The Presidents Love Me Way Too Much (2)

In times of chaos like these, there was no need for me to step forward and do anything. If the government had been fumbling things, sure, I might have stuck my nose in — but Choi Seok-hoon was handling things remarkably well, so I planned to simply stay put as a symbol of heroism.

And naturally, other countries started reaching out to me. Looked at a certain way, it was only obvious that someone as famous as me would get photographed talking to a suspicious man in a suit.

“Well, this blew up.”

The articles spread in an instant, and the videos — along with all the reaction-channel recaps — started racking up comments by the thousands. So of course, Choi Seok-hoon's phone rang. Mine, I mean. The president received the call directly.

“You're… not going, right?”

“I'm not going. Just keep doing what you're doing.”

Honestly, going or not going made little difference to me, but my parents, my relatives — everyone was here. This was the place I was born and raised. Why on earth would I move abroad?

Besides, I had plenty of money, and thanks to the hero image life was a bit of a hassle but fun, day after day. Even getting treated like a god on the internet was entertaining — I saved screenshots of the best ones.

“Ah, but announcing it too quickly would be a little awkward, so a bit of push-and-pull is fine, right?”

“Yes, well… do as you see fit.”

“Thank you! Have a wonderful day!”

The life of a top-tier insider whose calls go straight to the president. Not that I had any intention of meddling in running the country.

Not long after I hung up, my parents and my little brother contacted me asking whether I was emigrating.

“I'm not going.”

“Good. And if it's because of us, don't worry about it — do what's right for you.”

“Ugh, seriously… I said I'm NOT going? How many times are you going to ask…”

Still, they must have been worried, because the calls kept coming every ten minutes. It was only after I repeated "I'm not going" a dozen times that they finally gave up.

“This kid is all over the community. What do you mean you're a multi-billionaire?”

He kept going on about being a "personal acquaintance," so I finally checked the thread — and it was my little brother. The way he typed, the speech patterns, it was obviously him, and there was enough identifying detail besides.

But the kid was in university now, and his head was screwed on straight enough that he wasn't leaking anything genuinely sensitive, so I let it be. He was my brother, my family — and I'd gotten him special equipment besides, so it wasn't like there was any real risk.

I was mulling that over when a new wave of articles dropped. Not just one — dozens, almost simultaneously.

“I thought that was a stretch, but maybe China really did put them up to it.”

According to President Choi Seok-hoon, North Korea had by now been swallowed almost whole by China. The Chinese were growing rapidly off magic stones, and word was they'd recently set their sights on the North's natural resources as well. South Korea had raised its voice over it, only to be met with indifference from both China and North Korea.

And in that state, the North extends overtures to me. It was a blatant slap in South Korea's face — an international humiliation on top of it.

“This is bad. From Choi Seok-hoon's standpoint, backing down just got a lot harder.”

Anti-China sentiment had already hit a boiling point lately, and now China had effectively stolen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠North Korea out from under them. Worse, the public watched their own hero being courted by a puppet regime controlled by Beijing — and public fury began to boil over.

To be fair, Choi Seok-hoon was near-flawless on domestic matters, but it was true he looked a little lacking on the diplomatic front. Korea–US–Japan relations were fine, but ties with the communist bloc around China had cratered to their worst. Recently, China and the communist states in the Middle East had even begun rolling out policies that burned through their young people as fuel.

Expert consensus overwhelmingly held that the Middle Eastern communist states were planning to merge into China outright.

“Honestly, if I were them, I'd probably do the same. People were already starving to death before all this — in a situation like this, of course the leaders would cling to that side.”

“Probably, yeah. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠doesn't this make China way too much of a superpower?”

“And if they keep grinding their young people into paste, what happens to the next generation?”

“What happens is they've got an excellent stock of resources two generations down the line.”

Countries like China burn through the current generation and fill the gap with the next one. They can pull that off because their people keep having children in enormous numbers. If anything, precisely because China was chewing through its youth so fast, crime was exploding in the streets — and reportedly the government turned a blind eye to most of it, so long as nobody raised a hand against the state.

China was rotting from the inside out, along with every state copying it. America, Japan, and the nations of Europe were nothing of the sort.

“By the way, Japan, France… what exactly are these guys doing?”

I hadn't said a single word about emigrating anywhere, yet they were already fighting among themselves on the assumption I'd be leaving Korea. Surprisingly, the best offer on the table came from Germany. Germany was holding the line better than expected and was actively trying to absorb its lagging neighbors and grow even stronger off this crisis. The oil-rich Middle Eastern states, meanwhile, were paying cold hard cash for magic stones — since oil could substitute for most everyday needs, they'd decided the stones were better spent elsewhere. Odds were they'd used a Question Ticket ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to learn new applications for magic stones.

“We only asked how to get stronger, after all.”

“There's plenty more you could ask, but those are locked so you can't be told directly. I'm guessing it's like — 'use a Question Ticket and find out yourself.'”

“Yeah, that tracks.”

Anyway, two days after country after country threw their overtures at me, the South Korean government officially announced that I would not be emigrating. After that, people started praising me to the skies.

I'd become a true hero of the Republic of Korea, and between my young age of twenty-six and a face that wasn't hard to look at, I'd become a genuine "mom's friend's kid" — the nation's golden boy.

“Wow… perception has flipped this fast already, huh.”

Barely a month ago, everyone believed getting summoned meant death. Now, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with a single magic stone going for 100,000 won, plenty of people were actively hoping to be taken. One absolute lunatic had even bought a skin-care potion with coins and resold it, and the results were so good that the stuff was now retailing at ten million won a bottle.

There was even a potion that outright cured baldness — apparently it went for close to a hundred million won a pop. In severely baldness-plagued countries abroad, it reportedly climbed as high as three hundred million.

Ironically, the basic recovery potions were dirt cheap. At roughly 500,000 won apiece, they were cheap enough to stockpile as emergency supplies, so there was no real need to gamble on top-tier summons just to get them.

“One day left now.”

One day remained. The number of Machine Legion units I could leave behind here was only around a few thousand. So I stationed units around the house and around the smart farm we'd just built — and naturally blanketed the area with Raptors.

After that, I spent the whole day talking with my parents.

“A little gift. Buy a car or something, have fun with it.”

“Thank you, hyung. Come back safe…!”

To my little brother, I gave a special gift of three hundred million won. He attended a university close to home, but he'd been complaining about how tiring it was to ride the subway everywhere — and above all, our family had never exactly been wealthy. We'd never gone hungry, but the roughly fifty million won of debt hanging over the house was gone almost immediately too. My brother was working part-time jobs on top of his studies, so this lifted that weight off him.

“I'll send you two on that trip once the world settles down.”

“Sounds good. We're not idiots — we know better than to talk about vacations in the middle of all this.”

Their long-dreamed-of European tour would just have to wait. Then, after hearing that I'd be returning today, I chatted briefly with the three special-forces guys, and the time came.

Fwooooom—

Light erupted from my body, and when I opened my eyes, a crimson sky was there to greet me. The factories were humming, and between them, points had piled up mountains-high. Thirty days of gathering meant no corpses left to process, so I ran the thirty-stage cycle again in one swift pass. While Pitasha handled that, my job was none other than drawing the top-tier Machine Legion units.

“Here we go.”

Top-tier units cost a full 10,000 points apiece. I was sitting on roughly three million points. The plan: draw one of each type first, then mass-draw whatever I needed after that.

Tap.

Ta-dak.

As expected, the summoning circle was far more imposing than the high-tier one's — and from within it, the Machine Legion units began emerging one by one.

The top-tier combat unit was, at long last, a flier. Its silhouette resembled a dragon — or a serpent. No, if anything it looked less like either and more like a warship of absurd, impossible length. The thing was enormous, roughly the size of a fifteen-story apartment building. And despite that colossal frame, it could even unleash a breath attack.

“That's incredible…”

I spent a little while just watching the thing show off, then set the rest aside. The new Machine Legion units I'd acquired this time came in not one but two varieties.

“What's an electronic warfare unit?”

Checking the description, it turned out to be a unit that could hack machines and put them to effective use.

“Pitasha. Do we need this one?”

“We need it sooooooo incredibly badly, Master!”

Apparently, in a place like this, it was best employed not in combat but as an administrator. Pitasha's workload, I was told, would shrink dramatically.

And next up was the medic unit.

“Let's go check out those potions.”