Chapter 15: Construction of the Research Laboratory Begins
Translator: ShutDoor
There were roughly thirty people regularly active in the Telegram room.
Most used fixed handles, though the occasional anonymous user stood out.
Anonymous: Arrow, do you really have 30 billion won?
Anonymous: If you’ve only got 1 billion won like me, wouldn’t surviving even a year be a miracle?
But the anonymous users’ posts offered little of value. Most were either blind adoration or complaints about their lot in life, and they did not even hold conversations among themselves.
By contrast, the so-called “big-name users” at least exchanged some useful information.
Arrow300: Just finished a modest 700-million-won power system to start with~ (photo of diesel generator attached)
Cham170: Arrow, my man, you never disappoint
Roji99: THE GREAT ARROW
That was roughly how it went.
The numbers appended to their handles appeared to represent the amount of initial funds they had received in Shelter Builder. If so, Cham170 had 17 billion won, while Arrow300 had 30 billion won.
I would have quickly lost interest if every one of these so-called big names had been a screwball, but quite a few of them were seriously preparing for the future and engaging in constructive discussions.
InariSushi1300: What occurred to me after seeing the landslide in India (video attached)
InariSushi1300: As you can see, it was powerful enough to sweep away an entire five-story shopping mall. The exact death toll hasn’t been determined yet, but they say at least several hundred people died in this disaster.
InariSushi1300: You may not know this, but the mountainous areas of Gangwon Province receive more rain than you might think. Gangneung’s highest daily rainfall was 870 mm, and Daegwallyeong’s was around 710 mm. At that level, even large bridges purpose-built by experts can be swept away in landslides. There are frequent wildfires too.
Lupin720: I agree, but Gangwon Province’s greatest advantage is that it’s a granite region. There’s a reason all of South Korea’s underground research facilities are in Gangwon Province. Of course, even if we wanted to build there, we can’t because it’s under a regional lock…
‘A regional lock?’
This was the kind of useful information I could pick up here. Fixating on that term, I immediately entered the chat anonymously.
Anonymous: What do you mean, Gangwon Province is under a regional lock??
Lupin720: That’s why I’m also considering somewhere near the coast of South Chungcheong Province. Otherwise, I might go near the Naro Space Center in Goheung County, South Jeolla Province.
InariSushi1300: The Naro Space Center?
Lupin720: Most people don’t think about the amount of state-of-the-art equipment concentrated in Goheung County. Even you didn’t know, InariSushi. There’s quite a lot of good equipment in that area, and the facilities are sturdy too.
InariSushi1300: That’s interesting.
But they completely ignored me. My message was soon buried without a trace beneath the flood of other messages.
“…”
Apparently, the fixed-handle users had some unspoken rule about thoroughly ignoring anything anonymous users said.
They had said this was a newly created room, so I had assumed it would not have many strict rules. Apparently, after repeatedly deleting and recreating the room for security reasons, they had developed an insular culture in which only people with verified identities interacted.
‘Tsk.’
For a moment, I considered unleashing my “spiritual pressure” and slaughtering all these ignorant peasants playing around with mere billions of won, but decided against it.
There was nothing to gain from showing off.
For all I knew, one of them could be an undercover cop.
“Could you scout the surrounding area for me? I’ll give you the map, so mark any important locations too.”
The Juggernaut stared down at me, but I casually ignored its gaze and bought another roll of gimbap. I intended to settle in and monitor the chat properly now.
Soon, the Juggernaut moved away with heavy, thudding footsteps. Surprisingly, by the time it passed out of sight, even the sound of its footsteps had faded.
It couldn’t have gone more than two hundred meters. Maybe it was quieter than I thought for something that big.
More importantly, couldn’t people simply make up whatever number they wanted to append to their handles? Was there some separate way to verify it?
Anonymous: Is there a way to verify your initial funds?
Fortunately, one kind anonymous user answered me.
Anonymous: Read the damn notice
‘Ah.’
There was a pinned notice at the top. This disaster had occurred because I had never used Telegram before.
Suppressing my embarrassment, I checked how the verification process worked.
As I skimmed the notice, several facts I had not known caught my eye.
First, the items unlocked in Shelter Builder’s shop were determined entirely by the amount of initial funds a user had.
Second, the quality of the unlocked items generally rose noticeably whenever the number of digits in those funds increased. Based on that, it was possible to estimate a user’s general weight class, whether they had hundreds of millions, billions, or tens of billions of won.
Third, not one of the big-name users in this chat room controlled funds in the trillions of won.
And finally, that was why they generally ignored anything said by “anonymous” users who concealed their identities.
In short, the big-name users accepted the risk of revealing their weight class in exchange for freely sharing high-value information, while anonymous users who avoided that risk could not join their inner circle.
The “initial funds verification” I had asked about was also conducted as a quiz in which they asked for the prices of specific shop items.
Of course, it could only distinguish broad brackets, such as whether someone had funds in the 10-billion or 20-billion-won range. There was no way to verify the exact figures below that.
In other words, even someone with only 10 billion won could inflate it and pretend to have 19.9 billion.
‘No wonder so many handles ended in nine.’
Apparently, everyone wanted to make themselves look at least a little richer.
I immediately entered the verification room.
<(UH-60-series helicopter) Please provide the price.>
<(Small power-generation gas turbine) Please provide the price.>
<(Compact integrated bunker HVAC system) Please provide the price.>
.
.
.
Since they required written answers, it did not look possible to pass through blind luck. More importantly, there were far more than just one or two verification questions.
The answers themselves were not difficult to find. All I had to do was access Shelter Builder and check the prices of the relevant items.
[ ■ Logistics supply depot ]
⦁Item: Compact integrated bunker HVAC system
⦁Unit price: 1.55 billion won
⦁Status: [Available for purchase]
Just like that.
<Correct. Proceeding to questions for the 20-billion-won range.>
Someone might get lucky once or twice, but correctly guessing the exact unit prices of over a dozen items seemed impossible.
Still, the system was not entirely without loopholes.
‘Someone with hundreds of billions could deliberately hide by pretending to be in the tens-of-billions range.’
It could stop people from inflating their wealth, but there was no way to catch someone pretending to have less money than they really did.
I brought this up because I intended to masquerade as an ordinary user with tens of billions myself.
There was no reason to reveal the insane sum of 1 quadrillion won and make myself a target in a chat room where the richest users had, at most, hundreds of billions. Honestly, I could not even be sure everyone here was a normal user.
<Verification complete: Funds of at least 30 billion won.>
<Please set the handle you wish to use.>
I had never been the type to put much effort into game handles, so I placed my hands on the keyboard and typed whatever came to mind.
HangukUniversity188cm80kg18cm330: Hello. I just got verified 🙂
Anonymous: 30 billion?
Anonymous: ROYALTY HAS ARRIVED
Cham170: Bro!
Arrow300: Is that handle for real?
The enthusiastic response was worlds apart from when I had been anonymous. Feeling a peculiar sense of satisfaction, I repeated the question they had so thoroughly ignored before.
HangukUniversity188cm80kg18cm330: By any chance, what is the regional lock on Gangwon Province?
The answers also came back incomparably faster than before.
Cham170: We don’t know the exact reason either, but shelters can’t be built in Gangwon Province
Anonymous: We think it might be locked because the region would be too overpowered;
Anonymous: But if Gangwon is supposedly overpowered, aren’t there lots of granite regions in Chungcheong, Honam, and Yeongnam too?
King250: Even the central parts of Bukhansan and Gwanaksan are granite
They had a point. South Korea’s water was so clean precisely because dense granite formations lay throughout the country.
Still, judging from everyone’s reactions, it seemed certain that Gangwon Province was under a regional lock preventing shelters from being built there.
‘Then why was I able to build mine?’
Could it be that no one else could build there because I had already constructed my shelter in Gangwon Province? With no information to go on, that seemed like the most likely explanation.
Did that mean I was alone in this vast province?
Gangwon Province was the second-largest province in South Korea by area. Meanwhile, its population barely exceeded 1.5 million, and it did not contain any major facilities that would be priority targets for a strategic nuclear strike.
HangukUniversity188cm80kg18cm300: Thank you for the answers 🙂
A low risk of being nuked and few people. Those were both the advantages and disadvantages of Gangwon Province.
One fortunate thing was that my shelter was located on the outskirts of Gangwon Province. Thanks to that, traveling just twenty kilometers would take me into Gyeonggi Province or Chungcheong Province.
“Where is the Juggernaut? Why have you returned alone?”
I had been walking while looking at my phone, and before I knew it, I had reached the tent. I immediately showed Ann the screen.
“I sent it to scout in my place so I could check what the other users were up to. You should read this too.”
“…Administrator?”
To my surprise, Ann’s expression changed. Had some new information been posted while I was walking?
“What exactly is this ‘18cm’ supposed to mean?”
Oh.
“Tsk, so this is the sort of person you are, Administrator. I understand.”
“…”
“Even so, I believe this may be somewhat exaggerated…”
I hurriedly cut Ann off before she could spout any more nonsense.
“That’s enough.”
“Understood.”
As if she had never given me that contemptuous look, Ann instantly resumed her usual blank expression.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Ann smoothly took the phone from my hand and began going through the chats one by one.
“Shall I organize the information separately and report back to you?”
“I’d appreciate that.”
I looked around to see what Ann had been doing while the Juggernaut and I were out scouting. Apparently, she had been inspecting the armory, maintenance hangar, and vehicle garage constructed over the past three days.
‘It looks like the basic infrastructure is more or less in place now.’
In any case, the facility I planned to build today was the research laboratory.
Unlike the other facilities, which could do no more than maintain the status quo, 「Research」 would allow me to pursue a future even amid the apocalypse.
That was why I judged the research laboratory to be the most important facility after the central control room, power facilities, and hydroponics room, all of which were essential for survival. Depending on the circumstances, it could become even more important than they were.
「Research」 was certain to become a central pillar of long-term survival. Simply discovering ways to increase the output of the hydroponic growing facility or reduce its water consumption could allow me to feed at least several hundred more people.
In RPG terms, it was a kind of upgrade.
And that was not all. Someday, I might even be able to manufacture robots like the Juggernaut and Ann myself instead of paying a premium to purchase them.
“I do not know what form the apocalypse will take, but the likelihood of researchers of that caliber safely reaching your shelter is exceedingly low.”
That was indeed the biggest problem.
How was I supposed to bring researchers all the way into this mountain valley without so much as a road?
Kidnapping would be my last resort. It was not so much that I hesitated because it was inhumane, but that earning the hostility of such highly skilled people would cost me far more than I stood to gain.
Ideally, when recruiting personnel, I would obtain their agreement, sign a contract, or at the very least present it as a “rescue”. That way, they would be at least somewhat more cooperative.
But I did not want to bring them here too early either.
“May I ask why?”
“Someone who’s personally experienced everything outside going to hell will have a different attitude from someone dragged here without knowing anything.”
A scientist rescued after being plagued by hordes of zombies would never dream of leaving the shelter, but one brought here before disaster struck would obviously complain that it was stifling and demand to be allowed outside for some fresh air.
Because I knew I would feel the same way.
Besides, contacting them too early risked exposing me to a government agency such as the National Intelligence Service.
Considering why I was camping in a tent on a remote mountain in the dead of winter, that was far too great a risk.
For now, I decided to identify the locations of South Korea’s leading universities and shape the broad plan around “rescuing” their researchers when the time came.
“In that case, I will prepare a list of candidates and devise a rescue plan in advance.”
“Focus on the very best engineering schools, if possible.”
“Understood.”
This was five hours before the rescue plan underwent a complete overhaul.
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