Cheongdo Refinery Complex
When I finally made it home after so long, I was greeted with some astonishing news.
“Whoa? Was I really gone that long?”
“You spent three whole years wandering around, and you didn't even notice the time passing?”
“I was busy drilling holes in the ground…”
Well, time does fly when you're having fun, apparently. I got my locations mixed up while digging at one point, so I'd even redug a few spots just to make sure.
“Sounds like the factory's still under construction?”
“It's in the final stages.”
“Tell them to make sure we have plenty of tanks ready to hold the crude oil.”
Because seriously, I had hauled back a truly mind-boggling amount of the stuff. At the rate a few Ddareungis and cars burn through it, this supply could last us practically forever.
“I told them to build it big, but this is really big.”
I craned my neck back as far as it would go, and still couldn't see the top of the crude oil storage tank. It was honestly fascinating, too. Nobody had ever told them to make oil tanks round, and yet every single one came out perfectly circular. Something about pressure distributing evenly, they said — which is all beyond me.
“Let's try filling this one up for now and run some tests.”
“Yes! Right away! Please pour it in over here, Haneul-nim.”
Oh, thank goodness. I was half-worried I'd have to climb all the way to the top and pry the lid open. But they'd built a pipe running from the ground all the way up. Impressive.
「Gwoogugung」
I sealed the end of the pipe with telekinesis and pushed the crude oil in — and the sound it made was deeply wrong.
“Whoa, am I shoving it in too hard?”
Gotta be gentler. If this thing bursts, what happens to the environment? We don't even have anything like an environmental remediation technology yet.
「Glug-glug-glug」
“That sound is strange, isn't it?”
Something was making an odd noise, like it was about to burp…
“What's wrong?”
“It feels… thick. Somehow viscous.”
“Pretty different from the Baku oil, huh?”
“Yes. It was never like this back there.”
It's not defective goods or anything, right?
「Ti-ding ting ti-ding」
“Hmm? What's that sound now…”
“The internal pressure seems to be rising. How peculiar?”
Hey. Isn't that the sound of something about to explode? Why are you saying it so calmly, like it's somebody else's problem?
“Is it going to be okay?”
“Could you possibly stop the injection?”
“Sure.”
So I drew the crude oil still sitting in the pipeline back out.
「Kuwaaaaaah」
“Gah!”
“What the—!”
The instant I released my hold on the pipe, gas came hissing out of the injection port.
“Why is air coming out of it?”
There's no fan inside that tank, is there? And this was supposedly coming from the crude oil itself?
“Huh? Why would it do this? Could it be that you pulled the crude straight out of the ground?”
Well… yeah, that would be it. I'd scooped it straight from underground into my Subspace, after all.
“Hm? I guess I did, yeah?”
“Hmm. When crude fields leak, it's flammable gas that comes out — so it's quite possible the oil contained gas while it was still underground.”
Oh. So crude oil naturally comes with gas mixed in? Back when I was digging for it, I had no idea what to do about the gas and just sadly left it behind — and here there was a way all along?
“The gas is flammable too. Is there a way to collect it?”
“The factory still has some ways to go, so in the meantime, I'll work out a method for capturing the gas separately.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
Because this thing produces a lot more gas than I expected. We'd barely gotten any crude into the tank, and the pressure had already spiked.
「Kushoong-kushoong-kushoong」
It had only been a short while since I suggested we try using the gas from the crude oil, and they'd already built not just a tank but an entire compressor for it.
“Wow, that's huge.”
“We simply built a rather enlarged version of the one used for refrigeration.”
So the tank sitting next to it — that's where the gas is being collected?
“Hook this up with pipes so it flows out, light it, and it'd be pretty great for cooking.”
“…Huh?”
You didn't think of that? Then what were you planning to use it for?
“Well, if there's some other use for it, feel free.”
“No, it really does look wonderful? It'd be better than charcoal for cooking.”
Hm. So he genuinely hadn't thought of it. His interests begin and end with the oil itself, huh…
Anyway, this is a bit of a concern.
“The oil doesn't flow very well, does it?”
“At this level, though… hmm, I think we can manage it using pressure. The winter is what worries me.”
The oil was a little different from what we'd pumped up in Baku — it had gotten somewhat thicker. How to put it… the difference between soup and porridge, maybe? It's summer now, so it's fine, but we'll have to wait and see what happens come autumn or winter.
And so time passed, until the day came to erect the distillation tower.
“It looks even bigger than the one in Baku?”
“Yes. The oil is a bit different, and we improved on the things that gave us trouble last time. It rather grew in the process.”
But hold on — there's no crane or anything here either! What this time? Are we not erecting it yet?
“You said it was all finished! You said we'd put it up — so why is there nothing here?”
“Well, it's just… so very big…”
So if you all just stare blankly at me, that means…?
Ah. You want me to put it up.
“Hahaha.”
“Heh heh heh…”
「Grrrrrrrrr」
Huh, that barely took any effort at all. Honestly, this beats risking everyone's necks rigging up some crane.
“Oh… my goodness…”
“I'm a little scared. What if that thing falls?”
“Whoever it lands on won't even leave bone fragments behind…”
“As expected of Haneul-nim…”
Yes, yes, praise me all you like, my children.
“Well done, everyone. Honestly, this is far more convenient than doing it the dangerous way.”
“Thank you!”
This distillation tower really is something remarkable. From the outside it just looks like a big cylinder standing there with pipes plugged into it everywhere — but the temperature has to be controlled with painstaking precision at every level, which requires genuinely divine craftsmanship. Watching them handle all of it effortlessly… I'm honestly proud.
“Just a little forward!”
“No! Back, back!”
“A teeny tiny bit forward!”
“No, no! Back again!”
Should I just flip this whole damn thing over?
With the distillation tower up, connecting the enormous pipes came next — and the more I watched, the more impressive it was.
「Clang-clang, sizzle-crackle」
“So this really was a long, slow job.”
“Haha. Baku took quite a while too, didn't it? But having done it once before, this counts as fast.”
Fair enough — at Baku we did blow up a few things, didn't we? Took a good seventeen years, if I recall. Surely nothing's going to blow up just because the oil is a different kind… right?
“It won't explode, will it?”
“We've built pressure-relief and venting systems, so it should be fine.”
“I'm just worried some of that gas from the crude might still be trapped in there and come bursting out.”
“Hmm… I'll give that some more thought.”
The pipe connections alone took a good month.
「Screeeech」
And today is the day we fire up the tower. Look at that! The boiler is practically crying out for us to hurry up and let the steam through!
“We're beginning.”
“Right. Good luck — and you know to be careful, yes?”
“Yes.”
“If anything goes wrong, abandon everything.”
Environmental pollution? Please. People come first — if they survive, we can feed them and figure out how to break the pollution down later. That's the far better deal. Am I right?
「Rattle-rattle-rattle」
“Ugh… why do I have chills? The weather's warm…”
Hm. This one's more high-strung than he looks?
— Let's start everything up! Inject the crude and spin up the boiler!
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Electricity really is useful. Once things settle down a bit, there'll be more work for it too. And thinking about electricity alongside environmental pollution reminds me of something else, come to think of it.
「Glug-glug, hissssss」
“Open that valve, quick!”
“Pressure gauge nominal!”
“Temperature gauge nominal!”
Apparently there's a good reason for building the distillation tower this large. You feed the crude in and raise the temperature slowly — but the crude never stops flowing. Put simply: heat it from the bottom, cool the upper sections as conditions dictate, and just keep drawing oil out continuously. In other words, maximum yield. With so many people living around the waterways, nothing less would do. We might even need to add another factory later because this won't be enough.
— How are the pressure readings?
“Rising steadily, Haneul-nim!”
— Good. Open the release valve!
「Screeech, grumble-grumble」
The refined oil began flowing into the tanks surrounding the distillation tower. I don't know why, but they'd sorted everything meticulously by temperature — they can figure out how to blend and use it themselves, I suppose.
「Slosh-slosh」
“Oh! Gasoline!”
Clear liquid was filling the foremost tank. Gas prices will finally come down now, huh? Ah. Wait, we never raised them in the first place. There just wasn't any supply, so everyone had stood in line waiting.
I'm sorry, kids. Mommy didn't have the means.
「Pit-pat」
“Mm. Good. Good.”
Is there some parasite in me or something? Why does the smell of oil smell so good? The scent of nature is nice and all, but honestly, industrial smog and chemical fumes are where it's at.
Wait, why is the color getting this dark already?
「Glug-glug-glug」
“Hm? Everything from here on is pitch black?”
Even the sound of it pouring over isn't normal. That's the sound of some seriously high viscosity. At Baku, maybe a third of the tank output had been black — here, it's filling up to half black.
“Ah! I remember now. Heavy oil! Light oil!”
“I'm sorry — what's that?”
So he'd been quietly following along, buried in thought, huh?
“You said the black stuff is heavy oil, right?”
“That's correct.”
“Well, there's still more hiding in there — things like gasoline and diesel that haven't come out yet.”
“Huh? Really? Then we'd need a way to separate them…”
You can't tell just by looking, and turning this stuff back into something useful is no easy feat, I'll tell you. For now we'll have to burn it in power plants or use it as fuel, but we need to develop the technology from today if we ever want to put it to real work. Upgrading and refining facilities — that sort of thing existed, right? How a country with no oil of its own made a fortune selling it: buy the cheap stuff, convert it into the expensive stuff, and sell.
“Mm. It'll probably be genuinely difficult — you'll all have to research diligently.”
That's something even the late twentieth century only just managed, so let's call it a comfortable three hundred years of head start, shall we?
“Ohh…”
“For now, find good uses for that black stuff — fuel, waterproofing, whatever fits.”
“Yes, sir!”
Burning that stuff will put out some seriously sooty smoke, but we've got plenty of trees on our land, so it should be fine, right? Last time I flew to the Middle East, I looked down from orbit and noticed that both Sinsi and Sinju put the Amazon to shame. Sinju in particular was — for reasons I can't quite explain — vastly bigger than Sinsi…
That whole northern Canadian prairie and mountain country getting blanketed in forest — honestly impressive.
「Kushoong-kushoong」
“Huh? Why is that thing making that noise?”
“Huh? It looks like it's under a great deal of pressure?”
“Is it producing more gas than we thought?”
When I turned back around, the compressor that had been storing the gas was screaming somebody save me!
“We need to dump the gas. Now.”
“Dump it where? That stuff doesn't exactly dissolve if you release it into water, does it?”
“So what, we just leave it until it explodes?”
Isn't that gas heavier than air? Even if you dump it in water, it'll just pool there and then drift over this way — and one stray spark and the whole place goes up…
“Aaaagh! The pressure keeps climbing! What's happening?!”
“Temperature! Lower the temperature! Stop feeding the crude!”
“How?!”
Chaos had broken out in the time it took me to make one lap. This is bad, isn't it? Should I evacuate the kids? We don't have spare tanks on hand, and running to fetch and connect one would take too long. All we need to do is relieve the pressure — but I don't know how to store gas in my Subspace…
“Ah! We just need to lower the pressure in that tank!”
The gas coming off during refining can't be that enormous in volume, right? Then there's one way to do this!
“That's right!”
“Crack the gas tank open! Just a little!”
“Sir? If you do that and the gas explodes, what then?!”
Right — it pools, and the moment it touches any flame, this entire site goes up.
“I said just a little, idiot. Light it and burn it off as it comes out!”
“Ah! Of course!”
「Screech, hisssss」
Watch him sprint straight for the valve — so you are desperate too, huh?
“Aaaah! It's going to blow!”
“Pressure's still climbing!”
The kids were running around the distillation tower in a frenzy. Because if it goes up, everyone here except me dies.
「Hisssssss」
“What are you staring at?! Light it with your lighter, NOW!”
“Ah! Yes, sir!”
You open the valve and then just stand there looking at me?!
「Click-click, tap, tap」
“Uh! Why won't it light today of all days!”
Even in the movies, it's always when you're in a hurry that something refuses to work. And usually in the movies, that's when disaster strikes…
Hm? Did the valve stay open and let some gas pool around here?
“W-wait a—”
「Fwoomph」
“Oh! It lit!”
「FWOOOOOOSH」
Whew. Thank goodness. There's a fire, but no explosion.
「Roarrrr」
“Oh! It's working! We're good!”
“Must be nice.”
“I'm sorry — huh? What's… what happened to you?”
You're wearing a fireproof suit, and I'm in my everyday clothes, that's what?
“Aren't you hot? Your clothes are literally still on fire?”
“Mm. My passion is burning hotter.”
“Hiiiiiiik!”
Why are you running away? Come here, let me give you a hug?
Fair warning — I'll be a little toasty?