Chapter 30: Time for the Researchers to Arrive
Translator: ShutDoor
In a famous novel about a nuclear apocalypse, military rifle ammunition was used as currency.
To roughly sum up why those rounds became currency, they did not deteriorate with time, could be used for self-defense in an emergency, and were supplies that anyone living through an apocalypse would want.
It also depicted soaring demand for batteries, canned food, weapons, clothing, medicine, and other goods that could no longer be produced in the post-apocalyptic world, with their value shooting through the roof as well.
Naturally, however, I had absolutely no intention of letting the settlers in my shelter use “dangerous” items such as weapons or ammunition as currency.
“Ammunition will be the ideal trade good when bartering with other factions outside the shelter.”
“I suppose it will.”
That was precisely why I had installed automated production lines for 5.56mm and 9mm ammunition in the munitions factory.
Anyway.
That did not mean our shelter lacked a currency for internal use.
As Ann had said, indulgences such as alcohol and cigarettes could certainly serve as currency, but…
Honestly, they were utterly useless to someone like me who neither drank nor smoked.
The same applied to other indulgences. Every one of them was difficult to store, and their appeal and value varied from person to person, making them unsuitable as currency.
Of course, such indulgences would still be useful in the half-ruined world outside. But as the operator of a fully functioning “underground city”, why should I cling to physical currency that could be damaged or counterfeited and would only create opportunities for theft and black markets?
Wouldn’t it be enough to issue every settler an “ID card”, link it to the central control room’s main server, and award them points according to their labor contributions?
“That is an entirely reasonable decision.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Using shelter ID cards would also allow us to compile records of all the settlers’ transactions on the server in real time. We could detect and prevent the formation of an unofficial black market in advance as well.”
Naturally, credits would be used not only to purchase indulgences such as alcohol and cigarettes, but also as currency for every service and amenity within the shelter.
“Additionally, I propose a three-stage labor incentive framework to operate the credit system effectively.”
The labor incentive framework Ann laid out was as follows.
“Fundamentally, every settler will receive two meals a day and basic housing free of charge, but access to every amenity beyond those essentials should be restricted to purchases made with credits.”
“Because that will make people work?”
“Correct.”
I read through the detailed rules listed on the tablet Ann handed me, one by one.
One. Our shelter would provide two meals a day and housing.
Two. Daily credits would be awarded at different rates depending on the difficulty and results of each person’s work, including manual labor, specialized research, and facility maintenance.
Hearing only this much, one might worry that so-called freeloaders would appear, content to do nothing and live off the meals they were given.
But Ann had accounted for them too.
“All recreation areas except the parks and outdoor sports facilities will charge for access.”
Every cultural and recreational facility, including the indoor gym, arcade, library, VR sports zone, woodworking shop, and PC café, would be open only to settlers who paid credits.
Naturally, anyone with enough credits could move into a larger home, buy better furniture, or eat better meals.
“Settlers will need credits to purchase the coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, premium desserts, and other indulgences mentioned earlier. Those without credits will also receive lower priority for access to medical facilities in high demand or additional educational facilities in the future.”
Fair enough. Those facilities had cost hundreds of trillions of won to build, so I could hardly make everything free.
Besides, with so many facilities installed in the shelter, all seven thousand settlers would need to keep their hands busy instead of lazing around if we wanted to maintain productivity.
I would guarantee the bare minimum of food and shelter, but anyone who wanted the pleasures and luxuries of a civilized life would have to pull their own weight somehow.
Of course, I had enough of a conscience not to make children work, so there was no need to worry.
“Then clothing beyond the standard-issue outfits should also be something they have to earn credits to buy.”
“Correct.”
I was a little worried that this might create something resembling a class system within the shelter, but…
“Humans are social creatures by nature. Even if we attempt to eliminate classes artificially, they will create inequality and social hierarchies for themselves. That has always been the way of human history.”
It felt a little awkward hearing that from an android.
Still, when Ann explained that we should establish and manage a controllable system ourselves before people started doing stupid things and dividing into factions, I found myself nodding.
As if humans would stop raising hell just because everyone was equal. No, absolutely not.
Of course, it would require some additional construction, such as separate smoking rooms and drinking areas, but that was a perfectly acceptable price to pay.
Naturally, there would be no more unreasonable forms of discrimination beyond this.
Paying more would not get someone’s children into better educational facilities or earn them preferential treatment for emergency surgery. Nothing like that would happen.
Credits might grant someone a slight degree of priority when using recreational or other convenience facilities, but at the very least, lifesaving medical care and children’s education would be provided equally and without discrimination.
Provided they paid the minimum number of credits.
*****
“I also recommend creating a market, stalls, or a shopping street where settlers can trade freely with one another.”
The idea was sound.
If each settler needed different things, allowing them to exchange goods or trade with credits would create a virtuous cycle.
But would the settlers have anything worth trading among themselves in our shelter? I would control and monopolize one hundred percent of the food, daily necessities, and most raw materials to begin with.
In response to my puzzled question, Ann flipped through the screens and listed examples one by one.
“First, they could trade handmade furniture and decorative items crafted from lumber supplied by the woodworking shop, or customized clothing altered with sewing machines.”
“Hmm.”
“That is not all. A service market will also form where people trade their skills and time. Paintings and portraits, haircuts and beauty services, music and exercise lessons, individual appliance repairs, and distinctive dishes made by combining their rationed ingredients could all be bought and sold. Perhaps even knowledge itself could be traded.”
She had a point.
I would retain absolute control over primary survival resources such as food, medicine, energy, and raw materials, while freely permitting trade in secondary processed goods and personal services created by the settlers through their talents or hobbies.
That would also make the settlers feel as though they were living in a city that was truly alive.
Of course, the transaction fees in credits from every one of those trades would be collected faithfully by my central control server.
“That’s much better than I expected. It would also make them feel less oppressed.”
“However, implementing this system will require an additional 27 billion won for the distribution of credit payment terminals, construction of the shopping street, and printing of ID cards.”
That much was pocket change.
*****
Twelve days remained until the demo service ended.
After finishing the shopping district discussed yesterday and installing every major urban amenity one might expect in a normal city, including a library and pharmacy, I could finally decorate the home of my dreams…
“You must now construct the passage the outside researchers will use.”
…Or rather, I decided to build the secret underground road toward the abandoned mine that the researchers would use to enter.
Several days had passed since the Tier One special forces thoroughly searched the abandoned mine and withdrew. General Kang and the Juggernauts had since conducted a meticulous search of the area and confirmed that nothing was amiss.
By intercepting the military radio traffic of the returning forces with the shelter’s communications equipment, we had also learned that there would be no additional search operations in the area for the time being.
Only after double- and triple-checking that no “traps”, such as the listening devices or vibration sensors mentioned in passing before, had been installed did we finally begin construction.
Then again, no matter how cautious the military authorities were, they would hardly leave expensive surveillance equipment deep inside an eerie abandoned mine that had been closed for over thirty years and showed no sign of human traffic.
“This point is three kilometers away, just barely within the construction limit.”
I examined the 3D map of the abandoned mine’s underground workings that Ann had displayed on the screen.
The end of a tunnel five hundred meters underground.
The mine had been abandoned since its closure in the nineties, and black, putrid groundwater had pooled on the floor of the tunnel five hundred meters underground. Dense toxic gases and a lack of oxygen, typical of an enclosed space with its ventilation fans shut down, also appeared to be serious problems.
I could see why the special forces had stopped at the two-hundred-meter level and failed to descend this far.
How could any human enter a place filled with such foul water and gas?
But things were different for me. With the system and enough money, I could solve the problem somehow.
I immediately overlaid a blueprint for a spacious tunnel large enough for heavy transport vehicles to pass through unimpeded, extending as far as the three-kilometer point within the shelter system’s “construction range”.
Then, click.
Vwoom!
With a deep vibration like reality itself was twisting, a double-walled tunnel lined with special materials and shielding was bored out in an instant.
A smooth tunnel three kilometers long had materialized in an instant where thousands of tons of rock had stood.
The total cost was 6.3 trillion won. It was not particularly large, but its length of over three kilometers had driven the price up exponentially.
This tunnel led straight to the S-shaped tunnel inside the shelter entrance—the one guarded by two blast doors, each two meters thick.
In other words, even if enemies passed through the abandoned mine and discovered this tunnel, the bends would deflect their shock waves and direct fire before they finally hit an impassable wall: those twin Rashomon gates.
Of course, that did not mean I skimped on concealment. Just as with our shelter’s main entrance, the entrance to this connection employed a state-of-the-art concealment system in which the entire cliff face on the abandoned-mine side slid open as a single mass of camouflaged rock.
The problems began after that.
Inside the abandoned mine, the tunnels and five-hundred-meter vertical shaft lay beyond the construction limit of three kilometers, so I had to mobilize materials and manpower and carry out the work on-site.
“…What were the dimensions of the elevator installed there again?”
Fortunately, the Juggernauts and General Kang had already completed a thorough search and survey, so I did not have to puzzle over what to purchase.
I opened the shop and immediately purchased four industrial ultrahigh-pressure submersible pumps, a high-performance toxic-gas purification and ventilation duct set, and high-voltage, high-capacity power cables.
A short while later, we opened the camouflaged rock door at the far end of the newly constructed three-kilometer tunnel and personally set foot inside the abandoned mine.
Hiss… Shhhhh…
The moment the camouflaged rock face opened, the acrid stink of mold and the stale, damp air trapped inside for thirty years pierced even my gas mask and assaulted my nose.
Soon, the Juggernauts and unmanned work robots poured into the abandoned mine’s underground tunnels.
Roooooar!
As steel footsteps echoed through the tunnels, the four ultrahigh-pressure submersible pumps the Juggernauts had installed in no time all started up at once.
With an insane, rumbling roar, the stagnant water that had been rotting there for decades began surging up and out of the mine.
At the same time, the unmanned robots drove anchors into the rock ceiling and rapidly connected the high-performance ventilation ducts.
Whoosh! Roooooar!
As the defunct ventilation system was replaced, cold, fresh air began rushing forcefully into the gloomy tunnels.
Whenever sharp outcrops of rock jutted menacingly from the walls, a Juggernaut would pound them a few times with its palm and flatten them.
It was terrifying every time I saw it.
“You should step a little farther back.”
“I think I’d better.”
I was extremely glad I had worn a gas mask. The clouds of dust billowing up from every direction were thick enough to obscure my vision.
We continued with structural reinforcement work in every vulnerable area while conducting real-time safety inspections of the tunnels.
Whenever materials were needed, all I had to do was “produce” high-strength supports of the proper specifications on the spot. The Juggernauts could also perform the role of heavy machinery, so the construction proceeded at an almost monstrous pace.
It was enough to make me think the Juggernauts might be useful as combat engineers later.
The final task was replacing the elevator in the five-hundred-meter vertical shaft leading to the surface.
There was not enough time to bore a new vertical shaft, so we decided to precisely measure the dimensions of the abandoned mine’s existing shaft and insert a precision freight elevator module that fit perfectly.
Rumble! Craack!
The Juggernauts climbed the vertical walls, then used sheer brute force to rip out the thirty-year-old rusty elevator, dangling cables, frame and all, and hurl the whole thing to the bottom.
Afterward, work robots clinging to the walls stacked reinforced steel frames vertically like Lego blocks amid showers of welding sparks, then began driving bolts into them.
It was the sort of major construction project possible only because we were confident the special forces would not return for at least six months.
Ann watched the scene and made an observation.
“At this pace, it should easily be completed within a day.”
Anyone who made it as far as the elevator would notice that something had changed, but entering a pitch-black, damp cave without even electricity was hardly something an ordinary person would have the courage to do.
Even if someone did ride the elevator down, finding the entrance connected to our shelter would be impossible. How could they possibly discover a shutter perfectly disguised as solid rock?
I had just tried closing it myself. There was absolutely no way they would find it.
*****
January 12, 2027. Eleven days remained until the demo service ended.
With over ninety-nine percent of the shelter’s facilities complete, I was able to bring in the researchers three days ahead of schedule.
Now it truly began.
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