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Chapter 2
“Incompetent? Seriously, an Incompetent?”
-Incompetent.
-Incompetent.
-Incompetent.
It started with a single voice repeating the word, but then everyone around me, like a flock of parrots, began echoing it again and again.
Their shock was understandable.
Our Andong Kim family was the very core of what people often referred to as a Sedo family, an old noble clan with deep roots in political power.
We were a prestigious line of high-tier Awakened who had protected humanity from monster invasions during the global Rift Crisis.
‘No wonder they’re this shocked… after all, an Incompetent showing up in a family like ours is unheard of.’
Having someone with weak powers? That was still within the realm of possibility. But to have someone with zero ability, someone who didn’t inherit even a shred of awakening… that was an entirely different matter.
The way the family elders looked at me began to change by the second.
When the initial test results came out, confusion.
When the results were confirmed, disbelief.
And when they heard Father mention “Lowly blood,” naked disgust.
“This is a disaster. And from our family, of all places, an Incompetent…?”
“If this becomes public, the family’s honor will hit rock bottom. Jo Huiseong will seize the opportunity to make a move…”
“We had such high hopes, being the Great Elder’s direct descendant… but with this…”
Yes. That look.
The second son of the Andong Kim family, the one that boasted the greatest power in all of Joseon.
Despite being born of that blessed bloodline, I couldn’t awaken even a grain of power. A disgrace to the family.
I had lived my entire life branded as dead weight, nothing more than an object of ridicule and contempt.
When I first saw those gazes, it felt like my entire world had collapsed.
But now? I couldn’t care less what those parrots were squawking about.
‘I’m screwed…’
From the very moment I realized I had returned to the past, that was the only thought echoing in my mind.
Anyone else might feel joy at a second chance at life, but for me, it was just frustrating.
How did I come back?
No… why did I come back?
Someone like me, who’d lived like trash his entire life, a regression? A second life? Why the hell?
“Master Chang-woon.”
I had even left behind something resembling a will… and got a little payback on those bastards!
I died clean. That should’ve been the end of it! So why the hell was I alive again!?
There was no way I deserved something like this—
“Young Master!”
Just as my spiraling thoughts were about to devour me, a voice cut through them, the voice of my personal bodyguard.
Snapping back to reality, I found myself facing my father, who was walking toward me with ice-cold eyes.
“…….”
“……….”
The surrounding murmurs abruptly vanished.
The entire room turned cold, frozen solid.
A silence so sharp, it could slice through flesh.
And yet… I felt nothing in particular.
Back then, I had been so crushed by my father’s overwhelming presence that I said nothing. And he, in turn, had nothing to say to me.
In that suffocating silence, he gave me just one thing, his eyes.
He looked at me like one would look at something disgusting.
A failure. An impurity. A defective product.
That was the look in his eyes.
“Let’s go.”
That short sentence was all he said before he turned his back.
Having made his judgment, he completely severed any interest in me.
“W-wait… uh…”
“My lord!”
The parrots, who had been clinging to my father’s side while nervously watching his sour expression, scurried out in a frenzy.
Even the doctor, after a moment of hesitation, beat a hasty retreat.
And then… how much time had passed?
“...Heh.”
By the time laughter spilled out of my mouth, I was the only one left in the examination room.
“Pff—Hahaha! Right, that’s exactly how it was! That face! Hahaha—!”
It had been so long since I last heard my father’s voice.
After the day I was branded an Incompetent, he hadn’t spoken a single word to me.
Not once. Not even up to the moment of my death.
Back then, facing his cold demeanor… it felt like the heavens had collapsed.
My older brother. The elders of the house.
And the icy gaze of my father, the man I’d once idolized.
I was terrified of them.
I blamed myself for something that wasn’t even my fault.
To grasp at things that were never mine, I’d done every kind of wretched, insane thing.
Because I just wanted their approval.
Because I wanted to shed the disgrace of having “Lowly blood.”
But now… things were different.
‘Why did those trash heaps seem so terrifying when I was a kid?’
Born from filthy blood?
The most disgraceful thing… was you, Father — the one who consorted with that “filth” in the first place.
Disgrace of a Prestigious noble family?
No. What truly deserves shame is your own rotten, maggot-infested brain.
The real disgrace is your complacency, the way you buried your heads in the sand like ostrich chicks, ignoring the blade right before your eyes, wallowing in your decadent lives without a care in the world!
The people standing in front of me now were no longer the terrifying elders I once feared.
They were nothing more than fools, mindless idiots who only ever thought of fattening their own pockets.
Looking at them now, I could finally understand just how young and how foolish I’d once been.
“Well, if there’s one good thing about returning to childhood…”
I turned my gaze to the body I now occupied.
Still soft, still fragile, not even done shedding its baby fuzz.
I had lived that desperately… starting from this very age.
Groveling, scraping, all to earn the approval of nobles, Sedo clans, and yangban* elites.
All for the recognition of those worthless bloodlines, the kind that could be swept away in a single revolution.
“I’ll never live like that again.”
I clenched my fists.
The moment I laid eyes on those wretched, smug faces again… I found my purpose, a goal I never asked for in this second life.
Survive.
Better to survive and live my own life than to die in my twenties, barely in full bloom.
I’d live through it all and spit in their faces as their beloved system collapsed.
I’d laugh as the revolution tore them apart.
And the moment that resolve took root, my mind— once frozen solid— began spinning like wildfire.
‘Alright. So, what do I have to do to survive?’
For three hundred years, my father and his ilk lived like parasites, feeding off Joseon like a rotting tree.
But their parasitic reign wouldn’t last.
Very soon, they’d be consumed by a blazing fire called revolution.
And if I stayed in this nest of vermin, I’d be treated just like another bug.
Just like my last life, I’d burn with them and disappear.
So what should I do?
Should I use my knowledge of the future to stop the revolution?
Impossible.
No one knew better than me, the one who’d desperately tried to sabotage the revolution in my previous life, just how unstoppable it really was.
Block it in one place, and it breaks through somewhere else.
Snuff out one ember, and dozens, hundreds, would rise again from its ashes.
Eliminating a handful of ringleaders, silencing a few key figures… it was nowhere near enough.
Massacres. Abductions. Misinformation. Bribery. Coercion.
The Sedo clans had thrown everything they had into crushing them.
But the fire of revolution burned on, unfazed and unstoppable.
‘And besides… why the hell should I stop the revolution?’
That was the second, and most important, reason.
Why should I go through the trouble of stopping it?
For whose benefit?
For those pieces of trash?
For the ones who treated me like dogshit after I’d worked myself to the bone my entire life?
The thought didn’t take long. But the conclusion was crystal clear.
I had neither the power nor the reason to stop the revolution.
If anything, maybe I should follow through on what I’d been thinking right before I died.
Live a life that isn’t steeped in regret—live it properly this time.
I wasn’t even sure if what I was experiencing now was truly a second life, or just some last dream before death took me.
‘I must revolt.’
I didn’t give a damn about ideals like justice or building a new nation.
I just… wanted to live.
Not as their hunting dog.
But as Kim Chang-woon—a human being.
* * *
“The family seems to be taking this quite seriously, but… there are many people in the world born without powers.”
On the way out of the examination center.
While I stood in thought inside the descending elevator, Taewoong, my personal bodyguard, spoke softly.
“I’m just a humble swordsman. I don’t presume to understand these noble affairs… but please, don’t let it weigh you down.”
“……”
“You still have plenty of chances ahead of you, young master.”
I guess seeing me, normally a mischievous chatterbox, stay quiet all this time must’ve tugged at his heart.
Chances, huh?
Come to think of it, someone said something like that to me in my past life too.
Let’s see… how did I respond back then…?
-“Of course it’s different! I’m a yangban, and you’re not!”
-“You think I’m the same as you lowborn bastards?!”
-“You think you can talk to me like that? Know your place! I’ll have Father fire your ass—!”
…Yeah, maybe it’s best I stop thinking about it.
God, I was fifteen. Just a brat.
The more I remember, the more I want to crawl into a hole and die.
“That’s why I’m thinking now.”
But still, if I started acting all cheerful and friendly right after being declared Incompetent, that would make me look completely insane.
So instead of lashing out in bitterness, I opened my mouth while still staring blankly out the window.
“I’m thinking about what an Incompetent like me can actually do. How am I supposed to survive?”
“Young master…”
In my past life, I did every dirty job imaginable just to earn the approval of the Sedo clans.
A secret agent work for the Royal Investigation Bureau.
Special suppression missions.
Experts in every field, mercenaries hired from abroad—
Elite forces trained with the best equipment and techniques moved at my command like extensions of my own body.
But in truth, the power I wielded in my past life was mine… and yet not mine.
They were people hired with my father’s money.
Men who only lent me their strength because of the prestige of the Andong Kim name.
Among those who stood beside me, there wasn’t a single one I could truly call mine.
‘If I had to name one person I could truly call my own… maybe it’d be this guy.’
I glanced sideways at the man sitting firmly across from me, my bodyguard, Taewoong.
A warrior who had served me for years, steadfast, reliable, and not once showing discomfort despite being assigned to an illegitimate son like me.
At this moment, he was the only person I could call mine.
But even that might change if I threw myself into the revolution…
‘Already feels like I’ve got a mountain of work ahead of me.’
To join the revolution, I’d need real strength — my own influence, untouched by the reach of the yangban or noble clans.
People who would obey only my word, never bending to pressure from the aristocracy.
A loyal force made up of such people, and the funds to sustain and grow that force.
Just thinking about building that up from scratch made my head throb…
‘Still… it’s not impossible.’
I am Kim Chang-woon.
At fifteen, I became a dog of the Sedo clan.
For over a decade, I lived as their loyal mutt, doing their dirty work, extinguishing revolutionary sparks, and helping maintain their corrupt grip on power.
All those experiences…
All that wickedness…
Not a shred of it was lost; every bit remained inside this young, naive body.
So now, in this moment—
The thing I needed most was…
“Taewoong.”
“Yes, young master.”
Having reached my conclusion, I looked straight at the bodyguard seated in front of me.
“Let’s post a job ad.”
“A… job ad? All of a sudden, sir?”
“Yeah. No particular reason.”
My people.
My faction.
My weapons.
The first of those was my people.
“I’m thinking of hiring a new bodyguard.”
Not one assigned by Father.
Not someone loyal to the family.
But someone who would serve only me.
[ TL: Yangban (양반): This term refers to the traditional aristocratic ruling class of Joseon. ]
---The End Of The Chapter---
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