The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned – Chapter 2

Author: Dawn

“Powerless? Really, powerless?”

Powerless.

Starting with one person’s question, the people crowding the surroundings began chirping the same words like parrots.

Their shock was natural.

Our Andong Kim clan was the core of what the world commonly called the ‘power clans.’

We were a prestigious family of phase-wielders who had blocked the monster invasion during the ‘Rift Incident’ that swept across the entire world.

‘For a powerless one to emerge from such a distinguished family, it’s no wonder they’re so shocked.’

Those with low abilities could appear, but having someone who couldn’t inherit even a shred of ability was an entirely different problem.

The gazes of the family elders looking at me began changing moment by moment.

Doubt when the test results came out.

Bewilderment when the results were confirmed.

After hearing my father’s words about ‘lowborn blood,’ undisguised revulsion.

“How unfortunate. A powerless one from our clan of all places…”

“If this fact becomes known, the family’s prestige will crash to the ground. Who knows what trouble Jo Hwiseong will start…”

“I had such high expectations since he’s the Elder’s son, but to think…”

Right. These were the gazes.

The second son of the Andong Kim clan, boasting Joseon’s greatest power.

The family’s shame who couldn’t awaken even a shred of ability despite inheriting that blessed blood.

The gazes filled with mockery and contempt I’d received while being treated as the family’s burden my entire life.

When I first received those gazes, it felt like the sky was falling, but now I couldn’t care less what those parrots squawked about.

‘F*ck…’

From the moment I confirmed I’d returned to the past, this was the only thought filling my head.

If a new life began, maybe I’d be happy or something, but from my perspective, it was just annoying.

How did I come back?

No, why did I come back?

Me, who lived like trash my entire life—regression? A second life? Why on earth?

“Young Master Changwoon.”

I left something of a will behind and even got petty revenge on those bastards!

I died cleanly, so it should have just ended there—why am I suddenly alive and all this bullshit?!

There’s no way I deserve this…!

“Young Master!”

Just as my thoughts were spiraling out of control.

The voice of the guard standing beside me rang out.

I snapped to attention, and before me stood my father, approaching with cold eyes.

“…”

The murmuring sounds around us instantly stopped, and the atmosphere in the hall froze like ice.

A silence as if the air itself had frozen solid.

I felt nothing in particular.

At this time, I had been unable to say anything under my father’s pressure, and my father hadn’t said anything to me either.

In that silence, the only thing my father gave me was one thing—his gaze.

He simply looked at me with cold eyes, as if viewing something filthy.

A failure, foreign matter, a defective product.

With eyes that looked at such worthless things.

“Let’s go.”

With those brief words, my father turned away.

Having finished his own judgment, he completely cut off his interest in me.

“U-um… excuse me…!”

“My lord!”

Reading the displeased expression on my father’s face, the parrots clinging to his side rushed out.

The doctor who’d been reading the room also fled in a hurry, and some time passed.

“…Kuk.”

When laughter burst from my mouth, I was the only one left in the testing hall.

“Kahahaha—! Right, that’s how it was! Exactly that kind of scene! Kahahahahaha—!”

It had been so long since I’d heard my father’s voice.

From the day I received the powerless result until I died, my father never spoke a single word to me.

Facing my father’s attitude, I had felt like the sky was falling.

My brother and the family elders.

And facing the cold eyes of the father I’d looked up to—I was so terrified.

I thought things that weren’t my fault were my fault, and committed all sorts of insane acts to grasp what wasn’t mine.

Because I wanted their recognition.

Because I wanted to cast off the stigma of lowborn blood.

But now it was different.

“Why did such trash seem so scary when I was young?”

Born of lowborn blood?

The most vulgar one would be you, Father, who stuck with that lowborn blood.

The power clan’s shame?

What should truly be considered shameful is your rotten mindset.

That ostrich-like attitude of burying your heads in holes, living drunk on pleasure while ignoring the blade approaching before your eyes!

What stood before me now were no longer the frightening adults I’d seen back then.

They were just idiots thinking of nothing but filling their own pockets.

I could see how young I’d been then, and how foolish.

“Coming back to my childhood has this one good point at least.”

I turned my gaze to look at my still-young body.

A tender body that hadn’t even shed all its baby fat yet.

From this young age, I’d lived struggling so desperately.

Nobles, power clans, aristocrats.

For recognition from those worthless tribes that would vanish with a single revolution.

“I won’t live like that ever again.”

I clenched my fist.

The moment I faced those pathetic mugs, the goal for this unwanted second life was set.

Let’s survive.

Rather than dying and collapsing at the flower of my twenties, let’s survive and live my own life instead.

Let’s survive ostentatiously and mock those idiots who’ll be crushed by the coming revolution.

And the moment I set that goal, my frozen mind began spinning rapidly.

‘Now then. What must I do to survive?’

For three hundred long years, my father and that tribe have lived like parasites, gnawing at the rotten giant tree called Joseon.

And these parasites were fated to burn in the massive flames of revolution before long.

Then staying in this nest of vermin would only get me treated as another vermin.

Like in my previous life, fated to burn away together.

So what then?

Use my knowledge as someone from the future to stop the revolution?

‘Impossible.’

I know best, having watched how this country was overturned in my past life, and having stubbornly interfered with that revolution.

Block one side and another opens.

Extinguish one spark and dozens, hundreds of sparks would rise again from the ashes.

Eliminating a few ringleaders, a few central figures wasn’t nearly enough.

Massacres, kidnappings, sowing discord, bribery, appeasement.

The power clans poured all their resources into stopping them, but that massive revolutionary flame burned regardless.

‘And why would I stop the revolution?’

Second. The most important reason.

Stop the revolution for whose benefit?

For those trash bastards?

For those who treated me that way after I worked like a dog my whole life?

My thoughts weren’t long, but the conclusion was clear.

I have neither the ability to stop the revolution nor the motivation to do so.

Rather, like I thought just before death.

In that final moment, I should properly live the life that was stained with regret.

I’m not even sure if what I’m experiencing is truly a second life or just a momentary dream before death.

“I must revolt.”

I had zero interest in revolutionary values or creating a new nation.

I just wanted to live.

Not as their dog.

To live as the human Kim Changwoon.

“The family seems to view this seriously, but there are countless people in the world who weren’t born with abilities.”

On the way out of the testing hall building.

As I was lost in thought in the descending elevator, the guard ‘Taewoong’ who attended me quietly spoke up.

“A mere warrior like myself cannot presume to understand… but please don’t be so discouraged.”

“…”

“Young Master, you still have plenty of opportunities ahead.”

Since I, who usually acted like a mischievous child, had been silent the whole time, I must have looked quite pitiful to him.

Opportunities.

Thinking about it, I’d heard similar words in my past life too.

Let’s see. What did I answer back then…

‘Of course it’s different! I’m an aristocrat and you’re not!’

‘You think I’m the same as you lowborn bastards?!’

‘What do you know to speak so presumptuously?! I’ll tell Father to fire you…!’

Hmm, let’s stop thinking about that.

Memories from when I was a thoughtless fifteen-year-old.

Just recalling them made me want to die of embarrassment.

“That’s what I’m thinking about now.”

But grinning cheerfully and speaking warmly in this serious situation of receiving a powerless judgment would make me seem a bit insane in its own way.

So instead of snapping in frustration, I spoke without taking my eyes off the window.

“What I, a powerless one, can do. How I should survive.”

“Young Master…”

In my previous life, I’d done all sorts of dirty work with the single-minded determination to earn the power clans’ recognition.

The Royal Investigative Bureau’s secret agents and special suppression forces.

Experts in various fields and numerous mercenaries hired from abroad.

Wielding top-level equipment and trained elite personnel like my own limbs.

But the forces I commanded in my previous life were mine yet not mine.

Just people hired with my father’s money or lending their strength while basking in the Andong Kim clan’s glory.

Among the people stuck by my side, there wasn’t anyone I could truly call my own.

‘The only person I could completely call mine would be… probably this guy.’

I glanced at the guard ‘Taewoong’ sitting firmly across from me.

A warrior who’d attended me for a long time, and an upright fellow who stayed by my side despite me being a bastard child without showing any displeasure.

This guy was the only thing that was ‘mine’ right now.

But even that might change once I actually jumped into the revolution…

‘Already a mountain of things to do.’

To join the revolution, I needed power and influence entirely my own, beyond the reach of the nobles.

Loyal individuals who wouldn’t bow to noble pressure and would follow only my words.

And a group composed of such people, plus the funds to maintain and operate it.

Just thinking about building all that from scratch gave me a headache, but…

‘It’s not impossible.’

I, Kim Changwoon.

A tenacious bastard who became a power clan’s dog at the tender age of fifteen and lived as their dog for over a decade.

I was the one who extinguished the revolutionary flames threatening the power clans and did all sorts of dirty work to maintain their rule.

All that experience.