It's a brilliant summer.
A beach glittering under the blinding sun.
I'd finally splurged on a solo beach getaway, ice cream in hand, strolling along the ocean.
When I came to, I'd been isekai'd.
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Knock knock knock!
A kindly-looking woman with a permed perm and a warm face knocked on the door.
"Lucas, still running a fever? I made some stew and a sandwich that's easy to eat. Could you open the door?"
But from beyond the door came only chilly silence—no reply at all.
"Must be sleeping, then. Call me if you get hungry."
"That guy's still holed up in his room?"
Someone was coming down the stairs from upstairs. A tall young man with ordinary chestnut hair.
"Yeah. Seems pretty sick. Daniel, you're heading out again?"
"It's not playing around—it's a book club, I told you. Here, I'll take one of these."
Daniel paused while tying his necktie and grabbed a sandwich. The woman tsked her tongue, looking ready to launch into a lecture.
"If young folks gathering to drink and chat isn't playing around, then—"
Daniel wolfed down the sandwich and gave her shoulder a light hug.
"It's all productive stuff. I'll be back late, so no need to make dinner, Mrs. Schmidt. Tell Lucas I headed out if he wakes up."
"Alright, have a good time. Guess I'll get to cleaning."
The sound of Daniel going down the stairs, the front door opening and closing, and then Mrs. Schmidt's footsteps fading away.
I'd been lying face-down on the bed, not twitching a finger, and only then did I let out a long breath.
"...Goddamn it."
I cautiously sat up and shuffled over to the mirror in the corner of the room, where junk was scattered everywhere.
Two days in, and this face still didn't feel familiar.
White guy through and through, no matter how you sliced it.
Not a bad-looking face, but when I scowled, it looked like a real asshole.
"Fuck."
I spat out another curse.
My life was totally fucked.
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An utterly ordinary, monotonous 32 years of life.
Not handsome, no special talents.
Family? Looks? Skills?
Average in every way, with the only saving grace being halfway-decent brains for studying.
I barely scraped into a top university, then barely landed a job at a big corporation.
A typical salesman, forced into endless drinking sessions against my will, worn down by office politics and constant business trips, chasing the pathetic dream of owning my own place while running myself ragged.
And then me, of all people, gets dragged into the isekai bullshit I'd only heard rumors about.
Without even a warning sign.
Some might call it lucky, a rare adventure straight out of a novel.
Mighty warriors, eye-popping flashy magic, elegant European-style buildings, majestic nature, exotic beauties of other races.
This world has everything you'd imagine in a fantasy. So yeah, it'd be natural to rejoice... if it weren't for one thing.
If only this place wasn't a batshit insane dictatorship like Nazi Germany mashed with North Korea!
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"Ow, shit..."
I stood in front of a squat, boxy gray building, swallowing the bile rising in my throat.
This must be my workplace.
"Long live the Great Leader!"
"Long live the Great Leader."
My day started with a thunderous shout praising the Leader.
Snap!
I slammed my fist to my heart in a crisp salute, and the guard posted in front of the shabby building returned it in kind.
Sure, you could argue fantasy worlds are all pre-modern anyway, full of monarchies and dictatorships.
But this continent wasn't "pre-modern" by any stretch.
The Empire had fallen long ago, and the absolute monarchies that flowered with grand culture had their heads chopped off by republican revolutions.
In Earth's terms, this was at least the late 1800s.
An age of madness and war devouring the world, with red ideologies, blue ones, every flavor gaining ground in the chaos.
And I'd landed smack in the middle of that vortex, under the most vicious regime, in the Schupaven Republic—branded the "axis of evil" by neighboring countries!
A thousand years ago, a massive empire tore itself apart in civil war, splintering into countless kingdoms and duchies.
Three hundred years ago, borders flipped endlessly in the chaos before settling into stability.
Schupaven started as a count's domain, ruled by an ambitious noble.
The count declared independence, founded a dynasty, waged bloody wars, and swallowed up all the lands of the "Schupaven people" to form a unified kingdom.
Two hundred years ago, Schupaven's warlord king conquered half the continent but collapsed in rebellion and civil war, vomiting back the territory.
Thirty years ago, revolutionary winds swept the continent.
Some nations beheaded kings and went republican; others had royals compromise into constitutional monarchies; some just shattered into pieces.
Schupaven lucked out with a successful revolution and a democratic government.
But just twelve years later, Friedrich Krüger—comrade and knight commander to the revolutionary leader—staged a coup.
He crowned himself Leader, purged his comrades, and marched down the dictator's path.
Ah, dear Leader Krüger!
In my eyes, Krüger was your textbook mad dictator.
Schupaven called itself a republic, but everything flipped on the Leader's whim, and relations with neighbors were going straight to hell.
The war-hungry Leader was pouring insane funds into the military, looking ready to drop brutal conscription orders any day.
The lucky—or unlucky—part? I wasn't conscription fodder.
I'm just a pitiful consumptive patient.
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"Cough! Cough cough cough! Long live the Great Leader!"
"Long live the Great Leader."
I entered the bleak four-story building, saluting everyone I passed.
The creaky wooden floor groaned underfoot as I headed to the corner of the first floor.
The archives.
The roughly 100-square-foot room was utterly desolate.
Peeling plaster walls held a proud civil service certificate.
Lucas Redan.
Born January 1, 1875.
The above individual is hereby appointed as a 9th Grade Clerk of the Schupaven Republic.
My name's Lucas.
Ex-noble of this otherworld—fallen nobility at that—and bottom-of-the-barrel clerk... the equivalent of a Korean 9th-grade civil servant.
Yeah.
Otherworld 9th Grade Civil Servant.
That's my new identity.
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Stepping into the office, my throat itched like crazy, an urge bubbling up to bellow some oath.
I swear loyalty and obedience to Friedrich Krüger, Leader of the Schupaven Republic, and pledge to faithfully uphold my duties in accordance with the law. God, aid me.
The loyalty oath public servants recite upon receiving their appointment.
The original Lucas had made it a daily ritual to stare at his certificate and recite it.
Because this dumbass was a die-hard fanatic for the dictator Krüger.
On the first day of possession, I'd been somewhat relieved by the younger age and decent looks.
But it didn't take long to realize this Lucas was rotten to the core.
A flood of memories revealed he'd been brainwashed by Krüger's crude dictatorship ideology since boyhood.
Dreaming at age twelve of becoming a war hero and getting a medal straight from Krüger? What a sweet little fantasy.
Worse, he wasn't the only kid like that.
Maybe Krüger's crisp early governance won hearts, especially against the revolutionary government's mess.
His coup succeeded easily because the revolutionary regime crumbled under backlash and corruption.
Anyway, ambitious Lucas bolted for the army at twenty, only to flunk the physical.
Skinny and frail as he was, the instructors sent him packing.
"We acknowledge your iron soldier's spirit and loyalty to the Leader. But how could you survive the battlefield with such a weak body?"
The instructor's pitying words.
He'd always been sickly as a kid; surviving to adulthood was a miracle.
Crushed, Lucas wandered pleasure districts, blowing his meager inheritance on booze, smokes, and gambling. What a piece of shit.
His health tanked predictably. Not sure the exact disease, but constant coughing got him labeled a consumptive.
One day, after getting booted from a bar where he'd been shacked up with the owner—kicked right in the ass—he stumbled into the instructor who'd failed him.
Playing the pitiful card worked; the guy pulled strings for a 9th-grade clerk spot.
That's the summary of Lucas "Hopeless" Redan's 25 years.
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Today marked day three since I possessed this body.
Luckily, the past two had been the weekend.
I'd holed up in Mrs. Schmidt's boarding house, playing sick, desperately piecing together memories.
Situation grasped, but accepting it? Different story.
I still wanted to curl up and cry.
I plopped down blankly at the desk.
Iron shelves crammed the room, stuffed floor-to-ceiling with thick files.
The single palm-sized window behind the desk faced a narrow alley between buildings—no sunlight.
A single bulb overhead cast faint light.
A moldy, dim archive room.
From the memories, my job was just sorting files and occasionally fixing typos in others' reports.
Busywork, in a word.
Dead boring, hence the pittance pay.
"Haa, what now..."
I propped my feet on the desk aimlessly, deep in thought.
Can I even survive this?
Plenty threatened my survival.
First, this country.
The Schupaven Republic teetered on the brink of war.
Not that the mad dictator declared continental unification and emperorship.
But the vibes were ominous. Neighboring governments eyed it suspiciously.
Not fully mapped yet, but this world mixed magic and tech.
Magic engineering, sorta.
Knight wield super-powered blades across battlefields; mages hurl fire and ice; regular troops fire mana-stone rifles.
Trains and carriages share rails; airships and dragons fill the skies.
This room's bulb? Magic mimicking electricity.
At this tech level, expecting zero civilian casualties in war is naive.
Even if not drafted, bombs or dragon breath would get me.
Second, this body.
Dodge bombs and invasion? Fine. But this scrawny frame might croak from illness on the evacuation route.
War or not, you need health to beg or hustle.
Third, this idiot's fucked ideology.
"Not like I haven't thought of defecting to a free country..."
Last night, facing this dumpster fire reality, my first thought was We're screwed—bail!
But penniless and skill-less, what then?
Plus, Lucas had blabbed Leader praises far and wide. Civil service job screams "high loyalty required."
A basic check in any defection country would expose it—denied entry, or worse, spied and executed.
"Succeed in defection, and if Schupaven wins, I'm shot."
Last issue: Schupaven's real strength.
Not luck; its brutal history forged a military powerhouse.
That's why it could flip off the continent.
Win or lose, my future's bleak.
Win: continent reverts to empire days.
Lose: I die in the bombing.
"Isekai tropes like becoming king or saving destiny? Pure fantasy bullshit."
I muttered, standing up.
No matter how I sliced it, one thing to do.
Find a way to survive this mad world.
Watch the situation.
Opportunity will come.
For that, cling to this cushy job. No work, decent intel access.
Surviving as an otherworld 9th-grade civil servant. Let it begin.