Chapter 189

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Shouldn’t this be resolved quickly? If grain prices rise catastrophically like this, all food products will be affected.”

“Food products are one thing, but meat prices are also setting new highs every day. If this situation continues, meat prices will rise up to 5 times.”

Grain prices affect numerous food products while simultaneously raising meat prices.

Because the feed that livestock eat has gone up.

Then there’s an emergency with common people’s food.

What people value most is eating.

But if prices rise absurdly, the government can’t avoid being the target of criticism.

“It’s not our fault, is it? What can we do about Libya getting hit by a typhoon?”

“Even if it’s not our fault, citizens have no choice but to blame the government. Asking why we didn’t prepare in advance.”

It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing to be done.

Because even if the government didn’t do anything wrong, it’s true that they didn’t prepare for this food crisis in advance.

“So, it truly can’t be restored right now? Do we just have to sit on our hands?”

The EU is in a panic right now.

The historic crop failure has caused an emergency in grain supply.

Also, Ukraine and Russia are still at war, making it difficult to get wheat from there.

In the midst of this, Libya was swept by a typhoon, and all the warehouses there were flooded, causing all the grains and food products that were supposed to head to Europe to disappear.

“If we bypass the Libyan port and use another route, it will take at least 60 more days.”

“Can’t we just go without passing through the Libyan port?”

“Ships need to refuel and resupply food for the crew, and above all, passing through territorial waters without government permission is illegal. If the other side takes military action, we have nothing to say.”

“Then let’s quickly dispatch people to help restore the port. Isn’t that why ships are stuck unable to do anything right now?”

“We’ve already contacted them from the EU side offering to help, but the current situation in Libya is unusually serious, so it’s extremely difficult to dispatch personnel.”

Libya suffered massive damage from the typhoon.

Out of a population of only 7 million, a whopping 20,000 have died.

Naturally, they wouldn’t refuse relief supplies and volunteer personnel.

“The East suffered the most damage from this typhoon. And the West sees this as an opportunity.”

“Wait. Don’t tell me they’re going to war at a time like this?”

“War has already started. Five key generals in the East have already died under mysterious circumstances, and as a result, the East’s command structure has completely collapsed. The West has finished preparing to advance.”

“No, why would the West suddenly do such a thing…”

Libya, divided into West and East.

In a chaotic situation caused by natural disaster like now, attacking when the opponent is weakened was a good strategy.

But the West wasn’t that belligerent a place.

They wanted to maintain the regime peacefully without military conflict with the East, as if they had been strangers from the beginning.

In other words, even if the East was weakened by this typhoon, this wasn’t a regime that would raise an army and attack the East directly.

“Yet the West suddenly attacked…?”

“Isn’t someone behind the Western regime pulling the strings?”

“And five key generals in the East died mysteriously?”

There was a smell.

The smell of conspiracy.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Whose doing.”

President Perom said with a face much more haggard than before.

“It must be Gwangwoon’s doing.”

“Gwangwoon…?”

Is there anyone in Europe who hates Gwangwoon as much as President Perom?

But he was also someone who had suffered a lot from Gwangwoon.

Recently, while trying to check the ESG Association, Gwangwoon went on the offensive using pension reform as a pretext, and President Perom ended up becoming a puppet government like the White House.

“Eastern Libya was a place that had extremely rejected Gwangwoon all along. Then suddenly this happens. Five perfectly healthy generals suddenly die, and the moderate West suddenly raises an army—this means Gwangwoon is behind it.”

“But why on earth would Gwangwoon… Just to punish the East?”

“It’s not for such a petty reason. Aren’t we bleeding right now because of Eastern Libya? That’s exactly what they aimed for. To threaten Europe by controlling food.”

“!?”

Only then did the puzzle pieces click together for them.

There was a reason Gwangwoon had been gathering food for years.

“The fact that Gwangwoon has been gathering food since years ago means they knew crop failures would come.”

“So you’re saying Gwangwoon intentionally manipulated the weather? Even this typhoon?”

“There’s nothing they can’t do. They’re the ones who cause earthquakes.”

“If that’s true, we have to stop them immediately! If they really threaten Europe with food, we’re done for!”

“How are you going to stop them? Will you declare war? Against where? Gwangwoon is everywhere in the world. They’ve already completed an empire without borders.”

Gwangwoon’s base might look like Korea, but that’s just an illusion.

Gwangwoon already has bases in multiple places, and it’s not a place that will collapse just because one side is destroyed.

“That’s why I’ve been saying all along. We must stop them before Gwangwoon gets any bigger.”

“Then even now…”

“No. We’ve already missed the golden time. How are you going to pressure Gwangwoon now? They hold all the food, and they’ve even cut off our only supply route.”

Therefore, only one method remained.

“From now on, we just have to do what Gwangwoon tells us. If we refuse, we’ll experience hellish inflation.”

It’s a world that lacks nothing.

Developed countries especially have abundant food.

No. That’s how it had been until now.

If any place refuses Gwangwoon’s will, no matter how developed a country it is, they would experience food shortages like Africa.

Europe had already been collared by Gwangwoon.

***

“The EU wants to negotiate?”

“Yes. Libya is in chaos right now, isn’t it? A war broke out following the typhoon. Because of that, a crucial supply route to Europe has been cut, and prices across all of Europe are shooting through the roof.”

The news about Libya pains me every time I hear it.

I understand that because they’re divided into West and East, one side would want to unify quickly.

But even so, did they have to start a war when everyone was suffering from the typhoon like this?

“Because war broke out between the West and East, all logistics have stopped, and it’s become difficult to even enter territorial waters. That’s why Europe is in such a panic.”

“Is the situation in Europe that serious right now?”

“Yes. Grain prices are rising like crazy and the whole world is in chaos, but Europe is worse. They’re expecting prices to rise to the point where ordinary citizens can’t even afford bread, so if they can’t resolve this immediately, riots will break out across all of Europe.”

Europe is at least self-sufficient.

But as the crop failure worsened, they couldn’t handle it.

“Then we should release what we have.”

If I don’t release what I have, terrible things will happen in Europe.

Let’s think about making money later; shouldn’t we save people first?

“President. But the strategy team says, why don’t we attach one condition while negotiating this time?”

“Condition?”

If they were telling me to sell at high prices, I was going to refuse.

Because I don’t do business with people’s lives.

“Europe has always been checking Sentinel from entering. They want to get official permission for that.”

But this had sufficiently valid grounds.

Our Sentinel plays the role of protecting shipping companies.

But because it’s a private military company, most of Europe wouldn’t accept our Sentinel, causing difficulties in escorting shipping vessels.

To unlock that.

This was something worth requesting since it could protect people in shipping.

Our Gwangwoon doesn’t use Sentinel for any military purpose other than escorting, after all.

“That’s a good idea. Please release what we have so that European grain prices can stabilize. But also make sure the Sentinel contract is finalized. We can’t have them just take our food and then withdraw Sentinel later.”

“Yes. I’ll do that.”

“Oh, and this too.”

“What? This is…”

Manager looked puzzled after receiving the document I gave him.

“A global warming plan?”

“Yes, I was looking through the materials from the research team and found this one.”

Research sends me various materials.

While reading them from time to time, data about global warming caught my intuition.

“This Libyan typhoon and super typhoons occurring in various parts of the world right now—various climate anomalies are happening. The cause of all that is global warming.”

“Yes. But this… It costs a lot and the scale is quite large. It’s not just a joint venture with companies—governments of each country need to participate.”

“Right. Plus, this data is rough, so I want to adjust it in more detail. But rather than me doing it directly, I think it would be better for headquarters to do it.”

Everyone agrees that the weather is going increasingly crazy.

Even people who once denounced climate warming as a complete hoax can no longer deny the strange weather changes.

That the Earth is going wrong.

But I think it’s not too late yet.

If we work together, if we stop ignoring it and confront it, if we develop while enduring inconvenience, we can definitely change things.

***

“It’s not easy. Not easy.”

“But isn’t it quite fun?”

“Honestly speaking, I never thought I’d pick up gaming as a hobby at this age.”

As soon as President Aiden joined the Trinity guild, he studied gaming while receiving one-on-one tutoring from Gwangwoon.

Those tutors surely had the purpose of monitoring Aiden, but more than that, they were people truly serious about gaming.

So with the singular determination to send this old man to a raid no matter what, they really taught him earnestly.

“A president’s duties should be somewhat busy. But after becoming a puppet government, I found I have more time than expected.”

“That’s…”

“It’s fine. I don’t blame you, John. You had no choice either. Gwangwoon isn’t a place that gives you choices.”

But this Trinity guild was more to his liking than expected.

Originally, he came here to protect Aiden’s safety and honor, but he learned for the first time that gaming could be such an enjoyable hobby.

“But why gaming?”

“Pardon?”

“This guild, I mean. It’s not just a cover—everyone really gathers periodically to play games.”

“Maybe it’s to provide a pretext?”

“Pretext?”

“A pretext to gather periodically, as you said. Thanks to this, even if we support different parties, within here at least we can be one team.”

That was the biggest thing.

A pretext to gather periodically.

How difficult it is to make these busy politicians gather regularly.

“And now left-right, color politics, and so on—they’ve all become meaningless.”

“What do you mean?”

“As long as Gwangwoon is dominating our political sphere, it doesn’t matter who becomes president.”

“Because all decisions go through Gwangwoon anyway?”

“Yes. As you can see, Gwangwoon swallowed the political sphere through something called the strategy team that sprinkled money and appeased various figures including myself. The upper class is already overflowing with people who support Gwangwoon. Above all, all our government agencies are on Gwangwoon’s side.”

That nearly drove Aiden insane.

Because from the CIA to the agencies at the bottom, they became Gwangwoon’s allies and isolated the Aiden administration.

“Moreover, Gwangwoon is proceeding with work without leaving a trace, and advertising to the masses as if Gwangwoon is doing the right thing.”

Controlling the political sphere while playing angel in front of the masses.

It’s disgusting, but that was how Gwangwoon ruled the world.

“This is probably one of those projects too.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s materials that came from Gwangwoon this time. They say they’re creating an organization called GEAR (Global Environmental Action for Resilience) to solve global warming.”

Solving global warming, huh.

A company that’s currently destroying Guyana and the Amazon while building small nuclear power plants has the nerve to say such things.

“Of course this is also a cover, right?”

“Yes. If you say it’s about solving global warming, people will love it. The Libyan typhoon that became a worldwide issue this time and the climate phenomena occurring in various places are continuously being highlighted.”

In other words, they would use that as an excuse to create such an organization.

“The problem is that this requires cooperation not just from companies, but at the national level.”

“They’re going to impose sanctions through law.”

“Yes. If certain companies don’t follow Gwangwoon’s will, first they’ll launch media attacks through the ESG Association, and then they’ll judge through law via governments cooperating with GEAR.”

“…”

How far does Gwangwoon really intend to go?

They were now generously revealing their sinister plans.

“Will this pass?”

“The EU has already passed it.”

“The EU?”

“Yes. They’re already done there. While being threatened with food, they ended up even allowing Sentinel’s entry, which they had been blocking.”

They had been holding out until the end.

But the EU has fallen too.

They probably had no other choice either.

When you’re being threatened with food, how can you refuse?

“And currently, Gwangwoon is mobilizing public opinion through media. There will probably be opposing lawmakers, but they’ll end up casting affirmative votes because they can’t overcome public opinion. Actually, on the surface, it only looks like the purpose of saving Earth suffering from global warming.”

At those words, Aiden let out a wry laugh.

Save the Earth?

Gwangwoon are the ones destroying this Earth, not saving it.

They just want to create that image.

“The pretext is good, and the timing is good.”

“Yes. Even if we want to oppose, we can’t. Didn’t our America also suffer from a super typhoon this time? Moreover, the typhoon that hit Libya becoming a worldwide issue was decisive.”

Did Gwangwoon foresee all this?

The reason they had left Libya, which had been defying Gwangwoon, alone until now was all to create this pretext.

“I’ll sign it right away tomorrow.”

And Aiden had no intention of stopping it either.

Because he too was now a member of the glorious empire that Gwangwoon sought to build.

End