After visiting Chaeuneun Church and countless small charitable organizations, as well as civilian teams that sought out households in crisis within welfare blind spots, Suho promised various levels of support to those groups.
Now, he had set a fourth plan in motion to upgrade South Korea’s welfare network.
In truth, this was the core of it.
It was none other than forming a private welfare team.
The government, donation organizations, and small charities would work hard, but in the end, it was still work done by people. There were bound to be places they missed.
And among those with decision-making power inside the various agencies and organizations, there could be greedy people mixed in as well. The possibility that they might intercept money along the way for their own private gain could not be overlooked.
He would keep a close eye on where the money was being spent for that very reason, but even that could not be perfect.
So Suho set one up inside TDM, which was practically his own company.
Narae, Seongsik, and Jiho reacted with surprise, but in the end, they welcomed Suho’s good intentions and his virtuous enterprise.
TDM was, in effect, also a materials supplier for the Admitees, making it a thoroughly profit-oriented company, while the “Happiness Blind Spot Relief Team” was a team of an entirely different nature. Even so, no one made a major issue of it.
After all, the team was to operate independently.
The “Happiness Blind Spot Relief Team,” organized entirely according to Suho’s plan, did not have a single human member. It was a team made up solely of androids and drones.
Since the government, donation organizations, and charities already had countless people working for them, Suho decided to take a more mechanical and objective approach.
First, he formed a large-scale investigation team.
Most of the existing roughly one thousand android units had been assigned to Elysium’s management and operation, as well as the protection of its residents, so he had to secure a large number of androids again.
However, since they were not for combat, he purchased about two thousand reasonably decent android units rather than ones costing billions each.
And along with them, he purchased ten thousand drones.
He swept up almost every android and drone available in the country, and when that still was not enough, he brought in several decent-brand products from various other nations.
While he was gathering androids and expanding the drone fleet, Dr. Choi’s ultra-small drones were also successfully developed, passed prototype test operation, and entered full-scale production.
By the time everything was ready, winter was already nearing its end, nearly two months after the team had been formed.
Standing in the control room, Suho gave an order to the AI overseeing the whole operation.
“First, identify the places where drones and androids should be dispatched first—areas across the country where poor people are concentrated. Shantytowns, jjokbang villages, greenhouse villages, container villages, homeless shelters, deteriorated rental apartments, all of them.”
At that, the AI displayed a map of Korea on the large front panel and, in an instant, marked countless red dots across the entire country.
“Target areas confirmed.”
“Good. Second, apply the generally used ‘welfare blind spot discovery system.’”
The AI then conditionally searched through countless types of data across the country—overdue electricity bills, overdue health insurance payments, overdue public rental housing management fees, delinquent borrowers, and so on—and produced the results.
“I have confirmed the list of subjects according to the current welfare blind spot discovery system.”
“Good. Third, collect every possible case related to welfare blind spots. Search the internet and news articles. There should be an incredible variety of cases. People whose income is below the minimum cost of living but who, for various reasons, do not qualify for basic livelihood assistance; elderly people who cannot receive the basic pension; seniors who receive no support from their families; elderly people living alone who miss out on these benefits due to lack of information; small self-employed people with unstable incomes; people who, despite having low income, do not meet the application criteria for welfare benefits; children discharged from orphanage protection who receive only minimal support but nowhere near enough; young adults preparing for independence; and... single-parent families who fail to meet the criteria for support and therefore receive none; unmarried mothers and unmarried fathers; child heads of household hidden here and there—in other words, family caregiving children; international refugees inside the country; fugitives hiding from creditors; people with bad credit... Anyway, there are a lot. Find them and organize them by category.”
“Yes... Complete.”
“...Already?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“...Why are you so fast? You did it properly, right? Anyway, then, now we’re going to identify all three of these. We’re not looking only for people who overlap under all three conditions. We’re going to conduct in-depth identification and analysis of anyone who falls under even one of these three conditions. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“And for the subjects selected that way, find out what they need in order of priority. Whether it’s medical support, minimum living expense support, home repairs and remodeling, education, job creation, legal support, or something complex—figure that out.”
“Yes, understood.”
“And once the final candidates for support are decided, we’ll attach ultra-small drones to each person and gather even more detailed information. So we can confirm whether they truly need help.”
“Yes, understood.”
“Okay, move out! Begin operations as of now!”
When Suho clapped his hands, the AI sent all the drones and androids out of the hangar.
The procession of vehicles carrying one thousand teams—each composed of one male and one female android, along with five drones—seemed endless.
It was a grand sight, as though they were departing for some special operation.
There might be cases where their aid overlapped with support from the government, donation organizations, or charitable groups, but for now, Suho placed higher priority on forming several layers of a dense welfare net through cross-identification and cross-support.
If households receiving too much duplicate support were discovered, he could simply adjust his own personal support at that time.
Somehow, he would ensure that not a single household, not a single person in the entire country slipped through these welfare benefits. His goal was to build a welfare net that was 99.9999 percent perfect.
Furthermore, Suho’s privately run team was intended not merely to discover households in crisis, but to immediately assign personnel, connect them with support funds, and provide practical assistance.
Watching Suho’s enormous spending on welfare projects, Jiho asked in concern.
“Hyung, I know that’s a good cause, but... if you expand it that much, can you handle it?”
But Suho only chuckled.
“Hey, how much could this even be? If I support one million households with 300 million won each, that’s only 300 trillion won.”
“...Haha... I see.”
It had already been quite some time since Jiho had given up trying to keep up with his brother’s sense of scale.
* * *
Hyeongil, a sixteen-year-old middle school third-year who had even given up on advancing to high school and was responsible for his family’s livelihood, hurried along at three in the morning, when darkness still lay thick, carrying a heavy delivery box.
The battlefront of earning a living, which he had entered early in place of his sick father, was nothing but cold and heavy.
Security work at night, parcel delivery at dawn, serving at a restaurant during the day, and even a part-time job at a convenience store.
A schedule that required him to work fifteen hours a day,
caregiving for his father, who was paralyzed from beneath the armpits down,
and on top of that, looking after his little sister, who was only in third grade of elementary school—it was a situation where even several bodies would not have been enough.
Even so, there had been people willing to hire young Hyeongil, and people who encouraged him, finding him admirable as a filial son and a kind older brother. That was how he had made it this far.
But... that did not mean he did not get tired.
The many things children his age enjoyed, an ordinary school life—even hanging out with friends after school and going to PC rooms together or attending cram school were all luxuries to Hyeongil.
They were things like a dream, things he could only envy.
One day, in a single moment, he had become his father’s father, and also a father to his little sister. Hyeongil, a family caregiving child.
He resented his mother, who had left home and whose whereabouts he did not even know, but he also missed her.
It was a life with no promise of how long he would have to live this way, no way of guessing how long his body or mind would hold out. Still, to protect his family, Hyeongil worked and worked again.
And that day was harder than usual.
After finishing work at the restaurant and heading to the convenience store, he kept tearing up because of what had happened during the day.
He had made a major mistake while working. While serving, he had dropped all the dishes, spilling the food and shattering the bowls, and the customer had become furious, saying his clothes had been ruined.
Hyeongil kept apologizing over and over, but it was no use. The owner lady, who rushed out as well, cleaned up with him while repeatedly apologizing, and perhaps because she was deeply upset, she pushed Hyeongil hard and scolded him harshly.
Hyeongil knew. He knew he had done wrong. He also knew that he had caused a big enough accident that he had no excuse even if he was nagged.
But... he had been so tired that his eyes kept twitching, and he had hardly any strength in his arms and legs. That was why it had been hard to concentrate... Yet the adults who did not understand that felt so cruel.
So tears came without him realizing.
‘Why am I not living in an ordinary family? Why do I have to hear things like this already at my age...?’
At that sorrow, the tears he had been holding back burst out in hiccupping sobs. As he wiped his tears with his sleeve and trudged toward the convenience store, someone approached him in the dim alley.
“Hyeongil?”
“...?! Yes?!”
“You are Hyeongil, correct?”
“Yes... Yes, I am... Who are you?”
A young man and woman dressed neatly in suits.
From their facial features to their figures and even their skin, the two possessed such perfect appearances that they did not seem like people of this world.
They were Suho’s high-end androids, made to closely resemble humans, but Hyeongil, who had never seen such expensive androids before, did not realize at all that they were androids.
“This is who we are. Could we talk for a moment?”
Looking at the business card the man handed him, Hyeongil saw an unfamiliar corporate name, a contact number, and an address printed on it.
Thinking they seemed suspicious, he raised his guard.
“I’m not really sure what... you do. I’m sorry, but... I’m on my way to my part-time job right now...”
“It will only take a moment. Do you know Jung Suho, Korea’s S-rank Admitee?”
“Jung Suho?! Is there anyone in our country who doesn’t know him? Of course I know him.”
“The TDM Happiness Blind Spot Relief Team is a private welfare support team personally operated by Jung Suho. We have been steadily searching for support recipients according to strict criteria, and you and your household have been finally selected as recipients. We came to inform you of that fact.”
“M... Me?”
“So please give us just a little of your time. Once you hear what we have to say, you should be able to quit things like part-time jobs as of today.”
This time, the woman smiled softly. At that perfect smile, Hyeongil felt as if his mind might fly away, and his mouth fell open in a daze.
“T-Then... just for a moment...”
And so he followed them to a café and sat with them.
He had not applied for any kind of welfare support, yet they said he had been selected, which seemed suspicious no matter how he looked at it. But after hearing their explanation, the support they offered was genuine.
Afterward, the first thing the two people took Hyeongil to see was a house.
Not the old, collapsing house where Hyeongil’s family currently lived, but a proper villa. They introduced him to a new villa with as many as three rooms, saying it was the new home he would be living in from now on.
Inside the neatly decorated home, furniture, appliances, various foodstuffs, and daily necessities were all already prepared.
And in an envelope the man placed on the dining table in the living room, there was a check for 200 million won as settlement support funds.
Lastly, when he opened the small box the woman handed him, there lay a small ampoule about the length of a finger, neatly nestled inside.
“What is this...?”
“It is a high-grade disease treatment potion.”
“Whaaat......?!”
Even young Hyeongil knew what a disease treatment potion was. A mysterious medicine said to cure any illness.
It was common knowledge that even a mid-grade disease treatment potion carried an astronomical price tag, and that because the supply was so rare, it could not be obtained even if one had money.
“If you give this to your father, he will recover quickly and get back on his feet. Hyeongil, leave the role of head of the household to your father now and go back to school. A student shouldn’t be working several jobs, but attending school and studying. You’ve worked so hard all this time.”
In front of Suho’s android, who spoke calmly, Hyeongil’s pent-up sorrow burst like a dam.
“......Th-That... sob... hhk... hhhk... uwaaaah!”
Hyeongil clung to the two androids, buried himself in their arms, and wailed at the top of his lungs.
He surely had no idea that the two were androids, but even if he had known, what of it?
At least to Hyeongil, the two were like angels descended from heaven.
* * *
On the situation board of the “TDM Happiness Blind Spot Relief Team” control room, which he checked every day, Suho could see that the number of people in extreme poverty across the country was rapidly decreasing.
The figures, visible after only a few weeks, were already quite satisfying.
At this rate, he even thought that the government and various donation organizations might not have much left to do.
After giving instructions to continue identifying blind spots thoroughly and returning home, Suho enjoyed a hot spring bath at Elysium Heights for the first time in a while, looking down at the city nightscape.
And then, the news he habitually turned on.
“Huh...?”
Various broadcasts were focusing on news from Japan.
The ninety-second-floor tower in Yokohama’s Minato Mirai district, Japan.
At the current point, more than seven months after the raid team had entered, breaking news announced that the team had collapsed.
Members could leave a raid team after its initial entry, but reinforcement was impossible. That was one of the tower’s basic rules.
As the raid on the high-rise tower failed, ominous rumors began swallowing all of Japan.