tried registering that absurd, indefensible bit of common sense, the system's calculator spun like a madman.

One million.

And just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠how much was that? Wolan-ri's current monthly Common Sense Index production hovered around a measly thirty-five.

In other words, even if I did nothing but breathe and hoard points, I'd have to let roughly 2,400 years rot by before I could afford to add that one perverted piece of common sense. And that wasn't counting the monthly maintenance fees bleeding out on the side. A norm violating social consensus that severely — the price was only natural.

But narrow the target down, and restrict the circumstances of application, and the story changed completely.

――It is common sense that women residing in Wolan-ri live in the nude, but only when sleeping.

――Required index: 2,000.

The cost plummeted all the way down to 2,000.

After about five years of careful scrimping and saving, that became a figure worth eyeing. By no means an impossible realm.

And what if you folded in rule three — a rock-solid justification?

――It is common sense that women residing in Wolan-ri live in the nude, but only when sleeping, in order to prevent heat-related illness during tropical nights.

――Required index: 50.

At last it became a nice, honest price a man like me could actually afford.

For a power supposedly meant to alter common sense, the system itself demanded a thoroughly common-sensical rationale. It truly was an ironic, laughable ability.

...Of course, given the average age of Wolan-ri's residents, I had zero intention of registering any nude-lounging common sense anyway — spare my eyeballs, thank you very much.

So, fine. Researching the power was all well and good.

But where the hell was I supposed to use it? System, you piece of shit.

Because you see, this village had nothing in it but old people.

If I had to sum up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my days after taking office, they amounted to exactly one phrase: nothing to report.

Nothing happened. Truly, absolutely nothing happened.

What trouble could a bunch of elders possibly get into? Even at their worst, how much damage could they do?

"The stores close one by one, the bus runs thinner every month. Life's just gettin' harder an' harder 'round here."

Just as Grandfather Kim had said one day, burning a cigarette on the pavilion at the hall, Wolan-ri went on dying today too — achingly slowly, but with absolute certainty.

Now, if you blamed me, the chief, for the village dying out, I'd cry injustice. I'd done everything a man could reasonably do. What more did they want from me?

During the busy farming season I rolled up my sleeves and worked other people's fields like they were my own; I read out every medicine packet for the grandmas who couldn't read; and every trip to the township office, I ran a one-man shuttle service in my own car.

"Ain't nobody left in the village to farm the land anyhow. Once we all close our eyes for good, this village'll be done too."

But Wolan-ri had been hit by a catastrophe far too enormous for a country bumpkin chief like me to handle.

The very social crisis the news drones about day after day.

Population extinction.

The total population of Wolan-ri, Girin-myeon, Inje-gun, Gangwon-do: thirty people.

Ah — correction. The grandmother at the last house at the end of the village passed away from old age last winter, so it's twenty-nine now.

After me — twenty-three this year — the youngest adult in the village was Uncle Yeongsik, at forty-nine.

"Back in my day, birthin' two or three young'uns wasn't even a chore, y'hear? Sometimes the belly'd start achin' mid-harvest an' we'd just drop 'em right there in the grass patch."

At Grandmother Park's confident declaration — she was drying red chili peppers in the yard in front of the community hall — Grandmother Lee snorted.

"An' who's gonna birth those babies for us, might I ask?"

Cackle, cackle, cackle.

The grandmas doubled over howling with laughter, and Grandfather Kim, bitterly exhaling cigarette smoke, clicked his tongue.

"Tsk tsk. Speakin' of which, poor our Daesik, what's a boy to do. Don't even have a gal to marry."

"There's Yeongsik's granddaughter, ain't there? Bit young, that one?"

"She started elementary school the day before yesterday, ya old fool! Wait for her to grow up an' our Daesik'll be dead of old age first."

The only child in the village was Uncle Yeongsik's daughter.

That's right. Even at this very moment, this village was quietly dying.

There were no children.

And no young women to bear them, either.

A demographic structure beyond deformed — bleak didn't even begin to cover it.

By this point I was starting to wonder what the hell the people who'd shoved this random system into my hands were actually after.

Mind you, the system wasn't entirely a useless hunk of garbage.

Now and then, when the village grandmas and grandpas dug in their heels over something, it let me play the filial son in small ways.

"What hospital checkup, my foot! Nothin' hurts on me, an' now they wanna suck my blood again? Soon's I smell a hospital my head starts throbberin'."

"We've lived this long without settin' foot in no hospital an' we're doin' just fine."

"Go on, go. The government's offerin' it for free — you've got to get your health screening, don't you?"

"That's right, it's common sense these days. Let's head to the hospital."

Used this way, the effect was dead-on. Instant results.

And then came one of those days, in the middle of a daily grind so peaceful it was downright boring, when I was on my way to the community hall on some errand or other.

A faint, unfamiliar scent of shampoo brushed the tip of my nose. I turned my head absently — and before I knew it, my feet had stopped dead.

Pale white skin, a slender jawline, blonde hair spilling long down her back.

A woman who'd turn heads standing in the middle of downtown Seoul was walking down the dirt road of my village.

I rubbed my eyes and looked back, again and again. Not a hallucination. But she was a presence so utterly alien to this faded, backwater landscape that she hardly seemed to belong in the same world.

Who was she?

"Saw a real glitzy-lookin' gal get off at the bus stop earlier. Whose grandgirl is she?"

The community hall was abuzz with nothing but that topic. After all, no bait hooked a dying village faster than the arrival of a stranger from out of town.

"That'd be Boksun's granddaughter, the one studyin' at Korea University up in Seoul."

"Land sakes, she's grown that tall already?"

"But what's she plannin' on doin' stayin' at her country granny's place for a whole month?"

"It's summer break, ain't it? I heard Boksun sayin' she's shootin' one of them there YouTube things the young'uns are all doin' nowadays."

Boksun Halmeoni's granddaughter. A whole month... did he say a month?

I hurried through the errand I'd come for and left the hall. The moment I rounded the corner, I pulled up the Village Management Window.

A new resident, the first in three years.

Even if only a one-month temporary stay, she was a genuine girl my own age — officially designated a Wolan-ri resident, not some traveler just passing through.

And my held Common Sense Index stood at 1,082 points.

Good thing I'd hoarded them away, spending only where truly necessary.

And so at last, I spat out the single sentence I'd had finished and waiting in my head since long, long ago — the one and only sentence that could save Wolan-ri from extinction.

"It is common sense that young women residing in Wolan-ri receive the village chief's seed in order to prevent the village's extinction."

There it was. The board was set.

Sorry, Ms. Nayeon — we haven't even exchanged a single word yet, but.

For the survival and glorious future of our village. And, honestly, for my own selfish ends.

From today on, you'll just have to carry my child here.