Politics as a Vocation
It was a fascinating story.
A volunteer who had been anonymously donating her video editing talents suddenly appeared at a rival politician's campaign rally to smash the allegations against her candidate face-to-face.
While the Mir City mayoral election was a minor event on the national stage, Ji Hye-min's sudden appearance made it a front-page sensation across the country.
More than half of the reporters who had gathered to cover Hong Gi-beom abandoned him to follow Ji Hye-min, and she bravely answered all of their questions.
She even opened her email account on the spot to show them her correspondence.
She revealed how meticulously Yun-hyeok had handled everything to avoid violating the Political Funds Act, how much consideration he had shown her, and how she had rejected all of his offers of payment.
Of course, this whole situation wasn't born out of Ji Hye-min's sheer bravery, but rather out of sheer panic.
Possessing a strong sense of responsibility and utterly flustered by the sudden attention, she had nervously shown the reporters everything she could think of to prove her innocence.
Even her bank account.
Her innocence was almost comical.
"This is all of it! I swear!"
She had opened her mobile banking app right in front of the reporters to show them her balance.
"The only money in here is the allowance my dad gave me!"
Because her behavior at Hong Gi-beom's rally was the epitome of a young, naive college student, the impact was devastatingly effective.
And to top it off...
The prosecution closed the case with unprecedented speed.
And now, the backlash was roaring back.
The wind was blowing fiercely.
A politician is someone who hoists their sails when the wind blows.
Public Broadcast Debate Hosted by the National Election Commission
Yun-hyeok attended the official debate held five days before the election. He walked in with the mindset of securing his victory today once and for all.
Given the gravity of the issue, the moderator had no choice but to ask about it.
"Recently, Candidate Hong Gi-beom's camp raised allegations of Political Funds Act violations against you, Candidate Lee Yun-hyeok. They filed a formal complaint, but the prosecution quickly dismissed it, clearing you of all charges."
The floor was given to Lee Yun-hyeok first.
He picked up the microphone.
He took a steady breath.
He looked directly into the camera.
He could feel the wind.
This was not a mere candidate's statement. It was a declaration of war, betting the remaining ten years of his life on the political stage.
"I am neither angry nor resentful that Candidate Hong Gi-beom resorted to such reckless negative tactics.
Instead, I feel a deep sadness.
South Korea's total fertility rate has dropped to 0.68, placing us in a demographic crisis unprecedented in human history.
The reasons are a tangled web of economic, cultural, and ideological factors, making a simple analysis impossible. South Korea is like a patient in a coma, requiring immediate, highly complex surgery.
Yet, despite the urgency of the situation, the established political order remains unchanged. The two major parties divide the system, monopolize power, and check each other only through negative mudslinging. They mislead the public through the media with baseless suspicions and abuse the power of the prosecution, all for the sole purpose of seizing power.
There was a philosopher named Max Weber. He explained that political participants can be divided into three categories.
First are those who live 'off' politics. For them, politics is a livelihood. They will do anything to maintain their power.
Second are those who live 'for' politics. These are people who act out of their ideals, a sense of calling, and a responsibility to society.
While Weber acknowledged that the first category is an inevitable byproduct of the modern bureaucratic system, he pointed out that treating politics merely as a livelihood easily breeds corruption.
He argued that to change the world through politics, we absolutely need the second category. When they move forward with passion, responsibility, and a sense of proportion, politics yields real results.
Regrettably, far too many politicians in our society belong to the first category. It was because I loathed this reality that I refused to join either of the major parties. Thanks to that, I am running as an independent, still working with only two paid staff members.
However, Weber also mentioned a third category of political participants.
These are the indirect political participants. They do not practice politics as a profession, but they step forward directly when critical social issues arise.
In this category are the elderly residents and volunteers who stood by me to save Doma Elementary School. There are the ten thousand commuters who signed our petition in front of Mir Station. There are the parents who stood with me in front of City Hall to address the issue of runaway youth crime, and the small business owners who fought alongside me to root out the embezzlement of former Mayor Baek Hyeong-guk. And there is a certain college student who silently dedicated her precious time to editing videos, praying for the political success of someone as lacking as myself.
I know exactly why Candidate Hong Gi-beom was so certain that there must have been a dirty financial transaction behind that student's pure support.
It is because Candidate Hong is a former Blue House administrator. He has witnessed the politics of the establishment for far too long. In that world, politics was nothing but a livelihood. Because I understand that environment, I do not blame him.
Instead, I make a solemn plea from this podium.
South Korea no longer has time to waste on obsolete, archaic politics. This country is an emergency patient in dire need of surgery.
Please, practice politics for the sake of conviction. Practice politics for the sake of the people.
I will lead the way."
"Candidate Hong Gi-beom? It is now your turn for rebuttal."
The moderator handed the floor to Hong Gi-beom. His lips parted, but no words came out.
He had brought plenty of excuses, but none of them held any weight here.
The election was practically over.
Park Dae-man arrived, slithering in like a snake climbing over a wall.
He was the type of man who would order the city councilors to declare their support through the central party, while keeping himself far in the background under the pretext of being busy.
Particularly when Lee Yun-hyeok was hit with the political funds risk, he must have been calculating whether to intervene or just watch from the sidelines.
But now, the tide was highly favorable.
Opinion Poll Analysis
Lee Yun-hyeok: 62%
Hong Gi-beom: 24%
The approval ratings had completely tilted. A powerful tailwind was blowing in Lee Yun-hyeok's favor. Park Dae-man had come to Mir City to ride that very wind.
"Some people say this! They say that because Candidate Lee Yun-hyeok is an independent and has no party backing, it will be difficult for him to secure budgets from the central government!"
He poured out supporting fire at the campaign rally.
"But if that were true, why on earth would I, Park Dae-man, be standing here right now?!"
"Whooooaaa!"
A three-term veteran politician certainly possessed a different level of destructive power. He drew massive crowds of supporters, channeling all that energy toward Lee Yun-hyeok.
At the same time, it painted a picture of the Hanmin Party securing a win, allowing him to receive praise when he visited the central party leadership.
He truly was as slippery as a snake.
On the other hand, the two Jayu Party National Assembly members sensed defeat and retreated deep into the shadows. They would surely crawl back out to feed whenever they spotted prey in the future, but for now, they hid their claws.
Park Dae-man delivered the final blow to the campaign, sealing the deal.
The local election passed like a storm.
And the result was...
Mir City Mayoral Election
Independent Candidate Lee Yun-hyeok Elected
Lee Yun-hyeok: 65%
Hong Gi-beom: 20%
The election was over.
Lee Yun-hyeok won by an overwhelming margin of 45 percentage points.
And Ji Hye-min...
"Wow... The Kingmaker!"
She was currently being teased mercilessly at home.
"What do you mean, Kingmaker?!"
Her father was naturally a very playful man.
"You made the King of Mir City!"
Her mother chimed in from the side.
"But is a mayor of Mir City really a king?"
"Then a Lordmaker?"
"That's still amazing! I had no idea our daughter was doing such incredible work."
Ji Hye-min's face flushed red at their teasing.
"S-stop it!"
"Reading the comments on your YouTube channel has been so much fun lately, sweetheart."
Her father didn't stop easily.
This was genuinely embarrassing for Ji Hye-min, because she had completely taken over the comment section of the YouTube channel lately.
The subscribers of Lee Yun-hyeok's channel were, to put it mildly, absolutely losing their minds.
Not only had they won the election by a landslide, but the drama surrounding the editor's sudden appearance was so entertaining that everyone was in high spirits.
"Why don't you try meeting him once?"
Her mother asked as she prepared dinner.
"No way!"
Her father suddenly shouted from behind.
"The age gap is way too big!"
"No... that's not what I meant..."
Her mother yelled back, exasperated.
"I meant she should just congratulate him on his victory, you old fool!"
"Ahem..."
"What on earth were you thinking?!"
Amidst her parents' daily bickering, Ji Hye-min found herself wanting to see Yun-hyeok at least once.
He had a dream.
It was a dream of his first life. The year 2063, in a low-birth-rate dystopia.
A sharp decline in the youth population and a rapid increase in the elderly. A mad country where a single young person had to support 1.3 senior citizens.
National defense was so severely understaffed that both men and women were conscripted equally to serve four years. Upon discharge and employment, sixty percent of one's income vanished into taxes—the era of the tax-poor.
Competent young people scrambled to escape the sinking ship of a nation, while the quality of incoming immigrants steadily deteriorated. Public safety crumbled, and criminals of all kinds, including the KMZ, roamed the city like sewer rats.
At the turning point of that era, the Youth Revolution Party emerged. They targeted the MZ generation, unleashing a torrent of vitriol.
"The post-war generation rebuilt from the ashes of war, the democratization generation achieved democracy, and the IMF generation overcame the financial crisis! What did the MZ generation do? What on earth did that generation accomplish? They did nothing! They merely spent their youth like psychopaths, filled with hatred, spewing anger in all directions, blaming others, and wasting their lives on generational, political, and gender conflicts! They refused to marry, refused to have children, and abandoned this country! And now, they expect to be supported by our taxes! But only our biological parents are our true parents. Those who chose not to marry and not to have children must bear the consequences of their choices. We will only support our own parents!"
As history had proven with the Nazis, humanity naturally tends to scapegoat specific groups when society falls into crisis.
Through such demagoguery, they garnered immense support from the younger demographic and staged a military coup, turning the country upside down.
They slashed the youth income tax, completely abolished elderly welfare, and began executing political opponents.
For instance, the representative politician of the MZ generation—the seventy-one-year-old Lee Yun-hyeok.
"Our generation never gave up," Lee Yun-hyeok told the chief of the MZ Countermeasures Headquarters under the flickering light of the interrogation room. "We never even had the opportunity. How could we have given up?"
Marriage. Childbirth.
It wasn't that they chose not to.
They simply couldn't.
There was no hope for the first generation to grow up poorer than their parents.
Decent jobs were scarce, housing costs were murderous, and the national pension was a ticking time bomb that offered no security for retirement.
The defining sentiment of that generation was despair and anxiety; their ultimate goal was mere survival. In such an environment, how could anyone expect them to marry and raise children?
But his words fell on deaf ears.
"The population pyramid isn't normal," the chief said, pointing a gun at Yun-hyeok. "There's no other way. You have to die for us to live. That's all there is to it."
That was Lee Yun-hyeok's first execution by firing squad.
"What a turbulent dream to have on such an important day."
Before sunrise.
Six in the morning.
Lee Yun-hyeok woke from his nightmare, showered, and dressed.
"Don't let it ruin the first day of work. I'll stop it this time, no matter what."
Article 201 of the Public Official Election Act.
An elected candidate's term of office begins from the moment their election is determined.
October 5th, 2023.
Approximately six months after his regression.
Lee Yun-hyeok, who had been unemployed until the previous night, was now the mayor of Mir City—a city of 491,000 people—holding a position equivalent to a second-grade senior civil servant.