The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 42

“An impeccable plan.”

The leader of Hahoe was standing right before me.

I was too dumbstruck to move——but only for a moment. From behind the brightly smiling Yangban Mask, a voice flowed in.

“A plan that fractures the nobles while leaving no trace of your own existence. Thanks to that, the nobles won’t even realize that Hahoe was involved in this affair.”

An entirely different voice from the old man’s just a moment ago.

And it wasn’t just the voice that had changed.

The white durumagi draped over his shoulders. The black formal suit beneath it.

Even his height and the frame of his body.

Everything that had made up the old man was completely different from when I had first seen him.

“The matter with General Yoo Sanghyeon, too.”

While I stared in surprise, Yangban Mask continued speaking, touching on the earlier operation.

“Saving the very existence that poses the greatest threat to their power——and going even further, making them believe he was dead and hiding him away completely.”

“…….”

“You have now accomplished both of the feats that will change the future of Joseon.”

A voice I couldn’t tell was praise or interrogation.

“How was all of this possible?”

Yangban Mask turned to look at me then, his voice dropping slightly.

An air that seemed to demand an answer.

I opened my mouth without hesitation.

“Because I am one of the nobles myself.”

When I thought about it, that was truly the case.

Here I was——one of the Andong Kim clan——planning, beneath the surface, a revolution to overturn the very foundations of Joseon.

Even going so far as to stoke conflict among the nobles, designing their family affairs to careen toward ruin.

Even the great Kim Jungheon would never suspect it.

“That is only a secondary reason. The real reason lies elsewhere.”

“The real reason?”

Click——and the figures of the customers inside the convenience store changed all at once.

People wearing the same mask as Yangban Mask, each dressed differently, all looking at me.

It was like a scene from a horror film.

“Kim Changwoon. You are a man born at the very top of Joseon’s hierarchy.”

Yangban Mask began, and spoke.

“Even if your clan does not recognize you, you were born a noble. You have no idea how the lower classes of Joseon live, and you are the kind of person who has no need to know.”

He was right.

Even scorned by the clan, I had never gone hungry.

Even despised by my family, the status of being a member of a noble house remained mine intact.

And that was only the beginning.

I had received the finest education in a life of comfort.

And I had lived freely wielding sums of money that ordinary commoners could not even imagine.

The toiling lives of the common people, the suffering of the lowborn——and so on.

These had always been stories of another world, one that had nothing to do with me from the start.

“You have no reason to change Joseon.”

“What do you mean I have no reason.”

I thought he was building to something, and it turned out to be an ideological interrogation.

I immediately offered the prepared answer.

“Being an illegitimate son is no small hardship. To survive among high-born nobles, this is the only path…….”

“That is a lie.”

No use.

Yangban Mask rejected it flatly and told me:

“If your goal is to survive the power structure within your clan, it would be far better to simply pledge loyalty to the family and raise your standing. A sharp mind like yours couldn’t possibly fail to see that.”

Yangban Mask opened his hand as if to say, isn’t that so?

‘He’s completely right.’

I chewed on that inwardly with a bitter smile.

That was exactly what I had thought——and so, in my past life, I had begun playing the hunting dog for Jo Seonghwan.

And after being acknowledged for my abilities, I had ended up doing all manner of filthy work in the name of cleaning up after noble families.

Because there had been no better option.

“And yet, why are you throwing yourself so desperately into this revolution? You, who have no connection whatsoever to it. Why stake yourself on a revolution with no chance of success?”

“Then I would ask you the same question.”

This was going to take a while.

I looked at Yangban Mask and spoke.

“For hundreds of years, the position of the nobles has never changed, and the age of the nobles continues.”

“…….”

“The Royal Investigative Bureau’s net is drawing tighter, and Hahoe’s range of operations, once spanning the entire country, has now shrunk to little more than the center of Hanseong.”

Two successful operations had opened a path forward, and yet Hahoe was still withering toward death.

That must be why a senior member had come in person to someone like me, an illegitimate wretch.

Because they were that desperate.

“And so I ask.”

I put the question to Yangban Mask, who tilted his head as though struck at the core.

“With things having come to this pass, why do you still stake your lives on a revolution with no chance of success?”

There were probably many answers he could give.

He might speak of the will to change a rotten world.

He might invoke the resentment of the common people, oppressed by the nobles.

Or failing that, he might reach back for an oath made long ago.

But while I was turning over countless possible answers in my mind—

“Because that is all that remains for us.”

—a completely unexpected answer came from Yangban Mask’s lips.

“Despairing at a world that will not change, raging at those who sit in the Administration and mock us. We have endured like that for hundreds of years. But by now, even calling to mind our original convictions feels too shameful, our troupe is exhausted.”

“…….”

“And yet we are people who cannot live any life other than this one.”

Yangban Mask spoke with a trace of regret.

“How many years have stretched to bring us here, and how many comrades’ bodies have been strewn along that road. The blood of those who went before us is what makes us who we are today. How could we turn our backs on that blood and seek another life?”

“…….”

“That is why we continue to try to change Joseon.”

Did he still see the dead in his sight?

The aged hands, lined with wrinkles, trembled faintly.

“We have come too far to stop now.”

Thinking back, in my past life, Hahoe does not directly join the Iron Tiger Army’s revolution.

No. They could not join.

The Reception Ceremony held not long ago.

Hahoe had launched a charge operation to rescue Yoo Arin there, and in the process, had been completely annihilated.

‘I had wondered why they would undertake such a suicidal mission. So that was the hidden story behind it.’

A struggle that had continued for hundreds of years.

And yet a world that would not change, and comrades falling away one by one.

Having weathered all of those storms, they had grown tired.

And so they had sacrificed themselves to save Yoo Arin.

Rather than bend, they would break. And so they had broken themselves for the sake of a future revolution.

So that they need not be ashamed before the names of those who had gone ahead.

And me? Not me.

I changed myself instead of changing the world.

I did not fight against the malice. I made my peace with it.

And went even further, living as their vanguard.

That was my choice, and that way of thinking has not changed even now.

It is common sense that you survive by attaching yourself to the strong.

And now, I am arranging a revolution for Joseon.

I rescued Yoo Arin, the royal bloodline, and killed Jo Seonghwan to fracture the power clans.

My reason? Simple.

‘If you know the outcome of a match, of course you bet on the winning side.’

I know that the revolution succeeds.

Because I saw the future in which the revolution succeeded, and watched as they set the world ablaze, and was burned alive in the fire they lit.

Not wanting to face the same end as in my past life, I am trying to become one of them.

That is all.

A bat hovering in the middle, waiting to see which side does better before latching on.

And so, I cannot understand their conviction.

A world that has stagnated past stability and begun to fester.

I could not understand people who threw away their own lives like blades of grass, all to try to change a world that had not changed in hundreds of years.

“I am not reproaching you, so don’t make such a complicated face.”

Sensing my thoughts deepening, Yangban Mask’s bearing shifted in an instant.

“It’s just that…. it has been so long since a noble came along who shared our purpose that this old man went and did something unbecoming and got frightened. My apologies.”

From the foreboding impression of someone interrogating, to the appearance of a gentle old man.

Seeing how he created so many different expressions by only tilting the mask to shift the shadow, it was uncanny beyond words.

“And now that I mention it, I am deeply grateful to you.”

“……Grateful?”

I put the question back with puzzlement in my eyes, and Yangban Mask opened his mouth with an easy laugh.

“Thanks to you, our lot got to land a blow on those noble bastards. Our troupe has come alive because of it. There are quite a lot who are celebrating that we’ve finally punched a hole through their iron fortress.”

“Ah.”

Some of the Hahoe executives had seemed oddly warm toward me, so that was why.

“That is precisely why I am all the more curious.”

Yangban Mask continued slowly.

“You, who at such a young age possess this level of ability and potential. Why did you take up this seemingly hopeless cause of revolution?”

A natural question.

Because there is no such thing as dreaming of revolution for no reason at all.

‘If I told him I came from a future where I saw the revolution succeed, he’d obviously just think I was out of my mind.’

“Because this revolution will succeed.”

Having finished my thought, I looked at Yangban Mask and opened my mouth.

“That is why I threw myself into the revolution.”

Yangban Mask, having heard my answer, only looked at me without responding.

The reason for throwing oneself into a revolution that could not possibly succeed——being that the revolution will succeed.

What kind of idiotic koan was this, anywhere in the world. (+) ^[1] TLN: Koan refers to a kind of paradoxical question, statement, or dialogue used in Zen practice to provoke deep thought or enlightenment rather than logical answers.

But I could say these words with more confidence than anyone else in Joseon.

Because I know how their revolution unfolded.

What they knew, and what they gained.

What they did not know, and what they lost.

And as a result, how they set this country of Joseon ablaze.

Only I knew all of it.

“The rule of the power clans will fall.”

And so I simply answer.

Without a single word of falsehood.

I only speak what I know, without deceit.

“It will. Without fail.”

---

Beep.

“1,200 won.”

“The price just halved out of nowhere?”

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s the owner’s orders.”

After exchanging words with the smiling part-timer, Changwoon stepped out of the convenience store with both hands full of snacks. From what could be heard, it seemed he meant to share them with the children at the church.

“What do you think?”

As Yangban Mask stood watching his retreating figure in silence, a tall man’s silhouette appeared behind him.

Hahoe’s foremost combat operative——Imae mask.

He had been on standby behind Yangban Mask from the very beginning, cloaked in optical camouflage.

“We will need a new mask for our collaborator.”

A new mask.

As though turning over its meaning, Yangban Mask continued:

“Grant him access to read information two classification levels up, and provide him with additional equipment. If necessary, arrange meetings with the ‘patrons’ in each region as well.”

“I will prepare without delay.”

Imae mask bowed deeply at those words and withdrew.

Shortly after, the agents who had been concealed throughout the hideout converged on Yangban Mask.

Halmi. Jung. Tteokdari. Gaksi. Bune. Seonbi. Baekjong. (+) ^[2] TLN:할미 (Halmi): old grandmother; represents the common elderly woman. 중 (Jung): Buddhist monk. 떡다리 (Tteokdari): literally “rice cake legs”; a comical, bumbling figure. 각시 (Gaksi): young bride/maiden. 부네 (Bune): a concubine or secondary wife; associated with elegance and melancholy. 선비 (Seonbi): Confucian scholar/literati. 백정 (Baekjeong): butcher; the lowest social caste in Joseon, often used to represent the oppressed commoner

A crowd of masks gathered around him.

“I will not tell you to set your suspicions aside. Your judgment of that boy is something each of you must reach separately.”

At Yangban Mask’s words, the agents slowly bowed their heads.

Yangban Mask looked around at them, and called to mind the conversation he had just had with Changwoon.

‘The rule of the power clans will fall.’

‘It will. Without fail.’

He had said it without a moment’s hesitation, without a moment’s doubt.

A conviction that even the Yangban Masks of generations past, who had fought the nobles for hundreds of years, had not dared put into words, and here a fifteen-year-old boy had expressed it.

Was it pride in his own abilities?

Or merely the recklessness that young fire tends to display?

For now, there was no way to know.

And yet….

“Even in my youth, I never dared speak such words. And yet that young thing says them with such certainty.”

Having finished speaking, Yangban Mask slowly drew something from within his robes.

A notebook bound in the Chinese style.

A book made by old methods, not out of place if displayed in a museum.

“Year 327 of Gwangmu. Month -, Day -, Gihae.”

A small drone holding a brush rose into the air, and Yangban Mask’s words began to be inscribed into the old-fashioned book.

“A bloodline born of our ancient enemy has opened his mouth and put all other flames to shame. It is as though a fire has been rekindled in this dying heart.”

While Yangban Mask’s words continued, the agents around him did not venture to open their mouths.

“A certain Buddhist said that even in the deepest filth, flowers bloom——these words hold true. The blade destined to pierce the hearts of the old usurpers lay hidden in the very seeds they sowed….”

As though expelling a long-held resentment, Yangban Mask’s voice was recorded, one word at a time.

To speak what one has witnessed and weave it into writing.

To record it and pass it down to those who come after.

That was, for Hahoe, the most important work of all—

And their task, which had walked alongside the history of this land.

“The historian records.”

The old man’s voice was engraved.

In one corner of that composed voice, a fervor not felt in a long time was still turning.

• 1. TLN: Koan refers to a kind of paradoxical question, statement, or dialogue used in Zen practice to provoke deep thought or enlightenment rather than logical answers.
• 2. TLN:할미 (Halmi): old grandmother; represents the common elderly woman. 중 (Jung): Buddhist monk. 떡다리 (Tteokdari): literally “rice cake legs”; a comical, bumbling figure. 각시 (Gaksi): young bride/maiden. 부네 (Bune): a concubine or secondary wife; associated with elegance and melancholy. 선비 (Seonbi): Confucian scholar/literati. 백정 (Baekjeong): butcher; the lowest social caste in Joseon, often used to represent the oppressed commoner