Finding Northland (2)
I’ve been searching for information about countries in colder regions. The only saving grace is that I have quite a bit of data backed up—everything from various information sites to miscellaneous files. I had plenty of time, after all, and plenty of storage space. It’s difficult to utilize it all at full capacity right now due to the power-saving mode, but if I activate it partially, it’s more than enough to perform searches. So, I started searching.
First, I listed the candidates for cold countries: Russia, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Places with a decent standard of living where the cold might have slowed the spread of the spores, leaving the government or infrastructure somewhat intact. Ah, should I exclude Russia? Well, I’ll keep them on the list for now. Even if they’re idiots, they aren’t all idiots. There are definitely people living well there, too.
Next, I checked the wind patterns. The spores started in the Amazon. So, I’d need to check how the wind blows from the Amazon to identify the affected regions. But looking at this, I have no idea. I can’t tell how the wind actually blows just by looking at a picture. So, for now, I’m just thinking while looking at the map. Then, I discovered something peculiar on one of those maps: Iceland.
Canada, Russia, and the three Nordic countries are all quite long vertically. But when you consider major cities, there’s no place as far north as Iceland. Moreover, Iceland is an island. That makes it isolated, so the spore contamination should be relatively less severe. Iceland, huh? Is that the place famous for the aurora? I think that’s right.
If my hypothesis is correct, I suspect it might be the place on this Earth with the most remaining infrastructure. So, I searched further. Fortunately, that much information could be found in the data I had backed up. Wow, a population of 380,000? Is that all? The population of Dongtan must be more than double that, right? My motivation suddenly plummeted. I wondered how many people could even be living there.
Still, since I’d already started, I decided to check it out. Fortunately, the address for the Icelandic government’s website was in my backup data. It’s government.is, so it wasn’t difficult; I might have been able to get in even without the address. Wait, their domain is .is? That’s got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? I entered the address and tried to connect.
Instead of a "Page Not Found" error, the site loaded—albeit very slowly. No, wait, it’s actually connecting? Seriously? The problem was that it didn’t load everything. Images didn’t appear at all. Only text and the index were visible. But why is it in English if it’s the Icelandic government site? Did I enter it correctly? Regardless, the fact that it connected is what matters. That means the Icelandic government is still alive. The fact that the homepage is accessible means there’s that much infrastructure left.
Not bad, right? That means the situation over there isn't that dire? But after connecting, one thing bothered me. Could I be tracked like this? In a world like this, isn't it a bit suspicious for someone residing in Korea to be accessing the Icelandic government’s homepage? If I were the person in charge of this at Iceland, I’d be curious enough to look into it. I don’t know. Would they be that free? This can’t be that important of a matter, right?
It would have been nice if I had a VPN. But I decided not to worry too much. I’m using a Low Earth Orbit satellite communication service, so tracking this should be difficult. And I don’t even know if it’s possible to forcibly breach that connection. Anyway, since I’d already connected, I dug deeper into the government site. But there wasn’t much to see here. It was just a government site. It would be nice if there were survivor communities. I wouldn't be able to find those addresses, though. But even if I discovered a community, that’s another problem. They’d be using Icelandic there. Hmm. I have an Icelandic translation pack, so I could probably manage to translate it somehow. If that fails, I’ll just use English. Someone there must speak English, right?
Communities. They must have communities there, too. But in the data I have, addresses for anything like a community didn't appear anywhere. Besides, even if they existed, those would be private. I don't think the servers for such sites would be fine just because the government site is still up. They probably wouldn't open. Personal servers? Would those exist? If it were a place like that, I might be able to connect.
I leaned back into my chair and thought for a moment. But those would be even harder to find. So, for now, I opened the government homepages of other countries. First, I need to confirm if places other than Iceland are okay. And a long while later, I confirmed that none of the other government sites would connect. Canada, Russia, Northern Europe—everything was dead. The U.S., China, and any other site were the same. There wasn't a single place open. Not one.
I stopped there for the day. I should sleep. If I stay up any later, it’ll interfere with tomorrow’s routine. This was a pretty good idea, but it’s not so urgent that I have to do it right now. So, it would be better to invest a little time every day to look into it. And so, Iceland exploration became part of my routine. It’s a place I wouldn't have even paid attention to when the world was normal. Now that the world has collapsed, I find myself looking it up. Funny, isn't it?
The routine repeats. Day after day passes. The weather is getting colder, and I’m increasingly reluctant to go outside. Elder Choi told me to spend the winter at his house. He showed me the firewood Arjun had gathered in heaps. That should be enough to get through the winter. But why is he acting so smug about it when he didn't even gather it himself?
Anyway, it’s not just the heating. They even raise chickens in a greenhouse. So, if I lived there, I could live quite comfortably. At the very least, I’d eat rice, chicken, and eggs to my heart's content. The same goes for various fermented sauces and preserved vegetables. I put on an impressed expression, but of course, I refused. It was a bit difficult to come up with a reason, but it doesn't matter. They have no way to verify the truth of my words. So, I politely declined, using the excuse that I had a lot of work to do. Instead, I promised to visit often, wearing a good-natured smile.
Anyway, while I was spending my days going through my routine, I managed to discover something. Iceland University, located in the capital, Reykjavik. It must be a national university. That’s why it has a name like that. Anyway, I entered the Iceland University homepage, and the site was a mess here, too. But in the Q&A section of that site, I managed to find the address of a personal site. Looking at it, it’s a site with a lot of personal taste. Since there’s an anime character plastered right on the front page, it’s probably that kind of site. But looking at it, a post had been uploaded just an hour ago. The previous post was three hours ago.
It would have been easier if it were in English, at least. Unfortunately, it’s in Icelandic. So, I read the posts one by one while running a translator. The problem was that it’s an offline translator, so it didn't translate smoothly. It translated abbreviations, slang, and some words completely strangely, so it was quite a struggle to grasp the context. Still, I did it. This is information, too, so I have to do it. Besides, it was slightly fun, wasn't it? I’m reading someone’s private life. And a vivid one at that?
Anyway, thanks to that, I was able to obtain a few pieces of information. This site was a place where a small number of people reported on their situation. For starters, there are about thirty people who post. Those who post frequently are under ten. Most of them were college students. Some were alone, and some were with their families. Surprisingly, electricity and water are being maintained. They said that while many zombies appeared and caused serious damage, it wasn't enough to stop all infrastructure. Moreover, they said it’s not a very dangerous situation now because they’ve dealt with most of the zombies. The only problem they’re facing is the food supply. Iceland is an isolated place, after all. And it’s a naturally harsh place, too.
But as I continued searching, I discovered something surprising. There was information that there is a drug in Iceland that can suppress mutation. Perhaps because it’s a place where industrial infrastructure still remains, a pharmaceutical company in Iceland reportedly created a mutation suppressant. They said that if you take it, you can prevent humans from turning into zombies, though not completely. Many people benefited from it. This is important. A mutation suppressant, huh? As expected, there are many smart people in the world. They actually discovered that.
Of course, it’s probably not a product that has been properly clinically tested or approved. They just rushed to make it because they were in a hurry. So, they said they still don’t fully know the side effects over there, either. Still, they said the side effects reported so far are only common ones like headaches, vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and high fever. They even went as far as to say that there are almost no cases where people died or became paralyzed after taking the drug. If the Nobel Prize in Medicine still existed, wouldn't that pharmaceutical company have received it? But it would be difficult to receive it. Because Norway is already not responding.
Well, that’s not important. Anyway, I became extremely curious about what kind of effect that drug has. I conduct experiments myself, but it’s true that I’m lacking. So, if I could just know the ingredients, I could conduct additional experiments on this side. I could conduct much more radical and definitive experiments than that pharmaceutical company in Iceland, at least. So, more intense experiments? Experiments that have shed many constraints? Therefore, I looked into the ingredients of that drug.
However, most just mentioned the name and left it at that. There’s no way the ingredients would be listed. Ah, I’m so curious. Is there no way? I really want to find out. I’m even tempted to go there myself. The problem is... it’s too far, right? If I could somehow make contact with the pharmaceutical company, I could use the information I know to exchange methods. For now, I’ll think of a better way. Gritting my teeth while holding onto my non-functioning brain.