The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 84

Hooooonk——!

“You crazy bastard! Watch where you’re driving!”

A curse that flew out with a sharp horn blast. What followed from the vehicle on the other side was a bizarre language of indeterminate nationality.

Short, blunt, unpleasant sounds.

Japan? The Central Plains? Or the Southern Barbarians?

Before the brief confusion could pass, the driver, unable to contain his temper, flung the door open and jumped out.

“Whether you’re Japanese or from the Central Plains! If you came from overseas, you should know your place, you—!”

What he kicked was the door of the opposing vehicle.

As the metal panel caved inward, as if in response, the driver’s side window slowly came down, and.

Bang—!

In the next instant, a man with a bullet through his head collapsed flat onto the concrete.

The vehicle immediately spun its rear tires and slipped out of the back alley.

In the brief time it took for the security drones to be dispatched afterward, the lower-tier people swarming beyond the gutters and trash heaps descended on the corpse.

Rifling through pockets, prying open the metal wallet, dismantling the vehicle’s sensor units and expensive parts one by one.

By the time the drone arrived at the scene, it was already far too late.

What remained on the street was only the trace of a corpse stripped bare with its artificial body ripped out, and the skeleton of a vehicle.

A perfectly ordinary morning in 23rd-century Busan, which everyone passed by without a second thought.

“……Wait, what was that?”

“Ah, is this your first time seeing that, Young Master?”

Standing there with my mouth hanging open at the extraordinary sight, Mooyoung came over and handed me a fish cake he’d bought at the market.

It was warm, clearly not long since fried, and the smell wasn’t bad.

“It was like this when we came to Busan before too. Looks like it happens every day.”

“Every day?”

This wasn’t a place fit for human beings to live.

I had watched our Pyeongwoon Academy graduation ceremony and thought ‘the underground tier has lost its mind,’ but this neighborhood was an entirely different genre.

Up north, Jurchen people on motorcycles running amok, and down south, people getting killed over road rage incidents.

At this point, wasn’t it the entire country of Joseon itself that had lost its mind?

“So then.”

That was enough pointless worrying about the country.

After cutting the thought off for a moment, I looked sidelong at one person standing beside me with an unenthused expression.

“The city’s public order is in this sorry state, and you’re really going to come along, Father?”

“I, I have to go…!”

Nodding in a flustered way beside me was Father Jeong Suhan.

The gentleman who had gathered and raised orphans in the underground tier.

His daughter Jeong Yurim, who had built Mooyoung’s arm in the basement, had now awakened as a mad scientist at a research institute under the Eight Outcasts Society.

And the children he had cared for had left Jeong Suhan’s hands and were preparing for their futures under professional guidance.

With the children he had devoted his life to caring for having found their own paths and flown free, Father Jeong Suhan, left alone, could finally fulfill his mission as a man of faith, so he said.

So why had he attached himself to this journey to Busan, or rather all the way to Japan?

“There is a priest from a Japanese diocese I have been in contact with for a long time. He was a truly good person, but news from him has been cut off recently, and I have been worried sick.”

“So you’re going to go see him in person? All the way to Japan, a foreign country?”

“He is one of the few companions I have in matters of faith. We studied the Gospel together as well.”

Jeong Suhan’s manner of speaking was as composed as always, but his fingers were trembling slightly.

“I wondered what had brought someone who should be praying quietly in a church out into this madness-filled world.”

“Priests like me don’t normally get overseas travel permits easily. This is a golden opportunity…. haha….”

“Then at least stop trembling first. Another fish cake, Father?”

“Ah, thank you.”

With one fish cake each, the four of us arrived at the Busan International Pier.

But what awaited us there was news like a bolt from the blue.

“They already departed?”

The delegation had already left.

The ship that was supposed to carry me, the escort warriors who were to accompany us, and Kim Hyunwoo, whom I was supposed to attend to.

When I asked the flustered person in charge, apparently none other than Kim Hyunwoo himself had given the order.

“……Ha.”

To think he would pick a fight even somewhere like this.

Well, I could understand it.

This matter was simultaneously one in which the ‘successor’ of Andong Kim was moving personally, and Kim Hyunwoo’s first overseas engagement.

Japan would be putting forward a figure of equivalent stature in response.

At such an important occasion, having an illegitimate son like me shoehorned in must have been quite an eyesore to our elder brother Kim Hyunwoo.

And there was one more reason.

‘He seems to have been tipped off that Kim Jungheon and I had a private meeting.’

Having a private audience with Kim Jungheon was limited to only a few among the family’s senior figures.

But having someone like me, of all people, receive that honor would have made Kim Hyunwoo’s anxiety push him into an even more agitated overreaction.

I couldn’t say I didn’t understand the feeling of one’s position possibly being threatened, but….

“He’s not a three-year-old child, and starting things off this petty from the very beginning isn’t right.”

But railing against Kim Hyunwoo now wouldn’t bring back the bird that had already flown.

Getting into arguments with the Japanese side wasn’t something I was particularly eager for on my end either.

In the end, I twirled the fish cake skewer I’d been holding in my mouth once and opened my mouth toward Taewoong standing nearby.

“Come to think of it, isn’t our academy’s school trip destination near here?”

“Yes. They say the trip is centered around the Haeundae tourist zone.”

“Oh, that works out perfectly.”

Saying that, I decided, for the first time in a while, to exercise the authority of the head of the Eight Outcasts Society, the vast organization encompassing all of Hanseong’s underground tier.

From inside the wallet, slowly revealing itself, was an unlimited card with no spending limit.

Holding it up like a family heirloom sword, I called out triumphantly to the escort warrior and the priest who had joined me.

“Whatever you want to eat, whatever you want to buy. Get everything.”

We’d missed the boat anyway.

Today, we play.

---

My Pyeongwoon Casino, located in Hanseong’s special administrative zone, was even now enjoying tremendous popularity.

The reason was simple.

There was nowhere else in Hanseong where you could play as freely, and with as little care from anyone, as there.

But the words used to describe this city of Busan were somewhat different.

This place was a city of pleasure.

Noble scions who had sneaked away from family scrutiny, second-generation heirs of influential foreign families.

And the countless hangers-on all trying to grab a piece of that for themselves.

All of them mixed together, putting on a grand spectacle of indulgence and extravagance, that was what Busan was.

And in that glittering city, I had brought out an unlimited card.

This Kim Changwoon, called in his past life the finest lapdog of the power clans!

Then what was to unfold next was a foregone conclusion!

Clang—!

Clang-clang-clang—!

The sports special district on the outskirts of Busan city.

Having rented out in its entirety a massive multiplex gymnasium that had once been used for combat simulation training, I was currently watching a sparring match between Taewoong and Mooyoung.

“These insane martial artist bastards… muscle-for-brains idiots……”

Right. I was the idiot.

It was my mistake to think ‘playing’ was possible with blockheads like these.

I gave them a card with no limit and said ‘do whatever you want!’ and this is what they do with that money?

Well, at least they had swept through the department store district and bought a mountain of toys to give to kindergartners.

And they bought a whole bundle of gifts for Mooyoung’s younger sister Hayoung, so if that counted as consolation, I supposed it did.

While I was saying all this.

Scrreeech—!

“Ngh?!”

Mooyoung was relentlessly pressing Taewoong with his uniquely eerie movements.

Taewoong was an escort warrior armored head to toe with artificial body components handpicked by the Andong Kim family.

His ‘hardware,’ the basic physical capabilities, dynamic visual acuity, reaction speed, were more than enough to overwhelm Mooyoung, yet as time went on the gap was slowly narrowing.

Fwoosh—

And most conspicuous above all else was the dark energy that was seeping and curling out from Mooyoung.

The denser it grew, the more Taewoong’s reactions could be seen slowing, little by little.

‘He’s nearly at the threshold of awakening.’

A shadow that disrupted electronic sensors and gradually erased its own presence from one’s field of vision.

That thing which twisted human perception and sensation, that was the characteristic of Mooyoung as a phase-power user.

Once, and then once again.

Mooyoung, who had been continuously occupying blind spots, delivered his final strike, and.

Beeeeep—!

Along with a shockwave, the safety equipment installed in the arena let out a danger signal.

Structural limit warning.

A warning that if they struck at each other any further, the building could be destroyed.

“It’s a draw.”

“No…. I’ve lost.”

Taewoong was right.

Unlike him, who was exhausted with his artificial body’s output diminished, Mooyoung still appeared to have composure to spare.

“To be caught up to by a junior already, I should retire.”

“I absolutely will not allow that. At least ten more years.”

“Hahaha.”

After that exchange while helping Taewoong to his feet, I looked at Mooyoung standing alone.

The dark energy that had not yet been fully reined in fluttered behind him.

Like an obsession, or like a shadow.

Right, that was the power.

‘The Black Shadow.’

By flowering that ability, the Mooyoung of my past life became Joseon’s Traitor Number Zero.

Not a powerful physical enhancement, not dazzling lightning or flame, but that hazy black smoke.

That faint shadow endlessly disrupted human sight, muddied the senses, and shook perception to its foundations.

‘A monstrosity that breaks not the body but the mind, not the exterior but the interior. A phase power specialized not in killing beasts, but in killing people.’

How many promising noble scions had disappeared into the beyond, taken by that ability.

Yet now that power had become a blade hidden close to my chest.

The reason I had been able to catch Mooyoung in my past life was because I had known that power.

Because I had known in advance, devised a strategy, and been able to corner him.

But now, there was no one who knew that power.

The difference in information.

Maintaining that, I would push Mooyoung’s potential to its absolute limits.

When that happened, Mooyoung would be capable of far more than his counterpart in my past life.

Not those fledgling hopefuls, those greenhorn prospects.

The clan heads of the noble families.

He would become the blade that could pierce the backs of those monsters who formed the core of twelve clans.

‘At least I confirmed that, so this wasn’t entirely a waste of time.’

They said the next ship wouldn’t come at the earliest until dawn, so I might as well fill my stomach and get some sleep.

Thinking that, I led the group through the nighttime streets of Busan.

“You’re heading quite deep in. Didn’t you say this was your first time in Busan, Young Master?”

“I’m just following where the location tracker tells me to go. Apparently there’s a hidden gem of a restaurant.”

Saying that with great confidence, what we walked into was a sushi restaurant specializing in Japanese cuisine.

An old Busan neighborhood, a rundown shop at the end of an alley where only long-established restaurants remained.

A wooden door in this day and age, what charming antiquity.

Thinking that, I casually opened the restaurant door, and.

“Irasshaimase—!”

With a booming shout, a massive mechanical monster looked my way.

“……Huh?”

“Oh.”

Red optical light.

A massive frame exceeding two meters.

Steel exposed through the gaps in black armor plating and machinery.

A wooden cutting board in those heavy arms, a dull-bladed kitchen knife in hand.

That was……?

“Wow, a barbarian.”

“How did you know?!”

How did I know, give me a break.

I looked at the startled steel giant, Mizutani Ryuu, and scrunched my face in disbelief.

No, seriously.

Why was a wako rolling sushi here?