Chapter 72
Chapter 72
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: [Undisclosed]
Chapter Title: Clan Head, Not Princess
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Not princess, but clan head.
What's going on?
Why does the atmosphere feel so damn off?
"S-Seolgi... is doing well..."
Doesn't look like it at all.
Lee Miran Princess, sweating bullets and unable to even meet my eyes.
No matter how I sliced it, that was the face of someone forcing out a lie not even a kid could sell.
'Of course, our princess is mid-thirties despite the looks.'
Anyway, according to what I'd heard from Lee Gok, Seolgi had recently fought through a succession blood battle and reclaimed her spot as the clan's princess.
So she should be strolling down the flower path from here on out, but Lee Miran Princess reacting like this meant that while Lee Gok and I had been trapped down in the depths...
Something must've gone down in the meantime?
And what if Lee Miran Princess's little runaway stunt was tied to whatever happened to Seolgi?
'For now, no wild guesses.'
These bodies of ours had to stick around Busan anyway.
Fugitives with time to burn—unearthing the truth like this was always best done slow and steady, national rule.
That's why I figured it was time to wrap up the questions.
"By the way, Kwon Mina Princess."
"What's the matter?"
"Uh... about Lee Miran Princess. You planning to keep her locked down like this?"
The big issue we'd been dancing around all this time.
On the treatment of our second princess who'd barged into a rival hunter clan and kicked up hell, I gingerly—as one of the key reps from the "victim" Andong Kwon Clan side—
put it to the next-in-line heir, Kwon Mina Princess, asking her to cut us some slack.
She seemed genuinely weighed down by the whole mess herself.
"Haa... Never thought I'd see even a minor direct clash between hunter clans in my generation—something straight out of the class society era..."
"......"
She let out a heavy sigh.
"Well, can't exactly execute another clan's princess in this day and age."
Not like we're in the Joseon Dynasty or anything.
Plus, luckily, not a single casualty.
This could slide as a minor kerfuffle.
"T-Then you're forgiving Lee Miran Princess?"
"Well... for both sides' sake, we have to, don't we? Though Lee Miran herself will answer for it separately..."
"If that's how it is, count me in. She's run off and all, but no way she gets to harm my clan."
The mood had been sinking lower, but this was at least some good news.
"Then if we just get the clan head's okay, we're golden!"
"...!"
"？!"
Best to knot these things up clean in one go.
With that in mind, I pictured the top dog of the Andong Kwon Clan—
the current clan head I hadn't met yet. As someone with a bit of a connection to Lee Miran Princess, I figured I'd tag along and apologize too.
'Women in this reversed world go soft for a man's apology. Deep bow and she'll cave right away, right?'
But what else was hanging over us?
"Uh... yeah... have to meet the clan head..."
"Y-Yeah..."
The moment clan head came up, both princesses started creaking awkwardly.
"...? Come on, we gotta go apologize."
"...!"
Why the stall?
And from hunter clan princesses, no less.
Or was the Andong Kwon clan head so terrifying even these two wanted to dodge her?
I was mulling how to handle the two princesses who wouldn't budge when—
"...Let's go see her. Mother..."
"!!"
Kwon Mina Princess replied in a voice heavy as if steeling herself for some grand ordeal.
Lee Miran Princess looked downright shocked for some reason, and the first to stand was Kwon Mina, who...
Squeezed tight.
"Shall we go? Yongchan."
"Ah, yeah..."
...grabbed my hand firm and led just me off to the clan head.
Husbands were practically nonexistent in hunter clans.
A "prince" born with the clan's bloodline got groomed meticulously for diplomacy or marriage, but the queen's husband—the "consort"—was a whole different story.
Men with top-tier blood were rare as hell to begin with, so the guys hunter clan women took were pure whim.
Business deals, mostly, to scratch that itch and keep the line going.
Hunter bloodlines and normals didn't even age the same.
Usually knocked 'em up once, pocketed the payout, and ghosted.
That was your hunter clan hubby.
But the previous clan head of the Andong Kwon Clan—
Kwon Mina Princess's mom and dad? Not even close.
They loved each other equally, lifespans be damned, bloodlines different, even in this brutal female-supremacist world.
True love brought them together, and even if the guy was fragile enough to snap mid-act—which any normal hunter clan woman would've forced anyway—
"I love you."
They didn't.
Their love overpowered even the raging lust.
A freak anomaly in hunter clan bloodlines.
Meant they were the golden couple too, and Kwon Mina got to grow up happy under normal folks.
Until ten years ago.
The day the black portal popped up in Busan.
Right before seeing her dad— who'd rushed out with his frail male body to help mom—get slaughtered by monsters.
Normal hunter clan wives? Funeral if the hubby kicked it.
End of the "rice cake fling."
But Kwon Mina's parents weren't normal.
From that day, the previous clan head—mate lost—started crumbling bit by bit until she dove into the dungeon that killed him to conquer it... and vanished without a trace around the upper floors.
"So these two graves are..."
"Yes. My mother's and father's."
"I see..."
"......"
I'd followed Kwon Mina Princess to the deepest heart of the Andong Kwon Clan.
Up to the cemetery with a clear vista of Busan's sea, where I met her parents for the first time.
"So the current Kwon Clan clan head is..."
"Me."
"...!"
"Hehe, pretty shocked? Makes sense— an 800-year legacy handed to some kid not even a century old. Natural reaction."
The seat couldn't stay empty, so yeah... way too early, but she'd been holding it down since ten years back.
"And the reason we kept my parents' deaths quiet? Similar deal to me sitting here."
"To avoid shaming the clan...?"
"...Yes. Our clan's call, along with Korea's three hunter clans and the government."
The Andong Kwon Clan was the hunter powerhouse in Busan—Korea's second capital.
Supreme Lee Clan owned Seoul's hunters? Kwon owned Busan.
Hunter Association branch? Seoul only.
Busan's dungeon portals? Managed by the Kwon Clan, not the Association.
"If the Association was in Busan instead? Could've reined in outsiders even with our gap. But..."
Busan was a port hub.
Arguably more hunters flooding in from Japan, China, Taiwan than Seoul.
If the top dogs collapsed? Even in ban-plundering 21st century, superhumans off the leash.
Control? Fat chance.
Gov kept mom's fate hush-hush, plopped Kwon Mina in the seat, and left Busan in her hands ever since.
"Busan's held together fine, so I'd say you're nailing it, Princess."
Weird stuff had piled up from the jump, thinking back.
Like stepping into Andong Kwon turf first time.
Should've met the boss—clan head—stat, but nah, straight to chow with the princess.
'Cause I'd already been with the clan head all along.
Clicked then: ten years ago, she'd been my and Seolgi's age.
Held the throne since, kept Busan humming—I could only admire and bow in thanks.
Me or Seolgi up there back then? We'd have tanked the clan faster.
But Kwon Mina shook her head fast.
"No. Nothing great about me."
"Huh? Busan's booming as Korea's number two city, though?"
"No... Even at lunch today, those kunoichi came sniffing after you..."
If mom were alive, Busan wouldn't allow that crap.
She laid it on herself like that.
"Compared to her... this lady...!"
Tears rolled.
"!"
"This lady next to the previous clan head? A total joke of a clan head."
The lunch ambush on me—she'd internalized that deep.
Reversed world women? Crying was mortifying.
Doubly in front of a guy you had to look strong for.
Yet Kwon Mina—no, Clan Head—couldn't hold it, tears splashing her massive chest.
"Sorry... I'm sorry!"
First crying woman I'd seen since reincarnating here.
Second if you count saving Seolgi in the succession brawl.
That was chaos overload—no room to freak. Now, her bawling before her parents' graves? How to play it.
Short think.
Hug.
"...!"
Action beats words, they say.
I pulled the young clan head—face swelling with tears—into my arms tight.
Felt right, somehow.
Pat-pat on her quivering back, like telling her same-age throne-sitter to finally vent those bottled-up years.