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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Regressing Assemblyman
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Bang!
The gunshot echoing in his ears jolted Lee Yoon-hyuk awake in bed.
"Aaaah!"
He screamed.
His heart pounded like mad.
Yoon-hyuk grabbed the glass from the nightstand. He took a sip of water, trying to calm his chest.
"Huff... Huff..."
The horrific sensation of the bullet shattering his skull and tearing through his brain still felt vivid. His hands and feet trembled uncontrollably.
He checked the calendar first.
2023.
News was playing on the living room TV.
-The New York Times warns that Korea's population crisis is on the level of the Black Death...
This was a familiar sight to Lee Yoon-hyuk.
"I've regressed again."
This wasn't his first regression.
Lee Yoon-hyuk had already died three times and regressed three times.
Now, his fourth life was beginning.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
In 2063, the Republic of Korea perished. Not from America, China, Japan, or North Korea—but from its own problems. Self-destruction due to low birth rates.
In a society of plummeting labor population and extreme aging, the youth became tax-poor, with 60% of their income siphoned off by taxes. The MZ generation, now elderly, became a national headache.
And the Youth Revolution Party staged a coup, overthrowing the state.
Lee Yoon-hyuk was a five-term assemblyman at the time, executed by firing squad to eliminate political rivals. By the hand of the Youth Revolution Party's MZ Countermeasures Headquarters Chief.
That was his first life.
When the second round began, Lee Yoon-hyuk emigrated to America.
Using his knowledge of the future, he founded an investment firm and became a tycoon. But he ran into a robber at a supermarket.
The robber's mask came off during a scuffle with the manager—it was a familiar face. The MZ Countermeasures Headquarters Chief again.
Lee Yoon-hyuk was shot as a witness elimination.
Then the third round began.
He'd been single in the first round, but he had a family in the second—with two kids. The horrific sense of loss tormented him for a long time.
To reclaim his family, Lee Yoon-hyuk met and married the same woman from his second life. They had three children, and he lived quietly like a mouse to protect them.
In his hollow heart, thoughts took root. Working as a philosophy professor at a university, he taught justice, freedom, and democracy.
But one night, radical youth activists raided his mansion. They took him hostage and clashed with the police.
This time, the MZ Countermeasures Headquarters Chief—now a violent crimes detective—fired a stray bullet that struck Lee Yoon-hyuk right in the forehead.
Thus, Lee Yoon-hyuk's fourth round began.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"What the hell am I supposed to do?!"
Fuming with rage, Lee Yoon-hyuk hurled a pillow across the room.
No matter what life he lived, he always ended up shot. Whether by radical youth groups born from Korea's low birth rate dystopia or by an immigrant robber who'd fled to America.
Had three regressions driven him insane?
Right before his eyes, a message floated like floaters in his vision.
Something he hadn't seen in his previous three lives.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[If you fail to stop the Republic of Korea's low birth rate, you will be executed by firing squad.] -Time until execution: 10 years
The message window flickered briefly before vanishing.
He could dismiss it as a hallucination, but after three lifetimes of experience, it felt like destiny to Lee Yoon-hyuk.
Perhaps it was the mission of Lee Yoon-hyuk, the five-term assemblyman from the first round who had frantically run around trying to halt the nation's downfall.
He would be shot if he couldn't stop the low birth rate.