The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 43

A full month had passed since the chaotic project to crack open Hanseong had concluded in success.

Jo Seonghwan’s death had thrown the noble class into utter chaos.

Kim Jungheon was racing around commanding the senior figures of the Andong Kim clan to quell the turmoil.

And Kim Hyunwoo, for his part, was busy flaunting his abilities before the whole world and building up his own faction.

Joseon’s political scene at this moment was, in short, a den of demons——a tangle of intrigue unfolding among the noble houses.

So then——what was I, the man at the center of all those events, doing during this perilous time?

Thwack!

“Oh?! It landed! It landed!”

“Excellent shot, Lord Jeong!”

I was applauding and cheering without any soul in it, watching a red ball fly high into the sky.

Where I was now was a jegichagi field at the very top tier of Hanseong. (+) ^[1] TLN: Jegichagi is a Korean traditional outdoor game in which players kick a paper jegi into the air and attempt to keep it aloft. A jegi is similar to a shuttlecock, and is made from paper wrapped around a small coin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jegichagi

Watching horses run and play on a sandy ground like this, it was hard to believe this was 23rd-century Joseon.

“My luck is good today! The ball just feels like it’s sticking to me!”

“Hey! Young Master Changwoon!”

Lord Jeong, the host of this jegichagi match, came over and started poking me in the back.

The nobles gathered here were second-rate aristocrats who had not risen to the rank of distinguished families, drifting from one idle post to the next.

Like any noble family, money rotted in surplus, but they were worthless dregs with virtually no political influence.

What, you ask why I was suddenly playing jegichagi with aristocrats like these instead of with rough types like Hahoe or the proprietress?

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Appearances aside, I was working quite hard right now.

“What do you say? Want to play a round yourself next time?”

“Ah, I’ll pass on jegichagi. I have no particular skill at horsemanship.”

“My, a son of the distinguished Andong Kim family doesn’t know how to ride?”

“For a noble, equestrian pursuits like riding are supposed to be fundamental——how can you neglect them just because you’re born of a concubine?”

“Haha, please be lenient with me, my lord.”

Get a little familiar with them and they start chewing on your origins.

Habitually rude bastards.

Plastering a forced smile across my face, I understood what a 23rd-century salesman must feel like.

But sales had always been about endurance.

Diligently catering to the whims of noble elders like this, some kind of opportunity would inevitably come——one way or another.

For instance….

“Come to think of it, Young Master Changwoon.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“What you set up in the central district of Hanseong…. it was a casino, wasn’t it? Like the ones in Busan?”

“Ah, that?”

Just like this.

I received Lord Jeong’s words with an unimpressed expression.

“Some friends of mine said they wanted to try their hand at business, so I put up a bit of money for them. I only lent my name.”

“Is that so? For that, your name seems to come up quite a lot….”

“I just bought a small stake with the pocket money I’d saved up. I thought they were setting up a little playground, and then——it turned out to be far better-run than I expected.”

“A casino? It’s just fancy English dressing on a back-alley gambling den, isn’t it? In a grave time like this, something so vulgar….”

“Haha, you’re not wrong about that.”

A grave time.

He wasn’t wrong.

With the top noble house in Joseon currently being torn to pieces, lounging around gambling was bound to draw criticism——even from the most idle and worthless of aristocrats.

But look at those faces staring back at me.

The expression of a dog clutching a food bowl, waiting.

That wasn’t indifference. That was asking me to give them an excuse to walk through a gambling den’s doors.

‘Shall I start laying the bait?’

With a smile full of trustworthiness, I leaned in to whisper in those pigs’ ears.

“Young Master Kim Hyunwoo from the main house was kind enough to fund this venture as well, you see.”

“W-what?”

“Is that really true?”

As expected, the moment Kim Hyunwoo’s name came out, both of their faces changed at once.

‘Of course it’s true.’

It was money paid in exchange for providing evidence of Jo Seonghwan’s crimes, but the fact that Kim Hyunwoo had put funds into my establishment was true.

I began slowly working my tongue, adding a little seasoning to the business I’d built.

“The majority of profits coming from my establishment go primarily toward charitable work——poverty relief, donations, running orphanages. It was precisely because the Young Master valued that aspect that he gave permission for something like this to operate.”

“H, hm….”

“I had no idea there was such a story behind it….”

The nobles were nodding as if they understood perfectly well, but there was no way those people actually believed anything about charitable work.

In Joseon, the only ones who did things like that were complete lunatics or hopeless marks with nothing better to do.

‘The only word they’ll absorb is the name ‘Kim Hyunwoo.”

The top phase power user in Joseon and heir to the Andong Kim clan.

If someone like that entrusted money to an illegitimate wretch like me and built a casino?

There was only one thing they could imagine.

A slush fund.

The moment those two keywords——casino and Kim Hyunwoo——were combined, my establishment had become a tax haven for Kim Hyunwoo, the very man who ignited the recent purge.

“W, well then, Young Master Changwoon!”

Having finished their private daydreams, the old nobles pressed me further.

“Then perhaps the children of other power clan——no, distinguished families are also at that casino?”

“Yes. Since we haven’t had a formal opening yet, we weren’t able to accommodate many guests, but….”

Here I pause deliberately, just like this.

“Was it the day before yesterday? The third concubine of the Yeohung Min family paid a visit, I was told.”

I glance at their expressions as I say this much.

The pigs’ eyes had changed.

From the eyes of hungry dogs to the eyes of dogs about to relieve themselves.

It seemed the bait had been taken properly.

“……Would you like to come and have a look?”

Before my words even finished, both men’s faces were bobbing up and down.

They were already unable to sleep properly because of the bloodshed sweeping through the top tier, and now a gambling den with Andong Kim’s backing had appeared.

On top of that, if it was a place frequented by members of distinguished families like the Yeohung Min, they would figure they could stamp their own faces there as well.

I immediately opened a line and called the proprietress, who would be in the middle of a busy stretch.

“Proprietress. You know the coordinates I just sent? Get one VIP helicopter out there now.”

-Young Master, they bit again already? How many this time?

My, “how many.”

Counting our esteemed nobles by the head like that——such irreverent language won’t do.

“Two people. When they arrive, assign a dedicated staff member and treat them with the utmost hospitality. Understood?”

-When you slaughter a pig, you suck it dry from head to marrow. Give me just a moment.

How much time had passed?

A helicopter sent from the casino landed softly at the landing pad set up in one corner of the field.

Staff members in neat attire, bowing their heads with courteous manner.

Once I handed Lord Jeong and his companion into their care, my work here was done.

What remained was for our proprietress——with over thirty years in the gambling business——to roast those nobles to perfection.

‘At first they’ll make excuses: getting acquainted with children of distinguished families, supporting Kim Hyunwoo’s political funds…. but that’s only a matter of time.’

Waiting for the nobles who had set foot in a casino for the first time were agents recruited from Pyeongwoon Tavern.

Once they began conditioning the clientele through regular events and every variety of marketing technique, what would happen to nobles who were itching to play?

They’d sink in endlessly.

Because that’s simply the nature of gambling.

“Oh, is our Young Master here?”

After dropping those clueless noble pigs into the swamp of gambling like that—

I strolled into the casino office at my leisure, and the proprietress, who had been working busily, handed me something.

A neatly organized stack of documents.

Something made of paper, a rare sight in this day and age.

“It’s this month’s profit report. Net profit after my salary and the staff’s first paychecks and bonuses, plus all overhead costs.”

Paper documents in a 23rd century that digitized even a village school’s supply lists.

Anyone would see it as an outdated way of doing business, but this was my own know-how built up from a past life.

The 23rd century——where hackers and information-harvesting AI ran rampant.

Paradoxically, something as analog as this worked best for maintaining security in a place like that.

“Hard to believe even when you see it, isn’t it? Tens of billions piling up in a gambling den that hasn’t even been running a month.”

I shook the documents in my hand as I spoke.

Net monthly profit: 42 billion won.

I had set the house edge——the rake——high under the pretense of charitable work, and money was gushing out.

“It’s hundreds of times more than I earned in my entire life. And what’s even more astonishing than that…. is that we’ve only utilized five percent of the entire casino facility.”

The proprietress said this with an air of being thoroughly fed up, then gazed at the casino building visible through the monitor installed in the director’s office.

In the fully completed 10th-floor VIP lounge, the roughly one hundred nobles I had brought in were laughing and chatting and throwing their money into the ground.

And the remaining floors——one through nine.

There, thousands of gaming machines and gaming tables were waiting for the guests who would someday come to them.

“Young Master.”

“Go ahead.”

“The garbage nobles you’re bringing in now are at best priming the pump, aren’t they? The real thing comes after.”

“Sharp as ever, proprietress.”

She was right.

The noble heirs who would follow those people in, corporate chiefs, executives, envoys from Japan and the Central Plains.

I intended to pull in every wealthy person who came to Hanseong.

The largest entertainment establishment in Hanseong, and the central hub through which all manner of black money would flow.

And when the time came, I would take that money and vanish.

To General Yoo Sanghyeon, building his strength in the northeast.

“If we’re expanding operations this much…. our gang won’t be enough. We need more people.”

“How many more?”

“At least twenty thousand on direct payroll. Running an operation this large requires at minimum that many.”

Twenty thousand people.

A jaw-dropping number, but not impossible.

Under normal circumstances I would have planned to establish a training institution, build a curriculum, and funnel the talent raised there into the operation…. but the issue was time.

Sitting around doing all that, the revolution would break out before the casino was even ready to open.

Then there was only one option.

I had no choice but to bring people from other establishments.

“Is it doable?”

“My, saying it like that hurts my pride.”

After gauging the number of people needed and asking the proprietress, she gave me a visible smirk.

“I may not look it, but I’m the woman who dominated half of the special administration district. My prime is here again——do you think there’s anything I can’t do right now?”

Eyes charged with a fighter’s distinctive competitive spirit.

As a business partner to work alongside, it was the best set of eyes imaginable.

I bared my teeth and passed the documents I was holding to the proprietress.

“For the time being, I’ll be living broke. The money here, and the profits coming to me going forward——pour all of it in. In exchange.”

I looked the proprietress in the eyes and spoke.

“Get the entire operation running within six months. Can you do it?”

At those words, the corner of the proprietress’s mouth curled upward.

“Three months is plenty.”

The smile on her face showed no sign of leaving.

Unlike my past life, it seemed that this time I had chosen an absolutely outstanding business partner.

• 1. TLN: Jegichagi is a Korean traditional outdoor game in which players kick a paper jegi into the air and attempt to keep it aloft. A jegi is similar to a shuttlecock, and is made from paper wrapped around a small coin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jegichagi