WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Unlimited Money Shelter of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 3: This Doesn't Seem Like a Game (2)
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After grabbing four short hours of shut-eye, I woke up and opened the game first thing.
“...”
For now, I’d concluded there was an extremely high chance that <Shelter Builder> was not a game.
If it wasn’t a game, what was it?
I didn’t know.
Aliens? People from the future? Either way, I didn’t think modern technology could have made it.
Even if I bent over backward and assumed China, North Korea, or some unidentified enemy country had “distributed” this dangerous data across central Seoul to threaten national security...
Would they sell it to an ordinary person like me for money?
Data that plainly showed key military bases not only in Korea, but the United States, China, Russia, and Japan?
No, forget all that. The fact that I could see North Korea so clearly was enough to settle it. I never thought I’d live to learn what North Korean long-range artillery looked like.
To test the hypothesis I’d formed yesterday, I immediately opened the map. The satellite map on-screen showed the flea market that had opened in my apartment complex yesterday exactly as it had been.
Since every market tent was already up, the image had to have been taken no earlier than eight in the morning.
‘It’s true, fuck.’
It really did update every day.
Obviously, no satellite map existed that updated the entire world daily. More precisely, none existed for civilians.
Should I report this to the police or the National Intelligence Service?
After agonizing over it for a long time, I decided to keep my mouth shut.
Considering how openly it had been sold in the middle of Seoul’s Hongdae neighborhood on Christmas Eve, there had to be a hell of a lot of copies out there already. There was no reason for me to stick my neck out and invite trouble.
More than anything, having dealt with both the Ministry of National Defense and the Military Manpower Administration, I knew keeping quiet was usually the best policy.
Right then, as if to fuel my anxiety that the world might really be ending, a system notification popped up over the game screen.
「Time until the demo service ends: 29 days」
...So that’s how it was, huh?
I had $700,000 in spare cash anyway. If it could rid me of this gnawing anxiety, I could invest a month without hesitation. I’d planned to take a few days off and rest anyway.
「Welcome, Administrator.」
I adjusted my grip on the mouse and checked the shelter location I had settled on yesterday.
The final site was near Gangwon Province, on the side of an unnamed, rugged mountain roughly 1,400 meters above sea level.
It was a literal perfect wilderness, thick with forest, without a single house or even a proper road within a five-kilometer radius. There were a few temples since it was a mountain, but that was all.
At most, there was a remote campground and a valley.
One unusual detail was that a fairly large river for Gangwon Province flowed eleven kilometers to the east. I looked it up and found that it joined other streams to form the headwaters of the Han River.
Could there possibly be a better place to build a shelter?
I’d investigated the site enough. Now it was time to examine the [Construction] feature.
The map feature alone had caused all this. I couldn’t even imagine how groundbreaking the construction feature would be. Maybe a building would really go up with a single mouse click.
“...”
The moment I pressed the button, half doubtful and half expectant, a message appeared.
「The shelter is too far away!」
“What the hell is this?”
Click. Click.
Frowning, I hammered the mouse.
「The shelter is too far away!」
「The shelter is too far away!」
「The shelter is too far away!」
“Ah.”
Don’t tell me I had to go all the way to Gangwon Province in person?
* * *
I’d been riding a train toward Gangwon Province for hours to resolve this vague anxiety.
It was like Pokémon GO. Since I couldn’t interact with the shelter at all if I was too far away, I was going despite myself.
I wanted to take the KTX, but perhaps because the area’s population density was so low, there were barely any trains at all, never mind a KTX.
Still, I couldn’t waste this precious time staring blankly out the window.
I took out my phone and started combing Korean and overseas communities for information about survivalism and the apocalypse.
Surprisingly, Reddit was the most helpful. I assumed it was because a country plagued by major disasters like blizzards and hurricanes had so many survivalists.
WolfMan: If you’re building a bunker, first buy land somewhere as remote as possible.
Posts from WolfMan, an Iraq War veteran and current hunter, were especially helpful.
I’d gotten the top grade in English on the CSAT, so I could understand the general meaning, but since the world had gotten so convenient, I ran the posts through an AI translator and read them carefully.
WolfMan: Every underground level costs several times more than the last, so watch your budget. Still, deeper is better. You need at least 120 cm of concrete for radiation shielding, so keep that in mind.
WolfMan: If an EMP goes off, nine out of ten solar panels are fucked. So use a diesel generator if you can handle the noise. I think U.S. government bunkers use similar generators.
Countless other people laid out their own survival philosophies.
Among all these people, was there anyone else who had bought the <Shelter Builder> demo like I had?
Even if there was, they would never make it obvious. Survivalists tended to be extremely closed-off, and if they got the same bad feeling from playing this game that I had, they would keep quiet until they finished “verifying” it.
If they were really curious, they wouldn’t ask outright. They’d subtly drop a hint and test the waters.
For example:
Bunker_man: What do you guys think is the most important thing in an apocalypse?
Bunker_man: A safe shelter, survival skills, dependable allies, or personal combat ability?
Just like that.
It was identical, down to the wording, to the first question I’d received when I bought <Shelter Builder>.
Of course, it was too early to be certain based on that alone. Questions at that level were common topics that apocalypse communities threw around whenever they were bored.
In fact, several users replied casually as though it were nothing special.
TOXIC: Definitely shelter, yeah.
survivor1: Dependable allies? Bullshit. I can’t even trust my family lol.
Anatano_namae: Survival skills are probably the safest pick. Starting a fire alone is surprisingly useful. And do you guys even know how to apply a bandage properly? You think wrapping it around and around is all there is to it?
UglyKorean: My vote is combat ability.
Bunker_man: Hmm;;
That was the end of Bunker_man’s response. I added the poster’s ID as a friend and checked whether they had asked similar questions elsewhere, but I didn’t find the information I wanted.
Still, there were several other posts that caught my attention with their hard truths.
MekRhythm: Remember this when you build a bunker or shelter. Even deep in the mountains isn’t necessarily a safe zone.
MekRhythm: Historical examples show that when a country collapses, the first thing people do before winter comes is head into the mountains to cut firewood. That was exactly what happened during the Bosnian War. They went over every inch of those mountains with a fine-tooth comb, searching for any roots they could eat.
MekRhythm: If state functions collapse and the water supply cuts off, all sorts of people will gather at water sources to find water. Mountain valleys are one of them. If you’re thinking of building a bunker in the mountains, reconsider. You could get discovered later and end up seriously screwed.
MekRhythm: And rural people are more observant and sharp-eared than you’d think. If an outsider shows up, everyone in town will know within days.
MekRhythm: It’s the same even if you hide in the mountains. Herb gatherers and hunters can tell at a glance whether bent brush was left by a person or a wild animal. My maternal uncle was like that. I can do a rough imitation of it too.
Once I started reading one painful warning, similar pieces of realistic advice followed one after another without end.
“...”
Feeling like I’d been hit where it hurt, I seriously read the community’s popular posts from beginning to end.
I’d skipped breakfast, so my stomach was already empty. After facing so many harsh doses of reality, unease washed over me and killed my appetite completely.
‘I should buy hiking clothes as soon as I get there.’
Otherwise, the locals would mark me as some suspicious lunatic wandering around the mountain valleys.
* * *
I blew an entire week’s construction wages on hiking gear.
I bought the full set, from a backpack and functional hiking clothes to hiking boots, sunglasses, a hat, and even a one-touch tent.
It stung to see that much cash go, but if the world didn’t end, then the world hadn’t ended, so that was a win. If it really did end, I had hiking gear, so that was a win too.
‘There aren’t even any lodgings listed on the app here.’
Since I was already splurging, I stopped at the nearest run-down motel in town and paid for a full week’s room charges in one go.
I had no idea how many days I would be stuck here.
The owner beamed at the lump sum, but also looked me up and down with an extremely strange expression.
A young guy showing up alone at a motel in some godforsaken Gangwon village in the middle of winter and saying he wanted to stay long-term probably made him think I was going up the mountain to do something stupid.
“Young man, you’re not thinking of doing anything stupid, right?”
“Oh, it’s not like that. I’m just here on vacation and thought I’d go hiking.”
“...Right? You’re here on vacation, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
“A young person hiking alone. That’s unusual...”
Fortunately, the fancy hiking outfit I wore from head to toe seemed to help erase some of his suspicion.
Anyway, telling myself it had been a reasonable expense, I headed toward the trailhead based on information I had checked on the train.
Fortunately, perhaps because it was a weekday, there were barely any hikers around.
‘This is going to take a while.’
It was roughly five kilometers in a straight line. But following the hiking trail meant I had to make a detour of at least ten kilometers.
Still, I chose the winding trail instead of the direct route. There was a reason for that.
I had been a signal corps soldier in the military, and I had painfully experienced what it meant to force your way through trackless hills.
Let’s just say I learned then that straight-line distance on a map didn’t give a fuck about actual elevation.
‘Damn, it was a good thing I wore spikes.’
Despite being a winter mountain in Gangwon Province, there wasn’t much snow, but the trail was frozen and slippery.
I hiked nonstop for hours. Fortunately, I’d built up my stamina through physical work until recently. Otherwise, the terrain was rough enough that I would have collapsed two or three times near the entrance alone.
‘No one comes this far unless they’re seriously out of their mind.’
There were plenty of steep sections where I had to crawl along the ground like a four-legged animal.
‘This is bad.’
Maybe I should have built it somewhere closer.
* * *
From the middle of the trail onward, I had to leave it and push through a forest with nothing in it.
The good thing about a winter mountain was that the trees had been reduced to bare skeletons, making it easier to see and avoid thick brush.
Having experienced both summer and winter mountain training in the military, I could confidently say that winter was better.
For one thing, the humidity in summer mountains made it hard to breathe and drove people insane. Not to mention the swarms of bugs buzzing into your ears. If rain started pouring down, your mental state got shredded in real time.
Of course, winter came with its own pain. The cold made the tips of your hands and feet ache like crazy, and your whole body got so chilled that without hot packs, it felt like you might really freeze to death...
“Whew...”
Still, if I armed myself with hot packs everywhere, I could somehow endure it.
Much as it killed me to admit it, my military experience was helping. Just imagining crawling up this brutal mountain without adhesive hot packs made my vision go dark.
“When am I supposed to be able to start construction?”
「The shelter is too far away!」
Even while struggling onward, I took my laptop out of my backpack whenever I had the chance and repeatedly clicked the [Construction] button. But even at points where I was sure I had gotten close enough, the notification remained unmoved.
Did I really have to walk right up to the exact GPS coordinates?
‘Next time, I should seriously buy a Starlink and bring it.’
Deep in the mountains, my phone signal kept cutting in and out. Fortunately, <Shelter Builder> operated locally and did not need the internet. Otherwise, I might have gone through all this hell for nothing.
After climbing and descending trackless mountain paths over and over, sweating as though I’d been caught in the rain, I finally saw it.
“...!!!”
Halfway up the rugged winter mountain stood an unidentified structure, towering in the form of a translucent 3D blueprint.
At the same time, a dry mechanical voice came from my laptop speakers.
「You have made contact with the terminal.」
「Welcome, Administrator.」
「You may now begin construction.」
...What was this now?
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