Translator: Dreamscribe
"......"
After returning from the funeral, the Insurance Association executives gathered in the conference room sat in stunned silence, still reeling from shock.
"What on earth was the motive?"
"Isn't it obvious? It was done out of resentnt over unpaid insurance claims."
"No, but then wouldn't it make sense to go after the employee who sold them the policy, or an executive at that company? Like the shooting that happened last ti. Why would they suddenly target Carlson...?"
"Apparently, profiles of our association's key mbers were plastered all over the dark web."
"Wh-what?"
"Along with agitation saying people shouldn't bother killing the small fry, that they need to kill the heads leading the Insurance Cartel."
Insurance employees or executives getting killed was sothing that happened from ti to ti.
The recent CEO getting shot to death had only blown up because the dia ran with it so hard.
It wasn't sothing that caused them any real damage.
But Carlson's death was devastating.
Because one of the core mbers at the very top of the cartel known as the Insurance Association had been killed.
"S-so you're saying the personal information of everyone here has been leaked?"
"Yes. And it's not just personal information. In Carlson's case, his real-ti movents were apparently being shared on the dark web."
"Who the hell would do sothing like that! We need to find them imdiately and make them pay!"
"It's the dark web, literally. Finding out who posted that kind of incitent there is extrely difficult."
In other words, everyone sitting in this room had been exposed.
"And frankly, there's no need to investigate. We all know who's behind this, don't we?"
A single na flashed through their minds.
"Kwangwoon?"
"It was really them?"
"Yes. If not them, who else would pull sothing like this?"
"But with the CEO murder last ti and this thing with Carlson, there's no evidence linking any of it to Kwangwoon."
"That's because they thoroughly erased every trace. This was definitely their doing. You can tell just by looking at this."
Vice Chairman Ronald placed before them a docunt that Kwangwoon had sent to the association before Carlson's incident.
"Kwangwoon sent this?"
"Yes. The first half is nothing special. It says they find it regrettable that we're blocking Kwangwoon's entry into the insurance market, that Kwangwoon has no intention of competing with insurance companies, that they simply want to help vulnerable populations, and so on."
"Who would believe such ridiculous lies?"
"Right. Kwangwoon didn't send this expecting anyone to believe it either. You need to look at the last line."
The final line of Kwangwoon's docunt read:
[Do not provoke us any further.]
"Five minutes after this docunt arrived at the association, the incident with Carlson happened."
"!?"
They were too shocked to speak.
"......S-so you're saying Kwangwoon killed Carlson to send us a warning?"
"Circumstantially, yes. Our Association Chairman died less than five minutes after this docunt arrived. Do you really think that's a coincidence?"
There was no way it was a coincidence.
On the surface, it looked like an ordinary negotiation docunt, but that final line was unmistakably a threat.
And as if to drive the point ho, Carlson, the Association Chairman, was dead.
"Th-these savages! Do they think they're so kind of mafia? You can't just go around shooting people!"
"From what I've gathered, this isn't the first ti Kwangwoon has used physical force. They say the assassination of the forr Japanese pri minister and the near-death of forr President Trump were both Kwangwoon's doing. The problem is, while the circumstantial evidence clearly points to Kwangwoon, no one has been able to find a single piece of hard proof."
"Just like us?"
"Yes. This is simply how Kwangwoon operates. They flaunt their power while leaving no trace behind."
"......"
Everyone could see it was Kwangwoon's doing, yet punishnt was impossible because no evidence could be found.
"What in the world......"
Until now, the Insurance Association had faced many enemies.
And they had always won, which was how they'd climbed to where they were.
But this was the most formidable opponent they had ever encountered.
They couldn't even begin to figure out where or how to fight back.
"The most frightening part is that if we keep provoking Kwangwoon as their warning suggests, the next target will be one of us."
"......!"
They all looked at each other.
No one in that room wanted to die from a Kwangwoon bullet.
"I, I was against it from the start. Fighting Kwangwoon, I an."
" too. I only went along because Chairman Carlson pushed so hard. I never wanted to fight Kwangwoon."
Watching the executives change their tune, Ronald felt a surge of disgust, but it was pointless in the end.
Confessing that they'd never intended any of this wouldn't matter, since Kwangwoon wasn't listening.
"We have exactly two options. Either we investigate and fight to hold Kwangwoon accountable to the end, or we give up and let them do as they please."
"......"
Fighting was out of the question from the start.
Their opponent was the kind that opened fire before even starting a conversation.
On top of that, Sentinel, Kwangwoon's subsidiary, wasn't so street gang muscling their way around like the mafia. They were packed with veterans who had received genuine professional military training and cut their teeth at the world's top governnt agencies.
Fight people like that?
"Judging by the length of the silence, it seems the answer is decided."
That day, they learned a very important lesson.
When picking a fight, you need to know who you're picking it with.
* * *
"......Just like that?"
"Yes. The states that refused to issue us licenses have all suddenly reversed their positions."
Had the prayer he offered up yesterday been answered?
The states that had said they couldn't issue licenses to them had, for so reason, suddenly changed their stance.
"So we can get all the licenses?"
"Yes. They say they'll issue them as soon as we submit the requests."
It's strange that everyone changed their minds overnight.
"It seems the back-to-back shootings have made things very serious for the insurance industry. On top of that, complaints about insurance companies flooding SNS and online communities have exploded, and it's turning into a national issue."
Adding to it all, the news that Insurance Association Chairman Carlson had been shot and killed coming out of a bathroom had made the safety concerns surrounding insurance companies even more dire.
"Profiles are being shared everywhere, spreading through the dark web as well, and apparently a lot of executives have quit their companies and left the country entirely."
It was truly unfortunate.
Given what insurance companies had done to their custors all this ti, one might feel a sense of vindication, but that didn't make it right to shoot soone dead.
Why did nations and laws exist?
To prevent cris from being judged through emotion.
But individuals executing judgnt on others with a gun was sothing that should never happen.
"Our SNS platforms are censoring that kind of content, right?"
"Well... it's a touchy subject to censor arbitrarily, so they're only cutting the most extre incitent posts. But since it's spreading through the dark web, that's beyond our reach."
This had to be rooted out.
If it escalated further, completely innocent people could get caught up in it.
"Because of these incidents, even though Kwangwoon Insurance hasn't entered the U.S. market yet, it's already becoming a hot topic."
"Already?"
"Yes. Kwangwoon's marketing team is currently running a massive campaign. Saying that Kwangwoon Insurance will rescue people in difficult situations for the sake of vulnerable populations. They're riding the wave of this crisis."
Even so, two people had died, and using that as a promotional opportunity didn't look good.
"But thanks to this opportunity, Kwangwoon Insurance has beco much better known, and we've even secured the licenses, haven't we? We can now help people we might not have been able to reach otherwise."
As the Departnt Head said, he couldn't criticize the marketing team for that.
They had simply done their jobs.
"On top of that, headquarters must have had a hard ti with the insurance situation this ti around. The Insurance Association's interference was apparently worse than expected. The Strategy Team and every other departnt had to throw themselves into it just to contain things."
He felt sorry about that too.
Out of nowhere, he had pushed to pursue sothing unrelated to the company's profits, picking a fight with the Insurance Cartel of all things.
Of course, he had never had the slightest intention of fighting the Insurance Cartel, but he had ended up causing trouble for the people at headquarters all the sa.
"Also, so of the states issuing licenses this ti have attached additional conditions. They want us to create products that regular people can sign up for, not just vulnerable populations."
"That... wouldn't the costs be too high?"
"Yes. That's why headquarters is apparently running calculations over it right now."
"......"
It had started from good intentions.
But it feels like things are snowballing out of control.
"Everyone's going through all this trouble because of ."
"Not at all. You're doing sothing that needs to be done. Everyone understands that."
"Right. Please pass along to everyone at headquarters that they've done a great job. I should go tell each of them in person, but......"
"There's no need for that. Everyone knows how busy you are, sir. I'll make sure to pass the ssage along."
All he had wanted was to do sothing good, but he felt guilty for wringing the headquarters staff dry for nothing.
So next ti he wanted to do sothing good, he figured he should do it alone.
* * *
"Those bastards. Had their noses so high in the air they thought they were untouchable, and in the end they tucked their tails."
"Yes. Carlson's death must have been a massive shock to them. It was essentially the sa as cutting off one of the Insurance Cartel's heads."
Anthony Watson smiled and savored the tea in his cup.
But has he let it steep too long?
It tasted bitter.
"It'll be hard for them to find any connection to us, right?"
"Yes. Virtually impossible. The profiles were first distributed on the dark web, and the real-ti movents were shared there too. After that, other people reposted the information on SNS, and the cri followed from there."
Even if every agency in the United States got involved, finding the real culprit would be difficult.
And for good reason.
Sentinel hadn't provided the perpetrator with weapons, hadn't helped plan anything, hadn't even made contact.
All they had done was scatter the profiles and schedules of Insurance Cartel mbers across the dark web.
The decision to commit the cri based on that information was entirely the perpetrator's own.
"What's surprising is that this actually worked."
"Right. The perpetrator who killed that CEO must have been the product of the sa thod. At first, even I wondered whether Kwangwoon had secretly communicated with the killer to set things up, but now I see what Kwangwoon's intent was."
"You an entering the insurance business to implant chips in people?"
"That's a more distant future. This is more like... Kwangwoon was conducting a social experint."
A social experint?
Tom tilted his head at Anthony's words.
"This ti, Kwangwoon killed two people without lifting a finger. And not just anyone, but people who could have enormous influence over the insurance industry."
He was right.
Kwangwoon hadn't handed the perpetrator a gun or hired them to kill anyone.
They had simply guided things in that direction.
"It was a massive social experint. Can you actually kill a target through incitent via SNS and online communities, or can't you? That's exactly what we replicated. And the results were a resounding success."
And the Insurance Cartel had all raised the white flag and surrendered.
"Eliminating a target through others without getting blood on our own hands. That ans no trace to find, no trail to follow. The perfect cri. That's what Kwangwoon was testing."
Kwangwoon was giving a masterclass in why incitent and indoctrination were so terrifying.
"The one concern is that we moved on our own without orders from headquarters."
"Ah, General Director. Actually, a ssage ca in from headquarters."
"A ssage? What kind?"
He tensed slightly.
Was headquarters going to reprimand Sentinel for acting without authorization?
"It says... good job, everyone."
"What?"
Anthony blinked.
"Apparently it was a ssage sent personally by Kwangwoon Securities CEO Jung Jin-ho. Well done, good job, everyone. That's what he wrote."
"......?"
A mont later, Anthony let out a quiet chuckle.
It was a strange feeling.
He had never once received that kind of praise from headquarters.
And yet it hadn't co from just anyone, but from Jung Jin-ho, the man who could be called the head of Kwangwoon himself.
"Good job, he says."
It is nothing, really, but sohow the corners of his mouth refuse to co back down.
"Hmm."
And the tea that tasted so bitter just monts ago, bitter enough to make him furrow his brow, suddenly seems to taste sweet.
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