WeTried Translations
Translator: NEET_Romulus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Dropped into the Ending of a Trash Show as an Extra ◈
Chapter 9: The Mastermind
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Song Haksu’s life had belonged entirely to the Imperial House.
It began at Ihwa Orphanage, a cradle for abandoned newborns.
A place founded through the Great Emperor’s grace, vast as the sea.
He had no memory of the faces or warmth of real parents. The Great Emperor’s portrait hanging at the front of the auditorium had been his only parent.
Every morning, he began the day by bowing on the orphanage’s cold wooden floor toward the Imperial House.
It was not blood relatives but the state that gave a nameless orphan a respectable name, “Haksu,” along with clothes, food, and a place to sleep.
Loyalty was not something forced upon a person. It was closer to the price of survival, the reason one drew breath.
He had to repay that grace. Even if it meant shaving off bone, stripping away flesh, and giving up his life.
Naturally, the place Song Haksu went after leaving the orphanage was the military. For orphans who had received the Great Emperor’s grace, military service was the most honorable and natural choice.
For the nation alone. For the Emperor alone.
Whenever orders came down from above, he leaped into certain death without hesitation, and recaptured rugged positions everyone else had given up on as impossible.
Undefeated through countless battlefields.
The dozens of scars carved across his body like medals were receipts for the loyalty he had offered the nation at the risk of his life.
That was how he rose from a lowly second lieutenant to the highest position of all, Marshal of the Army.
The old tiger of Manchuria, respected by every member of the National Armed Forces.
After devoting an entire life to the military without a wife or children, he returned to Ihwa Orphanage.
The place where he had been born, and saved.
There were still countless little Song Haksus there.
Children without parents. Children shut out from the warmth of the world, growing up huddled in the nation’s cold shadow.
He decided to become their father.
The sons followed Song Haksu.
They revered his wrinkled face, imitated his upright stride, and copied his crisp military salute.
Like him, they naturally chose the path of soldiers.
It could not have been solely because they admired him.
For poor, unconnected children from an orphanage, it was the best, perhaps the only, way to become respectable people in this country.
Pride.
Yes, Song Haksu felt pride.
Just as he had been saved through the Great Emperor’s grace, these pitiful children had been saved in the nation’s embrace and grown into fine soldiers.
Ah, of course, some had not become soldiers. Song Haksu had found the best possible jobs for those fine members of society as well.
Daughters he could proudly present anywhere.
Even if the country was rotting, as long as those strong children remained, the nation would endure forever. Song Haksu never doubted that his children would become sturdy pillars of their homeland.
Until the homeland betrayed them first.
The sons had been forced to point guns at one another, swept up in the petty battle of egos among their superiors.
One child had stood before a court-martial as a scapegoat to cover up that stain.
The daughters’ fates had not been much different.
One child, who had entered the protocol department of a respectable Imperial House-owned conglomerate coveted by everyone, had hanged themself.
Why had that child made such a choice? Why could that child not even cling to this father?
Everything holding his mind together snapped.
They had not died honorably.
No one in the Imperial House apologized. There was not even compensation.
The orphans’ deaths weighed no more than a single name erased from the Imperial House’s register.
They had no parents to protest for them, no family to mourn them. They were the easiest trash to bury.
No...
They did have family.
I can never forgive those monsters who had reduced my sons and daughters to mere playthings.
What was a father who had lost children supposed to do?
He who cruelly harms the people is no ruler, and all under Heaven[1] must strike him down.
What was a servant betrayed by his master supposed to do?
Saving the country. Revolution.
Those grand words were nothing more than a convenient pretext to persuade those who commanded combat units.
Song Haksu’s feelings came down to one thing.
‘I’ll kill every last one of them.’
He did not care about human casualties. There were no innocent lives anyway. Were his children not innocent too?
He did not think about what would come afterward.
Once everything was over, one of the sharp, politically savvy bastards below would take power and gorge themself on it.
Song Haksu’s role ended here.
And yet, from the wreckage of the Imperial House, blown apart and stillborn, a collateral imperial relative appeared from nowhere.
At first, Song Haksu thought he was a fraud making a desperate last stand.
But after watching broadcast after broadcast, Song Haksu had trembled.
That was real.
A spirit never once seen in the dead, incompetent former Emperor or that pathetic Crown Prince.
A raw beast that had been given nothing, yet shattered its own cage and emerged.
In other words,
‘The Great Emperor.’
Song Haksu repeated it.
It was a perfect coincidence, but it was also exactly what he had longed for.
He had been completely defeated, yet had won.
All that remained was to die.
After finishing what needed to be done.
* * *
“All major intersections and arterial roads leading into central Seoul have been secured.
“Units under the Capital Defense Command have all disarmed and are returning to their original posts. Police forces are being deployed to maintain public order.”
After the Capital Defense Command turned back from the Ilsan broadcasting station, the situation was resolved with unbelievable speed.
Escorted by the Marine Corps and Army, I finally crossed the empty roads and entered the heart of Seoul.
When we arrived at the front courtyard of Capital Defense Command headquarters, the troops who had participated in the rebellion were already kneeling on the parade ground, having laid every weapon on the ground.
Their faces held resignation, fear, and a trace of relief.
I think I understood how they felt. I was honestly relieved too.
“Your Majesty. The route into the underground bunker has been secured. The entire rebel command has disarmed and been bound, but... the traitor Song Haksu remains in the command and control room.”
“Is he armed?”
“The Marines entered and checked. He has disarmed.”
“In that case.”
I opened my mouth.
“Let’s see him ourselves.”
We went underground.
Only silence filled the vast command and control room. The screens alone flickered, their communications already cut off.
At the end of the large table in its center sat Song Haksu.
The Marines had their rifles trained on him as though surrounding him, but they had not dared bind or drag him away.
Song Haksu slowly, very slowly, rose.
The years had taken away an old man’s bulk, but the Marshal’s sharply pressed uniform and five stars still radiated a heavy authority.
Then Song Haksu looked at me.
Strangely, all resentment and rage seemed to have faded from his eyes.
Then he slowly bent at the waist.
“This traitorous subject, Song Haksu, greets His Majesty.”
The tone was far too calm to be mockery or sarcasm.
“For the leader of a rebellion, that is quite a polite greeting.”
I kept my emotions down and answered coldly.
“The result proves everything. As a soldier, I was defeated on the battlefield. It is only proper to show courtesy to the victorious commander.”
He continued while standing.
“I have already given up on living, so it does not matter for me. But from the Chief of Staff down to the lowest-ranking soldiers, the others merely obeyed my orders. I ask that you show them mercy.”
A declaration that he would take everything on alone.
If I had truly been the protagonist of some classical novel, perhaps I would have cried out in emotion here, tears streaming down my face.
But it did not move someone who had nearly died.
Nor should it have.
“Regardless of your responsibility, everyone except ordinary enlisted soldiers who merely participated will be dealt with after their guilt has been strictly assessed in a court-martial.”
Song Haksu closed his eyes at my words and let out a deep sigh.
“Mercy and generosity also belong to the victor, so all I can do is ask you to take that into consideration.
“I remained in this bunker today to await Your Majesty not merely to make excuses and beg for a little cheap mercy.”
He held something out to me.
Clatter.
I frowned at the USB drive that slid across the table.
“What is this?”
“Preparing the operation required enormous funds and information. Especially information on the people likely to gather at Deoksu Palace for today’s imperial wedding. Even a list of members of the Imperial House who needed to be wiped out.”
“So you had outside help.”
“Rather than help... I suppose it would be more accurate to call that person a temporary ally. Originally, after the operation succeeded, I intended to cast that person aside myself. I could not remain allied for long with a sewer rat like that.”
Song Haksu pointed at the USB drive.
“Open it, and you will understand. The Imperial House is not the only festering wound in this country.”
I saw Seo Yu-jin’s expression subtly change beside me.
Song Haksu looked at her indifferently, then turned back to me.
“I hope Your Majesty will thoroughly clean up the filth this old traitor could not remove.”
“That is not for you to comment on.”
“Indeed. But the USB contains the Imperial Palace’s internal security secrets and slush-fund records that person provided to us, as well as the conditions demanded in return. Use it as you see fit.”
Without a word, I picked up the USB drive from the table. Cool metal against my fingers.
I held out my hand toward Seo Yu-jin behind me.
“Secretary Seo. The tablet.”
Seo Yu-jin immediately took a slim tablet PC from inside her jacket and handed it to me.
Without hesitation, I plugged the USB drive into the tablet’s port. Its security program ran, and files left by Song Haksu soon poured onto the screen.
Swish, swish.
I scrolled down, rapidly scanning the documents displayed on the screen.
Enormous flows of money through overseas paper companies.
Records of explosives smuggled in under the guise of military suppliers.
And classified documents recording Deoksu Palace’s internal floor plan and the times and locations of guard changes.
Then, when I double-clicked the secure file at the very end of the folder, labeled [Personal Details of Negotiating Party], a high-resolution portrait and a brief profile appeared in the middle of the screen.
Neatly combed-back hair. Kind yet somehow hollow eyes behind cold metal-rimmed glasses.
[Min Do-yeong / 32 / Third-term Great Korea Party Assemblyman]
“...Huh.”
He was the drama’s second male lead.
* * *
Tap. Rattle.
An expensive porcelain teacup shook precariously atop a marble table.
Min Do-yeong, seated before it, stared at the wall-mounted television in the villa with a face drained of color.
His shoulders trembled uncontrollably like aspen leaves.
[Breaking news. Song Haksu, the traitor who led the Deoksu Palace terror attack and occupation of the capital, has just been arrested in the Capital Defense Command bunker.]
[Song Haksu and the rebel forces will immediately face a military summary trial on more than a dozen charges, including rebellion and murder...]
[Furthermore, Seo Yu-jin, Chief Secretary of the Imperial Household, stated in an emergency briefing, “We have secured a storage device from the rebels containing decisive evidence of the forces behind them. The masterminds who shook the nation’s foundations will receive the harshest punishment, regardless of status...”]
At last, the cup tumbled beneath the table.
Porcelain shards scattered in every direction.
Footnotes:
[1] Under Heaven: a traditional term for the entire realm or world under a ruler’s authority.
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