Money Keeps Piling Up No Matter How Much I Spend

Chapter 224

Translator: DreamscribeKwangwoon's Strategy Team.

Most people didn't even know that Kwangwoon had a Strategy Team.

And even those who worked at Kwangwoon, while aware of the team's existence, had no idea what it actually did.

What was Kwangwoon's Strategy Team, after all?

It was the division responsible for all manner of covert affairs, one of Kwangwoon's core pillars.

Spend enough time in a place like that, and there was nothing left to be surprised by.

It also meant learning just how ruthless and terrifying Kwangwoon could be, and how staggeringly meticulous.

"Th...... that's a lie, right?"

Yet even Director Yang Jeong-gu, who had long overseen such a place and prided himself on being beyond shock, shot to his feet and blurted out a question.

"Sentinel really has a Nuclear Football?"

"Yes, sir. And it's not just one. They reportedly secured two in total: one from Russia and one from China."

"No. How...... how is that even possible......?"

Director Yang trailed off mid-sentence.

No, wait.

What was Sentinel, again?

It was a group assembled entirely from veterans, or rather monsters, from the intelligence world.

The kind of people who could pull off the unthinkable without breaking a sweat.

And the one handling those lethally elite operatives was none other than Jung Jin-ho.

If Sentinel had done something like this, what did that imply?

"Did the CEO issue a separate order for this?"

"That hasn't been confirmed."

Sentinel reported to the Strategy Team on a regular basis.

But most of Sentinel's operations were classified, so unless something was truly critical, it rarely made its way to the Strategy Team.

In other words, Sentinel was a deeply suspicious outfit that received enormous funding from the company and could pull something drastic at any time.

Normally, an organization like that would be kept under tight surveillance, but CEO Jung Jin-ho had given Sentinel a long leash from the very day he founded it.

Headquarters only provided support.

No financial audits whatsoever.

Because CEO Jung had never once issued such an order, and headquarters itself knew that poking Sentinel the wrong way could unearth information that even executives had no business knowing.

"All funding going into Sentinel is Classified to begin with. There's plenty of money going out through the books, officially, but the real engine is the Slush Fund pooled through various subsidiaries. Isn't that how it works? Even if headquarters wanted to dig in, they couldn't."

That was precisely why the government hadn't investigated Sentinel either.

Headquarters had sealed every mouth shut.

"So they don't report everything to us...... but separate reports are going directly to the CEO?"

"Most likely, yes. There's no way for us to verify. Not unless we ask the CEO-nim directly."

There was no need for that.

Wasn't this a place the CEO had created specifically for Kwangwoon's sake?

That went for Sentinel, and for the people here in the Strategy Team as well.

Trying to know too much was a mistake.

"So what's Sentinel's plan going forward?"

"Now that they have the Nuclear Footballs, they intend to use them to maintain a balance of power among the various factions. As long as they hold the Footballs, the risk of nuclear war should diminish for the time being. It seems Sentinel wants Russia and China to stay fragmented as they are."

He could see what Sentinel was aiming for.

Russia and China were simply too massive.

United, each was nearly impossible to control.

So the better strategy was to splinter them into multiple factions and keep them divided.

"If Sentinel runs operations at every critical juncture to prevent unification and keeps stoking division, we won't need to worry about China and Russia anymore. They're only dangerous when they're whole."

"Then this must be under the CEO's direction as well, wouldn't you say?"

If there was a hotline between Sentinel and CEO Jung, then all of this was his design.

After all, wasn't it CEO Jung who had engineered the civil wars in Russia and China in the first place?

"So have they located the other Nuclear Footballs? Wouldn't it be better to have all of them?"

"Sentinel is apparently still searching. On the Chinese side, one Football is confirmed to be in the hands of a faction led by a man named Tian Gang. On the Russian side, one is currently held by General Kusanov. The problem is that in both countries, one Football has completely vanished. Not a single trace."

Every faction in Russia and China was going out of their minds over this.

They had found two Footballs each, but the last one was missing.

"It just disappeared?"

"Most likely, the person who had it hid it somewhere only they could find before dying, or destroyed it outright. That's the leading theory. But......."

"But?"

"Sentinel seems to see it differently."

"How so?"

"They believe there's a high probability that CEO Jung already has both, the missing Chinese Football and the missing Russian one."

"What are you talking about? How would the CEO have those?"

"The Shadow Organization, the one the CEO operates independently of Sentinel. The theory is that they may have secured the Footballs in advance."

"......!"

The Shadow Organization.

Its existence could be sensed, but not a single trace of it could actually be found. A truly secret organization.

CEO Jung had clearly carried out numerous operations without the help of the Strategy Team or Sentinel, but a man based in Korea couldn't have done it all personally.

Which meant there existed an organization even more secretive and powerful than Sentinel.

The Strategy Team had been vaguely aware of such an organization, and it seemed Sentinel had sensed it too.

"......How should we report this to headquarters?"

"Don't."

"Sir?"

"I just told you. Whether it's Sentinel or the Strategy Team, not everyone needs to know everything. And pass this along to Sentinel as well. If they're investigating the Shadow Organization, tell them to stop. The higher up you sit, the more dangerous it is to dig too deep."

"Yes, sir. I'll relay the message. But are you really sure about not informing headquarters?"

"How do you think the executives at headquarters would take this? More importantly, if CEO Jung already has one Football from China and one from Russia through the Shadow Organization, it means he's known the full picture all along."

Jung Jin-ho. Sentinel. The Strategy Team. And that nameless Shadow Organization.

That was enough.

No one else needed to know.

* * *

"Don't try to know too much? That's really what they said?"

"Yes, sir. That's exactly what the Strategy Team sent. They told us to halt all investigation into the Shadow Organization."

This was a warning from CEO Jung, delivered through headquarters.

They had kept digging into the Shadow Organization, and while he had ignored it at first, it seemed he was now drawing a line.

"Were we getting close? To the truth about the Shadow Organization?"

"Hard to say, sir. Looking at everything we've investigated so far, we haven't been able to find a single trace of them."

And yet the order had come down anyway. Should he take that as CEO Jung acknowledging Sentinel's capabilities, in his own way?

For some reason, that brought a small swell of pride.

"Then let's do as they say. Shut down all investigations into the Shadow Organization."

"You're really giving up?"

"It's an order from above. If they're going so far as to issue a direct order, what does that tell you? It means don't cross the line. I've spent my whole life crossing lines, but the one line I have zero desire to step over is one drawn by CEO Jung Jin-ho. You're welcome to try, though."

"N-no, sir. I wouldn't dare......"

He was curious, admittedly, about what kind of monsters the CEO had at his command.

But if the man was issuing warnings like this, it was best not to cross that line.

Because he knew from experience that even with Sentinel having grown this large, a single word from Jung Jin-ho could make everyone here vanish without a trace.

"Then what about the Nuclear Footballs......?"

"Drop that too. Why do you think they sent this warning? CEO Jung already seized the Footballs through the Shadow Organization. That's why he sat back and let us poke around all this time, knowing full well what we were doing, and only now decided to put a stop to it."

So that was why the message had been: don't try to know more.

An organization in possession of Nuclear Footballs would naturally want to stay hidden.

"Then the picture Kwangwoon wanted is truly complete now."

"That's right. From here on, Russia and China will be trapped in chaos and division forever."

Kwangwoon owned the key companies across the United States, Europe, and Asia.

On top of that, Russia and China, once the greatest threats, had been thoroughly fractured.

The world Kwangwoon wanted,

no, the world Jung Jin-ho wanted, was nearly complete.

* * *

"Apparently, the stock markets in China and Russia might open again soon."

"Finally?"

"Yes. China is currently split into roughly five major factions, and Russia is in a similar state, but it seems they've all realized that continued fighting is a path to mutual destruction. More than anything, the fact that they still haven't found the Nuclear Footballs has further leveled the playing field."

"They still haven't found them?"

"No. Rumors are swirling, but both China and Russia have one Football each that's gone missing, and they simply can't locate them."

Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that no one could find the Nuclear Footballs.

From what I'd heard, all three Footballs needed to be assembled before a nuclear launch could be authorized.

One might ask, why not just launch without them? But the safety mechanisms were far more sophisticated than anyone imagined. Apparently, attempting a launch without the Footballs would trigger a self-destruct sequence at the base itself, a terrifying failsafe.

"These are extraordinarily dangerous weapons, after all. Isn't that right? China and Russia had been thorough about security. The last thing they wanted was a rival military faction seizing a nuclear base. But sir, there's a strange rumor going around."

"What kind of rumor?"

"Apparently, people are saying that our Kwangwoon has one of the Nuclear Footballs."

"What?"

A brief silence fell between me and my Department Head-nim.

Then we both burst out laughing.

"Come on. What kind of ridiculous rumor is that?"

"I know, right? I had a good laugh when I heard it too. Haha."

Our Kwangwoon, holding a Nuclear Football.

Utterly absurd.

Well, I could understand where it came from.

Our Kwangwoon had always been at the center of Conspiracy Theories, hadn't it?

And after the incredible returns we'd pulled in this time around, those theories had only accelerated.

The Nuclear Football rumor had probably spread through that very pipeline of Conspiracy Theories.

"At this rate, they'll start saying we caused the civil wars in China and Russia."

"Surprisingly, that's already one of the Conspiracy Theories."

"......"

What a fascinating world it was.

"So does this mean the markets have fully stabilized?"

"Yes, sir. We've truly entered stable territory now. A big part of that is thanks to your order to leave all our current positions untouched."

That had been based on my instinct more than anything.

My gut was telling me that maintaining the status quo was the right call.

And for good reason. If we ever seriously tried to pull our money out, it would trigger another global financial crisis.

We held over 50 quadrillion won in assets as Stakes, after all.

"The issue is that as our Stakes keep growing and we automatically acquire Management Rights at various companies, we're being buried under firms that need to be managed."

"Ugh. Just thinking about it gives me a headache."

"Should we hand everything over to headquarters?"

"These are companies I personally ordered acquired. It wouldn't feel right to just dump them all. I should at least put in some effort and try running them myself."

There were bound to be fields I knew absolutely nothing about.

Having to manage those companies felt daunting, but at the same time, there was a real sense of excitement. Learning something new was like that.

"Also, sir, today's most important report is this."

My Department Head-nim carefully handed me a document.

"What is it?"

"An invitation."

"An invitation?"

"Yes. I think you'll be quite surprised."

I doubted anything could truly surprise me, but...

"......!?"

Just as my Department Head-nim had promised, the invitation was genuinely shocking.

[Bilderberg Conference Invitation]

The ultimate pinnacle of Conspiracy Theories, the meeting of the world's elite, and they had sent an invitation to our Kwangwoon.