A Loyal Subject
The shockwave the Financial Real-Name System sent through the market was, frankly, immense.
I was kept busy, too, getting briefed on the follow-up measures after the real-name reform.
But the effect was undeniable.
You could tell just by looking at the phone call Kim A-ra had received.
"Your Majesty, it’s me."
“Has everything been cleaned up on the JD Group side?”
"Yes. Thanks to the Joint Investigation Headquarters, the nuisance was removed, and I obtained every signature from the executives. As of today, JD Group is completely free of Jangdong’s shadow."
“Good work. From the sound of your voice, you must be on the move.”
"Yes. I’m heading to Jangdong now."
Jangdong. The source of all this mess, and the place where her father was waiting.
Kim A-ra’s voice was crisp, almost immaculate.
Fast. Like she’d been waiting for this. The moment she seized JD, she went straight for Kim, too.
“Do you have a plan?”
"The tide is already on my side. I also have something I prepared a long time ago."
I didn’t ask what that something was.
That was, in a way, trust. Not really trust in Kim A-ra’s character or our personal relationship, but trust in that villainess-like competence of hers.
"So I have one favor to ask of Your Majesty."
“Go on.”
"As promised, I’ll hand over everything Kim was holding onto."
From Kim A-ra’s perspective, she had almost no way of breaking the promise she’d made with me anyway.
And if you considered it payment for what she’d already gained from JD Group, it was practically cheap.
Still, her voice was cheerful.
Like someone who wanted something else.
"Instead, please leave Kim Yang-han’s handling entirely to me."
I was silent for a moment.
“Chairwoman Kim A-ra.”
"Yes."
“Don’t kill him. There are limits to private punishment.”
"Don’t worry. I’ve prepared a very fitting ending for him. But if it still doesn’t suit Your Majesty’s tastes..."
Kim A-ra paused briefly, then went on.
"You may dispose of him again later."
“I’ll look forward to it.”
I didn’t think Kim A-ra would let Kim Yang-han off the hook.
The opposite, if anything.
She’s ruthless. The makjang drama villainess really is ruthless.
* * *
Kim A-ra entered the room with leisurely steps.
“Everyone seems to be in utter disarray. This is the first time I’ve seen the inner compound in Jangdong this noisy since I was born.”
“Do you even know what you’ve done, you wretched girl, before you start talking?”
Kim Yang-han’s voice was low and heavy. It was less anger than a chill that came off him.
Kim A-ra gave a light shrug.
“What have I done? I merely let myself be carried by the current. His Majesty himself proclaimed the Financial Real-Name System, so I simply acted to preserve the group’s survival in line with that. Ah, the president of Samulsan was unfortunate. He’ll probably have a hard time breathing open air for a while. I went and came back, and trust me, it’s not the sort of place a person should be sent to.”
Kim A-ra stopped speaking and glanced around the room.
The telephone placed in one corner was vibrating in exhausted little bursts, unable to stop itself. The caller was obvious enough without looking.
“Shouldn’t you answer it? It must be a call from one of the other noble families.”
The Jo, Park, Yun, and Hong families would all be watching this situation with their eyes rolling in their heads, too, trying to see how things had turned out.
“So.”
Kim Yang-han finally spoke. His voice was dry, with no emotion left in it at all.
“You think that, because you obtained the signatures of the heads on a few scraps of paper, you can truly seize the group and make it dance to your tune?”
“Up until now, that would have been impossible. But the world has changed.”
Kim A-ra smiled coldly.
“Now accept it. What, exactly, can you do right now, Father?”
“......”
“Until now, people have said this household was protected by the imperial family, deeply entangled with the system of this nation, and by Kim’s retainers spread through politics, government, and the judiciary.
But look at them now. They’re all too busy protecting their own skins to even take your calls. When the Emperor’s blade is already at your throat, what use is rotten loyalty?”
“From this point on, it’s every man for himself. The weak get devoured, and only those who can read the situation quickly enough survive. That’s the battlefield that’s opened up.”
Yes—a battlefield where only true predators survive.
Kim A-ra felt a thrilling rush. To think she could say this to Kim Yang-han.
“Accept it. One era has ended.”
Kim A-ra’s voice rang through the room, full of certainty.
And a new era begins.
Perhaps like the first time the great emperor who laid the foundations of this country stepped into the world.
“You say the era has ended?”
Kim Yang-han clicked his tongue and flicked the teacup in his hand to the floor.
With a sharp crash, the expensive porcelain shattered to pieces.
“There has never been a more shameful day than this, knowing that you share my blood. To think you’d try to judge the world with the shallow calculations of merchants who understand nothing but finance and profit.”
“You can deny reality all you want, but...”
“Be silent.”
At Kim Yang-han’s icy words, Kim A-ra shut her mouth.
“Fool. Do you think that because you defeated this father, you’ve come to understand the workings of the world? The blade of a young Emperor is making the nobility bleed, and now you’re frightened and awed as if the age of the great emperors has truly returned?”
It wasn’t even funny.
“You don’t understand a single thing about the essence of power, or about the bones that have upheld this nation from underneath.”
Kim Yang-han looked down at the shattered fragments of the teacup with cold indifference.
Power that is respected because of ability, because it fed the people, because it drove out foreign enemies—such power scatters like grains of sand the moment its greatness fades.
A king is not respected because he is great.
A king is respected because he is a king, and a noble is respected because he is a noble.
Anyone who is respected because of greatness alone will, the instant people discover that he is no longer great, be dragged down first by the very same people who praised him and bowed before him, and then torn to pieces. That is the nature of the foolish mob.
“Authority is like that. Authority that has to prove itself through skill or greatness is nothing more than a sideshow. Just like that Emperor.”
“Are you saying His Majesty is merely a lucky sideshow?” Kim A-ra asked. “The Emperor who toppled the Gyeonghwa Noble Families overnight?”
“And so? How long do you think that man’s prosperity will really last?”
Kim Yang-han snorted as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
If power could be maintained by achievements alone, then why had so many founders of nations been usurped from behind the curtain?
After the great emperor’s death, the imperial family understood that logic well, and they educated the common people of this nation accordingly.
They taught them to abandon the arrogant fantasy that a great individual could emerge and save the world.
To realize that the world’s principles were driven by predetermined bloodlines and an order that could not be defied.
And they succeeded.
They would have kept succeeding forever, if not for the impudent actions of lowborn soldiers or some brat like Min Do-yeong, running wild without control.
Kim Yang-han slowly rose from his seat. His shadow fell over Kim A-ra as if it meant to swallow her whole.
His eyes flashed fiercely.
“Do you think you’ve beaten this father? I may have lost. But don’t think the Emperor has won forever, either, or that you have.”
“You, who so disgustingly gushes about your admiration for the Emperor—once the value of that man named Lee Jin is exhausted, you’ll discard him without hesitation, won’t you?”
Kim A-ra twisted her lips in reply.
“...Maybe.”
But not now.
Right now, this was the moment she had come to declare total victory.
“I’ve been to the Joint Investigation Headquarters, too, so I know... President Yun won’t last much longer. JD Group will hand over every file it has on Kim’s corruption to the Joint Investigation Headquarters as well. Once the investigation expands, your name will have to come up, too, Father. And with that, the clean reputation you spent your whole life building will be finished.”
Korea still clung to the maxim that punishment does not reach the noble—xing bu shang da fu—to quote the Book of Rites literally, but at this point even Kim Yang-han knew the Emperor would not abide by such principles.
The shield that had kept a speck of filth from touching him was meaningless now.
What remained was only this: die as a criminal... or die as a scholar-official.
“Leave the cleanup of Kim’s aftermath to me. Father was absolutely unaware of everything, but he deeply regrets his failure to govern the household properly and will hand the family over to the next generation, while donating the family’s assets to compensate the nation and the victims... How about we settle it at that level?”
As though there were still hope, Kim A-ra spoke lightly.
Kim Yang-han answered with a frosty voice.
“Nonsense. Death is already unavoidable, and now you want this entire household handed over wholesale to an illegitimate nobody with no roots?”
If things had been as they used to be, she would have had to bite back the rage surging up in her heart.
But for some reason, not a trace of agitation stirred in Kim A-ra.
“I’m glad you understand. But even if you refuse, do you think there’s any other option?”
Kim A-ra smiled brightly as she spoke.
“Being alive doesn’t mean you’re the master.”
“What did you say?”
“You had a health checkup at JD Medical Center not too long ago, didn’t you?”
The sudden mention of a hospital made Kim Yang-han’s brow furrow.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“The results were truly unfortunate.”
The corners of Kim A-ra’s mouth curved into a faintly vicious line.
“Acute dementia and severe cognitive impairment. Father is currently in no condition to think or judge normally.”
“Hah. Don’t try that pathetic little trick!”
“That’s what the diagnosis says. It’s a complete and lawful medical record, agreed upon by the hospital director and the attending physician alike.”
When had it started?
When had she prepared this? No, that wasn’t important.
What mattered was this.
“Legally speaking, the blood relative acts as proxy for the legal rights and property management of a person who lacks the capacity to make decisions.”
Kim A-ra’s eyes shone as she looked at Kim Yang-han.
“This is the first time in my life.”
Kim A-ra said with a bright smile.
“I’ve ever felt glad that we were family.”
If it had been any other time, he would have sneered at it as a ridiculous stunt—but didn’t Kim Yang-han understand this better than anyone?
In the world of power, truth doesn’t really matter.
And in a situation like this, when the tide had already turned...
“You little... How dare you...!”
Kim Yang-han’s face turned beet red.
He’d been bitten at the throat—by blood he had spent his entire life trampling and despising.
He craned his neck and howled.
“Guards! Is there no one outside!”
His voice tore outward beyond the inner compound as if it would split apart.
“Drag this mad bitch out at once! Kill her! Drag out this brazen bitch and kill her right now!”
And yet.
The world outside the door was unnaturally quiet. No footsteps of retainers flooding in like hounds answering their master’s call.
“Guards! Can’t you hear me? You bastards!”
That was when it happened.
Thud, crash—! Bang!
From outside came the dull sound of something collapsing, along with a heavy impact.
A short scream, the sound of someone rolling across the floor, and then the noise of bodies being dragged away followed in quick succession.
“Aaaah!”
“Stop them! Stop those bastards— argh!”
The fierce sounds of suppression raged for a moment, and then the mansion fell silent again, as though a mouse had died inside it.
Only Kim Yang-han’s ragged breathing drifted through the empty air.
In his eyes, perhaps for the first time in his life, a primal fear seeped in.
“Looks like no one’s coming to protect you anymore, Father. I’m glad I made so many ‘lowly’ friends inside Kim’s household.”
“You rebellious bitch, to your own father—”
“Rebellious?” Kim A-ra cut him off with a sneer. “Fortunately, Father, your cognitive abilities are gone, so you’re not connected to Kim’s current crimes anymore. How lucky. You’ll be able to die as a loyal subject.”
Kim A-ra mocked him.
“Isn’t that enough to say I’ve done my filial duty as a family member?”
Between her lips fell a verdict soaked in the bitter resentment she had carried all her life.
“Spend the rest of your days in a cramped, lonely place, Father.”
Just like the dark, damp cellar where she had lived.
---