The National Reconstruction Supreme Council (2)
The National Reconstruction Supreme Council was the official name for the gathering of humans gathered in Yeouido, the capital of this world’s Republic of Korea.
Officially it was the National Reconstruction Supreme Council, yet this body of 299 members was commonly referred to simply as the National Assembly, just as one might in our own history.
Just as we were on the verge of making a move to take this country by the throat, the message delivered by Delis meant that the chairman of the National Assembly in this world’s Republic of Korea had come to us bearing the president’s decree.
“Could he have been caught?”
I had no choice but to entertain the suspicion.
Only yesterday we had drawn the attention of the Republic of Korea government officials to the southern coast by stirring up trouble at Busan Port, then used that window to snatch plutonium from Pyeongsa in North Hwanghae Province.
Yet I was also a little bewildered.
“Delis, the security measures were airtight, correct?”
“Absolutely. I can swear on the honor of the Agency that no leaks occurred. If there had been, the chairman of the Supreme Council would have been confronted by special forces of the Korean military wielding weapons instead of me.”
“Hmm… That means…”
Delis answered with absolute conviction.
Even I, who knew exactly how the Agency operated and how much effort had gone into that infiltration, could see there was not a single false note in Delis’s words.
Even if something like that had happened, the worst outcome would have been avoided.
Although neither I nor Pavel had been present, the Ekworox had been there.
The military could not stop my children if they were not mages.
So I doubted it.
“Was it simply coincidence?”
Even so, the timing was far too perfect.
Any other day would have raised no eyebrows, yet here it was today for a reason I could not yet discern.
Whatever their scheme, the man was worth meeting.
At the very least it was better to find out how the chairman of the National Reconstruction Supreme Council had reached out to us.
“I suppose we should confirm that.”
“Have you looked into who that man is? Is it really the president’s decree he carries?”
Delis’s reply was simply, “I checked.”
I had expected as much, and I myself would have done the same.
“Yes. His name is Jeon Doo-gwang, sixty-seven years old this year, and he is the chairman of the Sixth National Reconstruction Supreme Council.”
“What?”
Had I heard wrong?
I asked in surprise, and received the same answer again.
“You heard me correctly. Jeon Doo-gwang, sixty-seven, chairman of the Sixth National Reconstruction Supreme Council. Would you like a more detailed explanation?”
“…”
I requested further details from Delis with a pounding heart, half-expecting that it could not possibly be the man I knew.
Yet as Delis spoke, my certainty only grew.
It was unmistakably the famous figure of our history.
“What kind of coincidence is this…”
Shocking as it was, upon reflection it was not so strange.
In our history, too, the two men who had pierced the heart of the regime had been close allies.
The problem had only been that their closeness had been twisted into a whisper, “Overthrow the government as I did and become the next leader.”
It was the same man who had seized power the moment the previous president’s death provided the opportunity.
But in this world, on October 26, 1979, the predecessor had not died, so there had been no chance to reveal that ambition.
In the meantime—
“The National Reconstruction Supreme… Whatever that long name is, it’s on its sixth session?”
I already knew that this long body still functioned as the National Assembly, unlike in our history.
Since my main activities had been centered on Western Europe, including Britain, I had not bothered to investigate further.
I had simply let it slide.
Now, however, the organization’s reach had extended deep into the Far East, and it was already considering full-scale expansion.
That was information I needed to possess.
Delis answered.
“You would know this as well, Yerina-nim. The fact that there was an assassination attempt against the Republic of Korea president in the autumn of 1979.”
“Yes, I know.”
“The assassin was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the Republic of Korea at the time, the direct predecessor of the current National Intelligence Service.”
“The director of the Central Intelligence Agency…”
A name rose unbidden in my mind.
A man with the lightning speed of a Jaguar, perhaps.
“It is a difficult matter when viewed from the standpoint of the organization’s sensitivity.”
“To put it another way, it means I, the Agency director, rebelled against you, Yerina-nim.”
“That is exactly how it was.”
“It is indeed difficult to imagine.”
Thinking it over, Delis’s account fit perfectly.
Delis had formed an alliance with the other “opposition” elements of the organization to attempt my assassination.
It was something unthinkable within the Northern Covenant Syndicate.
The “opposition” who had rebelled against me had been entirely purged within the first month of my rule, and the five pillars of the organization—Delis and Pavel among them—were all children who answered to me alone.
Delis continued calmly.
“The attempt failed in the end, and the president survived the assassination and was able to continue leading the country.”
One would not misunderstand here.
When I said “failed,” I meant that he had dared to betray the human he was supposed to serve as a subordinate.
In other words… no matter the motive for the assassination, from the perspective of loyalty it was still “failed.”
“And because the assassination attempt was judged to involve the members of the National Assembly at the time, the existing Assembly was dissolved.”
“It was then renamed to its current name and began filling the seats with members as they pleased.”
Only now was I beginning to understand.
The long body had not existed from the beginning; it had been recreated precisely because of the October 26 assassination attempt.
“The sixth session is the name given to the National Reconstruction Supreme Council that existed around the time the president seized power through the 1961 coup.”
“As the name implies—‘rebuilding the nation’—it was originally meant to function only until the normal operation of the National Assembly could be restored—”
“—but with the heinous attempt to kill the president, it was decided that the very framework of the nation must be corrected.”
“That is why the president also holds the authority to appoint the chairman of the National Reconstruction Supreme Council.”
“Thanks to that, Jeon Doo-gwang, a man with a close past who was once a soldier but has now entered politics, was installed in the position.”
“Even in his eighth term, President Park Byung-hwi’s power remains rock-solid.”
“Since the emergency has long since passed, and the president continues to rule for life, the name is unlikely to change.”
That was more than enough explanation.
I halted Delis and told him the remainder would be handled in writing later.
“I understand. So where is that man who came to meet us carrying the president’s decree?”
“He did not wait; he simply notified me of the date and time unilaterally and left.”
“Rather rude, isn’t it? He doesn’t care about our schedule at all, and he thinks we should conform to his?”
“That is why I was ready to dismiss him at once, but it seemed better to pass the matter on to you, Yerina-nim, before doing so.”
From a rational standpoint, from the perspective of the Republic of Korea government I was nothing but a foreign individual.
Within the territory of the Republic of Korea, if I used the president’s abilities as though I were the creator himself, the price of the flight from Gimpo to Incheon Airport would have become clear to anyone.
Similarly, the fact that we had arrived in the Republic of Korea aboard a private jet that ordinary people could never afford would have been laid bare for all to see.
In the eyes of the upper echelons, therefore, I, Pavel, and Delis were unmistakably foreign nobles.
Yet they had come straight from Gimpo to the headquarters of Cheonma Sangsa in Seocho-gu without the slightest hesitation.
It was a massive corporation whose representative director was Ham Cheon-ho, a man with a little political connection.
When I reached this conclusion, I at last understood what those rulers of this country intended to do when they met me.
“They simply want to reel in a few fish, huh?”
It was the classic technique.
They would cheat foreign newcomers ignorant of domestic affairs and drain their wealth.
They would use the weight of the new OECD member nation to crush individual foreigners under the heel of state power.
Those who did not invest in the companies or funds they designated would face enormous taxes on the stocks they wished to buy or be subjected to all kinds of regulations.
If they ignored these demands entirely, physical interference might come later, not merely institutional.
“For example… would it be the arrival of prosecutors at our local business site?”
A one-sided picture would be staged: state-level prosecutors wielding law and power like thugs to smash our business operations.
Any excuse would do.
Violation of customs law, tax evasion, any crime involving foreign direct investment.
After all, in this country the law existed only to be shaped to the rulers’ taste.
Leaving aside the sophistication of those demands, it was no different from the cartels selling drugs in Mexico and expanding their power.
I laughed softly and answered.
“There was no way he would have noticed, and he came to us to stuff hundreds of billions of won into his own pockets with our power, didn’t he?”
How could the rulers of this country be so identical in every single detail to the ones I had known in my previous life?
They were not the benevolent avatars standing at the opposite pole of communism, the great evil I would one day overthrow.
At this moment, the man standing before me was nothing but a golden tower packed to the brim with greed.
Greedy enough that the moment I stabbed my blade into that soft underbelly, gold and jewels would pour out like water.
After much thought, I decided to postpone my reunion with the princess—however one-sided it might be—by a little while longer.
I would first see how this country intended to crush me, and I would prepare the means to resist.