OUL67lIFIa
Chapter 13
Just one day remained until the Formal Assembly.
As one of the grandest events in all of Joseon, the capital Hanseong was starting to overflow with people.
No, more precisely, the upper crust of Hanseong was packed to the brim.
“GoYoung Master? What a surprise seeing you here!”
“Ah, Mister Hyeon! I’m relieved to see you looking so well!”
On the eve of the ceremony, Joseon’s most powerful figures gathered at the main house of the Andong Kim Clan to attend the Reception Ritual.
The Formal Assembly was an exclusive event where all the noble families of Joseon came together to assess the strength and abilities of the next generation of gifted individuals.
Only those of noble birth were allowed entry. No media outlet was permitted to film or report anything related to the event.
However, today’s Reception Ritual served as a kind of prelude, a gala to welcome and entertain sponsors and dignitaries from various sectors who supported the event.
Which meant, in addition to the noble families, the venue was now teeming with corporate heads from across Joseon and influential figures from foreign nations.
“I’m a reporter from the Hanseong Daily, Bu Il-won. Thank you for agreeing to the interview. We heard your eldest son is participating in the ceremony today?”
“Hahaha! That’s right. My boy’s aura force score this time is just…!”
Some came to boast about their children’s aura force to the powerless commoners.
“This event is enormous in scale. Judging by the looks of it, this round’s Central Council too…”
“It’s bound to go to Young Master Kim Junghun again. Seems like Young Master Cho Kang-seok wasn’t too fond of that.”
“Then we’ll need to adjust the sponsorship scale. Looks like the Prime Minister position will fall into the hands of the Andong Kim Clan again…”
Experts from major corporations were busy reading the power dynamics among the nobles and deciding their next moves accordingly.
“Hello! I couldn’t help but be drawn to you—might I get your comms code…?”
“Buzz off.”
Some scanned the crowd with hawk-like eyes, hunting for potential marriage partners.
“We’re Donga Industries, newly listed. We’d be honored if someone of your stature could…”
And there were ambitious entrepreneurs hoping to use this opportunity to put a name and face out there among the nobles.
This place, full of scheming motives and naked ambition, was the main residence of the Andong Kim Clan.
So what was I doing here?
“Hoo…”
Absolutely nothing.
I was doing absolutely nothing.
I had been trying to scout potential allies for future power plays, shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries, but shockingly, no one gave me even the slightest bit of attention.
The reason was simple.
I was a bastard child and a non-ability user.
Even among the noble class, I was considered trash. Why would people who came to curry favor with the nobility treat me any better?
Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that my household was the one hosting the Formal Assembly, I’d have been verbally crucified just for loitering nearby.
“Filthy world.”
I muttered under my breath and looked around the extravagantly decorated banquet hall.
The road leading into the venue was lined with air purification filters.
Up in the stratospheric skylounge, lavish dishes were laid out like a royal feast.
Holographic art displays lit up the sky, and elegant people in dazzling garments giggled and socialized beneath them.
Compared to the slums I’d visited just a few weeks ago, this place was a whole other universe.
No wonder revolutions happen.
These bastards are insane.
‘Enough already, you goddamn corporate dogs. Hope you all rot when the revolution comes.’
Swearing freely inside my head, I sighed and looked up at the sky.
“Hoo…”
“Why are you sighing so heavily?”
“Just thinking about life makes me sigh, that’s all.”
Try living like I do, you’d be pissed too.
I muttered to myself again… and then paused.
“...Wait, who are you?”
I turned to find a child crouched beside me.
‘Judging by the clothes, seems like a girl. But was there anyone like this among the incoming late-phase candidates?’
“Hey kid, what’s your name?”
“Not telling. You didn’t say your name either.”
Oh? So that’s how we’re playing?
I gave her a quick once-over and said,
“Let’s see… You’re not from Hanseong, are you?”
“...How’d you know?”
“Girls from noble families in Hanseong don’t dress like that. That style’s been out for ten years.”
Hearing that, she finally looked down at her clothes.
A pink skirt, white jeogori, and a bob haircut.
Her looks were cute enough to draw cheers anywhere she went, but she asked me in a small voice, clearly disheartened:
“...Really?”
“Nah, I was lying.”
From the way she asked, yup, definitely a country bumpkin.
As I smirked and teased her, the kid puffed out her cheeks with an indignant look.
With how swollen her face got, she looked like a pufferfish.
“So then, miss, why are you picking a fight with someone just minding his own business? Where’s the person you came with?”
I poked her puffed cheek to let the air out, and she answered with the same sulky expression:
“…The aura force evaluation is tomorrow, and my dad’s off wandering around talking to adults. They’re all ignoring me, and he’s scrambling to make a good impression. It’s boring.”
“Ah, I see.”
A kid who looked over ten, coming for a late aura force evaluation, with a father hustling around trying to network, some countryside noble, no doubt.
A common story.
All the out-of-town attendees had come for the same reason anyway.
“What about other kids your age?”
“I’m… outcasted.”
Outcasted.
That cruel little title sparked an unexpected sense of kinship deep in my chest.
Ah, yes, a loser and an outcast.
A bastard child and a country bumpkin, in the holy gathering of Joseon’s pure-blood elite!
The tragic comedy of our pairing brought tears to my eyes.
I, Kim Chang-woon, after so many years of wandering, had finally found someone I could call a true friend!
“Well, what a coincidence. I’m the same.”
“Oh! So you’ve got nothing to do either, young master?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then, as payback for teasing me earlier, show me around Hanseong.”
Show me around? Not even a “please”? Not “lead me,” but “show me around,” huh?
I take it back. She’s not a friend.
I thought I’d found a comrade, but turns out she’s just my boss.
Still, I, Kim Chang-woon, a true man of Joseon, could not back down so easily.
I put on a stern face and said:
“Miss. At times like this, here, repeat after me. ‘Handsome orabeoni, I humbly ask that you…’”
“Show me Hanseong! I’m hungry!”
“Y-yes. As you command.”
And with that single shout, my fragile resistance was crushed.
Getting pushed around by a kid way younger than me… Is this really my life?
‘Well, whatever.’
I had already given up on finding allies. The real plan didn’t start until tomorrow anyway.
Besides, with Taewoong and Moo-yeong off doing their own errands, this was the first break I’d had in a while.
I’d spent the whole month crafting the plan, surely I deserved a day off.
“Fine. Let those damn nobles choke on their own arrogance!”
“Yeah! Choke on it!”
Heh. Her foul mouth’s gotten sharp in no time. What a clever young lady she is.
Her parents must be crying blood somewhere.
And so, the outcast and the reject linked arms and strolled out of the banquet hall, laughing like old friends.
In a past life, I might’ve been groveling to curry favor with these noble bastards, but not anymore.
“Let’s eat and have fun all we want.”
Yeah. Let’s do that.
Forget the plan. Forget the contacts. Forget the revolution.
In the end, all this scheming was just to survive anyway.
****
Being able to see the sun in Hanseong was a rare privilege.
Even in the middle-tier residential zones, one had to visit a designated solar park just to catch a glimpse of it.
And now, as the precious sun slowly began its descent, ready to clock out for the day…
The outcast and reject, united in shared misery, had spent the day dodging disdain and wandering the edges of the banquet grounds.
‘Played?’ No, not quite.
More accurately, we’d gone on a full-on rampage through the food stalls clustered around the venue.
Honestly, what do I know about babysitting?
Let the kid run wild until she’s tired, stuff her full until her stomach’s bursting, that’s the formula.
At least, that’s what I thought…
“Are you kidding me…”
There she was, stuffing her eighteenth meatball into her mouth, while I chewed on squid tentacles next to her.
Around us, the banquet had practically turned into a festival.
And down below, food vendors who had completely sold out were packing up to head home.
“Sold out! Completely sold out! Everything’s gone!”
“Even cleared out the leftover stock! Totally worth paying that spot fee!”
“Let’s pack up before anyone notices! I knew it—today was lucky from the start…!”
The one responsible for shutting down all those food stalls?
Brace yourself—
It was none other than this tiny kid bouncing up and down beside me.
If that’s not proof she’s a status ability user, I don’t know what is.
The sheer amount she could eat was in a whole different league from us regular folks.
“I’m full—!”
She threw her arms up in a cheer, a blissful smile on her face.
She looked so adorably happy that I took out a handkerchief and wiped the food from around her lips.
“But hey, young master.”
Of course, that warm moment didn’t last long.
As soon as I put the handkerchief away, our noble young lady trotted over to me, asking a question.
She had something in her hand too. I glanced down,
In the short time I’d looked away, she had somehow devoured an entire box of Korean honey cookies as dessert.
Farewell, my beloved wallet.
Watching the money drain away in real time brought tears to my eyes.
“I mean, it makes sense for a country bumpkin like me, but you’re from Hanseong. Why are you hanging out with me?”
“Because I don’t have any friends in Hanseong.”
“Why not? You’re really nice, even to strangers. You bought me all this food too!”
“I’m an eolja. And I don’t have any abilities.”
“Whoa.”
Judging by her stunned silence, even at that young age, she already knew what kind of treatment non-ability users got.
‘Yeah, go on. Run. I was the only one taking this seriously, huh.’
“Wait—so since you’re a non-ability user… do your family members bully you?”
“Pretty much.”
I thought she’d run off the second she heard I was an eolja, but instead she hit me right in the emotional gut.
Still recovering from that, I barely had time to respond before—
“...Alright then. That means there’s hope!”
Clenching her tiny fists like she’d made some kind of grand decision, she turned to me and declared:
“Then, Young master! Wanna come live at our place?”
“Your place?”
She nodded up and down with determination, Arin, the tiny typhoon.
I let out a small laugh and shook my head.
“Nah, let’s not. If you bring home some eolja guy like me, your parents will flip.”
“My dad’s not like that!”
“Hmm, I wonder.”
Even as I replied with clear skepticism, Arin didn’t falter. Her eyes sparkled as she pressed on with her point.
“My dad always says this—‘A person’s worth isn’t about how they’re born, but how they live. Even someone born as a commoner can be greater than a noble, and someone born a noble can be worse than a dog.’!”
“Whoa, that’s a great quote.”
“So that’s why… you’re a really good person, so, um…”
Her cheeks flushed a little red as she hesitated, then raised a finger toward me.
“From today on, you’re my fiancé!”
For the first time in my thirty-something years, including my previous life, I was proposed to by a girl.
“…Fiancé?”
There was just one very minor issue.
Looks like I’d be the bride in this arrangement.
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just…”
You drop a bomb like that, and now you’re shy?
Guess even she was embarrassed after blurting it out.
I stood there frozen, not knowing how to respond, when suddenly—
“Bang-suki!”
A booming voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
Bang-suki?
I didn’t need to ask who that was meant for.
Because the kid standing next to me had puffed up her cheeks again like a blowfish in season.
“D-dad! I told you not to call me that! It’s embarrassing!”
“Oh! So this is where my Bang-suki had run off to!”
When the little one shouted back, the man behind the voice finally seemed to notice me and jogged over.
Nice—Dad’s finally arrived.
Maybe now I could recover some of the damage done to my poor, devastated wallet.
I turned my gaze toward the source of the voice.
“……!”
And the moment I saw the man running toward me, I froze in place, speechless.
“So this is where you ran off to, huh? Looks like you made a new friend already.”
“Not a friend! He’s my fiancé!”
“Hoo boy… Now she’s just talking nonsense.”
His tone was far too casual for someone of noble blood.
Yet, upon hearing that voice, I found myself unable to speak.
“Yu Sang-hyeon. I guess I owe a debt to a young man I’ve just met. It must’ve been… quite exhausting, wasn’t it?”
“Ah, no, not at all. It’s just that…”
Does he not know who I am?
Probably not.
If he knew I was a son of the Andong Kim Clan, he couldn’t possibly look at me with such warmth in his eyes.
“Thank you for looking after our Bang… no, Arin. If fate allows, I hope you’ll continue to be kind to her.”
“Y-yes, of course… Yes.”
“Dad! This Young master bought me a ton of food! From that stall to that one over there! And I ate all of it! Pretty amazing, right?”
“...You ate all of that?”
Yu Sang-hyeon, the famed Commander of Iron Tiger Corps and Provincial Military Governor of Hamgyeong.
The man who leads the Iron Tiger Corps, the elite unit guarding Joseon’s borders from the monstrous beasts that run rampant in the Manchurian deserts.
And the moment I realized who he was…
Only then did I finally recall who that little girl, Yu Arin, actually was.
“Ah, right. Young Master!”
At that moment, Arin ran over in quick little steps, leaning in like she was about to tell me a secret.
“My name. It’s not Bang-suki.”
“…!”
Her voice was playful, but the moment I heard it, every hair on my body stood on end.
“It’s Bang-seon. Yi Bang-seon. Daddy told me not to tell anyone, but since you’re my fiancé, I’m telling you. Just you, okay?”
“…Yeah.”
“It’s a secret! You have to promise! Pinky swear!”
And with that, she disappeared as quickly as she came, cheerfully waving goodbye, her innocent face lit up with joy.
The moment she was out of sight, I immediately began scanning the area for surveillance.
Fortunately, no one from the Royal Inquisition Bureau had appeared to seize me. I must’ve been the only one who heard her.
“Why didn’t I realize it sooner…”
Alias: Yu Arin.
Real name: Yi Bang-seon.
That little girl who laughed and ran beside me—
She was the last surviving member of the Jeonju Yi clan in all of Joseon.
The final descendant of the royal family.
The rightful heir to the throne.
And that little girl would one day…
‘You took everything from me, so now it’s your turn to lose. If I suffered, then you all have to suffer too! That’s why… that’s why I must—!’
…in the name of avenging her father’s death,
Ignite Joseon in the fires of revolution—
And become a hero.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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