Chapter 54: That Time I Paved a Highway in South America (4)

TL: Skye

A month had passed since officials from the Ministry of Construction and Housing started fanning out across the country, scouring every corner for workers. At the ten training centers established nationwide, the first cohort of trainees began to arrive.

With each center boasting a capacity of 5,000 trainees, a long procession of trucks and buses rolled in and disgorged their passengers, who...

"Uh...? I thought they said this was a training center...?"

"Isn't that the army?"

"What, what the hell is this?"

...flinched at the sight of a training center that looked for all the world like a military barracks.

It was inevitable. San Marcos may have come into some money compared to the old days, but the country hadn't grown rich enough to throw up brand-new training centers just to use once and abandon.

They'd simply taken a disused military base, slapped a new sign on the gate that read "Training Center," and called it a day.

And the effect of repurposing an army base as a training facility made itself felt immediately.

"Everybody off!"

Soldiers in red instructor caps, radiating intimidation, began herding them along.

"Look at you crawl! Move it, move it!"

"Anyone who isn't off this vehicle in the next ten seconds is going home. Understood?"

"Off, now! You don't have all day!"

The trainees, flung unceremoniously onto the grounds, were marched to the parade square by the instructors, who kept up their oppressive air the entire way.

Even after they reached the square, the instructors kept right on barking.

"From this moment forward, you are not civilians. You are San Marcos's prospective industrial soldiers. Is that clear?!"

"Y, yes...?"

"Speak up! Is that clear?!"

"Y, yes, sir!"

"Good. The training commander will be addressing you shortly, so form ranks."

"You there! You're out of line! Stand straight!"

"You want to be on the commander's bad side on day one?!"

"Eyes fixed on the back of the head of the man in front of you. Understood?!"

Before they had a chance to so much as catch their breath, they were lined up in formation, and soon enough a bear like instructor climbed onto the platform.

"Thank you all for making the long journey here. I am Homarinyu, your training commander, and I will be turning you into industrial soldiers."

The commander's gaze swept the crowd.

"Before we begin training in earnest, an announcement. This commander does not force trainees who wish to drop out to stay. Is there anyone who would like to leave right now? If so, raise your hand."

A murmur ran through the crowd. But not a single hand went up. No one was willing to give up the hundred-dollar training stipend.

"Very well. Since some of you may wish to drop out later, let me lay out the rules in advance. There are three ways to leave this training center."

The commander held up one finger.

"One. 'I can't do it, it's too hard, I'm going to die, there's no way.' If that's you, go ring the bell at the far end of the training yard three times. We'll pack your bags and send you out immediately."

His finger pointed toward a rusted bell hanging in the corner of the yard.

"Two. Injury. If you get hurt during training, you can't continue, and we'll discharge you on the spot. So take care of your own body."

A third finger went up.

"Three. Incompetence or poor character. If you fail evaluations or cause trouble with your fellow trainees, you will be expelled without mercy. Is that clear?!"

Cowed by his presence, every man answered at the top of his lungs.

"Yes, sir!"

"Good. From here, you will follow the instructors to your barra... ah, your quarters. Forward, march!"

"Stay in formation!"

"Left! Left! Left!"

And so they filed into the barracks. On each bunk, unfamiliar items had been laid out in neat rows.

Heavy-duty work clothes, bright orange vests, safety helmets, steel-toed boots. Along with a shovel and a pickaxe honed to a wicked edge.

"Wh, what the hell is this...?"

Joseph was fiddling uncertainly with the shaft of his shovel when,

"These are your gear for the next two weeks. You are not to lose or damage any of them. Is that clear?!"

After several more rounds of instructions, the lights in the barracks finally went out.

"Lights out!"

Joseph swallowed hard on his rock-hard mattress. He'd come here thinking a hundred dollars meant easy money, but things were starting to look decidedly otherwise.

'The bell... should I ring it?'

He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. The faces of his hungry children back home had flashed through his mind.

'No. I've got to tough it out. I'll die here if I have to.'

And so, after a night that felt like the calm before the storm, training began in earnest.

"Wake up! Wake up! Everyone to the parade ground!"

There was no gentle ringing of alarm clocks.

The day from hell began with the eardrum-splitting shriek of a whistle.

"Form ranks!"

Six a.m. After a three-kilometer run to pump their lungs full of air, the entire morning was given over to drilling with shovels and pickaxes.

"If you want to stay a man downstairs, don't use your back! You use the spring in your knees!"

"The pickaxe isn't about brute strength!"

Afternoons were a little better. They were taught practical skills they'd actually use in the field, like how to haul bags of cement and how to mix the stuff properly.

"Trainee 103! I told you if you lift it like that you'll wreck your back!"

"You there! Wrong cement ratio! Do it again!"

And once the sun went down, they gathered in the lecture hall for theory classes, drilling safety regulations into their heads.

It wasn't until ten at night that the trainees could finally collapse, utterly spent, onto their bunks.

"Oof. I'm dying."

"I want my mom... boo-hoo."

"I wonder if the kids are okay."

Only one day in, and already the barracks were full of groans and sobs.

But after three days, and then after a full week, not a single one of the 5,000 had gone over and rung that bell.

Because the food was just that good.

"Th, this ain't beef, is it?"

"It is. I had it once at a wedding. That's beef, sure as hell."

"First time I've ever eaten beef in my whole life..."

Thick tortillas bursting with meat and vegetables. A greasy, rich stew slow-simmered with whole beef bones. And, on occasion, hefty sausages on top of all that.

For men who'd spent their whole lives in the mountains scraping by on thin corn gruel and the vegetable scraps left over after market day, it might as well have been a feast fit for a king.

On top of which...

"His Excellency himself is providing this meat! Eat as much as you want! Just don't leave anything on your plate!"

There was plenty of it. One bowl down, then a second, and even when their bellies felt ready to split open, they couldn't stop.

A full belly meant strength. A warm back meant grit. Loyalty to Yu-jin began to sprout from somewhere deep in their stomachs.

"From now on, anyone who talks shit about His Excellency's gonna catch hell from me. I'll brain 'em with this here shovel."

And so, after two weeks, trainees who'd been wasting away from malnutrition had been reborn as industrial soldiers.

"Squad, attention!"

And on the long-awaited day of the graduation ceremony, as the trainees stood in formation, a special guest arrived.

"And now, to introduce a very special visitor who has come to honor our graduates."

A man stepped out from behind the platform. Worn-down dress shoes, a suit that was a bit threadbare but neatly pressed, hair combed back just so. The moment the crowd saw his face, the parade ground erupted in a stir.

"Huh...? Huh?!"

"No way...?"

"Y, Your Excellency?!"

Yu-jin Choi. The most powerful man in San Marcos had come in person to commend the trainees.

When he took his place at center stage, five thousand pairs of eyes locked onto him.

"It's good to see you. Looking at your faces, I can tell just how hard the training commander has been working you. Frankly, don't you think he's overdone it a bit? You all look like you've been wrung dry."

"I, I will correct this at once, sir!!!"

When the training commander thundered out his reply, ripples of snickering broke out among the workers.

"I'm joking. Safety training has lives on the line, so cutting corners isn't an option. I promise you, I will not forget the commander's hard work."

"Thank you, sir!!"

Seeing the tiger of a training commander momentarily flustered warmed up the mood in the yard.

With a small smile, Yu-jin turned his gaze slowly across the ranks, as if meeting the eyes of each worker in turn.

A moment passed. He began to speak, slowly.

"First, let me thank you for your hard work. Spending two full weeks away from your families, working this hard, is no small thing."

His deep voice rolled across the parade ground.

"Soon, with your own hands, you will begin the great undertaking of carving out the main artery of this country. Cleaving forests and tunneling through mountains to lay down roads, it will be the most magnificent and most grueling journey since our founding. And the fruits of that labor, I have no doubt, will be the bedrock on which the San Marcos of tomorrow stands."

Yu-jin drew a breath and went on.

"But there is something more important to me than the highway."

"......"

"Your lives."

The workers' eyes went wide.

"A nation without its people is nothing but a hollow shell. Every one of you is someone's father, someone's son, a pillar holding up this country. Do not get hurt. Come home whole to your families. That is my wish, and it is also an order from the head of state of San Marcos."

Yu-jin gazed into the distance and laid out his vision.

"When the highway is complete, San Marcos will be transformed. The economy will grow, your children will study whatever they wish, will become doctors and scientists, and live better lives. This will become a country where no one ever goes hungry again."

As everyone was choking up, Yu-jin dropped a line that seemed to come out of nowhere.

"Let's all get rich."

He clenched his fist.

"Let's work hard, earn good money, put tasty food on our families' tables, wrap them in warm clothes. I'm only here to set the stage for you to get rich. The ones who have to actually go out and take it are you."

"...!"

That single line set their chests ablaze. Rich. A word they had never, in all their lives, dared to dream, and now, coming from Yu-jin's mouth, it sounded like it might actually come true.

"Sob...!"

Here and there, the sound of weeping rose. Joseph, unable to contain the swell of emotion, wiped away his tears.

'That's right! I won't let my kids live the way I did. I'll become rich, no matter what it takes, and I'll give them a good life!'

The parade ground, in an instant, was awash in tears.

And the people shedding them weren't only down on the parade ground.

"Hrrgh...!"

In one corner of the platform, among the invited guests, Chairman Jung of Hyunhwa was dabbing at the corners of his eyes with a handkerchief.

"Chairman, are you all right?"

His aide asked with a worried look, but Chairman Jung's eyes were fixed on Yu-jin up on the dais.

"It's exactly the same..."

When Chairman Jung, tears and all, broke into a smile, Chairman Yang beside him asked,

"Same as what?"

"Those eyes. Poor, but burning with hope. That fervor of men who would stake their lives on one leader's words... it's exactly like the Gyeongbu Expressway days."

Chairman Jung's eyes blazed the way they had when he was a man in his twenties.

Watching him quietly, Chairman Yang shook his head slowly from side to side.

"Oh, cut the bullshit. Bullshit."