The Reality of the Disaster
It was warm.
I felt as if I were taking a nap under the gentle, warm sunlight, bathed in a refreshing spring breeze. It was the sensation of burying my cheeks into a soft, cozy blanket. And while I slept, I felt someone very slowly, very carefully brushing my hair away from my face.
The person in my dream treated me as if I were the most precious treasure in the world. Every time their fingertips grazed my hair, it felt as if all my worries and anxieties were being washed away. The touch was so tender that even in my dream, a faint smile played on my lips as I drifted into a deep, peaceful slumber.
‘...It’s nice.’
A subtle, floral fragrance, like the scent of flowers tickling the tip of my nose, wrapped around my body. I became increasingly intoxicated by this fragrant sensation, a feeling I had never experienced before. Then, slowly, my consciousness began to surface. As I opened my eyes, I saw an unfamiliar ceiling.
“Ah….”
‘Oh, right. I definitely fell into some strange world and…’
Looking at the unfamiliar ceiling, I recalled what had happened yesterday. I had suddenly fallen into a world I didn’t know, completed quests, built a factory, and even met Eve. With a groggy mind, I swept through the events of yesterday in my head.
Scramble!
“…Huh?”
As I rubbed my sleepy eyes and tried to sit up, I heard the sound of something moving urgently nearby. I turned my gaze to see Eve, her face expressionless, wiping dust off a shelf in the corner with her finger.
“…Eve? Are you already up?”
At the sound of my voice, Eve’s shoulders seemed to tremble ever so slightly. She answered without turning her head toward me.
“Yes, Jaero-nim. As you can see, the hygiene of the research bunker was poor, so I was performing maintenance. Did you sleep well?”
“Oh, yeah. I slept really well.”
I scratched my disheveled hair. I couldn’t remember the details, but I felt like I’d had a strangely pleasant dream. It was right on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t quite recall it.
“Did you sleep well, Eve? I feel like I was the only one who slept comfortably…”
“Due to my physical structure, I do not require sleep. It is better in many respects for you to sleep comfortably rather than me. You need not worry about me.”
“Oh? Well, I’m done sleeping, so you should take a turn and lie down now.”
“I am truly fine. Not sleeping for a few days will not cause any physical impairment, so please do not trouble yourself.”
Eve’s tone was still indifferent, but somehow, she seemed to be speaking a bit faster, and her act of avoiding eye contact felt unnatural. Were the tips of her ears strangely red, too? Thinking it must just be my imagination, I climbed out of bed.
“Then, I will prepare a meal. Please wait a moment.”
Before I could even answer, Eve walked toward the supply room. Up until yesterday, she had felt robotic and restrained, but today she seemed flustered and strangely hurried, which made me tilt my head in confusion. However, the rumbling of my stomach soon made me push those thoughts aside.
Once again, I pressed the ‘Distribute’ button and put the dirt-flavored energy bar that came out into my mouth. It was dry and tasteless. I suddenly missed the cup noodles I had been so tired of back home. Even if it wasn’t noodles, anything would be better than this dirt-flavored energy bar.
While I was lost in a thousand thoughts just from eating the energy bar, Eve ate hers without a single change in expression. Still, sitting across from Eve, I felt like the food went down a little easier than yesterday.
“Eve, shall we head to the factory right after we finish eating? Since enough copper plates should have gathered by now, I’m thinking of using the research system to unlock ‘Iron’.”
“Iron, you say? You are able to mine iron following copper. Iron is also a metal with high utility. I look forward to seeing what you will create with it in the future.”
After finishing our meal with Eve, we headed out of the research bunker. The forest was as quiet as it had been yesterday. My head was already filled with imaginations of unlocking iron and creating new processed goods.
However, as if to shatter those thoughts, an ominous noise began to be heard as we approached the factory site.
Thud! Crash!
“What is that sound?”
“Jaero-nim. It seems something has happened at the factory.”
“Don’t tell me… is it a facility malfunction?”
My heart sank. I had installed it with a gamer’s mindset, but was it actually a machine that required delicate handling? There was no way I had that kind of professional knowledge.
My head was filled with all sorts of worries, but when I arrived at the scene, the sight that met my eyes was completely different from what I had imagined. The machine hadn’t broken down.
“W-what is that…?”
Something massive was ramming into the facility in front of the mining machine.
Thud! Thud!
It was a deer. A giant deer was violently ramming the facility with its antlers. But it was completely different from any deer I had ever known.
Sharp, transparent purple crystals were protruding through its skin all over its body, and its two eyes were glistening without focus. Its antlers sparkled every time it moved, as if they were carved from jewels.
Regardless, the deer was destroying the facility mercilessly, unaware of our arrival, as if it held some grudge against it.
Bang!
Every time the deer rammed it, the factory facility groaned as it buckled, and sparks and debris flew in all directions.
“Jaero-nim, it’s dangerous! Please step back!”
Eve blocked my path and warned me. Her gaze turned sharp in an instant.
“That does not appear to be a normal beast. I cannot be certain, but that which is on the animal’s body is very similar to the disaster I mentioned before: the ‘Crystallization’ phenomenon.”
‘That’s the disaster Eve was talking about?’
The terrible disease that Eve said had almost wiped out humanity. At the mention of the ‘Crystallization’ phenomenon, I looked at the deer again. Seeing the deer’s body and antlers sparkling like jewels sent a chill down my spine.
While Eve and I were hesitating, the deer must have spotted us, as it turned its head. Black liquid was dripping from its mouth, and the crystal-covered antlers flashed grotesquely.
Kieeeeeek!
With a piercing scream that I couldn’t believe came from a beast, the deer charged toward us.
“Holy sh*t!”
Eve reacted immediately, grabbing my arm and running backward. The sound of the deer’s hooves behind us grew closer.
Grab.
Eve suddenly grabbed my waist and jumped to the side. She carried me and leaped an incredible distance, a feat impossible for a normal human.
Crunch!
The deer rammed its antlers into the tree where we had just been standing. The tree was half-destroyed, left in tatters from just one strike. It was easy to imagine what would have happened to me if Eve hadn’t grabbed me and dodged with me.
“…….”
My mind went blank. It was too far to retreat to the research bunker, and I had no weapons on hand. All I had was a sickle for cutting grass, and there was no way I could handle a deer that fast with a sickle. As I stumbled backward in panic, Eve picked up a fist-sized rock from the ground.
Whoosh!
Thwack!
The rock Eve threw hit the crystal embedded in the deer’s head with precision. Along with the sound of the rock shattering, a fine crack appeared in the crystal on the deer’s body. The beast stumbled for a moment, but it didn’t seem to have taken much damage.
‘I can’t just stand here either!’
I picked up a sharp rock rolling near my feet. It was a bit larger than a baseball. I took a stance with my poorly learned baseball pitching form and threw the rock with all my might toward the deer’s flank.
Whoosh! Thwack!
“……Huh?”
I doubted my own eyes. The rock I threw made a sound like it was tearing through the air, then pierced right through the deer’s hide and crystals, embedding itself into a wooden barrel on the other side.
It hadn’t just hit it; the rock had ‘pierced’ right through its body.
The deer collapsed to the side without even letting out a single scream. Not missing the chance, Eve grabbed a chunk of rock and rushed in, striking the deer’s head several times.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Crunch!
The deer convulsed a few times before going limp. It had fallen so helplessly that it felt absurd, and the forest returned to silence, but I could feel my heart pounding as if it were about to burst.
“…Jaero-nim?”
Eve cleared away the blood-stained rock and approached me. I stared blankly at my hands and opened my mouth.
“What on earth is that?! No, more than that… did I just pierce through that deer?”
“It was tremendous power. Your physical abilities far exceed the threshold I had imagined. I thought you were no ordinary person, but… looking at your expression, it seems you were unaware of it as well.”
I had just thought I’d become handsome and had a good physique, but I realized that, contrary to my expectations, my body wasn’t just for show.
‘A celebrity-like face with monster-like strength?’
It’s good if it’s good, but unknown power always makes people fearful. It seems there are secrets hidden in my body that I haven’t uncovered yet. I survived thanks to this strength, but is there something else I don’t know about?
“Hmm, well, that’s not the important thing right now.”
Shaking off my thoughts, I examined the carcass of the deer that had been killed by the rock. The sight of jewel-like ores embedded between the flesh was grotesque.
“Eve, is ‘Crystallization’… not just a disease that kills you, but something that turns living things into monsters like this?”
Eve shook her head.
“In my records, Crystallization was known as a disease where the body gradually hardens and one slowly dies. Seeing one move even with crystals on its body like this is a first for me as well. It seems the disaster did not merely collapse civilization, but has been constantly mutating over the past 300 years.”
Thinking that something even Eve didn’t know about was roaming right in front of my nose made me want to crawl into my blanket and just play games. But unfortunately, I wasn’t in a situation where I could afford such luxury.
“Haa, so… shall we start by clearing this deer away? No, wait. Is it okay to touch this? Won’t I get infected or something?”
“In the early stages of the disaster, it spread through the air and was easily contagious, but according to the final records, it was not contagious unless directly ingested or entered through a wound.”
Even though Eve said it was fine, I didn’t want to take any chances, so I tore up a bunch of grass, wrapped it around my hands, and we both moved it far away from the factory.
With a lingering sense of unease, we cleared away the deer carcass and headed back to the factory. The facility the deer had rammed was horribly mangled and no longer functional.
Fortunately, dismantling the facility was as easy as a ‘click!’, so there was no major problem in dismantling it and rebuilding it. I rebuilt the facility and produced copper plates again.
“The factory is restored, so shall I check the copper plates?”
I calmed my trembling heart and went to the small temporary storage to check the copper plates. At a glance, a massive amount of copper plates were piled up inside the storage. I took out about 100 of them and put them into the research system.
Research Complete - ‘Iron’ resource has been unlocked.
“Unlocked iron, too… now I need to find the ore vein.”
When I turned on the resource exploration function, a reaction for an iron ore vein was detected not far away. I immediately moved with Eve and built a new line.
Just like the copper line, I created an iron production line with ‘Mining Machine - Smelter - Foundry - Small Temporary Storage’. A heavy mechanical sound was heard, and it began to produce iron products. The mining machine dug into the ground, and black iron ore entered the smelter on the belt. A moment later, the foundry began to stamp out smooth iron plates.
“Hmm, I guess iron also makes iron plates?”
I opened the research system to examine the next functions. After looking for a while, I spoke to Eve, who was beside me.
“Eve, seeing that deer earlier, I understand now. We can’t just stay inside this bunker. We need to know how the world has changed and what dangers are around us. There could be more monsters like that.”
“I agree. However, if monsters like the one earlier are lurking all over the forest, exploration is impossible with our current equipment. Even if your physical abilities and mine are superior, I cannot guarantee what might happen if we are injured even once.”
Eve was right. The dizzying moment from earlier flashed through my mind again. I had gotten through it by luck this time, but if I were to get injured, I wouldn’t know how I might die in the middle of a forest with no medicine or way to treat it.
I scrolled through the spiderweb-like screen in the research system for a long time, and my finger stopped at one point.
“Eve, still, it doesn’t seem like the situation is entirely bad.”
Where I stopped, I saw a gun-shaped icon.
◈ Uses construction nails as ammunition.
◈ Basic self-defense weapon.
“If we develop a little more, I think we can make a nail gun that uses construction nails as ammunition. I don’t know how powerful it will be, but wouldn’t it be better than throwing rocks?”
“…Although it is industrial equipment, depending on how it is used, it can certainly be called a weapon. If it can be made, it is a decent option in the current situation.”
Eve’s eyes sparkled with anticipation. She muttered quietly, as if lost in thought for a moment.
“If we have a nail gun, in addition to using it as a simple weapon, we could also try making a makeshift wooden fence.”
Eve and I exchanged thoughts and gathered various ideas.
We still had a long way to go. We needed to collect more iron plates and research the next facilities to process parts or nails. But it felt like there was a clear milestone in the future that had seemed like a fog.
“Good. Let’s make our next goal completing this nail gun. Once we make the nail gun, let’s go check beyond the forest.”
I stared intently at the nail gun icon on the screen and clenched my fist. I had become the factory manager of a ruined world, but I would somehow manage to do well and create a happy life.
There had been an ominous event meeting the monster deer during the day, but fortunately, Eve and I had gotten through it safely without getting hurt. The anxiety hadn’t completely faded yet, but I considered myself lucky. The pleasant dream I had in the morning must have been a good omen.