‘I gave Ryu Young-Joon plenty of chances, but he’s the one who kicked them to the curb.’

Alphonse Lofair was now plotting his attack on Young-Joon. And before he could do that, he needed to tarnish Young-Joon’s reputation as much as possible as if there was an accident in the Netherlands, everyone would be suspicious of Lofair.

This meant that Young-Joon could not become a martyr of justice who died while healing the sick and fighting the powerful for the weak. When the incident occurred—when things would be unfavorable to Lofair—it was necessary to have a perspective to muddy public opinion, saying that Young-Joon was also doing shady things.

As such, Lofair manipulated the media to produce a series of accusations and slander against Young-Joon.

[Ryu Young-Joon was presumably aware of the entire background of genetic manipulation and human experimentation in Nicaragua to begin with, which is why he approached the Nicaraguan government with the intention of billing them for the treatment. This is an overly calculated move, given his position as a medical professional, and one that is consistent with the practice of exploiting the suffering of a nation for profit…]

However, these attacks were pretty much useless, as their commentaries and editorials from just a few weeks ago told the exact opposite story. This made public opinion far worse for them.

—Just two weeks ago, you assholes were the ones who said that the CEO of a publicly traded company should work for the profit of the shareholders.

—You were the ones who made a huge fuss about how it’s wrong to go to Nicaragua to do something good for only fifteen billion dollars. Seeing as the media is going crazy now, I guess the Lofair conspiracy theory is true.

—I used to volunteer in Nicaragua. I don’t know how you can accuse Ryu Young-Joon of being evil as a medical practitioner. He brought all those doctors from Korea to fix patients day and night at the lowest possible price. I don’t think Nicaraguans would be celebrating in the hospital if it were like that. Watch what you say if you don’t know the situation.

—Of course, this is Lofair’s doing behind the scenes. LOL they’re trying so hard to keep Ryu Young-Joon in check.

—Stop spewing bullshit and change the Federal Bank to national assets, you bastards. We never gave you the right to print dollars.

Alphonse, who had already arrived in the Netherlands, hesitated, but decided to use the weapon. After all, Young-Joon had rejected Tate’s attempts at appeasement.

Alphonse pulled out his made-up scenario about Rosaline and called Tate.

“I want you to attack Ryu Young-Joon by leaking the Rosaline story to the press. The more provocative, the better. Make it sound like Ryu Young-Joon bought the unidentified girl from the Third World, like human trafficking,” Alphonse said.

However, Tate’s response was shocking.

—But there’s a problem, Alphonse.

“What?”

—I think Ryu Young-Joon has filed for adoption.

“Adoption? Are you talking about that girl?”

—Yes. Not many people know yet.

“We just dug into all of Ryu Young-Joon’s relatives in Korea the other day and there was no mention of adoption?”

—And in Korea, single men aren’t allowed to adopt girls.

“So it’s not a problem, right?”

—But Ryu Young-Joon received knighthood in Sweden and was given honorary citizenship in that country.

“...”

—He requested the adoption directly through the Swedish royal family to the Korean government.

“Is adoption legal there?”

—Sweden allows same-sex couples to adopt, so they’re pretty open-minded when it comes to things like that. On top of that, Ryu Young-Joon is a recipient of the Royal Order of the Seraphim, which is only given to royalty of heads of state in Sweden, so they wouldn’t have a problem with him adopting a child.

“Wait. If he’s officially adopting that girl, it means that her identity is certain. How did they prove that?”

—Apparently, she’s an orphan of an illegal immigrant family who was raised by Elsie Franklin for years, and that was why she wasn’t registered as a citizen.

“Elsie?

Elsie

? Elsie Franklin?”

Alphonse’s eyes widened.

“That’s a complete lie! If Elsie had a kid, we would have known about it! The local drug dealers were at her house twice a week!”

—But we can’t talk about that.

“...”

—Wouldn’t that be an admission that we’ve been spying on Elsie and drugging her? It would be even worse for us.

“What if we claim through the drug dealers that it had nothing to do with us?”

—Elsie hasn’t worked for over a decade, has no assets, and is a drug addict. There’s no explanation as to how she kept buying those drugs. In reality, we gave her the drugs and money to keep her alive as a hostage…

“You’re saying it’s going to be hard to fabricate a crazy dealer who supplies drugs while giving her money.”

—Yes.

Alphonse chewed his lip.

“Where is she now? Elsie has been in the Netherlands for a while. Is she with Ryu Young-Joon?”

—Yes, and…

Tate paused.

—Um… There was a little girl in a hat among the entourage when they got off the plane in the Netherlands a while ago. Maybe that’s Rosaline…

“They’re in the Netherlands?”

—Yes.

“I would try to do something if she was still in the U.S., but it’s going to be hard to do anything here because there’s not a lot of people I can move around.”

—And I’m sure she’s under heavy security. But Alphonse…

Tate went on.

—It still doesn’t explain how the kid got into the country. She’s an orphan, born to an illegal immigrant family, so she doesn’t have citizenship. Obviously, she wouldn’t have been able to get out of the U.S., and there’s no record of her entry to Korea, so it’s smuggling. Why don’t we attack that?

“It doesn’t matter if she was smuggled in. Even

we

just found out that she came to the Netherlands.”

—That’s because she wasn’t on a commercial plane but a presidential plane. The White House can decide whether or not to release departure records.

“Yeah… It’s the same thing when she went to Korea. Ryu Young-Joon quietly brought the child into the country with the government’s help to protect that girl from Elsie or us. All they have to say is that there are no records because it had to be done secretly to fight Lofair. No one will suspect Ryu Young-Joon over such a thing, even without a detailed explanation. The attack itself is too weak,” Alphonse said.

“On the contrary, something like a list of people who entered South Korea is a national record, and the fact that it was collected by foreign civilians like us could create a diplomatic problem and be used against us. If we don’t reveal the source of the information, no one will believe us.”

—So what can we do?

“...”

Honestly, there was no way.

“We have no choice. Don’t publish anything about Rosaline,” Alphonse said. “The second trial is in two days. It’s too late to find a new ploy now. We just have to get rid of Ryu Young-Joon before he gets to the courtroom.”

*

“It’s harder to guard you now that you have a child with you,” Kim Chul-Kwon said. “A child as little as her might get hurt playing alone or wander into the streets when no one’s looking, but for Lofair to be after her…”

He looked at Rosaline and gave her a worried look. Rosaline was watching the water boil in the hotel’s electric kettle.

‘Does Rosaline really need a bodyguard?’

Young-Joon felt a little sorry for Kim Chul-Kwon.

Unlike humans, who have developed from fertilized eggs into multicellular organisms according to an evolutionarily programmed developmental scheme, Rosaline was still a cell. Her life force was contained uniformly in each and every one of her cells, especially those in Young-Joon’s body.

As such, no matter how much Rosaline’s body, which looked like Ryu Sae-Yi, was injured—even if someone blew her head off—Rosaline wouldn’t die. She would reattach herself to living tissues and repair her nerves. As a cellular organism and the next generation of life, death began at a much more fundamental level.

“Oh!”

Rosaline was playing with the kettle when she spilled hot water and burned her hand. Seeing her startled, Young-Joon rushed over to her, surprised. As he examined the burn on her little finger, someone appeared at their hotel room door.

It was Isaiah Franklin, and Kim Chul-Kwon was blocking her from coming in.

“It’s alright, she can come in for a minute. I need to talk to her.”

Young-Joon let Isaiah into the room and locked the door.

“Thanks. Can I talk to Rosaline?” Isaiah asked.

“Yeah, but I’m going to listen, too,” Young-Joon said.

“Okay.”

Isaiah nodded and sat across from Rosaline. Rosaline stared at her curiously.

“Do you hate me?” Isaiah asked.

“Why?”

“Because I tried to hurt Ryu Young-Joon.”

“If Ryu Young-Joon had been hurt, I would have focused all my energy on figuring out how to cure him. I don’t feel human emotions like anger or sadness easily because I don’t have them,” Rosaline replied.

Young-Joon suddenly remembered the first time he met Rosaline. She was a complete psychopath. He still remembered her suggesting that it would be very profitable to sacrifice some elderly people and children with low immunity to eradicate the flu virus. She’s gotten a lot more humanized since then, but still.

Isaiah thought for a moment, then said, “You know that I’ve been trying to get you to rule the world, right?”

“Yes.”

Rosaline nodded.

“That’s because no matter how amazing the science you and Ryu Young-Joon create, there are always people who misuse it. For example, do you know the company named Celebite?” she asked.

Rosaline shook her head. Young-Joon hadn’t heard of it either.

“It’s a bio-venture in Silicon Valley,” Isaiah explained. “They make and sell meat using the cultured meat technology developed by A-GenBio, but it’s human meat.”

Young-Joon frowned.

“Human flesh?”

“They buy celebrities’ somatic cells, then de-differentiate it to make cultured meat and sell it. Their catchphrase is, ‘Taste the flesh of your favorite idol.’”

“...”

“There are some people who think it’s disgusting, but there are a lot of fans who like it. A lot of actors and singers scrape cells from the inside of their mouths and sell it off because they don’t think it’s a big deal,” Isaiah said.

“Cases like this are cute. The insane technologies created by A-GenBio will open the era of life extension and allow those with money and power to receive treatment and survive healthily even when their telomeres run out or they are in a brain-dead state. Meanwhile, those who are poor will simply die. Can Ryu Young-Jon handle the conflicts of that era, where the gap in wealth will deepen into a gap of life expectancy?”

“...”

Young-Joon quietly listened to Isaiah.

“Now, ethics can’t handle the expansion of technology anymore. I think someone has to take control,” Isaiah said. “If you, who can only live in Ryu Young-Joon’s body, were to be able to live in all human bodies, you, who pursues extreme efficiency, would treat all those human bodies as an asset and carefully control them optimally. So, for you…”

“How interesting. You sound like Lofair right now.”

“Lofair?”

“Alphonse Lofair said he created you because there was no way to manage the Cold War with the growing number of nuclear weapons. He believed that technology was so advanced that it required a superior human being to control it.”

“...”

“What you’re trying to do to me is what Lofair expected of you. If I’m useless, are you going to try to get rid of me?” Rosaline asked.

“No, I’m not! I just…”

“And I’m not very interested in ruling the world.”

Rosaline smiled innocently.

“Okay…” Isaiah smiled bitterly.

She somewhat expected this, but she was clearly rejected.

Young-Joon, who was listening to them, said, “If Rosaline were an intelligent virus that uses humans as hosts, she would do everything she could to preserve the human species. You might have considered entrusting her with humans with that idea, but she’s not like that.”

“...”

“I am going to make Rosaline happy. A world messed up by adults should be cleaned up by adults. Why are you trying to get a kid to do that? Don’t ask her to do the bothersome and difficult work. I won’t stand for it.”

“...”

Isaiah chuckled. She had worshiped Rosaline for her entire life and praised her like a savior, but Young-Joon treated her like a child to be protected, or a trusted friend. That disparity hit her hard.

“Okay. Successful people have a different mindset. Okay. I’ll give up now, no matter what,” Isaiah said.

Young-Joon stared her silently, then said, “Enough of this nonsense. We could be attacked on our way to court, and I want you to think of a plan to defend it.”

“Glad you brought it up because I’m on my way back from seeing President Campbell. This is really my specialty, so don’t worry,” Isaiah said. “I lived in the Palestinian conflict zone for over twenty years and worked with the rebels for over ten years. You think some third-rate guy who’s lived in the comfort of a financier family is a match for me?”