Ch.9898. Wine, Carriage, and Terrace

“What’s wrong with that guy anyway?”

As far as I know, the current President of the Republic of Korea wasn’t a strange person—or a lunatic—who would make such a reckless move.

He followed the most common path to power: lawyer-congressman-party leader-president, and succeeded in taking office without getting involved in any major incidents or large-scale corruption scandals. In short, he was the textbook definition of an unremarkable success.

There had been no signs of him being drawn to any strange ideologies, and he was one of the rare politicians who didn’t get along well with religious circles, so the possibility of political-religious figures or cult involvement seemed low.

So when I asked Theresia with disbelief, she responded in a very polite manner.

[Actually… this is just a hypothesis mixed with speculation, but may I share it with you?]

‘I don’t mind.’

[Thank you, Mother.]

After hearing my response, Theresia carefully revealed her own conclusions.

[First, the primary cause appears to be substitution.]

‘Substitution?’

[Yes. That is—]

According to Theresia, ruling party politicians had frequently been substituted recently. These substituted politicians changed to hate corruption and dislike negative or irrational behavior.

At least in this case, my modest wish for politicians to be in their right mind had worked… but there was a problem.

Through these substitutions in the political sphere, the president’s close associates were naturally targeted as well, and unsurprisingly, the president felt uncomfortable with the changed behavior of his inner circle.

However, everyone who might have noticed this discomfort had long been “substituted,” except for the president himself, so he had no choice but to suffer alone.

And then, as time passed, an event occurred that dealt a fatal blow to his already deteriorating mental health.

‘…What? You substituted his wife?’

[Yes, it was a decision made considering that spousal influence cannot be ignored.]

The president’s wife, the First Lady, was “substituted” by our hands one day. The problem was that the First Lady’s transformation was bizarrely sudden and extreme.

She had been a typical overprotective mother who excessively defended and shielded her children, but overnight, she became a rational and exemplary First Lady.

A woman who had been so extreme in her behavior that even the ruling party called her a malignant tumor eating away at her husband’s approval ratings suddenly changed.

Medical examinations under the pretext of health checkups showed normal results, but the change was so dramatic that rumors about her being an impostor began circulating.

Of course, Theresia said they deployed Hwihwa monsters on the internet to bury these rumors under ridiculous conspiracy theories like flat earth or reptilian-level nonsense, but that’s not the important part.

As people around him, even his family, one by one changed to become excessively rational to the point of seeming inhuman, the president began to experience serious stress. According to his substituted personal physician, he was showing early symptoms of mental illness.

Eventually, the president took the potentially career-ending risk of secretly calling in a psychological counselor for therapy… but because the counselor was brought in so secretively, proper vetting wasn’t done, which led to problems.

‘A cult?’

[Yes, and an unregistered mental psychic user at that.]

The psychological counselor the president called in was actually nothing more than an unverified pseudo-ideologist, and worse, he was an unregistered mid-tier psychic user specializing in mental manipulation.

Although the president, like other politicians of this era, had an artificial psychic brain implant giving him low-level psychic abilities, it was impossible for him to counter a mid-tier psychic’s mental attacks.

The cultist, perhaps confident that brainwashing the president would be discovered during the mandatory daily psychic examinations, instead slowly implanted suggestions to change the president’s ideology, and the result was—

‘He fell for the ideology, didn’t he?’

[Yes. Since psychic abilities were only used for suggestion, the president genuinely became immersed in that ideology without external coercion.]

As absurd as it sounds, the president of a nation fell victim to gaslighting, despite his diminished mental state.

And the ideology he became immersed in was extreme utilitarianism—the idea that in the face of the real threat posed by monsters, the safety of humanity as a whole is more important than individual rights. It wasn’t completely nonsensical, but it was definitely an ideology I would never want to follow—and the president, deeply immersed in this ideology, was now pressuring Nano-Tech to share its nanomachine technology.

He roughly thought, ‘Since it’s a purely Korean company that isn’t even publicly listed, if we send government-affiliated high-ranking hunters to threaten them, they’ll comply, right?’ Such a naive thought—from someone whose ability to perceive reality had severely deteriorated due to brainwashing.

But this creates a problem.

We can attribute his strange thinking to being immersed in cult ideology, and the intention of someone trying to spread such ideology is plausible enough—history is full of deranged ideologues.

But why would the first target of this utilitarian ideology be Nano-Tech, which is large in scale but has only recently grown enough to be considered a major corporation?

Nanomachine technology is exclusive, but it’s already being distributed worldwide at incredibly low prices, so there’s no supply issue.

‘What’s the reason?’

When I asked Theresia this question, she—now showing more emotion than before—carefully began to speak.

[According to our investigation… the counselor is not a Korean national.]

‘…What?’

[While the National Intelligence Service was caught up in human trafficking cases and couldn’t perform counterintelligence, the counselor’s true identity is that of an agent dispatched by the South Chinese government…]

Her voice trailed off as she finished speaking. After staring at Theresia for a moment, I finally spoke.

‘…The world’s gone mad.’

Not that I should be the one saying this, having made the world this way.

※ ※ ※

The Republic of China.

Commonly known as South China, just as our country has its nickname, this nation is the only Chinese ethnic state with a liberal democratic system, occupying the Jiangnan region.

But this liberal democracy is liberal and democratic in name only. South China, representing the particularly wealthy Jiangnan region of China, is essentially dominated by extreme capitalist sentiments—practically a corporate state composed of an alliance of mega-corporations like those appearing in cyberpunk genres.

Public safety is maintained to some extent, but only to stabilize domestic consumption. Driven by a deranged level of capitalist thinking that would “turn even Americans into communists,” South China operates on the principle that anything is permissible for profit.

In certain areas, residents must pool money and pay monthly fees for police patrols. Prison sentences can be reduced at a rate of about $1,000 per day. Courts sell discounts on criminal sentences or “automatic self-defense rights” for money. People even have to purchase human rights separately.

This hellscape is the Republic of China, and I could guess their motive without even looking.

Previously, when South China requested Nano-Tech to create control chips to implant in their citizens and we refused, they tried to nationalize our local branch and factory.

Naturally, I took the hard-line approach of blowing up the branch and factory, then strictly prohibited nanomachine sales in China, which apparently left them quite resentful.

Looking at the lengths they’ve gone to secure nanomachine technology, it’s clear they’re desperate.

[Regarding the China issue…]

‘I’ll handle it myself, Theresia.’

[Then, what about the president?]

When Theresia asked me about how to deal with the president, I responded with a question of my own.

‘Wine, carriage, terrace. Which do you prefer?’

[Pardon? …I think I prefer the terrace.]

‘Alright, then tomorrow the president will slip on the stairs at his residence and die from the fall.’

After my seemingly random question confused her, Theresia understood my meaning when she heard my follow-up statement.

[I will carry out your orders.]

The next day, the president was found dead at his residence, his occipital skull shattered, with fragments damaging his brain tissue (especially the medulla oblongata).

The cause of death was, without a doubt, simply an accidental fall.