EP 37- North Top (7)
It snowed in Seoul.
Thanks to the heavy snow, Seoul looked surprisingly similar to the old days. Snowflakes covered all wounds. Broken power poles, broken windows, collapsed buildings… … .
The snow covered everything, so all I could see was a forest of tall buildings and the scenery of the past created by memories.
It is normal for Koreans to be moved by the scenery of this lonely, bleak and nostalgic city, but for the past few years, cities that have not allowed people to visit have, of course, not allowed snowplows.
Thanks to that, the hunters wandered around hurting the snowy piles that they fell into.
“I’m going to freeze to death. I will freeze to death.”
“Can’t you even wear gloves?”
“If your hands are on fire, what will happen if you wear gloves?”
“Was it a fire? Then you can turn on the light in your hand and walk around.”
“Ah, if I had that much mana barrel, would I be doing this here?”
The main characters in the recapture of Seoul were low-level hunters. When large corporations PMC first clean their respective compartments, lower-level hunters search the inside of the building one by one to clear up the remains.
Of course, the horse was a sweep, but in reality it was closer to a safety check. Where the apartment water pipes are ok, and there are no corpses in the bathroom. Is there a baby monster hiding in the underground parking lot?
It was difficult and dangerous, but there was even a supervisor who said it was a public project in its own way. The civil servant, dressed in a shabby suit, shivered in the cold and heard the megaphone in a nervous voice.
“ah! ah! Team 4 in Doksan-dong, Geumcheon-gu! Today, I will check Homeplus and Lotte Cinema here and secure the community center over there. You have to open each toilet compartment one by one. There might be a guy who lays eggs in the water, so… … .”
“What about rice?”
“There is a military advance base on the playground of a nearby middle school. They give you food and bullets, so if you’re hungry, don’t eat strange things at the convenience store and go eat. Leave your hunting license here.”
“A hunting license?”
“Hunter’s disease. Hunter’s Certificate.”
* * *
“Are you here, Commander-in-Chief?”
“Uh, how about Team 2?”
“It wasn’t even a riot because my weak-minded friend passed out when he opened the front door and saw the corpse.”
Most of the advance bases for recapturing Seoul were located on the school grounds. This is because tanks and helicopters are easy to travel around, monsters can be spotted quickly when they approach, and chairs and desks can be easily obtained on site.
The downside is that looking at the bones in school uniforms makes me upset, and it’s winter, so it’s cold, but after a few weeks, soldiers and civil servants have finished getting used to it.
Officials gathered around the electric stove under the large tent in the playground. The youngest, quick-witted, prepared Maxim coffee in a paper cup and bought the joy of the officer.
“By the way, if the Hunters see us doing this, it’s going to be a mess. They struggle in the snow, but officials say they suck honey in the warmth.”
“They earn twice as much as we do.”
“You have to pick up magic stones to earn money. How much does this crew make? That’s why it seems like they’re just wandering around looking for monsters. The water pipe is trembling, the electric pole is trembling, the optical cable is trembling, and the gas pipe is trembling… … .”
The head officer tried to drip the seolleongtang and held it back. One officer who was watching from the side intervened among the officials, probably bored.
“Yes. We need to check how well the social infrastructure is alive so that higher-level decisions can be made.”
“you’re right. Knowing that, the city planning bureau decides whether to push it out and redevelop it, or whether to keep the building alive and recycle it. Isn’t this actually more important than the monsters?”
“Don’t expect anything from daily hunters. They don’t work for a national mission, but they are friends who work for a living today… … .”
“Ah, in the old days, hunters had a sense of mission… … .”
The youngest public official, who was watching the officers and officers getting along even after meeting for the first time, thought, ‘When I get older, I want to talk to people I don’t know like that’, but suddenly spoke to a senior civil servant.
“But, senpai. Why are you using daily job hunters to retake Seoul?”
“Large PMCs and soldiers swipe through once.”
“Still, it’s not like part-timers do such an important job. Isn’t this supposed to be done by PMC in the first place?”
“How do I know what the high people think… … .”
* * *
“A large guild subcontracted?”
“yes. They said that they only caught large monsters in each compartment and left the rest to small and medium-sized PMCs… … .”
As soon as I became mayor of Seoul, the first thing I did was nationalize all land.
Of course, I did not openly say that this land is now mine. That’s because it was nothing to say even if I heard a real redneck.
However, the long history of the development dictatorship has created a legal system in which the government can take any land if it wants.
They slashed land compensation costs against large corporations, and gulp down foreign-owned land (about 40% of Seoul’s area) without even a mouse or bird… … .
This was possible because most of the refugees who claimed property in the past were apartment owners, not land owners. Rather, for individual landowners with a large number of heads, through the deputy mayor for government affairs, he comforted them and gave them a pie.
In fact, it seems that he was more passionate about real estate work than recaptured Seoul. In fact, more administrative power was consumed there.
Nevertheless, when I saw the sound of ‘Han Seung-moon is a communist’ coming out of the Jeongrongwan of the National Assembly, I felt Yang Pan-seok’s advice not to be involved in the real estate issue even if it was beaten to death.
“Did Mayor Han Seung-moon go to the election to buy land? The entire city of Seoul seems to have a dream of real estate. The ruthless act of robbing a company’s land in an unlawful way is an atrocity that cannot be defended even by so-called communists… … .”
Politicians related to companies were not the only ones who raised the issue. Negative public opinion was also raised among citizens, and the results of the opinion poll showed that the approval rating had decreased to a significant level.
However, I had a reason to secure the land in Seoul.
In fact, politicians are arguing that it is revenge for Yoo Jae-kyung, who was beaten by the tycoons in the construction industry, but that is not the real reason.
The government must own the land in Seoul so that more than half of the construction project cost is not wasted as land compensation. This will allow the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to start redevelopment with ease.
If the nation owns the land in Seoul, then hunters and soldiers will not be insulted even if they destroy buildings. Only then will military operations be carried out most efficiently.
In other words, I made a national sacrifice for hunters, soldiers, and civil servants.
It is never meant to satisfy the city’s finances.
“But you hit the back of the head to save a little penny?”
In Seoul, PMCs of major conglomerates were trying to retake the city by dividing each zone. It was a kind of subcontracting.
However, this subcontractor hired a subcontractor, and the subcontractor hired a part-timer outright. Thanks to this, only the officials at the scene are dying.
“Chaewon-ah, what’s your schedule for lunch?”
“Shall we cancel?”
* * *
“Oh, why do you come here so often? embarrassingly… … .”
“I came directly to ask you to bear the burden.”
“It’s nice to see your face often, but… … .”
“That makes me a little uncomfortable.”
As always, President Cheon was working in his office (and basement bunker) on the first basement floor of the headquarters in a sloppy suit. I am also the mayor of Seoul, not Seoul, so I was working in Busan.
Originally, it was normal to send the Deputy Mayor of Government to deal with or solve the problem at the working level level through the mayor of the 2nd Administrative Government.
But when I actually listened to it, this was also the case.
“How do hunters earning billions of dollars per year go around looking at the toilet bowl in the apartment bathroom? As you know, the pride of Hunters… … .”
“Still, it’s not easy to write a part-time job. How much is the tax paid to take responsibility and eliminate the monsters and cooperate with the government officials?”
“Did you catch all the monsters? The sirens sounded and collected, the observers scattered, the electricity was turned off at the sewage treatment plant… … I wish I had done it up to that point, but you can’t just count the number of good electric poles for billions of dollars a year.”
“So you subcontracted?”
“It was not chosen by anyone. I don’t know because I’ve never worked in a company, but selecting a company like this is something the employees put their heads around. What do you do if you get a rebate and pick someone out of your mouth and cause an accident? Goodbye to the clerk, well… … .”
“But what about that subcontractor?”
“I don’t really want to defend myself up to that point, but if I can guess how I feel… … .”
PMCs of large corporations catch all the monsters. The subcontractors, small and medium-sized PMCs, scour the area to dry the monster’s seeds. And the remaining chores are day-to-day low-level hunters.
The problem, however, was that daily hunters only go looking for monsters to make money, but they do not know the underlying infrastructure.
After all, who wants to go through the entire apartment, break down the front door, and check the electricity, gas, and building stability? It was also an apartment with the traces of a terrible death.
However, it was not possible to employ private experts, and only hunting license holders were allowed to work in dangerous areas, both legally and morally.
“Ehh… … .”
It’s my first time as a local government chief, so I guess I’m still not good at it. I realized that spending money on large corporations doesn’t solve everything.
The head of a large corporation who looked at me sadly gave me advice.
“If you look at the cost of labor, wouldn’t it be better to throw it out and build a new one?”
“Yes. In fact, if Ji-yoon holds hands and flies, it seems like it could be completely flattened within a week.”
“Well, that’s a bit scary… … .”
I shook my head.
“But I am not a business person.”
“Why?”
“I’m saying you can’t just ask for money. Considering the budget, it is the right choice to throw it all away, but the resources in this country are not infinite. There are so many buildings that are in good condition or need to be repaired a little, how do you destroy them all? In the bar to be destroyed, I spread it all over the homeless people… … .”
“… … .”
In the end, it was an unanswered question. In fact, that was the case with all problems. It wasn’t the world’s business that could be solved by beating a villain.
How can I get rid of it? I don’t think it’s a problem that can be solved by harassing public officials. Should I ask the military for help? But what if someone gets hurt?
Without realizing it, I thought about it seriously for a long time. Then, when I woke up, CEO Cheon was watching me with a subtle expression.
There is something creepy about his expression that is neither expressionless nor smiling.
“What, what?”
“Hmm. Just.”
She shrugged her shoulders with an inexplicable smile.
“He wants to be a politician.”
The gate opened on the first day of my tenure Episode 245