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Chapter 52
“Yaaaaaaaah.”
I stepped out of the carriage with a tearing yawn.
Six in the morning.
There was only one reason I’d come to the Andong Kim main house: the official post that Kim Junghun had said he would grant me. The letter had arrived, and everything was prepared.
“I’m going to die of sleepiness, seriously. Isn’t an appointment ceremony supposed to be at a decent hour? Why get up at the crack of dawn for court dress and formal greetings…?”
“Please lower your voice a little, Young Master. Someone might hear.”
“Tell them to listen, I said! While we’re on the subject, paper letters in the twenty-third century? And hanji? Call it tradition all you want, but at this point it’s just a sickness.”
“Young Master….”
Maybe because it had been a long while since I’d come back to the family home, my tongue wouldn’t stop wagging. While I grumbled with Taewoong standing behind me, a cluster of old men who’d been gathered in one corner of the mansion turned to look our way.
“Kim Chang-woon? How did such a lowborn wretch without prestige come here?”
They were the elders of the Andong Kim clan, men who had stepped away from the frontlines long ago and now lived off the family coffers.
“They say family head Kim Junghun summoned him. He has something to entrust….”
“Entrust something? Could it be that he’s bestowing an office on that creature?”
“He may carry the blood of the family head, but… even so, I cannot accept it. After persecuting the once-distinguished Pungyang Cho Clan so mercilessly, now this here to the main house…!”
“The rites of Joseon are collapsing.”
Old pigs.
I bowed politely to the murmuring elders, but after they shot a disdainful glance my way, they turned and left. Same old contempt and cold looks. Even though it had been half a year since I’d last seen them, their faces felt as familiar as if I’d met them five minutes ago.
“Didn’t I tell you to keep your voice down?”
“Do you think lowering my voice will make those relics any more pleasant? They’re all the same anyway.”
Taewoong muttered after seeing the elders’ frosty expressions, but I shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
“Besides, it’s useful, we get to see how the house breathes, right? Good intel.”
“You mean the family atmosphere?”
There was no one here who’d pretend to know me. Taewoong caught the fellow trailing behind us and let his bored mouth run on.
“Kim Junghun is the supreme dignity of the Andong Kim clan. You know that, right?”
“He has power and the ability to match it.” Taewoong added, and I nodded without speaking. After the last assault, Taewoong’s loyalty to the clan had been shattered, but his judgment of the clan and its members remained unchanged.
“In the old days, even the elders wouldn’t openly carp about the family head. If anyone overheard, who knows what might happen. There’s nothing to gain by insulting Kim Junghun.”
“So you’re saying things were very different before?”
“Exactly. Those old men who used to flinch at Kim Junghun’s every breath are now squawking like dogs with their leashes broken. What does that mean?”
Taewoong slowly opened his mouth in response.
“Are you saying Kim Junghun’s authority is wavering?”
“I’m saying the prestige of the Andong Kim clan is wobbling.”
Even a worm will wriggle when stepped on; a trapped rat will bite a cat. But worms and rats are the likes of me, the Pungyang Cho Clan that the Andong Kim clan trampled is more like a snake or a wild boar. Trampled though it was, it would not go down quietly.
“The Pungyang Cho Clan fell and many of its members were stripped of status, but that collapse made other gentry families who don’t approve of the Andong Kims rally faster. That’s likely why the elders are whispering.”
In other words, the prediction we’d made aloud to the nobles fit perfectly. Other houses that watched the Pungyang Cho Clan’s downfall felt threatened and began to oppose the Andong Kims with greater fervor. It was the fracturing of noble politics, the beginning of a huge change set off by Cho Seong-hwan’s death.
“So that’s why Kim Junghun is giving you the post, Young Master.”
“I carry the clan’s blood, so there’s no fear of betrayal; I have the credit of catching and killing Cho Seong-hwan, so my ability looks serviceable. I’m lowborn, which makes me perfect to use and discard if needed.”
We jabbered as we entered a private room, and a group of palace attendants bowed their heads to greet me.
“You’ve been diligent,” I answered briefly, and they silently guided me inward.
In the immaculate dressing room, not a speck of dust anywhere, a neatly arranged blue court robe waited for me. The embroidered chest insignia gleamed on it.
I dressed with the attendants’ help and then looked at my reflection in the mirror.
“A post for someone like me.”
Seeing myself in the tidy court robe and the ostentatious insignia made me give a hollow laugh.
‘What I could never gain while living as the family’s dog is now so easily mine the moment I decide to crush the family. How perverse.’
Climbing up is hard, but coming down is easy, so they say. And it was true.
“You suit it well.”
“Don’t flatter me. Let’s go.”
There was no time for sentiment. Once you start, you finish.
After checking my bearing one last time, I moved out.
Our destination was the royal palace to the west of Geunjeongjeon. From a distance, the floating, sumptuous banquet hall hung in the air; dozens of people already filled it.
Sons and heirs from noble houses across Joseon, young contenders with both prestige and power, each with their own interests to protect. Each a capable player, ready to strike and be struck for their goals.
What should I do in that chaos? What should I protect, and what can I take?
A thousand variables and thoughts flashed through my head, but my face was smiling. In my past life, I schemed merely to curry favor; this time was different. Those gathered there, whether noble or not, whether the scions of powerful noble clans or heirs of influential merchants, were all, sooner or later, targets that had to be cleaned up.
My blood boiled.
Maybe this treasonous business fits me better than I thought.
* * *
“Hey. Over there.”
The moment I stepped into the banquet hall, the warm, convivial air froze in an instant.
“Kim Chang-woon? What’s that bastard doing here? And what’s with the court robe?”
“Are you telling me he was invited to this appointment ceremony too? He’s not even someone with aura power, is he?”
“An office for a lowborn like that….”
Young men wearing the same court robes as mine were spouting the exact same words those old men had just been muttering. I glanced back; Taewoong was already standing rigidly in formation with the clan’s bodyguards. Judging from the looks the other guards were giving, his treatment among them didn’t seem any different from mine.
“Excuse me, but are you Kim Chang-woon, Young Master?” someone asked.
“Hm?”
I’d been half-listening to the murmurs when someone unexpectedly spoke to me. Someone talking to this unremarkable lowborn, I felt oddly moved and turned to look. A straightforward-looking young man was shining with excitement.
Barely twenty, perhaps.
Seeing him made me frown slightly.
‘Who is this?’
The light in his eyes marked him out as an aura user, and a strong one at that. Even being generous, he was a prodigy. The face wasn’t familiar to me, but there was something oddly recognizable about it, as if I’d met him somewhere before.
Where had I seen him?
Who was he?
“My name is Kim Chang-woon, yes… but who are you?”
“Oh- ah. My apologies. I honestly didn’t expect to meet you….” He spoke with a trace of wariness, then, a little awkwardly, offered his hand. “I’m Jeong Jihoon from Donam. I can’t believe I’m meeting someone of your renown in person… it’s an honor.”
“Ah, yes.” I accepted his handshake with a dazed expression, but my head was spinning. Something felt off. He was definitely a stranger, yet it felt like I’d seen him before.
‘Should I dig a little more?’
I decided to pull at the thread.
“What do you mean by ‘renown’?” I asked, partly to keep the conversation alive and partly because I was genuinely curious. I wasn’t Kim Hyunwoo— why would there be rumors about me?
Jeong Jihoon shook his head slowly and continued.
“As I introduced, I’m not from Hanseong. Yet I’ve been appointed to the center and stand here as a junior noble.”
There was pride in his voice. From that I could guess his background.
“You took the state examination, then?”
He nodded. “One of the friends I studied with is from Hanseong’s lower strata, and that friend benefited a lot from your favors, Young Master.”
“Oh.” I understood, he’d gotten scholarships or financial aid he’d needed for his local academy or school, and by chance the favors reached him. ‘Unexpectedly, my spending’s paying off,’ I thought.
While I mulled that over, a commotion rose at one corner of the hall. I’d heard the appointment ceremony was still an hour away, what was happening? I followed the noise with my eyes to the lower floor of the banquet hall.
There, people who looked as if they were seeing a palace for the first time were peering around nervously at the sumptuous surroundings.
“Who are those people? From their clothes, they don’t look like nobles.”
“Oh, those?” Someone who had checked the event schedule through their visual interface replied immediately. “They’re the successful candidates from the recent state examination. Except for one, they’ve all been assigned to the Royal Household.”
“Assigned to the Royal Household?”
“They were originally scheduled to enter the palace the day after tomorrow, but the schedule got moved. This time they’ll hold their entrance rites in the lower hall along with us.”
Hearing the three words “Royal Household ” colored my expression with a sudden, complicated feeling. The hopeful chatterers were people who’d climbed up here on their own despite being of the commoner rank. They’d made it to this place themselves.
“Hey, hey! There’s Jihoon!”
“Look at him in that court robe. It doesn’t suit him at all.”
“Kehehe.”
Some of the people down on the lower floor waved up at Jeong Jihoon with teasing familiarity.
“You bastard, you’ve already made it. Among us you used to be the absolute bottom in grades.”
“Well what can we do. Blame being lowborn for our fate.”
“No— work your ass off, and then rise to the same place as him!”
“Big dreams!”
“Puhahaha—!”
People were laughing and chatting—some out of envy, others firming up their own resolve.
Seeing his friends like that, Jeong Jihoon waved back with a bright smile.
“You punks, try to keep it down inside the palace, will you?”
“……”
Down on the lower floor, Jeong Jihoon exchanged greetings with the newly appointed exam passers.
And in that moment, I finally realized the source of the unease that had been nagging at me all along.
‘Exam passers. A provincial academy graduate. A fallen noble.’
Why had I remembered it only now?
“I’m lucky. I get to see my friends enter the palace.”
“……Lucky, you say?”
Jeong Jihoon smiled as he said it, but I couldn’t bring myself to agree.
‘Probably not.’
He wouldn’t understand now.
But among those people—how many of them truly knew?
Even if they worked themselves to the bone, even if they poured every ounce of their strength into climbing up to the royal court, what this country called Joseon would give them in return was only one thing.
An endless sense of powerlessness.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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