The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 40

Squeak.

The vehicle carrying Mooyoung and me arrived at a cargo loading facility on the waterfront of Incheon Port.

After driving a good while further, a group of people had gathered in the middle of the loading area.

“…….”

“……….”

They were dressed in clean clothes, yet they looked somehow shrunken.

And the eyes staring our way—wide with fear.

Several hundred civilians who had originally been slated for ‘delivery’ to Jo Seonghwan’s research facility.

“Ah, there he is.”

Watching them with a complicated expression was Bune mask, one of Hahoe’s senior operatives.

When I asked after the people’s condition, Bune mask turned to me and shook his head.

“Physical injuries and malnutrition—we’ve mostly taken care of those. But these people….”

“The most important thing is their minds.”

Muttering that, I looked over the faces in the crowd.

Eyes empty, unfocused.

I tried to greet them, but not a single person was listening properly.

This is quite serious.

I was thinking that, scratching the back of my neck, when——

“We are grateful for your help…. but persuading these people is not going to be easy. Young Master.”

An elderly man, the representative of the abducted, murmured in a tone of resignation.

“With all due respect—even if we walk out of here, what hope is there for us?”

“……!”

“Well, that’s fair.”

I looked at Mooyoung standing beside me, not knowing what to do, and spoke.

“These people spent their whole lives begging in poverty, then got caught by the Sword Pact and reduced to merchandise. They have no will to live as such—so steering them where you want them to go won’t be easy.”

On top of that, whoever had been running the facility apparently had loose lips, because the people gathered here knew quite a few things.

They knew they had been brought here as a result of someone powerful’s intent.

And they knew that the moment they were abducted, their citizen registration had been voided and they were declared dead.

“Their citizen registration voided. Then these people are…!”

“Exactly what you’re thinking.”

Joseon is a country that assigns a serial number to every servant and every head of livestock.

In a country like that, a person without citizenship is treated as less than livestock.

Even if they have money, they cannot spend it.

Anyone without citizen registration is outright prohibited from holding currency.

A home? Beyond dreaming of it.

Not only would they have no space to lay their heads, they wouldn’t be able to use even a single public facility like a restroom.

Even if they tried to return to their hometown, they have no citizenship, so they can’t board public transportation.

And if they somehow made it back against all odds? They would spend the rest of their lives hiding from people.

If caught unlucky—they become a piece of meat hung up in a butcher’s shop, right then and there.

The people here are alive, and yet they can do nothing.

Literally living corpses.

“For people like that, walking up and saying ‘we’ll save you, we’ll free you, go find your freedom’…. none of that means anything.”

“…….”

“Because going back alive just means dying alone in the street anyway. They know that better than anyone.”

Mooyoung clenched his teeth at my relentless words.

The despair of a life determined from birth.

The helplessness of knowing you cannot escape no matter what you do—he must have felt some part of that himself.

“So, do you have a plan for what to do with these people?”

“Of course. It’s simple.”

Answering Bune mask’s question in an easy voice, I walked past him.

Public speaking was never my strong suit, but what can you do.

When it has to be done, it has to be done.

After a moment’s deep breath, I walked toward the people gathered there.

“Ahem.”

I muttered into the megaphone I’d prepared in advance, and a few people turned their heads my way.

At least their ears work.

Without delay, I opened my mouth and got to the point.

“Hello, test subjects. I am Kim Changwoon—the one who rescued you from the human experimentation facility and brought you here.”

“Hey, you crazy……!”

Apparently they hadn’t expected such rudeness right from the start.

The moment I bluntly called them test subjects, every gaze in the room snapped to me.

Bune mask lurched in a panic at the reaction.

But I kept talking without a care.

“But as you know, you are people who have nowhere lower to fall in this land, aren’t you? Citizenship, property, hope for the future. For you, these are things that might as well be from a distant dream. Am I wrong?”

By now they would be annoyed enough to look my way even out of spite.

Just as I expected, gazes full of unease and resignation turned toward me.

Nothing but dead fish eyes.

Thinking that, I slowly curled the corner of my mouth.

“So then, what am I going to do now?”

A brief silence fell over the area after that one line of mine.

“……What?”

Bune mask’s voice, utterly baffled.

Perhaps they hadn’t expected to hear something like this from the very person who had rescued them.

Those who heard my words wore much the same expression.

But whether they did or not.

I kept looking at them and saying what I had to say.

“I just saved you from the brink of death, didn’t I? So why the long faces? What more do you need? Should I go ahead and just take all of you under my wing permanently? Hmm?”

“Hey, hey! Kim Changwoon! What are you suddenly——!”

“Ah, back off for a second.”

I waved Bune mask away as he tried to rush in urgently.

This is all for these people’s good, even if it doesn’t look that way.

“Wake up. Who would I be doing something that pointless for?”

“……!”

“The reason I rescued you was because I needed to swap out the Pungyang Jo clan’s cargo. The reason I kept you safe was because I didn’t have time to dispose of you during the operation.”

As I kept needling them in a tone bordering on mockery, an unsettled feeling began to stir, slowly, among the test subjects who had been as good as dead.

“Then, the reason you’re keeping us alive now is…?”

“Because bullets cost money. What other reason would there be?”

By the time I’d said that much, the eyes of the test subjects—who had been grinding their teeth—began to come back to life, one by one.

‘It was worth feeding them well up until now.’

Seeing those dangerous expressions was actually something of a relief.

Because it also meant there was at least a little anger still left in them.

If I’d scratched this hard at their feelings and they still had the same dead fish eyes——

I think I genuinely would have lost my patience.

“But lastly!”

Just before the animosity aimed at me tipped over into outright fury.

Looking over their expressions one by one, I brought out the real subject I’d been holding back.

“Lastly, I would like to tell you how you can live a ‘new life.'”

“……What?”

“What did you say?”

A new life.

Living a different life.

The first to react to those words were the relatively young ones.

And at the same moment——

Beep-beep.

A buzzer sounded from the Choraengi mask tucked inside my jacket.

A call from a friend far to the north…. no, that’s not right.

A transmission had arrived from that friend’s father.

-This is Yoo Sanghyeon. You said I was repaying a debt, and I wasn’t sure what you meant…. but is this really all it takes?

“Yes. I believe that would make for a sufficient exchange.”

-Hah, I see. Very well. I’ll prepare as you’ve said. But if things go this way…. I’ll need quite a bit of change.

“We can talk about that when the time comes. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

-All right. Let’s do that.

A short exchange, and the call ended.

Afterwards, I signaled to the agents waiting behind me.

Negotiation successful.

It was the signal to open the door.

Wrrmmm—

The next moment, with a low rumble, the hold of the large cargo ship docked behind me slowly opened.

“Congratulations, everyone! Lord Yoo Sanghyeon, Military Commander of Hamgyeong Province, has expressed his willingness to take you in!”

“……!”

“Wha, what……!?”

The moment the words “Hamgyeong Province” came out, the faces of those gathered there were drenched in shock.

“Wait, wait a moment?! Did you just say Hamgyeong Province?”

“Isn’t that the front line where monsters run rampant?! Of all places, you’re sending us there?!”

“Yes!”

My confident reply set the people into an uproar.

Disappointment, despair. Some even fell into outright hopelessness.

But only for a moment.

“Because there was nowhere else that would issue commoner citizenship.”

Following those words of mine, the murmuring voices went suddenly quiet.

“Hamgyeong Province, where the Iron Tiger Army is headquartered, is a land crawling with monsters at every turn, with poor living infrastructure, and fighting that never stops. It’s a place short on people, so the citizenship issuance process is simple, and central control is practically nonexistent.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean many people went to Hamgyeong Province just to obtain Joseon citizenship.

The first reason: even if they were begging at the bottom of a city, they didn’t want to die fighting monsters.

The second reason: even if they clawed their way to citizenship, they’d be branded forever as ‘from Hamgyeong Province.’

But….

“Isn’t it exactly the right place for people whose lives have hit rock bottom to start fresh?”

When they saw the smile on my face, the people took several steps back.

“You’re going to die on the streets without citizenship if you go out there anyway. So rather than that, wouldn’t it be better to fight monsters with your life on the line and carve out a place of your own?”

“……!”

“Wha, what……”

The reactions of the test subjects who heard my words varied.

Some were furious that I had the nerve to say such a thing.

Some were trembling in terror at the prospect of going to Hamgyeong Province.

“Young Master, you said the reason you kept us safe was to silence us.”

The one who spoke was the old man I had just been talking with.

The oldest among the test subjects.

His expression was stiff as stone, but his voice was clearer than it had ever been.

“Then the reason you want to send us to Hamgyeong Province is….”

The answer was obvious.

The old man’s expression darkened as he seemed to realize it.

“Destroying evidence. You want to remove us from Hanseong.”

“Correct! Come on, let’s have a round of applause!”

Surprisingly quick on the uptake.

I clapped a few times into the air, but there was no response.

Now that I’d done it, it felt a bit embarrassing—I wished I’d prepared a prize for them.

“As you said, what I told you is not actually a proposal. It’s a notification. Whether you like it or not, you will be going to Hamgyeong Province, and you have no right of refusal.”

“Th, that’s outrageous——!”

“Of course you would feel that. Why wouldn’t you? Was there anyone among you who became a test subject of their own free will?”

My immediate reply made everyone’s faces go rigid.

The more I talked, the more charged the atmosphere became—at this point it was almost amusing.

‘If I’ve said this much, have I covered everything I needed to say?’

Wondering if I’d left anything out, I slowly went back over what I’d just said.

“Ah, right.”

As a matter of fact, there was one thing I’d forgotten.

Before stepping down, I added one last thing.

“When you arrive in Hamgyeong Province, you will be under the protection of the ‘Iron Tiger Army,’ not the Administration.”

“The Iron Tiger…. Army?”

A passing remark, thrown in at the end—yet a few faces in the crowd changed color.

“At the very least, power clans like the Pungyang Jo won’t have their hands on you. That alone counts as an advantage, doesn’t it?”

Having finished that explanation, I pointed past the container to the entrance of the ship bound for Hamgyeong Province and spoke.

“Departure is in one hour. It may be delayed depending on schedule, so please rest well until then.”

Speech over.

My job, done.

I tossed the megaphone aside carelessly and stepped down—and Bune mask, who had been holding himself back the entire time, came running and grabbed me by the collar.

Even behind the mask, his expression was plain as day.

“You lunatic! These people have already been through every hardship there is, and you had to push them like that by force——!”

“Push them by force, sure. Or would you rather tell them to sit where they are and wait for the day they starve to death? Or would you charity-feed them like the street beggars they were?”

Saying that, I raised a finger, as if to say: just watch, and pointed to the people gathered together.

Sit here and wait to die?

Or survive, whatever it takes, and live to see tomorrow?

Anguish, fear, doubt.

All those emotions swirled through the crowd, lashing at them ceaselessly.

But only for a moment.

“Let’s go.”

Starting with those words from one person, those who had been sitting limply began to lift themselves to their feet.

“Hamgyeong Province… Hamgyeong Province…! Hamgyeong Province……! Ah, to hell with it! Since we’re already in the gutter, let’s go all the way!”

“Beats starving to death here! Doesn’t it, everyone?”

“Let’s go live out there! If you keep living, good days will come eventually!”

“At least our kids…. at least our kids can have citizenship and live with their heads held high!”

One person, then another.

They reached for each other’s hands, steadied the person beside them, and began to steel their resolve together.

People who had been waiting for death, having lost their families and their identities.

Those who had shared hardship inside the container had already become something like one tight-knit family.

And by the time everyone who had been sitting on the dock had risen to their feet——

The eyes of the test subjects gathered at Incheon Port were shining with a light unlike anything before.

“Good to see.”

The people passed me and boarded the ship bound for Hamgyeong Province.

Anger at the aristocrats who had reduced them to this.

A stubborn will to survive no matter what.

Or if not that—resentment toward me, for sending them off to Hamgyeong Province.

Whatever it was, it was a far better light than the dead fish eyes from just a moment ago.