An age that was medieval but close to modernity; emperors, nobles, religious orders, heroes, other races, elephant corps, steampunk, martial arts, and even an academy.
A game that first injects every cliché and every thrill into you at a lethal dose.
Then immediately drops an even more lethal dose of unfair screwjobs on your head.
As a result, it spawned countless nicknames born of love and hate—more than its official title—such as <That Game>, <Refund Speedrun Factory>, and <Jjam Academy>.
Ordinarily, I would not have looked at it, much less played it.
Reality was already full of unfair screwjobs. There was no reason to suffer through them in a game too.
And yet, I had no choice but to grit my teeth and play it.
“Seong-min, you are the youngest among us. Do us a favor and take one for the team.”
“Pardon?”
At my first job.
Because it was my first assignment at Representative Han Gyeong-su's office.
And about five years later.
“You've got to be kidding me.”
The moment I was elected to my first term as a member of parliament, I found myself inhabiting <Jjam Academy>.
Intro - Reelection Speedrun
Parents who lavished love upon their only son, only to die in a tragic car accident.
It was a sentence that described my childhood very dryly.
“Hey, orphan!”
To K-elementary schoolers—the living proof of the theory that people are fundamentally evil—an orphan was an irresistibly juicy target.
“What? This orphan bastard won't lower his eyes?!”
“Want a taste of my parents?!”
At first, I could only take it.
My parents' sudden deaths, and the one-sided, senseless bullying of children my own age.
They were hardships far too great for a third grader to bear with a sound mind.
More than anything, what hurt was that there was no one to tend to those wounds.
“This bastard came back after getting beaten again?”
“You're a disgrace to the Great Sacred Light.”
The Sacred Light Orphanage, where I was sent after my parents died, was a jungle. One with an extremely rigid hierarchy.
The most basic and clearest rank was age.
The older children were gods and invincible, so every order they gave was absolute.
“This won't do. Your sausage stir-fry is confiscated today.”
“Hey, hey, Seong-min is a ‘Royal Light.’ That's a bit much.”
At the same time, there was a ‘hidden rank’ that transcended age.
Whether one's parents were alive.
Children like me, whose parents had both died, were Royal Sacred Lights, commonly called ‘Royal Lights,’ the highest rank of all.
That did not mean those of the same rank gathered round and looked after each other.
“You bastard! What, are you seriously getting beaten by kids who have parents?!”
“What? Watch your face. Anyone would think your parents were still alive.”
I was frequently summoned by older Royal Lights for the gall of an orphan being bullied by non-orphans.
But it was not meaningless abuse from above.
“Does it hurt? My hand hurts too, from educating you.”
“Don't just get beaten—hit back. The ones who have parents have lines they can't cross, but we don't, get it?”
They taught me that violence could be overcome with greater violence.
So I put it into practice.
“Aaaaargh!!!”
“T-Teacher! Lee Seong-min kicked Junsu there!”
It was exhilarating.
There was the intense sense of liberation, and even the satisfaction of having overcome adversity on my own.
The helpless look on my homeroom teacher's face and the furious expressions of the parents did not bother me in the slightest.
They had ignored my suffering first. I had the right to ignore theirs too.
“That's it, Seong-min. Exactly!”
“From today on, you're a true member of the Sacred Light family.”
The Spartans of Sacred Light Orphanage likewise acknowledged my growth and offered their praise.
That day, the weak orphan Lee Seong-min died.
In his place stood a proud Royal Light, a warrior who had blown apart his enemy's crotch and now let out a battle cry.
The orphanage teachers embraced us as well, with heated tears, applause, and nighttime punishment drills.
***
An unfair screwjob is the mother of a lucky break.
I was sent to Sacred Light Orphanage because my parents had died.
But thanks to that, I smashed through the front gates of a prestigious university on an opportunity-equity admissions track for single-parent families.
In return, because my grandfather was still alive, I was deemed to have someone legally obliged to support me. The moment I graduated from college, I became a fixed-term slave to the Army.
“A fixed term! What a generous system of military service!”
The reason I had been sent to an orphanage despite my grandfather being alive was his ‘Seoul doctrine.’
“Seong-min, a person must live in Seoul.”
“Pardon?”
“The day will come when you understand what I mean.”
Only after I had completed my service did I hear him say, half in jest and half in drunken rambling, that he had honestly been too lazy in the twilight of his farming life to raise a grandson as well.
I would be lying if I said I felt no resentment at all.
But that resentment quickly turned into gratitude.
“You've served in the military, so now you're a proper adult too, Seong-min.”
“Ahaha....”
“A friend from my hometown says he is hiring a young man.”
“Thank you!”
Because through my grandfather's connections, I found work the instant I was discharged.
As a Grade Seven secretary to four-term Representative Han Gyeong-su of the Great Han Party, no less.
“So you're Jin-ho's grandson.”
“I will work hard!”
“Heh heh, good.”
It was a position I could never have entered if I had been assigned to wartime labor service or public service.
Representative Han Gyeong-su, a former officer, was famous for hiring only people who had completed military service as aides and secretaries.
For a Grade Seven secretary, it even had a fairly good work-life balance.
It was just the Saemaeul Movement kind of work-life balance, where you came to work at dawn and went home at dawn.
‘I should've realized it when they gave me a personal folding cot in the break room....’
After I somehow finished adapting to Representative Han Gyeong-su's office, my first assignment was this.
“Seong-min, you are the youngest among us. Do us a favor and take one for the team.”
“Pardon?”
Clear <Jjam Academy> and write a strategy report.
“The Representative's grandson is really into this game. It seems he asked for help because it's so difficult.”
“I see.”
“You don't need to work too hard on the report, but don't make it too slapdash either. We might use it at a hearing on the game industry someday.”
“Yes, sir.”
Playing games at a legislator's office while everyone else worked.
It sounded easy enough, but it made me terribly self-conscious around the senior staffers.
But I soon changed my mindset.
No matter how apologetic I looked, I could not escape their gazes saying, ‘That bastard is enjoying the easy life the moment he gets here?’
It was like the prejudice that I was an orphan: no matter how hard I worked, it would not easily rub off.
That was not to say they openly made me self-conscious or picked at me.
Representative Han Gyeong-su was a four-term senior figure in the Great Han Party, one of the real powers who could sway nominations, and my grandfather's irreplaceable hometown friend.
And I was that ‘hometown friend's only grandson.’
You could not last as a lawmaker's bag carrier if you had so little sense that you openly gave someone like me a hard time.
“Good morning!”
Instead, I expressed my apology through my actions.
I arrived earlier than anyone else to clean the office, manage the leased water dispenser, refill the multifunction printer's paper and ink, and fill the little humidifiers' water tanks to the brim.
I printed required official documents in advance, hand-washed the official car every other week, stayed on twenty-four-hour standby for the pantry, answered before the phone even rang, and spread every kind of paper newspaper across Representative Han Gyeong-su's desk.
“You all worked hard today!”
And I was the last to leave, turning off the lights behind me.
For months, I worked myself to death as though I had been made a private first class all over again.
As a result, even the brows of those who had first looked at me with open dislike gradually softened.
“Ugh, this is way too hard.”
“Secretary Lee has it rough.”
“My eyes hurt if I stare at a monitor for too long. Good luck, Secretary!”
Everyone who tried it for themselves clicked their tongues at <Jjam Academy>'s brutal difficulty.
Naturally, my ‘assignment’ came to be recognized as a perfectly legitimate assignment.
Survive for ten years.
<Jjam Academy>'s clear condition was very simple.
The problem was that achieving that simple clear condition was nearly impossible.
For the entire time I played, I could not shake the feeling that they had decided on an impossible-to-clear ending first, then designed the game backward from it.
But excuses did not fly in the cold world of Yeouido.
Though I had failed to clear it.
I compiled my play experience and strategies into a report that was as easy as possible for the Representative to read, and submitted it.
“Oh, that? My grandson already got tired of it.”
“....Yes?”
“Anyway, you did well. The report is easy to read, so I like it. Your eyes are bloodshot—go wash your face.”
With one passing remark from Representative Han Gyeong-su, it was shoved straight into the shredder.
That did not mean there was no gain at all.
Representative Han Gyeong-su read the report I submitted with some interest for a good thirty seconds, and he recognized how hard I had worked over the past half year.
That was why I was promoted from Grade Seven secretary to Grade Six secretary at breakneck speed.
“Isn't Secretary Lee getting promoted a little too fast?”
“At this rate, he'll be an aide next year.”
Thanks to that, I also received the other secretaries' quiet envy and jealousy.
‘So what if they're jealous?’
I was an ideal talent for Yeouido: the ‘hometown friend's grandson’ of four-term senior Representative Han Gyeong-su, complete with the MZ-tailored labels of ‘young person’ and ‘orphan.’
I have said it time and again: in Yeouido, connections are your father and backing is your mother.
Therefore, political orphans with human parents did not even have a chance to measure themselves against me.
So I rose smoothly through the ranks while working like a dog as a Grade Six secretary.
One year passed, then the next.
Before I knew it, four years had melted away in an instant, like ice in cheap coffee.
Representative Han Gyeong-su, once a four-term lawmaker, won a fifth term, and I earned Grade Five.
Even I knew that the speed of my promotions was absurd, so rather than being simply happy, I was honestly uneasy.
It was a law of life that after several years of lucky breaks, a screwjob on the scale of ‘something huge is coming’ would be waiting.
“It's pancreatic cancer.”
“Pardon?”
Sure enough, a colossal screwjob came for me.
I did not know what the black, white, and gray CT images meant.
“Still, according to recent studies and patient follow-up results.......”
But I could clearly understand the diagnosis that the doctor delivered with an apologetic yet mechanical manner.
I had become terminally ill.
I laughed. I truly did.
Because for the first time in a long while, I felt again what I had felt on the morning I heard my parents had died.
This kind of unfair screwjob was not something an individual could avoid.
Like a wave rushing onto a beach, it smashed everything apart in an instant, then vanished without a trace.
There were two ways to deal with it.
You could despair as you stared endlessly at your ruined sandcastle, or enjoy the cool touch of the waves against the soles of your feet.
At first, I only despaired. The second time was different.
“I will devote the rest of my life to you, Representative!”
“......Heh heh.”
I immediately ran to Representative Han Gyeong-su, bowed my head, and cried out.
At the same time, I waved my terminal diagnosis where he could see it clearly.
“I want to wear the golden badge before I die!”
I knew it too. A mere Grade Five secretary had no business daring to make such a request of a five-term senior lawmaker.
But my orphan's instinct for reading the room was buzzing fiercely. If I played it right, it might just work.
It was also a challenge based on cold analysis.
Representative Han Gyeong-su and my grandfather were close enough to go fishing together without fail once a month.
If he coldly rejected a request from the terminally ill grandson of such a childhood friend, their very next fishing appointment might fall through.
I was a young talent who had become an orphan through a drunk-driving hit-and-run, completed his full service as an Army sergeant, and could play up his MZ credentials enough to write a National Assembly report about games.
Not to mention I had experience hauling boxes of apples filled with Bitcoin back and forth.
It was a very cold analysis.
“......”
“......”
I finished speaking, but Representative Han Gyeong-su gave no reply.
Only the scream of silence scraped against our eardrums.
After I realized roughly one hundred and twenty times that even a digital clock had an audible second hand.
“Lee Seong-min, have you worked with me for four or five years now?”
“Yes, I have.”
“You're a slightly unripe persimmon....... But fresh kimchi can be tasty sometimes, I suppose.”
He had called my name.
“Thank you! I will never forget this kindness, even in death!”
“It is nice that it sounds so heartfelt when a terminally ill man says that, but from now on, refrain from talking about dying.”
The rising dragon of the Great Han Party had granted me a golden badge.
The golden badge was the goal of everyone who toiled in a legislator's office.
Otherwise, there was no reason to be a parliamentary secretary receiving Saemaeul Movement-level work-life balance and Joseon naval-sailor-level pay.
The golden badge had been my goal as well.
For one reason alone.
Drastically tougher penalties for drunk-driving hit-and-runs, and a lifelong ban on ever getting a license again.
It was the only way I could even indirectly take revenge on the bastards who had wrecked my life.
And Representative Han Gyeong-su was not a cold-blooded man who only spoke as if he would grant every wish, then told you to get through the primary on your own.
I received a strategic nomination in a Great Han Party stronghold and won election without much trouble.
“I, Lee Seong-min, will always stand proud and humble before the people and the call of the age......!”
The moment I gave my victory speech, an omnipotent fullness surged from the top of my head to my tailbone.
The damage over time from the pancreatic cancer had worsened with every passing day, but now was different.
“Drunk driving, which destroys families in an instant and threatens public safety!”
The eyes fixed only on me were thrilling enough to drive me mad.
As though every Roman citizen were chanting Caesar's name, and all of Lordaeron were whispering Arthas's!
I could keenly feel the eyes of the campaign staff, the broadcasting cameras, and tens of millions of people beyond them.
“With firm resolve toward shameless drunk driving......!”
The problem was that I felt them too keenly.
It might have been like the heart attacks people got when they won the lottery.
“M-Member-elect!”
“Call an ambulance now!”
The sky and earth flipped, and the campaign chief's shout sounded very far away.
That was my last memory of reality.
***
“You've got to be kidding me.”
Formerly Lee Seong-min, presently Lloyd Schultz, muttered blankly as he looked out the window.
More precisely, he was looking at a status window that he had not seen in a very long time, yet was all too familiar with.
[Remaining Time: 9 years, 364 days....]
[Final Objective: Prevent the End of the World]
[Final Reward: Life]
I chewed over the unfair screwjob of having found myself in the world of <Jjam Academy>, which I had played five years ago for Representative Han Gyeong-su's grandson.
And of having done so while I was delivering my victory speech after winning my first term as a member of parliament.
Slowly enough to leave not even a trace of sweetness.
That said, I was not terribly flustered.
When you made a living in politics, even inhabiting another body came to feel like a trifle.
Eggs flying at you were too trivial to even call an incident. A utility knife, a fist-sized rock, and in the country next door, even a former prime minister struck down by a homemade gun.
There was no lifestyle sport as extreme as politics.
[Analyzing the subject's existing occupations.]
Meanwhile, a holographic hourglass spun round and round in the status window.
[Analysis complete.]
[The subject's existing occupations, <Soldier> and <Member of Parliament>, can be applied.]
[Apply them?]
[Warning: Applied existing occupations may affect the subject's seed values.]
Would I use my body, or my head?
<Jjam Academy> was a fantasy game.
So if I chose Soldier, there was a chance I would draw a knight or mage seed.
‘But jobs in the field have clear limits.’
The final objective presented by the status window was ‘Prevent the End of the World.’
And considering <Jjam Academy>'s bad endings, which occurred on the scale of entire nations.
The choice that used my head rather than my body would probably have a higher chance of success.
‘And I don't want to join the military twice.’
Even dreaming about reenlisting made my morning luck turn vicious and ruined my mood. There was therefore no reason to choose Soldier again here.
Besides.
A powerful mage or knight could change the flow of a battlefield, but a powerful politician could decide the course of a war itself.
So, by applying Member of Parliament, aiming for a chancellor or cardinal seed, and running the entire Empire as I pleased.
It was certain to be the choice with the greater chance of clearing the game.
‘Military service was compulsory, but I earned my seat in parliament with my own ability.’
From becoming an orphan through circumstance, to entering a legislator's office through my grandfather's connections, to winning election as a member of parliament five years later.
There had been far too much to explain in words.
But in the end, I succeeded in pinning to my chest a golden badge given to only three hundred people.
There was no reason not to make use of that politically specialized experience in the world of <Jjam Academy>.
‘More than anything, reelection is usually easier than winning a first term.’
I tidied up my thoughts and made my decision.
[Selection complete.]
[Applying the subject's selection.]
As I watched the turning hourglass in the status window with a much lighter heart.
A sudden question came to mind.
‘But if I earn a golden badge in this world too, does that still count as reelection?’