The Mayor's World Collapses
It was collapsing.
It was still collapsing.
No matter how desperately he flailed…
In the end, it all came crashing down.
The world of this man—the mayor of Busan—was collapsing all around him.
Just like the newspaper he had hurled across the room.
Damn it. Damn it…!
The sound of teeth grinding filled the silence. His thumbnail was disappearing as quickly as his patience. His restless fidgeting, the occasional tremor in his fingertips—they all laid his anxiety bare.
How the hell did things spiral this far out of control?!
It was never supposed to turn out like this.
That day at the airport construction site, when he had witnessed Lee Shin’s ambition firsthand and caught a glimpse of the iron-willed Lee Sang-byuk in the young man’s eyes, only one thought had consumed the mayor: I have to prove my worth!
Whether by demonstrating real ability or by sucking up like that old toad Noh Hyeong-sim, he had to show something—anything—before he was tossed aside like a worn-out part.
So the mayor had chosen to rally his own faction. Instead, Lee Shin had charged straight into construction without so much as a discussion.
Why the sudden rush?!
It felt like the first groundbreaking had happened even faster than the official announcements hit the press.
From that exact moment, the mayor’s phone had not stopped ringing for even ten seconds.
— “Mr. Mayor—!! Is this true? The exchange, the auction house—you’re really doing all of it?!”
— “This wasn’t what we agreed on! You said you’d support us!”
— “I’m disappointed, Mayor. You bragged that the next Mir Guild project would come to us, yet this is how you handle things?”
Complaints from assembly members, resentment from district chiefs.
— “Heh heh heh, you’ve got bigger balls than I thought, hiding a project of this scale… Huh? You didn’t know? The Busan mayor claims he had no idea about a major project happening in Busan? That’s ridiculous.”
— “So what you’re saying is that Lee Shin is calling all the shots, beating his own drum and everything? Wow, impressive. You’re openly admitting you got played by a twenty-year-old kid? Unbelievable.”
— “Wait, so all those things you boasted about were actually Lee Shin’s achievements and you were just taking credit? No, it’s worse. You’re far more incompetent than I realized!”
Even the floor leaders who held his political career in their hands and the businessmen who had been backing him joined the fray.
Incompetent. Useless. What exactly do you even know? Then why are you even in that seat?
They beat him black and blue. In that collective lynching, the mayor had been reduced to a tattered rag.
The situation had completely flipped.
I must! I absolutely must prove my worth!
What had begun as a desperate scramble not to be abandoned by Lee Shin had somehow snowballed until his entire political life was now on the line.
Perhaps it was the intensity of that desperation, but a sharp light returned to the mayor’s previously dull, fish-like eyes.
Stay calm. There’s still a chance.
At the center of all this chaos, who was the key figure? Without question, it was Lee Shin.
The projects unfolding in Busan revolved around him. Wealthy figures from across the world were gathering because of him. Even the trouble currently gnawing away at the mayor’s position had Lee Shin at its core.
If that was the case, solving the problem might be simpler than it appeared.
I just need to prove that my relationship with Lee Shin is still solid.
If he said that to Lee Shin, the young man would probably laugh and ask, “Relationship? With me?” It sounded ridiculous even to the mayor himself, yet he genuinely believed it.
He wasn’t expecting some heartwarming scene of them clinking makgeolli glasses and throwing arms around each other’s shoulders.
Just one photo. A single shot of the two of them shaking hands at this precise moment would make half the harassing calls to his phone disappear.
Then everything goes back to normal. I just sit back, pretend I know nothing, and stay out of his way. Forget pride. I’ll keep my hands behind my back, sign whatever he wants when the time comes. Yes. That’s how it should be.
A rubber-stamp puppet.
Remarkably, in this moment of absolute crisis, the mayor had stumbled closest to the correct answer.
Lee Shin was greedily protective of his grandfather’s honor when it came to anything involving Hunters, guilds, or leagues, but in every other matter he displayed an oddly restrained lack of ambition.
As long as the mayor didn’t touch that side of things, he would be fine.
It was regrettable that he had only now realized what Noh Hyeong-sim had understood in thirty seconds, but better late than never.
“First… first I need to buy some time.”
The mayor picked up the phone to call Secretary Kim and continued wrestling with his thoughts.
“The real problem is that he doesn’t give a damn about us…”
How could he grab the attention of Lee Shin—who had zero interest in him—long enough to mend their relationship and snap a perfect photo during this insanely busy period?
As the mayor agonized, the answer came from an entirely unexpected direction.
“Even if you order me to buy time, sir, it won’t be easy. Lee Shin purchases one hundred percent of the land before beginning work. There are almost no official channels that could halt construction at this stage.”
“If we truly must buy time, the only realistic option is to hire people to cause deliberate trouble…”
That was Secretary Kim’s response to the mayor’s command.
At some point, the mayor’s eyes began to sparkle.
“Tell me more about that last part. In detail.”
“Haha, tell me more. Porter, those old fossils are really upset about our research?”
“F**k, I’m truly ashamed to show this to you, Professor.”
Under the night sky over Songdo, with the moon shining above a low wooden platform, Gale Porter clinked his soju glass against the one Lee Shin had offered with a smile.
The two men had first connected through the Wave Resonance Method.
Two geniuses who had recognized each other at first glance had cured Baek Yeon-woo’s incurable condition. From that process, Gale Porter had published the Lee Shin System Theory, rising as a star in the magic academic world.
Having built such a precious bond, the pair continued their exchanges afterward.
— “If the System Theory posits that the world operates within a vast framework, doesn’t that border on fatalism?”
— “Since ancient times, humanity has sought to understand fate. Western astrology and tarot, Eastern fortune-telling through the Four Pillars of Destiny. True or false, isn’t the approach itself worth exploring?”
— “Focus on outcomes. Projecting an individual’s potential, talent, and directional trajectory. If we can provide even those two clues, couldn’t it contribute enormously to Awakeners’ growth?”
— “Therefore, shouldn’t that be the direction Olympus Magic Tower takes?”
They carved out every spare minute to exchange ideas. Although their schedules prevented frequent in-person meetings, they made sure to speak on the phone at least once a week.
Though their bodies were apart, their great intellects remained together. It was no exaggeration to call Lee Shin and Gale Porter intellectual brothers.
And so the two geniuses had finally accomplished it.
— “Assumption 1. The beings most sensitive to magic power are the spirits born from it.”
— “Assumption 2. The state most sensitive to magic attributes is the neutral, non-attribute condition that carries no bias.”
When their assumptions, which had begun at 1, finally reached 316—
— “Assumption 316. Attribute identification using non-attribute spirits is possible!”
Thus was born the L&P Identification Method (Lee Shin & Porter).
Another world-shaking discovery that would flip the global magic community on its head!
Yet who could have predicted that this great discovery would plunge Olympus Magic Tower into chaos?
“Magic is an inward discipline. It is a sacred voyage across the sea of magic power, following the channels of spell formulas. Therefore, the process of discovering one’s specialized attribute is itself a magical study. This identification method is thus harmful to magic.”
“Pffft…!! For real? They actually said that? Actual mages said that crap?”
“Ha… I told you. I’m too embarrassed to even lift my head.”
“They’ve crossed the line.”
“It‘s true.”
Were they trying to check the rising Gale Porter? Or did they truly believe it on academic principle? Or perhaps they had realized the method offered nothing beneficial to existing mages—the so-called establishment?
Whatever the reason, the L&P Identification Method had split Olympus Magic Tower into those who agreed with Gale Porter and those who did not.
And when that conflict was reaching its boiling point, the person who once again solved the problem was Lee Shin, all the way across the sea.
— “Instead of growling at each other, why not put some distance between you? Travel would be nice. Or how about this? Establish a branch. Sounds good, right? We were already talking about a branch, weren’t we?”
— “Never mind that. Porter, why don’t you just come here?”
There was an excellent tutoring system called the Academy. The lacking infrastructure had now been more than sufficiently upgraded.
Just come here.
— “I’ll take good care of you. Want me to build you a Magic Tower too? A f**king badass one.”
And so Gale Porter and the mages who followed him had come to the still-unbuilt ‘Olympus Magic Tower Korea Branch.’ Straight into Lee Shin’s warm embrace.
Having vented his frustrations, a much more relaxed Gale Porter asked,
“Whew. They’ve finally stopped throwing a fit. By the way, Professor, is it really all right for you to be leisurely drinking with me like this?”
“Hm? Why? Don’t you like drinking with me, Porter?”
“Nononono. Of course not. I’m enjoying myself, but aren’t you extremely busy these days?”
“Whoa, now that you’re about to become a branch leader, you’ve learned how to say things like that, huh?”
“An international airport, an international magic stone exchange, an official item auction house. Oh God… I still can’t believe all of them are being built in one city.”
“You forgot the Magic Tower. That one’s more expensive than all the rest combined.”
“I’m not talking about money right now.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Right now, not only Mir Guild but the entirety of Busan was being turned upside down. The fate of an entire city was being completely rewritten.
All under Lee Shin’s leadership.
“That’s exactly why I’m asking. Is it really okay for the man leading a megaproject of this scale to be relaxing and drinking like this?”
“Ah, I get what you’re saying. You’re wondering if flies are going to start swarming the construction sites, right?”
“Yes. No matter how excellent Korea’s public safety is, greed is still greed.”
Did he think construction sites in Europe were free of pests?
People were the same everywhere. Especially when it came to greed—that particular trait was universally ugly.
And normally, it was public authority that handled such trouble. However…
“From what I’ve heard, your relationship with the city hall—er, the mayor—isn’t very good.”
“Huh? How did you hear about that, Porter?”
“Mister Chae told me.”
“Ah, I see.”
It was exactly as he said.
Lee Shin had chosen to ignore it, but the discomfort was real.
Throughout history, had any city ever undergone such rapid transformation in such a short period?
It was a rare phenomenon even on a global scale, and Porter was warning that during such a volatile transition, even a small problem could snowball into a major accident.
Yet instead of looking worried, Lee Shin flashed a mischievous grin. He raised three fingers—from thumb to middle finger.
“Listen carefully, Porter. If you’re going to work with me in Busan, there are only three things you need to remember.”
First.
He folded his thumb.
“If I want to do it, I do it.”
Second.
He folded his index finger.
“If I say do it, you do it without question.”
And finally.
He raised his middle finger.
“If you interfere with what I’m trying to do, you’re f**ked.”
Lee Shin smiled brightly.
Construction site.
Beside the busy forklifts and heavy machinery, a group of men knelt on the ground.
Their clothes and hair were a mess. A few had arms bent at angles that arms should never bend.
Yet not one of them dared let out a single scream.
Because they knew that if they made even a sound, they would really die.
“You sons of bitches. You’ve got all four limbs intact and nothing better to do than lie down on my site? Fine. I’ll make sure you stay lying down for the rest of your lives. Pick one—I’ll rip it out for you. Which one do you want pulled out, you bastards? No answer?”
A white woman cursed violently while puffing on a cigarette.
“Me. Different site. Moving.”
A bald man covered in tattoos strode away, his trench coat flapping. Elegant Chinese characters fluttered across his back.
Brothers.
Indeed.
These were Jang Ji-na and Jang Bo-ri from Brothers Outsourcing.
And if these two had shown up, it meant he had arrived as well.
“Come on, friends. Let’s not make this hard. Ya understand?”
Jang Antonton gripped the head of one of the kneeling men, baring his fangs in a grin.