Chapter 1: Did Someone Hold a Knife to Your Throat?

Work-life balance. Once a lifestyle value that trended alongside YOLO.

While YOLO had recently become completely outdated, work-life balance was still an expression used from time to time.

And for me, work-life balance was the top priority when choosing my career.

I never dreamed of becoming incredibly wealthy. No, to be honest, whether it was a major corporation or anywhere else, the possibility of becoming filthy rich through insane amounts of work seemed nonexistent.

If I could just earn enough money to take care of myself, I wanted to simply enjoy my hobbies and live a quiet life.

I was the type who'd rather make $3,000 a month for a 40-hour week than $8,000 for an 80-hour grind.

And back when I was job hunting in the early-to-mid 2010s, the poster child for work-life balance was undeniably a civil servant.

Unlike private companies, you didn't have to worry about getting fired or the company going bankrupt. While regular office workers were drowning in corporate abuse and overtime, civil servants were known for their strict 6 PM clock-out routine.

In short:

"Who knew it would be like this? Fuck...."

I had been deceived by a vain delusion.

Civil servants clocking out on the dot? Complete and utter bullshit. It might have been possible in the past, but not now.

Do you think it's uncomfortable to anxiously watch your boss's mood in a private company, fearing you might get fired?

I didn't realize back then that while I couldn't get fired, that bastard wouldn’t get fired either.

Of course, the answer I would get if I dared to say such things in this day and age was obvious.

—So what? Did someone hold a knife to your throat and force you to become a civil servant?

Yeah. No one held a knife to my throat and forced me.

I came crawling here on my own two feet because I thought it was a good idea.

But, even so.

If I knew I was going to die like this, I wouldn't have become a civil servant.

Where did it all go wrong?

Was it when I got caught up in an empty illusion and prepared to become a civil servant?

Was it when I invested more time in aiming for Grade 7 instead of Grade 9, thinking the salary for Grade 9 was too low?

Was it when I became unable to quit after spending three years to pass the Grade 7 civil service exam, and slugging through until suddenly becoming a 5-year veteran?

"Wonder when I'll get off work today... sigh"

I was just grumbling to myself when a noise I knew all too well cut through the air.

"S-sir, you can't come in here!"

"If you keep this up, we'll call the police!"

"If you can't do it, call your superior!! Superior!! Before I kill you all, you fucking bitches!!"

It was clear from the sound: a disgruntled civilian.

Without much thought, I turned my head toward the noise and saw an elderly man getting into an altercation with people as he tried to force his way in.

As bad luck would have it, right when I turned to look, my eyes met with my co-worker, Lee Ji-yeon, who was dealing with the civilian.

"Officer Seo Ji-hoon!"

The second she yelled my name, the old guy’s head whipped around to face me.

‘Great. I've attracted the aggro.'

The moment our eyes met, it was obvious that trying to avoid him would only make things worse.

I turned my head to the side, clinging to the last shred of hope.

'Wow. Fuck. Now that’s what you call seniority, huh?

My superior, the team leader, had already vacated his seat and fled the scene.

"Are you the top dog here?"

Faced with the elderly man's fierce glare, I internally sighed and approached him.

"I’m not in charge, but please calm down and tell me what’s going on. What’s the issue here?"

My question just made him start screaming his head off.

More than half his sentences were laced with profanity, making it difficult to understand what he was saying.

Perhaps to help me understand the situation, Officer Lee Ji-yeon briefly explained, “An official directive came down recently, and the eligibility requirements for basic livelihood security recipients were changed. It's because of that...."

"Ah...."

It seemed he had come to protest his exclusion from the list of basic livelihood security recipients.

There was once a trend in movies, dramas, and novels: the rich were evil, and the poor were good.

But reality wasn't like that.

There's an old saying that you can't be generous on an empty stomach. The anger and unreasonable behavior of those who had no room to spare in their lives were beyond imagination.

"You goddamn bastards! Do you know how much I've done for this country, huh? You fucking bitches! Do something about it if you don't want to die! Aren't you guys living off our taxes? Where do you think that money comes from!"

The words "I pay taxes too" rose to the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't bring myself to utter them.

But perhaps it was due to her lack of experience, Lee Ji-yeon couldn't hold back and retorted.

“Excuse me?! You think you’re the only one who pays taxes? And who are you calling fucking bitches? Watch your language."

I couldn't help but sigh.

'She wasn't like this a year ago.'

The fresh-faced rookie she was when first assigned here a year ago was long gone.

She, who had spent the first month in tears every day after being tormented by complainants, had completely turned dark within three months.

And as her weary face argued with the complainant...

'Did someone call the police?'

I silently asked another co-worker, Kim Chang-seok, beside me with my eyes.

'I called. They'll be here soon.'

Kim Chang-seok's nodding eyes conveyed that meaning.

How could we exchange such a conversation with just a look?

Well, this wasn't exactly our first rodeo.

'Just need to stall for a little longer.'

As I was holding back a sigh and about to turn back to the complainant...

Thud.

A strange sound reached my ears.

What followed was pain.

"Ugh...."

The sudden pain made me double over and look down at my stomach, and I found what looked like a sashimi knife sticking out of my stomach.

'He... brought a knife?'

How did nobody see that?

That was the first stupid thing that popped into my head.

Well, who would ever expect to get stabbed in the middle of their job?

"KYAAAAAAH!!"

Right after that, Lee Ji-yeon let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"Hiiik."

The guy who stabbed me looked just as surprised as I was, and he yanked the knife out.

"Ugh...."

As the knife that had been plugging the hole in my stomach was withdrawn, blood gushed out in waves.

I hurriedly tried to block the wound with both hands, but I could feel myself getting weaker and weaker.

Eventually, my legs gave way, and I collapsed to the floor as my consciousness slowly faded.

* * *

Early dawn.

A young man who had been tossing and turning in his sleep suddenly sat up and kicked off his blanket.

He blinked himself awake and grumbled something that sounded way too old for his face.

"Ha. It's been a while since I had that dream, but it felt disgustingly real."

Seo Ji-hoon—or rather, Il-mok, as he was known in this place—had experienced something strange a year ago.

The moment he woke up, his personality had switched to that of Seo Ji-hoon, a man from modern South Korea.

At first, he thought he was dreaming, but as days turned into weeks and months, that thought faded.

'Reincarnation. No. Possession?'

It might have been different had he been this way since he was a baby, but he was already fourteen when he opened his eyes, so it felt closer to possession than reincarnation.

Perhaps because the memory of dying as Seo Ji-hoon was so vivid, he often had nightmares about that experience even after the possession.

But as he got used to living here, he started having them less and less.

Then today, out of nowhere, he had the dream again for the first time in six months.

***

“Tsk. Might as well get to work.”

He woke up early in the morning, but because his brain was startled by the nightmare, he couldn't fall back asleep.

It had been a year since he woke up in this place. It might seem strange for a fifteen-year-old boy to be working, but it wasn't that unusual in 'this world.'

This world, where I was possessed as Il-mok, wasn't modern times.

'To think I'd wake up in a Murim world...'

I, who valued work-life balance, enjoyed reading web novels and webtoons. Well, it was closer to enjoying them because my work-life balance wasn't being maintained.

As a busy modern person, reading webtoons and web novels during commutes on public transportation helped significantly with stress relief.

In any case, thanks to all that reading, I was able to adapt relatively easily despite being punted into a Murim world.

Honestly, I even thought this.

'Did I leave a malicious comment on a Murim novel without realizing it?'

You know, wondering if I'd been sucked into a novel I'd flamed online.

But after doing some digging, I figured out that besides being a generic martial arts world, it had nothing to do with any story I knew. There weren't any protagonists or major villains that I recognized.

Eventually, I gave up such thoughts and adapted to living in this world.

As a waiter.

Unfortunately, Il-mok, whom I possessed, was an orphan.

From what I could recall of Il-mok's memories, he hadn't been an orphan from birth, but had become one just a few months before I arrived.

There wasn't much a fourteen-year-old orphan could do to survive, so I had no choice but to choose the profession of a waiter to make a living.

And once I actually started, it wasn't particularly difficult.

The two most important things required for a waiter in this world were quick wits and patience.

First, one had to discern a customer's financial resources or abilities based on their appearance, attire, and movements.

If you carelessly let in the wrong customer and they decided to dine and dash, the waiter had to bear all the losses.

On the other hand, if you judged someone by their ragged clothes and chose to chase them away or ignore them, you could face a great calamity.

They might have worn-out clothes covered in dust from a long journey, but chances are, they might be martial masters or someone from an influential family.

And the reason patience was necessary was simple.

It was because of the customers' tyranny. And since this was a Murim world, it was practically a lawless zone.

In other words, it was a place where it wouldn't be strange to get stabbed in the stomach for talking back to a customer's unreasonable demands.

‘I already died that way once. I’m not letting it happen again.’

In that sense, my abilities honed from 5 years of working as a civil servant were more than enough to be a waiter.

I had the patience developed from dealing with complainants and the perceptiveness gained from surviving in the damn rigid civil servant environment.

And I made full use of those abilities, starting work from early dawn.

First, I started the day by going out to the courtyard with the sunrise and sweeping the entrance of the inn with a broom.

As I returned inside the inn to wipe the tables and clean the floor, I saw Uncle Taehyeon, the innkeeper, coming down.

"Hmm? Il-mok. You're up earlier than usual today."

"I woke up without meaning to, so I thought I'd do some cleaning since I was already up."

"Hahahaha. If I could find just one more waiter like you, our Cheongpung Inn could become the best inn in Qianyang County."

I smiled faintly at Uncle Taehyeon's words.

The main reason I’ve even managed to survive after waking up as a fourteen-year-old orphan is largely due to this man's help.

Beyond simply hiring me as a servant, he had provided me with a place to sleep and meals as well.

He even taught me how to read and write, citing that I should have a more respectable job when I grew up, so where could I find a better benefactor?

After greeting Uncle Taehyeon, I focused on cleaning again until it was time to start the morning business.

My routine was simple: take orders from customers visiting the inn, relay them to Uncle—who served as both innkeeper and chef—and deliver the prepared meals to the guests.

And after the customers left, I'd clear the tables and welcome new patrons.

Like a hamster in its wheel, I repeated these same actions dozens of times.

"Phew. Is the morning rush over?"

As the stream of customers finally died down, I wiped my forehead and let out a sigh.

The morning shift would end once I cleared away the last customers' dishes. Then there'd be a brief respite before evening service began.

I briefly considered taking a nap, but I didn't feel the need to.

Even though being a waiter was a somewhat physically demanding job, I wasn't tired at all.

One might think it was because I was used to the work, but it had always been like this since I first started.

'Is it because I'm young? I don't get tired.'

Even though I had woken up early and worked after a sleepless night today, I was still full of energy.

And as I was clearing the last remaining table...

“Bring me a bowl of whatever noodles you can make the fastest.”

A sudden order came in.

I certainly hadn't felt anyone enter the inn, but when I looked toward where the voice came from, I saw an old man sitting at a table.

'He's a martial artist.'

I knew instinctively. But that made it even stranger.

I had seen countless martial artists while working as a waiter, but they all exuded an aura that was difficult to approach.

However, I couldn't feel any presence from this old man.

"Yes, sir."

Nevertheless, I replied to the old man in a most respectful tone.

In this world, ignoring one's instinctive warnings could result in finding oneself at the wrong end of a blade.

"Uncle! One order of thin noodles here!"

After relaying the order to the kitchen, a plate of thin noodles came out of the kitchen a quarter of an hour later, complete with a teapot and teacups.

Carefully, I placed the noodles and tea on the elder's table and stepped back. The old man took a calm sip of tea, then used his chopsticks to taste the noodles.

And after tasting the tea and noodles, the old man opened his mouth in a calm voice.

“It’s poisoned. Looks like the Alliance has finally caught my trail."

"!?"

Before I could even utter the words, What do you mean by that?

Slash!

A chilling sound of flesh being cut came from the kitchen.

However, I didn't have the leisure to turn my head in that direction.

From the old man who had shown no presence until now, an overwhelming force like Mount Tai itself began to emanate.

And as the elder fixed his terrifying gaze upon me, an unfamiliar voice spoke from the kitchen.

"The tail has been dealt with."

'Tail? You don't mean... Uncle, do you?'

As that terrible thought was running through my head, the old man who’d been sizing me up like a piece of meat said something totally random.

"Ho? For someone with such a body, working as a server in a place like this seems quite wasteful."

"??"

Before I could respond to the elder's rather suggestive remark.

Whoosh.

The old man vanished from the table in an instant and appeared right before my face.

With a sword already drawn and pointed at my throat.

"Choose. Between dying here or become my disciple."

In the midst of this urgent crisis, with a martial artist pressing a sword to my neck, a rather pointless thought crossed my mind.

'Was the dream I had this morning a premonition?'

It seemed I was, without a doubt, completely fucked.