Chapter 10: Terrorist Attack (1)
Translator: ShutDoor
Bed at two in the morning, up at seven.
I couldn’t remember ever making such productive use of every single day in my life. I was pretty sure I’d slept more than this even when I stood guard in the military.
“Huff, huff…”
It really was cold up in the mountains in winter. I would have been in serious trouble if I hadn’t already experienced this in the military.
Of course, I could have built temporary living quarters inside the shelter, but I had my reasons for going out of my way to sleep in a tent.
First, I had no idea how many years I would end up living in there, but I didn’t want to start living underground already.
Second, I thought experiences like this might help me empathize with the other survivors, even if only a little. An ice age apocalypse was a fairly major subgenre of apocalypse fiction, after all.
Just as only someone who had eaten meals out of plastic bags in the military could understand what that felt like, there had to be feelings only people who had slept in the cold winter mountains could share.
There was something else I was considering too.
When I took in survivors—most of whom would probably be researchers—I had to decide whether to reveal that I was the shelter’s administrator.
And I found myself leaning more toward keeping it secret.
I could put the androids, who would never betray me, front and center. Was there any need to reveal that I was the administrator and expose myself to the risks?
A rebellion, provoking too much resentment, or, conversely, attracting too much goodwill… Things like that.
So it seemed safer to stay behind the scenes and give orders like a shadowy power broker.
“You are extremely cautious, Administrator.”
I had stepped outside the tent and was sipping instant coffee when Ann approached and said that.
Half joking, I asked,
“Want some?”
“I would be happy to accept.”
But Ann went one step further and readily accepted the can of coffee I offered her. Then, before my eyes could even widen in surprise, she downed it in one gulp.
“Huh?”
“Thank you. So this is what instant coffee tastes like.”
“Are you allowed to drink that?”
“One of the quickest ways to build trust with humans is to share a meal with them. If we skip meals, people quickly begin to suspect that we are androids.”
I blinked. Well, she had a point.
Anyone would find it strange if the people walking around as shelter residents weren’t seen eating every day.
…But then how did she get rid of it? Did she even have somewhere inside her to store food like that in the first place?
“It is completely broken down internally into microscopic particles. You have quite the dirty mind, Administrator.”
A disbelieving laugh escaped me. I was finally starting to get a sense of Ann’s personality.
At the very least, I could tell she wasn’t a stereotypical ‘android’. She had a sense of humor, for one thing.
“At last, you recognize my true nature.”
“Whatever. Let’s get to work.”
As I had said yesterday, today I planned to build the hydroponic growing facility.
And there were those things Ann had mentioned yesterday… What were they again?
“Do you mean aeroponics, aquaponics, solid-substrate cultivation, and mycoponics?”
“Yeah, those. Explain what they are.”
Ann rattled off an explanation packed with technical terminology, but the short version was as follows.
-
Aeroponics: Crops are grown with their roots exposed to the air while nutrient solution is periodically sprayed onto them as a fine mist. This method can also be used to produce hardy staple crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes.
-
Aquaponics: A farming method that combines fish farming with hydroponics. The plants absorb nutrients from the fish waste, purifying the water in the process. It allows both vegetables and fish to be raised together.
-
Solid-substrate cultivation: Crops are planted in artificial substrates such as coconut husk or rock wool instead of soil and supplied with nutrients. Since the substrate supports the roots, heavier crops such as tomatoes, strawberries, and potatoes can be grown.
-
Mycoponics: A method of cultivating mushrooms using sawdust or agricultural byproducts as a substrate. It requires no electricity for lighting.
In other words, I would need to use all four methods to achieve a balanced diet.
Then how large would the facility have to be to provide a reliable food supply?
I had heard somewhere that one adult man needed roughly 250 square meters of land to live entirely on cultivated food throughout the year.
Assuming an adult man’s recommended daily intake was approximately 2,500 kcal, he would need about 912,500 kcal over the course of a year.
In other words, 250 square meters of land could produce roughly 912,500 kcal of food per year, meaning ordinary farmland produced about 3,650 kcal per square meter annually.
“You calculate quickly.”
“I got into college on the strength of my math scores.”
“Oh-ho.”
Indoor hydroponic growing facilities, however, allowed far more crop cycles per year and much higher yields per unit of area. According to the averages I found in research papers… they produced roughly three to five times as much.
Using the average multiplier of four for a rough calculation, the required single-level growing area came to 62.5 square meters per person.
That was more than I expected. Feeding one person required a plot eight meters wide and eight meters long?
Ann added from beside me,
“That is a simple calculation based on operating only one level.”
Oh, right.
With a multilevel vertical farm, using a 10-level growing setup, the required floor area per person fell to 6.25 square meters, or approximately 1.89 pyeong.
Then just about 1,890 pyeong would be enough to feed a thousand people! This was more manageable than I had expected!
“What if I went with twenty levels instead of just ten…?”
“The temperature difference between the upper and lower levels would become so extreme that overall production would actually fall. LED lighting produces more heat than you might expect. The ceiling would also need to be at least seven meters high, and the structure would become less stable.”
“Tss.”
“You should simply be satisfied with ten levels.”
Maybe I should.
“But have you installed the water lines?”
“Ah.”
*****
Building a shelter had taught me that there were far too many things I genuinely needed to worry about.
No sooner had I solved the electricity problem than I was told I needed to install the water lines.
Fortunately, I had researched early on and discovered a large bedrock aquifer 800 meters underground near the shelter. A flow rate of 150 tons per hour came to 3,600 tons a day, which was more than enough to operate a large shelter.
“I trust you do not think that simply sticking a water pipe into it will be enough.”
Of course, even I knew that mishandling an underground water source of that size could flood the entire shelter.
And not all groundwater was safe to drink. It would obviously need purification, and things like heavy metals and bacteria would have to be filtered out.
Uh, but where was I supposed to start?
“We must begin by reinforcing the outer wall near the aquifer and calculating the sustainable pumping rate, but I will handle that part. Please continue with your work.”
“Thanks, Ann.”
“Think nothing of it.”
For reference, the sustainable pumping rate was apparently the point at which the rate of groundwater extraction balanced with the rate of natural recharge. Since I was hopeless when it came to architecture and civil engineering, I decided to trust Ann and leave it to her without complaint.
It really was nice to have an expert around. Whatever else happened, at least I would never have to suffer for lack of one.
Of course, given that she had cost a staggering 1.8 trillion won, the least she could do was manage that much… Well, I decided to think of it as buying safety.
After dumping the waterworks job on Ann, I decided to focus on constructing the hydroponic growing facility again.
There was no such thing as having too much food. Thanks to the three small nuclear reactors I had installed, I would have power to spare, so securing more space would translate directly into increased food production.
Of course, the storerooms for all that food would have to grow accordingly.
‘At 50 million won per cubic meter, if I work out the cost for 1,890 pyeong with a four-meter ceiling…’
Excavating enough space for growing facilities capable of feeding a thousand people would cost approximately 1.25 trillion won by itself.
Did that mean I could feed another thousand people just by buying one fewer Ann or Juggernaut?
My head suddenly spun.
‘Hmm.’
Maybe I should start by deciding what to plant. It wasn’t as if I could return Ann for a refund now.
First on the list was rice.
The main reason rice had never been grown hydroponically was that planting it in paddies was dozens of times cheaper. But after the apocalypse? Farming in fields and paddies would no longer be possible. It wouldn’t even take a nuclear war. An ice age alone would be enough to put an end to that.
Besides, Koreans couldn’t live without rice.
The next crops would be napa cabbage and chili peppers. For kimchi, obviously. Kimchi also required salted, fermented seafood, but I could simply stockpile large quantities of that in the food storeroom.
As should already be obvious, my goal was to set efficiency aside and recreate the pre-apocalypse diet as closely as possible. I believed eating habits were the most important factor in maintaining morale and surviving long-term.
“Hmm.”
If I added beans for protein, wheat for when I occasionally needed flour, and a few vitamin-rich leafy vegetables and fruits I had found on the forums, wouldn’t that be enough for the plant-based portion of the diet?
[ ■ Food production facility ]
⦁AI-controlled 10-level hybrid vertical farm
⦁ Description: An enclosed cleanroom rack system in which AI sensors monitor and autonomously regulate light levels, temperature, and humidity in real time for each level and zone. Only one crop can be grown at a time.
⦁ Unit price: 5 million won per pyeong
⦁ Status: [Available for purchase]
‘If I produced enough rice alone to feed a thousand people, the equipment would cost 9.45 billion won?’
The real horror was that this actually felt practically free. It had only been a few days since I thought I had it made after winning 700 million won.
For now, I installed the hydroponic growing facilities without planting any crops. Ann hadn’t finished calculating how much groundwater the facilities could use yet.
What would happen if I planted crops indiscriminately, only to run short of water?
“I am finished.”
“Already?!”
“The safe usable amount is ordinarily calculated as sixty percent of the total flow, so our shelter can reliably use 2,160 tons of groundwater per day. Assuming half of that, 1,080 tons, is allocated to the hydroponic growing facilities, we can cultivate approximately 11,000 pyeong with a 10-level setup and reliably secure enough food for 5,820 people each year.”
“Can’t we increase that any further?”
“If you limit the crops to lettuce, which consumes relatively little water, it would be possible to support as many as ten thousand people. Alternatively, you could allocate more water to the hydroponic growing facilities. Doing so, however, would cause a great many problems with the shelter’s operation.”
Okay. I would settle for this.
It seemed I would ultimately have to use 「Research」 to unlock future crops or improve the efficiency of the hydroponic growing facilities. I finally understood this game’s mechanics perfectly.
‘Researchers are going to be crucial for long-term survival.’
I ultimately secured a total of 11,000 pyeong for the growing facilities and spent approximately 7.7408 trillion won on the construction and preparation of the site.
I allocated forty percent to rice, our staple food; ten percent to beans as a source of protein and fat; fifteen percent to nutrient-rich plants such as tomatoes and bell peppers; fifteen percent to Korean cooking ingredients such as napa cabbage, chili peppers, garlic, and scallions; another ten percent to versatile wheat for flour and other uses; and the final ten percent to fast-growing leafy greens for wraps and several kinds of fruit.
Unfortunately, aquaponics seemed unfeasible for now, so I gave up on it. I simply didn’t have the capacity to raise fish as well.
‘Still, around five thousand people isn’t bad, is it?’
If I could reliably feed 5,800 people, then I could accommodate far more than that by reducing rations.
As I was congratulating myself, Ann approached with a sheet of paper in her hand.
Ann wasn’t authorized to operate <Shelter Builder>, so whenever she drew up plans, she had no choice but to use pen and paper like this.
I frowned as I examined the paper. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
It wasn’t because Ann was bad at drawing. I simply lacked the necessary expertise.
“Uh… Could you explain it to me?”
“First, this section is the water intake and pumping facility.”
“That’s the part that pumps the water up, right?”
Ann nodded.
“Yes, that is correct. Once the water is drawn in at this facility using high-durability deep-well pumps, it is first stored in the raw-water tank. It then passes through four stages in the water treatment and purification system: pretreatment, softening and carbon filtration, reverse osmosis, and sterilization. I will explain them in detail later.”
Ann pointed out each part of the plans with her finger to make it easier for me to understand.
“The purified water is supplied from this pressurization pump to each part of the shelter according to its intended use. For now, I have divided the supply by use: living quarters, hydroponics room, research laboratory, industrial zone, and server room. If you need additional water supplies later, you can draw them from here.”
After handing me the plans, Ann took a step back.
“What are you doing?”
“Huh?”
“Go ahead and build it.”
Ann?
*****
I completed the hydroponic growing and water resource facilities. Since the water facilities were extremely important, I spared no expense on them, yet they still cost only 180 billion won.
That was despite installing enormous reservoirs, flexible earthquake-resistant piping, a multistage water purification plant that even removed radioactive contaminants, mechanical-room chambers, and ultra-precision piping dedicated to the server room!
Of course, securing enough space for the truly colossal water tanks and the other equipment cost another 750 billion won, but even then, it was practically free.
As for the nutrient solution used in hydroponics, meaning the minerals and nutrients plants needed to grow, Ann provided the optimal ratios. Apparently, every plant required different nutrients, so each had its own formula.
In any case, I installed dedicated piping to supply the nutrient solution to the hydroponics room, mixing tanks to store it, and even closed-loop recirculation piping that reused the water left over after the plants had absorbed what they needed.
Of course, unlike water, which was supplied semi-permanently, nutrient solution could not be produced infinitely. Its raw materials, calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate, had to be replenished continuously.
For now, there seemed to be no solution other than stockpiling as much as possible. Perhaps I could discover a synthesis method through 「Research」.
“You mean there is no solution for now?”
“That’s right.”
Judging by the way Ann said that, she didn’t have any particular solution either.
Still, I decided to be satisfied with having secured semi-permanent supplies of the three essentials: electricity, water, and food.
‘I’ll need to pay more attention to storage.’
According to Ann, I would need about five tons of fertilizer a year. Allowing a generous hundred-year supply meant I would need a staggering five hundred tons. That meant the fertilizer warehouse alone would have to exceed 300 pyeong.
Building a single fertilizer warehouse would cost 248 billion won!
…That’s more manageable than I expected.
Fertilizer problem, solved!
“Nitrate fertilizer can explode if stored improperly.”
…Hmm. Fertilizer problem, half solved.
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