The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 72

[Entry Prohibited. Danger of Structural Collapse.]

A large sign stood upright in the middle of the Hahoe hideout.

Part of me wondered if all this was really necessary just because a girl had tripped and fallen, but the problem was the floor.

When cracks had run all the way up to the first-floor ceiling, it would have been strange not to put up a sign.

Anyone who saw it would be buzzing with curiosity about what on earth had happened. But the very culprit responsible was right in front of me now, wiggling her toes.

“Uh, um…. Hey…….”

Yoo Arin, sitting on the sofa with her head bowed low.

I walked over and offered her a teacup, and she took it with an air of exaggerated composure.

‘Oh my. She’s receiving the cup in the wrong order, and her sitting posture is the Japanese style of etiquette. She bows her head to show manners, but there’s no telling which country that belongs to.’

Still, it was admirable that she was trying her hardest not to make any noise while drinking….

“Cough! Ah, h-hot…!”

That effort lasted about as long as it took for her to gulp down too much at once, and she immediately broke into a coughing fit.

The sight of her biting her lip and struggling to swallow the hot tea.

But why was it that someone who had smashed a concrete floor with her forehead couldn’t handle something hot?

Phase power is said to be unpredictable at the best of times, but from the perspective of a non-user like me, it’s impossible to make any sense of.

“It looks as though the Defense Commander’s funeral has wrapped up for the most part. You’ve had a rough time, one after another.”

“Ah, not at all….”

I spoke to Yoo Arin in a calm tone, and she waved a hand as if it were nothing.

“I’m a little sleepy from being up all night, but it wasn’t that hard. Ah, I mean. I mean it was not….”

“What language is that supposed to be?”

“Ah, well.”

Her face went red all over again.

The first time we met, she’d been like a puffer fish. Now she was a red radish.

They say a woman’s face has a thousand expressions, and she certainly lived up to that.

“An aristocrat from Hanseong would have formal speech etiquette, wouldn’t they? So I thought….”

“Ahh, that?”

So that was why she’d been choosing her words so carefully.

I let out a faint smile and said,

“That’s just something dramas made up.”

“What?!”

The sudden revelation made Yoo Arin’s eyes go wide.

“In practice, formal speech etiquette only applies at official functions. In everyday life, aristocrats from Hanseong and people here aren’t really any different.”

“Is… that actually true?”

“Yes, so you can speak however feels natural.”

Saying that, I dropped two sugar cubes into her teacup with a light clink.

The first time she’d tasted it she’d made a face and said it was bitter, but this time she started drinking steadily without coughing.

Well. Andong Kim’s traditional chrysanthemum tea with sugar, of all things.

I wonder what expression Kim Jungheon would have made if he’d seen it.

“So, what brings Young Lady here so suddenly?”

She seemed relaxed enough by now.

When I gently changed the subject, Yoo Arin set down her cup and fidgeted with her hands.

“Well, the last time we met, you suddenly walked out. Because of that, I, um…”

“Yes. That put me through quite a lot, thanks to you.”

“Mm…….”

Stung by my words, Arin’s expression darkened.

But only for a moment.

“Do you have any idea how funny it was to watch a country bumpkin who’d been running wild through Hanseong suddenly put on airs and call herself a young lady?”

“Ah! Ahhh-!”

At the one remark I tossed her way with a smirk, Arin’s voice shot up in an instant.

“What! I wasn’t saying anything because I was scared you might have forgotten me!”

“Pfft hahaha-! So all that stuttering every time we met was because of that?”

When I laughed openly, the indignant look on Arin’s face instantly brightened.

Until a moment ago she’d been gripping her teacup so tightly from nerves she couldn’t set it down properly, but now she seemed to have gotten back to how she’d been when we first met.

“By the way, you’ve changed an awful lot since I last saw you. Falling from a bomber, of all things…. Even for a phase power user, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Right! It’s incredibly tough. And exhausting!”

Ha ha ha.

Plummeting from several hundred meters up with no parachute, and all she had to say about it was that it was “exhausting.”

I was so dumbfounded I could only laugh, and Arin looked at my face and beamed right back.

“But thanks to it, I can get down faster, so it’s good. The faster I am, the more of our soldiers survive.”

She opened and closed her hand as she continued.

“I’ve always grown up being protected. So now I’m going to be the one who protects. Our soldiers, the people here….”

“And the fact that I can think this way…. it’s probably thanks to you saving me and my father back then.”

“No, that’s far too much….”

Far too much credit.

That’s what I was going to say, but I closed my mouth.

It was because she had suddenly leaned her body toward me.

‘She could barely string two words together until just now. Isn’t this a bit too close?’

I tried to subtly shift away, but one look at her face told me she wasn’t in the mood to let that go.

“What about you, Young Master? What have you been up to all this time?”

Yoo Arin’s eyes sparkled as she spoke.

What should I say?

After a brief pause, I answered.

“I was running something in Hanseong. A casi… no. Something like a theme park.”

“A theme park? So… an amusement park?”

“Yes. An amusement park.”

Overhearing that, Mooyoung, who had been standing guard beside me, made an inscrutable expression.

Ah, come on.

Guiding wealthy adults into a land of dreams and fantasy counts as an amusement park, doesn’t it?

The part where there’s no substance but it’s absurdly expensive also checks out perfectly.

I continued while rationalizing away.

“I ran it targeting the aristocrats living in the upper tiers of Hanseong, and invested the proceeds into people living in Hanseong’s lower tiers. Built schools, constructed hospitals…. it was busy one way and another.”

“Lower tiers?”

“Don’t you remember, before you left Hanseong? Playing with the children at the church….”

“Oh, that place! I remember!”

As if an old memory had surfaced, Arin’s smile brightened.

“How are those kids doing these days?”

“They enrolled in elementary school two months ago. It’s a school under our foundation, and… from what I hear, all six of them together have subdued the entire school by force.”

“Pfft! Pffft-hahaha?! Seriously?!”

Remarkably, it’s true.

Every last one of the 2,700 students, from first grade all the way through sixth.

I had thought there was something unusual about them from the time they stole that identification tag, but I hadn’t known it was to this degree.

I sent them to school to study, and somehow they’re in there filming a delinquent battle drama.

In any case, Yoo Arin and I talked at length like that.

We talked about the dazzling scenery of Hanseong and life in the city.

I listened to stories about the people of Iron Tiger Fortress, harsh but brimming with humanity.

Old stories, the latest trends, things she wanted to eat if she ever went to Hanseong.

And so, around the time the teacup that had been steaming warmly grew cold.

“You know, I was really surprised.”

Arin, having fully shed her awkwardness, spoke with a grin that wouldn’t quit.

“I knew we’d meet again, but a Secret Royal Inspector, of all things. How did you end up with a job like that?”

“I didn’t take it. My clan appointed me. Thanks to that, I had to close down the business I was running perfectly well, and now look at me. A government official.”

I shrugged and added,

“Still, the Administration does pay a steady salary. Government pay is fairly good, as it turns out.”

“Ooh-”

Yoo Arin had just let out a short sound of admiration and was about to smile broadly, when—

“Is all of it for the sake of treason?”

At the next words that immediately followed, I stopped moving, teacup in hand.

The same smiling face as ever, but with eyes that were calm and settled in direct opposition to it.

Those were clearly not the eyes of a fifteen-year-old girl, no matter how you looked at it.

“The helicopter pilots from the 1st Base told me. It wasn’t a monster that killed the Defense Commander. It was a person.”

“…….”

“And that when the 3rd Base was attacked, you kept the two other bases and the wall garrison pinned down.”

This was a mistake on my part.

I hadn’t imagined information would leak from a place like that.

But then again, this might work out better.

There had been no need to play the good man in front of the young lady.

“Yes. I killed him.”

“……!”

“The Iron Tiger General intended to keep the old man alive, so I moved first.”

Arin, upon hearing my words, bit her lip tightly.

“Your reason?”

“Seong Ryeoun was the root cause of this barrier breach incident, and a corrupt individual given to treasonous conduct. Had he remained alive, he could have become a cancer within our ranks, and a seed of division for Iron Tiger Fortress. So I acted unilaterally.”

Calmly. I spoke with deliberate coldness in my voice.

Perhaps she was disappointed. There was nothing I could do about that.

And in a way, this could be an opportunity.

‘Yoo Arin is the key to the revolution, the very person who will turn Joseon on its head. But many things have changed now due to my intervention.’

Yoo Sanghyeon, the motivation behind her grudge, had survived and returned to Iron Tiger Fortress, and the Fortress itself was relatively stable.

In other words, she had no particular reason to overturn Joseon.

So let me take this chance to find out.

Whether she still wishes to transform Joseon even now.

Or whether she hopes to go on living as she is, here in Iron Tiger Fortress.

Just as I was thinking that.

“Yeah. If it’s like that, then it’s fine.”

……What did she just say?

At the unexpectedly indifferent response, I asked again without thinking.

“You’re not going to hold it against me? It amounts to purging someone against whom no charge had been established. Based on nothing but conjecture.”

“I know the 3rd Base better than you do, Young Master. If we can’t walk the same path…. dealing with them this way might well be the right approach.”

With such a firm response as that, I had nothing left to say.

Seeming to find my sudden speechlessness amusing, Arin gave a small smile and said to me,

“You thought I was going to get angry at you, didn’t you? That you can’t kill someone on the same side, no matter what.”

“Honestly…. yes.”

“Hehe. Then this time I win.”

Arin smiled faintly, then slowly rose from her seat.

“I know what kind of person I am. Whose blood flows through my body, where this power came from. And because of that…. I know that my father nearly died in Hanseong.”

“……!”

“So the real reason I came here is…. to tell you this.”

Slowly.

Very slowly, she straightened her posture, and looked down at me with eyes clearer than ever before.

“The next time you’re going to do something like this, don’t just talk about it between yourself and my father. Tell me too. The people here are my people, and this treason is my affair! I don’t want to be dragged along knowing nothing. Understood?”

“……Ha.”

Yes. This was it.

Her, as she had lived on in my memories of a past life.

The hero of the revolution who had charged through, undaunted by any hardship, breaking through everything that stood in her way.

I willingly rose from my seat, and bowed my head toward Arin as she declared herself boldly.

“As you command, Young Lady.”

The question that had been weighing on me all this time was answered.

Even in this world, woken again from death.

Even after countless variables and conditions had been twisted, and the future had changed.

Yoo Arin.

She was still, undeniably, the hero of the Iron Tiger Army.

---

Click.

The sound of a teacup being set down rang through the quiet room.

The gentle scent of chrysanthemum drifting softly from the cup as it breathed warm steam.

The view of the garden through the window was the picture of tranquility.

Neatly trimmed trees, a pavilion with long shadows trailing over the pond, stone lanterns carved with delicate precision.

Everything was arranged in perfect balance.

This was the main house of the Andong Kim clan.

The place where those who held the true power of Joseon gathered, and where countless schemes and conspiracies blossomed.

“The Defense Commander who was slated for contact died fighting monsters. A confirmed kill. With the fundamental premise of the plan lost, Plan B was executed, hm.”

Taking a sip of tea, Kim Jungheon pressed a fingertip gently against a point on the map.

The base where the Iron Tiger Army of the Northeast Frontier was stationed.

Before his eyes, the status report on Iron Tiger Fortress that Changwoon had submitted was floating up.

“I sent him simply to create one useful contact, and he’s gone and turned all of Iron Tiger Fortress upside down.”

“There was also a report that in the defensive battle before, three tactical modules from the Training Command were shot down. The Iron Horses, which are fire support aircraft, were deployed to the front line….”

“Yes. I heard that as well.”

He waved a hand lightly and cut off the words.

“From what I understand, it was to save the soldiers’ lives?”

“Yes. Under normal circumstances one might have judged it a meaningless waste, but….”

The bodyguard in the black robe nodded.

He too looked out the window and added,

“According to the report, it led to a major breakthrough in relations with Iron Tiger General Yoo Sanghyeon. With the Defense Commander who had been a rival also dealt with, it seems gaining his cooperation would not be difficult.”

“So rather than running a shadow operation, we can simply seek the Iron Tiger Army’s cooperation. That’s the better outcome, is it. There is a logic to that.”

Muttering so, Kim Jungheon looked back at the map.

Yes. As he himself had said, there was a logic to it.

And yet something in a corner of his heart remained unsettled.

“The fine details are hollow throughout, while the cause and effect of events fits together far too neatly.”

Kim Jungheon recalled the Jo Seonghwan incident.

‘At precisely the right moment, the monsters began to run amok. Hyunwoo found it, and in the end, Jo Seonghwan was dealt with.’

And now the Defense Commander was dead.

Killed by monsters that had struck at just the opportune moment, while the two forward bases were under audit.

Both incidents were resolved with a clean method, at far too precise a timing.

As if they were the work of the same hand.

‘If a coincidence happens twice, it is no longer coincidence. It is inevitability and design. It would be wise to assume that the Defense Commander’s death was not an unforeseen accident, but something Changwoon planned directly.’

In that case, a new question arose here.

Why do this?

Simply following orders was all that was needed. What was to be gained by going to all this troublesome effort?

Just as he had become absorbed in that thought.

The fingertip that had been lightly tapping the desk went still.

A strange sense of déjà vu, as if he had experienced this before, long ago.

This was….

“It reminds me of when I used to play baduk with that woman.”

Yes. Back then it had been the same as this.

A move that seemed to carry no meaning. A strange line of action whose intent could not be guessed. And the vast current that line, repeated over and over, quietly drew.

That unpleasant resonance, as if the ending had been decided from the very start. (+) ^[1] TLN: This reminds me of Apothecary Diaries lol.

“I thought it was a failure. But it seems that was not the case.”

“Pardon?”

“Issue a recall order to the Secret Royal Inspector dispatched to the Northeast Frontier.”

The bodyguard listening beside him asked with a puzzled expression, but Kim Jungheon gave no answer to that, and opened his mouth.

“Return as quickly as possible and come find me. Tell him that.”

“Young Master Changwoon, right now, sir?”

“Yes.”

As the bodyguard’s eyes narrowed slightly, Kim Jungheon answered firmly and added one final word.

“I have something important to discuss with him.”

Outside the window, the wind rustled through the neatly trimmed garden trees.

But his gaze did not leave the map.

• 1. TLN: This reminds me of Apothecary Diaries lol.