Chapter 151. Battle for Public Opinion.
I took a sip of the tea Cassius had brought and glanced at him. His face was set with resolute determination, and the people behind him looked as if victory were already guaranteed.
I shot him a cold glare and spoke quietly. Last time, he'd tried to shake me by preaching about the "responsibility of the powerful."
"Surprisingly, you're intact. I figured you'd be half-mad or brain-damaged by now."
Annoyance laced my voice. I had already shown him that my strength wasn't something I'd stumbled upon by chance—it was the result of blood and sweat accumulated over a long, long time. I'd spared his life and sent him back.
"I did suffer a little hardship. But I cannot afford to collapse. I have to think of the people."
He didn't lose his smile.
"Your past is remarkable. Truly respectable. Even I might not have endured nine hundred years and might have ended my own life. But nonetheless, what matters is how you use that power."
I let out a short sigh at his words. His eyes glinted coldly, and Lee Jong-hyun's harping on the "responsibility of the powerful" grated on me even more.
"Just because you got lucky with a little power, do you think you're some kind of hero?"
"What are you..."
"You're truly pathetic, shouting about justice with your shallow power. Justice without power is powerless."
"Conversely, power without justice is violent."
He didn't back down. This time, he looked at Cassius, who stood behind me, and spoke.
"So it's Cassius, I remember. I understand your former lord was a noble."
He was hitting Cassius's sore spot. A vein bulged on Cassius's forehead as he tried his best to suppress his anger.
"Lee Jong-hyun, don't cross the line."
"That's because you did things like dividing people by class in the first place..."
ㅡ Slash!
Before Cassius could lunge, I sliced off the bastard's earlobe first. It must have been searingly painful, but he acted as if nothing had happened.
ㅡ Drip, drip...
The hall fell silent, the only sound the slow drip of blood hitting the floor.
"If you want to save the world so badly, do it your way. But don't drag me into it. I don't trust the kind of 'justice' you people spout. Helping the weak is ultimately just an excuse for your own satisfaction."
Lee Jong-hyun's expression hardened for a moment. I didn't miss that look. Just as I'd said, he got a kick out of lording his "help" over the weak. I had expected it, but now that it was confirmed, I had even less patience for his preaching.
"No matter how noble you bastards sound, it's just self-satisfaction in the end. You're not helping the weak. You're looking down on them and wanting to feel superior."
Lee Jong-hyun bowed his head for a moment. A heavy shadow flickered across his face. But then he lifted his head, looked at me, and said:
"Even so, someone must step forward and lead this world."
I snorted at the ridiculous contradiction.
"You were shouting about equality, and now you say someone has to lead?"
"There is a clear difference between a boss and a leader."
A walking contradiction who rationalized his words at every turn.
I had no intention of listening to him anymore, so I turned my head.
"I won't care what you do. If you want to march out of here on your own two feet, get the hell out right now."
But he still had no intention of backing down.
"In that case... I have no choice but to use another method."
"Another method? If you don't get your way, what, you're going to drag me along by force?"
This was the guy who couldn't even react, let alone dodge, when I attacked him just now. He didn't answer, but his silence revealed his intent. I just gave a cold smile and said:
"I don't give a damn what trick you use. Use whatever method you want. But you'll have to take proper responsibility."
I signaled that the conversation was over and didn't even watch them leave. Cassius and I went outside separately.
"Old man, want a smoke?"
"Oh dear, I believe it's against etiquette for a young man to smoke in front of an elder."
"Good grief..."
"Hoho, it was a joke."
Actually, cigarettes are harmful, but they can't affect my body. I just don't smoke because the girls hate it. I lit Cassius's cigarette and continued the conversation.
"Did you see the old folks before coming here?"
"Yes..."
"I'm sure they're doing well with Ariel. They always wanted a daughter."
For nobles who had to carry on the family line, they were people who wanted a daughter more than a son. Thinking about it now, they were quite unusual for nobles.
"If you'd lost your temper and broken the bastard's limbs, I wouldn't have cared."
"...."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"Just... I'd like you to act as befits the Commander."
"You're right, old man. Since when have we ever cared about what others think?"
Lee Jong-hyun returned to Suwon with his party. The people who saw the blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his ear were shocked and worried for him.
"It's fine. It's nothing serious. Don't worry, everyone."
Reassuring the group members, he entered the space he used as his office.
"Why can't they understand my noble intentions...? They could just live without a care in the world, inside our fence..."
Lee Jong-hyun's eyes momentarily glowed with a strange light. The light disappeared in an instant, and he fell into thought. Realizing he was no match for Cheon Sihu in terms of power, he devised a strategy to destroy Cheon Sihu's village by other means.
He immediately set into motion a plan to socially isolate Cheon Sihu and his group through an "information war." Although they claimed to be self-sufficient, he didn't fully believe they could accommodate that many people.
"There must be a separate group they're cooperating with."
But Lee Jong-hyun didn't know about the ability Kim Jia's father possessed. In fact, the reason he had provoked Cassius was a calculated gamble that he wouldn't be killed—and it had paid off.
"He's definitely not a psychopath who just kills people indiscriminately..."
Lee Jong-hyun assigned roles to the members of his group. Some of them began to wander outside, handing out food to people while spreading negative rumors about Cheon Sihu's village. They focused on fabricating stories as if they'd witnessed them firsthand, or twisting the truth to damage his reputation.
"Cheon Sihu? Of course, he has strong power. But now he's trying to boss us around in return for saving us."
"That's right. So we risked our lives to run away at night, too."
Furthermore, internally, when everyone was gathered, he unwrapped the bandage on his ear, emphasizing that he had been attacked by Cheon Sihu, and they strengthened their solidarity among themselves.
Lee Jong-hyun's group carefully manipulated conversations with survivors so that the rumors spread as if naturally. Rumors that were too malicious were likely to backfire and cause antipathy.
Not only that, they spread rumors among the survivors that Cheon Sihu's village was monopolizing resources.
"Ha... It's been really tough lately."
"I hear they have so much food, it would be nice if they shared a little with us..."
"What do you mean?"
"At Gimpo, there are a lot of supplies..."
The person carrying out Lee Jong-hyun's instructions smirked at the indignant reactions of the other survivors. And those sent were the weakest members of the group. They began to push forward the elderly, children, the injured, and those with weak Awakening abilities or lacking survival skills.
They even shed tears and gaslighted the weak, pleading, "We need your help," all to spread the rumors.
What if Cheon Sihu's group got angry at the absurd rumors and captured and killed them all?
'They made a noble sacrifice for the majority...!'
Lee Jong-hyun thought he could package this as a sacrifice too, and in its own way, secure a justification.
He was still steeped in madness.
Lee Jong-hyun's plan didn't stop at simply spreading rumors. To manipulate public opinion more concretely, he deliberately created fabricated situations. He staged situations where children and elderly people—those anyone would pity—were in distress near Cheon Sihu's village, as if troubled by bandits. For instance, he set up scenes near the village entrance where they pretended to be starving and injured, begging for help.
He even went so far as to use zombies, orchestrating situations where they were killed.
He also took photos of the village guards standing by helplessly, and spread the malicious images.
Whenever anyone tried to enter Cheon Sihu's village, they'd deliberately complain to them: "That village—the powerful exploit the weak and don't even spare a glance for people like us. They even demand compensation for saving you."
To drive the wedge home in this psychological warfare, he actively used the radio. He periodically broadcast on public frequencies. In the broadcasts, as if delivering a demagogic speech, he spread the message that Cheon Sihu's village had abandoned equality and justice. He even used other people's voices to present "witnesses" as if they were telling the truth.
"That power is a gift given by chance, and those who possess it must fulfill their responsibility. Everyone, we must fight against those who hold power. Just as the Republic of Korea won democracy in the past, we must not remain submissive!"
Even though everyone knew Cheon Sihu was the one holding the real power, he lied calmly and without batting an eye.
"What we want is an equal world. We must not be divided among ourselves just because a disaster has come. A world where the weak are not oppressed, where everyone is equally fed, and is safe. Everyone, we could have built such a world."
His speeches were sometimes inflammatory, and sometimes appealed to emotion.
Of course, hidden beneath this entire information war was Lee Jong-hyun's ugly inner self: the instinct to satisfy his sense of moral superiority and expand his own power.