Chapter 29: Labor Must Be Fairly(?) Compensated
Translator: ShutDoor
Thirteen days remained until the demo service ended.
The special forces operators spent two days searching all over Gangwon Province and only withdrew after combing every last inch of its southernmost reaches.
—Fuck.
It was not hard to guess how the special forces operators felt about the operation from the single brief curse picked up by our listening equipment.
Meanwhile, I reviewed reports from the personnel dispatched to recruit talent, checked the list of recruits whenever I had the chance, and devised a “safer” transportation plan with Ann and General Kang’s help.
Now that the shelter’s essential facilities were complete, I decided that how and where I spent the money mattered far more than building things quickly.
I had poured in a staggering 692 trillion won so far.
The 109 Juggernauts, four reconnaissance satellites, and mine access tunnel alone would bring committed spending to approximately 941.38 trillion won, before accounting for educational facilities and additional espionage Enigmas.
That left me with less than roughly 59 trillion won in practical terms, a mere(?) year’s budget for the South Korean Ministry of National Defense.
The reason I had settled on exactly 109 Juggernauts was simple. Together with the one I already owned, that would give me 110 in total, enough for exactly ten full elite teams of ten members and one leader each.
I asked my staff advisers what additional facilities I should build with the remaining funds.
After careful consideration, the first facility I chose was an underground hangar that could accommodate large transport helicopters for carrying Juggernauts in the future, as well as military reconnaissance and attack drones.
Naturally, since aircraft would be moving in and out, I located it relatively close to the surface, about fifty meters below the shelter’s main entrance elevator.
I judged that from there, the aircraft could be disassembled, loaded onto large trucks, and transported to the surface in an emergency.
I designed the underground hangar with a floor area of ten thousand pyeong and a height of fifteen meters so there would be ample room to service and park large transport aircraft and drones.
In monetary terms, the construction cost came to… 24.75 trillion won.
I would have preferred to make it smaller, but apparently that was the minimum space required to park and service ten CH-47F Chinook heavy transport helicopters and ten MQ-9B medium-altitude unmanned aircraft.
Their respective unit prices were 120 billion won and 45 billion won. Military hardware certainly was expensive.
Still, to firmly establish our transport and reconnaissance capabilities, I ordered ten of each along with a generous supply of spare parts and ground support equipment. I had burned through 1.65 trillion won on the aircraft alone.
Of course, I had also seriously considered operating supersonic fighters, but launching jets required a surface runway several kilometers long. They were not exactly compatible with a shelter built around secrecy.
“Even so, air power will prove useful someday. As it stands, our shelter has virtually no air power whatsoever.”
“…Couldn’t we just stay inside the shelter?”
“Without an air force, we’ll be attacked without being able to fight back when we eventually venture beyond the shelter.”
“The whole point of this shelter was to live here for the rest of my life…”
“You still have room in the budget. At present, there is no better investment.”
Had he been one of those Air Force “sparrows” or something?
Anyway, General Kang pushed the idea so hard that I ultimately had no choice but to purchase four F-22 Raptors, America’s finest fighters, at 230 billion won apiece, and eight domestically produced Boramaes at 120 billion won apiece.
That cost 1.88 trillion won. On top of that, fighters cost a bloody fortune to maintain whether they flew or not, so I had to spend nearly another 700 billion won on parts and other consumables.
“That was truly, truly an outstanding decision.”
Apparently, the reason we had to buy as many as twelve was that twelve aircraft qualified as a squadron and could perform a wider variety of operations, or something like that.
I wondered how we were supposed to use them without a runway, but apparently once the South Korean government collapsed, we could lay one down outside without worrying about anyone and operate them in earnest.
The second facility was a small modular synthetic fuel and petrochemical refining facility for the air assets and military equipment I had just purchased, along with a large-scale crude oil storage depot.
Because it was a small modular system, incomparably smaller than a conventional large refinery, it had the advantage of emitting extremely little heat and smoke during operation.
Of course, its output was also extremely low, but I decided that refining a few dozen barrels a day would be more than enough.
Honestly, even the helicopters and drones would probably only be deployed once or twice every few years. What would I even do with a faster refining rate?
This equipment would undoubtedly be used more often after the collapse to produce raw materials for everyday plastic goods and plastic film than to refine aviation fuel. In fact, that was exactly what I had built it for.
As for how much crude oil we should store for these facilities…
“In modern society, the more crude oil you have, the better.”
“I agree on this point as well, Administrator.”
My two staff advisers were in perfect agreement.
Following their recommendation, I decided to stockpile a staggering one million barrels (approximately 159 million liters). Not as gasoline or diesel, which had short shelf lives, but as pure, unrefined crude oil.
“Crude oil in its natural state effectively has no expiration date. Oil extracted from the ground can develop sediment during storage or change in quality through contact with air, of course… but it can be stored for long periods in a properly sealed environment. Even if its quality changes to some extent, much of that can be corrected during refining.”
Our shelter generated most of its electricity with the SMR, and everyone inside would walk instead of owning personal vehicles, so there would be little occasion to consume crude oil in the first place.
However, while purchasing one million barrels of crude oil cost a mere 150 billion won, constructing dozens of sealed tanks to store it safely cost 12 trillion.
The money vanished in great chunks, but I had to admit, watching the empty tanks fill in an instant was quite a sight.
Since I had secured refining facilities, I also stocked the maintenance workshop, which until then had contained only electric construction equipment, with plenty of petroleum-powered heavy machinery and tactical armored vehicles, including K-2 Black Panthers.
Maybe because they were ground vehicles, buying twenty of each only(?) cost 290 billion won.
Buying military hardware, aircraft, and refining equipment taught me just how horrendous the value for money really was. I finally understood firsthand why defense spending reached such astronomical sums.
Even so, I decided it was worth the investment. This much was the bare minimum insurance required to survive safely for decades.
The total expenditure came to 41.52 trillion won.
That left me with less than roughly 17.1 trillion won to spend freely.
Anyway, now that the shelter was nearly complete, it was about time to call in the friends who would maintain security inside and out.
「109 Juggernauts purchased.」
I had waited a very long time for this moment.
*****
A Juggernaut stood an incredible 2.3 meters tall.
Anyone who had ever seen a professional basketball player in person would understand. The moment one stood before you, their overwhelming size and presence practically took your breath away.
So what would it feel like to face a Juggernaut that was not only taller than those towering basketball players, but far broader across the shoulders as well?
And what if 110 of them, including the one I already owned, were arrayed in long ranks before me?
“…”
If this wasn’t art, what was?
It reminded me all over again of the saying that the first thing to stir a man’s heart was robots, and the second was dinosaurs.
Could there possibly be a more sensible purchase in the world?
‘This is fucking insane…’
Muttering a vulgar exclamation that was unlike me, I stared blankly at the Juggernauts arrayed in long ranks before my eyes.
I wasn’t even much of a military geek, but seeing those gigantic suits of power armor in person really set my heart fluttering.
At that moment, the heavily armored giants, each of which must have weighed hundreds of kilograms, saluted in perfect unison.
Snap!
Steel beasts waiting in absolute silence for a single command from their leader. At the center of their formation stood the very first Juggernaut I had purchased.
The vast underground hangar’s lights gleamed off their metal armor plates. As I gazed at the perfectly ordered ranks, my blood ran so hot and my head grew so numb with dopamine that I could barely think.
At that moment, I could not resist uttering a military command I had not used since my days as a trainee squad leader.
“At ease.”
Thoom!
The moment the words left my mouth, every Juggernaut assumed the at-ease position in unison, sending a heavy metallic crash reverberating through the hangar.
I might have peed myself a little. Not one bit of the 130.8 trillion won felt wasted.
It went without saying, but just as every Enigma had a different appearance, the Juggernauts also varied slightly in design.
They all shared shadowed faceplates, red visors over their visual sensors, and heavy power armor encasing their entire bodies, but their weapons, armor colors, and small exterior decorations differed slightly.
They appeared to be identifiers for distinguishing between models.
Amazingly, some Juggernauts carried enormous melee weapons, such as massive hammers and greatswords, that looked too heavy for even three or four grown men working together to budge.
Just as not every soldier in the South Korean Army served in the same branch, the Juggernauts appeared to have highly specialized roles as well.
Exactly one-tenth of them, eleven units, were classified as close-combat types.
Apparently tasked with breaking through the very front lines, every one of them carried a thick shield and a weighty weapon, which made quite an impression. Curious, I tried to gauge the shields’ thickness and found they were definitely thicker than my handspan.
Thoom. Thoom.
As I watched the reassuring backs of the Juggernauts heading to their assigned positions, a thought suddenly occurred to me, and I asked Ann a question.
“…The elevator isn’t going to collapse, is it?”
“Allowing for their maximum weight, it should be able to transport up to fifty units without difficulty.”
Good thing I had built it as the largest elevator in the world, just in case.
Whatever else happened, one thing was certain: becoming a Juggernaut would be the number-one dream job among the little boys who came to live in our shelter.
*****
The Juggernauts would be distributed not only throughout “secure zones” such as the quarantine station and checkpoint, the passage leading from the residential zone into the deeper levels, the maintenance hangar and aircraft hangar, the power facilities, detention cells, and central control room, but also throughout the residential zone and recreation facilities to prevent bloodshed.
Naturally, deploying all 110 at once could create needless unease and fear. More importantly, having one unit guard the same spot around the clock without relief would be inefficient, so I planned to operate them in three rotating shifts wherever residents could see them.
For reference, our shelter had two main elevators.
One was the large elevator I had seen before, connecting the surface entrance to the residential zone. The other was a dedicated elevator serving the “secure zones” beneath the residential zone.
There were various other elevators as well, of course, but those areas had been designed to remain fully accessible by stairs without needing to use them.
In other words, residents could move freely by staircase between everyday living areas such as the residential zone, recreation facilities, dining hall, and communal kitchen.
By contrast, security requirements were much stricter for the secure zones, or even for something as mundane as the warehouse zone.
I skimmed the blueprints on my pad and tossed Ann a question as she stood beside me.
“The recreation facilities will have a kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high schools, adult education facilities, firefighting facilities, a laundry room, and a library… Is there anything else?”
“For now, a high-temperature cremation furnace, a small funeral hall, an administrative center, and a central exchange would be advisable.”
At this point, wasn’t this just a city rather than a shelter?
But since the money would otherwise be left over anyway, I decided there was no harm in having nice things.
Anyway, I could immediately understand the purpose of everything else, but the term central exchange particularly caught my attention.
Reading my thoughts, Ann continued without hesitation.
“In addition to basic free provisions, I intend to implement a credit system to motivate residents to work and allow them to trade necessities and hobby goods freely.”
In most apocalypse stories, bullets, cigarettes, and canned food replaced currency once the old money became worthless scraps of paper.
Because those things were scarce.
Whenever people gathered, barter and trade were inevitable. Rather than prevent them, it would be far more beneficial to establish an official exchange and keep the shelter’s internal market economy under my control.
Honestly, if smokers and drinkers ran out of cigarettes and alcohol, would they say, “Oh, then I suppose I’ll quietly quit smoking and give up drinking from now on”?
Absolutely not!
“I therefore recommend making luxury goods such as cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, and chocolate available for purchase with credits as well.”
“…Hmm.”
Something was missing.
“If you still find that insufficient, you could simply pay everyone’s wages in credits as well.”
…Then I wouldn’t have to pay the researchers real money, would I?
Let’s do it immediately.
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