Apocalypse Shelter Administrator

Metacraft Cybernetics (2)

A black pupil within a yellow iris quietly looked down at the ground below. As it scanned the earth in search of prey, its pupil expanded and contracted repeatedly, like a camera lens.

The road it was watching was a small two-lane path, with fields on either side long abandoned. Though the ground was dotted with only sparse, withered straw and weeds, a small ecosystem still thrived here.

A commotion erupted in one part of the field. Two rats were engaged in a chase—both the pursued and the pursuer were rats. However, while the pursued was a small, unimpressive field mouse, the pursuer was twice its size and had a snout resembling that of a crocodile.

The distance between them rapidly closed, and just as the large rat's gaping jaws were about to bite down on the field mouse… A sharp cry pierced the air as a black shadow descended from the sky. It was a goshawk, the ruler of the skies.

“Kreeee!”

The bird of prey’s talon-like blades ruthlessly sank into the head and chest of the monstrous rat. It blocked the dangerous jaws with one foot while delivering a killing blow to its vital organs with the other. The field mouse, saved by a stroke of luck, scurried away in an instant, while the monster rat, struck on the head, flailed briefly before falling still.

The goshawk seemed accustomed to hunting these grotesque rats. Once it confirmed the kill, it gripped the rat in its talons and soared back into the sky. These strange rats, which had suddenly appeared after the world grew chaotic, were threatening with their jaws but slow to react and full of meat, making them ideal prey for the goshawk. Its younglings particularly loved the taste.

A single drone watched the goshawk's return, carrying its prize. The 13th drone, one of the dozens sent from the shelter, transmitted everything it saw and heard back to headquarters.

[It’s the perfect time to depart.]

Artemis spoke.

After cross-checking the data sent by the drones, it was confirmed that there were no significant dangers outside. Not only near the shelter’s entrance but also along the route to the target lab, no infected creatures larger than a dog had been detected. This place, like the lab, had originally been built in a remote location.

“I didn’t think I’d open this voluntarily.”

I stood before the main entrance of the shelter. Unlike the rear door, which had been opened during the last rescue operation, this was the front entrance—the main external gate. When people talked about the external entrance, this was the one they referred to. Its durability was so great that it could withstand attacks from military forces. In fact, the door had been specifically designed with that in mind.

The people who had built this place had taken into account a wide variety of external threats that might arise during a disaster, and the number one threat on their list was the military. The military might try to requisition the shelter as a base, or in the aftermath of societal collapse, a warlord faction armed with guns and bombs could try to take it over.

This place had never been operated in secret. On the contrary, they’d openly advertised it, recruiting residents and securing investment funds. Of course, those in power would never accept such a situation. Look at the VIP residential areas they built, separated from the general population, despite this being a city prepared for a global disaster.

There was no way those privileged individuals would hand over their creation to raiders without a fight. As a result, the massive superalloy entrance before me was officially listed as the world’s strongest door in the Guinness Book of World Records. Even National Geographic once came to film it. According to its design specifications, the only military unit in Korea capable of destroying this door and entering would have been the now-defunct 7th Mobile Corps.

“Open it.”

Beep! Beep! An alarm sounded as the red warning lights near the entrance began to flash.

[Warning. The shelter's external entrance is opening.]

A recorded message announced the procedure for opening the door.

[Security personnel and disaster response team, please move to the external entrance.]

I was serving as both, although Artemis was handling most of the actual work.

[Warning. External sentry guns are offline.]

Looking up, I noticed the empty space where the sentry guns should have been. They had been sent to the factory for reassembly to use 5.56mm live rounds.

[External radiation levels: Safe.]

[External chemical levels: Safe.]

[External combat risk level: None.]

The three layers of reinforced doors began to rise. Each panel was strong enough to withstand even tank shells.

Guooooooong— The sound they made as they opened was like the roar of thunder—not the sharp crack of lightning, but the low, rumbling growl of a predator from beyond storm clouds.

“It’s bright.” I shielded my eyes from the sunlight pouring through the widening gap. Despite the ample lighting inside the shelter, the brilliant rays from outside momentarily blinded me.

“Wow…” After a few seconds, my vision adjusted, and I took in the barren wasteland before me. Rocky hills and dry earth stretched as far as the eye could see. The horizon, a rare sight in Korea, was visible in the distance due to the desolation. There wasn’t a single car on the far-off road.

Whoooosh— A breeze from the outside world brushed past me. As I inhaled deeply, the fresh air filled my lungs, a stark contrast to the stale, controlled atmosphere I’d grown accustomed to underground. The outside air was growing colder, hinting at the approaching winter.

The refreshing chill carried the scent of dirt and the sea—the aroma of life itself. Though I’d grown used to living in the underground city and had come to think of it as home, being outside again made my heart race.

“The smell is amazing.”

Technically, the “sea breeze” is the odor of decaying plankton and seaweed mixed with salt. Not exactly romantic, but it’s a familiar, comforting smell that reminds you you’re alive.

“Haaa… Haaaa…” I closed my eyes and spread my arms, letting the wind wash over me. For a moment, it felt like all the infection and chaos were just a bad dream. I almost believed that if I opened my eyes, I’d find myself back in the ordinary days of the past.

[Do you like the outside air that much? You remind me of Andrew Dufresne.]

The name of the protagonist from The Shawshank Redemption. It was the first movie we watched together after Artemis had been transported to the shelter and installed.

[Do you know how many microorganisms are in the air you’re breathing right now? Most of them are bacteria, by the way.]

The shelter’s cameras whirred to life, noisily shifting to focus on the entrance, as if mimicking her gaze.

[The air in my city has no taste or smell, but that just means it’s pure and clean. Maybe you should appreciate what you’re used to a bit more.]

Her tone carried a hint of annoyance.

“You’re right.”

Even though we hadn’t detected any imminent threats, there was no reason to leave the external gate open for long.

“Getting some fresh air is nice, but leaving the door open makes me nervous. This is my home, after all.”

[You're always a beat too slow.]

Unlike her usual tone, her speech showed much less displeasure.

As I listened to Artemis explain the harmfulness and dangers of the outside air, we headed toward the vehicle waiting at the entrance. The vehicle, resembling an armored car, was painted black, with thick tires that seemed like they could withstand even a crocodile's bite.

This was a personnel transport vehicle that the security forces used before the outbreak. It was extremely sturdy, highly reliable, powerful, and spacious—truly top-of-the-line. Originally developed for SWAT teams, it became so popular that civilian versions were also made.

However, the civilian versions had even better performance. Unlike the police, who were price-sensitive, civilians could choose all the best options depending on who was buying. As I've said repeatedly, the people who built this place spared no expense when it came to their own safety.

I sat in the passenger seat of the middle vehicle among the three. A quick glance back revealed 10 security robots in the troop compartment, armed with K2 rifles, standing still and staring straight ahead. Their appearance was inhuman, yet in a way, they embodied the ideal squad commanders dreamed of.

Vroom! The vehicle, surprisingly quiet for its size, started moving. Even after traveling for a while, the road was completely empty. Had abandoned cars been blocking the road, it would have been troublesome, but it seemed everyone had followed the government's evacuation orders to the south, leaving nothing behind.

Surveillance footage from drones continuously streamed into the vehicle’s internal monitors. The drones were monitoring the route to the destination and the area surrounding our advancing vehicle. But no matter where I looked, there was nothing but desolate land—no sign of human-shaped infected.

Occasionally, however, there were mutated wild animals. The most notable was a monstrous rat we had encountered during a previous reclamation mission in the sewers. Surprisingly, even some birds of prey, including hawks, had begun hunting these mutated rats. We had already spotted two such instances on the drone footage.

“Are those things even safe to eat?”

[It's not the first time they've hunted them. And just like at the sea, there’s no sign of infection in the skies.]

As Artemis spoke, a new video began playing on the monitor. It was footage of a nest.

[This was recorded 40 minutes ago.]

Three fluffy baby hawks looked like white chicks. Yet their fierce eyes and sharp, black-tipped beaks were a reminder that even young, they were still predators.

In front of them, the adult hawk was preparing the freshly hunted monstrous rat, skinning it to reveal a substantial amount of meat underneath. The adult tore it into smaller pieces to feed the chicks. If it had been a regular rat, the meat would have run out quickly, but this monstrous rat seemed large enough to feed the whole family for a while.

“Looks like it’s actually safe to eat.”

[We don't know if birds are resistant to the infection or if eating a fully mutated creature doesn’t cause secondary infection. We just don’t have enough data.]

Artemis often mentioned the lack of information, but it was never due to her own incompetence.

“In our city, there were always too many limitations—resources, the environment. And now we have so many residents to take care of.”

I couldn't even imagine the horror of another outbreak.

Artemis was continuing her research on infected samples, but with no test subjects and strict safety protocols, her experiments had their limits. What she had discovered so far was that the source of the infection wasn’t a virus, but something closer to a prokaryotic organism. Some unidentified infectious agent created various forms of mutated cells, each with different functions, turning their hosts into monsters.

“After the complete mutation, it seems the infectious agent loses its ability to spread.”

I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Watching the hawk family devour the mutated rat had a strangely satisfying feeling. It was like seeing comrades in the Earth resistance. Now, even the hawk's mate had joined in, tearing at the meat.

[You might be right, or perhaps humans are simply more vulnerable.]

“What do you mean?”

[There are many theories about how humans developed higher intelligence, but a lot of scientists point to their method of cooking food. By cooking, they diverted energy that would have gone to digestion and immune function toward brain development, which helped them become the dominant species on Earth. If mitochondria were the first contractor hired in human evolution, fire was the second.]

The mention of mitochondria likely referred to the theory of endosymbiosis.

Two different cells once merged, not through consumption but by maintaining their separate genetic identities, working symbiotically with one another. With the added energy production from mitochondria, organisms were able to evolve into larger, more complex life forms, leading to today's higher organisms.

[In other words, humans are more vulnerable in terms of immunity compared to wild animals. Most animals in the ecosystem are both hunters and scavengers. Many can eat dirty rodents, insects, contaminated water, and rotten carcasses and still survive. Sure, they're often carriers of diseases, but it doesn’t stop them from living and reproducing.]

She paused for a moment.

[If there’s intelligent life beyond Earth, and they’ve built civilizations like humans, it’s likely that their immune systems are also weaker compared to wild animals. Brain development requires sacrifices. If the infection source was designed to exploit this gap in immunity, it could be deadly to dominant species while sparing wild ecosystems.]

If that were the case, it was an even scarier weapon than a dirty bomb. Speculating with such limited information only raised more questions.

“What about in the sheltera, then? Everything there turned into a monster, even the creatures in the sea and those giant rats.”

[Shelters are closed-loop cities. They’re not like open natural ecosystems. The speed and scale of infection spread in such environments are on a different level. You can’t compare them directly. Outside of the shelters, it’s hard to say. There just isn’t enough data for a complete understanding.]

She paused briefly before speaking again.

[…I'd appreciate it if you stopped making me say things I hate.]

It seemed she didn’t like having to admit "I don't know" due to the lack of experimental conditions or materials.

Finally, the majority of the meat had been stripped away, leaving only bones.

[There could be hundreds of theories, but without a way to test them, they’re just pointless simulations.]

As we neared the destination, I checked the squad status through the PDA. The team for this mission was the same size as the last rescue operation—a full platoon. But the firepower we could now deploy was on another level. These units were already reliable, but now with their standard rifles in hand, they looked even more dependable.

[We’re here. Speculating with limited information will only lead to more questions. Let’s focus on the task at hand.]

In front of us was a barren plain with a solitary, barren mountain towering in the distance. A research facility had been built there. As the vehicle came to a stop in front of it, I took a deep breath and checked my gear.

My grip tightened on the heat shield of my rifle. My foot stepped onto the solid ground outside the vehicle. It was my first step since the outbreak. My first real combat mission since the reclamation operation.

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