The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 41

Beep.

“That will be 5,700 won.”

“……A cup of instant noodles for 5,700 won?”

“Ah, it’s the location, you see. Prices are a bit…. like that.”

What does ‘location’ have to do with a convenience store in the middle of Hanseong’s central layer.

I frowned and asked again, and the part-time worker shrugged as if it wasn’t his fault.

Fair enough.

He didn’t put the price tag on the cup noodles either, and making more of a scene would just make me the difficult customer.

In the end, I paid more than three times the normal price and was slowly filling the cup with hot water.

“So, calling a busy person out and then making them wait. Why is he so late?”

I muttered that, thinking of Imae mask, the one who had set this meeting place using the Choraengi mask.

He’d summoned me saying there was something urgent to convey.

The meeting spot was a convenience store I’d never been to, and after calling me out, he hadn’t even shown his face.

However big the job we’d just wrapped up—a remarkably relaxed man.

“Should’ve just let him die when we rescued Yoo Arin.”

I was grumbling to myself, thinking of Imae mask with his long silence, when——

[URGENT BREAKING NEWS]

With a red headline that looked alarming even at a glance, the streets outside were plastered with wall-to-wall coverage of the Pungyang Jo clan’s treason charges.

[Breaking news. Last evening, a battle between royal guard forces and clan members occurred at the Pungyang Jo clan’s main house in Namyangju. Correspondent Han Yewon reporting……]

[Senior Pungyang Jo figures demanding a reinvestigation of the incident—Namyangju city has effectively entered a state of civil war, according to assessments……]

“Relentless. They’ve already pushed all the way to Namyangju?”

You could only expect this from Kim Jungheon. The speed of his work was enough to raise goosebumps.

‘Well. Even though they’ve lost their heir, with the monster research charges hanging over them, it’s not easy to refute any of this rashly.’

Public support for the Pungyang Jo clan had completely hit the floor, and the many noble houses that had been connected to them were being shaken down en masse as well.

On top of that, the Andong Kim clan—the second most powerful power clan in the rankings—was personally going after them.

For the press, which had long had its throat held by the Administration’s media guidelines, this was a rare opportunity to do what the press was supposed to do.

Public opinion, the media, and even the power clans themselves—the very same ruling class—were all combining forces to beat down on the Pungyang Jo clan right now.

In this chaotic situation, then, who was receiving the most attention?

Just as that thought crossed my mind, the screen on the building was showing Kim Hyunwoo at a press conference, in the middle of an interview with reporters.

[The Pungyang Jo clan and their faction have committed crimes that outrage heaven and earth. As fellow nobles, moving swiftly to suppress them is……]

A bluntness and air of intimidation that made even the reporters uncomfortable.

And phase power that he was no longer even bothering to hide, flowing from him without restraint.

‘What an insufferable guy, no matter when I see him.’

Thinking that, I peeled back the lid on the now-ready cup noodles.

Because he was the one who had uncovered the truth about the monster research and personally dealt with Jo Seonghwan—the man running the monster research facility—Kim Hyunwoo had become nothing less than a hero in the eyes of Joseon’s people.

I looked at Kim Hyunwoo on the screen with a flat expression for a moment.

“Would you mind if an old man joined you?”

Just as I was stuffing noodles into my mouth while watching the news on the building’s display——

An elderly man addressed me.

A hat pulled low, a fishing vest, a shabby appearance dusty all over.

And pinned to his chest—a plum blossom medal.

Seeing that, I quietly shifted aside to make room.

“Are you a war veteran?”

“A veteran, ha. Just a senile old man, is all.”

He waved his hand as if it were nothing, sat down beside me, and twisted open the green bottle of soju he was carrying.

“……I didn’t say it was alright to join me yet.”

“Ahhhh, now that hits——!”

‘Can’t hear a word.’

Watching him drink straight from the bottle without so much as a glass—the picture of a drunkard.

I gave up and buried my face in the noodles I’d been eating.

Why do all the new products taste like this.

I was chewing through the noodles with that thought when——

“Every media outlet in all of Joseon is singing praises in unison, as if they rehearsed it.”

A quiet voice came from the old man’s mouth.

His gaze was on the screen mounted on the building.

I glanced up briefly and studied the old man’s face.

The flush spreading across his wrinkled face did not seem to be entirely from the bottle in his hand.

“Lord Kim Jungheon will have had a hand in that.”

I matched his muttering and spoke.

“What the Pungyang Jo clan did is an undeniable fact. Crimes that outrage heaven and earth. Kim Jungheon may not like this situation, but…. he won’t let an opportunity that rolled right to his feet go to waste.”

In any given situation, choose the most efficient method.

Even if it goes against one’s own will.

That was the image of Kim Jungheon—my father as I remembered him.

“Thanks to all this, the Andong Kim clan has been able to suppress their rival, the Pungyang Jo clan, and the heir Kim Hyunwoo has used that achievement to become the hero of Joseon. My, my….”

The old man had been chuckling and clucking, and then his eyes turned to me.

“From where you and I stand, this is…. just a case of cooking porridge for someone else’s dog, isn’t it?”

You and I.

Hearing those words, I paused my reply and looked around.

The part-time worker leaning lazily at the register, and the customer in a heated argument with him.

A young novice monk holding his master’s hand while picking out snacks.

The hostesses chattering loudly in all directions, spraying spit.

It looked no different from any ordinary convenience store, but….

“Tsk.”

It was clear.

They looked like they were going about their business.

But every one of their gazes was pointed toward me.

‘The rendezvous was already done long before I realized it.’

It was just that Imae mask himself hadn’t shown up.

Given that a separate meeting place had been designated, it seemed this entire convenience store was being used as a safehouse.

Not the faintest idea how they’d evaded the Royal Investigative Bureau’s eyes.

The more I thought about it, the more extraordinary these people were.

“That’s what this old man thinks, anyway…. What do you think?”

“In the short term, yes.”

The old man set the bottle away from his lips for a moment.

At this point, this conversation was no longer the ramblings of a drunkard.

After gathering my thoughts briefly, I turned to the old man and spoke.

“But if the Andong Kim clan monopolizes power like that…. do you think the other noble houses will stay quiet?”

“You’re saying other noble houses will start checking the Andong Kim clan’s influence?”

“Yes. Right over there, in fact.”

Saying that, I raised a finger and pointed to the screen on the building.

News continuing to roll in in real time.

The Gyeongju Kim, Pungsan Hong, and Yeonan Yi clans were consecutively reported to have requested a public hearing on the ongoing investigation.

[Yes, they committed crimes that outrage heaven and earth—but to extend that blame by association to the entire clan is not right! This is wrong!]

[We must first make it crystal clear what the purpose of the monster research was and exactly what was being researched. Conducting a forceful investigation like this without disclosing detailed materials is no way to treat a noble house!]

“Absolute nonsense.”

Propriety. Decorum.

They were defending an incident that, one misstep away, could have turned millions of Hanseong’s residents into monster fodder—and these were the words they chose to use. The more you looked at what passed for nobility in this country, the more astonishing it was.

Of course, when you get down to it, all of this was my doing.

But that’s not my concern.

“They say even a ruined millionaire lasts three years. They have crimes to answer for now, so they’ll be lying low, but the Pungyang Jo clan is not a house that will fall from an investigation of this scale.”

Their liquid assets alone ran to the tens of trillions, and the intangible assets managed by the clan were beyond counting.

“While the clan’s senior figures—including head Jo Gangwoon—buy time, the promising younger generation who will carry the clan’s future will skillfully slip through the net….”

“And in ten or twenty years, the Pungyang Jo clan will recover their power and try to reclaim what they lost.”

Of course, whether a thing called “the nobility” would still exist in this country by then was a question I genuinely couldn’t answer.

I swallowed that last thought and took a sip of the broth.

“Ahh!”

Thinking of the Pungyang Jo clan currently in the middle of being torn apart—the broth hit especially well.

“Kim Jungheon must know that too, which is why he’ll be anxious. If he doesn’t tie up this incident as fast as possible, the whole of Hanseong will get swept up in civil war.”

Judging by the information coming in from all over the internet, Namyangju—the Pungyang Jo clan’s ancestral home—was already no different from a battlefield.

If things kept going like this, even the Andong Kim clan couldn’t suppress it in time.

“To crush the chaos from the start, the Andong Kim clan clamps down on the Pungyang Jo clan harder. And the harder the crackdown becomes….”

“The more noble houses that grow wary of the Andong Kim clan’s power.”

The elderly nobles from the aristocratic houses on TV were shouting at the reporters.

Anger. And beneath it, fear.

The reason for those expressions went without saying.

If they could reduce the Pungyang Jo clan—the number two power clan—to this, those ranked below them had every reason to wonder what would become of themselves.

“Those houses that oppose the Andong Kim clan will support the Pungyang Jo clan’s rebuilding, and the Andong Kim clan cannot stand by and watch.”

“They’ll move to root out the houses secretly aiding or supporting the Pungyang Jo clan, and try to stop it.”

“And in response to that—yet more noble houses rising in opposition to the Andong Kim clan….”

“Ahhhh!”

The old man, having drained his bottle, let out an exclamation.

“A vicious cycle. Complete.”

“Exactly.”

This was precisely why I had made a point of killing Jo Seonghwan in this operation.

Jo Gangwoon, head of the Pungyang Jo clan.

Unlike Kim Jungheon, he was a ‘father’ who cherished his own child above all else.

Now that Kim Hyunwoo had killed Jo Seonghwan, the Andong Kim and Pungyang Jo clans had become blood enemies who could not share the same sky.

The Andong Kim clan’s power grows, and there’s no rival left to stand against them?

No. The opposite.

The more the Andong Kim clan’s power grows, the more other nobles push back.

And the blade of a now-more-powerful Andong Kim clan will be pointed right at those nobles.

“A pointless internal shooting match where winning gains you nothing. Having to sharpen a blade to carve out your own flesh.”

The old man looked at the news and papers plastered with Jo Seonghwan’s death with bright eyes, then set down the empty bottle with an expression of deep satisfaction.

“You didn’t merely kill the Pungyang Jo heir. You created a crack in the entire solidarity of the noble class as a whole.”

The old man who had set down the empty bottle looked at me and spoke.

His face was as satisfied as a parent watching a child’s achievement.

“And, I realize I’m only asking this now.”

Having finished my explanation in my own way.

I looked at the old man seated beside me and asked.

“Who are you?”

“Take a guess.”

The old man was still for a moment before he looked my way.

“Who do you think I might be?”

A probing gaze.

The drunkard from just moments ago was nowhere to be seen—he was watching me with a calm, serious face.

Was there anyone like this among the Hahoe senior figures I had met?

I couldn’t quite remember.

I had definitely gone through the Royal Investigative Bureau database and looked up every scrap of information on them….

…….

……….

“……Could it be?”

A Hahoe senior figure I couldn’t remember.

When my thoughts touched that, I naturally came to understand who this old man was.

The one person whose identity had remained completely unknown to me, even in the course of rooting out every last Hahoe operative in my past life.

The figure who manages the vast troves of data Hahoe holds—and the reason Hahoe cannot be anything other than Joseon’s traitor number zero.

The existence that Hahoe operatives address as “the Great Elder” and follow with reverence.

“Yangban Mask.”

“Well done.”

Shhhhhrrp—!

With those words, the transparent convenience store windows went opaque, and the optical camouflage that had wrapped the old man’s face dissolved away.

And what appeared in the next moment was the mask of a benevolent elderly man, smiling warmly.

Seeing that, I could only swallow dryly.

“A pleasure to meet you, Young Master Kim Changwoon.”

The old man who had been sitting beside me was none other than Joseon’s traitor number zero, active for hundreds of years.

The leader of Hahoe—Yangban Mask.