The Magician’s Memorial - Chapter 455



Only Krnovel

455. Variable Creation (5)

Captain Kang returned safely to Korea.

I sighed in relief at the sight of him leisurely organizing his equipment in the office.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Contrary to my worries, the operation went very smoothly. Although he was a trained assassin, he seemed to be lacking in skill, so it didn’t feel like he had received professional training.”

“Forget what happened in Malaysia. Just remember it as a memory of helping a patient in critical condition.”

There could have been an investigation by the National Intelligence Service or the CIA.

Since 10 South Korean military personnel rescued North Korean No. 2, it was inevitable that there would be a lot of suspicion.

Especially since atropine injections were used, it could have raised even greater suspicion.

But it didn’t matter how much suspicion there was.

No matter how much I investigated the purpose of saving No. 2, I wouldn’t be able to find it, and if I continued to pretend not to know, there wasn’t really anything I could do.

Moreover, he was Captain Kang, the head of a mid-sized company.

All he had to do was tell someone that he had mobilized ten men to escort him and that he had even prepared an atropine injection.

Of course, there will be doubts for a long time.

If we didn’t approach North Korea No. 2 any more, the problem wouldn’t have gotten any bigger.

“In fact, even among the staff, there are some who do not know the exact purpose of this operation.”

“If you continue to not know or pretend not to know in the future, you won’t get into trouble.”

“I will keep that in mind. However, I never expected that an assassination would actually occur. Furthermore, I had no idea that they would use VX, which is hard to obtain, to poison him. If it weren’t for the medical staff at Taewoo Hospital, No. 2 would have had a hard time surviving.”

The mastermind behind this assassination attempt is unknown.

It was also because there was no need to look for it.

It was obvious who would do something like this.

“When I spoke to the medical staff, they said it was really fortunate. They said that it was not VX, but VX2, and that the two toxins had to be combined to have the proper effect.”

“I should have rubbed No. 2’s face one more time with my palm to get the full effect.”

“Captain Kang saved No. 2’s life by preventing further actions.”

A series of strokes of luck saved No. 2’s life.

It was none of our business what decisions No. 2, who survived the assassination, would make or what actions he would take.

All they could hope for was for No. 2 to create a variable that would make it impossible for North Korea to touch the Taewoo Group any longer.

***

A few days later.

Director Cheon Min-jeong came to see me.

Lately, whenever she comes to visit, I get scared.

I checked her face to see if something had happened again, but today she had a mischievous smile on her face.

“Is there anything good going on?”

“There was an unexpected gain! This is what I found out while extracting internal information through the malicious code planted in Cheonghwa Group.”

Center Director Cheon Min-jeong hands over a file.

But the material was full of only Chinese and numbers.

Since the materials were related to company management, it was not difficult to guess what they were about.

“It looks like material related to embezzlement and corruption.”

“I knew the chairman would figure it out right away! He was doing it in so many different ways. He pushed a subcontractor to get a kickback, and I also found out that he was moving company money into his personal pocket.”

The story that government subsidies are blind money is similar all over the world.

In addition, in the case of Tsinghua Group, which is called the center of China’s semiconductor development, astronomical amounts of support funds were being received.

But how could one not be greedy?

Everyone knows that it’s okay to fill your back pocket without getting noticed, but they just let it slide.

“How large is the corruption?”

“Just what has been confirmed so far is well over 100 billion won. If real estate corruption is added in, it could even exceed 200 billion won.”

You did eat a lot.

Of course, the Chinese government has been pouring tens of trillions of dollars into semiconductor development.

Even so, it was excessive to set aside more than 200 billion won.

“Please gather a little more information. Once we have some solid evidence, we can release the information.”

“Are you going to sow discord between the Chinese government and Tsinghua Group?”

“It’s not about sowing discord, it’s about making the truth known. Although, there may be discord in the process.”

“You just want to shake it a little?”

Shaking up the Cheonghwa Group.

Of course, Tsinghua Group was not the only one leading China’s semiconductor rise.

There were actually larger companies than the Cheonghwa Group, but even just shaking up the Cheonghwa Group could have a significant effect.

“If it becomes known that China’s semiconductor industry is being used for personal enrichment, the Chinese people will not remain silent.”

“Is that possible? As you know, China has strict information control.”

“It doesn’t matter if information is controlled. It’s enough to make the relationship between the Chinese high-ranking officials and the Tsinghua Group worse.”

The semiconductor industry could only succeed if there was full support.

But when personal corruption became involved, it was inevitable that suspicion would arise.

Doubt slows down the pace of support) and then the latecomer will never be able to catch up with the leader.

“I’m going to shake things up real good. I’m going to make sure you pay the price for planting a spy in Taewoo Group!”

“It must never be known that the source of the information is Taewoo Group.”

“Don’t worry about that. This time, we’ve created a new channel while fighting the North Korean hackers. We can now manipulate the information so that it is suspected that the source of the information is North Korea.”

Are you trying to kill two birds with one stone?

It wouldn’t have a big effect, but as long as Director Cheon Min-jeong was happy, it didn’t matter what I did.

“Anything else to report?”

“It’s not something I particularly need to report, but we’ve made major updates to our remote video conferencing system to enhance communication with foreign researchers. I think this is a necessary update, especially to facilitate collaboration with the gene scissors.”

About 30% of the gene scissors research team entered Korea.

But the remaining 70% still resided in the United States or Europe.

Communication needed to be improved for collaboration.

It wasn’t just genetic scissors.

Starting with the Artificial Intelligence Center, various affiliates were collaborating with foreign research institutes, and communication was important for smooth development.

“How did you update it?”

“It’s not a big deal, but we just enhanced our existing interpretation system using AI.”

“Does this mean that the accuracy of interpretation has improved? Or that the interpretation speed has increased?”

“Both. It can interpret even technical terms, and it can interpret in real time with a delay of about 1 second. We have updated it so that it can be used for both text and voice interpretation.”

Is this something that can be done so easily?

Cheon Min-jeong created an interpretation program several years ago for her own needs.

Because the result of this was an interpretation program created solely because people didn’t want to learn English.

It’s probably the same reason this time too.

It is highly likely that an update was made because communication was not smooth during the collaboration.

“A delay of about one second would be a great help in communication.”

“I’ve tried it and it definitely makes conversations faster. My goal is to reduce the delay to about 0.5 seconds by next year. If the performance of artificial intelligence and computers or mobile devices improves, we can reduce the delay even more dramatically.”

That’s why I keep Cheon Min-jeong busy.

Because if he felt uncomfortable, he was the kind of person who would find a way to do something.

“I always say this, Director Chun, do whatever you want. If you need support, just ask me.”

“I am always grateful. There has never been a time when I couldn’t do something I wanted to do.”

“But just do it to the extent that it doesn’t cause any problems for the project you’re in charge of.”

Of course, updating the interpretation system was also important.

It was Cheon Min-jeong who was in charge of dozens of much more important projects.

“Of course we do. We are currently spending most of our time on autonomous driving systems.”

“Is autonomous driving progressing well?”

“We successfully conducted a test drive on some highways. Of course, it was not a fully autonomous driving test drive, but a conditional automation test drive at level 3.”

“How was the test drive response?”

“It was a huge success! The system perfectly understood the surroundings and responded to them without a single error.”

Level 3 autonomous driving.

From here on, the driver could take his hands off the steering wheel.

It was a stage where the driver only had to operate the steering wheel when the system requested it.

Many automakers are developing autonomous driving.

Taewoo Group was the only company that completed Stage 3, and the others were still stuck at Stage 2.

“There is a big technology gap compared to other places.”

“Because we started much earlier. While other companies only showed interest two or three years ago, we have been focusing on autonomous driving-related technologies for over 10 years.”

The time gap was more important than the gap in technological prowess.

From time to capital, we have invested far more than other companies.

So, we were able to secure autonomous driving level 3 technology ahead of others, and now it is time to challenge level 4.

“Is the development of level 4 technology going well?”

“First, we are working on improving the shortcomings in Step 3. Errors often occur in bad weather conditions such as snow or rain. We need to completely improve this problem before we can move on to the highly automated stage.”

From stage 4 onwards, there was no need for a driver.

It could be said to be the beginning of true autonomous driving, a stage where drivers would only be required to drive on certain roads or under certain conditions.

“Don’t be too hasty. There is still a significant technological gap between us and the latecomers.”

“Because the technology gap is something that can be narrowed suddenly, we are trying to secure level 4 technology as quickly as possible.”

“We will enter mass production of Level 3 autonomous vehicles within this year. Please focus on making sure there are no problems.”

“Don’t worry. We have set a timetable so that we can start mass production of the Stage 3 vehicle within this year and the Stage 4 vehicle the year after next.”

It was Cheon Min-jeong who was full of confidence.

It was definitely not arrogance, but confidence that could only come from trusting our accumulated technological prowess and the artificial intelligence center.

***

A few days later.

Cheon Min-jeong leaked the Cheonghwa Group data to the Chinese media.

As related information spread through the media and social media, the problem began to surface.

“I thought about short selling Cheonghwa Group, but I think it was a good decision not to. The response was lukewarm, more so than I expected.”

“As a company at the center of semiconductor development, the Chinese government would not want the problem to become a big issue.”

It was a vice president who felt regret.

Only me, Director Chun, and Vice President Han knew about this operation.

“But it certainly doesn’t seem like the Cheonghwa Group will be able to just go out like before. Once they get that bad feeling, it won’t take a long time to get it out, right?”

“We have planted the seeds of discord, but it is up to the Chinese government and Tsinghua Group to make them bloom. We should be satisfied that we have just created a variable.”

It was difficult to predict how the variables would behave.

But now that there are variables, things won’t go as smoothly as before.

“And then we got a call from the Saudi government. They said Crown Prince Bin Salman will be visiting Korea soon.”

“It looks like things have stabilized already.”

“The purge has come to a close, and the forces opposing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have been suppressed, so it seems they are now trying to start external activities.”

“The start of my external activities is a trip to Korea. I think I’ll be able to have a pleasant drinking party for the first time in a while.”

It was important before too.

Going forward, our relationship with Saudi Arabia will become even more important.

And at the center of power in Saudi Arabia was Bin Salman, and cultivating a friendship with him was very important to the Taewoo Group.