Translator: Dreamscribe
Our departnt's work hours are a bit of a ss.
There are plenty of days when we don't co in at all, and then when there's a special issue like today, we have to rush in at the crack of dawn.
"No. This is just......"
One shocking piece of news after another left and the rest of the staff completely stunned.
"The news that Li Jinping and his faction were all executed was shocking enough, but the Kim Family was wiped out too? On the sa day?"
"Yes. Not much information has been released to the news yet, but after looking into it more closely, it appears that both sides were, coincidentally, executed on the sa day."
Everyone was clamoring that the Chinese and North Korean regis had collapsed, but in reality, they hadn't fallen completely.
China still had Li Jinping and his inner circle remaining, and North Korea likewise had its military forces protecting the Kim Family.
"Weren't they all safely hiding in bunkers?"
"There had been reports of Li Jinping's disappearance for so ti, but the prevailing theory was that he was sheltering in a bunker. Sa for the Kim Family. But it seems both were captured."
There was no way to know how they had been caught and so brutally massacred.
But because of this, the global situation was on the verge of another dramatic shift.
It started with Arica.
[My fellow Aricans.]
Not long after the news about Li Jinping and Kim Jong-woon hit the press.
Aiden issued an ergency statent.
Its content: he would step in as the Democratic candidate in place of Hillis and seek reelection.
"Aiden's stock was already soaring thanks to the Civil War in China. But now, with the news that both leaders are dead, his approval ratings are apparently skyrocketing."
Even before this, there had been widespread predictions that if Aiden returned, he could overtake Trump, who was currently in the lead.
"But even when our chairman went with the Floor Leader to persuade him, didn't he refuse to run again, citing a lack of justification? And then, out of nowhere, a justification he couldn't refuse just fell into his lap."
Aiden had kept China and North Korea in check with strong sanctions.
In fact, the top priority of his platform had been containing the expansion of those two powers.
So he couldn't have refused.
Because the complete collapse of China and North Korea was precisely the mont that set off alarms for global security.
That was why the Arican public preferred to entrust the presidency to Aiden, who had maintained stability and peace, rather than the unpredictable Trump.
"Honestly, if Aiden truly didn't want to do it, he would have turned this down too. His term isn't ending right away, so he could have just managed things until retirent and handed it off to the next administration."
Every ti Aiden had made remarks about retirent, his expression had looked relieved.
Anyone looking at him would have thought he was soone preparing for retirent.
He had seed to have no lingering attachnt to politics.
"But the fact that he suddenly changed his mind ans it's one of two things."
"One of two things?"
"Either he's brimming with patriotic love for Arica, or he actually wanted to run for reelection all along."
He actually wanted reelection.
"I doubt he has so burning patriotism. He clearly had ambitions for a second term. Serving two consecutive terms as President of the United States is an honor, after all. On top of that, before the situation in China erupted, President Aiden's approval ratings were abysmal. He wouldn't have wanted to end things like that."
So the justification the Floor Leader had been talking about wasn't just so power play aid at Kwangwoon. He had genuinely needed one.
Aiden had wanted to run again but had no good justification, agonizing over it, and then these incidents conveniently broke out, so he ca waltzing back with a whistle on his lips.
"Rather than ending in the disgrace of being called a La-duck Administration, he must be dying to beco the hero who resolved the situations in China and North Korea and safeguarded Arican peace."
So that was why Aiden had co back.
To restore his honor.
So his talk of retirent hadn't been sincere after all.
I had watched Aiden's interview and genuinely believed he had made up his mind to retire.
You really can never tell what politicians are thinking.
* * *
"......Was this us?"
"No, sir. This has nothing to do with Sentinel."
The news that the Kim Family and Li Jinping's inner circle had been wiped out all at once ca as a massive shock to Sentinel as well.
"Then what happened?"
"Based on the intelligence we've gathered so far, it appears both Li Jinping's side and Kim Jong-woon's side were betrayed and killed."
"They were sheltering in bunkers, and infighting broke out even in there?"
"Yes. We don't know the full details, but it seems there was a bloodbath inside those bunkers. On Li Jinping's side, soone likely joined hands with Tian Gang, and on Kim Jong-woon's side, soone appears to have been colluding with a particular faction to orchestrate it."
Nothing is more lethal than betrayal by those closest to you.
They had probably watched their leaders, who once wielded unchecked power, scramble into bunkers in a panic, and their loyalty evaporated on the spot.
"But you're sure this wasn't our doing?"
Two leaders, betrayed on the very sa day.
Could this truly be called a coincidence?
"It's too bizarre to be a coincidence. How can two people be betrayed and killed on the exact sa day?"
"Are you suggesting this was a Covert Operation, General Director?"
"Yes. Soone orchestrated this."
If that wasn't the case, it would be one hell of a coincidence.
"But it definitely wasn't us. When the UN peacekeeping forces and U.S. military entered North Korea and our Foundation staff were deployed alongside them, Sentinel did send a large number of operatives in as well, but we hadn't established an intelligence network capable of tracking down and killing Kim Jong-woon."
"Wasn't it the sa with China? We couldn't even confirm whether Li Jinping was alive or dead."
"Correct. We were searching for Li Jinping with everything we had, but verifying his status proved difficult."
"And yet soone found what even we couldn't, and took both of them out simultaneously?"
"Or it really could be an extraordinary coincidence."
Could it really?
But Anthony did not believe in coincidences.
"What if it wasn't a coincidence, and Kwangwoon was actually behind it?"
"You're saying Kwangwoon is running another Covert Operations unit besides Sentinel?"
"Yes. Our Sentinel is inevitably well-known to the outside world. On the surface, we're a private mariti security firm, but the fact that we've scattered operatives everywhere to gather intelligence and run Covert Operations, governnts know that full well."
In other words, Sentinel was too exposed.
To carry out work in secret, Kwangwoon would have needed sothing new.
"But we've set up an extrely tight surveillance net precisely because of that concern. If Kwangwoon had been running Covert Operations through another organization, it would have shown up on our radar."
"And yet it didn't, did it?"
"That's because Kwangwoon didn't do anything......"
"No. Has Kwangwoon ever been simple enough to get caught on our radar? To this day, we still haven't figured out how they caused the earthquake or how they deliberately triggered the famine to engineer a food crisis. Am I wrong?"
"......"
As Anthony said, Kwangwoon remained shrouded in countless secrets.
Everyone assud that with its massive size, Kwangwoon would be transparent, but the reality was the opposite.
The bigger it grew, the more you dug, the more it felt like sinking deeper into a labyrinth.
"We all know Kwangwoon caused the artificial earthquake, but how they pulled it off, who's helping them, we haven't uncovered a single thing. And we're veterans who worked at the world's top intelligence agencies. We even work for Kwangwoon!"
That was sothing that deeply wounded Anthony's pride.
One might expect Kwangwoon to chastise them for failing to uncover even that much, but headquarters had said nothing about it.
As if they had known all along that it was sothing utterly beyond Sentinel's capabilities.
"You're convinced there's another Covert Operations agency besides Sentinel, General Director."
"Yes. So dig into that. I want to know what kind of monsters work there, because we can't even find their shadow."
An organization whose shadow could not be found.
One that Sentinel, even deploying every last bit of its intelligence capabilities, had failed to turn up a single thread on.
The very idea that such a place could exist sent a chill down Anthony's spine.
That was exactly why he wanted to find it.
He had to know.
What the hell those people really were.
Then, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
What if all of this really was just coincidence?
The earthquake, the famine, the mass purge that just took place?
"......"
Anthony let out a faint, involuntary laugh.
All of that, just coincidence.
There was no way, was there?
* * *
"What the hell is this?!"
Trump stord into the White House, his face beet red.
The staff initially tried to stop him when he barged in without an appointnt, but Aiden let him through.
"You said you were retiring from politics for good. That you'd never co back! And then you stab in the back like this?!"
"That's just how politics works. Besides, aren't we the kind of people who have to stab each other in the back every day? Even mbers of the sa party do it without batting an eye."
"Aiden!"
Trump raged furiously, but it didn't last long.
No matter how much he cursed and shouted, Aiden barely reacted.
How to put it.
It was the look of soone who had resigned himself.
"Let be clear. I didn't want to co back."
"What? And yet you swap out the candidate with one day left before the deadline?"
"Because I don't know what kind of retaliation I'd face otherwise."
"......!"
Trump's eyes went wide at that.
"Do you know how Kim Jong-woon and Li Jinping went down? They were betrayed by their own inner circles. Fine, that can happen. But conveniently, both of them were eliminated on the exact sa day. Doesn't that seem odd?"
"Soone intentionally did that to both of them......?"
"Yes. And I don't need to tell you who, do I?"
"You can't an Kwangwoon? Why would they?"
"I think you already know the answer to that."
"What?"
Trump tilted his head.
"Kwangwoon was clearly backing you, Trump. Then they suddenly changed their minds. Do you really not know why, or are you pretending not to?"
"That's......"
Then, suddenly, Trump recalled the conversation he'd had with his advisors the other day.
They had been plotting to crush Kwangwoon as soon as the election was over.
"Honestly, I think I already know even without you telling . You and your people were getting ready to gut Kwangwoon the mont you won. But didn't I tell you before? If even I know about it, there's no way Kwangwoon doesn't."
"W-wait. You're saying Kwangwoon changed their minds because of that?"
"All signs point to it. What other reason would Kwangwoon have to suddenly switch sides? They saw what you were up to and gave us another chance instead. And they gift-wrapped a justification so compelling that I had no choice but to co back."
Only then did Trump realize how things had spiraled to this point.
"Ah......"
A hollow groan escaped him before he could stop it.
"I was so close. I was almost there. Why couldn't they just wait a little longer? Why were they so desperate to show their hand? I really wanted to retire too!"
"Th-then just do it now!"
"China and North Korea are in complete chaos right now. How am I supposed to retire in the middle of this? And what if I actually ignored everything and retired? This is Kwangwoon we're talking about, the sa people who hunted down and killed the Li Jinping and Kim Jong-woon families when even Arica couldn't find them. You think getting rid of so old man would be hard for them? You took a bullet through the ear and you still don't understand Kwangwoon?!"
"......!"
At those words, a pain he had forgotten surged through his ear.
"This is all your fault. If you were going to grovel before Kwangwoon, you should have kept groveling at least until the election was over. Why did you blow the whole thing up on your own and then co here blaming ? Strictly speaking, I'm a victim too! I wanted to enjoy a happy retirent, but thanks to you, Trump, I'm stuck rotting in this godforsaken place for another four years!"
"......"
"If you've got nothing to say, then get the hell out. And worry about how you're going to keep yourself alive from now on."
After venting his fury and chasing Trump out, Aiden sank deep into his chair.
"Ah..."
He buried his face in both hands.
Just as he had told Trump, he would have to spend four more years in this hellhole.
Kwangwoon.
Those relentless bastards.
He had prepared everything for his retirent.
But these demons would not let Aiden go free, right to the very end.
*****
TL Note: This novel has now been fully translated and is available for Patreon readers.
*****
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