A Scheme for the People's Hearts
I had barely lifted myself from my seat to leave after finishing our conversation when Wang Inho spoke up, as if the discussion were not yet over.
"I will grant you four years of closed-door cultivation, but bear in mind that if circumstances shift suddenly, all bets are off."
"I'm sorry... what?"
What is he talking about now? You were laughing heartily just a moment ago, saying it was all fine.
Seeing me dumbstruck, Wang Inho spoke with a faint air of weariness.
"I mean that within four years, we will have no choice but to cross blades with the Choe bastards."
"That soon? Even with this assassination attempt, I assumed you'd let it slide, Father."
And indeed, this assassination incident could not simply be brushed aside. If we sent Choe Chunghon a formal challenge over the attempt on my life, he would simply plead ignorance, and that would be the end of it.
But what if we pressed our advantage, seized the moral high ground, and struck first? That would be the annihilation of our clan, plain and simple. A just cause is undeniably a crucial element in warfare — it wins the hearts of the common people.
Yet even that only works when the gap between you and your enemy has narrowed to some degree. What good is popular support when you're surrounded on all sides by enemies? That was why I had assumed even those stubborn elders of ours would let the matter pass this time.
Don't tell me the elders have all gone senile at once.
Just as I concluded that nothing else could explain it — and resolved to have some tonic medicine brewed and sent over to the elders as soon as possible — Wang Inho spoke.
"So you've learned to read the tides of the realm."
"Well, you know..."
It was the first time since my reincarnation that I'd actually applied myself to study, after all. Perhaps I had finally dipped a toe, however small, into the waters of politics.
"But there is one thing you've gotten wrong. It will not be us who attacks. They will attack us."
"Wait, what? They attempt an assassination and then want an all-out war on top of it? These people are out of their minds."
The sheer absurdity of it dragged coarse language out of me right in front of Wang Inho. If your assassination attempt had failed, you'd think they'd be crawling into a hole — and instead they were the ones throwing a fit. Reading my expression, Wang Inho let out a hearty chuckle.
"Then let me walk you through how the situation stands. You must learn these things now — you're the young lord, after all."
"I've been doing the young lord thing just fine from the start, thank you very much."
"......"
Was I wrong? Fine, never mind, then.
Wang Inho's face said he had plenty to say, but he pressed his lips firmly together and slowly began laying out the events that had been unfolding behind the scenes.
To summarize: our clan had decided to form an alliance with the Sin Clan. We were working to prevent the King's deposition. And lastly, the King had been driven to the point of considering abdication himself — he needed our help that desperately.
To think all of this had been happening while I was busy courting. The sheer scale of it made cold sweat break out on my back.
"Joining hands with the Sin Clan, one of the Six Great Clans, and securing the King's promise to keep his throne — that much went well. But Choe Chunghon caught wind of it."
"And a King facing deposition over the failed assassination... he's completely finished now, isn't he?"
Our clan and the Sin Clan were doing everything in their power to delay the deposition, but honestly, I doubted the King would last even a year.
Wang Inho must have been thinking the same thing, for he let out a small sigh. I don't think I'd ever seen him like this before.
But wait — one year? Then my four years of closed-door cultivation was effectively cut down to a single year?
Once the King was deposed, what would Choe Chunghon do next? He would install a new monarch and set out to erase the Wang Clan and the Sin Clan from the land of Goryeo entirely.
And could the young lord really stay shut away in seclusion until then? I'd have to come stumbling out at a dead sprint.
That throws my whole plan off the rails.
My goal was simple yet daunting: become strong enough to protect the people around me. To achieve it, I needed at least four years of honing my martial arts. I also had to fully absorb the energy of the Hoyong Divine Pill.
Why did you even agree to the seclusion if this was going to happen?
Just as I was grumbling inwardly, thinking I needed to plunge into seclusion as quickly as possible, a brilliant scheme flashed through my mind.
What we needed was the overwhelming support of the common people. Not the current state of affairs, where nobody even knew who their King was. The people had to be able to feel it — who their King was, and how much power he truly held.
"Father. A plan just came to me, actually..."
Having heard me out, Wang Inho's eyes went wide — and then he said he would see it done. He promptly convened a clan council. Evidently my idea had struck him as profoundly inspiring.
After that, I decided to spend a month in recuperation. Not only did my body need to be in peak condition before entering closed-door cultivation, but my plan would need roughly that long to take effect.
During that time, Seonwoo returned to the clan. The moment he laid eyes on me, he wept for the longest time, apologizing over and over. He seemed to believe I'd made myself the bait to save him and the others, so I gave him a sound knock on the head.
Stop misunderstanding things. It was the best option at the time. In the end, Seonwoo clutched his skull and was hauled off by Ansong.
"So I won't be seeing you for four whole years, then?"
"Well... yeah."
Seolha, who had come to pay me a visit, asked about that the moment she walked in. I had nothing to say in response. Telling her, I want to get stronger to protect you was far too embarrassing.
"It's because of Choe Chunghon, isn't it? His name keeps coming up around the clan lately."
"That's part of it. I need to deal with him as soon as possible. The sooner it's done, the easier my life will be once I become Clan Lord."
At my words, Seolha let out a long sigh and shook her head.
"Aiigoo. Already dreaming of an easy life, are we? By the way — they say you captured two first-rate warriors during the assassination attempt? You really are something else."
"No. I have to get stronger. This isn't nearly enough."
This era was no different from my previous life. The only difference was whether the enemy came from within or without. It was a dangerous world, either way.
Just as my expression was turning grim, the door burst open.
"Sogaju Oppa!"
"Ran?"
Seolha subdued the lunging Ran in a heartbeat.
Screech!
Seized by the nape of her neck in Seolha's grip, Ran whimpered.
"Seolha, let go of me! Sogaju Oppa got hurt because of me! I have to treat him!"
"...Unnie. What kind of grown woman calls a boy 'Oppa'? Besides, you don't even know how to treat wounds."
Since Seolha called her "unnie," apparently Nari had been telling the truth. When I shot Ran a slightly flustered look, she flinched and trembled.
"Waaah..."
The moment chicken-tear droplets started streaming down Ran's face, I swept her up into my arms.
"What are you crying about?"
"It feels like... Sogaju Oppa is avoiding me... sob..."
Hmm.
Honestly, avoiding her was exactly what I'd been doing. When I first heard about it from Nari in the carriage, I'd let it slide, but looking back, it had unsettled me.
Her words and behavior didn't match her age — and above all, someone older than me was calling me "Oppa." So I'd been using my recovery as an excuse not to visit her.
When I looked at Seolha with eyes that said explain, please, she spoke with a resigned air.
"Ran-unnie is, how should I put it... a bit special."
Reading the full meaning packed into those words, I gently stroked Ran's head.
"I'm sorry."
"Hnnn..."
There had been plenty like her in my previous life too — people whose minds were younger than their years. Come to think of it, I finally understood why no one had taken Ran, so powerful as she was, onto their team during the tournament battles.
Royal blood or not, apparently that was enough to disqualify her.
I was silently cursing the world while stroking her hair until Ran dozed off — when a voice came from outside the door.
"Sogaju-nim. May I have a word?"
It was Ansong, my bodyguard, asking permission from beyond the door. Ever since Nari had torn into him, he'd been knocking and asking without fail. I granted it with some satisfaction, and Ansong carefully cracked the door open and slipped inside.
"...Ahem! Sogaju-nim. The Clan Lord summons you."
"So the time has come."
"Come again?"
When I murmured those words, Seolha blinked at me in confusion. However much Seolha was Wang Yeomsu's daughter, this was not something I could share, so I brushed it off.
"Oh, nothing. Just... something like that."
Handing the sleeping Ran over to Seolha, I hurried to the Clan Lord's chamber. Everything hinged on this going well if my seclusion was to proceed smoothly.
"You called for me, Father."
"Sit. Quickly."
As soon as I took my seat as instructed, Wang Inho — apparently unable to hold it in a second longer — burst out with the news.
"To give you the conclusion first: it worked."
I knew it.
The scheme I had devised was this: act in the King's name, and do the King's work for him.
Right now, the King could do nothing, hemmed in by Choe Chunghon. Even if he wished to open the royal granaries, a single word — "We beg you to reconsider, Your Majesty" — would end the matter. We, on the other hand, had no such encumbrance.
If we opened our own granaries and gave the people rice or meat, what business was that of Choe Chunghon's? And then we spread the rumor that it was all done on the King's orders.
To depose a king, one needs a pretext — and this erased that pretext entirely. No matter how vile the rumors Choe Chunghon spread, we need only open our granaries and say the King commanded it.
Even if Choe Chunghon went properly mad and sent government troops to harm the people, it wouldn't matter. We would simply step forward, declare the King had ordered their protection, and shield the people ourselves.
Then whom would the people trust? The King who harmed them? Or the King who fed and protected them? Naturally, the latter.
The nobles would surely raise objections — who do you Wang Clan upstarts think you are, speaking for the King? — but what mattered was the common folk. Did anyone expect them to make such fine distinctions?
Mapping it onto my past self made it an easy question. They wouldn't know, and they wouldn't care. Whoever filled my belly was the greatest of all.
That was the scheme I had conceived and refined in the clan council.
Wang Inho gazed at me with an expression of pride that was, frankly, a little burdensome — but the plan had worked, so I was pleased.
"I can picture Choe Chunghon grinding his teeth from here."
"Heh heh. At his age, all that tooth-grinding and they'll fall right out."
"Hahahaha!"
Wang Inho was evidently in an excellent mood, for he laughed heartily at my joke.
"But how did you ever come up with such a scheme? When I first heard it, I doubted my own ears."
"Well, you see..."
In my previous life I had been one of the common folk myself, so putting myself in their position hadn't been difficult. But Wang Inho and the rest of the clan had been royalty all their lives — such a way of thinking was simply beyond them.
Still, I couldn't exactly tell him that, so I dressed it up plausibly.
"Perhaps I've been reading too many books lately? Haha!"
"Mm!"
Wang Inho slapped his knee with a satisfied smile.
"I never knew you had a strategist's talent in you. Thanks to you, the clan has gained tremendous strength."
"Don't mention it. Anyway — no more surprises during my seclusion, right?"
"Hmm. I cannot promise outright, but with this affair concluded so successfully, I see no great trouble on the horizon."
The moment Wang Inho finished speaking, I clenched my fist tight. The preparations for my closed-door cultivation were now complete.