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Chapter 1
This was his fourth attempt at the civil service exam.
He had entered his thirties, but Lee Yeon-woo felt as broken and discarded as the worn-out hoodie, faded jeans, and frayed sneakers he wore.
His body was starting to fail him, and his mind and soul had eroded and decayed through years of endless studying. Thinking of his parents, who had suffered alongside him to support his dream, made it nearly impossible to keep going.
'I will pass this time. I absolutely must.'
Sitting in the exam hall, Lee Yeon-woo scanned his textbook with bloodshot eyes. There were still parts he hadn't fully memorized. With only a few minutes left before the start, he fought to etch every single word into his mind.
He wasn't the only one.
The other examinees were much the same. Whether they were high school graduates taking the leap immediately, recent college grads, or long-term students like himself, they all flipped through their books with a desperate, clouded longing.
'Please, let only the questions I know appear.'
No matter how much his heightened focus seemed to stretch the seconds, he couldn't stop the flow of time, and the Supervisor and Assistant Supervisor entered the room.
The Supervisor, who looked younger than Lee Yeon-woo, stood at the podium, checked his digital watch, and began reciting a long list of instructions.
"Please put away all your textbooks. Only your computer sign pens, writing tools, exam admission tickets, and ID cards should remain on your desks. No communication or electronic devices are permitted during the exam. If any are found, it will be treated as cheating."
A flurry of noise erupted as books were slammed shut and shoved into bags.
Lee Yeon-woo moved as slowly as he could—though it only gained him a few seconds—reading a final passage before he became the last person to put his book away.
As the sound of his bag's zipper closing faded, the Supervisor spoke.
"I will now distribute the answer sheets."
The Assistant Supervisor walked around, handing out the papers. Lee Yeon-woo closed his eyes tight, recalling the sentences he had just read. White letters flickered against the blackness of his eyelids.
'Don't forget it, don't forget it.'
Meanwhile, the Assistant Supervisor approached and placed an answer sheet on Lee Yeon-woo's desk. He opened his eyes immediately and grabbed his computer sign pen.
By the time he had carefully marked his name, examinee number, and date of birth, the distribution was complete. The Supervisor scanned the room and continued.
"I will now distribute the exam papers. Please check your booklet type."
These were different versions of the same test with the question order shuffled to prevent cheating. The exam paper the Assistant Supervisor handed him in a zigzag pattern was marked as Type A.
After confirming the type, Lee Yeon-woo gripped his cheap computer sign pen and nodded to himself.
'A. Good. I have a good feeling about this.'
Based on his experience from previous attempts, he usually scored better with Type A than Type B. He felt that success was truly within reach this time.
Just then, the digital watch on his wrist, synchronized with an internet clock that morning, signaled exactly 10:00.
Simultaneously, the old speakers in the high school classroom let out a piercing bell.
Ding-dong-dang-dong—
"The exam begins now."
Flip!
The sound of first pages turning erupted from every direction. Not wanting to fall behind, Lee Yeon-woo aggressively flipped his first page.
And then, he stopped.
For a few seconds, a strange silence descended upon the exam hall.
'Human Qualification Exam...?'
This was supposed to be the 9th grade local civil service exam. On the exam paper, where subjects like Korean, English, Korean History, and two electives should have been, a bizarre title was written instead.
Human Qualification Exam.
'What is this? Did the papers get mixed up? No, there's no such exam in the world. Is it a prank? Why? Time is already tight enough as it is, so why!'
Anger and fear flooded Lee Yeon-woo's mind. His vision narrowed, his heart raced, and the hand gripping the cheap ballpoint pen trembled violently. He abruptly snapped his head up from the paper.
He was about to raise his hand and protest aggressively.
But someone had moved before him.
"Excuse me! Supervisor!"
It was a man with a wildly overgrown beard. At a glance, he looked like an exam wanderer who had invested at least five years into the civil service exam.
A desperate madness shone in his hollow eyes as his rough voice boomed.
"The exam paper is wrong!"
"The exam paper is?"
While the Supervisor walked down from the podium with a look of confusion, hands began popping up all across the room.
"Mine is strange too."
"What is this? Is this some kind of filming? Who gave you permission?"
"Hey! Is the civil service exam a joke to you! Why are you doing this!"
Some were lucky to only lodge verbal protests. Another long-term exam student, for whom the exam was a matter of survival, leaped from his seat and began pointing his finger accusingly.
Chaos erupted in an instant. Everyone was furious.
Amidst the commotion, Lee Yeon-woo slowly lowered his hand. Perhaps because others were making a bigger scene, his anger and fear gradually faded.
'What? Is everything wrong?'
If it were just one person, it might have been brushed off, but an entire exam hall was affected. This was not a situation that could be easily ignored.
'At the very least, there will be a retake.'
A day at shortest, maybe a few days at most. He could think of it as gaining more time to study.
Lee Yeon-woo tried to stay as positive as possible.
'Not too bad. I couldn't sleep properly last night anyway, so I wasn't in top condition.'
Conversely, the Supervisor was facing a very practical ordeal.
"No, this shouldn't be happening."
"What do you mean it shouldn't be happening! Who are you! Where do you work! Give me your name and rank!"
"I'm going to file a petition and post this online, so just wait!"
"That... first, everyone. I apologize. I will check with the exam headquarters, so please wait quietly for a moment."
Facing the waves of protests pouring from the shouting examinees, the Supervisor raised both hands and gestured for them to stop, while breaking into a cold sweat.
Then, he rushed toward the front door of the classroom as if escaping, placing his hand on the tightly shut door.
Sshhh—
The sliding door of the classroom was halfway open.
Crackling, the old speaker spat out static. The Supervisor and the examinees stopped as if by some strange spell.
'Are they about to make an announcement? Is it not just this room, but everyone else too?'
Similar thoughts flashed through everyone's minds. The Supervisor stopped opening the door, and the examinees lowered their raised hands. Everyone strained to hear the broadcast coming from the speaker.
However, the broadcast betrayed their expectations.
A noise-filled voice echoed eerily.
- Anyone who leaves the exam hall during the test will be considered a cheater and will fail the Human Qualification Exam.
It was hard to grasp those words all at once. Neither the existence of such an exam nor the fact that they were taking it instead of the civil service exam felt real.
So, while everyone stalled, unable to accept reality, the broadcast continued.
- This also applies to the exam supervisors. Any supervisor who violates the regulations is no longer human.
With those words, the broadcast ended. The speaker fell silent, no longer emitting strange static.
But the anomalous phenomenon did not end.
Stagger—
The Supervisor, who had half-opened the front door, swayed backward like a drunk person before collapsing. Looking around the exam hall with wide, panicked eyes, he opened his mouth and barked.
"Kweeeek! Kwiek! Kweeeeek!"
The howl of a beast.
What remained there was no longer a human.
It was merely a beast that looked like a human, wore human clothes, and walked on two legs.
"Kweeeek!"
The beast that had been the Supervisor crawled on all fours, then suddenly lunged forward and ran back toward the front door.
Screeech—
The beast didn't even think to use its hands to open the door. It squeezed its body through the half-open gap. The door was forced open, pushed by its torso. In a clumsy posture, the beast passed through the door and ran down the hallway.
Patter patter!
Through the classroom window facing the hallway, the beast's head bobbed up and down before disappearing into the distance with an echoing howl.
Then, the door to the next classroom, where the same civil service track was being tested, opened, and the voice of the neighboring supervisor could be heard muttering.
"What the hell is this beast doing here? Yes, everyone, the beast has gone downstairs, so—"
Thud, the door closed, cutting off the rest of the sentence.
Instead, the loud sound of someone collapsing echoed.
"Uh, uh..."
It was the long-term exam student who had been shouting the most aggressively. He had slammed back into the wooden chair with enough force to hurt, yet he showed no sign of pain.
He simply stared with vacant eyes at the door through which the beast had vanished.
He wasn't the only one.
The Assistant Supervisor, frozen in silence at the back of the room, the examinees who had followed the beast with their eyes, and Lee Yeon-woo—everyone's minds had gone completely blank, freezing in place.
"This doesn't make sense. What... what is this... this is impossible."
Someone muttered in a trembling voice.
Everyone had seen it clearly with their own eyes.
The person who had been standing right there, the Supervisor who had become a civil servant at a young age, the human who had achieved the stable future they all craved, had turned into a beast in an instant.
Though the appearance, clothing, and voice remained the same, it was just—simply a beast. It was perceived and thought of as nothing more than an animal. No matter how he looked, he was a human, yet he was not.
It was as if some transcendental force had stripped the essential elements of humanity from the Supervisor.
A situation that defied all logic.
"...."
As a shocking silence descended. Lee Yeon-woo managed to grip his ballpoint pen.
His palms were drenched in cold sweat, causing the pen to slip. After readjusting his grip with shaking hands several times, he finally touched the pen to the exam paper.
'Human Qualification Exam... If I fail, I'll become a beast like the Supervisor.'
No matter how surreal it seemed, that was what he had witnessed. No matter what this was, that was the feeling he got.
"Urgh."
His vision spun, and the lines of text on the exam paper wavered. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and his breathing became ragged.
'No. I can't fail. I have to pass this.'
He closed his eyes tight. He desperately tried to steady his breathing.
No matter how inhumanly he had lived as a civil service student for four years, he didn't actually want to become a beast. He wanted to remain human.
To repay his parents who had supported him so devotedly, to one day reunite with the friends he had cut off out of shame, and above all, for his own sake—so he could live like a human being.
He had to pass this bizarre exam.
Lee Yeon-woo opened his bloodshot eyes and scanned the exam paper with practiced ease.
Tick-tock—
Even at this moment, the second hand of the clock by the chalkboard continued its diligent race.
One by one, those who had accepted reality began to move their pens, dripping cold sweat onto their papers.
The time listed on the exam was 100 minutes.
There were 100 questions to mark on the answer sheet.
In this inescapable locked room, an exam where a single wrong move turns you into a beast proceeded with urgent pressure.