Pre-Inspection (1)
The playground, once overgrown with weeds, had been neatly cleared and divided into two sections by a five-meter-wide road, spacious enough for two cars to pass each other.
"Even trucks like a Porter can pass each other without a hitch. Drainage during the monsoon season won't be an issue, and we laid heating coils under the road, so snow won't pile up in the winter unless it's a real blizzard."
"That's great."
"The greenhouse was built using a mix of tempered glass and polycarbonate sheets," Baek Ha-il explained.
"Just like ya said, we're only setting up and running one wing for now. We'll see if it runs fine through next year before filling up the rest."
The greenhouse consisted of five adjacent wings, each six meters wide and thirty meters long, situated to the right of the main building. Surrounded by a reinforced concrete wall over two meters high, it was sturdy enough to withstand rifle fire.
"You did a great job. Let's start by testing out potatoes and a few types of vegetables we can use for side dishes."
"How about lettuce, perilla leaves, and carrots? I heard garlic and onions do just fine in open fields."
"Yes, we should test them in the open fields too. It's not like we're short on land."
Relying solely on the shelter's greenhouse to grow crops would be foolish. Although this plot of land was the only part officially theirs for now, they could scatter seeds on the mountain behind them and in the surrounding areas to let them grow naturally. Once the world ended, no one would complain about them foraging. It wasn't like government officials would come all the way out here to crack down on them.
"As for the empty part of the playground, we'll do what ya said and figure out how to use it later depending on how things go."
"We should. We don't know yet whether food will be the issue or if we'll run low on power."
The other half of the playground, facing the greenhouse across the road, was cleared of weeds and left as bare soil. The plan was to build additional vinyl greenhouses there if food became scarce, or to install more solar panels if they ran low on electricity.
"Alright, let's head to the main building."
The stairs connecting the playground to the main building were also newly built, incredibly sturdy, and designed to prevent slipping even in the rain.
"Want to test out the sanitizer?"
"Haven't you tried it already, hyung-nim?"
"Sure did. Works like a charm." Baek Ha-il patted the stainless steel walk-through sanitizer and grinned.
Since the pandemic hadn't fully ended yet, and because it would be an absolute necessity once the apocalypse hit, Jun-ho had installed a custom-made stainless steel walk-through sanitizer at the entrance of the main building. It utilized UV light, ozone, and infrared technology. He had originally considered a chemical spray type, but he immediately dropped the idea and chose this one after Baek Ha-il strongly insisted. This model didn't require chemical disinfectants; as long as they replaced the lamps and fans occasionally, it could be used almost semi-permanently.
At five million won per unit, it was quite expensive, but ordering four units allowed them to get a discount from the manufacturer. They installed two immediately and kept the other two in the warehouse as spares.
"Alright, let's head inside."
"Whoa..." The moment Jun-ho stepped into the main building, his jaw dropped. Although he had visited frequently during construction, the completed building was nothing short of breathtaking.
"Ain't it something? It's a bit bleak since there's no decor, but it feels like some high-tech research lab. I quite like it."
"Me too. It's absolutely perfect."
The modern, minimalist aesthetic was exactly to Jun-ho's liking. Measuring thirteen meters wide and about fifty meters long, the main building spanned roughly 660 square meters, serving as both their living quarters and headquarters—making it the most critical structure in the shelter. Naturally, the outer walls were made of bulletproof, high-strength reinforced concrete, while the interior walls were lined with fire-resistant composite panels.
"I made the cafeteria spacious enough for over thirty people to eat at once. The materials are top-notch, so cleaning and maintenance will be a breeze." Baek Ha-il walked to the center of the clean cafeteria, which was furnished with eight tables, and continued his explanation.
"And just like ya asked, I installed both a briquette stove and a wood-burning stove. The chimney and ventilation are flawless, so there'll barely be any smoke. It's a triumph of modern tech."
Unlike older models, modern stoves produced almost no smoke except when first lit. Although the main building utilized a state-of-the-art HVAC system to maintain a comfortable temperature of 18 to 22 degrees Celsius year-round with minimal power consumption, the stoves were installed in the cafeteria just in case. If the worst-case scenario occurred and power was completely cut off in the dead of winter, burning coal briquettes—which were easy to store and didn't rot—or wood gathered from around the shelter would be the best way to keep warm.
Guided by Baek Ha-il, Jun-ho walked through the cafeteria to inspect the conference room, a lounge styled like a living room, the laundry room, and a computer room set up like an internet cafe. Everything was exactly as he had envisioned—no, the quality was even better.
"Let's head up to the second floor."
"Let's do that. The second floor is even more killer." Baek Ha-il was brimming with confidence, and that confidence was entirely justified.
"The rooms are big enough to fit a queen-sized bed, or even two super-single beds. If ya put in two bunk beds, four people could easily live here dormitory-style."
Though the twenty-six-square-meter rooms were currently empty of beds, each featured two built-in sliding wardrobes measuring one meter wide and two desks suitable for laptops. The layout was simple and devoid of unnecessary decoration, but the premium materials used made the rooms incredibly sturdy and easy to wipe clean.
The toilets were all equipped with integrated bidets. It wasn't that they wouldn't stock toilet paper, but since toilet paper took up a lot of storage space, bidets were a much smarter choice. To conserve water, the shower booths were equipped with foot pedals—stepping on them once would release water for exactly ten seconds. Although they had an abundant supply of groundwater, it was always wise to conserve resources.
"I don't even know how the AI room works. Yeong-su handled it all on his own, but he said it's still a work in progress and told me not to let ya see it yet."
At the end of the second floor lay the AI computing system room, the server room, and the power facility room. Located at the very edge of the building, this section spanned both the first and second floors. To access this heart of the shelter, one had to pass through Jun-ho's room. Furthermore, the thick fireproof door required both a password and facial recognition, meaning no one could enter without either Jun-ho or Yun Yeong-su present.
"Well, I'm curious, but if he says so, we should respect that. But the cooling systems for the servers and the power room are fine, right?"
Baek Ha-il nodded vigorously. "Of course. It's water-cooled, so it barely sips electricity, and I triple-waterproofed the whole thing so there's absolutely zero chance of a leak."
Since the 'living embodiment of a mechanic' said so, Jun-ho didn't doubt it for a second.
"Since the first floor houses the power equipment, I beefed up its defenses and paid extra attention to the interior environment. But is that Yeong-su kid really okay with living in the computer room?"
"Yes, he'll probably prefer it. Besides, didn't you make a separate room for him anyway?"
"Yeah, built him a room on par with a luxury studio apartment. Well, as long as he's happy, that's all that matters."
As planned, Yun Yeong-su was set to be dispatched to 'Our Pension'. Hwang Se-jun, the CEO of Dow Computing, had initially expressed reluctance, but he ultimately had to wave the white flag in the face of a 200-million-won annual SI contract. Moreover, since Jun-ho had prepared a separate workstation with the exact same specifications as the one in their Songpa R&D center, allowing Yeong-su to continue his Dow Computing work remotely, there was no financial or logical reason to refuse.
"He has some things to wrap up over there, so he'll probably move in around December. For a while, he'll have to visit Dow two or three times a month, but I reckon by next spring, he'll just end up staying here permanently."
"True. The kid's a bit peculiar. He hates moving around, and whether there's construction going on right next to him or not, he just keeps his headphones on and stares at his computer. Someone could carry him away and he wouldn't even notice."
"As long as he's good-natured and diligent, that's what matters."
"Of course. He lacks a bit of social awareness, but he really is a good kid."
A hardcore otaku and a hardware store owner. Naturally, they weren't exactly cut from the same cloth, but over the course of the construction, Baek Ha-il and Yun Yeong-su had developed a mutual respect. Real recognized real; in the areas where their expertise overlapped, both had instantly recognized just how incredibly skilled the other was.
"Anyway, we can take our time bringing in the rest of the furniture for your room and the others."
"Yes, let's do that."
"Alright, let's go take a tour of the warehouses now."
Jun-ho and Baek Ha-il first headed to the cold storage warehouse, which was connected to the main building's cafeteria by a passageway.
"We haven't turned it on yet, but it'll keep the temperature at five degrees Celsius and the humidity below thirty percent. It's only accessible from the cafeteria, and with the air curtain installed, the temperature won't fluctuate much even with people coming in and out."
The sixty-six-square-meter cold storage warehouse featured a two-story structure. The first and second floors were separated by metal grates perforated with coin-sized holes, making ventilation and temperature regulation highly efficient. The highly anticipated ultra-low temperature freezer warehouse shared a similar internal structure. However, because it had to withstand extreme temperatures of minus forty degrees Celsius, it utilized specialized internal materials.
"It's fine for now since it's not running, but ya'll have to wear thermal gear when entering. I've got thermal suits made specifically for freezers, so just throw those on."
"With the thermal suits, working in there for twenty or thirty minutes shouldn't be a problem, right?"
"Yeah, no problem at all. And if anything goes wrong, ya can just hit the emergency button and walk out. But Ho-ya, can a space this size really store enough food to last over twenty years?"
"Yes, easily. If we assume the shelter's population is around twenty people, it could even last thirty years. Besides, hyung-nim, it's not like we're going to survive solely on our stockpiled food forever."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. The initial phase of the apocalypse might be rough, but after about a year, people will start raising livestock and farming. Rural areas with low population density won't suffer as much damage."
Furthermore, the famous cattle-farming regions of Hongcheon and Hoengseong weren't too far from Namyangju. There would definitely be survivors raising cattle there. Of course, their operations would be incomparably smaller and harsher than during peacetime, but there would certainly be people raising dozens, if not hundreds, of cattle by letting them graze half-wild. It would be entirely feasible to establish contact with those survivors, trade the food and daily necessities they desperately needed, and receive slaughtered beef in return. Slaughtering just one cow could feed the shelter's residents for two to three months.
"And hyung-nim, we're not going to just sit here eating through our rations day in and day out, are we?"
"I suppose not. If we build a few more greenhouses on the empty land down there, we'll have more than enough rice and side dishes to feed ourselves."
"Exactly. So the food stockpiled in the cold storage and ultra-low temperature freezer won't run out. In fact, depending on the situation, we might even be able to barter with other survivors."
"Hmm... Ho-ya, everything ya say makes sense... but wouldn't that be a bit dangerous? As ya know all too well, humans aren't exactly angels. Especially in a chaotic mess like the apocalypse, actively seeking contact with other people... no matter how I look at it, it makes me uneasy."
It was an incredibly sharp and accurate point. Jun-ho agreed with Baek Ha-il completely. In fact, he knew better than anyone that people in the apocalypse were far more selfish, cunning, and cruel than what Ha-il was imagining. Having witnessed that horrific hellscape firsthand, he understood this truth better than anyone else. But still.
"You're absolutely right, hyung-nim. Contacting other survivors is extremely dangerous, and it's true we should avoid it as much as possible. But, hyung-nim..."
Recalling the apocalypse he had lived through, Jun-ho spoke in a calm but resolute voice.
"It's impossible for us to live in absolute safety by ourselves forever. There's a high probability... no, it's a guarantee that our shelter will eventually be discovered by others."