After one phone call to his father and a transfer of money from his bank account, he had paid back the money in full and was exiting Tom Nook's store with the baseball souvenir in hand, the tiny sphere being more of a reminder that he had done a lot for his friend right now.

"Thank you, come again!" Tom Nook's voice carried over the air. Ness was angry enough that he wanted to just light the baseball on fire and throw it at the stores window in rage, but he just pocketed the sports item and headed back to the office, not in the mood to be around the crooked merchant anymore.

Once back at the front office, Ness found himself sitting behind a desk that wasn't too far behind the reception counter. Isabelle was not in there for the moment. He had wondered where she went, but he knew he had triggered some old memories of hers. All the raven haired boy could do currently was sign off on various papers. Nothing big, mostly approvals and permissions, though one paper he stopped himself before signing, realizing it was approval for Tom Nook to continue store renovations. Ness casually leaned over and let the file fall into the shredder idly, happy to have some revenge back, knowing that would set back construction plans for a while.

"Excuse me, Mister Ness?" he heard, looking up from the papers, seeing Isabelle standing there with her clipboard.

"Oh hey, Isabelle. What's wrong?" Ness asked.

"It's the museum curator… some people are disagreeing with the new exhibit he wants to include, due to it being too creepy. They need someone to make a decision," the shiatsu explained what he needed to do so far. The red capped boy was noticing a lot of annoying small decisions he had to make and a good chunk of money being siphoned from his own bank account, all in one day. Already it was driving him up the wall. Ness got up, nodding, following her off to get to the museum, wondering what kind of exhibit could be causing problems with the inhabitants of the town.

When they arrived to the museum, they noticed someone standing there, an anthropomorphic owl who was wearing a green bow tie. He looked quite stressed, having been thinking quite a lot over the new exhibit.

"Hi! I'm the temporary mayor. What's the problem?" Ness introduced himself, wanting the curator to get straight to the point. The museum owner led them inside.

"Y-yes. I've heard about you from the others. I'm Blathers, and, well… this is the problem," Blathers explained, leading them into the insect exhibit. They were in a room that was decorated to be spookier. They could see no bugs currently on display. Each exhibit had four rooms to it with various types of species in them.

"What's going to be in this exhibit anyway?" Ness inquired while they stood in the darkish room, though he was noticing a few spiders crawling around on trees and the grass, but they thankfully kept away from the bystanders in the museum by a glass wall, surrounding each biome. Isabelle wasn't entirely sure, either.

"Oh, well this is the spider exhibit. We upgraded it so we could house a new tarantula tree for it," Blathers declared. The two took a step back from the tree he was standing near.

"S-sorry, did you say tarantulas?" Ness repeated fearfully, wondering if he had heard correctly.

"Yes, sir. They are what our town is known for. They only get aggressive if you mess with them at night. They aren't easy to find otherwise," Blathers continued. Ness just rubbed his head, making a mental note that he would leave if he saw one tarantula. He had fought a lot of weird things over the course of his adventures and he drew the line at tarantulas.

"Yeah, sure, it's fine… as long as I don't need to spend another minute in here," Ness agreed. Isabelle showed him her clipboard. He signed off on the allowance of this new addition to the bug exhibit. Blathers was very thankful, but the mayor and his assistant were trying their best to leave quickly.

The rest of the day went calmly from there. Ness was tired. The sun had set a couple of hours ago and he found himself sitting at his desk once again, writing away. He felt like he was back in school trying to improve penmanship. He didn't have any real idea where he was going to stay for the night, though at this rate he would never get to sleep since he had to sign all of this. He was starting to feel like Villager now, and it wasn't enjoyable, but he wasn't alone. The loyal assistant was doing her share of the work too, probably more than she was being paid to do.

"Maybe you should head home, Isabelle? It's my job to handle this anyway…" Ness claimed, though he was realizing she was signing a lot of the documents in his name. The signature was looking pretty similar. He raised an eyebrow, looking to her.

"Um… the mayor was always swamped, so to lessen his work I sign in his place… as him," Isabelle embarrassingly admitted. He was too tired for this right now. He was glad that she did a lot more than her job described, though forging signatures was not what he expected.

"Look, you go home. I'll see you in the morning," Ness insisted. The shiatsu reluctantly nodded.

"Take care, Mister Ness," she said before leaving, the door closing behind her. He heard the lock turn. He went back to his desk in the office and took his red cap off, resting it on the desk before he laid his head on it.

"Need a nap… just… five minutes…" he yawned, his eyelids heavy. Each blink felt harder and harder to resist. Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep, having had his energy drained from the long hours of doing the paperwork, but enough of it was on the desk to practically be a pillow of paper.

Suddenly, Ness was awoken early the next morning by a weird tickling feeling on his hand. His eyes flickered open. He saw nothing. He wondered what he had felt, but he just discerned that it was nothing but an itch that had gone away on its own. He looked at the clock. It was about nine in the morning. He groaned, realizing he slept way longer than he planned. He reached over to grab his hat, but he noticed something furry on it.

"…I-is that…?" Ness stuttered, realizing something furry with a lot of legs that was on his hat, and sadly, his fear had come true. It was a tarantula, immobile, but he was not in the mood to wear it on top of his hat. He quickly smacked it away, sending it flying across the room somewhere, grabbing his hat and running out the front door. It was not the best wake up call for him. However, when he got outside, he bumped into Isabelle by accident.

"Oh! Mister Ness! Sorry, is everything alright?" the assistant asked. Ness did his best to regain his composure, having a thought cross his mind followed by an idea.

"Uh… y-yeah yeah… look… I'm starting to think that… maybe I'm not cut out for this work. I'm not the type of person to just sit behind a desk signing things all day and night," he admitted. She looked disappointed, but she understood.

"It is a hard job. A lot of people think they'd make great leaders… but you were the first person I've met that actually could do it other than our mayor. But he found a lot more joy in it than most, too…" Isabelle admitted that Villager did have more fun being mayor than any other person would. At that point, though, the young boy had an idea.

"Tell you what. Why don't I leave running this town in your hands until he gets back? You're a great assistant. I'm sure you can handle it," Ness suggested, trying his best to just get out of this. He wanted to get as far away from the town of Leaf Scale as possible. She looked shocked at his suggestion.

"M-me? Oh, I don't know, Mister Ness, but if you think I can… I'll get the paperwork for you to sign…" she got cut off by him.

"J-just forge my signature on those, too! It was nice being around," Ness claimed, but before he could run off, he got stopped by her. She was unsure why he was in a hurry, but she wanted him to take something. She pulled out a small box with a nice ribbon tied neatly on it.

"Give this to the mayor for me, please," Isabelle requested. Ness took it gladly, willing to deliver the parcel. With that, he ran off away from the front office. He seemed to get faster and faster, before he suddenly vanished into a portal. Isabelle witnessed his PSI Teleport ability, wondering what he had just done. She shrugged before entering the office.

"I wonder why he was in such a hurry…"