Although definitions and scope vary slightly by university, departments such as Korean Language and Literature, History, and Philosophy are usually grouped together under the umbrella of the College of Liberal Arts.
At the university I graduated from, there was a cynical joke that circulated quietly among students.
"Second place in the career statistics of liberal arts graduates is civil servant."
That joke carries more meaning than it seems.
First, it implies that the only viable path to employment is through blind examinations that ignore academic background entirely.
Private companies are so "rational," after all, that they must hire parachute candidates—such as an outside director's unemployed nephew or a former section chief from the ministry overseeing their business. Up to this point, most people can already guess as much.
The second meaning naturally leads to the next question.
"Then what's first place?"
There's no need for speculation. I can prove it with my own life.
Unemployment.
A glorious profession known by many names: Immortal Home Security Guard, Prime Candidate for Otherworldly Hero Summoning, and countless others.
In short, the joke is layered self-mockery. These days, the phrase "liberal arts ruin lives" carries more punch, but long before that expression became common, this joke had already been passed down by word of mouth.
I, too, spent many years desperately trying to fall from first place to second place in the most common outcome for liberal arts graduates.
Put simply, I failed—again and again.
Even my family seemed to be growing tired of supporting me. They began suggesting that I try working at a company where one of my relatives held a respectable position.
Civil service jobs aren't as popular as they once were, and competition ratios have dropped noticeably. Still, I could only answer that I would try one more time this year—and if it didn't work out, I'd accept their suggestion.
"Haaah…"
I let out a long sigh as I walked through the dark streets of Noryangjin.
The cup-rice vendors whose faces had become familiar were packing up and heading home. Among them were even a few who, who knows where they had hidden them, drove off in gleaming imported cars.
People unfamiliar with the reality sometimes say that line of work is better than becoming a civil servant. But nothing in this world comes for free. Setting aside the hefty premiums required just to make those cars look "cheap," the visible and invisible labor involved is no joke. It's a profession that requires carefully appeasing both gangsters and district office officials—a job balanced between light and shadow.
Even so, perhaps trying to earn a little more, there was a street stall with its lights still on at an hour when even exam takers usually wouldn't be outside.
Even I, who could claim to have grown up in Noryangjin, had never seen this stall before. My curiosity was piqued.
People might say street food is all the same, but even cup rice has subtle differences.
If a novice jumps in without thinking, the result is a greasy mess that tastes like nothing but store-bought mayonnaise and teriyaki sauce. Stalls like that never last long.
I happened to be hungry, so I lifted the tent flap and stepped inside.
At the time, it was nothing more than a small, naive hope—that at least a minor expectation might be satisfied on an otherwise miserable day.
Before I even properly took in the scene, I realized something was wrong.
There was no smell of food.
Inside stood only a single table, so clean it looked as though food had never been placed on it. Behind it sat a woman, resting her arms on the surface, who looked—at most—to be around my age.
Our eyes met naturally.
"Welcome."
I'll be honest. The only reason I didn't say, "Sorry, wrong place," and leave immediately was because she was stunningly beautiful.
It wasn't that I intended to flirt or make a move. It was more like the way your feet stop when you encounter a breathtaking landscape or a masterfully carved sculpture. Her beauty existed on a level far removed from ordinary reality.
After hesitating, I managed to form a harmless question.
"Are you still open?"
If they were in the middle of closing up, I planned to leave politely. Instead, she nodded.
"Yes. I've been waiting for you."
The wording she used clearly existed in the dictionary and was common in written language, but rarely spoken aloud. It flustered me.
"For me?"
"More precisely, for someone capable of finding this place. Didn't you see the sign outside?"
Who actually reads the sign of a cup-rice stall? At a loss for words, I turned my head.
The standing sign outside read:
Do you want to become a civil servant? I'll make it happen today.
I see. So it wasn't a food stall—it was an academy advertisement.
"I thought it was a street stall. I figured your classes were already full…"
"Aren't classes something you take in order to pass? If you pass, you don't need classes."
That was… aggressive.
Then again, just like cup-rice vendors and exam takers, this industry isn't easy to survive in either. If everyone is struggling just to live, something feels fundamentally wrong—but this country has always been like that.
As the importance of the college entrance exam declined, star instructors had already migrated en masse into the civil service exam market.
But like a lake that dries up after people flee there during a drought, falling competition ratios had reduced the number of customers. They, too, were locked in bloody competition just to survive.
If I'd seen an ad somewhere, I'd remember it. Is she new?
While I was thinking that, the woman spoke again—directly.
"If your goal is to enter national public service, I can grant your wish immediately."
With that level of confidence, listening wouldn't hurt. After all, even a village dog learns poetry after three years at a school. I could judge the quality from a sample alone.
"Then could you at least send me a link or something? Oh—trial lessons are free, right?"
To be honest, I had ulterior motives.
No matter how I looked at it, this didn't seem like a large company's promotional booth. And in this industry, instructors often promote themselves independently. There was a good chance this wasn't a company-managed chat room.
She immediately took out her phone.
"Yes. Just tap 'Agree' on the terms here."
The app displayed a caricature of a Joseon-era official wearing traditional court robes. Dense blocks of classical text filled the screen, giving it an unexpectedly serious feel.
It was a dated metaphor, bordering on cliché. Still, clichés endure for a reason. Considering that the unspoken rule—once you reach a certain rank, your official title replaces "student" on your gravestone—was still alive, this country hadn't changed much at all.
In a lighthearted mood, I moved my finger.
If you read every line of the terms and conditions, you're disqualified as a Korean. I felt proud of myself for carefully unchecking only the non-essential options—obviously just consent for promotional messages.
Name entry, phone verification, membership registration—everything went smoothly. Any modern adult should be able to do it with their eyes closed.
In a world where you have to sell your personal information just to receive a discount coupon, I felt no resistance. For all I knew, some guy surnamed Jang in Harbin was already using my data to sneak into Korea.
Reassured by the familiar process, I deliberately added a comment I didn't need to make.
"So I just go in here, right?"
She smiled faintly.
"You're going in right now?"
"Is that a problem?"
"There's no reason it would be. Then, as I said—starting now, you are a civil servant."
Up until that moment, I thought her words were just an overconfident sales pitch.
But she didn't mean that she would teach me a miraculous lecture guaranteeing I'd pass the exam.
She meant it literally.
I realized that soon enough.
Strangely, it wasn't through my eyes. The scenery didn't change at all.
But her voice did.
[Congratulations on registering as a Seunggyeongdo member. You are now an official.]
What…?
If I had to describe the sensation, it felt like the difference between a voice heard directly and one heard through a phone—though even that comparison fell short.
The voice continued.
[The contract period lasts until the member fulfills their obligations under Article 2 and completes tuition payment. The company bears no responsibility for injuries, death, memory loss, or physical and mental illness incurred during the course. Should death or complete incapacitation occur before fulfillment of Article 2, making further payment impossible, forced execution under Article 8 will be unavoidable.]
It was the flat, rapid tone of a customer service agent who knows the listener isn't paying attention but needs to say it anyway.
As a result, none of the content registered.
Only the mismatch between sight and sound triggered an uncontrollable fear.
If I had known nothing, I might have been merely confused.
But I was a Korean living in the twenty-first century.
I'd heard that some die-hard examinees completely got rid of their phones while studying—but how easy is that, really?
There's a reason PC cafés, motels, karaoke rooms, and billiard halls fill every alley in Noryangjin. Civil service exams aren't about knowledge. They're about resisting temptation.
I, too, took modest breaks under the excuse of "recharging." I didn't game seriously or date—just read webtoons and web novels.
Because of that, I had a rough idea of what was happening.
And that half-baked knowledge multiplied my fear severalfold.
Fragments of countless forbidden documents scattered across the internet all said the same thing.
This universe is crawling with malicious wills.
Reincarnation trucks. Nanomachines. Grim reapers.
Different names, same behavior.
As if they had quotas to fill, they abduct people at random, scatter them into other worlds, and impose cruel fates on both modern humans and natives alike.
Wait. I never wanted to go to another world. I wasn't hit by a car. I didn't make a wish.
But I had agreed to the terms.
The realization that I could no longer mock victims of jade-mattress or water-purifier scams filled me with despair.
My vision began to blur. It felt like the general anesthesia I once experienced during surgery—a complete separation from the world, impossible to resist.
Death must feel something like this.
Regression? Reincarnation? Teleportation?
The lowest-risk option is regression.
I desperately tried to recall lottery numbers.
Nothing came to mind.
When I'd heard that some people memorized lottery numbers just in case, I should have joined them instead of questioning their sanity.
Stay calm. I don't know how far back this is, but first—Bitcoin. No, wait, which stocks went up? If it's before the IMF crisis, that would be perfect. Or at least before the subprime mortgage crisis. No—even five years back would be enough. I'll borrow dollars if I have to and bet everything on the championship baseball team. I absolutely cannot fumble the early game like those novel protagonists.
I clenched my teeth, forcing myself to stay composed.
Nothing had been solved—but organizing my thoughts like that made me feel strangely optimistic.
A life that amounted to little in reality… maybe this wasn't so bad.
I closed my eyes, imagining myself becoming a billionaire overnight.
When I opened them, I wanted to destroy the world.
One glance was enough.
There was no lottery.
No stocks.
No cryptocurrency.
No professional baseball.
Seven or eight men in traditional robes flickered under torchlight, with tiled-roof houses visible beyond them.
Torches and lanterns dotted the area. No matter how far I looked, there wasn't a single electric light.
This wasn't like a historical drama or movie.
This was the difference between a filmed night and a real one.
One thing was certain.
If there were houses and this many people, yet not a single electric light, then this was absolutely not twenty-first-century Korea.
I stepped back instinctively.
As if responding to my sense of danger, a white rectangular panel appeared before me like a shield.
Thanks to my twenty-first-century knowledge, I recognized that cursed thing instantly.
I shouted its name as if calling out my mortal enemy.
"Status window!"
The moment I did, it answered—with despair.
Status Window
Name: Kim UnhaengAge: 18 (Born 1731)Clan Origin: AndongRacial Trait:Capital Aristocracy
Noryangjin Package Event:Passive Skills Activated — Language Synchronization, Disease Immunity
Tuition Payment Progress: 0 / 12
Synchronization Initiating…
Mandatory Tutorial Objective:→ Return home (Optional Objective: 1)