Today, you see, I’m going to apologize.
More precisely, I’m going to summon someone and apologize to him.
I summon someone and apologize to them pretty much every day.
Company president, king—whatever you want to call it, once you become the person at the very top, you can usually avoid most of the things you don’t want to do.
If the company isn’t publicly traded, there’s almost no one who can actually scold you, either. You get plenty of nagging and a-d-v-i-c-e, sure. But no real reprimands.
Things would be different if the company were listed, but ours was just a little family landscaping business that happened to grow big. It might have looked like a proper corporation from the outside, but on the inside, it was still basically a tiny family-run operation.
So I hardly ever had to bow my head and apologize myself…
…Yeah, right!
I apologized to someone every single day.
Whenever the older guys working under me got into an argument, I’d apologize to one side, then apologize to the other, back and forth.
Though “apologize” might not be quite the right word.
It was closer to persuading them.
Please calm down. Everyone, please calm down.
That sort of thing.
And even after coming all the way to another world—to Santeneri—I’m still performing daily rites to pacify restless spirits.
Did you know there are all kinds of ways to apologize?
It depends on the person.
Some people open up when you admit fault. They decide on their own that you must be “a broad-minded person.”
Others look down on you and think, This guy’s easy to push around.
Toward the end of his life, my father summoned me to his hospital room almost every day and put me through what amounted to a crash course in becoming a business owner.
One thing he told me often was:
“An apology is a double-edged sword.”
Okay.
After those ten years in hell, I learned that lesson firsthand.
Mostly by cutting myself with the sword.
And my conclusion?
I don’t worry about it anymore.
Because it’s impossible, right?
You can’t instantly read the personality of someone you barely know and completely change your approach to match them.
So what do you do?
I came up with two standards.
That’s it.
Either way, I apologize.
The difference is how much of myself I put into it.
From the outside, I probably behave about the same in both cases.
But they’re different.
With number one, my body, mind, and spirit are all bowing their heads.
With number two, only my body is.
Saying it like that makes me sound cooler than I am, so let me clarify: sometimes a number-one apology doesn’t get through at all, while a number-two apology can hit someone incredibly hard.
In other words, trying to manipulate people by calculating exactly how they’ll react is beyond me.
Really incredible politicians can do that sort of thing.
Those people are monsters.
They’re the champions of the national interpersonal-skills tournament.
Me?
Impossible.
Forget nationals. I’d get knocked out in the second round of the prefectural qualifiers.
Now then.
What exactly am I apologizing for?
In other words, which category is this?
Unfortunately, both.
I’m apologizing for things I did in the past.
Normally, that would obviously be number one.
But as far as I’m concerned, anything from more than two months ago isn’t my responsibility.
That was the original owner of this body.
Young Grois.
It’s like a brand-new employee screws something up and you have to go apologize as his manager.
And then you start thinking:
This is my responsibility. My guidance must have been inadequate…
You should stop doing that.
It’s fine to think it a little.
But if you start genuinely believing it, you’ll make yourself sick.
And our rookie Grois from the past?
He screwed up a lot.
I suppose it’s fortunate that most of the damage stayed inside the company—or rather, inside the country—but the senior staff are glaring at him pretty hard.
And since this rookie happened to have enormous authority, there was actual damage too.
I was genuinely shocked once I figured out what had happened.
He had abruptly kicked out the Steward—the equivalent of the prime minister, the man at the top of the country’s administration.
That is insane.
I went into full number-one mode when I apologized to Marquis Froisbourg.
He seems to trust me to some extent now, but I’d say he’s still about forty percent suspicious of me.
Probably.
Anyway, today’s guest is the Lord of the Navy.
◆
“Your Majesty! Are you saying that everything you confided in me was a lie?!”
Not exactly a lie.
It’s more like a second-year employee puts together an estimate that anyone can see is completely impossible, takes it to the client, and the client is thrilled enough to sign the contract.
Except then our company can’t actually deliver.
You do occasionally get rookies who do things so unbelievable you can barely comprehend them.
We never assigned major accounts like local government organizations to young employees, so when that happened at our company, it was usually with private homeowners.
But you see, ours was B-to-C.
And a local community business at that.
Word of mouth mattered.
I never had to go personally, but department managers would sometimes show up with a box of sweets and apologize.
Depending on the case, we might even accept a huge loss and honor the deal anyway.
Case by case.
The estimate rookie Grois presented this time was:
“Rebuild the navy and make another attempt at acquiring new territories.”
Maybe he even made a PowerPoint presentation.
And in reality, neither one is feasible.
Territories acquired on the New Continent don’t generate value.
Unless we discover something that produces wealth directly, like a gold vein, they’re still not worth it.
Use them as somewhere to send our growing population?
Too expensive.
And they’re so far away we can’t properly control them.
Also, they create potential causes for war with all kinds of other countries.
That’s troublesome too.
Everybody loves the idea of opening up brand-new territory, don’t they?
Unfortunately, we need to cut our losses.
Next, the navy.
That one’s difficult too.
Military expansion can stimulate the economy.
It creates jobs.
But the fundamental problem is that we don’t have the money to pay for it.
It’s not like modern Japan, where you can just run the printing presses.
Even if you print banknotes here, you need something backing them.
And everything that could serve as collateral has already been pledged as collateral.
So all I can do is apologize to the Lord of the Navy, with whom rookie Grois apparently spent a great deal of time passionately discussing the future.
“I would not say it was a lie. My belief that our country will decline if matters continue as they are has not changed.”
“Then why?! It is true that our navy has fallen behind Angran. I will not deny it. But if all of Santeneri commits itself to construction, there is still time!”
Angran.
An island country in the western sea beyond Santeneri.
It’s cramped over there, you know.
They basically have no choice but to expand outward.
“Stagnation is death. Your Majesty, what is it that you fear? Did you not say that you would carry on the achievements of the Great King? Fear is unnecessary if you are to accomplish that. What is required is resolve!”
My ancestor Grois VII is known as the Great King.
And apparently I used to worship the Great King with considerable enthusiasm.
Was it one of those things where you read the autobiography of some famous tech CEO and get all fired up?
“My lord, you understand the situation as well as I do. Unfortunately, our country has no money.”
“What does money matter? Yes, it will cost us. But if we can raise the serpent crest of Santeneri in every corner of the New Continent, we will surely recover our investment. No success is possible without risk!”
The serpent crest.
The one on my scarf.
The emblem of the Royal House of Leroy, with that weirdly realistic-looking snake.
What the Lord of the Navy is saying is correct.
There is no success without risk.
Another classic.
But you know, companies don’t actually make true do-or-die bets with their entire future on the line very often.
Business-owner autobiographies with a self-help flavor love presenting those moments dramatically, but what was the reality?
Most of them probably embellish the story.
Even when they took a risk, I’d bet they kept enough margin that they could still barely remain standing if it failed.
Sure, maybe there are cases where someone bet absolutely everything and won big.
But if you ask me whether that was really the executive’s skill…
I’m not so sure.
Sounds like luck.
“The Comptroller has led you astray, Your Majesty! Or perhaps it was the Steward!”
“Yes. The Steward and the Comptroller both led me astray. If being made to understand reality counts as being ‘led astray,’ then I suppose I was.”
I let a little extra force enter my voice.
A tiny bit of snapping back.
Not a method I particularly like, but it can work during internal disputes.
The other person has pride.
So do I.
It works on people who care deeply about saving face.
It does nothing to people who couldn’t care less.
“Exactly! Your Majesty, you have been led astray! You speak of reality, but Angran continues to intrude freely upon our seas. That too is reality!”
Ah.
Didn’t work.
Nothing to be done, then.
“What you say is also perfectly reasonable. I have no desire to see Angran’s flag in our western sea either. But we are in no position to build a great fleet capable of driving Angran out.”
Trying to appeal to his emotions from here probably wouldn’t accomplish much.
Apologizing for my own lack of virtue probably wouldn’t work either.
If he doesn’t place much value on saving face, then he probably doesn’t place much value on seeing me bow my head.
“On another subject, my lord. We currently have no Lord of the Army. His death was rather sudden.”
“Yes, indeed. —Your Majesty, surely you are not considering reducing the army?!”
Santeneri is a land-power nation.
Its army is said to be the largest on the continent.
In military strength, budget, and prestige alike, the newly established navy cannot begin to compare.
And this Lord of the Navy has a particular tendency to treat the army as his “hypothetical enemy.”
You know how separate business divisions sometimes hate each other?
If one gets smaller, the other gets bigger.
There’s only so much pie to go around.
Can’t be helped.
“No. The army is one of Santeneri’s pillars. If it breaks, the country itself may immediately fall. What I mean is simply this: the position of Lord of the Army is currently va-cant.”
The Lord of the Navy fell silent.
He had probably figured out roughly what I was getting at.
“I hold your loyalty to this country in the highest regard. Could your abilities perhaps be put to use on land? No—I am well aware of the passion you devote to the navy. I know that. But it seems far too wasteful to leave your talents where they are.”
It’s personnel-management time.
More precisely, it’s time to muddy the waters with personnel management.
Lord of the Army is plainly a more prestigious position than his current post.
And apparently becoming Marshal of the Kingdom of Santeneri is considered the greatest honor any military officer on the entire Central Continent could dream of.
Normally, the deputy Lord of the Army—the number two—would simply be promoted after the previous lord’s recent death.
Instead, we’re going to throw this guy in from the navy.
If he is genuinely a capable man focused on efficiency, he’ll make it work.
If he isn’t, he probably won’t last a year.
Because the organization simply won’t move for him.
If it’s the former, he stays.
If it’s the latter, he’ll take responsibility.
Quietly.
Either way, if he accepts this proposal, that means he’s a pragmatic man capable of compromise, so we can work with him.
If he refuses, then he’s an uncompromising idealist, meaning nothing I say will get through.
If there is some department where that kind of uncompromising drive is useful, we can put him there.
If not, we’ll have to cut him loose.
“Your Majesty… might I have some time to consider this?”
“Of course. When I think about it, this situation was brought about by my own lack of foresight. I have caused you considerable distress. I am sorry.”
I bowed my head.
That one was sincere.
“Your words are more than I deserve. Then I would like to consider carefully what I can do for the Kingdom of Santeneri.”
“Yes. Thank you. You may go.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
And that was that.
I’ve told the whole story as though I came up with any of this myself, but the Steward and I worked out the script beforehand.
More accurately, he came up with almost all of it.
I did nothing.
Because I’m an incompetent king.