My Farm!
I sat in the passenger seat with a glum look on my face. I'd gone and insisted on going alone, and I hadn't even come out ahead. I stole a glance at Maru. Today was her day off—was she out here working overtime because of me?
Back when I was a man, I'd worked a part-time shift at a convenience store. If the next person still hadn't shown up long after the handoff, I used to get furious. I wondered if this was that same feeling.
"Hana. Why did you go out alone without telling the staff?"
Maru asked, and I flinched. I felt exactly like a criminal sitting in an interrogation room. Was this how it felt after you'd committed a crime? Not that I had, of course.
"I thought I'd be a bother, so I came out by myself..."
Hearing that, Maru put on a stern face.
"You can just tell us, you know! If there's anything you want, say so whenever you like. That's the whole reason we come in on weekends and work at the office."
"Really?"
"Mm-hmm."
I'd have to be more careful from now on. We talked as we went, and before long we arrived at the research institute building. It had been a while. I hadn't even been away a full month, but missing a place was still missing it.
Maru's car cleared security and glided smoothly toward the parking lot. She'd originally been hired at the research institute—had she transferred to Starlight Food since then? I didn't know the details, but I'd always thought of her as institute staff.
After all, I was the one who'd picked her. Looking at things now, hadn't every office employee from the Starlight Research Institute moved into the Starlight Food building? They never explained the particulars to me. I'd have to ask later.
"Hana, what brings you to the institute?"
Maru asked as she got out of the car. Come to think of it, I still hadn't told her.
"I came to check on the crops I grew!"
"Oh? Is that right?"
"Can't you come with me, Maru?"
There was no reason she had to. Just seeing me this far was already something to be grateful for, and another employee would take me the rest of the way anyway—she was already pulling out her phone to call someone.
I was being greedy, too. Honestly, I wanted to play with people I was close to. Getting along with staff I barely knew was a little hard. Whether she caught my hesitant look or something else had shifted in her, Maru smiled faintly and slipped the phone back into her pocket.
"Want to hang out together today? I didn't have anything else to do anyway!"
"Yay!"
I ran circles around her to let the joy out. Playing together really was so much better than playing alone, and Maru watched me with a fond, satisfied look.
"Ooh!"
I climbed up high and took in the greenhouses. Nothing had changed. Of course it hadn't. Tearing down farmland I'd made would be absurd, and if even a little of it had been damaged, someone would have had to weather my fury.
I'd tended every bit of it with my own hands, so the place was thick with affection. Maru stood behind me, looking out over the fields as well.
"It doesn't seem that big... or is it big, for your size?"
She was right. It wasn't all that wide. The farmland itself was large, but most of the ground was still lying idle. That was only natural. This was farming as a hobby, and I had no reason to work every plot and raise crops the way other people did.
I stepped into a greenhouse. The temperature was regulated automatically, and the air inside was cool. Coming in long sleeves and long pants despite the heat had been worth it. Weather like this called for a T-shirt and shorts, but say you were going to farm dressed that way and people would snort at you.
Long pants and long sleeves were essential in the fields. They kept you from getting scraped, and when the sun was this fierce, wearing them was a must. Even so, I felt something uneasy at my back. Maru was standing behind me, and her voice came out chilling.
"Hana, now that I think of it—did you put on sunscreen?"
"Eh..."
Of course I hadn't. Cosmetics were a luxury. I used lotion and nothing else; I didn't so much as touch the rest, because the feeling of putting them on was strange. The moment she heard my voice, Maru produced a tube of sunscreen from somewhere. I ran.
"Waaah!"
But there was no escaping those long legs. She caught me and slathered the sunscreen on with ruthless thoroughness.
"Mooooo!"
Cows dotted the pasture. Cattle gathered from all over the country had been turned out onto the ranch. Three or four ranches had already been built, but with more animals still on the way, it seemed they might need to add still more.
They were raised on open range, but Korea's weather meant they would also have to be kept in barns through the winter. They couldn't be allowed to freeze to death in the cold.
The plan was to see to the cows' comfort as far as possible. Animals that grew up free ought to taste better than ones packed into a shed.
Kim Sehee watched the employees feed them. A worker walked along with an armful of rice straw, and the cows trailed after him in a line, for all the world like the Pied Piper and his following. They were clearly far more obsessed with the straw than with ordinary feed. They didn't much care for straw that wasn't made from Starlight rice, but that hardly mattered now.
The cattle seemed to know perfectly well that Starlight straw was good for their bodies. It tasted plenty good, too. Even now they wore blissful expressions as they ate what the workers portioned out.
Cows raised on that straw developed a strong resistance to disease, and their bodies shot up in size as well. Animals that normally needed a full year of feeding to reach maturity finished the process in less time once the straw was in their diet.
"Mooooo!"
Bellies full, they lay down in likely spots and chewed their cud. They'd be at it for a good while.
Kim Sehee took in the scene with quiet satisfaction. So long as she held a cheat key named Hana, growing the business and succeeding at it was as easy as swimming with one hand on the riverbed. Failing while you held a cheat like that would be the difficult part.
"Ma'am, someone from the government is here."
Her secretary spoke. So they've come, Kim Sehee thought. Expand the beef business this indiscriminately, and there was no way the government wouldn't take a swing at it. Until now her foods had barely disturbed the market. Beef was a different story.
She looked around the ranch a little longer, then returned to the office. The one left to fret would be the other side. From where she stood, she had nothing to shrink from. She hadn't broken the law, and there was nothing wrong to begin with.
Do business long enough, and you collided with the government often. Even a chaebol ran into plenty of clashes with the state. The conglomerates didn't find the government awkward for nothing. An administration that had only just taken office held tremendous power. People didn't call it a honeymoon government for no reason.
Even Starlight Group, the nation's foremost conglomerate, had to watch its step. Displease them, and a staring contest with the government could end in a summons to a hearing.
Kim Sehee stepped into the office. An uninvited guest sat on the sofa. She took the seat across from the middle-aged man.
She had never had much to do with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. At most she had been running a single factory, and a low-ranking civil servant had been more than enough. That was no longer the case. The wider her business spread, the higher the stakes of every interest involved climbed.
A senior official in a crisp suit offered her a greeting. He introduced himself as a director in the Livestock Policy Bureau of the Ministry—a civil servant of some standing. Kim Sehee answered with equal courtesy.
"Hello. I'm Kim Sehee, president of Starlight Food."
Once the greetings were finished, the director regarded her carefully as he spoke. To look at her, she seemed young enough to be his daughter.
"I understand Starlight Food has been buying cattle on every front. How many head are you intending to build up to?"
In her head she wanted to say unlimited, but that was impossible in practice. You couldn't raise that many cattle on the land of the Republic of Korea.
"We're planning to raise at least five hundred thousand head."
The world went dark before the director's eyes.