Tutorial
Yeah. My regression was ruined.
But what matters is an unbroken spirit.
I decided not to follow the well-worn path of novice regressors who panic after being dropped into another world.
Alright. So it's the Joseon era.
In that case, I've seen a few things. Raise an army, conquer Manchuria—
…or so I was thinking, until my eyes, now adjusted to the darkness, began to distinguish the people around me. My train of thought stopped dead.
I couldn't help but suspect that this wasn't Joseon at all, but some fantasy world that merely resembled it in food, clothing, and shelter.
What are these guys?
The clothes were definitely hanbok. But the state of them was grotesque.
Their facial features were broadly East Asian, but more than half of them had their hair loose and unbound. Some wore gat, but most were crushed or torn beyond recognition.
One guy was smeared head to toe in foul-smelling filth. Another was soaked in some liquid that, judging by the stench, had to be alcohol.
Not all of them were like that—there were a few whose attire looked intact. That is, intact by Joseon standards.
One of them stepped forward arrogantly.
"Hey now! Why are you dawdling like that? Can't you hurry up and tie him?"
I recalled the words "Language Synchronization" from the status window I'd seen earlier. The intonation and pronunciation were unfamiliar, but the meaning itself was perfectly clear.
The problem was that the meaning was in no way friendly toward me.
At the barked command, another guy snickered and stepped forward holding a rope. The torchlight illuminated his face.
He wasn't normal either.
His body was smeared with strange black pigment, like ink spread across his skin—made me wonder if he'd been performing some kind of ritual. And wait—
Was that bastard not wearing pants?
This wasn't human behavior. It was closer to a monster.
Then there was only one possible answer. I thought quickly.
Thugs—no, armed robbers? Given the era, should I call them bandits?
Didn't the system call this a tutorial? Was "go home" actually code for "escape alive all the way back to your house"?
A sense of crisis surged.
This was where I had to demonstrate my adaptability to another world.
I didn't know whether they were bandits, avant-garde performance artists, or a pack of lunatics. Given their surreal appearance, they might even be supernatural beings—but I decided not to go that far.
About five or six steps away from me were several sticks, placed as if specifically meant for beating people.
To avoid being captured, I lowered myself almost flat to the ground and crawled toward them.
"H-Hey! What's that bastard doing?"
Confused shouts rang out from all directions.
Ah, so you Joseon people don't know this? This is what's called individual combat.
The atmosphere felt awkward all of a sudden, but I didn't have the luxury of noticing that. My pulse pounded all the way to my fingertips.
Stay calm. Knock out just one of them, then run while the others flinch.
If I may say so myself, it was perfectly rational.
The problem—like most rational solutions—was that neither my mind nor my body cooperated.
My heart hammered wildly, my vision narrowed, and it felt like my eyeballs were about to pop out.
For the record, I've never killed anyone. I've never even hit someone.
So my actual behavior ended up being far uglier than what I'd imagined.
With a shout closer to a scream, I swung the stick wildly.
The stick struck the head of the guy directly in front of me—the one who'd been approaching with the rope.
"Ughk!"
Luckily, he didn't seem to be a particularly tough bandit. He dropped the rope, clutched his head, and rolled on the ground.
Now was the time to run.
But a thought flashed through my mind.
Run where?
The tutorial said to go home. That meant "I" had a home.
But where was it?
The answer to that—and to countless other questions I hadn't even considered—was brutally forced into my mind as the status window suddenly reappeared before my eyes.
[Synchronization complete]
What?
Ah.
That was all I could manage in response to the shock.
Information flooded in. It felt like regaining everyday memories all at once after waking from a deep, vivid dream. Experiences and mental images collided and merged violently.
Kim Unhaeng… that was the name shown on the status window.
At the same time, I could now completely understand what those "bandits" were shouting.
"Who does that bastard think he is, acting up in front of his seniors without knowing heaven or earth?"
"A brat who hasn't even taken the Daegwa yet, and you can already see how rotten his roots are!"
"The seed of a traitor never disappears. Beat him thoroughly and give him a proper initiation!"
I swallowed.
I was still holding the stick, but I no longer had any desire to swing it.
Partly because I had now figured out who they were—but more than that, because of another reason.
Memory is a critical component of identity.
And Kim Unhaeng, the fledgling Joseon scholar standing here after eighteen years of life, simply could not do something like that.
The ethics and behavioral norms Kim Unhaeng had been thoroughly educated in prevented him from committing such "nonsensical violence."
I dropped the stick.
But it was already too late.
(Only now did I realize it.) While my peers—who were currently being subjected to all kinds of abuse such as being beaten with clubs, having ink smeared on their faces, alcohol poured over their heads, and even being forced to eat excrement and urine—stared at me in horror, the status window delivered a courteous message.
[Notification: Optional Objective "Myeonsinrye (免新禮)" failed. Reputation decreases.]
Did the terms and conditions say anything about Hell Mode difficulty?
Why is the tutorial already like this?
The Myeonsinrye gathering was, unsurprisingly, a disaster.
As soon as someone tactfully remarked that "it's too late at night," the group dispersed awkwardly.
A few of them snarled at me, saying they'd see if I stayed safe—but perhaps because I was originally an outsider to this society, it didn't scare me much.
I didn't even want to imagine it, but what if I experienced military service a second time?
Instead of freezing like a frog before a snake in front of drill instructors and seniors, wouldn't I handle it more flexibly?
It felt similar to that.
I walked through the quiet streets inside the city walls.
I wasn't worried about violating the nighttime curfew. From Kim Unhaeng's memories, I already knew that newly appointed officials roaming about for Myeonsinrye were tacitly exempt.
What worried me was something else entirely.
Even if you majored in history, that doesn't mean you actually know history well.
It's not that I didn't study. It's just how it is.
What people usually think of as "history"—chronological knowledge of when exactly what happened—isn't much different from a non-major's understanding. Just like not every math major is amazing at mental arithmetic.
If I had to name the advantages of being a major, there were two.
A major knows what they don't know.
And when they hear something unfamiliar, they can connect it to what they already know.
Myeonsinrye, huh.
Then that means I've been assigned (bun-sok, 分屬) to an office.
And the talk earlier about the Daegwa must mean that I entered through eumseo.
When I thought about how that woman had said she'd "make me a civil servant," my blood pressure spiked.
Still—she kept her promise.
And immediately afterward, I destroyed my free official post with a single stick.
But seriously—wasn't that unavoidable?
How did those people look anything like proper officials? They were a pack of corrupted degenerates from a twisted plague pit. In the 21st century, the police would've fired a taser without asking questions. I had merely exercised legitimate self-defense.
Honestly, with Kim Unhaeng's family background, a mere official post wasn't that precious. They weren't extremely powerful or wealthy due to political ups and downs, but they'd never starve.
Write a poem lamenting the corruption of scholars, hole up at home reading books, and the whole world would applaud.
But I couldn't do that.
And that made me furious.
Why couldn't I?
I'd only just learned why.
This era not having CCTV or dashcams is really convenient. I cursed aloud and kicked the earthen wall along a Seochon road.
Then I called up something I'd already seen on the way here.
The status window coldly displayed the unchanged Terms and Conditions.
[The member must reach the final destination of Seunggyeongdo: Chief State Councillor (Yeonguijeong, 議政府領議政), and complete the twelve mandatory objectives and hidden optional objectives along the way.]
So a rookie ninth-grade civil servant is supposed to rise to Prime Minister.
And not just any rookie—but one who smashed a superior's head with a stick during a welcome gathering.
Is this a joke?
[Tuition may be paid by completing objectives. Each completed objective unlocks skills and provides various rewards. Most will be beneficial to progression.]
[Once full tuition is paid, the contract ends and one wish may be granted.]
That wish was already decided.
If I'd been allowed two wishes instead of one, I would've demanded the heads of everyone in that company—yes, it really felt like I should call it that—including that woman, served on silver platters.
But first, I needed to return to the 21st century.
What mattered more than the rewards was the punishment section.
The terms I'd agreed to without thinking kindly explained what would happen if objectives were not completed.
[If tuition cannot be paid and further progress becomes impossible due to physical death or permanent incapacitation (posthumous promotion is not recognized), forced soul collection procedures will commence.]
I wanted to turn it off right there.
But human psychology is such that even when you're terrified, you can't look away.
I ended up rereading the sentence that had traumatized me earlier.
[At that time, the member's soul shall fall under the company's permanent jurisdiction and may never escape or be extinguished.]
Did souls even exist?
If they did—could they be extinguished?
And if so, what were they planning to do with a soul that couldn't even die?
These questions were defensive in nature.
My mind was desperately trying to fit those words into my existing common sense—anything to escape the terror they inspired.
Just like the first time, the second attempt failed.
This was the second time. The initial shock had faded, making the fear even sharper.
Honestly, threatening to kill me would've been kinder.
Unable to endure any longer, I chose to flee—for now.
"…First, to see the main objective or whatever, I need to clear the tutorial. Let's go home."
If I thought any more, I felt like I'd go insane.
And insanity itself wasn't the problem—the consequences of going insane and killing myself were far worse.
I desperately steadied my mind and started walking.
If there was one small comfort, it was that the path to the small tiled-roof house—something I'd never seen in Korea—felt as familiar as the road home I'd walked since childhood.
Because it was my home.
Post-Chapter Explanation / NotesCharacters
Kim Unhaeng (金雲行)
Protagonist's current identity
Newly appointed sinchul (new official)
Entered office via Eumseo (蔭敍)
Subjected to Myeonsinrye (免新禮) initiation
Senior Officials / Peers
Other newly appointed officials and seniors
Enforcers of Myeonsinrye
Not bandits—officials within Joseon bureaucracy
Terms & Concepts
Myeonsinrye (免新禮)
Initiation rite imposed on newly appointed officials
Often abusive and humiliating
Failure results in loss of reputation
Daegwa (大科)
Highest level of the civil service examination
Mentioned to mock Kim Unhaeng's background
Eumseo (蔭敍)
Appointment through family merit rather than exams
Bunsok (分屬)
Formal assignment to a government office
Yeonguijeong (領議政)
Chief State Councillor, highest post in Joseon government
Final goal of Seunggyeongdo (陞卿圖)
System
Synchronization
Full memory integration of Kim Unhaeng's past
Reputation System
Failure in social rituals affects standing
Forced Soul Collection
Penalty for failing objectives or dying prematurely