WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Unlimited Money Shelter of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 8: Cost of Buying Two Androids: $3 Billion
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The K-21 infantry fighting vehicle I rode in during my military service was 2.6 meters tall.
And the Juggernaut I had just bought was slightly shorter, at 2.3 meters. Hearing only the numbers, it didn't sound that huge.
Thud. Thud.
But seeing it approach me up close changed my mind.
‘Wow.’
It was huge. Stupidly huge. As it stomped toward me, I wasn't kidding when I thought a real tank was walking my way.
They say plate-armored knights on horseback were called the tanks of the medieval battlefield. Was this how people felt back then?
It felt like I was facing an entirely different species. And this thing was far bigger than those knights ever were.
It looked like an enhanced soldier enclosed in typical heavy power armor. It didn't seem remotely agile, but it looked terrifyingly tough and powerful.
Its hands, or rather its gauntlets, were as big as watermelons. If it grabbed someone's head with those things, it looked like it could crush it like a watermelon.
The armor plating was beyond imagination. Rifle rounds wouldn't even scratch it, and even a large-caliber sniper rifle probably couldn't penetrate it unless it hit a weak point. You'd need an anti-tank rocket just to stand a chance.
‘It really is a tank.’
Well, with specs like that, no wonder it was said to excel at suppressing threats by force.
I swallowed my admiration and judged the thickness of the power armor's plates. They were damn thick. Far thicker than the armored vehicle I'd ridden in during the army.
Honestly, it exceeded my expectations.
At first, I'd wondered whether I should form a whole company out of these things. But with this much presence, even a platoon should be enough to instill terror and intimidation in people.
To be honest, I was a little scared myself.
The weapon it carried was absurdly huge too. The barrel was so thick that I initially thought it was a grenade launcher, but on closer inspection, it was a rifle. No, calling it a heavy machine gun might be more accurate.
It had a caliber of fifteen millimeters. Its ammunition was depleted uranium rounds.
As far as I knew, twenty millimeters was the line between a gun and a cannon. In other words, this thing fired rounds just short of being considered shells.
At that moment, I felt a sharp tingling near my temples. Then an alien sensation, one I'd never experienced in my life, swept through my head.
It felt as though I were electrically connected to the object in front of me. I knew it sounded ridiculous, but that was the only way I could describe it.
I genuinely felt connected to the Juggernaut electrically.
Was it like I could communicate with it through thought alone? If I told it to move, would it move?
The instant I imagined it raising a fist and smashing the tree beside it, the Juggernaut's massive body moved swiftly and brutally struck the pine trunk.
Crack!
The thick pine was literally torn apart, as if it had been struck directly by lightning. The huge tree let out a thunderous crash and toppled helplessly. Yet the gauntlet did not have a single scratch.
“...Crazy.”
My mind snapped back to attention.
So other users could buy monsters like this too, as long as they had the money? And this was supposedly a shelter-building game, yet it openly included units this absurdly overpowered?
Why?
To encourage users to fight each other? To oppress and rule those without power or money? Or was some terrible apocalypse coming, terrible enough that people would struggle to survive without machines like these?
And why was everything else restricted to modern technology while robots alone were allowed to use future technology?
There was no way to know yet. Honestly, I didn't even want to know.
I raised my head and looked up at the Juggernaut. Wearing its immense power armor, it silently looked down at me through a cold visor.
Was it waiting for orders?
Still, a futuristic unit at this level wouldn't merely wait passively for human commands. Wouldn't it have some degree of autonomous judgment?
I thought, Show me your combat capability with as little noise as possible.
At least, as someone who had majored in computer science, I knew ordinary software would never function with a vague instruction like that. You'd have to code every detail: what numerical value “as little as possible” meant, what standard defined “no noise,” what “combat capability” was, and what process constituted “showing combat capability.”
But the Juggernaut understood me. It didn't say anything, but through our electrical connection, I knew.
The Juggernaut considered it briefly, though I wasn't sure whether “considered” was the right word, then slowly reached toward its waist.
I had expected something like a massive plasma greatsword from a sci-fi movie, so what it pulled out was somewhat underwhelming. It was a round object of unknown purpose. But it was as large as an apple, far more vicious-looking, and futuristic.
Without hesitation, the Juggernaut pulled its pin. Only then did I realize that round hunk of metal was a grenade.
Was it going to kill me because it refused to obey orders from someone weaker than itself? No. Thanks to the machines embedded in my brain, I knew what the Juggernaut intended to do.
After removing every safety mechanism, the Juggernaut placed the grenade on top of its gauntlet instead of throwing it far away. Then, as if to show me, it clenched its fist. Tight enough that not a single gap remained.
Boom!
A few seconds later, a dull explosion rang out.
Acrid smoke leaked from between its clenched fingers. When the Juggernaut opened its fist, sharp metal fragments designed for killing fell weakly to the ground.
The Juggernaut casually brushed off its gauntlet. Despite blocking that terrifying explosion with its hand, the armor's surface had only a shallow scratch.
“...”
I'd better stay on friendly terms with it.
* * *
Having confirmed the Juggernaut's usefulness with my own eyes, it was time to examine the humanoid android.
「You have purchased the P-7 Enigma.」
This time, however, I didn't feel the sensation of being electrically connected to something like I had with the Juggernaut. Was delivery taking time because it was an ultra-expensive item worth $1.8 billion?
「Appearance settings are required.」
Ah, unlike the Juggernaut, this one didn't simply pop out after I hit the purchase button. I had to customize it first, like a game character.
At first, I considered creating an unrealistically beautiful character, but having an overly conspicuous “person” wandering around the shelter would only make it feel strange.
So I made another fairly abstract request.
‘An intelligent woman of moderate beauty.’
To avoid misunderstandings, it wasn't because I had any ulterior motives. The Juggernaut was closer to a male model, so I was simply balancing the gender ratio.
This wasn't the military. A total sausage fest would be a little much, wouldn't it?
Fortunately, the AI system understood my terrible request perfectly. It had caught the subtle nuance Koreans meant by “moderate.”
Soon, a beautiful woman appeared, one anyone would agree was attractive without being overwhelming.
However, the android before me wasn't Asian. She was Western, with short blonde hair. Apparently, the default racial setting was Western.
I doubted other survivors would believe that Westerners had built an underground shelter in the middle of Korea, but if I claimed it was a secret base of an international organization, they might barely accept it.
Though I would have nothing to say if they asked why it had been built in Korea rather than their homeland, especially in mountains with no roads...
It wasn't something I needed to worry about right now.
“...Wow.”
I carefully observed the android before me. She looked like a real person. No, she was simply a person.
In one game, androids could be distinguished from humans by the blue LED modules near their temples. This android didn't even have an identifying device like that.
I wasn't a scientist, but a fundamental question came to mind. What kind of energy did she use to move? Was she rechargeable? That would be a problem.
“I am self-sustaining through semi-permanent internal batteries and biocomponents.”
Amazingly, she answered. And not in English, but Korean.
Her accent wasn't like that of a mixed-race person born and raised in Korea. It was the subtle accent of a foreigner who had studied Korean almost perfectly for a very long time.
Still, wasn't her manner of speaking too android-like? Her expression was stiff too.
“It is based on academic research data indicating that highly intelligent female scientists in the top one percent tend to be domineering and lack empathy.”
So because I had entered “intelligent” as a keyword, this personality had formed?
Then the android lifted her gaze to meet mine.
“Furthermore, behaving in accordance with the social stereotype that intelligent women are stiff and old-fashioned makes it easier to control variables.”
“...”
...So she was doing it deliberately, intending to exploit human psychology and prejudice?
She was a little creepy too. Was that why she was described as an espionage android?
“For reference, I can precisely analyze subtle changes in a person's expression through my ocular sensors. You are currently highly wary of me. But don't worry. I will never harm you, Administrator.”
She put a strange emphasis on the word “never.”
Would that $170 million brain implant truly serve as the final safety measure?
“If you wish, I can install human-friendly emotional modules commonly used by household androids, such as ‘kind older-sister figure next door,’ ‘prickly tsundere high school student,’ or ‘strict but secretly caring female boss’... However, I doubt that is what you desire, Administrator.”
I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't because I'd been called out for some secret preference. The more I spoke with her, the harder it was to shake the chilling feeling that she was a real person.
She didn't even seem to need a separate performance test.
“Where exactly did you come from?”
“I do not know.”
At least she hadn't said, “I cannot tell you.” That reduced the chance that she was the mastermind behind everything.
“Can you take the place of human researchers?”
“I can run simulations using existing research data or prove existing theories, but I cannot independently propose new hypotheses or creative theories.”
In other words, she could fully make use of existing theories, but she couldn't unlock new technology through Research.
That matched the limitations of modern AI as I understood them. Strictly speaking, even the images AI produced these days were less pure “creation” than imitation and recombination based on massive amounts of data.
Of course, a superintelligent AI that had crossed the singularity could probably do even that, but Enigma didn't seem to be at that level.
“We are androids made only to imitate humans.”
* * *
I decided to call my android friend “Anne.” It wasn't taken from Anne of Green Gables. Her model name was Enigma, so I simply shortened the beginning of it for an easy name.
Anyway, to cut to the conclusion, Anne was incredibly capable.
I immediately became certain that if Anne had been involved from the shelter's design stage, an underground base far more efficient and complete than the plans I'd struggled over alone would have been created.
“It is impossible from the outset for a non-specialist to construct a cutting-edge nuclear facility without any errors. I fully understand your commendable efforts, Administrator, but I have discovered several critical structural flaws. Please correct them.”
“...”
“You need not be embarrassed.”
Her way of speaking somehow felt like it was needling me.
Wondering if I was imagining it, I turned to look at Anne, but her expression remained as blank as before.
Anyway, according to Anne, there had been a very high chance that the nuclear facility would stop operating in roughly eight months. Not because the reactor itself was defective, but because there were severe errors in the cooling system and in connecting the reactor to the transformer equipment.
...But didn't that mean everything was wrong?
After directly reviewing papers related to the information, I found that Anne was right.
I couldn't be sure, but Anne appeared to possess knowledge at the doctoral level, perhaps even the level of a professor.
And not just in one field, but every field.
Would I finally be able to build things while receiving feedback from an expert?
“There is an error in that statement. I possess knowledge comparable to that of a professor in most fields, but my knowledge of field operations and combat is relatively lacking.”
“Weren't you an espionage android?”
Anne shook her head as if my question had missed the point.
“We are only capable of output equivalent to that of an adult human male, so we are not particularly suited for combat.”
Normally, people didn't call the strength of an average adult man “only.”
I took it to mean she was closer to an intelligence-gathering spy than one who went into the field shooting people.
It was truly unfortunate that Anne couldn't conduct Research. If she could, I wouldn't need to force other scientists to join me.
But there was nothing to be done if it was impossible.
Since things had turned out this way, I decided to make the most of Anne's abilities.
“Then could you make the shelter's power distribution equipment and HVAC system? I didn't understand a thing even after reading the papers.”
“It is possible, but do you trust me that much?”
I nodded.
An old saying went, “Do not employ those you doubt, and do not doubt those you employ.”
It meant that if you doubted someone, you shouldn't use them. But once you had put them to work, you shouldn't doubt them.
“That is a saying from the Mingxin baojian (Precious Mirror for Illuminating the Mind-Heart).”
“Yeah.”
It used to be my family's motto.
Now, I was the only person left who knew it.
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