The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 76

“Huurgh! Huk, hukh?!”

Perhaps it was the tension that had built to the very tips of my nerves finally releasing.

The moment I left the main house, what came over me was an overwhelming exhaustion and a wave of nausea.

A shopping building in the upper tier, a good distance from the main house.

I stepped into one of its reasonably well-appointed restrooms, emptied my stomach, and looked at my haggard face in the mirror.

“Pathetic. One conversation and I’m in this state.”

But I couldn’t stay like this indefinitely.

What I needed to think about now was Kim Jungheon’s order.

After steadying myself with a few deep breaths, I turned my mind over quickly.

‘The international situation surrounding Joseon. Right now, two great threats loom over Joseon and its neighboring countries.’

The first was to Joseon’s north. The Great Manchurian Rift, held in check by the Iron Tiger Army and the warlords of the Central Plains.

And the second was the Japanese archipelago, to Joseon’s south.

The Great Honshu Rift, which had erupted in the former Tokyo region.

The Rift Incident that had killed the majority of the world’s population.

Japan, across the sea, had not escaped that catastrophe.

If anything, it had been hit the hardest.

A great rift had opened in the middle of Kyoto, the capital, and sixty percent of the country’s territory had been seized by the monsters.

The old Japanese Empire, which had been raising itself with dreams of leading East Asia, was destroyed overnight.

Those who survived rebuilt their cities in the Kyushu region and had been launching relentless subjugation campaigns ever since, fighting to reclaim the mainland that had become the monsters’ domain.

‘Sending me to the Japanese archipelago means…. the time has come, more or less.’

I reached back through memories of my past life.

The corporate city of Joshu, established in northern Kyushu.

And the ‘Fourth Honshu Subjugation Campaign’ being planned there.

‘The Andong Kim clan and its affiliated houses were to dispatch their phase power users in support. In exchange, they were to receive a large sum of funds and weapons, along with Japanese mercenaries equipped with artificial bodies.’

Originally, this had been the borrowed-knife stratagem, used to suppress the Pungyang Jo rebellion.

In my past life too, Kim Jungheon had used this deal to bring the Japanese in, and had them eliminate key figures in the Pungyang Jo clan.

A method of removing political enemies while pinning the blame on the Japanese, thereby preserving cohesion among the noble class.

The exact same tactic he had used against the Defense Commander at Iron Tiger Fortress.

‘No, to be precise, I was the one who copied Kim Jungheon’s strategy.’

I continued my thoughts with a bitter smile.

‘In my past life, this was used to purge a few hardliners in the Pungyang Jo clan. But now that the entire Pungyang Jo clan has been wiped out, this plan won’t be aimed at simply purging a handful of hardliners anymore.’

The outline of what Kim Jungheon was thinking was starting to come into view.

The true targets were the anti-Andong-Kim forces centered around the Yeohung Min clan.

Those who had been offered the seat at the negotiating table countless times and had refused to relent, continuing to stir up trouble.

Kim Jungheon intended, in the end, to cut all of them out of the Administration entirely.

“In other words, this deal is the groundwork for a sweeping plan to purge thirty percent of the noble faction.”

We will kill the monsters on your islands, you kill my political enemies in Joseon.

A deal made possible because Joseon held the most phase power users of any nation. And among them, possible only because they were the Andong Kim clan.

‘For a plan as grand as that…. the phase power users sent to Japan won’t be comparable to those sent in the original history, either.’

The corporate clans based in Kyushu were not easy to deal with.

Sending the clan’s bodyguards would never be enough to satisfy them.

They would need someone of overwhelming strength.

A phase power user worth their willingness to take heavy losses to obtain.

In that case….

“Kim Hyunwoo. He’s thinking of sending that one.”

The current possessor of the greatest phase power in Joseon.

More precisely, I turned over in my mind the name of the one known to be so.

Kim Jungheon’s trump card for preserving the Andong Kim clan’s prestige while extracting the maximum possible from the Japanese.

If the clan heir stepped forward personally, that would be the finest possible signal.

‘So the important question now is why, of all people, he’s sending me there as well….’

From here, it was actually straightforward.

The clue was in the conversation at the estate.

That one remark about entering me in the succession competition.

Kim Hyunwoo was the eldest son and heir apparent, and the most credible candidate for succession.

‘He was a protagonist of the new age, his star rising after killing Jo Seonghwan, but he was absolutely not the type to follow instructions willingly.’

Look up at the window outside, and his face was always there without fail.

Articles praising Kim Hyunwoo, films and dramas made about him, military recruitment advertisements.

Kim Hyunwoo kept exposing himself to the press unceasingly, building his name recognition.

The polar opposite of Kim Jungheon, whose face most people in Joseon didn’t even know.

He didn’t hide behind a curtain. He constantly put himself in the world’s eye.

As if to make the entire country understand that he was the one who would lead it.

“And our father, naturally, doesn’t much care for that kind of behavior.”

Into that Kim Jungheon had entered me.

Kim Jungheon would be thinking of entering me in the succession competition to shake Kim Hyunwoo’s claim to inheritance.

To use that unease to put a leash on Kim Hyunwoo.

In other words, I was nothing more than a shackle to rein in a son who was running wild, and a goad to provoke Kim Hyunwoo’s competitive instincts.

And what? A succession competition?

‘There’s a limit to how absurd this can get.’

Yes. In my past life, that had been the goal I ran toward.

Clan head of the Andong Kim.

I had devoted myself and sworn loyalty to the clan for the sake of claiming that seat.

If I devoted myself to the clan.

If I stood against those treasonous rebels and saved the royal shrines and altars of state.

I had believed that chance would come to me someday.

But I knew.

A fact carved into my bones through my memories of a past life.

‘For someone without a shred of phase power, a person of no ability, there is no chance to steer the clan.’

That is nothing more than a promissory note written to stoke loyalty.

Dangling the unattainable in front of your face to exploit your devotion. A fabricated carrot worth not a single moment’s hope.

“……But.”

But right now.

What appeared on my face, a face harboring treasonous intent, was not resentment but a thin, wry smile.

“At the same time, I can turn it to my own uses.”

Kim Jungheon, as he had on the Go board, was dangling the freedom within the enclosure like bait to try to steer me.

But preparations to smash the enclosure were moving forward step by step. When the time came, I could leap out at any moment.

In that case, there was no reason to refuse the meal being offered.

“I’ll play along. Just the way you want.”

If Kim Jungheon intended to use me, I simply had to walk willingly inside.

And from within, I would shake the board, and draw a different ending than the one they wanted.

A hollow laugh comes to me again.

Planning to play with the very clan I had devoted my whole life to serving.

But my heart felt remarkably light.

Because I was no longer a tool made for the clan’s sake.

From now on, my own way, the way I wanted.

If I just survived like that, it would be enough.

---

Shhhhhh–

Walking out of the building, the clock hanging in the sky above had already turned to evening without my notice.

I had uncovered Kim Jungheon’s plan and design. What remained was how to shake this enormous affair.

There was still a month of time left, so I could think it through gradually.

‘Going out to Japan is a first, so I’ll need to find collaborators. Given the scale, I’ll need to ask Hahoe for cooperation as well…. there’s nothing more I can work through right now.’

To get communications into the Northeast Frontier, I would have to go through the Administration’s systems or use Hahoe’s database.

With that in mind, I set aside the Japan trip scheduled a month from now to one corner of my mind.

Right now there was something more important.

A more critical question that remained unresolved.

‘Do you know the future?’

That one line from Kim Jungheon.

Even thinking about it now, I felt as though my breath was being cut off.

How could Kim Jungheon know that I possessed knowledge of the future?

“No. No.”

Letting emotion take control would corrupt my judgment.

Hadn’t I told myself as much, right there while playing Go with Kim Jungheon?

‘He didn’t immediately declare certainty. That means it’s reasonable to regard this as still within the realm of suspicion, not confirmed fact.’

Suppressing the rising fear, I slowly retraced Kim Jungheon’s reactions.

If he had known I was someone returned from a previous life, what would have been waiting for me at the main house was not Kim Jungheon, but agents from the Royal Investigative Bureau.

I was weighing all those possibilities as I walked down the street, when—

“How could there be any chance of not knowing.”

From somewhere, a low, resonant voice drifted in.

The lights of the road beneath my feet went dark, and the streetlamps and neon signs adorning everything around me flickered without ceasing.

And then.

Fwoomph—

The lights of the electronic surveillance equipment monitoring every city block went out.

Every light in the city was extinguished in an instant, as if a candle had been snuffed.

“Tsk.”

I tensed my body reflexively and looked around.

This wasn’t a simple power outage.

And at the same time, it wasn’t the first time I had experienced this.

‘……Is this, by any chance?’

All the electronic equipment in the area rendered powerless, the city’s surveillance network brought to a halt.

Even the most renowned hacker couldn’t do this.

Not even Bune Mask of Hahoe could manage an abnormal phenomenon like this.

I tensed myself and turned around.

On the way back after killing Koo Junghyuk, the Pungyang Jo clan’s errand man.

The mysterious figure I had encountered that time was standing there, blocking the building’s exit.

A ceremonial robe in the five cardinal colors and a red conical hat.

A mask worn over the face, and bells adorning it everywhere, shining as they caught the light.

There was no doubt.

What was standing before me was a shaman.

“……!”

I slowly backed away, looking around me.

On the way back from the main house, bringing Mooyoung along had not been an option, and Taewoong would be detained at the estate.

I tried activating my visual interface several times, but there was no chance of it working.

A dead end.

“However cold a father may be, he is still your father.

Being the one who knows you most intimately, he knows more about you than you know yourself.”

“……!”

“Your talent for playing with people is quite remarkable. Last time and now alike.”

“Understand. Every breathing moment of my life is one of persecution and surveillance, so this is the only way I can arrange a meeting.”

“I understand. So won’t you tell me, before long?”

Doing my best to conceal the cold sweat running down me, I opened my mouth and feigned composure.

“What business would shamans, who frolic with spirits in virtual space, have with an aristocrat like me?”

“…….”

The shaman who heard my words stared at my face for a long while without answering.

A head tilting bizarrely from side to side.

The red mask worn over the face swayed, and then the voice came from a completely different direction.

“The business ‘we’ bring is simple.”

“?!”

I spun around in surprise.

Figures in the same attire, wearing the same red masks, were watching me.

Perched on windowsills. Crouched at street corners. Contorting their bodies in grotesque postures.

It looked something like reverence, or something like curiosity at a rare sight.

Surrounded on all sides.

Should I run?

The moment that thought crossed my mind.

“Son of Changhwa.”

At the single phrase that came out of nowhere, I stood frozen in place, without a word.

“Child of the great shaman who became a god-spirit and left us.”

“Will you not come with us?”

Low and gentle.

And at the same time, a voice that sounded desperate.

Dozens of shamans stretched their hands toward me.

Gaunt hands, like dry branches, but that wasn’t what held my attention.

The name that had come from their lips.

Han Changhwa.

My mother’s name.

Why was it coming up here?