Chapter 38
“......What? Is that true?!”
Top floor of the Pungyang Jo Clan research building.
One of the Gold Army soldiers grimaced upon hearing the transmission from the Uigeumbu agent.
But it was only for a moment. Straightening his expression, he hurried over to the man standing on the rooftop and spoke up.
“We've received a report from the Uigeumbu. Target sighted at the coordinates. The target is...”
He paused briefly after checking the accompanying video data.
“Young Master Jo Seong-hwan is already dead from massive blood loss.”
“Understood.”
Kim Hyun-woo gave a curt reply and nodded.
By now, the transport drone dispatched by the Uigeumbu would've secured Jo Seong-hwan's body.
With this, it was all over.
“Fleeing so pathetically, only to end up like that.”
Muttering to himself, Kim Hyun-woo stared at the arm gripping his sword.
The faint tremor that still hadn't stopped.
He had no choice but to admit it.
Right now, he was feeling the raw sensation of his first kill.
Distracted by the feel of slicing flesh, he'd let the bastard slip away. Utterly shameful.
“Did you secure photos of the body?”
“Yes. We have data images from the transport drone, but...”
“Send them to me. I'll verify it myself.”
His lingering unease unquelled, Kim Hyun-woo checked the corpse's condition.
Jo Seong-hwan, dead with eyes popped wide.
It was his first time seeing a dead body—nausea surged up—but he couldn't let it show.
He examined the corpse for just a moment.
“Hm?”
Kim Hyun-woo's brow furrowed as he looked at Jo Seong-hwan's body.
The wounds on the corpse.
Among them, wounds he definitely hadn't inflicted.
‘The wound's shape and scorch marks mean it was from a hwandos made by our clan. But...’
He'd deployed the Gold Army instead of the main house guards, so he was the only one carrying such a blade right now.
Not in his memory.
Yet unmistakably from the same weapon.
In this situation, the only one who'd kill Jo Seong-hwan with an Andong Kim Clan sword...
‘Kim Chang-un. That bastard?’
The thought had just crossed his mind.
Guuuuung—!
A transport helicopter descended from the sky, slicing through rain and thunderclouds.
The Andong Kim Clan crest emblazoned on the fuselage, with a black line beneath it.
Kim Hyun-woo's eyes widened for an instant.
“That’s...!”
Thud—!
The helicopter landed on the rooftop, its door swinging open to reveal Kim Jung-heon, head of the Andong Kim Clan.
He'd been away inspecting Ogunyoung's troop management.
Upon hearing of the scandal in Hanseong, he'd rushed back.
“Father.”
Kim Hyun-woo hastily adjusted his robes to greet him, but Kim Jung-heon didn't spare him a glance.
Following his gaze revealed Jo Seong-hwan's corpse being unloaded from a transport drone.
The instant he confirmed it personally, Kim Jung-heon's face twisted savagely.
A violent shift utterly unlike his usual composure.
“What in blazes is this?”
“Precisely as you see.”
Gazing down at the research building beneath them, Kim Hyun-woo replied.
“Right in the heart of Hanseong—Joseon's capital—the Pungyang Jo Clan was collecting and experimenting on monsters. An intolerable outrage, a treason that endangers Joseon itself.”
“So you killed him for it? The heir of the Pungyang Jo Clan, no less?”
In truth, he hadn't done the deed himself.
He had his suspicions.
But Kim Hyun-woo saw no need to mention it.
Even if Kim Chang-un hadn't finished Jo Seong-hwan, he'd planned to hunt him down and kill him anyway.
And since he'd sent Kim Chang-un to infiltrate the Pungyang Jo Clan, the kill was as good as his own.
“It was naught but executing a traitor firsthand. And moreover...”
After a brief pause, Kim Hyun-woo continued.
“With their heir eliminated and treason pinned on them, isn't this the perfect chance to crush their influence...?”
Slap—!
Before he could finish, Kim Jung-heon closed in and backhanded his cheek.
“You slaughter the blood of another noble house in this idiotic blunder, and that's the paltry scheme you dredge up? You blithering idiot!”
Kim Jung-heon bellowed, face contorted. Kim Hyun-woo stared back, eyes wide.
Bewilderment at his father's actions plain on his face.
The sight only fueled Kim Jung-heon's rage.
“Do you grasp how many joint ventures the main house shares with them? How many plans hinge on their aid? You've dashed cold water over every last one, great and small!”
“The main house's coffers can fill any gap. Besides, they were breeding monsters in Hanseong...!”
“Does that excuse bypassing all protocol, deploying the Gold Army on a whim, and butchering noble blood?”
Lost for a retort, Kim Hyun-woo fell silent.
“I've ever taught you: all worldly affairs demand their due process and order. Yet you do this? How do you think the throng of nobles at the royal assembly will judge our house?”
Obvious as day.
The Andong Kim Clan topples the Pungyang Jo for its own gain.
Slaying their heir sans trial to that end.
“Was it... truly so grave a fault?”
“It was.”
Kim Hyun-woo scowled at his father's icy tone.
“Why?”
“Our house's might springs from the equilibrium among the nobles.”
Kim Jung-heon pressed on.
“The Andong Kim holds paramount station among noble houses, yet has not rashly trespassed others' domains.”
“......”
“Nay, we have championed respect for their realms, mediating strife among the nobility. Do you know why?”
Thus the fractious houses unite sans rancor, bound as one toward shared ends.
That amalgamated force has elevated noble power to its zenith.
Cooperation with the rabble. Unity with the dregs. He'd heard it until it sickened him.
“But Jo Seong-hwan was vile, delving into illicit monster research—his ilk peddling filth from it. And you know their backroom depravities, do you not?!”
Impossible not to.
Narcotics, slave trading. And the vile offshoots thereof.
Acts so loathsome they turned the stomach merely to name.
“What worth in unity forged with such vermin? With you and I as bulwarks, why bend to their caprice for this 'unity'?”
“...Hah.”
To spout such after beholding ‘that’ at the coronation.
“...Very well. Grant your words true: thus we Andong Kim reign supreme among nobles.”
Kim Jung-heon's visage wearied further.
“Suppose we subjugate all rivals, extirpate their kin to the third degree, hoard their power, and crown a dynasty.”
“What awaits at the terminus?”
The end?
Kim Hyun-woo faltered, and Kim Jung-heon supplied it.
“The king upon the throne sits even now.”
The king.
The word froze Kim Hyun-woo speechless.
“Recount the rebellion of deposed crown prince Yi Chi-eon.”
He knew it well.
Eyes narrowing, Kim Hyun-woo spoke measuredly.
“Crown Prince Yi Chi-eon, seized by mania, plotted regicide and rebelled. And...”
“His Majesty fell grievously wounded by the prince's blade; royal honor crumbled to dust. Ringleader Yi Chi-eon, deposed, suffered dismemberment for parricide and treason.”
Impatient with the querier, Kim Jung-heon rattled it off.
A dusty chronicle invoked in every history lesson.
Kim Hyun-woo couldn't fathom why dredge it now.
“Do you truly not comprehend?”
Kim Jung-heon eyed his son askance.
“This chronicle I spoke is the doom of Joseon's throne-bearer.”
Thus spake Kim Jung-heon.
“Rending his own progeny limb from limb, become a living corpse denied even death—pinned to a hollow throne, a puppet jerked by strings. Seduced by sole tyranny, plunged into hell where demise is denied! Such is the throne!”
“......!”
“Hence the Andong Kim wields sovereign might yet claims not the crown. We set houses beneath our heel, yet tread not their crowns to ascend.”
For in reveling in the king's pomp, the yoke falls to the throne's cadaver.
And thereby sustains the Andong Kim's—and all nobility's—sway.
His voice rose as he appended.
“Yet your deeds shatter that sacred tenet. Noble houses shall ne'er trust again. Endless suspicion, ceaseless vigilance. By your hand! For you slew Jo Seong-hwan...!”
He paused, reining his fervor, and clutched his face.
“Fuu.”
With matters thus entangled, bluster yielded naught.
‘Losing their heir wounds Pungyang Jo's strength sorely. Then in this pass...’
Prattle of accord before a bereaved sire availed nothing.
One path remained: excise Pungyang Jo ere the blaze spread.
‘Proof of Hanseong monster dealings secured—ample warrant to unleash Gold Army and Uigeumbu.’
Kim Hyun-woo had weighed this ere acting.
youthful, yet competent.
“Return to the main house. I shall handle this myself henceforth.”
“Father! But...!”
Boom—!
Mid-protest, Kim Jung-heon's aura bore down, crushing him.
“I brook no words.”
“......Yes. As you command.”
Kim Hyun-woo bowed grudgingly and turned.
As he boarded the clan chopper.
“You schemed with uncharacteristic cunning.”
Halting him, Kim Jung-heon queried through slitted eyes.
“Were you the architect of this from inception to close?”
“Pardon?”
“Unveiling Pungyang Jo's monster lair, inciting rampage to brand them traitors. I ask: your contrivance entire?”
The piercing query silenced Kim Hyun-woo a beat.
He'd merely struck Jo Seong-hwan.
The scheme was Kim Chang-un's, that fool's.
Yet...
“Yes. Indeed.”
Son's trepidation before sire?
A lie tumbled forth.
“So be it.”
Kim Jung-heon nodded, gaze averted, tone offhand.
“The design was flawless.”
“......!”
“At least your heirship tutelage proved not wasted.”
Praise, it seemed.
Kim Hyun-woo boarded amid those words.
Flawless triumph.
Thorn Jo Seong