WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Unlimited Money Shelter of the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 24: Construction of a Rest Facility

──────

I chose to purchase the hundred personnel in ten batches of ten, rather than releasing them all at once into an unpopulated mountain area.

‘Whew.’

A full $180 billion had vanished in one go, leaving me with roughly $488 billion.

I’d already spent over half.

I decided that individually customizing the appearances of a hundred androids would be a waste of time, so I set every one of this batch to have a literally “ordinary” appearance.

Nothing especially noticeable. The kind of common face you might see anywhere on the street.

Still, I made one-third of them foreigners. I doubted anyone would believe that “Korea” was behind the construction and operation of such an enormous research facility.

I wouldn’t believe it either.

If we vaguely claimed they were from overseas, wouldn’t even domestic researchers readily accept their abilities, however exceptional they might be?

Of course, foreigners might fail to blend in with the residents, and during the apocalypse, even trivial differences such as race could become grounds for hatred. Still, I judged that the Juggernauts could suppress that sufficiently.

However, foreigners wandering through every corner of the countryside might stand out even more, so I decided to limit their range of activity primarily to major cities such as the Capital Region and metropolitan cities.

I left the subsequent detailed planning to Anne, my secretary and adviser.

“First, I divided the Republic of Korea into one hundred survey zones.”

“Then each person takes one zone?”

“Yes. Since you assigned a large force of one hundred units, Administrator, I judged that restructuring the zones to suit the survey’s purpose would be more efficient than following the existing administrative districts.”

The map Anne displayed was densely divided across the entire Republic of Korea.

“Taking population density, road networks, major industrial and power-generation facilities, military installations, and other factors into consideration, I arranged them to minimize travel time to the center of each zone.”

The zones varied greatly in size.

It would have been inefficient to divide sparsely populated mountain regions and the densely populated Capital Region into equally sized areas.

So important urban areas with large populations were split into small, dense zones, while mountainous and rural regions with fewer people were broadly grouped into single large zones.

The Enigmas would be dispatched to different zones, where they would establish backdoors and surveillance equipment allowing constant access to integrated control centers for local governments across the country, highway traffic information systems, and national highway CCTV networks.

Ordinarily, building such a surveillance network in so little time would be nearly impossible. But apparently, it was feasible because every Enigma was an intelligence specialist.

Of course, once the apocalypse arrived and the power went out, the road control networks would fail. At that point, we could use separately installed surveillance equipment and orbital satellites.

“Then I will plan for one hundred surveillance devices per zone, for a total of ten thousand surveillance nodes.”

The nodes were fitted with top-of-the-line ultra-low-power day-and-night cameras, vibration and acoustic sensors, small solar panels, camouflage equipment, thermal sensors, waterproofing, and even wiretapping and hacking equipment.

“Each surveillance node will require $47,000.”

Ten thousand surveillance nodes would cost a total of $470 million.

Even if Korea’s infrastructure collapsed, that should be sufficient to continuously monitor major roads, urban access routes, and areas near industrial facilities.

The surveillance equipment would last five years at most and two years at least, but since it was intended to observe the immediate aftermath of the apocalypse as vividly as possible, I judged that would be enough.

I evenly loaded the finished equipment into the 1-ton box trucks I had purchased in advance.

The equipment itself was small, but once I loaded a hundred units into each vehicle along with spare parts, tools, and installation materials, the cargo bays filled up quickly.

Choosing to standardize on 1-ton box trucks with sufficient cargo capacity had been a good decision.

Anne was already assigning personnel to their proper positions.

“What’s your name?”

“Lee Nam-il.”

“Nam-il, you will go to Zone D-03. It is the Jeolla region. Please return within ten days. Use this for emergency contact.”

Once Anne completed an assignment, that person immediately climbed into the designated box truck and departed.

Naturally, we had also considered the possibility that a hundred box trucks pouring out of the mountains could be spotted from outside.

So we were sending them out one at a time at irregular intervals, using secondhand vehicles of different colors and types to avoid drawing attention.

And with General Kang checking the surrounding CCTV in real time, the chances of anyone outside recognizing it as suspicious activity should be minimized.

If this plan concluded successfully, I would have a broader view than anyone else over both the ground and skies of the Republic of Korea.

“Though it may only last two years.”

“That’s true.”

I watched until all hundred personnel had driven away in their box trucks one by one, then returned to the tent we had been using only after receiving a radio message from General Kang.

[Administrator, no irregularities detected.]

Incidentally, General Kang had apparently established a bypass route into the nearby traffic control network long ago.

I had no idea how it had been done, but General Kang’s laptop displayed screens like the ones commonly seen in traffic news broadcasts.

And on those screens, the Enigmas’ box trucks were spreading across the country.

“Nice.”

After handling so many things all day, the sun was already setting.

Still, it was not time to rest. It would be fine to postpone real rest for another seventeen days.

Without hesitation, I began constructing the recreation facility.

If we had to endure for a long time in an enclosed underground space like our shelter, I personally believed recreation facilities were no less important than survival facilities.

More precisely, I believed entertainment itself was important.

At the beginning of a disaster, everyone seeks only things directly tied to survival, such as water, food, safety, and medical care. But if the situation drags on for months or years, something to ease the tension becomes essential.

Records are easy to find of survivors during the Bosnian War trading hand-drawn card games for luxury goods such as batteries and alcohol, or enduring by playing board games like chess and Monopoly.

There were even statistics showing that groups who maintained a sense of “ordinary daily life” through entertainment were more likely to overcome psychological problems and survive to the end.

Above all, entertainment suppresses the conflicts that inevitably arise between people.

The most relatable example was soldiers’ cellphone use these days.

In the old days, people supposedly used their spare time and excess energy to haze their juniors. But when I was serving, everyone was too busy lying on their barracks beds and looking at their phones. Watching one more YouTube video was far more worthwhile than spending time bothering someone else.

I had experienced that firsthand, so I knew for certain. If people had a useful distraction on which to spend their excess energy, friction between them dropped sharply.

In short, entertainment was not merely an event that made members happy. It was an essential mechanism for managing stress throughout the community and preventing the system from running out of control.

The question was, “What kind of recreation facilities should we build first?”

Just as my thoughts reached that point, Anne spoke.

“For entertainment systems in an underground residential environment, it is most efficient to divide them into three broad categories and construct them in stages. They can be divided into passive entertainment, active entertainment, and productive entertainment.”

“Go on.”

First, passive entertainment consisted of individual activities that consumed minimal physical and mental energy, such as reading books, listening to music, and watching visual media.

“This is exceptionally effective at soothing the isolation felt by residents drained after arduous labor and restoring a basic sense of emotional stability.”

Second, active entertainment included not only board games, chess, and cards, but also activities such as table tennis, soccer, and basketball that presupposed interaction with other members.

“It safely expends competitiveness and surplus aggression within the group, builds bonds, and suppresses unnecessary private conflicts.”

And finally, third, productive entertainment involved activities that created tangible results through personal immersion, such as woodworking, handicrafts, playing instruments, and growing plants.

“This can offset the helplessness and worthlessness people are prone to feel in the oppressive environment unique to underground shelters, while allowing each resident to feel agency and accomplishment in life.”

Hearing it put like that really made it sound substantial, like something an expert would say.

“Hmm.”

Good.

But!

I thought that alone was not enough.

I might not use the other facilities much, but I intended to use this recreation facility regularly myself.

So this area had to thoroughly meet my own standards. It had to be good enough that I would not feel stifled even if I were trapped here for decades.

Hadn’t New York urban planners left behind the famous warning that without Central Park, an equally large mental hospital would have been built instead?

“Anne, can you revise the route between the residential area and the recreation area? Like a high-end apartment complex in Seoul, where you open the door and immediately see a park. Then you walk along the park and arrive at the recreation facility.”

“How much should I spend?”

“Don’t hold back.”

At my request, Anne’s eyes moved busily as the plans were recalculated.

About thirty minutes passed before Anne finally appeared with a tablet.

“As you requested, I designed it without sparing the budget, securing the greatest possible sense of openness so that residents can completely forget the limitations of being underground.”

I pointed to the 3D rendering Anne showed me and muttered.

“...How many meters high is this?”

“The maximum height is fifty meters.”

“...And the area?”

“It is designed to cover 38,000 pyeong, or 125,620 square meters, one-eighth the size of Yeouido Hangang Park.”

No wonder it was so damn tall and wide.

The sight filling the entire rendering was overwhelming.

The first thing that caught my attention was the sky.

More precisely, it was an artificial sky created by hundreds of thousands of micro-LED panels.

Because it reflected the actual weather outside, residents could look up from anywhere in the recreation facility and see blue skies and slowly drifting clouds.

At the center of the space, a grassy plaza, lush green spaces, and walking paths spread out around an antique-style clock tower and artificial pond.

Rather than fully grown street trees, fresh young saplings had been planted around the pond. Perhaps this was a thoughtful way to let future residents feel the passage of time as they watched the trees extend their branches and grow.

To the left of the central park was an outdoor sports area with a green soccer field, basketball courts, and a red 400-meter polyurethane track stretching out neatly.

‘W-What is all this?’

Along the enormous dome walls, circular corridors three or four stories high curved majestically onward.

Indoor gyms, woodworking shops, music rooms, libraries, VR sports zones, and other recreational and cultural facilities were packed along those corridors in layers.

Wouldn’t it be possible to put convenience facilities there too, such as daycare centers, schools, cafés, restaurants, or even a bustling market?

Good. It was good.

But the problem was, as always, the cost...

“Construction alone will require $160.2973 billion if built according to the rendering.”

“Damn.”

It required far more money than I had initially expected.

It was only this much because we had chosen a hemispherical dome structure like LA’s Sphere. If we had built it in a rectangular shape like the other facilities, it would have cost twice as much.

The Research Lab covered 80,000 pyeong, so this looked much smaller by comparison. But unlike the research facility, whose average height was only five meters, this was an enormous structure with a maximum height of fifty meters.

Even by volume alone, it was roughly 2.5 times larger than the research facility.

By that measure, it felt like overinvestment. But divided by the shelter’s maximum capacity of 6,720 people, it came to just over 5.6 pyeong per person.

“Even compared with the national average for developed urban parks, which is approximately 3.9 pyeong per person, this is certainly much more spacious than living in most cities.”

It really was overinvestment.

But if we assumed this was a closed underground world where we could not go outside for decades, wasn’t this the bare minimum?

“That is also a valid point.”

Naturally, I had no intention of using this entire space solely for recreation. As I had mentioned before, the walls would house other supplementary facilities such as daycare centers, schools, and a fire station.

I also poured more than $3 billion into sports facilities other than swimming, landscaping, recreational equipment, spare parts for future maintenance, and special long-lasting lighting systems.

Incidentally, most of the vegetation planted in the park, including the soccer field’s grass, would be special artificial plantings rather than natural ones. We could not waste limited groundwater resources excessively maintaining recreation facilities.

Still, the saplings planted in the central park would all be real trees.

Residents would be able to gauge the passing years underground by watching the enormous clock tower in the center of the plaza and the trees gradually extend their branches each year.

Beyond the blueprint, I quietly pictured the beautiful facility that would become a landmark of the shelter.

I liked it.

But I was not allowed much time to savor that satisfaction.

“Administrator.”

On the main monitor General Kang pointed to, military vehicles moved briskly along the roads in the middle of the night.

They were here at last.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried