Under the massive steel dome, hundreds of high-pressure sodium lamps blazed to life at once, flooding the 5,000-tsubo warehouse and processing center with light so harsh you could see the dust hanging in the air.
"Rumble—"
It wasn't the tractor engines from outside. The sound here was different — monotonous, dense, mechanical. Conveyor belts hummed. Rubber rollers turned. Tons of crops tumbled and thudded down metal chutes.
Otsuka Kouhei shrugged off his mud-stained work jacket and threw on a white lab coat, leaving it unbuttoned over his oil-stained flannel shirt. He didn't bother taking off his dirty baseball cap, either. Just tugged the brim low until it shadowed half his face.
He stood at the head of a hundred-meter automated sorting line, arms crossed, eyes locked on the river of brown objects racing past on the belt.
The machinery roared, and his frown deepened.
A rough, calloused hand shot out and snatched a huge potato off the moving belt. Readers, don't try this at home — it's an OSHA violation waiting to happen.
Otsuka rubbed the skin with his thumb, scraping away dirt to reveal the rough, netted brown surface. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled.
No damp, earthy smell. Only a stale, dry odor — the kind you get from long-distance shipping.
It was April.
The permafrost on the Tokachi Plain had barely thawed. The seed potatoes had gone into the ground yesterday. Nothing could be growing out there yet. Not even a weed.
Otsuka's stomach sank.
When Hayakawa first recruited him, he'd promised to build a "true Hokkaido agricultural empire" and flood Japan with produce from this black soil. But what was rolling past him now was a slap in the face.
Had he been conned again?
Just like when those JA bureaucrats sweet-talked him and then buried him, were these Tokyo capitalists just using the "Hokkaido" label as a front for a bait-and-switch?
Anger, thick and bitter, rose in his chest.
Otsuka spun around. His cloudy, sharp eyes bypassed Satsuki up on the platform and drilled straight into President Hayakawa behind him.
"President Hayakawa."
His voice was low, gravelly.
"You think I'm an old fool?"
Thud!
He slammed the potato onto the stainless steel inspection table. It hit hard, rolled a few times, and stopped near Hayakawa's hand.
"This is a 'Russet Burbank.'"
Otsuka pointed at the oblong tuber, his finger trembling, his tone deadly serious.
"Rough skin. Shallow eyes. Starch content through the roof. This is the standard variety from Idaho or Washington. We don't grow this in Hokkaido."
He stepped closer, staring into Hayakawa's evasive eyes.
"When I signed on, you told me we were going to revive Tokachi agriculture. Make Hokkaido potatoes flow across Japan. I believed you. I staked my reputation on you."
"But now? Where did this come from?"
Otsuka's eyes burned with disappointment and accusation.
"If you brought me here to slap a 'Hokkaido-grown' label on cheap imports and con people, you picked the wrong man. I may be the industry's madman, but I still plan to keep my face when they bury me."
The air froze.
Sweat beaded on Hayakawa's forehead. He opened his mouth to explain — that it was a misunderstanding — but the words died under Otsuka's glare.
Then a pale hand rose, gently cutting Hayakawa off.
Satsuki stood on the control platform above, hands resting on the railing, looking down. She wasn't offended by Otsuka's rage. Her eyes were calm as deep water.
"You're right, Mr. Otsuka."
Satsuki's voice cut clean through the mechanical roar.
She came down the metal grate stairs, each heel-click ringing out in rhythm.
"This is a Russet Burbank. As you said, these are American potatoes, offloaded at Tomakomai Port just yesterday."
"You admit it?" Otsuka sneered, his wariness sharpening. "So this is part of the plan? Use cheap American stock to fill the gap?"
"No."
Satsuki reached him, picked up the potato, and weighed it in her hand.
"Not a single one of these will hit the market."
Otsuka blinked. "What?"
"They're feed. Or fuel. Or…" She pointed toward the Phase Two construction site in the distance, "…lunch for the thousands of workers on our sites."
She tossed the potato back onto the belt.
"Mr. Otsuka, you're an expert at farming. But you don't know these machines yet."
She gestured to the equipment behind her — automatic washers, optical sorters, steam peelers, industrial cutters.
"This line cost 300 million yen. It's brand new. And it's hungry."
"If we wait until autumn, when the field potatoes are ready, to debug it, we're already too late. One malfunction, one calibration error, and tens of thousands of tons of fresh potatoes rot in storage."
"So we need 'guinea pigs.'"
Satsuki nodded at the endless flow of American potatoes.
"These cheap imports are consumables to feed the machines. We'll use them to calibrate the optical sensors, test the cutter angles, and break in the whole line's rhythm."
"In two weeks, this system will be perfect. And when the real Tokachi potatoes come in, they'll be processed at maximum efficiency."
Otsuka's anger drained away, replaced by shock.
He stared at her. Importing hundreds of tons of raw material just to dry-run the line for stability… that was beyond anything he'd imagined.
"Besides," Satsuki's voice turned grave, "Mr. Otsuka, I care about the brand more than you do."
She walked to a nearby display stand. Sample packages were already mocked up — bold "S-Farm" logo, "Hokkaido Premium" emblazoned across the front.
"The Saionji name has to be pure 'Hokkaido-grown.'"
"In the early stage, when we're building consumer trust, even a single grain of American starch would be murder for the brand."
She turned, eyes sweeping the room.
"After testing, every one of these American potatoes goes to the Saionji Construction canteens and Saionji Industries employee cafeterias. Internal consumption only. Not one goes to a supermarket shelf."
"This is a strict order."
Otsuka searched her face. Her gaze didn't waver.
After a long pause, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, sniffed it, and let a complicated smile tug at his mouth.
"Seems I jumped to conclusions."
"Forgive my rudeness."
He bowed deeply to Hayakawa, then to Satsuki, before yanking his dirty cap back into place.
"If they're for feeding the machines, then let's feed them till they're full. Boss, even if they're foreign, these potatoes are perfect for testing hardness."
The tension broke. The roar of the machines suddenly sounded… friendlier.
"I want to see how much faster this 300-million-yen monster is than an old farmer's hands."
Satsuki gave a small nod, then turned and gestured to the glass-walled control room above the line.
Several technicians in gray uniforms, manufacturer logos on their chests, stood waiting, eyes on their instrument panels.
"Full power."
Satsuki's voice carried through the workshop mic.
"Test maximum sorting speed."
"Yes!"
The lead operator hit a red button, then shoved a row of levers forward.
"Hum—!!!"
The steady conveyor let out a low snarl and doubled its speed. Potatoes blurred into a brown river.
"Psh-psh-psh-psh!"
The air cannons at the sorter's end fired in rapid bursts, compressed air snapping like tearing cloth.
Amy stood at the guardrail, hands white-knuckled on the bar, eyes huge as she stared at the core unit labeled "Optical Sorting Box."
For a second, she was back in her element.
"That's a CCD line-scan camera…"
She murmured, excitement bubbling up, forgetting she was in a produce plant thick with the smell of dirt.
"And high-speed pneumatic valves… same principle as sorting precision resistors in our factory!"
She pointed at a potato being knocked aside mid-air, then spun to the baffled Otsuka and rattled off an explanation:
"Mr. Otsuka, look! That probe scans the surface reflectivity in milliseconds. Smooth, regular shapes get marked 'pass' and go through. Black spots or deformities get their coordinates calculated instantly, and the system tells the air gun to blast them out with high-pressure air!"
Her fingers traced invisible data paths.
"Here, potatoes aren't food. They're data. Objects with coordinates and parameters."
Otsuka didn't know CCD from a hole in the ground. But he could see results.
At the belt's end, the mixed stream had been split clean.
Left chute: perfect size, smooth skin, premium grade. They rolled gently into the auto-bagger and dropped into red mesh sacks.
Right chute: misshapen, scarred rejects. They fell straight into a metal hopper below.
"Crunch-crunch-crunch."
Under the hopper, an industrial dicer spun. Razor blades flashed, and in a heartbeat the rejects became uniform one-centimeter yellow cubes, sliding down a stainless chute toward the cooking section.
Watching it, fire lit in Otsuka's cloudy eyes.
He jerked up his wrist, eyes locked on his watch, counting under his breath.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
"Two hundred kilos per minute… twelve tons per hour…"
His voice went hoarse, trembling with excitement.
"Yes… this is the speed! This is the agriculture I want!"
He slammed his fist on the railing. Clang!
"Those JA fools! All they do is clutch their hoes and cry about Japan's 'fragmented terrain' being wrong for big machines! Look at this! This is efficiency! This is the future!"
He stared at the endless belt like it was his own child. The theories he'd been laughed at for his whole life — dismissed as fantasy — were real, right here, right now.
"Mr. Otsuka."
Satsuki stepped beside him, watching the yellow cubes fall.
"Your theory was right. Machines don't get tired. And they don't lie."
"With this system, plus your large-scale field methods, we can drive loss rates to near zero."
She pointed to the chute marked "Processing Grade."
"These ugly ones used to rot in fields or go to pig feed. Now they become frozen fries, mashed potatoes, curry pack ingredients."
"Once they're cooked and drowned in rich spices, who cares what they looked like?"
At that moment, Hayakawa, who'd been hammering a calculator nearby, finally looked up.
He was sweating, face flushed with excitement, clutching a fresh printout of test data.
"Young Mistress! Numbers are in!"
He rushed to the inspection table and spread the report.
"Even though this batch is American with high freight, once we add the automated sorting and processing…"
He swallowed hard and jabbed a finger at the final figure.
"…the total cost for curry ingredients from our own Hokkaido potatoes can be pushed to 30% of market price."
"30%…"
Otsuka sucked in a breath, then a fierce, triumphant grin split his face.
"Good! Good!"
He pounded the railing again. The whole frame rang.
"With that cost, let's see how those old JA fossils compete! I'll make them eat their words!"
"This is still conservative."
Satsuki took the report, eyes scanning the columns of numbers.
"Besides potatoes, there are onions and carrots."
"These are the 'Three Sacred Treasures' of Japanese curry. Boom or bust, rich or poor — if you're making curry, you need all three."
She snapped the folder shut.
"What we do is monopolize the low-end supply chain of the Three Sacred Treasures."
"Our farms will keep expanding. Large-scale mechanization, plus standardized industrial processing, plus S.A. Logistics' private distribution…"
"…we'll drive the raw material cost of 'national curry' so low JA's bureaucrats couldn't imagine it in their dreams."
Satsuki turned, surveying the workshop.
"That means even if we sell potatoes in Tokyo supermarkets at half JA's price, we still make huge margins."
"This is — the economics of curry rice."
Otsuka stared at the girl who barely came up to his chest.
The sodium lights painted her profile in cold, hard lines. He'd thought he was just backing a rich kid's tech dream. Now he realized her ambition was bigger than his.
She didn't want to farm. She wanted to flip Japan's entire food pricing system.
While everyone marveled at the efficiency, Satsuki quietly picked up a potato.
Her thumb rubbed the dry dust on its skin. Her eyes lingered a second on the "Product of USA" stamp on the crate label.
The machines drowned out her breathing.
No one saw the flicker of calculation in her eyes.
If some extreme situation comes up in the future, whether we mix in imports… that's another question. Of course, she wouldn't say that out loud.
For a purist like Otsuka, mixing imports would be blasphemy against the "Hokkaido brand." For an executor like Hayakawa, too many contingency plans would dull their do-or-die edge.
Some calculations belong in the ruler's stomach, and nowhere else.
"Mr. Otsuka."
Satsuki set the American potato down.
She turned, her face now showing only expectation and brand devotion.
"Even though this batch of American stock helped us, remember—"
She raised a finger to her lips, expression serious.
"S-Food's signboard must be, and can only be, 'Hokkaido Produced.'"
"In the early stage, purity of origin matters more than anything. No excuses. I want your word that what grows from this land will be better and stronger than these American ones."
"Can you do it?"
Otsuka's blood was up. He yanked off his cap, thumped his chest, eyes burning with Hokkaido pride.
"Leave it to me, Boss!"
"As long as this machine runs, as long as we've got fertilizer, I swear what comes out of this black soil will grind the American stuff to dust! Our Hokkaido potatoes are the best in the world!"
"If I can't grow the best, I'll spell my name backwards!"
"Good."
Satsuki nodded, the coldness in her eyes hidden behind a flawless smile.
"Then let's work."
"Run this machine. Feed it."
"Dice these test potatoes, cook them through, and send them to our construction sites as free benefits. Let the workers eat well."
"I hope Uncle Kenjirō likes them too…"
That last part was barely a whisper.
She turned and headed for the high iron walkway.
"I'm going to check the cold storage. I heard the onion piles cracked the wall?"
Hayakawa scrambled after her. "Y-Yes! We're reinforcing now…"
The belt kept roaring.
Test potatoes dropped one after another into a huge drum marked "Internal Special Supply."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The dull impacts fell like a rainstorm.
Outside, the sun set.
The last light bled crimson across Hokkaido's snowfields.
Only that conveyor belt kept turning. Turning. Never stopping.