So? Did Someone Force You to Become the Heavenly Demon?

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While YOLO had recently become completely outdated, work-life balance was still an expression used from time to time.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 live a peaceful life afterward, enjoying my hobbies.

I am the type of person who prefers to work 40 hours a week and earns $3,000 a month rather than working 80 hours a week to earn $8,000 a month.

And in the early and mid-2010s, when I jumped into the job market, the symbol of 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 was deceived by a vain delusion.

Civil servants leaving work on time? 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 held 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 crawled in here on my own two feet because I wanted to.

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”

As I was muttering a complaint to myself, a familiar noise pierced my ears.

“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.

“Assistant Manager Seo Ji-hoon!”

At her call, the complainant’s gaze naturally shifted towards 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. Is this what seniority is?’

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?”

At my question, the old man yelled at the top of his lungs.

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, Assistant Manager Lee Ji-yeon briefly explained:

“A notice came down recently, and the restrictions for basic livelihood security recipients changed, right? 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.

As the saying goes, generosity comes from abundance. 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. In the end, Lee Ji-yeon couldn’t hold back and retorted.

“Like 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 just with our eyes?

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….”

Instinctively lowering my head toward my abdomen—the source of the sudden pain—I found what looked like a sashimi knife buried in my stomach.

‘He… brought a knife?’

Why hadn’t anyone noticed

Such pointless thoughts were the first to cross my mind.

Well, who could have predicted getting stabbed while just doing their job?

“KYAAAAAAH!!”

Immediately afterward, Lee Ji-yeon’s ear-piercing scream rang out.

“Hiiik.”

The complainant, who had stabbed me, pulled out the knife with a surprised look on his face.

“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 somehow, I felt my strength draining away.

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, throwing off his blanket.

Awakening from his sleep, he murmured in a tone that didn’t match his youthful appearance.

“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?’

If it had been from infancy, it might have been different. But since he was already fourteen years old when he opened his eyes, 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.

However, after adjusting to life here to some extent, the frequency had decreased.

But today, for some reason, he had that dream again after half a year.

***

“Tch. Better get to work.”

He woke up early in the morning, but perhaps 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 that experience, 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?’

Wondering if he had been dragged into a novel he had left a malicious comment on.

However, after investigating various aspects, other than the fact that this was a Murim world, I found little to no connection to any novels I had read. There weren’t any protagonists or major villains that I remembered.

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.

Recalling Il-mok’s memories, he wasn’t an orphan from birth but became one a few months before I possessed him.

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 after actually starting this job, it wasn’t that difficult.

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

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

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

Yet you couldn’t just chase away or ignore someone in tattered clothes either, as you might face serious consequences.

They might just be wearing worn-out clothes and covered in dust from a long journey, but in reality, they could be martial arts masters or from influential families.

And the reason patience was necessary was simple.

It was because of the customers’ tyranny. Moreover, 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 can’t go through what I already experienced in my past life 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.

Afterward, as I returned inside the inn to wipe the tables and clean the floor, I saw Uncle Tae-hyun, 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, Il-mok, our Cheongpung Inn could become the best inn in Qianyang County.”

I smiled faintly at Uncle Tae-hyun’s words.

The reason I, who woke up in the body of a fourteen-year-old orphan, was able to survive until now was 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, saying I should have a more respectable job when I grew up, so where could I find a better benefactor?

After greeting Uncle Tae-hyun, 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 the noodles you have. Bring me the quickest to serve”

A sudden order came in.

I 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 and about a quarter of an hour passed, a plate of thin noodles came out of the kitchen, along 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.

“Poison. It seems the Alliance has caught my trail.”

“!?”

Before I could even utter the words, “What do you mean?”,

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?’

The old man, who had been appraising me as if determining my worth, suddenly spoke.

“Ho? For someone with such a capable 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, who had vanished from the table in an instant, appeared right before my face.

With a sword already drawn and pointed at my throat.

“Choose. Between dying here or become my disciple.”

Even in this dire situation, with a martial artist’s blade at my throat, an absurd thought crossed my mind.

‘Was the dream I had this morning a premonition?’

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