Chapter 84: That Time I Built a Power Company in South America (3)

TL: Skye

Perfect Solar's photovoltaic panels started going up at an insane pace.

At this rate, six months... no, five would be more than enough to fix Libertad's power shortage. That much was obvious.

Which left only one thing.

'You can't run a factory without someone to manage it.'

Namely, finding a person to head the state-owned enterprise that would oversee and operate all of San Marcos's electricity: the San Marcos Electric Power Corporation (SMEPC).

Yu-jin rested his chin on his hand and sank into thought.

'Where and how do I find someone...'

Because it was that important an appointment.

'Picking one of the existing Ministry of Industry bureaucrats is out of the question, obviously.'

Absolutely not.

Why was the power supply such a mess in the first place?

Wasn't it precisely because the people running it up to now had no ability whatsoever?

They were not only ignorant about electricity, they had zero experience with running a business.

Just look at Korea: the whole reason they created a public corporation called KEPCO and listed it on the stock market was to build up that kind of expertise.

'If it runs a deficit, the treasury drains. If the treasury drains, the country collapses... and then my retirement goes up in smoke too.'

Yu-jin's goal was clear.

To make SMEPC not just a power supplier but something run as efficiently as humanly possible, a pillar holding up the entire nation.

And for that, he needed exactly one kind of talent.

An expert who wouldn't tolerate the loss of a single watt, who was obsessed with efficiency to the point of madness, and who would turn a profit.

'But there's no way this barren land has anyone like that.'

And so, clutching at straws, Yu-jin paid a visit to San Marcos National University.

"Welcome, Your Excellency! What brings you all the way out to such a humble place?"

At the president's arrival, William Abeiru, Dean of the San Marcos College of Engineering, who had been waiting, hurried over to greet Yu-jin.

"Come now, Professor. You should be resting. Why did you come all the way out here?"

Yu-jin took the old professor's hand with a genial smile.

"Ha ha, how could I sit still when Your Excellency was coming to visit?"

Greetings exchanged, the two men walked shoulder to shoulder toward the dean's office.

"Y-Your Excellency?!"

"His Excellency looked right at me!"

"Aahh..."

Students who spotted Yu-jin gasped and came swarming.

"Stand back!"

The bodyguards scrambled to hold the students off, but Yu-jin raised a hand and stopped them.

"It's fine. These are the future of our San Marcos, aren't they?"

"B-but..."

"They're not holding guns, they're holding books. What's so frightening that I'd need to keep my distance? If anything, a chance like this is exactly when I should be encouraging them."

When Yu-jin beckoned to the students with a broad smile, the ones who had been hesitating came flooding in like a dam bursting.

"Y-Your Excellency! I respect you so much!"

"Please, just one autograph in my book! I'll pass it down as a family heirloom for generations!"

"M-me, I'd like one on my back!"

One male student held out a thick engineering textbook and a marker with trembling hands. His eyes were already brimming with tears of emotion.

"What's your name?"

"M-Miguel! Civil engineering, third year!"

"It's a great reassurance to know a talent like you, Miguel, is out there studying hard."

Scritch.

Yu-jin handed back the book after scrawling a dashing signature across the cover, and Miguel clutched it to his chest and wept.

"Hnngh... thank you! I'll take this book to my grave, in my coffin!"

"Wait, a minute ago you said you'd pass it down as an heirloom..."

Yu-jin was momentarily thrown, but seeing the boy bawling his eyes out, he held his tongue.

"Your Excellency! M-me too! Just one handshake, please!"

This time a female student thrust out her hand.

When Yu-jin took it, she shrieked and sank to the floor.

"Kyaaah! Oh my god! I can feel His Excellency's body heat!"

The female student, too, spoke through sobs.

"I'm never washing this hand again!"

"No, please, you really should wash your hands..."

And just like that, the hallway transformed into a frenzied fan meeting in a matter of seconds.

In their eyes, Yu-jin wasn't just a president. He was practically a living god, the one who had saved a country that had been a living hell and gifted them the opportunity of an education.

Right on cue, as the hour struck, William soothed the students.

"All right, all right, everyone calm down and get to class. You'll be late. If the chance comes up later, I'll invite His Excellency back again."

Thanks to William, who somehow managed to coax the students away, Yu-jin was finally able to reach the dean's office.

Click.

Only after the door shut did Yu-jin let out a quiet sigh of relief.

'Whew, this isn't easy either.'

Watching him, Dean William poured tea with a contented smile.

"The students seem to hold you in tremendous respect, Your Excellency."

"I've hardly done right by them, and they welcome me like this. It's embarrassing."

"Hardly done right by them? You built them a whole university. And made tuition free on top of that."

Yu-jin let out a small laugh and settled onto the sofa.

Professor William asked him.

"So, I hear you're seeking my counsel?"

"Yes."

"Please, go ahead. If there's anything I can do to help, I'll do whatever it takes."

Yu-jin's expression turned serious.

"A state-owned power company is going to be established before long. And so I was wondering, is there perhaps an expert you'd recommend to serve as its president?"

"How curious. Normally, when you say president of a state-owned enterprise, the first thing that comes to mind is a professional executive."

"It's not that the thought didn't cross my mind, but with no technical foundation to speak of right now, I believe the first president should be an expert rather than a manager."

"In that case, there are a few people who come to mind."

"Among them, what I want is a penny-pincher."

"A... penny-pincher, you say?"

"Yes. Someone obsessed with numbers and efficiency, who treats every last bit of electricity like it's made of gold."

At Yu-jin's odd request, Professor William wore a thoughtful expression for a moment, then, as if something had come to him, slapped his knee.

"...There is one, actually."

"Who is it?"

"A fellow named Cristian Silva."

"Cristian?"

Yu-jin cocked his head.

Cristian was a Portuguese-style name.

If William had gone out of his way to recommend him, then nine times out of ten he'd be a San Marcan immigrant.

"Is he of San Marcan descent, by any chance?"

"He is. My former student, and a first-generation immigrant from San Marcos. He went to the United States as a child and earned a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT."

His credentials were beyond reproach.

And being a first-generation immigrant, he could practically be counted as a citizen, which made it all the better.

"Where is he now?"

"He's working as CTO (Chief Technology Officer) at PG&E in the United States. But..."

Professor William cleared his throat awkwardly.

"His personality is a bit... how should I put it, lacking in social skills? He hasn't got an ounce of flexibility in him, and because he fixates on nothing but efficiency, his reputation within the company is atrocious. From what I've heard, that's made it hard for him to get his contract renewed."

The moment he heard that, a smile spread across Yu-jin's lips.

Because that was exactly the kind of talent he'd been searching for.

"Professor, could I get that student's contact information? I'd like to extend him a proper, respectful invitation."

"Hm? Ah, yes... passing that along is no trouble at all."

Professor William tilted his head.

He couldn't understand why the president himself would want to personally recruit such an oddball, but in any case, he wrote down the contact details and handed them over.

*

A few days later, the reception room of the Presidential Palace.

Early fifties, disheveled hair, thick horn-rimmed glasses. Cristian Silva, the very picture of a nerdy engineer, perched with only the edge of his backside on the sofa, trembling like a leaf in the wind.

Having received an offer from the San Marcos government asking whether he had any interest in becoming the first president of the state-owned power company, Cristian had immediately tendered his resignation at the firm he worked for.

He had no lingering attachment to the company anyway, and he knew perfectly well that he wasn't all that necessary to a corporate giant like PG&E.

And so, chasing a dream, he'd returned to San Marcos, but the moment he stepped off the plane, he regretted it.

Armed soldiers lining the streets. The president's face, calling to mind Mount Rushmore, gazing down over the capital of Libertad from a mountaintop.

Enormous photographs of the president hung everywhere. And tanks and anti-aircraft guns guarding the Presidential Palace on top of it all.

'This is worse than what I'd heard...?'

It was a dictator's world through and through.

'This won't do. I'll turn it down politely and go home.'

Cristian was sitting in a chair outside the president's office, paralyzed with fear, agonizing over how to decline and flee back to America, when it happened.

"Your Excellency, the results of the civil servant competency evaluation are in."

"Oh, is it that time already?"

The door drifted slightly open in a gust of wind, and a voice carried out from within.

Cristian's gaze naturally turned toward the inside, and Yu-jin came into view.

He was scanning a document Isabella had handed him, a subtle look on his face.

"More failing marks than I expected. To think there are still this many people who haven't gotten their act together, well, that's a real disappointment."

"I suspect that, since we raised the difficulty of the exam, we ended up with more failures than anticipated. How would you like to handle it? Shall we send them to the farm, as before?"

"I suppose we'll have to, won't we? We can't let fairness break down. It simply won't do for those who eat off the state's payroll to grow idle."

"Understood. I'll have the transport vehicles prepared at once."

Isabella bowed with impeccable courtesy and left.

It was an everyday conversation in San Marcos, but Cristian felt his heart drop.

'Th-they send you to a collective farm for failing an exam?!'

For a man who'd been living in America, the land of the free, the intensity of that exchange was simply too much.

His face went white as a sheet.

A blood purge that hauled off even incompetent civil servants to a camp without mercy.

In which case, what happened to an ordinary civilian like himself, if he turned down the president's proposal?

'The moment I refuse, I'll be loaded onto a truck headed for the collective farm too...!'

Surely they wouldn't go that far with someone who held U.S. citizenship, he thought, but there was no telling.

Fabricating charges out of thin air and throwing a man in prison was exactly the sort of thing a dictator could do.

Just look at North Korea, hadn't they locked up Americans on espionage charges for years on end?

Cristian's jaw began to tremble.

And at that moment, Yu-jin, having finished reviewing the documents, stepped out through the open door.

He wore a genial smile, as though meeting an old friend.

"My apologies for keeping you waiting. Doctor Cristian, correct?"

"Y-yes, sir! Cristian Silva!"

Cristian reflexively shot to his feet and snapped to attention.

"Come in and make yourself comfortable. Professor William has told me a great deal about you. That when it comes to power efficiency, you're an expert who has no rival."

"Th-that's too kind. I'm just a technician earning his daily bread."

"Humble, too. Isabella, might I trouble you for a cup of coffee?"

Watching Yu-jin smile with such satisfaction, Cristian realized.

'...There's no escaping this.'

That today, he was about to get hired whether he liked it or not.

*****

Read more chapters on my Patreon - https://patreon.com/tlskye

If you enjoy this novel, please review and rate it at Novelupdates. Thanks! 😊

To receive the latest update notifications or report mistakes, join our Discord server linked below.'

.gg/woopread-708613326262894654