Yeah. My regression was completely screwed.
But what mattered was having a heart that wouldn't break.
I decided not to follow the tired path of a rookie regressor panicking after falling into another world.
Alright. So it's the Joseon era.
In that case, I'd seen this kind of thing a few times. Build an army, conquer Manchuria, and—
—
But once my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I could make out the faces around me, my thoughts stopped cold.
I couldn't help but suspect that this wasn't Joseon at all, but a fantasy world that merely shared similar clothing, food, and shelter.
What the hell are these guys?
They were definitely wearing hanbok. But the sight was grotesque.
Their facial features were vaguely East Asian, yet more than half of them had their hair completely loose. Some wore gat hats, but most were crushed or torn beyond recognition.
One guy was smeared head to toe with foul-smelling filth. Another was soaked in some liquid that, judging by the stench, was probably alcohol.
Not everyone looked like that. There were a few who appeared properly dressed—proper, that is, if this really was Joseon.
One of them stepped forward aggressively.
"Hey! Why are you dawdling around? Can't you hurry up and tie him?"
I remembered 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 shout, the man beside him snickered and came forward holding a rope. The torchlight illuminated his face.
He wasn't normal either.
His face was smeared with some strange black substance, as if he'd painted it on with ink. I couldn't help wondering if he'd been dabbling in some kind of sorcery. And wait—
Was that bastard not wearing any pants?
This behavior was less human and more monster-like. In that case, there was only one possible answer. My mind spun rapidly.
Gangsters—no, armed robbers? Given the era… bandits?
Didn't they say this was a tutorial? Was "go home" supposed to mean escape safely all the way back home?
A sense of crisis washed over me. This was where I had to show my adaptability to another world.
I didn't know whether they were bandits, avant-garde performance artists, or a pack of lunatics. Judging by their surreal appearance, they might even be some supernatural beings—but I decided not to think that far.
About five or six steps away from me were several sticks that looked like they'd been placed there specifically for beating people. To avoid being grabbed, I dropped low, almost crawling, and scraped my way toward them.
"W-What's that bastard doing?"
Confused shouts rang out from all sides. Ah, you Joseon people don't know, do you? This is what you call individual combat.
The atmosphere grew awkward, but I had no time to pay attention. My pulse throbbed all the way to my fingertips.
Stay calm. Knock one of them down, then run while the rest hesitate.
Even I had to admit—it was a perfectly rational plan.
The problem, as with most rational solutions, was that neither my mind nor my body cooperated.
My heart pounded like it was going to explode, and my vision narrowed. My eyes felt like they were about to pop out from the tension.
Let me be clear: I'd never killed anyone before. I hadn't even punched someone.
In the end, my outward actions were far uglier than what I'd envisioned.
With a scream closer to a shriek, I swung the stick wildly. It smashed into the head of the guy who'd been approaching me with the rope.
"Urgh!"
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 my chance to bolt.
But a thought flashed through my mind.
Where do I run?
To finish the tutorial, I was supposed to go home. That meant I had a home.
But where was it?
The answer to that—and to countless other things I hadn't even thought to ask—was violently shoved into my head as the status window reappeared before my eyes.
[Synchronization complete]
What?
Ah.
That was the only reaction I could manage.
Information flooded in. It felt like waking from a vivid, lucid dream and instantly regaining all my everyday memories. Experiences and impressions crashed together in a chaotic torrent.
Kim Unhaeng… that was the name shown on the status window.
At the same time, I could now fully understand what those "bandits" were shouting.
"How dare that punk pull this kind of stunt in front of his seniors without knowing his place?"
"A brat who hasn't even passed the higher examination already shows his rotten potential!"
"The seed of a traitor never disappears. Beat him senseless and teach him a lesson!"
I swallowed.
The stick was still in my hand, but I no longer felt any urge to swing it.
Partly because I now knew who they really were—but more than that, for another reason entirely.
Memory is a core component of identity. And as Kim Unhaeng—a fledgling Joseon scholar standing here after eighteen years of life—I couldn't do what I'd just done.
The ethics and behavioral norms Kim Unhaeng had painstakingly learned made such "absurd rampaging" impossible.
I let the stick fall from my hand.
But it was already too late.
As my fellow newcomers—who were being subjected to every imaginable abuse right in front of me: being beaten with clubs, having ink smeared on their faces, alcohol poured over their heads, even being forced to eat excrement—stared at me in horror, the status window kindly delivered its message.
[Notice: Bonus objective 'Myeonsinrye' failed. Reputation has decreased.]
Was there really a clause about Hell difficulty in the terms? Why was the tutorial already this insane?
The initiation ceremony was, unsurprisingly, a complete disaster. The moment someone tactfully muttered, "It's gotten too late," the crowd began to disperse in an awkward shuffle.
A few of them snarled at me, saying they'd see whether I'd be safe later, but perhaps because I wasn't originally part of this society, it didn't scare me much.
As unpleasant as it was to imagine, if I were forced to relive military service a second time, wouldn't I handle things more flexibly instead of freezing like a frog before a snake in front of drill instructors and seniors?
It felt similar to that.
I walked through the quiet inner city, illuminated by faint light.
From Kim Unhaeng's memories, I already knew that junior officials roaming around for the initiation ceremony were tacitly exempt from the nighttime curfew, so I wasn't worried about that.
What worried me was something else entirely.
Even though I'd majored in history, that didn't mean I knew history particularly well.
It's not that I didn't study—history is just like that.
At least, the kind of "history" people usually imagine—chronological knowledge of exactly what happened when—wasn't much better than a non-major's. Just like how not every math major has outstanding mental arithmetic skills.
If there was any real advantage to being a specialist, it was two things.
A specialist knows what they don't know. And when they hear something unfamiliar, they can connect it to what they already know.
Myeonsinrye…
That meant I'd been officially assigned to a government office. And the talk earlier about the higher examination must've meant I'd entered through privilege rather than merit.
Thinking that she had meant this when she said she'd make me a civil servant made my blood pressure spike.
Still, a promise was a promise.
And immediately afterward, I'd smashed that free government post to pieces with a single stick.
But wasn't that inevitable?
How did those guys look anything like proper officials? They were a pack of corrupted degenerates crawling out of some twisted plague pit. In the twenty-first century, the police would've fired a taser without a single question. I'd merely exercised my legitimate right to self-defense.
Honestly, a family like Kim Unhaeng's didn't desperately need such a petty post anyway. They weren't overwhelmingly powerful or rich due to political ups and downs, but they'd never starve.
If I holed myself up at home, wrote a poem lamenting the corruption of scholars, and spent my days reading, the whole world would applaud me.
The reason I was furious was because I couldn't do that.
Why couldn't I?
I'd only just found out.
This era was convenient in that there were no CCTV cameras or dashcams. I cursed out loud and kicked the earthen wall along the road in Seochon.
Then I called up what I'd already seen on the way here.
The status window mercilessly displayed the unchanged "terms and conditions."
[The member must reach the final point of the Seunggyeongdo, the Chief State Councillor of the State Council, and in the process must complete twelve mandatory objectives and hidden bonus objectives.]
In other words, a rookie ninth-grade civil servant was supposed to rise all the way to prime minister. And that ninth-grader had just smashed a beer bottle over his superior's head at a welcome dinner during probation.
Was this a joke?
[By completing objectives, tuition fees may be paid. Each completed objective unlocks skills and grants various rewards. Most will be beneficial to progress.]
[Upon full payment of tuition, the contract will be terminated 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 that woman and everyone in this company—because that was what it clearly was—served on a silver platter.
But first, I needed to return to the twenty-first century.
What really mattered wasn't the rewards, but the penalties.
The terms I'd agreed to without thinking kindly explained what would happen if I failed to complete the objectives.
[However, if tuition cannot be paid and further progress becomes impossible due to physical death or permanent incapacitation (posthumous promotion will not be recognized), compulsory collection procedures on the soul will commence.]
At that point, I wanted to shut everything off.
But human psychology is cruel—you're terrified, yet you can't look away. I was forced to read again the sentence that had just planted trauma in me.
[At this time, the member's soul will fall under the company's permanent jurisdiction and can never escape or be destroyed.]
Did souls even exist?
If they did, could they be destroyed?
And if not—what did they plan to do with an immortal soul that couldn't even die?
These questions bubbling up one after another were, in truth, defensive reactions.
To forget the fear those words inspired, my mind kept trying to force the terms into the boundaries of common sense.
Just like the first time, the second attempt failed.
This was the second time now. The shock had dulled slightly, making the fear even clearer. An outright threat of death would've been preferable.
Unable to endure any longer, I chose to flee—for now.
"…First, I need to clear the tutorial. Let's go home."
If I thought any further, I really felt like I'd lose my mind. And losing my mind wasn't the scary part—the aftermath of killing myself in a fit of madness was.
I desperately steadied my heart and moved my feet.
If there was any comfort at all, it was that the path leading to a small tiled-roof house—one I'd never seen in Korea—felt as familiar as my childhood walk home.
Because it really was my home.