Don't You Know Romance of the Three Kingdoms?
My father once told me something.
There's a saying that a single well-chosen word can settle a thousand-nyang debt — that if you just talk well enough, you'll never go hungry.
He was right.
After enrolling in the Department of Theater and Film, I scraped by as a stage actor and somehow managed to keep my stomach from growling. Just as Father had said: a life that covered the bare necessities of eating and surviving. Or so I thought.
Then one day, a film offer came in. Not from just anyone — from a director who'd won an Academy Award for Best Director. I thought my turning point had finally arrived. For a moment, at least.
Before I knew it, I'd fallen into a murim world straight out of the novels I always used to read. The second I realized what had happened, pure instinct took over.
Status window!!!
Status!!!
And the translucent window floating in midair that should have appeared?
Didn't exist.
So there I was, barely surviving in this wild age of clashing blades and flying fists — no status window of the kind every isekai protagonist gets handed for free — when something struck me as deeply wrong. Historical events had clearly happened here. And yet nobody knew the classics. Not Records of the Chu-Han Contention. Not Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The classics of classics, and they had no idea.
Father, I think I can manage to eat somehow in this place.
This is bullshit.
Absolute bullshit.
Even as I trudged endlessly forward, the thought kept surfacing, and curses rose unbidden in my throat.
The first job I'd clawed my way into after dropping into this world had been as a Jeomsoi — a waiter and errand boy at a restaurant.
With no connections and no other options, it was the one and only work I could find just to stay fed. Then those damned martial artists ruined everything and ran the place into the ground.
The brawl they started left every chair and table in the restaurant broken beyond use. The door and the signboard vanished entirely — gone, as if they'd never existed.
That alone would have been fine.
You can always repair things and reopen.
The real problem was that Uncle Wang — the owner and head chef who'd taken in a complete stranger like me and hired me as a Jeomsoi — had both arms broken in the chaos.
He'd need months of recovery at the very least, so the restaurant had no choice but to shut down. And just like that, I was out of a job.
Fortunately, Uncle Wang's introduction got me work as a Jaengjasu — a porter — with a merchant caravan bound for Hyeongju. But that didn't mean I was about to stop cursing the martial artists who'd cost me my livelihood.
"Hey there, friend! Why the long face? Is the load that heavy? A young fellow like you, worn out by a single pack — how do you expect to survive this harsh world?"
One of the other Jaengjasu hauling cargo alongside me struck up a conversation.
Looking at his face, you'd put him at nearly forty. But what kind of era was this?
This was a time when everyone — you, me, the next guy — looked like army quartermasters who'd spent their lives staring the sun dead in the eye. Age and appearance simply didn't match. Hit your mid-twenties and you already looked forty. That was the standard commoner's face in this age.
This nosy Jaengjasu was no different.
Skin ruined by daily sun exposure on the caravan routes. His face looked at least forty-five, but his real age couldn't have been past the late twenties, no matter how generously you counted.
And me?
I was the delicate type who'd moisturized with snail cream — the kind made from animal-welfare snail mucus harvested at a steam water park's snail playground.
That was how I'd earned my plump, dewy skin. Maybe that was why this Jaengjasu figured I was far younger than him and felt free to stick his nose in.
"It's not that. Something happened not long ago, and I keep turning it over. Still feels unfair."
"Come now — life throws unfair things at everyone. A young man dwelling on that? What's the use? So what exactly has you so bitter?"
The busybody Jaengjasu's eyes lit up as he asked.
Having worked as a Jeomsoi, I could more or less read what he was really after. The concern for me was just polite filler. What he actually wanted was something to talk about on this tedious caravan march.
It irked me for a second, but I was just as bored.
The caravan was nearing the end of its schedule, sure — but it still took two or three days. Two or three days of nothing but walking. Better to talk than stew in silence, I decided, and opened my mouth.
"Well... here's how it went..."
And so, just to kill time, I told the nameless Jaengjasu about the martial artists who'd turned the inn into a wrecking ground.
"...And in that situation, the martial artist draws his sword and — shhk — cleaves a massive dining table clean in two in a single stroke. It didn't even look like some legendary treasure blade, just an ordinary sword, and yet something like a heat haze was shimmering off it. In that instant I knew.
"Ah! So that's it! That's sword qi — the thing that let an ordinary blade split a table in one go!"
"Sword qi?! So that martial artist was a master of that caliber? Go on, tell me more!"
Honestly, I had no idea whether the guy had actually used sword qi.
No heat haze had shimmered off anything.
But so what?
A little exaggeration to keep a story entertaining barely even counted as flattery.
Maybe that was why the Jaengjasu wore the face of a man desperate for the next chapter, already pushing me to continue.
Judging by that reaction, I figured I might just squeeze something useful out of this.
I was talking because I was bored, sure — but talking still burned stamina. And labor deserved compensation.
"Ahem... Well. I could tell you who that martial artist was... but I'm not sure my personal safety would survive it..."
"What? You've been talking just fine this whole time — what's this now?"
"Even so, if it puts me in danger, how am I supposed to just spit it out? What if that martial artist hears the rumor came from me and comes looking for payback?
"Haa... I can still feel it. That heavy, cold sensation of a sword splitting a huge table in one stroke! After that, I lost my job, and the terror of that day still keeps me up at night. I only just started feeling halfway normal again, so I joined this caravan just to put food in my mouth..."
I gave a full-body shudder, let my voice trail off, and made myself look like a man fretting over what came next.
"I even gave you life advice, and this is how you treat me?"
"What did I say? Just that I'm scared of what might happen if I run my mouth carelessly. If you're going to be like this, fine — I won't say another word."
"Hey now, friend. You can't just leave a story hanging like that."
The Jaengjasu grabbed my sleeve.
And right then, another Jaengjasu's voice floated up from behind us.
"Hey, Brother Im! Just slip him a little coin and let's hear the rest already. I'm dying of curiosity over here!"
"What — Brother Seo, you were listening?"
In that instant, the Jaengjasu called Brother Im lit up like a predator that had just spotted an opening.
"If you were listening, you should've said something. Sitting there silent — how awkward do you think that made this fellow feel? You heard it too, so chip in. You ought to pay for eavesdropping, no?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? You're the one who should pay!"
The two of them suddenly started arguing, and I kept my mouth shut and stayed perfectly still.
Use barbarians against barbarians! Since ancient times, the saying went: let barbarians deal with barbarians.
They were fighting among themselves just fine. No need for me to wade into that mud pit.
I took a step back and watched the show. Their voices climbed higher, and before long they were dredging up money one of them had borrowed from the other not long ago.
Just as it was getting interesting, the first Jaengjasu — the one who'd originally been listening to my story — decided he'd had enough and swung the arrow back at me.
"You sat there eavesdropping with the rest of us and now you're pulling this? Friend, if people listen like thieves, where's the pleasure in telling a story? Am I wrong?"
Another person offering to pay? No reason to refuse.
"If someone eavesdrops, I have no way of knowing when or where they'll spread the rumor. Frankly, it's too frightening to keep talking."
"Tch! Fine, fine, I get it! Tch! I'll pay too — just tell us who he was already."
With that, both men hurriedly dug through their robes.
"Here, friend! Right here."
The money they handed over was a measly ten iron coins total — five each, as if they'd rehearsed it.
It was barely enough for a bowl of noodles and a dumpling, and they still stared at the coins in my hand like it hurt to let them go.
"Well now... what am I supposed to do with this? This is barely enough for a single bowl of noodles. You're asking me to trade my life for this? That's cold."
"Fine, fine! Aigoo... You're young and already this greedy — a proper miser, the lot of you."
And just like that, five more iron coins landed in my palm.
It was still a disappointing sum, but pushing for more would probably get them demanding their money back. I decided not to haggle further.
"Ahem... With generosity like this, I suppose I have no choice. Brother Im, was it? Have you by any chance heard of Sima Yi from Romance of the Three Kingdoms?"
"Sima Yi? Romance of the Three Kingdoms? What's that?"
In that moment, I doubted my own ears.
They didn't know Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Quan.
The Oath of the Peach Garden. The Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage.
Among men, Lü Bu; among horses, Red Hare.
The Five Tiger Generals.
Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi.
And countless other heroes whose names were carved into history.
Among them, Sima Yi was a figure who had drawn one of the boldest strokes across the entire chronicle of the Three Kingdoms.
This was exactly why basic education mattered.
If elementary, middle, and high school existed here, they would at least have heard of Romance of the Three Kingdoms — a classic among classics.
"You mean you don't know Romance of the Three Kingdoms?"
I asked again, my tone thick with disbelief at their claim of ignorance.
"What even is Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Hey, Brother Seo — you know what that is?"
"What? Kingdoms-something? It's got 'kingdom' in it, so... something about the realm's rulers?"
I considered explaining the whole thing to them, then thought better of it. Dumping that much content on these two would shred my throat raw.
"It was a historical event from long ago... Ahem... But what does that matter? Anyway — later on, I found out that martial artist's identity. People said he was Sama Junghyeok."
"Sama Junghyeok!" / "Sama Junghyeok!"
The name Sama Junghyeok left both of them shouting in unison.
How could they not know Sima Yi from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, yet react like this to a similar name like Sama Junghyeok? The question crossed my mind, but I let it go.
"Why are you both so shocked?"
"Did you really say that martial artist was Sama Junghyeok?"
"I don't know why you're so surprised, but afterward the inn's owner called the man Sama Junghyeok. There's no mistake."
"Aigoo... Sama Junghyeok, committing that kind of outrage... Honestly, hard to believe."
"I saw it with my own two eyes. Tables smashed. Chairs flying. Anyway, Sama Junghyeok wrecked the inn, paid not a single coin in damages, and ran off chasing the other martial artist.
"Master Wang, the inn's owner, clutched his broken arms and filed a petition with the county magistrate — but all he got was 'wait,' and not a scrap of compensation. He said he even heard the name Sama Junghyeok from the magistrate himself."
"Heh heh... The Gentleman's Sword, Lord Sama Junghyeok, doing such a thing? Are you sure you didn't mishear?"
The two of them trailed off, clearly unable to accept that Sama Junghyeok had destroyed an inn and fled.
Their attitude only made me angrier.
Who was the other party here?
The ungrateful bastard of the Sama clan who'd cost me my first job.
I'd watched what that man did with my own eyes, and yet these two held some bizarrely high trust in the Sama name.
"Then is the county magistrate a liar?"
"Th-that's not what I meant! I only wanted to double-check, hearing it was the Gentleman's Sword!"
Calling the magistrate a liar was the kind of talk that, if it ever reached the magistrate's ears, would earn you a thrashing. Brother Im hastily walked it back.
"A traitor's bloodline, called a gentleman — the sheer gall of it."
"Traitor? What are you talking about?"
"Who is the ancestor of the Sama clan? None other than the traitor Sima Yi!"
"A traitor? Are you talking about the Sama family?"
Both of them asked, looking completely lost.
"That's right. The Sama clan's ancestor, Sima Yi — outwardly loyal to his lord, but in the end he betrayed him, seized power, and put his own descendants on the imperial throne. An ungrateful wretch! And from that man's seed comes a 'Gentleman's Sword'? Beans grow where beans are planted, and red beans where red beans are planted. Sama Junghyeok is bound to be a rotten piece of work himself."
Whether Sama Junghyeok was actually that kind of person, I had no way of knowing.
But Sama Junghyeok was the man who'd cost me the job that kept me alive.
In the great ledger of grudges in my heart, his name was already written across the first page in letters big enough to fill a gate.
So even if Sama Junghyeok truly possessed a character worthy of the title Gentleman's Sword, to me he was nothing short of a villain.
"What — that really happened?! The Sama family is terrifying! How could they commit such a crime against heaven and still keep it buried all this time?!"
"History is written by the victors. Long ago the Sama clan usurped the imperial throne and became emperors themselves — who would dare say a word? Even Liu Bang, who discarded his founding hero Han Xin like a worn-out sandal, is still praised as an emperor in this world."
"Han Xin? Liu Bang? Who are those people?"
The moment I heard that, the inside of my head started to spin.