WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

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◈ Unlimited Money Shelter of the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 12: $28 Billion Each!

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The screen showed a street in France.

French citizens had poured into the streets a day before New Year's, laughing and chatting. Some were filming the glowing Eiffel Tower with their phones, while others waited for fireworks on broad avenues like the Champs-Élysées.

It probably wasn't strange for the Minister of the Interior, who oversaw a nation's security and public safety, to visit a place like that.

The streets were peaceful and full of hope. There was nothing unusual to be seen.

Just when I thought that, an explosion went off.

It was so massive that even through the screen, my vision seemed to blur for a moment. Every window on the street shattered at once, and the shockwave flung people and vehicles alike through the air. Crimson flames followed.

After a suffocating silence, utter chaos descended.

Car alarms, distant screams, and sirens battered my ears.

Clenching my teeth, I looked at the screen one last time. There were far more censored sections than uncensored ones. They were probably all corpses.

The anchor and announcer expressed their deep regret over the tragedy in France and continued their discussion.

[So, Professor Hwang, do you believe this was a meticulously planned act of terrorism?]

[Yes. Extremist forces opposed to France's current hardline refugee and immigration policies...]

[Ah, new information has just arrived. The French president and prime minister have convened an emergency cabinet meeting and declared a state of emergency and border controls throughout the country...]

[The death toll has currently reached 230, and chaos has spread across Europe...]

[France has canceled all events scheduled for the end of the year...]

I changed the channel. Another channel covered a civil war in the Middle East. Footage continued of missiles fired from high in the sky reducing apartment buildings to rubble.

And outsiders who watched those scenes felt sorry for the horrific situation in the Middle East for about five seconds before returning to their own business.

Anon: Made 300 on leverage, so sweet~

Anon: Why the hell did these Middle Eastern bastards have to go nuts today...?!

megaman: Oil prices are going to shoot up a lot this time. Times are already rough these days, so what the hell are you bitches doing? Stop fighting already~

grace: Why are there so many earthquakes and wars lately? It's scary.

Normally, I would have reacted just like them. I would have been relieved I wasn't born in a country where disaster had struck, then gone to my part-time job as usual.

But I couldn't afford to be so complacent anymore.

France's counterterrorism units, which must have been thoroughly used to terrorism by now, had failed to identify not only the suspects but even the route used to transport the explosives.

An expert even raised the possibility that aerial drones had dropped the explosives from low enough to avoid detection. There was no other way to transport enough explosives to blow up an entire building.

But I knew a way to carry that much explosive material alone. It wasn't difficult with Shelter Builder. Construction and purchases could only be made near the terminal, but items bought in advance could be retrieved even outside its range.

Maybe that terrorist attack, too...

‘Ah.’

I lightly slapped both cheeks. When even that failed to clear my head, I threw on a thin layer of clothing and ran out of the tent.

January's cold air lashed directly against my skin. I stood there for a long time.

The world really was going to end. And there were only twenty-three days left until the apocalypse.

* * *

I had completed the construction of every type of warehouse. There were five main categories: raw materials warehouses, munitions warehouses, freeze-dried storage, freezer storage, and refrigerated storage.

I had packed the raw materials warehouses full of steel, nonferrous metals such as copper, aluminum, and stainless steel, as well as industrial consumables like spare wires, bearings, bolts and nuts, and battery materials that might be useful someday.

The cost of building those five warehouse types came to $5.775 billion. Including the raw materials and other goods I had crammed inside, enough to last at least eighty years, the total came to an incredible $11 billion.

‘Whew.’

I was pushing shelter construction even harder than usual. There were several reasons, but the biggest was that I was starting to feel the need to scout the surrounding area.

Staying in the mountains was safe, but being too isolated had far too many downsides.

Low risk, low return, I suppose.

That was why I decided it would be best to go beyond the mountains and install the CCTV cameras and other surveillance equipment I had already bought along nearby roads and in neighboring cities.

Of course, I had no intention of going myself. I planned to handle it safely by using the androids. While I was at it, I should bring back my parents' urn too.

I didn't want my parents' remains buried beneath radioactive fallout.

Why fallout specifically? Because I believed nuclear weapons were the most plausible means of destroying civilization.

If the former Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba exploded over Seoul right now, Seoul would burn to the ground, everyone across the metropolitan area would suffer third-degree burns, and at least ten million people would die.

Of course, modern strategic nuclear weapons were far less powerful and more precise than the Tsar Bomba, but I didn't believe the United States, China, or Russia had no nuclear bombs comparable to it at all.

Wouldn't they have a few hidden away in the name of nuclear deterrence? Just as no country believed that ours had disposed of every chemical weapon.

Anyway, once nukes went off, civilization would collapse. Whether radiation created mutated life forms, zombies appeared, disease ran rampant, or nuclear winter arrived.

“Since we don't know what might happen on the way, I recommend dispatching them at least three days before D-Day.”

“I’m planning to send them out by the end of this week at the latest.”

“Then will you be buying clothes for those units separately?”

Only then did I realize Anne was wearing nothing but a Gore-Tex outfit.

“...Do you need winter clothes?”

“I would gratefully wear them if you provided them.”

After buying Anne a suitable padded jacket, I focused on construction again.

I had completed every warehouse section just the day before, so once crops or cultured meat began production, they could be stored immediately.

Wouldn't it be efficient to build a kitchen and dining hall above them? Or it might be better to allocate space for a metalworking factory, munitions factory, and repair bay. It wasn't good for noisy facilities to be close to residential areas.

“May I ask what purpose you intend the munitions factory to serve?”

“If we research it later and gain the ability to produce weapons ourselves, I'll make them there. I also want to try producing ammunition ourselves.”

Modern cartridges required four main components: a projectile, casing, propellant, and primer. With a metalworking factory, we could somehow machine projectiles and casings from materials in the raw materials warehouse. But as far as I knew, gunpowder and primers required a separate precision chemical factory.

“Administrator, to be honest, I do not recommend producing ammunition within the shelter. In terms of both practicality and economy, stockpiling finished ammunition in large quantities is overwhelmingly more advantageous.”

“I know. But what happens once we use up all the ammunition we stockpiled?”

I wasn't building this shelter just to survive for ten or twenty years. I was looking far beyond that, to the distant future when the nuclear fallout had completely settled and humanity could venture back outside the shelter.

When that time came, a day would inevitably arrive when, regardless of efficiency, we would need to produce even crude handmade rounds just to survive.

Surface munitions factories? They would have vanished without a trace in the nuclear explosions long ago. Even if one miraculously retained its form, all its machinery would surely have rusted into scrap over the decades.

That didn't mean we had to mass-produce ammunition for thousands or tens of thousands of people. We only needed enough for the people responsible for venturing outside and conducting reconnaissance.

Zombies aside, a raider died cleanly after taking one bullet to the head. And in a fight between someone with a gun and someone without one, the armed side won ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

So even if it was inefficient, it was well worth establishing minimum ammunition production facilities.

“If that is your decision, I recommend lines for the highly versatile 5.56×45mm NATO and 9mm Parabellum cartridges.”

I nodded. They were the world's most commonly used rifle and pistol rounds. I wondered whether I really needed pistol ammunition too, but considering portability and indoor combat within the cramped shelter, it was essential.

I had no intention of producing artillery shells. Artillery shell production facilities were incomparably more complicated than ammunition lines, and that level of firepower could probably be adequately replaced by the Juggernauts' mounted weapons.

Therefore, I decided to compromise by stockpiling artillery shells in the largest possible quantities instead of producing them myself.

Likewise, the specialized ammunition used by the Juggernauts couldn't be manufactured with modern technology, so I planned to stockpile as much of it as possible.

But I wasn't buying any of it yet. I only planned to spend whatever money remained after I had purchased the entire shelter.

In any case, if we were going to produce bullets, a shooting range was essential for maintaining practical shooting skills. While I designed the shooting range, I decided to leave the munitions factory blueprint layout to Anne.

“First, I'll secure only the basic ammunition production lines.”

“Okay. I'm counting on you.”

The shooting range didn't need a particularly complex layout. As long as it had distances of ten, thirty, fifty, and up to one hundred meters, it would be enough.

As long as a rifle was properly zeroed, a single shot could hit most targets.

[ ■ Logistics Depot ]

⦁ Steel Human-Silhouette Target (High-Strength AR500)

⦁ Unit Price: $120

⦁ Status: [Available for Purchase]

⦁ Automatic Rotating Pop-Up Target System (Wired/Wireless Compatible)

⦁ Unit Price: $350

⦁ Status: [Available for Purchase]

⦁ Distance-Specific Paper Target Set (100 Sheets)

⦁ Unit Price: $25

⦁ Status: [Available for Purchase]

⦁ Portable Electronic Zeroing Device

⦁ Unit Price: $890

⦁ Status: [Available for Purchase]

“Whew!”

After spending several hours completing the shooting range's detailed design, I unfolded the shelter's overall blueprint again.

Access routes such as elevators and stairs needed to be thoroughly separated by section. Cultivation-zone workers should only be able to enter the cultivation zone, munitions factory personnel only the munitions factory, and power facility personnel only the power facilities.

Even with Juggernauts around, humans were bound to entertain other thoughts when weapons were right in front of them and their routes overlapped.

Therefore, I decided that the only passage connecting every independent section at once would lead to the Central Control Room. Of course, construction on that Central Control Room hadn't even begun yet.

Naturally, I decided my own quarters would be inside it too.

If I stepped forward as a leader in the future, I could stay there in comfort. If I decided to hide among the others by pretending to be an ordinary survivor, I could simply reserve a room in the outer residential facilities and connect it through an emergency secret passage.

The Central Control Room's core role was to monopolize and control the shelter's power, water resources, main server room, and access permissions for each section, like the bridge of a battleship. Not to mention the surveillance system for every area within the shelter.

...Calling it surveillance sounded a little odd, but it was a necessary measure for mediating disputes among residents, preventing weapon smuggling, and controlling outbreaks.

Conversely, it also meant that if the Central Control Room were breached, the entire shelter would be finished.

That was why I planned to place it one thousand meters underground, where no existing bunker buster could strike it. Like the shelter's main entrance, its entrance would have multiple layers of ultra-heavy blast doors.

The interior I envisioned resembled a cutting-edge Tactical Operations Center, or TOC, like one you'd see in an American blockbuster movie.

A massive main screen at the front displayed real-time satellite footage and tactical maps, while below it, dozens of operators processed precise data nonstop beneath the bluish glow of their consoles.

Naturally, I planned to staff this control room entirely with androids. Maybe after perfect trust had been established, but for now there was no reason to allow outside survivors into the control room, and the risk was too great.

Normally, it would require dozens of specialized personnel, but a futuristic android like Anne could easily replace dozens of people alone, so manpower wasn't a concern.

‘Ah.’

It would have been perfect if the androids could conduct research as well. They could do everything else, but it was such a shame they couldn't unlock technology.

But perhaps that was a balance patch of sorts. If androids could handle everything from construction to research and combat, there would be no reason for players to take the risk of accepting others into their shelters and forming a society.

Of course, at over $1 billion per android, ordinary users probably couldn't even dream of buying one...

“Administrator, I have completed the blueprint.”

I examined the paper Anne handed me. Although it had been quickly sketched in pen, it was as neatly organized as if an expert had produced it in CAD.

As I copied Anne's munitions factory blueprint directly onto my laptop screen, I glanced at the remaining funds in the corner.

「Available Funds: $935,290,361,435」

Amazingly, I still had a staggering $935 billion left. $1 trillion really was an absurd amount of money.

I smugly glanced at Anne with an expression that said, See? Building the munitions factory was a good call, wasn't it? But as usual, Anne responded flatly without the slightest change in expression.

“Would you like me to panic and furrow my brow for you?”

Tch.

Unfortunately, I had no such preference. Losing interest, I turned away and focused on the screen again.

There appeared to be plenty of money left, but I couldn't expand the hydroponics zone any further. The groundwater reserves we could draw and the limits of water recycling were clear.

For the same reason, expanding the residential zone was impossible. The shelter's maximum capacity was ultimately proportional to its food and water production.

‘...But why is there still so much money left?’

I hadn't even built twenty percent of the shelter yet, but I had far more money remaining than expected.

Should I buy more androids? It might be good to send them to nearby cities right now to install surveillance cameras in advance.

“It's probably because the satellite purchase budget accounts for a significant portion of the total.”

Ah, satellites?

Hadn't the survey said that we would launch satellites like Starlink and build a community for survivors?

But no matter how expensive they were, could satellites really cost more than Anne?

[ ■ Orbital Surveillance Assets ]

⦁ KH-13-Class Ultra-High-Resolution Composite Reconnaissance Satellite

⦁ Description: A top-tier strategic surveillance satellite equipped with both an ultra-high-resolution optical telescope capable of identifying objects as small as 1 cm from low Earth orbit and SAR, or synthetic aperture radar, capable of seeing through to the ground at night and in adverse weather.

⦁ Unit Price: $28.07 billion (including orbital insertion service)

⦁ Status: [Available for Purchase]

Huh?

$28 billion?

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