WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Unlimited Money Shelter of the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 10: Terrorism (1)

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Bed at 2:00 a.m., up at 7:00 a.m.

I wondered whether I'd ever lived each day so productively before. I thought I got more sleep even when I was on sentry duty in the military.

“Haah, haaah...”

Maybe because it was a winter mountain, but it was definitely cold. If I hadn't experienced this in the military beforehand, I'd have been in real trouble.

Of course, I could build a temporary residential area in the shelter, but I had my own reasons for sleeping in a tent.

First, I didn't know how many years I'd have to live down there, but I didn't want to start living underground already.

Second, I thought experiences like this might help me empathize, even a little, with other survivors later. Ice Age apocalypse stories were a fairly major genre too, weren't they?

Just as only people who had eaten bagged rice in the military could understand that feeling, there were surely emotions shared only by those who had slept on a cold winter mountain.

There was something else I was considering.

When I accepted survivors, most likely researchers, should I reveal that I was the shelter's Administrator?

And I was leaning toward hiding it.

I could put the androids, beings who would never betray me, out front. Did I really need to expose myself as the Administrator and take on the risks?

A rebellion, excessive resentment, or conversely, excessive goodwill... Things like that.

So it seemed safer to give orders from behind the scenes, like a shadow power broker.

“You are extremely cautious, Administrator.”

I had stepped outside my tent and was sipping instant coffee when Anne approached me.

I asked half-jokingly.

“Want some too?”

“I won't refuse.”

But Anne went one step further, readily accepting the can of coffee I offered. Before I could even raise my eyebrows in surprise, Anne gulped it down in one go.

“Huh?”

“Thank you for the drink. So this is what instant coffee tastes like.”

“You can drink that?”

“One of the quickest ways to build trust with humans is to share meals with them. If we skip meals, people will quickly suspect that we are androids.”

I blinked. Well, that made sense.

If people claiming to be shelter residents never showed themselves eating day after day, anyone would find it strange.

...But then how did they get rid of it? Did they even have somewhere to store food waste in the first place?

“We break it all down internally into particles at the microscopic level. You are rather naughty, Administrator.”

A hollow laugh escaped me. I was starting to get a general sense of Anne's personality.

At least, Anne wasn't a typical “android.” They had a sense of humor, too.

“So you've finally recognized my true nature.”

“Enough. Let's get to work.”

As I'd said yesterday, I planned to build hydroponic facilities today.

And there was that thing Anne had mentioned yesterday... What was it again?

“Aeroponics, aquaponics, solid-substrate cultivation, and mycoponics?”

“Yeah, that. Explain what those are.”

Anne rattled off technical terms, but to summarize them simply:

1. Aeroponics: A method of growing crops by exposing their roots to the air and periodically spraying them with nutrient solution in a fine mist. This method could even produce staple crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes.

2. Aquaponics: A farming method that combines fish farming and hydroponics. Plants absorb fish waste as nutrients and purify the water. It allowed both vegetables and fish to be raised.

3. Solid-substrate cultivation: A method of planting crops in artificial substrates such as coconut husks and rockwool instead of soil, then supplying them with nutrients. Because the substrate supports the roots, it can grow heavy crops such as tomatoes, strawberries, and potatoes.

4. Mycoponics: A method of growing mushrooms using sawdust or agricultural byproducts as the substrate. It requires no lighting electricity.

In other words, I needed all four methods for a nutritionally balanced diet.

Then how large would the facilities need to be to provide a stable food supply?

I had heard somewhere that an adult man needed about 250 square meters of land to survive entirely on cultivated food for a year.

If an adult man's recommended daily intake was roughly 2,500 kcal, the annual requirement came to around 912,500 kcal.

That meant 250 square meters of land produced about 912,500 kcal of food per year, or roughly 3,650 kcal per square meter annually.

“You calculate quickly.”

“I got into college on math.”

“Oh ho.”

But indoor hydroponic facilities had vastly superior crop cycles and yields per unit area. Looking up average figures from papers... they were roughly three to five times higher.

If I used the rough average of four times, the growing area required per person was 62.5 square meters.

That was more than I expected. Did it take an eight-by-eight-meter plot just to feed one person?

Anne added from beside me.

“That is a simple calculation assuming only one tier is in operation.”

Ah, right.

With a multi-tier vertical farm, meaning ten-tier cultivation, the required area per person dropped to 6.25 square meters of floor space, about 1.89 pyeong.

Then just 1,890 pyeong could feed a thousand people! This was more manageable than I thought!

“What if I just make it twenty tiers instead of ten...”

“Then the temperature difference between the upper and lower levels would become extreme, reducing production instead. LED lighting generates more heat than you might think. The ceiling height would also need to be over seven meters, and structural instability would increase.”

“Tsk.”

“Please be content with ten tiers.”

Should I?

“By the way, have you installed the water pipes?”

“Ah.”

* * *

One thing I had realized while building the shelter was that there were far too many things to worry about.

After solving the electricity problem, I now had to install water lines.

Fortunately, I had investigated early on and learned that a large bedrock aquifer ran 800 meters beneath the shelter. With a flow rate of 150 tons per hour, it provided 3,600 tons a day. That was more than enough to run one large shelter.

“I trust you don't think it'll be over after simply putting in one water pipe.”

Of course, even I knew that mishandling groundwater on that scale could flood the entire shelter.

And not all groundwater was drinkable. It would naturally have to be purified and filtered for heavy metals, bacteria, and the like.

Uh, but where did I even start?

“First, we need reinforcement work on the outer walls around the aquifer and must calculate the sustainable pumping yield, but I'll handle that part. Please attend to your remaining business.”

“Thanks, Anne.”

“You're welcome.”

For reference, sustainable pumping yield was the point where the rate at which groundwater was pumped and the rate at which it naturally replenished reached equilibrium. Since I was utterly hopeless at architecture and civil engineering, I decided to trust Anne and leave it to them without argument.

Having an expert was really nice. If nothing else, I'd never have to feel miserable from lacking one.

Of course, Anne had cost $1.8 billion, so they should at least be able to do this much... Still, I decided to think of it as buying safety with money.

After dumping the waterworks-related tasks on Anne, I decided to focus on constructing the hydroponic facilities again.

There was no downside to having more food. Since I had installed three small reactors, electricity would be plentiful. As long as I secured the space, it would directly increase food production.

Of course, the warehouses to store all that food would have to grow as well.

‘At $50,000 per cubic meter, if I calculate 1,890 pyeong with a ceiling height of four meters...’

Excavating the space needed to house growing facilities for 1,000 people alone would cost about $1.25 billion.

Did that mean I could feed another thousand people if I'd simply bought one fewer Anne or Juggernaut?

My head suddenly spun.

‘Hmm.’

Should I first think about what to plant? It wasn't like I could return Anne now.

First was rice.

The biggest reason rice wasn't grown hydroponically was that planting it in paddies was dozens of times cheaper. But after the apocalypse? Farming in fields would be impossible. There didn't even need to be a nuclear war. An ice age alone would finish it.

And Koreans couldn't live without rice.

The next crops would be napa cabbage and chili peppers. Naturally, for kimchi. Kimchi required fermented seafood, but I could store that in large quantities in the food warehouse.

As you could probably tell just from this, my goal was to set efficiency aside and recreate pre-apocalypse eating habits as closely as possible. I thought dietary habits were the most important thing for maintaining one's mental health and surviving long-term.

“Hmm.”

If I added soybeans for protein, wheat for occasional flour-based foods, and a few vitamin-rich leafy vegetables and fruits I had found on online communities, wouldn't that be enough for the vegetable side?

[ ■ Food Production Facility ]

⦁ AI-Automated 10-Tier Hybrid Vertical Farm

⦁ Description: A sealed cleanroom rack system in which AI sensors monitor and autonomously regulate light levels, temperature, and humidity in real time by tier and zone. Only one type of crop can be cultivated at a time.

⦁ Unit Price: $5,000 per pyeong

⦁ Status: [Available for Purchase]

‘Just to produce rice for 1,000 people, the equipment alone costs $9.45 million?’

The fact that I thought that was practically free was genuinely horrifying. It had only been a few days since I won $700,000 and thought I was set for life.

I installed the hydroponic facilities for now but didn't plant any crops. Anne hadn't yet finished calculating how much groundwater the hydroponic facilities could use.

What would happen if I planted crops recklessly, only to find I didn't have enough water afterward?

“I am finished.”

“Already?!”

“Since we usually calculate 60 percent of the total flow as safely available, our shelter can sustainably use 2,160 tons of groundwater per day. Assuming we allocate half of that, 1,080 tons, to the hydroponic facilities, we can cultivate approximately 11,000 pyeong with ten-tier cultivation and reliably secure food for 5,820 people every year.”

“Can't we increase that?”

“If we limit the crops to lettuce, which uses relatively little water, we could support up to 10,000 people. Or you could allocate more water to the hydroponic facilities. However, doing so would cause significant disruptions to shelter operations.”

Okay. I'd be satisfied with this.

In the end, it looked like I needed to conduct Research to unlock future crops or improve the hydroponic facilities' efficiency. I finally understood this game's mechanism completely.

‘Researchers will be really important for long-term survival.’

That was how I secured a cultivation site totaling 11,000 pyeong, spending approximately $7.7408 billion including construction costs and site preparation.

Of that, 40 percent was allocated to rice, the staple food. Ten percent went to soybeans, sources of protein and fat. Fifteen percent went to nutrient-rich plants including tomatoes and bell peppers. Another 15 percent went to Korean food ingredients such as napa cabbage, chili peppers, garlic, and scallions. Another 10 percent went to versatile wheat for flour and other uses. The final 10 percent went to quick-growing leafy greens for wraps and several fruits.

Unfortunately, aquaponics seemed impossible for now, so I gave up on it. I didn't have the spare capacity to raise fish too.

‘Still, feeding around 5,000 people should be fine, right?’

Being able to reliably feed 5,800 people meant that I could accommodate far more than that if I reduced rations.

As I was feeling satisfied, Anne approached me. They held a sheet of paper in one hand.

Since Anne didn't have authority to operate Shelter Builder, they had no choice but to use pen and paper whenever they drew up blueprints like this.

I furrowed my brow and examined the paper. I couldn't understand a single thing.

It wasn't because Anne was bad at drawing. I simply lacked the expertise.

“Uh... Could you explain this?”

“This section is the water intake and pumping facility.”

“That is the thing that pumps water up, right?”

Anne nodded.

“Yes. This facility draws water through high-durability deep-well pumps, then stores it first in a raw-water tank. Next, it passes through four filtration stages in the water treatment and purification system. Pretreatment, water softening and carbon filtration, reverse osmosis, and disinfection. I'll explain those in detail later.”

Anne pointed to the blueprint one section at a time so I could understand it more easily.

“The purified water is then supplied through this pressurizing pump to areas throughout the shelter based on their intended use. For now, I have divided those uses into living quarters, hydroponics rooms, laboratories, industrial zones, and the server room. If you need additional water later, you may draw it from here.”

After handing me the blueprint, Anne stepped back.

“What are you doing?”

“Hm?”

“Build it already.”

Anne?

* * *

I completed the hydroponic and water facilities. Since the water facilities were so important, I invested without trying to save money, yet they only cost $180 million.

That was despite installing an enormous reservoir, flexible earthquake-resistant piping, a multi-stage purification plant capable of removing radiation, mechanical-room chambers, and even ultra-precision piping exclusively for the server room!

Of course, I had spent another $750 million preparing the site for the ultra-enormous water tanks and other equipment, but this was still practically free. Free!

For the nutrient solution used in hydroponics, which contained the minerals and nutrients plants needed to grow, Anne suggested the optimal ratios. Each plant required different nutrients, so every formula was different as well.

Anyway, I built dedicated piping to supply nutrient solution to the hydroponics rooms, mixing tanks to store it, and closed-loop recycling pipes to reuse the water left over after the plants absorbed what they needed.

Of course, unlike water that could be supplied almost indefinitely, nutrient solution couldn't be produced without limit. Calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate, its raw materials, would have to be supplied continuously.

For now, there seemed to be no solution except stockpiling as much as possible. Maybe I could find a synthesis method through Research.

“So that means there's no way for now?”

“That's right.”

And judging by Anne's answer, Anne didn't seem to have a solution either.

Still, I decided to be satisfied with having secured electricity, water, and food on a near-permanent basis.

‘I need to pay more attention to storage.’

According to Anne, I needed about five tons of fertilizer a year. If I planned generously for a hundred years, I would need a full 500 tons. That meant the fertilizer warehouse alone required over 300 pyeong.

It would cost $248 million just to build one fertilizer warehouse!

...This was more manageable than I expected?

Fertilizer problem, solved!

“Nitrate fertilizers can explode if stored improperly.”

...Hmm. Half solved, then.

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