Chapter 190 - The Patriot III

4

As any Korean history textbook would tell you, the words “restoration movement” had a somewhat ominous ring on the Korean Peninsula.

Both the Baekje and Goguryeo restoration movements ended in failure. Less well known was the fact that Silla and Balhae went through similar bankruptcy proceedings.

The people of the Korean Peninsula had always been a nation of early adopters.

Rather than cling to the trouser legs of a fallen country and bawl, they preferred to make a clean break and change the sign out front.

The “South Korean restoration movement” could be no exception.

“Down with the dictator Noh Dohaaa!”

Jo Yeongsu was permitted to exist.

He was permitted to hold a protest placard and shout, and to reuse wastepaper in the interests of recycling.

When he approached with scraps of paper for what he fancied was a public opinion survey, survivors busy getting through each day would snort, but spare a moment to answer him.

That was precisely where their goodwill ended.

“Down with the dictator Noh Doha! End the giant guild leaders’ nepotistic rule over our cities! Establish a National Assembly and enact a constitution!”

Jo Yeongsu always remained alone.

Whether one year passed, or three, or seven, the membership of the “South Korea Restoration Society” never grew.

SG Net’s attitude toward him was no different.

-Anonymous: Welcome back, constitution parrot.

-Goryeojang: Big Bro Republic Geezer, you’re here! ^^ Your little bro Goryeo bows real fucking deep.

-Anonymous: Honestly, I never felt much about the Commander either way, but lately I’m changing my mind. Anyone who lets that old guy live instead of killing him really is something special, yeah...

└BookishGirl: A tiger dies and leaves its hide. South Korea died and left Jo Yeongsu.

-Anonymous: Dang Seorin, Noh Doha, Mo Gwangseo, Jeong Sang-guk, Jo Yeongsu, let’s go.

└Anonymous: Fuck lmaoooo

└Anonymous: All-time national-pride lineup, holy shit.

└dolLHOuse: ?

Mockery, contempt, people hovering around a forum celebrity.

Sympathy for someone struggling through the same era. A little goodwill, as rare and scarce as rain in the Gobi Desert.

Nowhere was there much sign of anyone sincerely wishing to restore South Korea. Nor was there any yearning for democracy.

“Why are the democratic citizens of this land so dissolute!”

Sometimes, when he scraped together enough money, Jo Yeongsu would go to a street-side drinking stall and guzzle booze. Then he would lament.

“The nation is as precarious as a stack of eggs, yet nostalgia for dictators still persists!”

“Hmm.”

Eventually, in one of my runs, I couldn’t bear to watch any longer and had to interfere.

Blundering through the world was a privilege of youth—to my eyes, Jo Yeongsu was still very young. But wasn’t dispensing unsolicited advice a specialty of the elderly?

I sidled up to him as he drank alone at a stall in Haeundae and joined him.

“Mr. Jo. People may seem to be showing you goodwill, but you mustn’t misunderstand what that goodwill means.”

“Pardon? What are you talking about?”

“People generally exaggerate both their good intentions and their malice in how they act. Plenty of people donate wastepaper to you, but no one will chant for South Korea alongside you. It would be a mistake to take that as, ‘Ah, people really support my work.’”

“...”

Jo Yeongsu’s face was red from all the cheap alcohol he’d downed.

Like all survivors of this era, he looked eighty despite being only in his late fifties. The words “skin care” had vanished from the dictionary long ago.

The Korean before me, whose body had grown old while his mind remained intact, raised his voice.

“Why are you telling me this? I appreciate your offer to pay for my drinks, but if you thought a few drops of alcohol would stop my work, you’re sorely mistaken!”

“I’m not trying to stop you. It’s merely advice. You consider yourself a social activist, but other people treat you as an entertainer.”

“An entertainer?”

He blinked.

“Me?”

“Yes. The surveys you work so hard to conduct give people something to chat about for at least a day or two. They can briefly feel nostalgic for the past. You’re practically the only person who gives them a taste of those feelings, so they tolerate you.”

“...”

“Essentially, it’s no different from gathering in small groups to watch an old movie. Regardless of how you define yourself, the objective role you play in this little society is that of a clown.”

“A clown...”

“That’s also why no one joins your restoration movement.”

I poured liquor into his empty glass.

“Imagine a stand-up comedian performing onstage, and someone from the audience barging in. Wouldn’t that quite literally spoil the fun?”

“No, I’m serious about...”

“That’s exactly why they like you all the more. They like you because you mean it.”

Jo Yeongsu stared blankly at me.

“This isn’t a problem with you personally, Mr. Jo. Talking about South Korea has itself become a joke. That’s simply the climate of the times.”

“Are you saying I’m behind the times?”

“Not at all. That way of looking at it is itself too focused on your own perspective. There’s far too large a gap between ‘who I think I am’ and ‘who other people see.’ In a sense, you’re such perfectly suited entertainment for this era that you’ve maintained a niche all your own.”

“...”

“It’s a depressing world, isn’t it? Try changing your outlook to giving other people even a little enjoyment. A great deal will change. Far more people will like you than do now.”

“...”

He blinked.

The drunken middle-aged man’s eyelids moved slowly.

The poor ordinary man’s stomach couldn’t withstand the onslaught of alcohol after so long without it, and before long, he lost consciousness.

After settling the bill, I carried him back to his shack.

“Sir, I’ll sit you down here before I go.”

“Uhhh... Uh...”

PITTER-PATTER.

A drizzle happened to be falling.

Jo Yeongsu’s shack had been cobbled together from tarps, a tent, discarded building materials, and the like. It was perhaps a little over six square meters.

The best spot held not his bedding, but thousands of sheets of wastepaper.

The scraps and sheets of cheap paper were enshrined like sacred treasures, as though he would never let them get wet, no matter what.

[South Korea: 91st Public Opinion Survey]

[Question: Do you believe that criminals may be arrested, sentenced, and have their sentences carried out solely at the personal discretion of a guild leader or the commander of the National Road Management Corps? Do you also believe that a separation of powers should be instituted under present circumstances?]

Below it, Jo Yeongsu’s notes filled every available space.

-Concern 1: Need to explain to citizens the situation in which legislative, executive, and judicial powers are concentrated in one individual (that would make the question too long).

-Concern 2: The phrase “personal discretion” carries negative connotations and could bias respondents.

-Concern 3: Need to discuss the right to retain a lawyer, too, but there isn’t enough space (postpone until the 92nd survey?).

→Idea: Supplement issues that won’t fit on the page with posts on SG Net!!

└Regular reminders about the issue, building consensus, persuading citizens (important!!!)

“...”

Suddenly, I felt that these scraps of paper resembled his shack.

Just as the shack was too cramped to hold one person’s body, the scraps were trying to contain too much.

When I laid Jo Yeongsu on his bedding, half his legs stuck out of the tent.

The soles of his feet stayed wet all night.

5

I don’t know exactly what effect our drinking session that night had on Jo Yeongsu’s inner world.

But one thing definitely changed.

“Huh?”

The contents of his questionnaire.

[South Korea: 91st Public Opinion Survey]

[Question: Do you believe that the nation of South Korea has fallen?]

[① Yes.]

[② No.]

If my memory served, the ninety-first survey had most certainly concerned the separation of powers.

But the new questionnaire Jo Yeongsu had written and was carrying around had not only changed completely in content; the question itself had become remarkably short.

Had South Korea fallen?

“I mean, of course it’s fallen...”

“What’s up with this survey?”

Even the citizens who always accepted his questionnaires to pass the time tilted their heads.

Of course South Korea had fallen. Did he think it was still going strong? Some wondered whether he was playing a joke with his questionnaire.

But Jo Yeongsu was serious. More serious than ever.

“Please, you must answer this survey! Fellow citizens! People of Busan! This is the most important survey of all!”

“Uh...”

He wasn’t merely serious, either.

Normally, Jo Yeongsu surveyed around 1,000 to 2,000 people, selecting a sample representative of all walks of life.

Not this time.

“Child! You there! Could you answer a question for me?”

“Me?”

He ran around asking everyone for their opinions like a madman. He even thrust his “Has South Korea fallen?” questionnaire at a little child who had just turned five.

“I’ll give you 100 won if you participate!”

“Wow!”

Children who had never once experienced the country called South Korea participated in a public opinion survey for the first time in their lives.

He didn’t stop there.

-Jo Yeongsu: I am conducting the 91st Public Opinion Survey! I ask all registered and unregistered users of SG Net to participate!

Jo Yeongsu, who had always posted anonymously, registered an account on SG Net and put up a dedicated survey post.

His username was Jo Yeongsu. Everyone was astonished by the audacity of slapping his real name straight onto his account.

-Anonymous: ?? Why did this old guy make an account?

-BookishGirl: Didn’t you say last time that SG Net was an uneven playing field because only awakened could access it, and that you’d stay anonymous forever?

└Jo Yeongsu: I’m sorry! I was wrong! So please, just this once, participate in my survey!

-Goryeojang: Ah... Have you finally decided to become a “forum celebrity” too? Welcome, Jo Yeongsu. Welcome to SG Net’s “first string.”

└Jo Yeongsu: Thank you! Please, I beg you to participate in the survey just once!

Jo Yeongsu truly expanded his pool of respondents like a man possessed.

Nor did he conduct the survey alone. He entrusted questionnaires to passersby, Corps members he often encountered, and shopkeepers along the streets.

“Please ask your customers to answer it just once before they leave!”

“How can I bother my customers with a request like that?”

“Please!”

About fifteen months later.

Jo Yeongsu had obtained “answers” from no fewer than 120,000 residents in Busan alone.

Considering that Busan’s population at the time was between 200,000 and 300,000, it was a staggering sample.

Even more astonishingly, his sweeping campaign did not stop there.

["Mr. Undertaker."]

“Yes. What is it?”

["Mr. Jo Yeongsu has traveled to Changwon."]

“What?”

Jo Yeongsu, who had lived and died in Busan in every run, had gone to another city.

“An awakened whose ability amounts to lighting a Zippo on his finger crossed the void?”

["He rode along with a National Road Management Corps caravan."]

“Oh, in that case. But why did he suddenly go to Changwon?”

["It seems he intends to survey residents of other cities as well."]

“... Really?”

["Yes."]

I was stunned.

What was more, Changwon wasn’t even his destination. It was merely a stop along the way.

Jinju, Yeosu, Suncheon, Boseong, Haenam, Mokpo, Muan, Yeonggwang, Gwangju, Jeongeup, Jeonju, Gunsan, Iksan, Daejeon, Gimcheon, Gumi, Pohang...

He was literally working his way north from the south, sweeping back and forth across the Korean Peninsula like a mop.

“Don’t tell me he’s... planning to travel around the entire peninsula conducting this survey? To get answers even from people who didn’t participate through SG Net?”

["Probably."]

Wasn’t this guy completely out of his fucking mind?