The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 45

“Gugh?!”

Had he finally come to?

The man looked around frantically, as though regaining his senses.

Perhaps the cleanly arranged space was unfamiliar. Watching him roll his eyes this way and that, I spoke to him slowly.

“Awake?”

At the sound of my voice, the Sword Pact man immediately looked toward me.

Me, in my blue durumagi, watching him with complete composure.

He could easily guess the situation.

That he had tried to kill a noble in the underground district, failed, and been captured and dragged here.

“……Heh.”

As though realizing what position he was in, his expression hardened coldly.

Clank—!

“What—?!”

“Ghhhhh—!”

The moment he tried to initiate his next move, a mechanical sound rang out and his body froze in place.

Blood flowing from his mouth.

Taewoong, who had been standing by behind him, pried his mouth open——blood was pouring freely from his tongue.

“He tried to bite through his tongue and kill himself. If the movement-control chip had activated any later, he would have died on the spot.”

“Unbelievable. Trying to kill himself the moment he opens his eyes——is this guy completely out of his mind?”

I shook my head in disgust and spoke.

“Trying to die without saying a single word. Is your life worth so little to you?”

“Ptui!”

As though finding me contemptible, the Sword Pact man spat in my direction. A spray of blood-flecked saliva flew——but unfortunately didn’t reach where I was sitting.

“I’ve got no particular attachment to being alive. I killed around fifteen of them this time, did I? Every last one was a piece of trash, so I have no regrets.”

Soon fully resigned, he began sneering with a hollow laugh.

“But——right. If there’s one thing I regret….”

His gaze moved to Taewoong, standing guard behind me.

“Not getting to put my blade in your throat because of that bodyguard there? That part’s a little disappointing.”

Twisting his blood-soaked face, he shouted toward Taewoong:

“Impressive artificial body you’ve got there, old man! Should’ve licked some noble backsides myself! Then maybe my arms and legs wouldn’t ache so much, right? Heh heh heh……!”

At the provocation-laden sneering, Taewoong’s eyebrow twitched.

Having spent a lifetime guarding high-ranking nobles, he had built up no immunity to this kind of taunting.

I stepped in front of Taewoong and moved one pace forward.

‘Enough venom to bite through his own tongue——and from the way he talks, he knows how to use that tongue of his.’

I clicked my tongue looking at the Sword Pact man glaring at me.

From my past-life experience, this one ranked among the upper tier even within Sword Pact.

“Name, Min Jeonghwan…. an alias, most likely. Age, thirty-five. Class-2 wanted criminal. Fifteen murders, twenty arsons, three bombings, property destruction in the hundreds…. the other members of your group have quite the records too.”

I sat down and recited his personal information from the constabulary database. Min Jeonghwan, looking at me, gave a derisive snort.

“A little rat of a brat playing constable chief? Give it a rest and just kill me.”

“I’m not interrogating you——I’m asking questions. A man who kills this many nobles doesn’t take anything worth money. Watching it, I found it strange.”

“I told you to kill me.”

I leaned back against the chair and continued.

“So tell me your story. Why do you kill nobles?”

“…Why should I have to tell you that?”

“Because depending on your answer, I might let you go——and beyond that, I might be able to help your organization.”

“Get bent.”

He let out a hollow laugh as though he couldn’t believe it, then his face twisted.

“Whether you torture me or do whatever filthy thing you want, none of it’ll do any good. I’ve got nothing to say to noble scum like you, and no life to beg for. Understood?”

“…….”

“So stop wasting time and kill me already! Kill me! Hurry—!”

Just when I thought he’d calmed down, he was thrashing again trying to break his restraints.

Refusing even an offer to let him live and pushing back like this.

Well——this was someone who’d tried to kill himself rather than bow his head before a noble, so what could you expect.

But at the same time, the smile forming at the corner of my mouth was deepening.

Having finished my thought, I reached into my clothes and tossed something.

It landed with a thud——the pale jade Andong Kim identification tag, glowing its faint color.

Min Jeonghwan’s eyes went wide at the sight of it.

“What the——Andong Kim? I knew you were a noble, but you’re even bigger than I thought……!”

“Not that. Look more closely.”

At my words, he looked at the tag with an air of what are you talking about——then his expression grew complicated.

The color of the characters engraved on the identification tag.

His gaze had landed on my name, tinted yellow.

“……An illegitimate son?”

“A bastard-born would be getting off easy.”

I gave a scoffing laugh and told him:

“You’re looking at a half-blood scraping out from a commoner’s belly.”

Perhaps my hollow self-introduction left him dumbfounded.

“……Tsk. Of all people to stumble onto last, it had to be a half-witted noble.”

Min Jeonghwan muttered a curse in a reluctant voice.

One notable thing was that the intense hostility he had shown until now had noticeably softened.

‘The venom eased the moment he found out I was illegitimate. Which means——this one knows a thing or two about people in that position.’

While I was absorbed in that thought, Min Jeonghwan glanced at me for a moment and opened his mouth with a disgruntled air:

“Seeing as you’ve got a bodyguard that capable, you’re practically in the same camp as the nobles.”

“If that were the case, I’d have reported you to the main house the moment I captured you. The Andong Kim intelligence bureau and the Royal Investigative Bureau would have worked hand in hand to crack open your head, and you and your comrades would have been seized at once and publicly executed.”

Since that wasn’t wrong, Min Jeonghwan had no choice but to close his mouth.

If I had intended to kill him or extract information, I could have done so at any time.

“And one more thing. You and your friends actually owe me thanks right now.”

“Owe you thanks? What are you suddenly……!”

Min Jeonghwan was halfway into a sneer at my words—

“I’m the one who killed Jo Seonghwan.”

At those words from my mouth, coming without warning, he was unable to say anything for a long while.

But one thing was certain.

The gaze looking at my face had visibly changed.

“So. Are you willing to have a conversation with me now?”

Getting to talk with someone is painfully difficult.

This is why sword-fighters are exhausting.

---

“Impossible!”

I told Min Jeonghwan, kneeling before me, a great deal.

The exposure of the Pungyang Jo clan’s experiments.

The tearing open of a Rift in the middle of Hanseong.

And finally——engineering Jo Seonghwan’s death at Kim Hyunwoo’s hands.

“All of those incidents were plotted by you…. no, by you, sir?”

Of course, at first he seemed not to believe me.

But the Choraengi mask inside my clothes—

When I held up something made directly by Hahoe before his eyes, he had no choice but to accept what I was saying.

“Unbelievable. The entire Pungyang Jo clan getting obliterated, and the thousands of nobles dying as collateral…! All of it is thanks to a single person——you——is what you’re saying!”

“Single-handed, please. I couldn’t have done any of it without Hahoe’s support.”

That was truly the case.

It had been the same just now, catching Jo Seonghwan.

Preparing a spawning-season monster.

Switching out the cargo through tight security.

And buying time until Kim Hyunwoo arrived.

I had planned the operation, but executing it had required borrowing Hahoe’s hands.

“In other words, right now I can devise plans, but I don’t have the power to carry them out. Well, if I’m really pressed for time I could always go through Hahoe again, like this time, but….”

I recalled the Yangban Mask I had met before, and shook my head.

“I don’t want to.”

It wasn’t a bad option as far as options went.

They had the cause of changing Joseon, and the intelligence capability and skilled operatives to act on it.

If I could keep using them indefinitely, that would be ideal.

But Yangban Mask.

That meeting with the old snake had made one thing clear.

If I kept going back to borrow their hands, once, twice, again and again—

I would become Hahoe’s dog in this life.

Tap.

Having finished my thought, I closed the folder I was holding.

Collaborators who shared a similar purpose and a common enemy.

My relationship with Hahoe was fine at this level.

As long as I had one foot inside the power clan houses, placing one hundred percent trust in those people was impossible.

“That’s why I need an organization right now.”

An organization with independent military force, intelligence networks, and a source of funding.

A massive force that moves for me alone.

“Is that why you’re recruiting me?”

“Good, you’re quick.”

I intended to use this chaotic situation——thrown into disorder by the purge——to secure as many people as possible who would follow my orders.

And the first candidate who came to mind was the man kneeling before me.

“Why us, specifically?”

Min Jeonghwan, seeming to acknowledge I wasn’t an enemy and lowering his guard, spoke.

“I don’t want to say it myself, but men who handle a blade better than us….”

“Are everywhere. Hire a single mercenary company and you can get a truckload of people your level.”

He looked somewhat stung in his pride and dropped his head——but what could he do? It was simply the truth.

The age-old tradition of this country Joseon was pouring every last won you had into educating your children.

Exceptionally capable people were lying around to be tripped over on every street corner.

“But when it comes down to it, those abilities and talents…. turn out to matter less than you’d think.”

“What?”

I looked at the artificial body parts people around me were wearing.

“This is an era where every citizen in the country has neural interfaces implanted and swaps out their limbs for artificial bodies. Ability, talent…. it’s an age where money solves everything.”

Physical capability?

Pick any random person, install one artificial spine, and you get reflexes rivaling any athlete.

Install a Grade 2 artificial body and they’re flying between buildings——so what use is natural strength or build?

Intelligence?

Even simpler.

Replace the neural interface with a new model and upload the data.

While you’re at it, attach a combat-support information processing module as an add-on? From that day forward, the person is a swordsman who would make Cheok Jungyeong blush and a strategist who would put Yi Sunshin to shame.

Of course, getting that level of performance out of it would cost an astronomically literal fortune.

‘Unless you’re a monster——born with the special genetic factors that carry phase power, or a genius who comes along once a century——human abilities are more or less all the same in the end.’

For that reason, what I was looking for now was not capable people.

“I need people who are mad about something.”

People mad about a cause, mad about an ideology, mad about a grudge.

People who, even with limbs blown off, even with family and kin taken hostage and threatened——didn’t blink an eye and pressed forward for their purpose.

Those were the people I wanted.

‘Thinking back, it honestly nearly drove me mad.’

I must have thought it dozens of times.

Killing seemed like the only answer, but they wouldn’t die quietly either.

From the perspective of someone who had to contain them——how exhausting it had been.

And if I could use people like that as my own hands and feet——how much easier my work would become.

“I need to gather people who will bring down the power clans, so what use would hired hands be? The moment the noble lords drop some money into their accounts, they’d be stabbing us in the back.”

“……!”

“Betrayal for money, betrayal for power, and the ones who actually seem decent——betrayal because their families got threatened. What a mess that would be.”

Bitter experience from a past life.

But the man in front of me now——he was someone there was no need to worry about that with.

I pointed a finger at Min Jeonghwan’s chest and spoke.

“People like you who have something here. Crazy, stubborn bastards who are more than willing to burn themselves alive for it. Those are the people I need.”

Riding on people like that, I could become something similar to them myself.

I held a contract in front of Min Jeonghwan’s trembling eyes.

“So pass word to your comrades.”

“Pass what word?”

“That if they become my blade, I’ll give the Killing Pact the chance to kill every last noble in Joseon.”

The contents of the contract, in summary, were simple.

Kill whoever I designate.

Kill no one I have not designated.

Seeing it, Min Jeonghwan’s lips twisted involuntarily.

“One question. If we refuse?”

“Then I’d have to kill you. Your friends too.”

I shrugged with the brief answer.

“What else can I do? On the off chance anything I told you leaked out——that’s treason for me.”

“Right, fair enough! Heh heh heh…!”

He laughed to himself for a while.

“Fine. I’ll gladly beg for my life. But!”

Min Jeonghwan straightened his posture, dropped to one knee, and spoke.

“In exchange for signing that contract, promise me just one thing.”

A firm voice and eyes burning with hatred.

The eyes of a stubborn man I had killed countless times in my past life, now pointed at me.

“Min Seungchan, the head of the Yeohung Min clan.”

“…….”

“Let me be the one to kill that bastard.”

“Write the name in the special addendum.”

His resolute bearing drew out a smile before I could stop it.

To think that in my life, a day would come where I’d have a man with those eyes working at my command.

“As long as you survive under me——I’ll make sure you’re the one who kills him.”

Contract concluded.

With this, the Killing Pact had become the blade that, under my orders, would cut down nobles.

I was savoring the satisfaction of my newly acquired weapon—

Beep-beep.

“Hm?”

A short signal came from the Choraengi mask inside my clothes.

Video data sent by Imae mask.

When I projected the footage onto my visual interface, a familiar scene came into view.

“……This idiot.”

My casino on the first ground-level tier.

A group of Sword Pact men had been captured hovering around its perimeter.

On the surface, it looked like nothing more than a common scene.

But at the center of it, glaring in all directions, stood a man——and the moment I saw him, a hollow laugh escaped my lips before I knew it.

“He actually tracked me down and came all the way here?”

The Pungyang Jo clan’s steward who had worked alongside me in Busan.

It was Koo Junghyuk.