Chapter 50
Vrrrrroooom—!
With the ripping howl of electric motors, dozens of motorcycles tore down the road.
Each one was stripped of safety gear, an extreme, single-minded focus on speed.
Riding them were the members of the Sword Faction who’d been operating in the lowest commercial district.
“Push it harder! Faster! If we keep this pace they’ll catch us!”
“How did they even notice? I didn’t tell a soul…! Wh—?!”
For a breath, they rode as if something were hunting them. Then the faces of the Sword Faction at the front went pale.
Thunk—!
An armored helicopter suddenly burst out from the opposite side of the road.
Mounted on the fuselage, a figure in protective gear had a heavy machine gun leveled straight at them.
The organization’s members, caught off-guard, tried to gun their throttles.
Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud—!
The heavy machine gun mounted on the helicopter spat fire, shredding the riders into bloody pieces as they sped by.
“Aaah?!”
“Damn it—take cover! Take cover!”
“Those sons of—!”
When the leading line collapsed, the riders behind toppled like dominoes.
Those without artificial bodies stood no chance; all hope lay with the upper-tier members who’d finished their body modifications.
They drew the submachine guns at their hips and returned fire. From the helicopter, a figure leapt down.
Thud—!
They rose from the landing with a heavy, deliberate thump.
At the sight of that silhouette, the weapon-wielding Sword Faction ground their teeth in unison.
“Min Jeong-hwan…!”
The madman who killed nobles—the leader of the Sal Group.
But unlike before, his attire was immaculate.
A black overcoat draped over a suit woven with ballistic fabric, a black bowler hat on his head, and artificial parts made from military components augmenting his body—an artificial body.
It was a far superior gear compared to when he used to hunt nobles in the upper districts.
“You—Min Jeong-hwan, you bastard! You’re from that Sal Group, and you like the money the scions of the great houses scatter around, huh…! Guh—?!”
With a ripping sound, the man who’d been shouting was cleaved in two.
The sword in Min Jeong-hwan’s hand cut clean through the artificial body as if it were paper.
“Yeah. I liked it a lot.”
Rip—!
Meanwhile, others who’d jumped from the helicopter surrounded them with rifles aimed.
Uniforms and gear matched; their movements were coordinated and precise.
Seeing them, it was almost impossible to remember that they had once been the same Sword Faction as these attackers.
“Th—think again!”
Red tracer dots bloomed across their bodies as one of the Sword Faction shouted at Jeong-hwan
.
“That artificial body you got! That weapon! Use it on Kim Chang-woon…hit that brat! You saw him—he’s nothing but a pampered fool! If you do it right, we could take all the money that bastard has…!”
“Is that all you have to say?”
Jeong-hwan’s cold eyes said he didn’t need to hear more.
The organization froze; they looked at Min Jeong-hwan with nervous laughs.
“Drop into hell, you damned traitor…!”
“Shoot.”
Rr-r-r—!
At his single word, the remaining Sword Faction members’ bodies were riddled with bullets and sprawled lifeless across the asphalt.
“It’s over.”
It had been three months since Kim Chang-woon had begun recruiting the Sword Faction.
The screams echoing through the alley belonged to the Sword Faction members who once ruled this sector.
And the one who hunted them down, one by one, to seize control of the underground districts—was none other than Min Jeong-hwan, the former leader of the Sal Group.
“What about the rest?”
“They were the ones holding the eastern sector. Most of them have already collapsed, just as you predicted, young master.”
“I see. So this is finally the end.”
Min Jeong-hwan pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a tired sigh.
For nearly three months, he had done whatever it took to seize the underground.
The Sword Faction, thugs, gangsters, criminals—
Every armed group that stirred chaos was wiped out without exception.
“How are the men stationed in the lowest district doing?”
“No problems so far.”
When Min Jeong-hwan asked, the men dressed like him lowered their heads respectfully.
“No one’s causing trouble with the merchants, and relations with the trade guild have become much smoother.”
“There are even shops offering to pay protection fees on their own... the hard part is turning them down.”
“Heh…”
These were the new recruits he himself had chosen.
As Min Jeong-hwan surveyed their faces, he couldn’t help but think of his superior—the man behind all this.
‘Unbelievable. To have built the organization up this far in such a short time….’
Originally, the Sal Group had never thought of the future.
They killed nobles on impulse and died when their time came.
To them, good swords or artificial bodies were luxuries they didn’t need.
But after Kim Chang-woon took over, everything changed.
‘So now he’s… buying artificial bodies? For everyone?’
Kim Chang-woon had begun pouring money into the lowest commercial district to procure artificial bodies for his men.
And that wasn’t all.
Under Min Jeong-hwan’s command, the reformed Sword Faction hunted down criminals in the slums and patrolled the streets—essentially acting as a police force.
What had once been a ragtag group of fifty was now a force of thousands.
They were no longer a mere faction—they had grown into a military force in their own right.
“The Lowborn Association, was it? Thanks to you folks, the neighborhood’s been real peaceful lately.”
An elderly man with snow-white hair said that, handing Min Jeong-hwan a small bundle.
“The city magistrates don’t give a damn whether us poor folks in the lower district live or die. Better to pay you lot a protection fee than hand taxes to those Lowborn.”
The bundle in his hands was warm and heavy.
When he peeked inside, it was filled with freshly steamed traditional rice cake.
They’d brought it as a “protection fee” since the organization refused to take money.
“You people barely scrape by day to day. Why bring such precious food…?”
“Because we can now, thanks to you. Don’t be silly and just take it. And give our regards to young master Chang-woon, eh?”
The Lowborn Association had become the biggest client in the lower commercial district—mediating disputes, maintaining order, even guaranteeing debts between shops.
Min Jeong-hwan no longer knew whether he was a gangster or a policeman.
‘Still…’
As he and his men walked the streets after finishing their rounds, the people who once fled at the mere sight of him—the “Mad Sword Faction butcher”—now smiled and waved.
It felt strange.
Truly strange.
But—
“It’s nice.”
When one of his men said that, Min Jeong-hwan found himself nodding unconsciously.
Yes. Just like he said.
Strange, yes—but not unpleasant.
* * *
“One month, they said, but you finished it already? Faster than I expected.”
In the office of Pyeong-un Casino, located in the heart of the Special Management District, Min Jeong-hwan set a steaming bundle of rice cake on my desk when I greeted him with that remark.
“It’s thanks to the helicopter the young master supplied. And the nearby residents brought us intel… made the job dozens of times easier.”
They even paid a premium—that was why the lowest-tier merchants dealt with us. They were blind to some things; we had informants everywhere.
I skimmed the roster and the operations report. Everything looked tidy, and I felt a quiet satisfaction.
—At first, we were shocked. Suddenly, they started buying weapons in bulk on the black market, so we thought something big was coming—turns out you have hired the Sal Group… we thought a war had broken out.
“Half of it was a war. You think taking down the gangs in the underground is easy?”
I replied, chewing at the rice cakes on the table as the Tavern mistress spoke through the communication device.
“But this should have uprooted every armed group eating at the undercity.”
Looking at the now-clean map of the underground districts gave me a breath of relief.
“With the undercity secured, we can move on to the next plan.”
—Next plan? What else are you going to do here?
The tavern mistress asked.
“Oh—didn’t I tell you?” I looked out over the landscape of Hanseong’s underbelly stretched below my feet. “I plan to build an organization.”
—“An organization?”
“Yes.” I added, as if stating the obvious. “A massive organization to prepare for the revolution down the road.”
The Tavern mistress stayed quiet, expectant for an explanation. How to put it simply?
I turned back to the device and spoke.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people living in the underground beneath our casino. You know that, right?”
—We know. Most of them are the Lowborn who aren’t even treated like people in Joseon. Just like us here.
When she added that, I nodded and continued.
“Because of the civil war in the upper districts of Hanseong, the nobles lost interest in the city’s underbelly. All of Hanseong’s resources were poured into capturing the Pungyang Cho Clan and their allies. Surveillance vanished. The undercity’s already-fragile order collapsed and people’s lives sank deeper into ruin.”
I intended to exploit that collapse to the fullest.
“I’ll grow the Sword Faction around the Sal Group. I’ll turn those men into police to fill the security vacuum, and step by step bring the undercity into my sphere of influence.”
Lay roads, build schools and hospitals, and provide housing. Build goodwill and a reputation as the ‘benevolent noble’ watching over the underpeople.
“And then, using that reputation, I’ll make the people living here come knocking on my door.”
Most of those who live here were born into a caste and pushed into the underground, never given a chance. They can’t rise through the social walls they were born into; they spend their lives buried in the trash.
“If we give those people money, equipment, and training, who wouldn’t join us?”
Tens of thousands of human resources. Countless organizations and interest groups buried within the refuse, unseen.
Gather them all—bring the scattered into one body. A force not under the influence of Hahoe or other groups, but that listens only to me.
A cadre built from such talent.
—“Forming an organization of Lowborn in Hanseong’s underbelly… anyone can see that’s treason.”
“So? You’re in with me, Tavern mistress?” I
—“You bet. But…” She paused, then asked, “What will you call this organization?”
A name. I had one in mind.
For the most despised Lowborn of Joseon, I would gather them together and forge my own, unprecedented force.
“The Lowborn Association.”
I would gather Joseon’s lowly classes and turn this country on its head.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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