Chapter 14: The Community’s One True God Descends…!
Translator: ShutDoor
For people living in the mountains, the deadliest disasters are heavy rains and wildfires.
Heavy rains cause landslides that sweep away everything on the surface, while wildfires reduce everything aboveground to ashes.
But I had not particularly accounted for either when building the shelter.
That was because neither heavy rain nor wildfire could directly affect my shelter, buried deep underground.
Of course, a massive landslide completely burying the main entrance would be a headache in several ways, but heavy equipment could clear away a pile of dirt somehow.
Granted, that heavy equipment guzzles an outrageous amount of fuel, and gasoline oxidizes and becomes unusable after six months in storage, while diesel does so after a year or more…
But I could use the Juggernaut or electrically powered heavy equipment when the time came, so it was not something I needed to worry about yet.
[ ■ Large command-and-control display system ]
⦁ Military-grade micro-LED video wall system
⦁ Description: An ultra-high-resolution panoramic display system used by major operational command centers worldwide. It clearly displays critical CCTV feeds, power-grid status, and satellite-map data using minimal power.
⦁ Unit price: 12 billion won
⦁ Status: [Available for purchase]
Because I was too busy furnishing the home I was going to live in!
“Urrrrgh…”
I had stayed up all night choosing what to put in the central control room, and I honestly thought my eyes were going to fall out.
Why had I put myself through all that pointless trouble when I could have simply used everything Ann recommended?
Paradoxically, it had taken so long because Ann’s recommendations were too good.
“Administrator, this model is far more versatile in tactical data processing than the one you just selected.”
“Then how about this one?”
“The German Ministry of National Defense selected this model for its highest-grade bunkers…”
Was this how people felt when they went to a used-car dealership to buy a Ray or Matiz, only to come to their senses after signing for a fully loaded Grandeur?
Every time I listened to Ann’s expert explanations, I upgraded the specifications another notch, until things finally reached this point.
Maybe it was because she was a futuristic android, but once she set her mind to making a sale, she was really good at it.
In any case, the results of staying up all night were immediately visible in the form of the elegant 3D blueprint before me.
First, the main operations control room covered 300 pyeong and had an eight-meter-high ceiling.
I had made the ceiling as high as possible to allow for a cohesive layout of the large tactical screens and tiered monitoring consoles.
From the administrator’s station, I would be able to take in every screen in the operations control room at a glance. Those displays would provide a real-time flood of visualized data from CCTV inside and outside the shelter, weather conditions, various sensor networks, the power grid, and more.
My sleepless night had yielded a large command-and-control display, EMP protection and power control equipment, a standalone physical-security server rack, an integrated biometric authentication and blast-door control console, and more.
On top of those, there was an independent life-support room, an emergency power equipment room, a miniature greenhouse, and even a buffer area between my private residential zone and the passage.
All together, the complex covered 700 pyeong.
An elementary-school playground was usually around 900 pyeong, so the androids and I alone would be using an area only slightly smaller than that.
Since it was effectively all for me, I wondered if it would feel not merely spacious, but downright excessive.
Still, if I was going to have a home anyway, I wanted a big one.
In the end, the excavation and structural framework construction alone cost…
“631 billion won.”
“Thanks.”
Needless to say, I spared no expense on the computers the androids would use, or on the various communications devices, security equipment, and control systems.
The single largest expense was the two-meter-thick superheavy titanium-alloy composite blast door. That one purchase alone devoured an astonishing 120 billion won.
In the end, the central control room cost a total of 1.14 trillion won to complete.
Considering that it was the final stronghold where I would spend most of my time from now on, finishing it with state-of-the-art equipment throughout for that price was relatively cost-effective, in a manner of speaking.
There was nowhere left to spend more money even if I wanted to.
Of course, 1 trillion won might not sound like much, but considering that even the Pentagon cost close to 2 trillion won to build, I had actually spent far more than it seemed.
“I recommend that you get some sleep soon.”
“Yeah, I should get to sleep now…”
I flopped down onto the sleeping bag spread across the floor. Beyond the mountain ridge, the first sun of the new year was slowly creeping into view.
Today was January 1. The year 2027 had dawned.
Only twenty-two days remained until the end of the world.
*****
Over the next three days, I successively built a maintenance workshop for servicing equipment and vehicles, an armory for stockpiling all kinds of weapons, and a garage for the vehicles I would use in the future.
Since South Korea was a non-oil-producing country without a single drop of domestic petroleum, the vehicles to be housed in the garage were primarily electric.
In the meantime, I also checked the news from the outside world whenever I had a spare moment.
Fortunately, aside from France suffering a major terrorist attack and Italy declaring a national emergency over its wildfires, no particularly notable megadisaster had occurred.
At least, it was fortunate from my perspective.
The only unusual developments were that abnormal weather had sent temperatures plummeting below freezing across India and brought snow, and that a powerful earthquake of around magnitude 7 had struck Japan.
HotGaller: Snow in New Delhi for the first time in recorded history omg (1921)
Anonymous: Another earthquake in Japan;;
Every time something like this happened, I was reminded that without Starlink, I really would have known nothing about the outside world.
“Do you have any particular plans today?”
“I’m going to look around the area surrounding the shelter.”
I wanted to identify the main travel routes, chokepoint positions, and potential infiltration routes in advance.
I thought it was about time to start paying attention to the area outside the shelter.
I had served as a squad leader during my military service and cycled through all sorts of assignments, so I prided myself on knowing more about the military than the average civilian.
But that did not make me enough of an expert to identify the crucial chokepoints and infiltration routes myself.
Honestly, I probably knew less than a staff sergeant.
In the end, I decided to enlist the help of the Juggernaut, the combat specialist I had left standing in a corner of the shelter for nearly a week.
“That is generally called neglect.”
Ann offered that comment from beside me, but I casually ignored it.
A short while later, the Juggernaut approached, revealing its immense bulk.
Its heavy footfalls on the dirt were accompanied by the distinctive metallic scrape of interlocking armor plates.
If the super-soldiers from a sci-fi movie stepped into reality, this was probably what they would look like. Its appearance never failed to set a man’s heart racing.
The Juggernaut stopped in front of me and slowly lowered its red-lensed visor.
Then, without saying a word, it gave a single nod and started forward.
Could it not speak?
Honestly, though, it was cooler when it stayed silent. Since we were ‘connected’, we did not need words to communicate anyway.
“I will remain here.”
“Ann?”
“Have a safe trip.”
“…”
I said nothing more either and followed the Juggernaut. It did not open its mouth once before we reached our destination.
Perhaps because the ground was covered in dirt and fallen leaves, its footsteps were surprisingly quiet for something its size. In fact, the dull scraping sound as its armor plates and internal frame moved against each other was louder.
It was about as far from stealthy movement as one could get.
But the Juggernaut’s purpose was closer to that of an armored vehicle or tank than a scout. In that case, this amount of noise was perfectly understandable. A real tank would have been incomparably louder.
But where in the world was this thing taking me?
It should have spent all its time stuck in a corner of the shelter since the performance test on the first day, so I wondered when it had surveyed the terrain. It probably possessed some separate reconnaissance capability I did not know about.
Clunk-
At that moment, the Juggernaut walking ahead of me stopped.
It raised one enormous armored finger, pointed toward a spot ahead, and looked down at me.
There should have been nothing behind that red visor but optical sensors, yet for some reason, I had the peculiar feeling that a battle-hardened veteran was silently looking down at me.
Fortunately, because I was ‘connected’ to the Juggernaut, I immediately understood what the locations it pointed out represented.
They were critical infiltration routes and chokepoint positions.
Every location the Juggernaut indicated was a narrow, treacherous pass running through the valleys. Some were hemmed in by sheer rock walls on both sides, while others were strewn with irregularly sized rocks that made even walking difficult.
If anyone tried to cross this mountain and approach my shelter, they would have no choice but to pass through those points.
In other words, properly monitoring those locations would let me detect approaching individuals or groups at a fairly early stage.
The Juggernaut began leading me again. The next location looked ideal for concealing a machine gunner or a bunker with firing slits and concentrating fire on an enemy who couldn’t shoot back.
I carefully marked each location on the map so I could refer to them later when installing observation posts or surveillance cameras.
There was another surprising thing.
We searched the surrounding area for roughly two hours, yet astonishingly, we never once encountered a lost hiker, wild-ginseng gatherer, or anyone else.
In my experience, this was not a mountain completely devoid of visitors, so the Juggernaut’s advance-detection capabilities seemed far more impressive than I had expected.
And there was one more surprising thing.
The Juggernaut did not say a single word for two hours. I tried to start a conversation at least twenty times, but each time it merely looked down at me and remained silent to the very end.
I knew a taciturn soldier was much better for controlling civilians than a talkative one, but perhaps because I had grown used to Ann, the contrast felt especially stark.
If I had not put a robot in my brain, I might have died of frustration.
“Let’s rest for a bit before we go.”
After walking along mountain trails for hours, I was beginning to tire. I dropped onto the bare ground and took out the water and gimbap I had packed in advance.
As I made a quick meal of water and gimbap, I checked the community out of habit.
Anonymous: They say the climate crisis will end the world in 2027~ (7)
Anonymous: Why aren’t those fucking Giants bastards off getting computer-skills certificates? Seriously, my grandma could throw better than them (11)
Anonymous: Wasn’t this the Man United forum? Why is everyone suddenly pretending to care about survivalism?
Anonymous: I farm in the mountains. How do I keep water deer and wild boars away? They eat all my vegetables every day;; (33)
Anonymous: How to survive if war breaks out in South Korea (81)
Perhaps because of the ominous international situation, the survivalist forum felt strangely lively compared to before. The sharp rise in new users was impossible to miss.
Survivor13: It’s nice having so many newbies lately. Half the assistant mods vanished without a word, so I thought the forum was gonna die;;
Survivor92: Five of the big-name regulars disappeared too lolol
I browsed the domestic community until I had eaten about half my gimbap, then moved straight to the international community.
RalRal: R.I.P ZOMBIE_MAN 🙁
Kemono: his 100% dead
ZOMBIE_MAN still had not returned. His family had even filed a missing-person report over the past few days, but apparently not a single clue had been found.
Because footage of his abduction had been livestreamed, his disappearance had even made it onto terrestrial television in California, which was highly unusual.
Naturally, all discussion of 「Shelter Builder」 had vanished as well.
By this point, even the most oblivious users seemed to feel a peculiar sense of déjà vu when everyone who mentioned the game either vanished or dropped out of contact.
‘Tsk.’
It was honestly kind of a shame.
The sole reason I kept visiting these communities was to obtain information related to 「Shelter Builder」.
But all the oblivious ones had been taken away, though that was only my guess, while all the perceptive ones had gone into hiding like me. That left me with almost no way to obtain information.
I might have been able to resolve everything else through Ann somehow, but even she could offer no information about the game itself.
That was information I could obtain only from other users.
I was at a loss, unable to think of any promising solution, when a new post in the international community caught my eye.
ProSurvivalist: Telegr4m b4ng s4ero p4m. Saengjonjuui g4byeopge nog4ri kk4go sipeun hum4nman. 10bun dwi b4ng pung.
I remembered once seeing a review that deliberately distorted its lettering like that so only Koreans could understand it.
Roughly interpreted, it said, ‘New Telegram room. Only people who want to casually shoot the breeze about survivalism. Room goes poof in ten minutes.’
A Telegram invitation link sat by itself at the bottom of the post.
Telegram?
Keeping in mind the possibility that this was a crude trap set by law enforcement, I checked ProSurvivalist’s profile first.
Account created in August 2018. 1,030 posts written. Around 5,000 comments. At the very least, it did not look like a throwaway account the government had hastily created as bait.
“…”
There was something I always said. Seeking returns meant accepting the corresponding risks. And this particular risk was well worth taking.
Of course, minimizing every avoidable risk was fundamental to survival.
「You have purchased a Sambyeol smartphone.」
I immediately used the system to buy a burner phone, then activated a VPN to reroute my connection once more.
Normally, even using a spare handset would still leave an IP trail with the carrier, but my primary communications network was Starlink. Even if investigators tried to trace the IP address, the time required would increase exponentially.
In my experience, even if they rushed, submitting a formal warrant request to SpaceX headquarters and receiving a response would take at least two full weeks. Telegram was notoriously difficult to investigate as well.
This plan was possible only because the world would end in a mere nineteen days. If it started to seem too dangerous, I could simply buy another burner phone and switch to it.
In the meantime, ProSurvivalist’s original post had been deleted. That meant ten minutes had passed.
But I used the link I had copied in advance to enter the Telegram room without delay.
The first thing that caught my eye upon entering was the announcement pinned to the top of the chat.
ProSurvivalist1500: [Notice] In-depth discussion of survivalism welcome~ Anonymous or not, either is fine~ When choosing a nickname, just list your specs as a number next to it~
Arrow300: Any recommendations for what I should do with 30 billion won?
Inu59: So fucking jealous, seriously;;;
Cham170: 100 million won or less = peasant, 100 million–1 billion = commoner, 1–10 billion = noble, 10–100 billion = royalty, 100 billion–1 trillion = imperial family. 1 trillion won or more = god. Not taking objections.
“…”
It seemed I had come to the right place.
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