Chapter 48
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Shelter Expansion
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One worry I had while accepting the survivors from Shelter C was whether there would be conflicts or clashes between them and the existing residents.
I could take them in without issue since I already knew Jason, but it was uncertain if the current residents would feel the same.
But my concerns turned out to be unfounded—they integrated remarkably well.
Part of it was that the Shelter C survivors weren't prickly personalities, but the biggest reason was that they achieved a grand religious harmony.
No need to belabor the point that the object of their faith was Zixuan.
The Shelter C survivors, like the existing residents, had witnessed miracles firsthand—being healed by her—so they naturally fell into the religious fervor.
Zixuan heard that the residents were treating her like a saint and kicked off her blankets with a "Why are you doing this?"... but anyway, thanks to that, the chaotic atmosphere in the shelter quickly stabilized.
Around that time, I decided to start the shelter expansion project that I'd been putting off until later.
With the number of survivors nearing 90, the shelter felt incredibly cramped. The expansion wasn't difficult. Most of the zombies that could have been obstacles were already dead.
A few stragglers showed up now and then, but they were mostly regular zombies, and the variant zombies or Chasers that appeared occasionally were turned into Swiss cheese by the installed Sentry Guns.
I easily teamed up with the survivors to widen the shelter.
The expanded shelter was now more than twice its original size. By securing the empty lot in the middle of the factory district, it felt like three times bigger.
Expanding the shelter was great, but it came with new workloads to match. We had to till the newly acquired land to make it suitable for farming and spread the fertilizer we'd brought from the agricultural lab.
The survivors worked the fields under the direct command of Professor Alex and Maria. I figured it was about time to make good on my promise of farming tools.
And I... holed up in the munitions factory, cranking out Sentry Guns nonstop. Sentry Gun. Sentry Gun.
The wider territory meant I needed more Sentry Guns to defend it. I'd been handling them so much that they were even showing up in my dreams.
I wondered if I might actually go insane.
But since it was work I'd been doing steadily, it wasn't too bad. The target number had just increased a bit—a very little bit. I swallowed my tears and kept my hands moving.
Even while pushing myself like that, my level went up, probably because the Sentry Guns had taken down a bunch of variant zombies. Without much thought, I'd reached level 30.
「Job level has risen to 30. (2-person party bonus +160%)」
「Metal Transformation level has risen to 8.」
「You have acquired Machine Repair (Lv.1).」
It was exactly what it sounded like—a skill for repairing machines. But I was happier about Metal Transformation leveling up than Machine Repair. It improved work speed and AP efficiency.
Thanks to the leveled-up Metal Transformation, I could steadily produce 10 units a day. Finally, I had enough Sentry Guns to cover the entire shelter.
But once the Sentry Guns were done, now it was ammo shortages.
Thinking about it, it made sense—nearly a hundred Sentry Guns firing nonstop day and night whenever they spotted zombies would naturally deplete the stockpile in the munitions factory.
I tried making some with AP, but only got about 500 rounds. That was a decent amount, but nowhere near enough to supply a hundred Sentry Guns.
Of course, I knew an easy way to produce ammo. After all, I was in a munitions factory. It naturally had ammo manufacturing equipment.
I headed underground. Down there was the "Ammo Manufacturing Machine." It looked like pretty outdated equipment, not exactly state-of-the-art... but I placed my hand on it.
「Worn Ammo Manufacturing Machine」
Ammo production per hour: 54
Production efficiency: 18%
Durability: 3/150
Description: A machine that automatically manufactures ammo to the appropriate caliber. Due to its low durability and worn state, there's a high chance the produced ammo quality will be degraded.
Using it carries a risk of breakdown.
It was not only worn but had only 3 durability left.
Forget the abysmal production efficiency—if it broke while making ammo, I'd have to make a new one. Luckily, I'd acquired the Machine Repair skill. I placed my hand on it.
「Used Machine Repair (Lv.1) to repair the Worn Ammo Manufacturing Machine.」
「Worn Ammo Manufacturing Machine」
Ammo production per hour: 69
Production efficiency: 23%
Durability: 33/150
Description: A machine that automatically manufactures ammo to the appropriate caliber. Due to its low durability and worn state, there's a high chance the produced ammo quality will be degraded.
One repair boosted durability by 30 and production efficiency by exactly 5%. The chance of quality degradation changed from "very high" to just "high."
Of course, I had no intention of stopping there.
Machine Repair consumed a ton of AP, but since I wasn't planning to make anything else today, I kept using it on the "Worn Ammo Manufacturing Machine."
After four more repairs, I fully restored it.
「Worn Ammo Manufacturing Machine」
Ammo production per hour: 150
Production efficiency: 50%
Durability: 150/150
Description: A machine that automatically manufactures ammo to the appropriate caliber. Due to wear, efficiency is halved, and there's a chance the produced ammo quality will be degraded.
I didn't stop there and used Metal Reinforcement. Level 5 Metal Reinforcement wasn't enough to turn the worn ammo machine brand new, but it boosted production efficiency a bit.
Production efficiency reached 60%, and hourly ammo output rose to 180. All that was left was to activate it. I connected the power cables. Vrrrrm—I'd already confirmed via system window, but sure enough, the machine started up successfully.
I'd overconsumed AP, leaving me mentally drained, but I scraped together my last bits to use Metal Generation, creating lumps of copper and tin.
Maybe because of the low AP, I only got half of what I'd intended.
But since I planned to run it in earnest tomorrow, this was plenty for a test run.
Once I loaded the lumps, the machine shook and began automatically producing ammo.
A moment later, finished rounds poured out below. If left alone, it'd keep going until the materials ran out.
'Time to rest now...' After working all day and burning AP on top of it, my head felt like it might split open. I headed to the bedroom to rest. But Queen came toddling after me.
What was this about now? I tried ignoring her, but when I lay on the bed, she straight-up lay down next to me. Of course, being a hologram, her body passed right through the bed and vanished...
But her eyes were still fixed on me.
"Why."
「Queen has realized that power is insufficient to maintain this shelter. Please supply a new power source.」
Expanding the territory meant more Sentry Guns. Making more Sentry Guns led to ammo shortages, so I repaired the ammo machine to produce ammo.
Now it was complaining about power shortages. Well, the shelter's Sentry Guns ran on electricity, after all. More Sentry Guns naturally meant higher power consumption.
But... from the way she put it, it didn't seem like solar panels would cut it. I said to her with effort.
"I'm resting today..."
She just stared at me blankly. After a long while of gazing without another word, she faded away.
The next day when I woke up, I had to hear reports from the residents. Apparently, power to their living quarters had been cut off last night, leaving them shivering in the dark.
There was only one person—no, one entity—capable of something like that. Queen.
When I confronted her about it, she said she'd cut power to the survivors' quarters to save electricity.
「It was an unavoidable choice. To maintain Sentry Gun operations with the current power source...」
In the end, her point boiled down to "You should've brought the power source when I told you to." It wasn't even sulking over yesterday's events.
My vision went dark, but I nodded.
"Got it. I'll make that power source, then."
My head still throbbed. But I decided to think positively. Yeah, my head's already pounding—what's a little more pounding gonna do?
Thinking that inwardly, I glanced at the smartwatch on my wrist. Pressing the M button brought up a map.
'Time to go find some electricity.'
I swiped through the map with my finger, looking for factory icons. Tapping one highlighted it blue. A thermal power plant.
A thermal power plant produced electricity through combustion, as the name implied. Activating it would yield "vast amounts of electricity."
In the game, it generated nearly three times the power of Sirius 2 per "hour."
Factoring in reduced efficiency from cloudy or rainy days on Sirius 2, it was realistically four or five times more.
I didn't know how it'd perform in this world closer to reality than the game, but it wouldn't be any less efficient than in-game, at least.
Of course, restarting the thermal power plant wasn't easy.
If it were, I'd have done it already. It wasn't just the zombies inside—the real issue was the materials needed for reactivation.
Most of those materials couldn't be sourced from the factory district; they required bartering with other shelters. Shelter E, Shelter F—basically, a grand shelter tour.
'I was gonna get to it eventually...'
I'd planned to delay until after making the work android robots... but now I had no choice but to push it forward. Might as well take the hit early, as they say.
Apocalypse All-Purpose Machine