TL: Skye
"This is truly... beyond anything I imagined!"
I was going about my usual work when Isabella burst in, barely containing her excitement.
And honestly, her reaction was completely justified.
"In just one month, Tortilha Seafood's revenue has already exceeded 4 million dollars! Net profit alone is a whopping 3 million."
Tortilha Seafood's sales figures were absolutely insane.
How did we hit 4 million in monthly revenue?
Simple. We caught a lot of fish.
Tortilha Seafood's fleet was hauling in an average of 75 tons of skate per day.
After sorting out the ones fit for sale, about 45 tons remained.
Working 24 days a month meant total sellable skate came to 1,080 tons, or 1,080,000 kilograms.
With skate prices averaging just over 5 dollars per kilogram, we'd slashed our price to 3.3 dollars per kilogram to rapidly capture market share. That brought in roughly 3.5 million dollars from skate alone. Add another 500,000 dollars from reprocessing the unsellable skate into fertilizer and animal feed for export, and we hit the 4 million dollar mark.
Of course, where there's revenue, there are expenses.
But Tortilha Seafood's costs were unbelievably low.
'Starting with the labor costs, which were insane.'
Even paying double Libertad's average wage, the per-person monthly salary was only 400 dollars, putting total labor costs at a mere 60,000 dollars.
Subtract 470,000 dollars for fuel to operate the ships plus miscellaneous expenses, and net profit came to roughly 3 million dollars.
Three million dollars in monthly net profit. About 4.5 billion won in Korean currency.
Considering only 20 million dollars in capital had gone in, this was an unbelievable output. But it was too early to celebrate.
"We shouldn't let our guard down yet. Once you factor in rising labor costs, we won't be able to maintain margins like this. Besides, exports to Korea will drop sharply for a while."
We'd already sold more than half of Korea's annual import volume by undercutting on price. There was no way orders would keep coming in at this pace.
Isabella seemed to have anticipated this and nodded.
"CEO Carlos has already begun transitioning our target catch to Humboldt squid, which has higher demand."
"...Already?"
"Yes. We received a direct request from the Korean side, so distribution channels are already secured."
"Hmm, that's better than I expected. He seems quite motivated too."
We'd definitely made a good hire. He had charisma, and the crew and employees seemed to follow him well.
"How did you even recruit someone like Carlos? I heard he's quite well-off."
"I went to him directly while he was enjoying retirement and persuaded him."
"What did you say to persuade him?"
"I asked him to use his abilities and experience for the good of the nation."
"And he just agreed?"
"He refused at first. Said he'd worked abroad for twenty years and wanted to spend his remaining days in peace."
"Oh? So then what?"
"I did my best to persuade him."
"...That's it?"
"Yes."
"......"
"Don't worry. Nothing illegal occurred during the persuasion process."
"R-right."
Whatever the process, Carlos himself seemed to find the work rewarding, so I suppose it worked out.
Anyway, the bottom line was this:
"Looks like there's nothing more for us to worry about."
Tortilha Corporation's first subsidiary had successfully established itself.
"I was worried it might not take off properly. This is a relief."
"It's good news. We didn't have any time to spare anyway."
Neither I nor Isabella, nor even the SIA agents who'd helped, had a moment to breathe.
Isabella in particular had taken on both the Chief of Staff and SIA Director positions, shouldering a nearly murderous workload.
Despite all that, she'd worked day and night to make Seafood succeed. Of course she was exhausted.
'The Korean exports were also the result of Isabella and the SIA agents' hard work'.
A good boss should be mindful of their subordinates' fatigue.
"Hey... Isabella, you must be really tired."
"I can manage."
"Manage, my foot. Your dark circles have reached your cheekbones."
"What? I-I thought I'd covered them up...?!"
"Goodness, looking up close, your lovely skin has gone all dry too. If you're struggling, tell me anytime. I can give you two or three days off, even if not longer."
My heartfelt concern seemed to catch her off guard, because Isabella looked genuinely flustered.
'So sweet.'
***
It had already been nearly two months since I became Acting President.
While dealing with various issues and doing my best to keep the government running smoothly, something I'd forgotten suddenly came to mind.
"Hey, Isabella?"
"Yes, the Isabella with dark circles down to her cheekbones and dry, flaky skin is right here."
"Come on, how long are you going to hold onto that? You haven't even been making me coffee lately..."
"I feel like I won't be able to forget it even when my hair turns white with age."
"......"
"So, why did you call me?"
"Oh, it's nothing major. I was just wondering if we shouldn't be holding an election."
"An election? Out of nowhere?"
"It's not out of nowhere. The constitution states that when the president is incapacitated, the acting president serves as head of the executive branch for sixty days, after which an election must be held to choose a new president."
"Hmm."
Isabella nodded and replied.
"I forgot to mention it. That provision was amended last week."
"What?"
"To be precise, we removed the sixty-day limit and replaced it with 'until national stability is restored', eliminating the time constraint entirely."
"Who... amended it?"
"I led the revision."
"No."
You can't just amend the constitution like that.
"Don't worry. I didn't do it alone. It was done after consultation with cabinet members. We even used the Vice Minister of Justice's seal, so if any problems arise, we can pin it on them."
"......"
"Oh, and we're currently discussing legislation to elevate you from Acting President to President without an election, citing the national emergency. The Ministry of Justice will oversee that as well. It'll take some time to pass, but I wanted to mention it in case you forgot."
Never mind. Forget I said anything.
"Fine. Setting that aside... how's the investigation into who was behind the terror attack going?"
"We've confirmed that Anna Mitchell, Javier's younger sister, has disappeared. Circumstantially, it appears to be a kidnapping."
"Hmm... So Javier was being blackmailed into doing it?"
"That seems the most likely scenario."
"Then our priority should be finding whoever took Anna. You're tracking them?"
"We are, but it may take some time."
"Why?"
"We confirmed a report that a fishing boat went missing from Port Cordos the day before the attack. It seems they left San Marcos by sea..."
"Hmm, that would make them difficult to find."
Due to the former director and deputy director's embezzlement, SIA had lost all its HUMINT assets abroad.
And it wasn't as if they could fall back on SIGINT like hacking or wiretapping either.
'All our equipment is junk from the nineties.'
We were recovering the stolen funds and filling in the gaps, but surveilling foreign territory would take more time.
"I'm sorry. This is all due to my inadequacy."
"How is any of this your fault? The previous people ran it into the ground. We have time, so let's take it slow."
"Yes."
I consoled her as she looked dejected.
"On that note, are you free this evening? There's a new steakhouse that opened nearby. Want to go together?"
"I'm sorry, but I've fallen too far behind on work to spare time for personal matters."
"Oh, now that I think about it, I have something this evening too. Let's do dinner another time. Hahaha."
Phew, almost made a fool of myself there.
***
Time passed quickly.
New cranes were installed at the Port of Libertad, which had been an immediate problem, and the damaged patrol ship needed for Tortilha Seafood's fishing operations was sent to a Peruvian shipyard for repairs.
Then urgent matters piled up one after another. The incompetent bureaucrats still made me feel like I'd swallowed a dry sweet potato whole, but it wasn't as agonizing as before.
They say people need hope to live.
"The urgent priority is agriculture. We need to convert the large-scale coffee plantations to produce corn and wheat."
"I agree. However, if we push the policy too aggressively, there could be side effects. I think we should prepare step by step."
"We also need to focus on Tortilha. We can only see this plan through to the end if we're generating capital along the way."
"In that light, how about making the second business venture something in secondary industry?"
"To do that, we'd need to improve the roads first..."
"Roads are one thing, but to overhaul infrastructure, we need to address the power supply first..."
Isabella and I were pulling all-nighters, drafting a five-year reform plan for San Marcos.
When the national treasury was empty, we couldn't even think about planning. We were too busy putting out immediate fires. But not anymore.
With substantial funding behind us, as we built our plans one by one, I could see hope.
'If I just work like this for fifteen years, I might actually be able to retire...!'
Of course, we'd only taken the first step.
We were maintaining public order by stationing troops everywhere, and frontline generals still refused to follow central command, making civil war a real possibility at any moment. And the rank-and-file civil servants and senior officials were still corrupt and incompetent.
But having hope that I could one day escape San Marcos versus having none was a world of difference.
The difference between an endless life sentence and a finite prison term was clear.
It was while I was working with that hope in my heart.
"What?"
I received a report I never anticipated.
"Three Tortilha Seafood employees were shot... and killed?"