Chapter 95: That Time We Entered the World Cup in South America

TL: Skye

Of the highways split into east-west, north-south, and branch lines, the east-west highway was now complete.

A triumph pulled off just two years and six months after breaking ground.

At this rate, the remaining highways were on track to be finished within a year.

Naturally, a celebration was held, and tens of thousands of people flooded in before the massive stage erected at the starting point of the east-west highway.

The laborers who'd worked the construction, residents who'd traveled up from every province, even a delegation of businessmen who'd come over from Korea.

Every last one of them had gathered to mark the highway's completion.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As celebratory cannons boomed and the military band's fanfare rang out, I stepped up onto the stage, and a roar of cheers came pouring down.

"Viva Yu-jin! Viva San Marcos!"

"Waaaaaaaaah!"

I raised both hands to settle the crowd and stepped up to the microphone.

'Whew.'

I took one deep breath and began.

"My dear fellow citizens."

The tens of thousands who'd been buzzing fell silent all at once.

"Today I stand before you with a heart full of pride."

I turned and pointed to the highway stretching endlessly behind me.

"Look at that road."

Tens of thousands of eyes turned toward the asphalt.

The jet-black road ran on past the horizon.

"From the eastern edge of this island nation to its western edge. A road like San Marcos's great artery, a treasure that will breathe new life into this country."

I tightened my grip on the microphone.

"But what I am truly proud of is not this road."

"......"

"What I am proud of is you, the people who built it."

I looked down at the laborers below the stage.

Sun-blackened faces, hands thick with calluses, orange work clothes bleached pale by the sun.

It was because of these people that the San Marcos of today existed.

"Only a few years ago, the world did not know San Marcos. And those who did scoffed at us as just another poor island nation in South America. People said it was impossible for us to lay so much as an asphalt road, never mind a highway."

The sound of sniffling rose from among the laborers.

"But in defiance of that prejudice, you, the people standing here, took up shovels and pickaxes with your own hands and broke open the bare earth. Through heat that climbed past forty degrees, through monsoon rains that rose to your waists, you carved the land and hauled the stone without a single day's rest. And at last..."

My voice swelled with feeling of its own accord.

"We did it. We took on a monumental project against all odds, and against all odds we built our nation's great artery."

"......"

"And that great artery will become the future of San Marcos."

I threw my arms wide.

"Now our goods will run along this road. Our children will travel to school. Our visitors will drink in the beauty of this land. And one day..."

I looked straight at the crowd and declared it.

"At the end of this road, a San Marcos risen to the ranks of the advanced nations will welcome the world!"

"Waaaaaaaaaah!"

The cheers of tens of thousands stabbed at the sky.

"Here, today, I make you a promise. That this road is not an ending but a beginning. We will not stop. Higher, farther, stronger! San Marcos's tomorrow will shine brighter than its today, without fail!"

I raised a clenched fist high.

"Viva San Marcos!"

"Viva San Marcos!"

"Viva Yu-jin!"

"Viva Yu-jin!"

The crowd's roar rode out over the highway and spread on without end.

***

The crowd's roar rode out over the highway and spread on without end.

As Yu-jin came down from the stage and moved through the well-wishers, Isabella, in the shade behind the platform, spotted someone.

SIA Director Lucio stood with his arms folded, watching the crowd's cheering from a distance.

In place of his usual easy smile, his expression was oddly rigid.

Isabella approached quietly.

"Such a good day, and yet you look so grim."

"It's just the sun in my eyes."

Lucio adjusted his sunglasses, but Isabella's eyes weren't so easily fooled.

"Is the Security Bureau weighing on you?"

At the blunt question, Lucio was silent for a moment, then answered in a low voice.

"...Honestly, a little."

The answer was so candid that Isabella flinched in surprise.

"The SIA has always been His Excellency's most loyal blade. Foreign intelligence, domestic security, we shouldered all of it. And now, out of nowhere, the domestic work is carved off and handed to another organization..."

"You feel your turf's been taken from you."

Lucio gave a bitter smile.

"I'd rather not put it in such crude terms... but yes, it feels something close to that."

Isabella nodded and looked out at the highway for a moment.

The crowd's cheers were still echoing.

"Director Lucio."

"Yes."

"The SIA is still the most important intelligence agency in San Marcos, and you are one of the advisers His Excellency trusts most. That won't change if ten Security Bureaus spring up."

"Is that what you came all this way to tell me?"

"No."

Isabella looked Lucio straight in the eye.

"I'll ask you just one thing."

"...?"

"What's troubling you right now, Director, is it that the SIA's role has shrunk? Or that your own influence has?"

Lucio's eyes wavered, ever so slightly.

"Are those two things different?"

"Completely different."

The warmth drained from Isabella's voice.

"One is worry for His Excellency and the nation. The other is greed for yourself."

"......!"

"Ask yourself, just once, whether you've been chasing power rather than loyalty."

With that, Isabella turned and walked away.

The military band's march and the cheering at his back only made Lucio feel more alone.

Lucio stood in place for a long while.

The words she'd left him circled in his head.

Whether he'd been chasing power rather than loyalty.

'Maybe...'

Lucio took off his sunglasses.

The clear sky was blinding.

'Maybe I have been chasing power.'

Out of nowhere, he remembered the first time he'd met His Excellency.

He'd been certain that this man could change the country.

Back then, there had been nothing self-serving in his loyalty.

'Where the hell did it all go wrong?'

Purely and simply, on the strength of a single hope that this country could become something better, he had stood at His Excellency's side.

And now?

The title of SIA Director. The power of a monopoly on information. The standing of being His Excellency's right hand.

At some point, those things had become the goal.

Loyalty had been shoved down into a mere means, and power had taken its place.

'And this is the guy who swore to lay down his life for his country... pathetic, truly pathetic.'

If he'd realized it, then it wasn't too late yet.

Lucio clenched his fist.

The birth of the Security Bureau didn't diminish the SIA's worth.

If anything, having set down the burden of homeland security, the SIA could now focus even harder on foreign intelligence.

Perhaps His Excellency had created the Security Bureau not to keep the SIA in check, but to sharpen it into something keener.

'...That could well be it.'

Lucio let out a short laugh.

Isabella, of course.

The regime's number two, the only adviser who fully grasped His Excellency's intentions.

And the fact that she'd gone out of her way to come and say all this meant she needed Lucio's help.

"......"

Lucio put his sunglasses back on and started walking.

Toward where His Excellency was.

***

With the ceremony behind him, Yu-jin returned to the Presidential Palace and sat down across from Isabella in his office.

There was a mountain of work to get through today, as always.

"Now that the highway's finished, I think it's time we build out the logistics infrastructure in earnest. A road's useless if there aren't any trucks to run on it."

Yu-jin flipped open his notepad.

"Tortilla Transport. How does that sound?"

"...It seems anything with 'Tortilla' slapped on the front of it turns into a business."

Yu-jin let out a goofy little laugh and got down to business.

"First off, we need heavy trucks. To handle the freight volume on the east-west highway and the north-south line, we'll need at least five hundred heavy cargo trucks."

"Five hundred trucks, that's a considerable sum."

"Figure a hundred thousand dollars a unit, that's fifty million. Add maintenance facilities and logistics hubs, say three of them, in Libertad, the eastern port, and the northern mining region..."

Yu-jin tapped away at a calculator.

"Initial investment comes out to roughly a hundred million dollars."

"And how do you rate the profitability?"

"Freight volume is going to explode from here. Up to now, thanks to the dirt roads, a single truck took two days to get from Libertad to the north. Take the highway and it's six hours."

"Logistics costs would drop dramatically."

"Exactly. But we could run a deficit early on. If we put the trucks on the road before demand's had time to grow, the empty-haul rate will be high. So in the early phase we lock up the baseline volume by handing the operation an exclusive on state logistics and freight for the Tortilla subsidiaries, then we pull in private cargo by keeping our fees low, that's the strategy..."

Yu-jin was carrying on with his explanation when he suddenly stopped.

"...Hold on."

He set down his pen.

"Wait a second."

"What is it?"

"No, it's just, it suddenly hit me, what am I even doing right now?"

"...I'm sorry?"

Yu-jin propped his chin on his hand.

"Think about it. Tortilla Farm, Tortilla Seafood, Tortilla Energy, Tortilla Bank, Tortilla Engineering. Add Tortilla Transport on top of that and that's already six businesses, isn't it?"

"It is."

"I'm not sure it makes sense for me to be sweating every little detail of all these while also running the country."

Yu-jin closed the notepad as he spoke.

"What if I appointed a chief executive to run the whole Tortilla Company? If I had a management professional who could take my direction and handle the rest on their own, I wouldn't have to grind away like this myself."

I just want to be Pororo, is what I'm saying. [TL: Pororo is a beloved Korean cartoon penguin whose catchphrase is "playing is the best". Yu-jin means he'd rather kick back and let someone else do the work.]

"Absolutely not."

But Isabella's answer was immediate.

"What? Why not?"

"The Tortilla Company isn't just a corporation. In practical terms, it's the organization that manages the national wealth of San Marcos. The captain of that ship can only ever be you, Your Excellency."

"Come on, but do I really have to personally handle every little thing, how many trucks to buy, where to put the logistics hubs..."

"You have to handle every little thing. We can hardly hand the nation's wealth over to some undeserving nobody, can we?"

When Isabella said it so firmly, Yu-jin nodded.

"Haaah... fine. I'll just do it myself."

"A wise decision, Your Excellency."

Isabella smiled.

"In that case, let's proceed with the truck purchase first."

It was just as Yu-jin, resignation written across his face, picked his pen back up.

Knock, knock.

"Come in."

Anna, the Protocol Secretary, opened the door respectfully and stepped in.

"Your Excellency, a document has arrived."

"Where's it from?"

"It's from FIFA."

Yu-jin took the document with a puzzled look.

A crisp, cream-colored envelope, stamped with the FIFA logo.

Yu-jin tore it open, took in the contents, and his eyes went wide.

[Invitation to Participate in the FIFA World Cup Regional Qualifiers]

[To: The Football Association of the Republic of San Marcos

This is to notify you that the Republic of San Marcos, in its capacity as a FIFA member nation, is eligible to participate in the North and Central American regional qualifiers for the next World Cup.]

*****

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