The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 51

Gathering Joseon’s eight lowborn castes and turning this country upside down.

Bold words, but in truth my position right now was pitifully meager.

A handful of guards at best, one casino, a handful of street Sword Pact members.

No matter how I looked at it, trying to overturn a nation as vast as Joseon with this was simply too much.

‘To gather up this rabble and play at revolution, I’d need at least five years of preparation.’

But to say there had been no gains at all would be wrong.

The upper echelons of Joseon had been thrown into upheaval by the factional war between the Pungyang Jo and Andong Kim clans, leaving them with no capacity to monitor the underground levels of Hanseong where the lower classes lived.

And in the meanwhile, the casino run by myself and the proprietress, flying the dated name ‘Pyeongwoon Casino,’ had begun extracting money with great enthusiasm.

“I won! I won! Yeaaah!”

The mistresses of aristocratic households, drunk on the taste of gambling they hadn’t indulged in for ages, poured money in without restraint.

“Remarkable. To think this much money could be withdrawn on the spot…….”

“Withdrawn? Please don’t say things that invite misunderstanding, my lord. This is money you ‘happened to win through good fortune,’ is it not?”

“Ah, ah yes! That’s, that’s right! Ha ha ha! Here, take this! A tip for you!”

To wealthy patrons who brought dirty money, we offered ‘hospitality gambling,’ handing over large ‘gambling winnings,’ well-laundered funds, and collected our service fee.

An entertainment facility that bled the unwitting aristocrats dry, and at the same time a tax haven for high-ranking aristocrats.

The revenue structure built this way generated a truly astronomical sum of money.

Normally, astronomical sums of money came with equally astronomical taxes, but even that posed no particular problem.

“Are you saying this is really all there is? And for a gambling facility, of all things?”

“As I have repeatedly stated, the majority of Pyeongwoon Casino’s profits are allocated to poverty relief and infrastructure projects in the lowest district.”

The casino’s middle floor, the proprietress’s office.

The inspector dispatched from the Administration could only click his tongue looking at the data displayed on his visual interface.

“For your reference, this project is one being pushed forward by Young Master Kim Changwoon of the Andong Kim clan. The business plan is right here, and if you are suspicious, would you like to audit that directly as well? Your name, Inspector, was…….”

“Ah, no! No! You are doing such good work, I’ve taken far too much of your time, ha, haha……!”

The moment the Andong Kim name was invoked, the inspector’s expression went pale in an instant.

Naturally.

Whatever the business might be, if a power clan was sitting at the top, audits and the like were entirely useless endeavors.

Having operated this paradise on earth in Hanseong, free from taxation, surveillance, or interference, for about half a year.

My accounts had an unimaginable amount of money piled up that I couldn’t even count properly.

‘How much is all of this?’

‘W, wow…….’

The expressions of the guards who had gone vacant when I showed them the account details were still vivid.

An enormous sum large enough to buy a decent factory complex or a mid-level skyscraper outright with cash.

On this alone I could have lived in idle luxury in Hanseong’s uppermost levels for a lifetime, but regrettably I had no intention of quietly taking this money and retiring.

If revolution came as it had in the original history, this money would become worthless scrap paper within ten years.

So what in the world should I spend this extraordinary fortune on?

The answer was one.

‘Invest every last coin into the revolution.’

And so, starting from the casino as my operational base, I began pouring money under my name into every corner of Hanseong’s underground district.

At first I had been content with simple charity work, helping the poor, distributing food, running free meal programs.

Play the decent aristocrat at that level, shed a few tears whenever lower-class folk died, and that would be that.

From that point I would be the Maitreya Buddha reborn in the underground district, a faceless angel, and gathering the talent needed to build Eight Outcasts Society would come quickly enough, I had thought.

But there was something I had overlooked.

That this series of actions, pouring money into the underground levels, was far more enjoyable than I had expected.

“Buy up all the real estate in the lowest district! Start building residential complexes first. Hire locals, pay their wages on time, and get the food situation sorted out!”

“Anyone who cuts in trying to speculate on real estate, gangsters who crawl in trying to collect tolls and site fees, have Killing Pact round them all up and kill them. Still coming after that? Then strip their parents, siblings, children, every last relative they have.”

“Next, the water trade! Can we shut it down? Could shutting it down actually shut it down? Just go through the motions of catching them, let them go loosely, and just map out the establishments. The exception: anyone selling children gets destroyed without exception. No coercion, only those who want to do it.”

“The underground shopping district! Be merciless only with the ones gouging customers, let the rest sort themselves out! Anyone hoarding goods to manipulate prices, I’ll personally source the product and give it away for free, so tell them if they don’t want their business ruined they’d better behave!”

“Especially you itinerant merchants bringing goods from Japan! How does it make sense for figure prices to be three times the local price? They’re expensive enough as it is, and every time I go to hand out gifts to the orphanage kids do you know how much it costs…! Hey, that one! That bastard right there is the one who cornered all the limited-edition Lurupong figures this season! Catch him!”

I poured the enormous sums the casino generated into the underground district.

A fortune large enough to swim in, poured in continuously for an entire year without pause.

Until the account was empty.

The account endlessly filled, endlessly emptied, every coin poured into the underground district.

About a year spent pouring in money and manpower like that.

“Now it finally feels worth having cut those windows.”

“Right? Before, everything outside was so black you couldn’t see anything.”

At the proprietress’s murmured words, full of deep feeling, I muttered in a daze.

The casino building, about three times taller than before, and beside it the orphanage building, expanded to about twelve times its original size.

And below it all, the dazzling night view of the underground levels.

Looking at the scenery outside, transformed beyond recognition, I was only now able to grasp it.

This had gone too far.

‘How did…. how did things get this way?’

The beginning had clearly been charity work.

A few coins, a few bowls of rice, free meals.

I had meant to stop there.

And in the middle of it, there were things that bothered me, so I had only meant to send some people to fix them a little at a time.

But when I came to my senses, this was where things stood.

What had started as small-scale charity had transformed somewhere along the way into a large-scale economic development project encompassing the entire underground level.

And the residents living in the underground levels had transformed from day-laborer beggars to industrial workers carving out a future through their own blood and sweat.

Things had grown.

Far beyond what I had imagined.

But by the time I realized it, everything was already too far gone.

Hanseong’s underground levels were becoming their own economic zone, operating with its own ecosystem and rule of law.

And my establishment, Pyeongwoon Casino, had become the center of this vast Hanseong underground economy.

“How? No, what, how does this level of development happen in just one year?”

“Well…. Young master, you invested all of the casino profits into the surrounding infrastructure. Every last coin.”

“And that alone produces an effect like this?”

When I asked back in evident confusion, the proprietress shrugged and elaborated.

“It was a district that had been more or less abandoned for hundreds of years, so real estate was practically free. Construction materials are locally produced. Anyone skimming money gets killed by Killing Pact…. it’s not impossible for this to happen, is it?”

Right. That was why.

No real estate costs, no bribing jurisdictional officials, no construction materials or labor costs siphoned off in the middle.

Put money in and results came out in proportion, so I grew more excited and poured in everything I had.

And the result was this sight before me.

“But young master, you don’t look very pleased. Things worked out this well, isn’t that good?”

When Min Jeonghwan, who had been working through the pile of rice cakes in one corner of the office, asked, I answered with a faint sigh.

“It is good. Yes. Not a bad situation.”

As he said, thinking about plans going forward, it could even be called a fortunate development.

Either way, this underground level would need to play a role in the revolution that was coming in the future, and for that it would need, sooner or later, the economic strength and power to match.

Making use of this opportunity, while the nobles were in the middle of a factional war, to expand influence.

That itself was not a bad judgment.

But.

“The problem is time.”

“Time?”

I looked at Min Jeonghwan asking back and nodded.

“We can’t afford to be moving too quickly even if we’re being careful not to get noticed, and we’ve expanded influence far too rapidly. Things are fine now while everything is in an uproar over the Pungyang Jo affair, but….”

“When that wraps up, the people living in Hanseong’s upper levels won’t leave this place alone.”

The one who picked up my thought was the proprietress, looking out the window.

She had known it was precarious all along.

I continued with a light sigh.

“The organization isn’t properly sorted out yet, and information concealment is sloppy. And yet the scale has ballooned explosively in an instant…. if we keep going like this, the power clan families in the city’s uppermost levels will start getting involved.”

“Unfamiliar faces in the area have been increasing noticeably for a while now, so it seems they’ve already caught the scent. Given the current political climate they’re not moving carelessly yet, but….”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

Word that there were changes in the underground levels had leaked out long ago.

The enormous profits this casino was generating had very likely reached aristocratic ears as well.

The “unfamiliar faces” the proprietress mentioned were informants sent by the power clan families who had gotten wind of it.

Jackals that had slipped in everywhere, watching my operations and licking their lips.

“To work so hard building a business only to have to worry about it disappearing on a power clan’s whim…. the more I think about it, the more unfair it is. Is this any way to run a business?”

The proprietress shook her head as though her resources could offer no solution, and said.

“Exactly. Make a bit of money and they come rushing to bite at you or think about how to take it…. one might turn to treason just out of spite.”

“Pfft.”

“Heh heh heh.”

When I said the word treason out loud, the proprietress and Min Jeonghwan twisted their lips.

From the outside, nothing but a gambling hall built for aristocrats to play with their money.

But in truth, a den of traitors preparing a revolution with aristocrats’ money.

I had gotten caught up in it and started everything, but looking back it was an absurd method.

Had dying and coming back to life turned my head or what.

“Do you have a plan, young master?”

“Hmm. Should I try clinging to one of those aristocrats’ coattails?”

I said it playfully, but it was not a situation to pass off lightly.

Even as a member of the Andong Kim clan, I was nothing but a powerless illegitimate son.

Against nameless aristocrats or mid-level businesses it might be different, but if power clan families like Bannam Park or Haepyeong Yoon pushed in, there was no countermeasure.

“After all the effort put into building this business, having to worry about it vanishing at a power clan’s whim…. the time to pay the bill for the feast is drawing closer, and I have neither money nor time on my side….”

Fling!

In the middle of saying that, the office door swung open and two guards appeared.

Taewoong, and Mooyoung.

Perhaps they had just been in the middle of a sparring match.

Steam was rising from Taewoong’s arms, and characteristic black smoke drifted lazily from Mooyoung’s body.

“……I’m not keen on it, but has the time come to use the father card?”

“Pardon?”

I gave a pat on the shoulder of Mooyoung, who asked back in confusion, then turned to Taewoong standing beside him.

“The letter Lord Kim Jungheon said he would send. It arrived the day before yesterday, didn’t it.”

“Yes. Right here.”

I had come out with the main topic without preamble, but Taewoong seemed prepared and immediately transferred a document file.

A document transmitted through the Andong Kim clan’s security module.

When decoding was complete, a command document bearing the Administration’s seal appeared as a hologram before my eyes.

‘When the time comes I will send word, so enter the palace with haste.’

A single sentence Kim Jungheon had given me when he had appeared at the casino without warning.

Under ordinary circumstances I would have put it off with every excuse I could find, or watched for a suitable moment to slip away.

But now there was this organization that had grown so large.

To protect Eight Outcasts Society, only just beginning to take shape, from the hands of other aristocrats.

I needed powerful authority that would not be crushed by their power.

Such as what Kim Jungheon had proposed to me.

This ‘official post’ handed down from the Administration.

“Sometimes you have no choice but to stake your life and walk into the tiger’s mouth.”

I brought my hand to the interface floating before me.

A reply to be shown to Kim Jungheon.

Stating that, honoring the clan head’s command, I would enter the palace as a member of the family.

“Young master……!”

“It’s fine.”

Taewoong called out to me, startled.

Of all people, accepting Kim Jungheon’s proposal.

In my previous life, it was a recklessly dangerous judgment I would never have made.

But what could be done.

To turn this country upside down, it was something I would have had to face sooner or later.

“Let’s go pay a visit to the main family. It’s been a while since I’ve offered my regards.”

If I was going to get cold feet now over someone like Kim Jungheon, I wouldn’t have uttered a word about revolution in the first place.