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Chapter 54
The moment the words left his mouth, the official’s Aura Power slammed down on Jeong Jihoon’s body.
Thud—!
“Ghh…?!”
The wave of pressure bearing down on his entire body made the surrounding young noblemen stumble backward.
It was a crushing force—powerful enough to twist solid iron.
Seeing Jeong Jihoon endure it, the official’s eyes gleamed briefly with surprise.
“Your Aura Power isn’t bad… but what are you? Why are you causing trouble for someone who was just standing still?”
Through gritted teeth, Jeong Jihoon’s voice slipped out.
“When you said it ‘Not that it matters’… what exactly did you mean by that?”
“…What?”
As if something inside him were about to explode, Jeong Jihoon’s voice began to tremble.
“This—this isn’t what those people went through all that hardship for, is it? Th-there were people among them far more deserving than me…! Far more talented, far more worthy than someone like me! And yet you—! You treat them like this…!”
“So first you swing your Aura Power around for no reason, and now you’re babbling nonsense? Every new batch just gets crazier and crazier…”
While the official muttered in irritation, the guards stationed nearby began to move forward to intervene.
“My lord, are you all right?!”
“We’ll restrain him, sir. Please step back—”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m still an official—can’t have my servants handling a lesson for a junior.”
But that composure didn’t last long.
“Thirty minutes before the ceremony starts. Can’t stain the banquet hall, so I’ll hold back a bit. Still…”
Sending his guards away, the official twisted his lips into a sneer as he looked at Jeong Jihoon, crushed beneath his Aura Power.
“It’s going to hurt like hell.”
His fist drove straight into Jeong Jihoon’s abdomen.
“Keu-uhhk…!”
With a hiss of escaping air, Jeong Jihoon’s body rolled across the banquet floor.
Whenever he tried to stand, the pressure forced him back down; when he managed to resist the pressure and regain his stance, another merciless blow immediately followed.
Once. Then again.
As Jeong Jihoon rolled and tumbled across the hall, the noblemen watching began to laugh mockingly.
“Haha, what a joke. Those servants were the ones who had their vocal cords torn out—so why’s he wasting his energy defending them?”
“What, isn’t he the one everyone’s been talking about lately? The ‘Kind Noble’?”
“You mean that fool who gives money to unregistered commoners living underground?”
“Whoever he is, it’s ridiculous. Just look at what Cho Seong-hwan did. You never know what schemes people like that are plotting behind the scenes.”
‘Why is it that someone else is the one getting blamed for someone else’s mistakes?’
A bitter smile tugged at my lips—but that wasn’t where my focus lay.
‘Right… Jeong Jihoon. That was him.’
That face—like a man desperate to advertise, ‘Look at me, I’m a good person.’
Now I remembered.
The legitimate heir of the fallen noble clan, Hawon Jeong clan. Unlike other nobles, he had personally taken and passed the imperial civil exam.
A prodigy who possessed exceptionally high Aura Power despite never undergoing bloodline enhancement—and who had the intellect to pass the rigorous state examination.
Because of that, he caught the eye of Kim Junghun, who appointed him to a central government post.
A dragon born from the shallows—a rising star that even the provincial academies had high hopes for.
‘But… that brilliance lasted only a moment.’
During the ceremony where his appointment was to be formally announced, he suddenly went berserk as if possessed by a ghost.
The cause—Aura Power Rampage.
Unable to control his own Aura Power, Jeong Jihoon had injured three noble heirs of influential families on the spot, after which he was dragged away by the imperial guards.
And from that day on, he vanished.
‘Of course, “vanished” only on paper. In truth, he was taken to the royal biological research facility… and used as a “research sample.”’
Only then did a fragment of memory from my previous life surface in my mind.
‘My Jihoon! My Jeong Jihoon was here, they said! He passed the state examination!’ Said his poor mother, who would never have to worry about eating again
‘That loudmouthed brat—!’
‘Seal the gates! Don’t let her through!’
His mother, who had rushed to the capital to demand her son’s return.
And the guards of the Andong Kim Clan, stomping on that mother’s head as she screamed.
I’d been the one scouring every corner of Hanseong at dawn, trying to cover up the incident.
No wonder his face had looked so familiar. That memory had been buried deep but never gone.
‘And judging from what just happened… I can roughly guess the cause behind his Aura Power Rampage.’
For instance, some of the eunuchs who vanished right after donning their ceremonial hats were people who had once studied for the state exam alongside him.
Seeing them turned into those broken, hollow things—and then dragged away…
That must have been the spark that drove our righteous Jeong Jihoon mad.
To have lost control of himself in a banquet hall hosted personally by Kim Junghun, injuring the sons of high-born families…
What happened to him afterward was obvious.
‘A fool too ruled by emotion to tell dung from bean paste. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have spared him a glance…’
But things were different now.
As I watched Jeong Jihoon, rolling across the floor under the official’s kicks, a thought took root.
Unlike me—pretending to be something I’m not—he was the real deal.
A man who burned himself alive for the sake of the oppressed.
A genuine “Good Noble.”
A Aura Power talent once called a prodigy, a man who’d passed the imperial exam, and a noble from the provinces to boot.
‘As a bureaucrat serving the rotting court, he’s a zero. But as a revolutionary meant to upend Joseon… he’s a perfect hundred.’
As I thought that, the taunting from the other young nobles began to cross the line.
“Just look at him. A backwater bumpkin pretending to be a noble. Shouldn’t he be down there rolling in the mud with the rest of them?”
“Hah! We only call him noble out of courtesy, and now he actually believes it. Who knows what’ll crawl out if you open that family register of his?”
“If his friends ended up like that, shouldn’t he be bowing to us in gratitude instead of losing his temper?”
“My thoughts exactly. Isn’t the only reason he’s even standing here because Lord Kim Junghun picked him out of pity?”
“……!”
Beaten like a plaything by the very man who had turned his friends into mute shells… surrounded by nothing but ridicule and contempt.
At this rate, he was going to explode.
That official seemed to be hoping for it, too.
‘Can’t let that happen.’
Just as Jeong Jihoon clenched his jaw and Aura Power began to surge around him, I rushed forward— and slipped myself between the two men.
“That’s far enough, senior.”
“Hmm?”
The moment I spoke respectfully to the official, both of them turned their eyes toward me.
“And who are you supposed to be?”
“My apologies for the late introduction, senior. I’m Kim Chang-woon, newly appointed in this year’s batch.”
Kim Chang-woon.
The moment the name left my lips, the official’s eyes deepened.
The realization that I was a member of the Andong Kim Clan froze his movements.
“This year’s recruits are quite something,” he said dryly.
“One hits his senior in defense of peasants, another shields his fellow trainee claiming it’s ‘pity.’ What next?”
“Did it look like I was shielding him, senior?”
“What?”
The official’s brows knitted, and at that very instant, Jeong Jihoon, having finally caught his breath, staggered upright.
“They weren’t supposed to become like this… They didn’t come all this way just to end up like that…!”
He was rambling incoherently now, half out of his mind.
Before he could spiral further, I stepped in— and drove my foot into his abdomen, slamming him against the wall.
“Keuu?!”
He had remarkable Aura Power— but he was a spoiled, untested dilettante who’d never seen real combat.
The moment his breathing faltered, the Aura Power that had swelled to his dantian simply dispersed into the air and vanished.
“If you’ve got nothing, at least have some sense. How dare you glare at your senior like that? Do you even know what you were trying to do just now?”
“Ki— Kim Chang-woon, what are you—! Aaagh?!”
Following the moves I’d picked up from Taewoong, I peppered him with kicks to the belly and then to the jaw in quick succession.
Whether because my technique pleased me or because the official preferred to watch the show, the official simply folded his arms and watched in silence.
As the young nobles that had been circling Jeong Jihoon fell back one by one, I seized Jeong Jihoon’s battered collar and hauled him toward a corner of the banquet hall.
‘At least I can say I stopped him from being dragged off to the Royal Inquisition Bureau right here.’
Seething with anger, Jeong Jihoon thrashed and tried to break free.
Thwack!
I didn’t hesitate. I gripped his collar and shoved my face close to his.
“Cool your head and look at the situation around you. Doing what you just did won’t help. It’s not the right method.”
“…What?”
I kept my tone formal—had to appear older, authoritative. The change in my manner seemed to confuse him; his movements, which had looked ready to throw a punch at me, stopped.
“Charging at them now will change nothing. This banquet is hosted by the Andong Kim clan. If you raise a ruckus here, you won’t walk away unscathed.”
The hall was large enough that no one overheard us.
For a moment, Jeong Jihoon seemed stunned by my sudden shift in demeanor. But he hadn’t fully suppressed his fury, and he strained to wrench my hand from his collar.
“Do you think I don’t know that?! Didn’t you see—my, my friends—!”
“Do you intend to throw away the little strength you have left out of a passing emotion? If something happens to the you, what will become of your Mother who’s left alone?”
At the single word Mother, Jeong Jihoon’s eyes widened, and he looked toward me.
“How…?”
I didn’t answer. How could I tell him I’d seen the future? Instead, I threw him a rough approximation of advice—enough to steer him. Without turning to look at his face, I said,
“Not now. When you leave, hide your feelings. Don’t let them know that you treat them as enemies.”
“…!”
“Bend low. Hide a dagger in your sleeve and wait for a chance. If you nurture and sharpen what you hold now, the perfect opportunity to wield it will come.”
Dagger. Opportunity.
Maybe it was the razor-edged chill in those words that made his expression twitch strangely. Jeong Jihoon, standing beside m,e looked even stranger than before.
“You… what are you—?”
“…I’ll contact you again when the time comes.”
I could have said more, but that was enough for now. At least I’d saved a man who might otherwise have been killed today. That was enough for the moment.
“Remember one thing.”
I released him with an intentionally coarse motion, leaning in to speak in a low voice.
“Soon enough, this country, Joseon, will be overturned.”
From a distance, the bell that marked the banquet’s end tolled.
It took far longer than I expected for his dazed face to recover and for him to pull himself together.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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