Ch. 2 — Enthronement?
In hindsight, it was strange that something like this hadn’t happened sooner.
Did someone literally pack a lunchbox bomb and set it off in there?
Even within the drama, this country’s imperial family had pulled more than enough infuriating stunts to earn it.
That’s why even among devoted viewers, people half-jokingly talked about showing up with pitchforks if the place were real.
From the very start, this was an institution where the crown prince deployed elite royal guard troops like his personal bodyguards over a private love affair; where a single villainess from a chaebol family managed to plant listening devices in the Emperor’s own bedchambers; and where outsiders wandered freely through the palace’s secret passages like the security was a neighborhood bulletin board.
But what happens to the world left behind after an ending that catastrophically insane?
I have no memory of how I made it home.
Stumbling down an empty highway like a madman — taxis finished, buses stopped — my mind held nothing but the dread of the nightmare bearing down on me.
If the imperial family had been wiped out, who governs this country now?
An uneasy, ominous thought flickered through my head, but I forced myself to shake it off.
Come on.
At least one of them must have survived.
Lost in a swirl of dark thoughts, half-frozen, trudging along the dirt road — and then I reached the entrance to my farm.
“……Huh?”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
Three pitch-black limousines.
And where their license plates should have been — the golden Ihwa imperial crest, mounted squarely and without apology.
I was still blinking and rubbing my eyes, wondering if I was hallucinating, when the rear door of the middle limousine opened and a woman in a suit stepped out.
Sharp eyes.
Lips set in a cold, hard line.
A government ID badge hanging at her neck.
The white collar of her blouse — which must have been immaculate once — was visibly stained with what could only be described as someone else’s blood.
I’d only half-watched the drama, but her face was one I remembered with perfect clarity.
The crown prince Yi Geon’s closest aide.
The iron woman who oversaw every piece of imperial administration.
Chief Imperial Secretary, Seo Yu-jin.
In the drama, she was the shadow that never left the crown prince’s side — the ice queen who carried out her duties with surgical composure regardless of the crisis, never betraying so much as a flicker of emotion.
Viewers had half-jokingly called her “the only sane person in the imperial palace.”
“Master Yi Jin.”
The woman’s voice was colder than Ganghwa Island’s night wind.
“Is that you.”
At her question, I answered without a single second of hesitation.
“No. You have the wrong person. I’m the neighbor from next door. Well then.”
Right.
Walk naturally past her, open the neighbor’s gate, scale the wall, and disappear into the mountain behind the house.
Perfect plan.
I strode past her toward the neighbor’s gate with purpose.
“That’s strange.”
Seo Yu-jin’s voice landed squarely between my shoulder blades.
“Only one person lives next door — Grandmother Kim Boksun. Our agents have already confirmed Master Yi Jin’s identity and physical description. The grandmother herself was kind enough to testify directly — quote, ‘the bachelor living next door.’“
……Grandma. Why are you being helpfully chatty of all times.
I stood gripping the firmly-locked gate handle and muttered under my breath in despair.
I turned around.
Seo Yu-jin was watching me with an expression of absolute, unshakeable composure.
Around her, figures in black suits were slowly closing in, cutting off every exit.
“So then, Chief Secretary — what brings you all the way out here……”
Before I could even finish, Seo Yu-jin clicked forward on her heels and—
Bent her knee and bowed her head before me.
The ground was frozen mud.
She didn’t care.
The bodyguards standing behind her simultaneously lowered their weapons and bowed at ninety degrees.
“Chief Imperial Secretary Seo Yu-jin. I present myself before Your Majesty.”
“……W— what?“
Your Majesty?
Who on earth was she calling Your Majesty?
I spun around in bewilderment.
But there was nothing behind me except the flapping plastic of my greenhouse.
“You heard correctly. At approximately 2:15 this afternoon, as a result of the explosive terror attack on Seokjojeon Hall at Deoksugung Palace……”
Seo Yu-jin slowly raised her head.
The whites of her eyes were threaded with red.
“His Majesty the Emperor, His Highness the Crown Prince, and all members of the imperial family in attendance at the royal wedding — every individual ranked first through forty-sixth in the line of succession, both direct and collateral — have passed away or been confirmed dead.”
“……!”
My entire train of thought ground to a halt.
Passed away.
All of them.
First through forty-sixth — every single one?
“Over forty people — all of them……?”
Seo Yu-jin rose slowly from where she’d knelt.
Blood and soot-stained, she bowed her head deeply before me.
“In accordance with Article 2, Chapter 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea and the Imperial Succession Law, the imperial throne passes to the legitimate eldest son, or failing that, to the closest surviving male relative in the dynastic register.”
And then she addressed me with a title I had never once heard directed at me in my entire life — a title I had assumed I would never hear in any life to come.
“You are the sole surviving member of the imperial Yi clan. Therefore, Master Yi Jin — as of this moment — you are the Emperor of the Republic of Korea.”
“……Ha.”
A wave of vertigo.
The world seemed to spin.
My legs nearly buckled beneath me, and it took everything I had to stay upright.
This is insane.
Finding out what the ending of this godawful makjang drama was — that was already absurd enough.
And now they’re telling me I’m the Emperor.
I dragged a hand down my face and exhaled a shaking breath.
*
*
*
It took less than a second for Seo Yu-jin’s words to slam into my eardrums and scramble my brain entirely.
Even in this biting wind, a cold, clammy sweat was crawling down my spine.
“……You just called me Your Majesty.“
Even to my own ears, my voice was badly cracked.
47th in the line of succession.
Yi Jin, age 28, small-scale farmer, Ganghwa Island.
That’s who I was, until about thirty seconds ago.
And yet here is Seo Yu-jin — the most powerful figure in the imperial administration — bowing in my manure-scented front yard. With black, crusted blood on her coat.
She repeated what she’d said, word for word.
“That is correct. In accordance with the Constitution and the Imperial Succession Law——”
“No — wait. Wait a moment.“
I waved my hand in the air and cut her off.
My head felt like it was about to explode.
“Even so. You’re telling me everyone from first to forty-sixth is dead? How does that even make sense? All those dozens of imperial family members gathered in Seokjojeon, wiped out by a single bomb?”
“It was not a simple bomb attack. Military-grade C4 explosive had been pre-planted beneath the floor of Seokjojeon Hall.”
Seo Yu-jin continued, her voice perfectly level.
“Furthermore, immediately following the explosion, armed troops surrounded Seokjojeon and carried out confirmation kills on any survivors. His Majesty the late Emperor, along with every member of the imperial family, was killed on the spot.”
The breath was knocked out of me.
Confirmation kills.
Military-grade explosive.
Just as Seo Yu-jin said — this was not the work of some ordinary terrorist cell.
“……This is a coup.”
“Correct. This is not a mere act of terror. It is being assessed as a clear attempt to overthrow the state — effectively, a coup d’état. The identities of its instigators and the full extent of the rebel forces have not yet been established.”
The moment her words ended, from somewhere across the water — the direction of Gimpo — a low, muffled detonation rolled in, faint but unmistakable.
Boom—.
The winter sky, heavy with dark clouds, flared red for a single instant.
“I’m losing my mind. Genuinely.”
I exhaled a suffocated breath and looked up at the sky.
The mundane life I’d been living just minutes ago — patching greenhouse sheeting — felt like something from another world.
“What we know with is that a portion of the First Royal Guard Brigade, responsible for the outer perimeter of Deoksugung, has defected to the rebel side. They established barricades blocking the Imperial Security Service’s sightlines, and the explosion occurred within that window.”
“The First Royal Guard?”
The imperial guard itself had mutinied?
“I don’t believe it was the entire unit… It appears that a private faction or individual traitors moved to exploit the gap in the chain of command. The greater problem is the Capital Defense Command. Units under Capital Defense have mobilized across the board. The CDC leadership either sided with the rebellion, or — at the very minimum — it is safe to assume they have been seized.”
Between the Royal Guard Brigade and the Capital Defense Command — no ability whatsoever to distinguish friend from enemy in the dark.
“Excuse me, Secretary Seo.”
“Speak, Your Majesty.”
“Drop the Your Majesty for a moment. I haven’t even had an enthronement ceremony yet.”
“Imperial succession constitutes automatic transfer by law. In a state of emergency, sovereignty is transferred immediately upon receipt of the national seal. I have already brought the Imperial Seal Keeper with me.”
Seo Yu-jin glanced to one side.
An elderly official standing behind her extended a cloth-wrapped bundle with visibly trembling hands.
Inside it gleamed the golden National Seal of the Republic of Korea.
“……Hah. Fine. Let’s say I am the Emperor. Then who is the next target for these rebel bastards?”
“Naturally……”
Seo Yu-jin’s gaze locked onto me.
“The sole legitimate heir to the imperial throne. You, Your Majesty.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“What on earth is the government doing right now?! If Capital Defense has mutinied, shouldn’t the cabinet be stepping in to suppress it? Declare martial law or something?!”
“……”
At my outburst, Seo Yu-jin gave me a look that suggested she’d just heard the single most naive thing spoken aloud in human history — though it vanished quickly.
“The Prime Minister and all cabinet ministers were present at the royal wedding, seated directly beneath the dais. I trust you can infer the result without my spelling it out. The cabinet is currently paralyzed — its entire leadership has ceased to exist.”
“Then the deputy ministers should step up!”
“Even if they are alive, they would be of no use whatsoever.”
Seo Yu-jin cut me off cleanly.
Her eyes flashed, sharp and hard.
“This is something you must understand in the Republic of Korea, the military does not answer to the cabinet.”
“……What?“
She took one step toward me and looked me directly in the eye.
“The armed forces bear absolute accountability solely to the Emperor, as commander-in-chief. The current Emperor of the Republic of Korea is you, Your Majesty. That is precisely why getting to you was our highest priority.”
…This unhinged mockery of a state.
So that’s why the crown prince, who’d never completed his mandatory service, was playing soldier the whole time.
“Emperor in name is all well and good, but soldiers have picked up guns and risen in revolt — you think walking in with an ‘Emperor’ name tag is going to make them all snap to attention? If I give an order, are bullets not going to come flying at me?”
I asked it sardonically.
Seo Yu-jin answered without a tremor.
“I cannot guarantee that. But any unit that has not actively joined the rebellion will, in all probability, follow the orders of the sole commander-in-chief. This country has been educated that way for over a hundred years.”
“……”
“We have no way of yet identifying which units are loyal and which are rebel. Therefore, the immediate priority is evacuation to a prepared safe house. Once security is established there, we monitor the situation and issue imperial decrees to each military command. There is no time, Your Majesty. Please get in.”
Seo Yu-jin pulled open the rear door.
The bodyguards pressed in tight on either side of me.
“A safe house?”
A flash of memory from my previous life.
Evacuation.
Escape.
Secret safe house.
Warning sirens screamed through my head.
If I got in that car and disappeared into a safe house right now — what would happen?
Would I be safe?
Not a chance.
The sole legitimate heir, barely seated on the throne, vanishes without a trace at the most critical national emergency in history?
“I’m not going.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“When a rebellion breaks out, if the commander runs off to hole up in some corner to ‘assess the situation’ — that’s the end of it.”
The troops below have no idea who the real boss is.
They watch and wait, reading the room — and eventually, they fall in line behind whoever’s pointing the most guns and making the most noise.
The rebels.
That was the conclusion reached by a citizen of a republic that had weathered its share of turbulent modern history.
Me.
“Then do you have an alternative? If we delay any further, even the evacuation to the safe house may become impossible.”
For the first time, Seo Yu-jin let emotion into her voice.
I clenched my fist.
I couldn’t run.
I couldn’t sit here and die.
Think.
Three years possessed as an extra in a makjang drama.
Of everyone in this world I could say I genuinely knew — the one person who might stand on my side.
“I don’t know which units are loyal either. But there is exactly one unit I know for certain is not rebel.”
I said it with conviction.
Seo Yu-jin’s eyes went wide.
“Which unit?”
In answer, I folded myself into the open rear seat of the limousine and spoke — and from somewhere deep in my gut, with a long exhale, said,
“Take me to the Second Marine Division.”