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Chapter 78: Antitron Unveiled
Chapter 78: Antitron Unveiled
Chapter 78: Antitron Unveiled
The Second Korean War changed Korean society a lot.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were mobilized for the war, receiving meager salaries. This led to a strong demand for better treatment of them.
Especially when foreign media such as CNN revealed the wages of the South Korean soldiers, the impact was huge.
“500 dollars. I can’t believe it. You were sent to the battlefield for a mere 500 dollars. Don’t you feel resentful?”
A wounded soldier said this.
“I was unlucky that the war broke out while I was in service. But I contributed to the unification and I have something to brag about, so I don’t feel bad.”
“What do you have to brag about?”
“I rode a tank to the Yalu River and came back. I even drank the water there. It was sewage.”
The reporter nodded and asked again.
“You earned honor. But don’t you think you should demand compensation from the government? 500 dollars is less than the allowance of a US soldier.”
“Well...the president...I mean, Representative Yu Ji-ha said he would give us permanent residency in the United Human Federation.”
“Permanent residency? On Terra Island in the North Pacific? There’s nothing there.”
“I heard that they built a lot of facilities there. They said we can live there from next March.”
“I can’t believe it.”
As he said, the soldiers who directly participated in the war were automatically granted permanent residency in the United Federation.
The public dismissed the United Human Federation and Terra Island as toys for the rich, but in reality, something was progressing steadily there.
It was exposed by Japan, and the interest in Terra Island increased.
—Doesn’t that mean they have enough infrastructure to accommodate tens of thousands of prisoners?
—I saw an article from a Japanese magazine that said the prisoners were fat.
—Even if they have enough supplies, how can they build infrastructure so fast...
—I saw a post on Reddit that said the whole facility was made of black metal. If you look at it from a warship, you can see buildings popping up in a day.
—Does black metal grow there?
—There’s also a rumor that there’s a huge deposit nearby. Anyway, they chose a good location.
—It really looks like they made an island with a spaceship.
—Fuck Yu Jiha’s spaceship ownership theory. When will this end?
—He’ll reveal it after he unifies the earth as president. He’ll say he did it all.
—Lol
Despite being in the middle of a war, conversations like this were everywhere.
This meant that South Korea’s situation was not that desperate.
The prices went up a bit, but exports and imports were steady, and especially the dependence on China dropped sharply.
They couldn’t import Chinese agricultural products for almost a year, so they gave up on them.
Above all, what made people endure was hope.
North Korea was gone, so there was no more provocation or nuclear threat.
Also, as Silla Group announced the progress of their future projects, South Koreans dreamed of a better future.
-Boston Dynamics is also mass-producing Lucia. The era of androids has come.
-If they put artificial skin on them, they look like humans. I’m really looking forward to it.
-Hey, how long do you think it will take for an android Lucia to come down to one car price?
-They said they would launch it at 500 million won. It’s impossible for individuals to have it, maybe some organizations will order it for promotion.
-We need to establish like human rights to robot rights for our Lucia-chan. They shouldn’t be treated harshly.
-There’s a separate contract for that. If you treat them badly, the contract will be automatically terminated and the AI will be deleted.
-I want to take Lucia to Terra Island and drive around when the war is over.
-They say the scenery there is amazing...
However, there were also negative issues.
It was mostly economic, as they printed a lot of government bonds and tightened their belts, but still ran out of money.
It was good that they pushed out the North Korean regime, but feeding the residents was no joke.
The UN and other international organizations, as well as the US and Russia, generously supported surplus agricultural products, but there was a limit.
It would get better when control was lifted and reconstruction began, but for now South Korea had no choice but to feed them.
When the financial officials screamed, Yu Ji-ha held a cabinet meeting and ordered all state agencies to review their finances.
“I will not tolerate any more waste of taxes. Upload this year’s budget expenditure details to Lucia and have them reviewed. If you don’t pass, I’ll reflect it in next year’s budget.”
Here Lucia refers to the fund management program provided by Silla Metaverse.
This AI, specialized in tracking money flows, monitors the taxes used by the government down to 10 won.
It was applied to the Ministry of Unification for less than a month, and it exposed all kinds of absurd plans and reckless financial management, resulting in lawsuits against high-ranking officials, including the minister.
Yu Ji-ha Jiha pushed a report to the minister who complained of injustice.
“This committee has been continuing its grandiose task of compiling a joint dictionary of North and South Korea for 24 years. But do you have any results?”
The Minister of Unification handed him a not-so-thick dictionary.
“If I have to tell you with this dictionary...”
“Don’t shove me an unfinished dictionary. And does it make sense to spend 70 billion won on editing one dictionary? You said you spent 1 billion won this year to maintain the office. What are the 15 staff members there doing?”
When he looked inside the office through a drone, it was empty.
The minister finally bowed his head.
“I have nothing to say.”
“I’m closing the office as of this time. And find the work records of the office staff for 24 years and report them to me.”
The minister’s face turned pale at the words of finding and reporting the work records for 24 years.
There was no such record.
Yu Ji-ha emphasized to him.
“If there is no work record, I will assume that you did not work and charge you for the cost. And you better find a lawyer.”
This kind of thing happened everywhere, and the government agencies were busy making the data to submit.
Some of them ignored it halfway and were called by Yu Ji-ha and got smashed.
There was even a president who committed suicide after being severely criticized.
The sound of death’s dance was heard from the parliament and the media, but Yu Ji-ha did not budge an inch.
“From now on, if you need more than 10,000 won in finance, you have to submit a plan to Lucia. And I warn you, don’t try to get away with it. I will track down the waste of taxes even if I have to stop the work.”
The results were posted on the Blue House website.
People realized how wasteful the government was with their finances.
-A salary of 100 million won for an employee who works less than 10 hours a week? Are you kidding me?
-If you give money to a civic group, is that a civic group? It’s a controlled group.
-They should all spit out the money.
People were relieved, but also worried about the future.
There would be reforms for now, but there was no guarantee that it would continue.
-What if the next president reverses everything?
-The war will end and martial law will be lifted, then we’ll have presidential and parliamentary elections...
When the president is vacant, the acting authority takes over the duties, but an election must be held within 60 days.
But South Korea couldn’t hold an election because of martial law.
So the members of parliament kept asking Yu Ji-ha to lift martial law whenever they had a chance.
The surviving veterans gave interviews like this to the media.
McKinley looked at Yu Ji-ha who buried himself in his chair with disappointment in his eyes and said.
“Let me change the topic for a moment. We discussed several things this time. One of them was about your identity.”
“My identity? I’m curious how much you found out.”
“Ah, nothing too impressive. But it’s definitely strange. If you look closely at your actions so far, you can’t help but doubt if you’re really an ordinary businessman and politician.”
“Are you saying I’m an alien or something?”
“Not quite, but you’re certainly a very peculiar person. So I can’t help but ask.”
He had successfully led the Second Korean War and showed amazing skills in removing obstacles one by one.
He was making a dangerous substance like Anttron, which had a huge impact on the world economy, and now he wanted to split China.
Who could guarantee that the US would not be his target in the future?
Therefore, some US intelligence agencies argued that Yu Ji-ha should be naturalized or assassinated in the worst case.
Of course, McKinley did not accept that argument, but he couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
Was Yu Ji-ha really likely to become an enemy of the US?
“Your statement just now was quite dangerous.”
“In what way?”
“It sounds like you’re declaring that you have no choice but to antagonize me.”
“I’m sorry if it sounded like that. There’s only one thing I sincerely want.”
“What is it?”
“Peace for humanity.”
“...”
He almost laughed.
Usually the word peace is preceded by the word world, but it was somewhat unexpected to mention humanity.
Well, this wasn’t important.
McKinley lowered his voice even though there was no one around.
“If you do one thing for me, I can trust you. No, the whole US will trust you.”
“You’re suggesting that I become an American. As I said before, it would be hard to handle.”
“Does that mean you’re going to do something hard to handle?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The president’s eyes narrowed.
“I’ll tell you in advance, you can’t disclose that Anttron thing.”
“There’s no such thing as absolute in this world.”
“Do you know what happened to Japan?”
“They’re doing quite well despite the sanctions. The misfortune of others is the happiness of oneself.”
The world economy was so depressed these days that sanctions were not very effective.
And the US had taken away semiconductors and cars from South Korea.
It wasn’t for nothing that they were suffering from a severe depression.
South Korea’s main exports were not replaceable items, but new materials and technologies such as black metal.
Sanctioning them would be like shooting themselves in the foot.
McKinley sighed with frustration.
“The US and South Korea have been allies for decades.”
“They were allies. And that doesn’t mean a dependent relationship. You’ve listened to us for decades, isn’t that enough?”
“So now you want to establish an equal relationship?”
“It’s hard because there’s such a difference in size. But we can try.”
“...”
The US’s original plan was to maintain its influence in Korea without letting go.
But it turned out that this was impossible.
Korea had decided to walk its own path after absorbing North Korea.
They were confident enough to handle the aftermath of the war, which was no joke.
It was time to warn them sharply at this point.
McKinley straightened his posture.
“What I’m going to say now can be seen as the official position of the US government.”
“Go ahead.”
“The US does not agree with your opinion. The dangerous proposal to split China will not be accepted, and Anttron must never be disclosed.”
“You can’t compromise on anything.”
“We have prepared a three-stage boycott, but we won’t start it right away. We can negotiate with the next government.”
Is this it?
Yu Ji-ha looked incredulous.
“Do you think you can give up on me with this?”
After the meeting, there were not only tours of Silla Group’s facilities and androids, and nuclear fusion tests, but also a schedule to look around Pyongyang.
The US was confident that Yu Ji-ha would kneel down.
“I won’t answer that.”
It was hard to deal with him when he came at him instead of being intimidated by economic sanctions.
‘He’s definitely smart, but strange.’
The US is not Japan.
The US boycott is so harsh that it’s impossible to withstand unless it’s China or Russia.
Korea was building an independent economy, but it was still under the influence of the US.
He warned him this much, so he wouldn’t dare to announce Anttron.
McKinley stood up.
“All the schedules after this are canceled. Let me know through the official diplomatic channel if you change your mind.”
Saying to communicate through the official diplomatic channel, not the hotline, was an expression of his will not to accept him easily.
Yu Ji-ha looked at him as he stood up.
“I understand.”
“Let me give you some advice. You’re making too many enemies. It’s going to be hard for you to handle that alone someday.”
“Thank you for your advice.”
He didn’t look grateful at all.
McKinley boarded Air Force One surrounded by security guards.
He felt that the whole of South Korea, including the media, was puzzled.
Yu Jiha would suffer from a lot of pressure from now on.
But he didn’t know.
As soon as he returned home, Yu Ji-
ha held a press conference and announced Anttron.
-Let me introduce you. A new substance that suppresses all nuclear reactions, Anttron.
“...”
As his aides gasped in horror, McKinley covered his eyes with his hand and groaned.
“Can we handle this?”