thenovelthief Chapter 154
Chapter 154
Translator: Dreamscribe“What is this? What’s going on? The Suez Canal is blocked again?!”
Kim Doo-young was rushing to the office, shocked by the news that hit him like a bolt from the blue.
“A Singapore-flagged oil tanker ran aground while passing through the canal due to a rudder malfunction.”
“What the hell. If it’s going to malfunction, it should do so in the middle of the sea. Why the hell does it have to go crazy in the canal again?”
It felt like the nightmare of the Evermore incident was resurfacing.
Back then, Evermore had blocked the Suez Canal, causing an unprecedented situation where all ships were stuck.
“Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like it will block the passage for more than ten days like with Evermore. After getting burned last time, the Egyptian government had prepared for such an incident, so they’re currently trying to pull the grounded vessel out using five ships.”
“Then when will the canal reopen?”
“They say it can be resolved within six hours.”
Kim Doo-young let out a sigh of relief.
“Yesterday already made my heart race, and now we’re starting Monday with this mess.”
“Yesterday? Did something happen?”
“That’s… ahem. Something like that happened.”
He hadn’t even slept properly, as the words Vice President Kang Ji-hwan said yesterday kept echoing in his head.
“Anyway, this will be resolved quickly, right?”
“Yes. The sailing time has gotten a bit longer, but it’s not enough to cause any disruption. The real problem is on the port side.”
“Ports?”
“Yes. The port strike that started in the United States last time is turning out to be more serious than expected. Not only American ports, but the wave of strikes is spreading to Asia and Europe as well.”
Kim Doo-young furrowed his brows.
Suddenly, strikes were sweeping through ports everywhere.
To be honest, it was understandable.
At the beginning of COVID, shipping work dropped, so ports that received and transported goods had no work either.
But after that, the volume of shipping exploded, and port workloads piled up tremendously.
“With all that grueling labor, the port unions finally snapped. There’s way more work than before, but they’re still getting paid the same.”
“Well, I can’t say I don’t understand... but still, a complete halt seems too much, doesn’t it?”
If the ports stopped work, the shipping side couldn’t do anything.
They couldn’t unload the goods, and all they could do was wait around until the strike ended.
That meant they couldn’t move to another location either, resulting in a complete deadlock.
“For now, only a few places have gone on strike, but judging by the trend, it looks like nearly every location will follow suit soon.”
“That’s serious. Is there anything we can do here?”
“This didn’t happen in shipping, it’s a problem in the ports. So to resolve it, the relevant governments and the companies holding the port operation rights need to take action.”
That was the frustrating part.
If it had happened within the shipping domain, they could’ve tried to contain it quickly, but since it was a port strike, there wasn’t much Kim Doo-young could do.
“For now, keep a close watch on the ports where we hold operating rights so they don’t get caught up in this wave.”
“Shall we raise wages?”
“Wages are set according to the respective countries. Just give a bit more than usual. Right now, we’re in the middle of a semiconductor cycle, so we need to move parts quickly.”
Semiconductors are usually transported by air.
But the parts used to manufacture semiconductors are shipped in bulk by sea.
If maritime shipping is delayed, semiconductor production is delayed too, and that sets fire to the feet of companies that rely on semiconductors.
“We can’t afford delays with semiconductor parts. No matter what, they must arrive on time. Dispatch staff if necessary, just make sure our goods get through properly.”
“Yes. We’ll make sure the semiconductor side is handled. But sir, the real problem isn’t the semiconductors.”
“Hm? Then what is it?”
“Pirates are stirring up again. Recently, there were even some pirates who approached targeting our ships.”
“Really? How many have been hit?”
“Just this week, five ships have already been attacked. Three of them were ours.”
These days, pirates are cunning.
In the past, pirates used to take over entire ships and demand ransom, but ever since countries began conducting regular joint maritime drills, any pirates attempting to hijack vessels were being shot dead without exception.
“So now, rather than hijacking the ships, the pirates just loot the cargo on board and flee. If they try to hijack a vessel, special forces will be deployed in large numbers and wipe them out.”
In the past, there was a cautious approach to avoid killing hostages, but now the priority had shifted to eliminating the pirates, even at the risk of hostages.
The strategy was to instill fear, that pirates would be shot dead regardless of whether there were hostages, so that they would change their attitude.
And that strategy worked well.
The problem was that although pirates no longer hijacked ships, they frequently looted and escaped without getting caught.
“We’re going to have to hire escort ships.”
“Yes. It’ll cost a lot, but at this rate, we’ll get completely ransacked by the pirates.”
“Whew. Now it’s even come to goddamn pirates... What’s the condition of the ships that were attacked?”
“They say the pirates fired heavily as they approached, so there are holes all over the ships. For now, they’ve had to move to the nearest port for safety inspections.”
“Damn bastards. Not even killing them would be enough. Contact the government of that region and ask them to go after those pirate bastards. And drastically increase the number of escort ships. Just spread them all over our routes. So the pirates won’t even dare come close.”
“Yes. But the serious part this time is that the ships that were attacked happened to be the ones carrying cargo requested by Bluezone.”
At the mention of Bluezone, his already frowning face twisted even further.
“Bluezone? Wait. That large order we signed the other day?”
“Yes. Hundreds of millions of items are now at risk of being stuck at sea.”
Bluezone was a giant corporation with a market cap reaching a trillion dollars. (TL: Amazon)
In the U.S., it had launched Bluezone Prime to provide ultra-fast delivery and had achieved massive success as an online store.
And now, they were gathering various goods from Europe and Asia to hold a large-scale discount event.
“What happens if we can’t deliver on time?”
“We’ll have to pay a penalty. The goods were supposed to arrive in time for the sale, but now that’s not going to happen.”
“Any solutions?”
“None. We just have to wait.”
“This is driving me crazy.”
Kim Doo-young scratched his head furiously.
If it weren’t for those damned pirates, the goods would have arrived without a problem.
“At this rate...”
Semiconductors were already in a precarious state, and now even the major contract with Bluezone was about to fall apart. That meant this would be reported to the higher-ups.
And when it came to “higher-ups” in Kwangwoon, who else could it be?
It was Kwangwoon Securities.
“.......”
Already, Jung Jin-ho’s kind face was forming in his mind.
He would surely say it couldn’t be helped, that such things happen.
But if what Vice President Kang Ji-hwan said yesterday was true, then those words wouldn’t actually mean it was okay.
***
"Pirates?"
"Yes. With the huge increase in shipping volume, pirates have also increased. This time, several pirates attacked ships targeting ours."
"Were there any injuries?"
"Fortunately, no. But the cargo was looted, and the ships were damaged, so they're currently docked at a port for inspection."
It was a huge relief that no one was hurt.
Losing the cargo was a painful blow, but how could that ever be more valuable than human lives?
"Bluezone is preparing a big event, and apparently all the goods on these ships were supposed to go to Bluezone."
"Oh no. Bluezone will be in trouble because of us."
"Yes. Even if it was because of pirates, since the goods can't be delivered on time, it looks like we'll have to pay the penalty."
It was unfortunate, but there was no helping it.
How could we possibly know in advance that pirates would attack and stop them?
"Tell them to drastically increase the number of escort ships. Don't spare any expenses on security. Also, let them know that this was an unavoidable incident, so there's no need to blame themselves too much. Ah, and about the port strike, it can't drag on too long, so tell them to step in and try to resolve it quickly if necessary."
"Yes, ceo-nim."
"What's the next issue?"
"This time, it's a bit of a problem on the semiconductor side."
I figured semiconductors would come up.
"Is it a production issue?"
"Yes. Demand has surged due to COVID and the Bitcoin boom, and even though we've significantly ramped up our production capacity, we still can't keep up."
COVID and Bitcoin.
These two forces created an insane increase in demand for semiconductors.
It was good for us, more semiconductors sold meant more profit.
But the flood of orders had now reached a point where we couldn't handle the volume.
"On top of that, the timing coincided with a major round of server replacements, so we're currently unable to supply semiconductors to everyone. The most urgent case right now is our own Kwangwoon. We're not just maintaining servers, we're expanding them."
Most companies use cloud services.
Instead of building their own servers, they use Bluezone or other cloud service providers.
But we were building and operating our own servers all around the world.
Initially, we also used cloud services, but as the company grew and the amount of sensitive data increased, we had moved to operating our own data centers.
"But even those servers are now insufficient. The traffic is so high that there are concerns about server overload."
"We're continuing to build more data centers, aren't we?"
"Yes, but the point is that we need to build even more than the ones currently under construction. The acquisition of FaceWeb had a big impact."
That meant we needed to adjust the supply of semiconductors we were distributing.
"For now, Kwangwoon needs to take priority in using semiconductors. Even if it means paying some penalties, we need to hold onto as many semiconductors as possible for server replacement, maintenance, and expansion."
"Then how much do we need to reduce the semiconductor supply to other companies?"
"I've brought the data here."
The Department Head handed over a document showing how many semiconductors were currently being supplied to which companies by Kangseong and Kwangwoon.
"......."
I quickly skimmed through the document, scrolling down with my finger.
I planned to reduce semiconductor supply only to the places where my intuition sent a clear signal.
"......?"
But among the many names on the list, only one company triggered that intuition.
'That must mean there's no need to reduce supply to the others, but this one should be cut back?'
The problem was the name of the company.
'Bluezone.......'
Bluezone, which operated the world's best cloud service through BWS.
They delivered goods domestically and overseas and recorded annual revenue of over 400 billion dollars, but BWS itself didn't even generate 100 billion dollars in revenue.
However, when it came to net profit, BWS outperformed the delivery division.
In other words, the cloud service they operated was an extremely efficient business.
"Bluezone must need a lot of semiconductors, right?"
"Yes. As stated in the document, BWS is also undergoing a server replacement. Since they operate the world's leading cloud service, they require a significant amount of semiconductors. If anything goes wrong with Bluezone's servers, many companies around the world, including in our country, will suffer."
I had experienced it once before, so I knew.
At that time, semiconductor supply was delayed, their servers went down, and as a result, even the games we operated had to be stopped, a total disaster.
"......."
But my intuition was pointing only to Bluezone.
Just how much semiconductor supply was I supposed to cut from them?
I started writing numbers next to it.
I kept lowering the number until I felt the signal click.
"......?"
I kept writing down numbers for a while, but there was no response from my intuition.
It wasn't until I finally reached the number 0 that a tingling current shot through my body via the pen.
"Zero?"
Even cutting just half the current semiconductor supply would deal a huge blow to Bluezone.
But the number my intuition showed me was 0.
Zero.
***
Carol Jessie had been the CEO running this massive company called Bluezone since last year.
Originally, the founder, Rainjof, was the CEO, but he stepped down last year and became chairman of the board, now focusing his attention on the space industry.
“Guess he got properly hooked on the space craze after seeing Milon Tusk's plan to expand to Mars and building bases, trying to be the first to operate a space colony. I heard he poured a bunch of money into that useless project again today?”
Jessie clicked her tongue and shook her head.
Bluezone was already in a crisis.
It had been good up to the point where they launched Prime service and seized the market, but the problem was that even though revenue went up, operating profit went down.
Overseas performance was actually in the red.
The only thing holding them up was BWS.
Thanks to the juicy capital coming from there, the company was still running.
Rainjof should have been using funds to support the currently shaky Bluezone, but instead, he was dumping astronomical amounts into space.
“CEO, Kwangwoon contacted us again, and it looks like the ship won’t be arriving on time after all.”
"What? They can't do anything about it?"
“Yes. The ship was attacked by pirates, and it seems to be in a dangerous condition.”
“Then what do we do? We spent a huge amount on marketing for this event!”
“They said they’ll pay the full penalty.”
“This isn’t about penalties! The entire event we prepared is about to go up in smoke! How the hell are we supposed to compensate for that?!”
It was hard to even consider a lawsuit over this.
It wasn’t that Kwangwoon deliberately didn’t send the ship, it was attacked by pirates.
“On top of that, Kangseong and Kwangwoon failed to secure enough semiconductors and said they won’t be entering a contract with us.”
“What!?”
Hearing that, Jessie unconsciously shot up from her seat.
“T-They won’t give us semiconductors? We’re in the middle of replacing our servers and pushing for data center construction!”
“Yes. They say there aren’t any spare semiconductors available...”
“No, no! We absolutely must get semiconductors! Did you make sure to explain our situation properly!?”
“Yes. Even so, they said they can’t sign the contract. Even when we offered to pay as much as they want.”
Bluezone, once part of the trillion-dollar club, had seen its stock price fall to 800 billion dollars due to worse-than-expected performance.
That was why they were launching aggressive marketing campaigns and discount events to overcome the crisis, and furthermore, expand their servers to firmly establish BWS as their core pillar.
But now, all those plans were about to collapse.
Because of Kwangwoon!
“Wait a minute.”
In the middle of her rage, Jessie suddenly felt a chill run through her mind.
“They’re not just ruining our big event through shipping, and now they’re refusing to supply semiconductors? If this gets out, our stock is going to take another huge hit. Kwangwoon has to know this.”
“Of course.”
“FaceWeb also fell out of the trillion-dollar club because of pressure from Kwangwoon. Its stock kept falling until Kwangwoon finally took it over, right?”
As her thoughts reached that point, Jessie jumped in shock.
“C-Call the chairman immediately!”
“Excuse me? You mean the chairman?”
“You still don’t get it?”
Jessie instinctively sensed it, seeing how similar the situation was to what happened with FaceWeb.
“Kwangwoon is targeting our Bluezone now!”