Chapter 11: Terrorist Attack (2)
Translator: ShutDoor
Morning dawned once again. There were now 24 days left until the demo service ended.
That might have seemed like plenty of time, but it was a grave misconception.
Residential quarters, a dining hall, a communal kitchen, a laboratory, a food warehouse, a raw materials warehouse, an armory, an ammunition depot, a munitions factory, a metalworking factory, a recreation space, a maintenance workshop, an archive, an infirmary, the central control room, a security/surveillance post, a vehicle garage, a frozen storage warehouse, an isolation ward, a detention cell, a quarantine station…
Huff, huff.
I had no idea why the list was so long, but there were still countless areas I had yet to touch, so this was no time to take it easy.
Even finishing one a day would be cutting it close.
The moment I woke up, I finished off a cup of instant noodles and a can of coffee, and Ann immediately began scolding me.
“Cup noodles and canned coffee for breakfast will cause a terrible nutritional imbalance.”
I casually let her words go in one ear and out the other as I slurped down my coffee.
“I won’t be able to have stuff like this even if I want it later. I should have it while I still can.”
No matter how much money I had, I couldn’t move an entire instant noodle factory or coffee factory into the shelter. I supposed I could grow wheat and somehow make noodles by hand, but coffee was out of the question.
“Are you aware that coffee plants can also be grown hydroponically with specialized LEDs and a greenhouse environment?”
“…Really?”
Add that immediately.
*****
Starting from the lowest level, the major shelter facilities completed so far could be listed in the following order.
[ SMR power generation facility → substation and power storage facilities → data center (server room) → hydroponic growing area ]
I had decided that the facilities producing the energy, water, and food directly tied to our survival were the most important. I planned to continue stacking the levels in order of importance like this.
Therefore, the facility I would construct above the growing area was the warehouse zone.
The raw materials warehouse, food warehouse, frozen and refrigerated storage warehouses, and even additional configurable warehouses would all be concentrated on this level. Having a logistics hub around the middle of the shelter would make it much easier to move supplies quickly to both the upper and lower levels.
“Are you planning to place the cultured meat production facility on this level as well?”
“That’s the plan for now?”
Warehouses could be built quickly enough by excavating plenty of space. There wasn’t much to think about.
There were more details to consider than expected, such as condensation, humidity control, and logistics routes, but they couldn’t be as complicated as a nuclear reactor or hydroponic growing facility.
I glanced at Ann. She blinked a few times, then began reciting the exact figures I had been waiting for.
“Long-term storage of the harvest needed to feed 5,820 people without spoilage will require at least 1,300 pyeong for the freeze-drying processing and automated packaging line alone. Assuming ten years’ worth of emergency food is standardized and stockpiled, another 3,500 pyeong must be allocated.”
I stroked the rough stubble on my chin and asked,
“Does the packaging line really need to be that large?”
“That figure accounts for harvest washing, the preprocessing room, the flash-freezing chamber, extra-large vacuum freeze dryers, nitrogen-flush packaging machines, a contamination-prevention airlock system, and future increases in production.”
“…Really?”
I had no idea what any of that meant, but apparently we needed all of it.
Wait. If we were going to freeze-dry all the food before storing it, did we really need separate large frozen storage and food warehouses?
“If you intend to freeze-dry even the cultured meat steaks and fresh salads you will eat each week and have them crispy like crackers, you may remove the refrigeration facilities. However, diversifying storage methods and stored goods is far more advantageous for managing supplies and spreading risk.”
So she was telling me to build everything. Got it.
“Then, since you’re the expert, be a dear and handle it for me.”
“?”
You have to earn your keep. You cost 1.8 trillion won, after all.
I smoothly dumped the job of drafting the warehouse complex’s detailed plans on Ann, then began planning the next facility.
Today, I intended to build the cultured meat production facility.
After skimming a few papers, I learned that it required animal tissue obtained through biopsy and something called a master cell line. Reading nothing but papers for days had taught me a few tricks for getting through them.
Then there were the things needed to culture the cells: sodium chloride, salt, amino acids, carbon dioxide, ultraviolet sterilizers…
*****
There were broadly three kinds of equality.
Arithmetic equality, which distributed resources equally to everyone regardless of qualifications, effort, or circumstances; substantive equality, which distributed more to the vulnerable; and proportional equality, which distributed more according to contribution.
Of the three, I believed ‘proportional equality’ was the most appropriate in an apocalypse. After all, I couldn’t treat the members who directly contributed to the shelter’s safety exactly the same as those who holed up somewhere safe and did nothing.
Therefore, if thousands of people really did end up entering this shelter one day, I intended to provide meat only to those who had contributed enough to earn it.
It was definitely not because managing cultured meat facilities capable of producing 5,000 servings or more would be far too grueling and difficult.
Well, you see. If I had to make excuses…
Since the facility literally produced meat by ‘culturing’ cells, bacteria could multiply far too easily, and there were a great many supplies that had to be replenished regularly. Naturally, it also consumed a lot of water.
It might have been manageable during normal times, but I concluded that it could only be operated on a limited scale during an apocalypse.
I could produce more by assigning androids like Ann exclusively to the cultured meat facilities… but I didn’t want to waste highly skilled personnel worth trillions of won just to make a little more meat.
Besides, I already needed to station a minimum number of androids in the hydroponics room and other critical facilities. I therefore concluded that I couldn’t devote so many personnel to cultured meat production.
In any case, I purchased three large cultured meat production facilities, each capable of producing 300 servings of meat, or approximately 50 kilograms, every two to three weeks. They would produce chicken, pork, and beef respectively.
Apparently, the process continuously replicated a single stem cell harvested at the beginning, so I only had to replenish the raw materials for the culture medium in which the cells multiplied.
Out of habit, I took out my notebook and checked whether I had missed anything. This was exactly why I searched domestic and overseas survivalist communities whenever I had a spare moment.
Kemono: FUCKKKKK!!!
Kemono: I stocked up on food and fuel before the blizzard hit, but I forgot toilet paper!!!
Kemono: Ah, ah, ah, would a plastic bag work? No?
.
.
.
Kemono: Don’t wipe with plastic bags, guys
That user in Canada was already having one hell of a time after forgetting a single necessity.
North America had an unusually large number of survivalists. Large-scale natural disasters such as hurricanes and blizzards were common there, and many heads of households had learned the importance of stockpiling supplies the hard way during the Cold War.
As a result, North American survivalist communities were far more active and crowded than those in South Korea.
Today, however, several well-known users who normally talked nonstop were nowhere to be seen.
ZOMBIE_MAN: Guessing locations from a single photo [Live]
ZOMBIE_MAN, who could expertly tell whether an image was a satellite photo just by looking at its distortion, was a prime example.
His most recent post was a link to a livestream he had started three days ago. Surprisingly, he was a fairly prominent streamer with around 100,000 followers.
His main content involved taking any photo sent in by a viewer and guessing which country and region it had been taken in.
Apparently, he deduced it from things like the type of clouds in the sky, the direction of shadows, the shape of paving stones, and the way leaves were bent… Even watching him, I couldn’t understand how he did it.
ZOMBIE_MAN: Buying ‘that’ game for 300 dollars~
ZOMBIE_MAN: Buying ‘that’ game for 350 dollars~
In any case, being the map freak he was, ZOMBIE_MAN had talked right up until the final moments of his livestream about how desperately he wanted to buy and play <Shelter Builder>. Clips of it were circulating throughout the community.
A hundred thousand followers was impressive, but compared to a community visited by tens of millions of people every day, it wasn’t anything truly extraordinary.
Nevertheless, posts about ZOMBIE_MAN’s whereabouts were going viral throughout the community because something alarming enough to interest even users who had never heard of him had happened.
firefighter1542: Where’d ZOMBIE_MAN go?
ZOMBIE_MAN had vanished.
His account hadn’t been deleted, but he had quite literally disappeared from the community without a trace for three days.
Some users sharply told everyone to stop making a fuss over someone going silent for a mere three days, and I had tried to dismiss it as nothing important too.
That was the case, at least, until ZOMBIE_MAN’s ‘true final’ post came to light.
The post had been uploaded not three days ago, but exactly two days and eight hours ago. It was also a video rather than a written post.
ZOMBIE_MAN: [LIVE] EMERGENCY!!! HELP ME!!!
The original post had already been deleted, and the low-quality copy now circulating online had been recorded separately by one of the viewers at the time.
I played the video.
It was too dark to see clearly, but the moonlight seeping through the murky image was enough to tell that he was in an attic.
ZOMBIE_MAN’s face wasn’t visible. But his breathing was extremely ragged, as though someone were chasing him.
The heavy thud of combat boots and the sound of radio chatter came from nearby. Although it was an emergency livestream, around thirty people were already watching, as one might expect from a streamer with a solid fan base. One of them had probably circulated this video.
Malejandro: What’s going on?
sipstea: ?
civ5: What kind of stupid-ass bit is this supposed to be today?
throatSignifiCant468: Clean your room
At that moment, the camera turned to the side and showed ZOMBIE_MAN. A man who looked to be in his mid-thirties was trembling with a terrified expression. The viewers instinctively realized he wasn’t acting.
“Th-there were about eight people who said they’d sell me the game. B-but…”
The sound of combat boots drew closer. ZOMBIE_MAN covered his mouth and held his breath. Fortunately, he wasn’t stupid enough to leave Super Chat notifications enabled in a situation like this.
He held his breath until the sounds of movement had receded far enough, then whispered,
“They all… They all disappeared. I lost contact with every one of them. I even met one of them in person today. But they vanished during a quick bathroom break.”
sipstea: Stop shaking and spit it out properly
civ5: What, are you saying they got kidnapped or something?
“Yes, kidnapped! They were all kidnapped. Right, I figured you guys wouldn’t believe me, so I recorded a video while I was running away. A video. Here, look at this…!”
Just as ZOMBIE_MAN began operating his phone with trembling hands, voices came from directly below.
He’s right above us.
Confirmed.
Less than twenty seconds later, two people with their faces completely covered broke into the attic.
They subdued ZOMBIE_MAN with a level of skill one would never expect from ordinary robbers, stomped the streaming camera to pieces, and disappeared from the scene.
Crunch!
The video ended there.
“…”
I froze on the spot.
ffgg333: No way they’re civilians. It only took them eight seconds to subdue him and destroy the evidence. They’re clearly professionals.
solho: You mean special forces?
TechnoPsyco: Maybe they’re Chinese spies. They don’t sound like they’re from the continental United States. And ZOMBIE_MAN lives in Texas. You know how strong Texas cops’ accents are.
texasman: Their eyes are too big to be Chinks. Maybe they’re Russian?
Anothermind: Could this be connected to all the other big-name users who mentioned that game disappearing one by one? I did think it was strange how quickly such a huge commotion got buried.
major33: If this was caught on camera, what the hell are the police doing?
Kim_man: It’s probably staged. Common sense says the government wouldn’t just sit back after seeing something like this.
I hurriedly logged into a South Korean survivalist community. Could this be related to the noticeable drop in users there too?
Anonymous: There aren’t any popular posts, desu…
Anonymous: Is this forum dead?
Anonymous: The survivalist forum is dead… We’re all doomed…
WayneRooney: This is now a Manchester United forum
Survivor484: Newbie here, packed a bug-out bag. Rate it pls lol
Maybe, like me, they had sensed something ominous from the start and chosen to stay on the sidelines.
The previous community server crash had made me wonder whether the leaders of various countries had now discovered this game’s true nature.
Even an ordinary person like me had realized something was wrong and spent days holed up in the mountains doing nothing but building a shelter. Government officials were likely even more alert than I was, not less.
One question remained, though. I did wonder whether the government, like me, had interpreted the ‘end of the demo service’ as the beginning of the apocalypse.
In my case, the part-timer had left me with some profoundly suggestive remarks, and since I was the kind of person who always assumed the worst and acted accordingly, I had concluded that the full release meant the apocalypse.
But what about everyone else? What about the government? Could people with so much to lose readily accept that their country would collapse in a month?
In any case, the ZOMBIE_MAN incident had led me to one conclusion.
I had to live even less conspicuously.
‘I can’t even go to a motel to shower anymore.’
There was no telling what might happen if someone spotted me needlessly traveling to and from the mountain.
I lay down in my sleeping bag with a mix of unease, fear, and, though I hated to admit it, a hint of anticipation.
“…”
What exactly was I anticipating? Though I knew the truth, I deliberately turned away from it and fell asleep.
*****
Morning dawned. Today was the last day of 2026.
Anonymous: BREAKING NEWS!!!!! Civil war just broke out in the Middle East!!!! Oil price emergency!!!!!!
War had broken out in the Middle East.
[At approximately 7:00 p.m. local time in France, a terrorist attack occurred on Avenue Montaigne in Paris. With the fate of the French interior minister still unknown, France’s counterterrorism authorities are…]
France’s interior minister had been killed.
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