Money Keeps Piling Up No Matter How Much I Spend

Chapter 209

Translator: Dreamscribe"......"

The conference room, where easygoing laughter usually lingered, was engulfed in heavy silence today.

Some of them stared blankly at one empty seat.

"So, what exactly is the reason they're giving?"

"The investigation found that the AI Auto-Screening filtered out both the suspect and his biological mother, so they never received a single cent in insurance payouts. Apparently, he'd also harbored deep distrust toward insurance companies for a long time."

"So what? If the claims don't qualify, they don't qualify. But to just go and shoot someone over it!?"

"Exactly. If he felt wronged, he could have filed a lawsuit. To resort to such a brutish method...!"

But they couldn't simply place all the blame on him.

"Let's be honest, we all know, don't we? That the AI Auto-Screening has an error rate of up to 90%. So why did we insist on using it?"

"Well, that's......"

"No need to put on airs here. Paying out as little as possible to customers. That's our ultimate goal, isn't it?"

That was the reason every insurance company existed.

Piling on excuse after excuse to deny customers their money, or paying out far less than owed.

That was the secret behind insurance companies' massive profits.

"The AI Auto-Screening was implemented for exactly that reason. And the man who aggressively pushed it and got it adopted across our entire association is now lying in the morgue."

In other words, it was a powder keg of resentment that was bound to explode sooner or later.

"The problem is, in the past, when customers expressed their frustrations, all they did was lash out at the agent who sold them the policy or show up at headquarters to cause a scene. But this time, someone assassinated a company's CEO."

When people paid their premiums faithfully every month only to be denied their payouts, of course they'd be furious.

So customers would shoot at insurance agents or storm into company offices to raise hell.

But the assassination of a major American insurance company CEO was a first.

That was what had sent shockwaves through the association.

"Apparently, even before the attack, the suspect had posted multiple times online about how the heads of insurance companies needed to be hunted down and killed. He was trying to incite people."

"And by carrying it out himself, he's getting the desired effect?"

"Yes. Just look at social media right now. Everyone is rallying behind the shooter, aren't they? Meanwhile, the victim who was brutally murdered is being mocked in every way imaginable. Does this look normal to you?"

Perhaps this was the karma they had been accumulating all along.

Public opinion had swung entirely in favor of the shooter.

People were saying that since the government was in bed with insurance companies, an ordinary citizen, a mere underdog, had bravely taken matters into his own hands.

"The suspect's past social media posts are spreading rapidly across the internet, and there's a steady stream of posts inciting people to track down and kill the executives currently running insurance companies. This is an extremely serious situation."

It meant this might not be the end of it.

"S-so what are you suggesting we do? That we go ahead and pay out every hospital bill we've been denying?"

"That's not what I'm saying. What matters most is hiding our personal information. As long as those inciting posts keep going up, there will be attention-seekers who decide to act on them."

Carlson was right.

To prevent another victim, it was crucial to thoroughly conceal their identities.

Better for the rank-and-file employees below them to die than for the executives themselves.

"But don't you think the timing is awfully convenient?"

"Pardon?"

"We heard that Kwangwoon was trying to break into the insurance industry, and our association stepped in to keep them in check, right? And then, right after that, we get this incident, the first CEO assassination in history......"

"!?"

For a moment, they had forgotten.

They had simply assumed it was an act of revenge over denied insurance claims, but this was an entirely new perspective.

"So you're saying Kwangwoon might be involved in this?"

"Look at social media right now. Don't you think the aftermath of this incident is spreading way too fast? Honestly, how many shooting casualties happen in America every single day? People ignore all of those, but suddenly they're laser-focused on this one?"

"Now that you mention it...... it is getting an unusual amount of attention."

"Th-then Kwangwoon really!?"

They had expected Kwangwoon would pull something when it entered the insurance industry.

They also knew that with insurance companies banding together to push back, Kwangwoon wouldn't just sit idly by.

"But even so, to shoot someone in broad daylight...!"

"That's exactly the kind of people they are. These are the lunatics who spread the COVID virus across the entire world and made obscene amounts of money selling vaccines."

"If this turns out to be true, we need to find evidence!"

"Yes. This could actually be our opportunity. If this really is connected to Kwangwoon and we can find proof, we can make sure those bastards never set foot in the insurance industry again."

It meant they could turn a crisis into an opportunity.

"Kwangwoon won't want us finding that evidence either."

"Then we need to move before they do."

"Yes. We expose to the entire world that Kwangwoon instigated a criminal into committing this horrific act."

If they could pull that off, Kwangwoon would be permanently barred from entering the insurance industry.

On top of that, it would destroy their corporate image and create an entirely different playing field from before.

It was unfortunate for the deceased victim, but thanks to his death, things were about to work out very smoothly.

* * *

"......"

America, of course.

That was the feeling when I first saw the news that the CEO of a major American insurance company had been shot in broad daylight over denied insurance claims.

"The police aren't revealing the exact motive, right?"

"Correct. The motive is obviously the unpaid claims, anyone can see that, but it seems they're keeping it under wraps because announcing it would only make things worse. There's even a push to frame it as a personal grudge. But the public isn't stupid these days."

In the old days, manipulating public opinion through the media had been easy.

Back then, people had few ways to access information.

But now we lived in the age of networks.

People no longer believed only what the news told them.

They absorbed information spreading through social media and online communities, piecing together what was actually true.

"Even though there's plenty of misinformation out there, it's still serving a positive function overall."

Even so, using social media to incite people into killing someone had to be stopped.

"That's why the major insurance companies have apparently taken down all their executives' photos from their websites. They're also in the process of scrubbing personal information."

"What about the AI Auto-Screening that caused this whole mess?"

"They don't seem interested in fixing that. They say they'll keep it as is."

Though it was understandable in a way.

Insurance companies had been bending over backward to cooperate in denying customers their money, and that was what had led to this tragedy.

"And the fact that public opinion has entirely shifted in favor of the shooter. People on social media are comparing this gunman to Jesus, the Messiah. That's the level we're at."

This wasn't some narrative being pushed by one or two people.

Tens of millions of people who had long been frustrated with the insurance cartel were rallying behind the shooter.

"Also, CEO-nim. Didn't we short sell several insurance companies a while back?"

When I had reviewed the list of insurance companies, my instinct had reacted to them, so I had shorted every one of them.

"Well, since this incident broke, every single one has dropped more than 10%."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. The company whose CEO was killed plummeted nearly 20%. The public sentiment forming right now is so severe that it seems to be continuously dragging down stock prices."

I hadn't predicted this.

Still, it had resulted in significant profits across the board.

The problem was that it didn't sit right with me.

Profiting because someone had been murdered left a bad taste, to say the least.

"There's also this option. We could help the people who were unfairly denied payouts by those American insurance companies through their automated screening. We provide assistance and use it as an opportunity to promote Kwangwoon's entry into the insurance business."

One of our employees' suggestion sent a tingle through my fingertips, a gut feeling.

"So the idea is to help people and promote ourselves at the same time?"

"Yes. We can't help everyone indiscriminately, but the AI Auto-Screening reportedly has a 90% error rate. There must be people who were wrongly denied. People who need help right now."

My instinct hit me once more, passing right through.

"......"

I reached out and touched the stocks I had been shorting.

Sure enough.

Every single one was screaming for me to sell, sending me intense signals.

"Liquidate all the positions we're holding. And send the profits to the Kwangwoon Insurance side. Tell them to use it for helping people."

"Yes, CEO-nim."

Sending over all the profits might seem like a lot.

But rather than sitting with that uneasy feeling, putting the money toward a good cause seemed like the better way to ease the weight on my conscience.

* * *

"......Kwangwoon is behind this incident?"

The broad-daylight shooting of a CEO representing one of America's foremost insurance companies, right in a hotel lobby no less, was sending massive shockwaves through American society.

But there was a saying, wasn't there.

When an event shakes society to its core, start by checking if Kwangwoon is at the center of it.

Sure enough, that name was being brought up once again.

"Yes, General Director. The Insurance Association currently suspects Kwangwoon is behind this and is reportedly cooperating with the FBI to assess the situation."

"Meaning they're trying to find out if the shooter acted on Kwangwoon's orders?"

"Yes."

The suspicion was reasonable enough.

With impeccable timing, this had happened just as Kwangwoon was trying to enter the insurance industry.

The strategy would be to shatter the credibility of the existing insurance companies while Kwangwoon swooped in, riding the wave of attention with new management policies and competitive premiums to reap the benefits.

"Kwangwoon was already planning to compete with extremely low premiums targeting vulnerable populations, wasn't it?"

"Right. They were going to wage a price war, kill off all the competition, and then jack up prices."

"Exactly. And the companies knew about Kwangwoon's strategy, which is why they were desperately trying to block them."

"So they shot a major company's CEO."

"That single incident made the insurance companies' image even worse, and it also served as a direct warning from Kwangwoon to the Insurance Association."

Two birds with one stone, then.

But the Insurance Association hadn't backed down easily either.

They were pulling every string they had to uncover traces of Kwangwoon's involvement behind the incident.

"Moreover, according to our intelligence, Kwangwoon Securities short sold shares in major American insurance companies before the incident and made massive profits."

"Not two birds, but three."

"That's Kwangwoon for you. No matter what they do, they always find a way to profit on multiple fronts."

Ruthless yet meticulous.

Vicious yet strategic.

With just three bullets, they had reaped three gains.

Was there another company like this anywhere in the world?

"But is it confirmed that this is connected to Kwangwoon? Have they found any evidence?"

"No. No evidence has been discovered yet. Remarkably, there isn't a single link between the suspect and Kwangwoon. They've gone through his phone, his PC, every electronic device, and still nothing."

If evidence had actually been found, the Strategy Team and Sentinel would have moved to eliminate it. But so far, nothing had turned up.

"Same as always."

"Yes. But...... it's hard to call this a coincidence, isn't it?"

"True. Unless you're a fool, thinking this is a coincidence doesn't make any sense."

And yet, to leave behind so disturbingly few traces.

"Then do you think they planned this?"

Them.

That was the designation Sentinel used.

The prevailing theory within Sentinel was that Kwangwoon operated another covert agency besides them.

But no matter how many times they investigated, they could never find any trace of them.

That was when Sentinel had realized the truth.

The company called Sentinel was merely a front for the world to see.

The real covert agency was somewhere else entirely.

"We should assume they orchestrated this."

"Yes. Not a single word was mentioned to us about it."

Anthony felt a rush of anxiety, and wounded pride along with it.

He had believed Sentinel was at the vanguard of building Kwangwoon's borderless empire, only to discover that some other outfit had been playing the key role all along.

A strange sense of betrayal mingled with a rising competitive fire.

"If things keep going this way, Sentinel will be completely left behind."

That was why they needed to show headquarters that Sentinel's influence was still alive and well.

"You said the Insurance Association pulled all their personal information?"

"Yes, that's correct. More importantly, the people who hold the real power, their identities aren't publicly known in the first place."

"Good. Then leak every piece of information we have on them across social media."

"Sir?"

What would be the best way to prove themselves to headquarters?

Racking up achievements.

"Kwangwoon's push into insurance is at a critical juncture right now. If the Insurance Association steps in to block it, Kwangwoon won't be able to achieve what it wants. So we need to use this opportunity to shove them out for good."

"Then...... are our operatives going to hunt them down and kill them?"

"No. We just do the inciting. Instead of killing the wrong people, we point the mob toward the real targets and give them a push."

"Ah."

'How exactly "they" had manipulated the shooter into carrying out the attack, he had no idea, but.'

He would prove beyond any doubt that Sentinel's capabilities were in no way inferior to theirs.