After a year in which so much had happened passed,
December arrived before anyone knew it, and winter set in.
In the meantime, as most countries around the world shifted their electricity production to aether power generation, the use of electrical energy increased dramatically. At the same time, even nuclear waste was being perfectly processed, and the Earth gradually began to grow cleaner.
However, it would take more time before the climate crisis showed changes people could truly feel.
Former U.S. President Derek Monroe failed to win reelection.
He had possessed a fairly substantial support base, but in the final years of his term, he had shown little progress on the nuclear waste disposal issue and in securing E-grade Etherium, which had greatly disappointed the public.
The newly elected President James Anderson understood better than anyone where Derek Monroe had gone wrong, and as soon as he was elected, he actively pursued pro-Korea, pro-Suho policies.
Strengthening the FTA, attracting investment, technological cooperation, reinforcing the military alliance, expanding cultural exchange, simplifying visa issuance procedures, support at the UN and G20, and so on... Since he appealed through a variety of diplomatic, economic, and cultural channels, Suho found his efforts commendable and even lifted the restrictions he had placed on nuclear waste disposal rights and E-grade Etherium prices because of Derek Monroe.
Construction of the new city, whose name had now officially been set as “Suho New City,” was proceeding smoothly, though it was still expected to take a great deal of time,
and the construction of the TDM Convention Center already showed that a considerable portion had been completed.
Other smaller projects, such as the construction of the “Ultimate Line” clan’s training grounds, had been finished before anyone realized it.
On the other hand, the development of an artificial space habitat was making little progress.
Once they actually started it, the project turned out to be so enormous that they could not even estimate how long it would take merely to establish the production infrastructure related to it.
It was not something that could be compared to building a single new city. In effect, it was a colossal project no different from constructing several new cities in outer space.
Unexpectedly, the production of an item-exclusive 3D printer, which had seemed as though it might be completed quickly, still had not succeeded.
Since 3D printing was fundamentally a technology that formed objects by stacking materials layer by layer, the materials first had to be made into a state in which they could be processed. However, the cosmic materials Suho used for the super-enhanced androids were often special materials that could not be melted, could not be used in powder form, and could not be ejected or extruded from a printer head. In practice, it had failed.
In the end, the production of enhanced androids, which had to be cut and hammered into shape painstakingly by hand, was absurdly slow.
Since the production line for the enhanced android factory had been established, the parts the scientists could make were now capable of mass production. However, the transcendent material components that Suho had to handle could not keep up in production speed, so proper assembly of finished products was impossible.
Of course, Suho, who worked in subspace, was not constrained by time at all, but making the same thing mechanically over and over was simply too boring.
In the end, production had only reached around twenty units.
It might have been a large number if one called it large, but for Suho, who had originally expected thousands of units, it was a number that in truth fell far short of expectations.
Japan’s Tower appeared to be progressing well in its raid without any fuss or rumors.
According to the news, during the four months since the initial entry, the raid team seemed to have exited a couple of times for maintenance, but they were apparently making steady progress in their own way. For now, since they were still on the lower floors, there probably was not much that would be greatly difficult.
And... the artificial island he had wanted to build in the East Sea.
The artificial island had completed domestic permits and environmental assessments, but since negotiations with Japan had not been settled, it had yet to proceed.
When he had asked indirectly through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they had apparently flown into an uproar.
He had considered thoughts like, “Should I just drop a meteorite on them, drop Obelun into the Pacific and give them a tsunami shower? Or should I throw my weight around with Etherium?” but it seemed too petty and cheap, so he simply gave up.
To begin with, the artificial island was something he had only intended to make as a hobby.
As time passed and many changes occurred, many of his businesses became tied up in matters that inevitably required time. Before he knew it, Suho had lost interest in this and that again and become bored.
Suho’s resources were effectively infinite, but Earth’s production and construction technologies had clear limits, and legal procedures were needlessly complicated and slow.
On top of that, the “constraints for balance” placed upon this delicate world were too numerous to describe.
If only he could do anything he wanted, like in a sandbox game where he could freely mold a planet, he would have been able to try far more things.
He might have been able to use an enormous amount of matter to reconstruct the terrain of Earth.
He could have poured in water to turn deserts into seas, and created new islands and continents as well.
Or he could have completely eliminated the scarcity of resources and collapsed the global economy, or neutralized every nation.
He could have supplied infinite energy to all of humanity—ah, right, he had already done that.
Or, just to amuse himself, he could have constructed a defensive barrier around the outskirts of Earth that surrounded the entire orbit of the planet. He might build his own moon, or create a large-scale electromagnetic barrier to manipulate the magnetic field of the entire Earth.
In any case, there were many things that looked fun, but the world was not a game, and if he did such things, irreversible consequences were certain to follow.
It would be fun for a moment, and then Earth would be doomed.
“Huuuuu......”
“Why are you sighing again?”
Ravi trotted over and sat on Suho’s shoulder as he sighed as though the ground might cave in.
Just as he had done in Elysium and on Jiho’s island, Suho had been sprawled out in Subspace Dream Village, doing nothing but gazing at the scenery outside. He glanced at Ravi and said,
“I’m bored...”
“Here we go again.”
“As expected, the enemy is within.”
“Am I the enemy?”
“No, I mean there’s an enemy inside my heart.”
“Hmm... If you’re that bored, why not expand your field of view to outer space?”
At those words, Suho half sat up.
“Outer space? But are there even life-forms out there?”
At that, Ravi’s expression turned incredulous. She pointed one tiny toe of her adorable forepaw at herself and said,
“What about me? What exactly do you think I am?”
“Ah, right. You’re a life-form too. Hmm... So they do exist.”
“This is absurd.”
“Fine, then since we’re on the subject, let me ask. Where is your planet?”
“We do not live confined to any specific planet.”
“Still, you’re a species in your own right. You must have a home base.”
“We do not. I believe I told you before. We are a nomadic race that has drifted through space for generations, gathering runes.”
“No, you said you made a contract with the Administrator of the Universe and settled down while doing your assigned work.”
“That settlement was a settlement as a means of obtaining runes, not a settlement in the sense of being geographically rooted somewhere.”
“Hmm. Universal wanderers, then. Still, there must be a place where you gather every once in a while, right?”
“Of course. Rather than a ‘place’ where we gather, there is a ‘time.’ The location changes every time, and on each occasion, the Great Lord of the Azure Dragon race, who presides over the assembly, opens a dimension and waits.”
“Oh... That’s kind of fascinating.”
“In any case, there are many life-forms in this universe.”
“Fine, then since we’re on the subject, let me ask one more thing. Among the planets closest to Earth, where is there one with life-forms living on it?”
“Hmm... From Earth... You mean life-forms with a certain degree of intelligence, yes?”
“Not just intelligence. They need to have civilization.”
“If it is such a place... The closest would be Kepler-452, which humans also call Earth 2.0. Its residents are somewhat primitive, but they do have their own civilization.”
“Oh...! Then how far is it from Earth?”
“1,400 light-years.”
“......”
“It is relatively close.”
“Are you insane...? That’s literally light-years. No, why? There were plenty of places only a few dozen light-years away where life was thought to be possible! I saw it in a documentary before.”
“Thought to be, yes. There is none in such places.”
“What was it... Wait a second.”
Suho hurriedly opened his phone screen.
“Right! Look. Here, Barnard B, Gliese 832 c—places like these!”
“Mm... If what lives there can be called life-forms... then Earth’s cockroaches are ultra-advanced organisms.”
“That much...?”
“That much.”
“...Haa... 1,400 light-years... Even if we somehow miraculously developed a spaceship that could travel at the speed of light, if I made a round trip, twenty-eight centuries would have passed. Would humanity even still be around by then? Wouldn’t I end up as the last human? I’m not going. No way.”
Suho grumbled and snapped back at Ravi, but complicated calculations were running through his head.
Calculations about what would be needed to create an ultrafast vehicle that Earth’s science and technology could not even imitate, and what sort of manufacturing process would be required.
* * *
In order not to sink into himself, Suho kept holding a newspaper in his hands.
It was something he had not done before obtaining Cheonyangwon.
When he lifted his eyes away from himself and looked at the world, he could see other things—things he could do, things he had to do.
In particular, Suho subscribed to and read paper newspapers in a manner so classical that it was hard to imagine it as part of life in 2039, and there were several reasons for this.
First of all, news viewed on the internet placed sensational or attention-grabbing, dopamine-driven stories front and center, and because of that, he found himself only reading light news that suited his level.
As a result, there was always the harm of missing the truly important news while reading nothing but gossip.
Not only that, internet news, which could be revised at any time, was overrun with far more fake news than paper newspaper articles, which were practically preserved as printed records.
Also, internet news had no endpoint, so there was the problem of not knowing how long he was supposed to keep reading.
Ah, the fact that internet news made him see a lot of useless comments he had no interest in also played a part.
For these various reasons, Suho received newspapers of all kinds, and every day, dozens of newspaper delivery drones flew in and out of the mailboxes of Elysium Heights.
The secretary androids neatly organized those newspapers into a single cart and brought them to Suho’s home every dawn.
Then, as soon as Suho got out of bed, he would pull out whatever newspaper he felt like reading and quickly skim through it, focusing on the front-page articles.
“Hmm...”
He always liked the soft texture of the newspaper brushing against his fingertips and the deep, rich scent of printed ink.
That scent evoked a faint nostalgia, as though it contained news and stories from the past.
It made him wonder if perhaps that was the real purpose of receiving newspapers.
The news that happened to catch Suho’s eye that day was this.
Below the article that began with the headline, it wrote in detail about the tragic incident of an entire family suffering from financial hardship who had ultimately taken their own lives.
The article even added statistical data stating that, aside from the incidents that made it into articles, there were tens of thousands of cases in which people, unable to bear the weight of poverty, ultimately chose suicide.
And among the analyses of the issue, several problems were pointed out as “reasons why welfare blind spots still remain numerous regardless of the extent of welfare benefits”: many people failed to apply because they did not know due to a lack of information about the welfare system; many gave up because of the countless documents required to prove their poverty; and many were unable to receive help because of ambiguous welfare system standards, such as income and assets being easily counted while debts were not taken into consideration, leading them to be excluded from eligibility for benefits.
Despite the Republic of Korea now having become quite prosperous thanks to Suho’s tremendous efforts, the fact that such problems still existed left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Poverty.
Suho was not ignorant of poverty.
He had experienced many sorrows and tragedies caused by money, and because he had lived through those times, people in hardship did not feel like strangers to him. That was also why he had worked to make the world a better place.
Not only that, there had been many times when, after encountering such people, he had once again confirmed how happy and blessed his own current situation was.
There had also been many times when he recovered his gratitude for the present by remembering that, kicking away feelings of emptiness and the like.
But that, too, lasted only for a while.
In the end, as he continued living buried beneath overwhelming resources and wealth, maintaining a sense of reality became difficult.
Instead, perceptions like “Aren’t I different from the majority of ordinary people? I am a special person chosen on a cosmic scale” grew stronger and stronger,
and as a result, even when he saw people living in misery, he found himself unable to feel much of anything.
He had briefly thought it a dangerous omen, but in reality, those around him were busy upholding him nationally and globally, so gradually, arrogant and haughty thoughts began to encroach upon him.
‘So what, it’s the truth.’ Such thoughts occurred to him more and more often.
‘Acting superior, being full of oneself, looking down on others’ is what they call arrogance and haughtiness… but does that even apply to a being of an entirely different dimension…?’
At some point, he had started thinking that way.
Could someone possessing cosmic wealth, abilities like a transcendent being, and a lifespan like an absolute one still be categorized in the same class as ordinary people?
If that were impossible, then just as it could never be considered arrogance or prejudice for a human to say to an ant, ‘I am different from you,’ wouldn’t it merely be a recognition of reality and a statement of fact?
He was simply a different existence; was stating that fact as it is also arrogance?
Having even such thoughts… gradually, Suho’s perception felt as though it was bidding farewell to the human world.
Looking down at the world from the heavens, one could see countless lives like ants.
And humans struggling desperately to earn money.
As long as there’s money to be made, people will do anything.
If money is involved, they’ll strip their clothes,
If money is involved, they’ll sell drugs,
If money is involved, they’ll harvest organs,
If money is involved, they’ll even kill people.
It’s all because of money.
People who commit crimes without hesitation to earn that money.
Their aggression may vary, but their motives and direction are mostly similar.
This is due to the efficacy of money. Because money provides answers to almost everything. When that power combines with the corrupt nature of humanity, it creates an explosive synergy.
Of course, there are things money cannot do.
But there are far more things one cannot do because of the lack of money.
Money makes possible many things that were impossible without it…
*Smack—!*
Suho struck his own cheeks hard with both hands.
His mind snapped into focus, and he felt his cheeks tingling. Though they healed instantly.
“Why do you do that again? Shall I hit you for you?”
Not missing that opening, Rabi came fluttering over.
“No, I just had too many distracting thoughts.”
“Aha, but haven’t you always had plenty of those? If you keep slapping your cheeks every time you have distracting thoughts, your cheeks will end up like your backside.”
“What did you say, you little—!”
He tried to grab Rabi, only for Rabi to flee at a tremendous speed.
After chasing Rabi off like that, he picked up the newspaper again.
Right,
The lives of commoners struggling in poverty were plentiful in the past, and they were still plentiful now. Just how many such people were there in this country?
There was no need to empathize with each and every one of their miseries and sorrows.
I am a chosen being. It is true that I am extremely special, incomparable to ordinary and insignificant lives.
The impoverished masses struggling with poverty are merely statistics and numbers.
But…
That statistic left a foul taste in his mouth.
‘How dare… such statistics appear around me…?’
That uncomfortable truth annoyed him.
He recalled a book he had read recently, a book about the story of Gyeongju Choe Buja.
It was a story about the family motto of the Choe Buja household: ‘Let no one starve to death within a hundred ri in all directions.’
No, even that yangban called Choe Buja, who had not possessed all that much, had realized such a splendid noblesse oblige in those olden days. Just how poorly must I be utilizing this vast wealth for stories about blind spots in welfare to still appear in our country’s news?
No, this isn’t right…
Suho muttered.
“Not just this country… with these abilities of mine, on this tiny planet of barely over nine billion people, isn’t it a bit much to let people go hungry…?”
If he could only use his abilities to such a degree, he might as well just die.
Though he possessed much, he could not even use it properly,
And it felt as though he would be haunted by news stories mocking the folly of a foolish rich man who died with his wealth buried and forgotten, never having returned it for the people of the world to enjoy.
“Damn it… that’s not how it should be…”
Rather than because the ragged and starving masses were pitiful or pathetic,
First and foremost, it was a challenge and a test for himself.
*Screech—screech—*
‘Let no one starve to death within a hundred thousand ri in all directions.’
As Suho stuck onto the door the phrase he had scrawled with a thick marker across the newspaper page he had been reading, vitality returned to his eyes after a long while.