Starting Today, I'll Work as a City Lord - Chapter 8: High Rewards Will Get Brave Men

How would you react to waking up in a completely new body—one pulled straight from a game you used to play?That’s the unexpected reality our protagonist, Licht, now faces.Trapped in the body of a character he once defeated and killed, Licht inherits not just the appearance, but the karma of the original. Branded a villain, he’s burdened with the consequences of sins he never committed.As a first-act antagonist in the eyes of the world, his fate is already written: to be exposed, condemned, and destroyed.But Licht refuses to accept that. He chooses to fight. To survive.Karma of the past be damned.Yet the deeper he falls into this world, the clearer it becomes—this is no game. It's darker, more twisted, and far less forgiving than anything he’s ever known.This isn’t a hero’s journey.This isn’t a warrior’s rise.This is a villain’s survival.

Son of the Senior Chancellor, Luo Wei, loved the wrong person in his past life. This mistake caused his entire family to be wiped out, and in the end, he was cast down as a pleasure slave, and died in the wilderness during the depths of winter.

Somehow, the heavens did not give up on him and gave him a second chance at life. He believed this rebirth was only meant for atonement, and not love. Yet, as he plotted his vengeance, Luo Wei quickly realized that passion would again be his fatal downfall.

The once emperor, the lover from his past life, his beloved in this life, and an opposing empire’s monarch who is doomed to love him, who is supposed to be good for whom?

And who is supposed to hurt whom? A hero chasing after a dream, an empire of a thousand years, a kingdom stretching across the known lands, all flashing before the eyes like a mirage. Is it worthwhile to trade a hundred years of my loneliness to give you a single lifetime of joy?

- Description from Novelupdates

The Coinbound System lets him buy spells, skills, and stat boosts like a magical vending machine...But nothing comes free.Every fireball costs gold.Every body enhancement? Taxed.Even getting a suggestion comes with a convenience fee.While nobles train for years to master a single flame spell, he can just buy it off the System. From summoning spirit beasts to crafting forbidden runes, his power grows with every coin he scrapes together… and every unnecessary expense he dodges.But in a world where magic is passed down through noble bloodlines and ancient family grimoires, a broke outsider with a price tag on every spell has no business rising through the ranks.Still, he’s surviving. Thriving, even.So long as he tracks every copper and refuses to overspend on fireballs, he just might make it out alive.They call him cheap.They call him stingy.But one day… they’ll all remember the name:The Frugal Mage.

Several hundred thousand players are trapped in a gritty zombie apocalypse survival game just after game launch. There are hints that deaths in the game might be serving some other terrible purpose in the background of reality…

The main character, Liu Gan, is a quadruple amputee in real life. A quirk in the server code recognized his prosthetic limbs as ‘real limbs’ in game, giving him ‘normal’ arms and legs that nonetheless have the strength and power of steel limbs, and thus far more power than a normal player. With this minor cheat helping him survive the early stages of the game, Liu Gan sets out to find out what exactly is going on, and to endure as long as he can.

- Description from Novelupdates