The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 52

“Haahhhmm.”

I stepped out of the car with a jaw-splitting yawn.

Six in the morning.

The reason I’d come to the Andong Kim main estate at this ungodly hour was simple enough.

The official post that Kim Jungheon had promised to bestow upon me.

A letter had arrived saying the preparations were complete.

“I’m dead tired. If it’s an appointment ceremony, shouldn’t it be held at a more reasonable hour? What’s with the crack-of-dawn dress uniforms and formal greetings….”

“Please lower your voice a little, young master. Someone will hear.”

“I want them to hear! While I’m at it — paper letters in the 23rd century? Hanji, no less? No matter how much they go on about tradition, at this point it’s a disease.” (+) ^[1] TLN: Hanji (한지) is traditional Korean handmade paper. It’s mainly used for writing, calligraphy,and books and official records

“Young master….”

Coming back to our dear family home after so long must have loosened my tongue.

As I went on grumbling with Taewoong walking behind me, a cluster of old men gathered in one corner of the estate turned to look my way.

“Kim Changwoon? How does a lowborn wretch with no phase power end up here?”

The elders of the Andong Kim clan.

Old men who had retired from the front lines and now did nothing but eat up the family’s money.

“Lord Kim Jungheon summoned him, I’m told. Said there was work to assign….”

“Work to assign — don’t tell me he means to grant a post? To that lowborn creature?”

“Even granting that he carries the head of house’s blood…. I cannot accept this no matter how I think about it. First they hound the Pungyang Jo clan, a house of genuine distinction, so mercilessly — and now they bring something like that into the main estate…!”

“The order of this Joseon is crumbling.”

Old pigs.

I offered a polite bow toward the elders muttering among themselves, but they shot me one cold glance and turned away.

That familiar gaze of contempt and disdain.

Half a year since I’d last seen their faces, yet it felt as natural as if I’d seen them five minutes ago.

“Didn’t I tell you to lower your voice.”

“Would lowering my voice make those fossils look any more pleasant? They’re all the same either way.”

Taewoong said that after watching the elders’ cold reception, but I only shrugged as if it were nothing.

“Besides, it gives us a read on the household mood. That’s useful.”

“The household mood, young master?”

No one in this house was going to acknowledge me anyway.

I caught Taewoong walking behind me and let my idle mouth run a little more.

“Kim Jungheon is the supreme authority of the Andong Kim clan. You know that well enough, yes?”

“He possesses both power and the ability worthy of it.”

I nodded silently at Taewoong’s words.

After the assassination attempt, Taewoong’s loyalty toward the clan had shattered — but his assessment of the clan and its members had not changed along with it.

“Normally, even the elders wouldn’t openly badmouth the head of house like that. Word getting to the wrong ears could mean anything could happen to them, and there’s nothing to gain from speaking ill of Kim Jungheon.”

“Meaning things were quite different before.”

“Right. Those old men, who used to freeze at Kim Jungheon’s every breath, are now whining like dogs off their leash. What does that tell you?”

At the question, Taewoong’s mouth opened slowly.

“Are you saying Lord Kim Jungheon’s authority is wavering?”

“I’m saying the Andong Kim’s authority is wavering.”

Even a worm will squirm when stepped on. Even a cornered rat will bite a cat.

But worms and rats are creatures like me. The Pungyang Jo clan that the Andong Kim crushed — even at the most conservative estimate, they were something closer to a snake or a wild boar.

Meaning they would not simply lie down and be trampled.

“The Pungyang Jo clan has fallen, and most of its members have been stripped of noble status…. But as a result, the noble houses that do not align with the Andong Kim have begun rallying together far more quickly. That’s why the elders are whispering.”

In other words, the prediction I’d laid out for Yangban Mask was playing out exactly as expected.

The other clans, watching the Pungyang Jo’s destruction, had grown alarmed. They were growing more fiercely hostile toward the Andong Kim.

This was the fracturing of power clan politics.

The beginning of an enormous wave of change, set in motion by Jo Seonghwan’s death.

“So that is why Lord Kim Jungheon is granting you a post, young master.”

“I carry Andong Kim blood, so no risk of betrayal. I killed Jo Seonghwan, so my abilities have proven themselves useful. And being a lowborn illegitimate son, I’m perfect for using and discarding when the time comes.”

With that, I finished muttering to Taewoong and stepped into the private chamber. A group of palace attendants bowed their heads to receive me.

“Thank you for your trouble.”

With a brief acknowledgment, I entered the room, and the attendants led me inside without a word.

In the center of a dressing room without a speck of dust, a blue court uniform had been laid out neatly, waiting for me.

I let the attendants’ hands guide me into it, then looked at my reflection in the mirror.

“A post, for someone like me.”

Seeing myself dressed in that tidy court uniform, the ornate rank badge across my chest, a hollow laugh escaped me.

“The thing I could never obtain no matter how hard I tried, when I was living as the family’s dog — and now that I’ve set my mind to tearing that family apart, it falls into my hands this easily. Funny how it works.”

They say climbing stairs is hard, but descending is far too easy.

True as that was.

“It suits you well.”

“Flattery. Let’s go.”

I waved my hand and urged Taewoong along.

There was no time to linger in sentiment.

Once you decide to begin, you see it through to the end.

I checked my appearance one final time, then set off.

The destination: Gyeonghoeru Pavilion, west of Geunjeongjeon Hall.

Gazing from a distance at the lavish banquet hall floating above the ground, I could already see dozens of people gathered inside.

Young scions of distinguished families from across Joseon.

Promising young talents of this Joseon, each possessing both phase power and influence.

Each with their own interests.

Capable people who would tear into one another for their own ends.

What was I to do in the midst of that chaos?

What did I need to protect, and what could I extract from it?

Any number of variables and thoughts flashed through my mind, but my face was smiling.

In my previous life, I had racked my brain just to keep others pleased. Now it was different.

Whether the people gathered in there were aristocrats or otherwise, whether they were scions of prestigious power clans or heirs to powerful enterprises — to me, they were all, without exception, targets for purging someday.

My blood is running hot.

Seen from a certain angle, this treasonous business just might suit my temperament better than I’d thought.

---

“Hey. Over there.”

The moment I stepped into the banquet hall, the warm, lively air froze all at once.

“Kim Changwoon? What is that one doing here? And why is he wearing a court uniform?”

“Don’t tell me he was invited to this appointment ceremony too? He’s not even a phase ability user.”

“A post for an illegitimate wretch….”

Young men wearing the same court uniform as me were saying exactly what the old men had just said.

I glanced back to find that Taewoong had already taken his place in formation with the other clan guards, standing at attention.

Reading the looks the other guards directed at him, it seemed the treatment he received among them was no different from mine.

“Excuse me, would you be Kim Changwoon, Young Master?”

“Hm?”

I’d been letting the murmuring wash over me and standing there blankly when someone quietly spoke to me.

Someone addressing this unremarkable illegitimate wretch.

With a sense of vague surprise, I turned my gaze, and there was a young man with an open, earnest face, eyes lit with curiosity.

He looked to have just reached his twenties.

But seeing him, I narrowed my eyes slightly.

‘Who is this?’

Going by the light in his eyes, he was clearly a phase ability user, and his phase power reading looked quite high.

A prodigy, at the very least, even by conservative estimate.

Yet I had no memory of his face — and though I couldn’t say I’d never seen him at all, his face struck me as oddly familiar.

Had we met somewhere before?

Who was this?

“Yes, I’m Kim Changwoon…. and you are?”

“Ah, that. I apologize. I never expected to actually meet you in person….”

I answered with a touch of wariness, and the man gave an awkward smile, then extended his hand toward me.

“I’m Jeong Jihoon, from Donam. To think I’d get to meet someone whose name I’ve heard so much of…. It’s an honor.”

“Ah. Yes.”

Jeong Jihoon.

Of course I wouldn’t remember him, being from a rural private academy.

I accepted the handshake with a somewhat dazed expression, but my mind was growing increasingly unsettled.

Something feels off.

Clearly a stranger, yet a feeling like I’d met him somewhere before.

That strange sensation kept rising.

‘Should I probe a little more?’

My thoughts settled, and I immediately caught the thread of his words.

“You said my name is well known. What do you mean by that?”

The question was partly to keep the conversation going, but I genuinely wanted to know.

My reputation? Why would that be — unless you were talking about Kim Hyunwoo.

Hearing the question with that intent behind it, Jeong Jihoon shook his head slowly and continued.

“As I mentioned, I’m not from Hanseong. Yet I’ve been recruited to the capital and stand in the same place as you, Young Master.”

A voice full of pride.

Hearing it, I could roughly guess Jeong Jihoon’s background.

“You sat the state examination.”

Jeong Jihoon nodded and said:

“One of the friends I studied with is from the underground district of Hanseong, and that friend benefited greatly thanks to you.”

“Ah.”

I’d funneled money into underfunded private academies and universities under the name of scholarship support, and it seemed someone had happened to benefit from that.

‘Didn’t expect to actually feel like I got something out of that spending.’

As that thought crossed my mind, a commotion broke out on one side of the banquet hall.

I’d been told the appointment ceremony didn’t start for another hour. What was this?

I followed the noise and let my gaze fall toward the lower level of the banquet hall.

Down there, people were taking in the magnificent palace interior as if for the first time, looking around with tense expressions.

“Who are those people? From the look of them, they don’t seem to be aristocrats.”

“Ah, those folks?”

Someone who had been checking the event schedule on their visual interface spoke up at once.

“Those are the people who passed the… ‘state examination’ held this time. Except for one of them, they’ve all been assigned to the Imperial Household Department.”

“The Imperial Household Department?”

“Originally their entrance ceremony was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, but the schedule got tangled somehow. It seems they’ll be holding their induction ceremony in the lower hall together with us this time.”

The Imperial Household Department.

The moment those three words reached my ears, my expression instantly clouded with complicated feeling.

People exchanging words with eyes full of expectation.

They were commoners who had, despite their status, climbed here by their own efforts.

“Oh, hey! Jihoon’s over there!”

“Look at him in that court uniform. Really doesn’t suit him.”

“Hehehe.”

A few of those settled in the lower hall spotted Jeong Jihoon above and called out greetings.

“The guy already made something of himself? And he had the worst marks of any of us.”

“What can you do. Have to blame our commoner lot in life.”

“No. We work ourselves to death and climb up to the same place as that one!”

“Big dreams!”

“Puhahaha!”

Some envying, others steeling their resolve, all of them laughing and making noise.

Seeing his friends like that, Jeong Jihoon broke into a bright smile and waved back.

“You lot, at least be quiet when you’re inside the palace.”

“…….”

Jeong Jihoon, exchanging greetings with the state examination passers on the lower level.

Watching that scene, I understood at last what had been producing that nagging sense of wrongness.

State examination passer. From a rural private academy. Fallen aristocrat background.

Why had it taken me this long to remember.

“I’m lucky. Getting to watch my friends enter the palace.”

“……Lucky, is it.”

That was how Jeong Jihoon put it, but I could not bring myself to agree.

“Probably not.”

That’s what they’ll think right now.

But who among them knows.

That they worked themselves to death.

That they poured every last thing they had into climbing their way up to the Administration — and yet what this country, this Joseon, would give them in return was only one thing.

Nothing but endless helplessness.

• 1. TLN: Hanji (한지) is traditional Korean handmade paper. It’s mainly used for writing, calligraphy,and books and official records