Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 292



Only Krnovel

118. Story (2)

The eco-pavilion consisted of independent biodomes with various themes, including tropics, desert, plateau, and birds.

In the tropical zone, exotic plants that you might see in the Amazon formed a green roof, and various animals and fish frolicked in their own areas. In the desert zone, a desolate and dry soil environment was created, and plants and animals that survive in that harsh environment were exhibited.

It is not known whether this is an established theory or not, but the original plan for the eco-center was not to be a place for the general public to view, but to acquire various types of knowledge that would be applied and utilized in new areas that humanity would soon be challenging, such as space and the deep ocean.

If we have the technology to maintain a biodome that replicates a tropical jungle and desert on the Korean Peninsula, which has four distinct seasons, we may be able to create an environment where humans can live on the lunar surface that we see.

Therefore, the environment and organisms inside the biodome described in the original plan were extremely monotonous.

Even in the tropical zone, which was designed to replicate a tropical environment, there were only a few tropical plants, a few insects and bugs, and at most a few small fish, the only vertebrates living in the vast space of 3,546 m2.

Only in this way can the biodome maintain perfect ecological balance – the appropriate and permanent ratio of producers, prey and decomposers – without any external intervention.

Ecological centers with different ecological environments were planned with similar intentions, with only different humidity and temperature controls.

The purpose of establishing the eco-center was to maintain almost all of the extreme environments currently existing on Earth in Korea and to observe and study the functioning of complete ecosystems within them, thereby promoting survival in the face of future climate change and extreme environments.

That intention, however, was distorted before the eco-park was even completed.

From the government’s perspective, it was a facility that cost a huge amount of money to build, and the maintenance costs were considerable. From the local government’s perspective, it was also very unpleasant to see such a huge facility left unused for the ornamental hobby of a few scientists – from their perspective – after sparing no expense in terms of land and resources.

For that reason, the eco-park began to be filled with prominent, large, colorful, and well-known plants and animals, rather than a small number of suitable organisms that would create perfect ecological balance.

The tropical zone, which had previously held off on bringing in even ants due to their strong expansion ability, has been home to capybaras, broad-billed storks, and various monkeys, and the desert zone, which had decided not to bring in any other creatures except geckos for similar reasons, has now been home to desert foxes and prairie dogs, which have become a favorite among visitors.

Survivor J – presumed to be surnamed Jeong – was one of the researchers who had been deeply disappointed with the government and local government policies.

“They ruined everything.”

J was an ardent supporter of the draft.

He was reprimanded three times by his superiors and suffered countless audits and transfers, all the while trying to realize the true ideal of the ecological view he had desired, the construction of a completely self-sufficient ecosystem.

However, the wishes of a single researcher were buried in so-called political judgments and soulless rhetoric about serving the people.

It was a spring day, one year and six months after the war began, that J showed up at a shelter on the outskirts of Seoul.

It is said that when he was discovered, he was wearing rags, had a haphazardly grown beard, and had the worst hygiene conditions, reminiscent of a primitive man.

Although it was a difficult time for everyone at the time, it was a much better time to live than it is now because the government provided rations.

The people at the shelter who took him in felt both pity and curiosity at J’s appearance.

After his body recovered somewhat, J slowly began to stutter out the facts he could barely bring to his lips from memories that were still saturated with trauma.

The first story was familiar and sometimes boring to the shelter residents.

Shells fall, flashes of light and a merciless aftershock sweeps across the land, transmissions are cut off, people are killed, etc.

I guess that’s a good thing.

What the shelter people were curious about was how J survived for a long time, one year and six months, in that state.

For those of us who are not full-blown doomsdayers but are petit doomsdayers who have prepared for doomsday, the time when supplies run out is at most about six months.

Even if supplies run low, the doomsdayers have some clothing and equipment to deal with all seasons.

But J was wearing a familiar yet strange outfit: a shirt, a tattered gown, and golden pants.

A costume that is far from being apocalyptic to anyone who sees it.

In particular, the exotic bird feather that J was wearing in his ear, which still had its luster, aroused the public’s interest.

After a few rounds of pointless talk, J was faced with one question.

“How on earth have you survived until now?”

A tall man asked J a question in a threatening tone.

J answered without much thought.

“I was in hell.”

“hell?!”

As people kept asking questions, J stared blankly into space with a dumbfounded expression, then suddenly smiled crookedly and finished his speech.

“Perfect balance······”

*

The aftermath of the war did not spare the ecology either.

There is probably no area in South Korea that has not been attacked by China, but on average, the damage was greater in the suburbs than in the major cities.

Even if the same nuclear missile were to fall, the interception system would have prioritized defense of densely populated areas, such as large cities, as intended by the government, and left the suburban areas, where evacuation and evacuation had already been completed, to be hit by the nuclear missiles.

It all started with a flash of light, J recalled.

“It looks like a nuke hit somewhere nearby. The entire building shook violently, and then a storm like I’ve never seen before hit the eco-center.”

The terrain surrounded by mountains prevented the complete destruction of the eco-pavilion.

However, many people died and many buildings were destroyed.

In several eco-centers, multiple thick panes of glass that make up the greenhouse walls were broken, columns buckled, roofs collapsed and huge holes opened in the collapsed structures.

Several eco-centers have come to an end as the power outage has occurred.

The few survivors hurriedly boarded the remaining vehicles and left the eco-center, watching exotic animals emerge from the cracks of the distorted eco-center in a bewildered manner.

In their view, the eco-center facility had reached the end of its useful life, and even if it were to continue to function, there seemed to be no hope of its lasting for another ten years.

But there was one survivor in that half-destroyed eco-center complex.

It was J.

Still obsessed with the duties of an eco-center, he arrived at the tropical eco-center early in the morning and did some simple cleaning work.

His diligence was also aided by his personal goal of obtaining data for his current thesis.

But his enthusiasm had irreversible consequences.

The eco-center began to shake, then tilted violently, blocking the exit. The electricity went out and almost all electrically operated functions stopped.

To make matters worse, J lost consciousness and collapsed for a while during the nuclear bombing.

While he was unconscious, his colleagues searched for him, but he was nowhere to be found and would not contact him.

After his colleagues finally leave, J comes to his senses and soon realizes the harsh reality.

I was left alone with the jungle residents in a tropical eco-center that recreated the environment of the Amazon, far away.

But that cohabitation won’t last long.

Although it was September, the tropical zone must always satisfy the temperature conditions of 33 degrees in the summer and 22 degrees in the winter, as well as a humidity of over 90%.

The inhabitants of the tropical zone are all tropical fish and invertebrates, with the exception of the capybara, Amazon otter, and Nile crocodile.

We might be able to withstand the fall weather, but we’d all die come winter.

Of these, the only animals that could pose a threat to humans would be crocodiles, but as long as you don’t go near the artificial pond in the center of the tropical zone, there won’t be much danger.

“That crocodile was brought in by the new parachute captain. He was a real brat. Before the war and after the war.”

J, the ecology major and ecology manager, was aware of the dangers that could come to him and began to devise an escape plan.

There was no immediately visible escape route.

Because the tempered glass of the tropical pavilion was so strong and the other eco-pavilions directly blocked the aftershock, it was completely sealed, unlike the neighboring desert pavilions or Antarctica pavilions, with only some cracks in the tempered glass.

The only way was to use a crowbar or something to straighten the distorted frame and crawl out, but I didn’t have any tools to use as a crowbar right away, and my first priority was to find a way to get out of here for a few days.

Fortunately, the control room inside the eco-center was safe.

Although most of the functions were paralyzed, the pantry set up in the corner of the control room was stocked with boxes of instant coffee, tea, various snacks, and especially cup ramen.

It was also a great comfort to J that he had ordered and stockpiled several water jugs before the war.

The enclosure was filled with feed for all kinds of animals, and the only thing he would eat was fish.

Inside a powered-off freezer, frozen fish for a family of Nile crocodiles and otters were slowly thawing.

In addition, inside the overturned plastic cage, a few mealworms were wriggling around, and J also took a close look at them.

If all else fails, mealworms, which are easy to grow and consume few calories, may be the only food he can rely on.

Although it was an extreme situation, J tried not to lose courage.

He thought especially of his family in Seoul.

My younger sister recently got married and had a baby.

Although he was not his own child, he loved his nephew so much that he could put his eyes on him.

J’s survival story began in this isolated tropical ecosystem.

Most of the work involved straightening out the warped frame to create a crawlspace.

That was the most likely one.

Because you can go outside after just 1m.

After three days of being trapped in the eco-house, he found some decent pipes and a toolbox in the machine room and started working.

But while he was working on his escape, the calories stored inside the eco-center were quickly running out.

Since the temperature has not dropped much yet, the temperature and humidity inside the eco-center are not much different from the past, and even during the day, the temperature and humidity are warmer than in the past. Thanks to this, the plants did not dry out and die, but there are predators inside the eco-center.

These are the Nile crocodile and the Amazon river otter.

The two predators competitively feasted on fish in ponds and streams.

It was unexpected at the time, but those tropical fish were potential calories for J.

It’s been a week since the escape attempt.

I managed to straighten the bent frame.

J, excited at the prospect of finally meeting his family, skipped even a cheer and crawled outside, but just as he was about to open the entrance to the eco-center,

There is a person.

He is a soldier wearing a helmet.

But the uniform was different from the Korean military uniform he knew.

It’s the Chinese army.

Age: Early 20s, maybe late teens.

The Chinese soldiers with white faces and kind ideals were staring at him with their eyes wide open as he tried to crawl out.

J, gripped by uncontrollable fear, immediately crawled back and hid in the control room.

In the midst of his heart-pounding excitement, he remembered that the Chinese soldiers’ uniforms were similar to those of the paratroopers in the Chinese military identification system that the country had shown before the war.

Then, a loud Chinese voice was heard from the entrance. A couple of gunshots were also fired.

Inside the control room, he spent a day, or maybe even longer, shaking in fear.

It was quite some time before he came out of the control room again.

With trembling steps, he looked around.

I wonder if the Chinese army has entered here.

After making sure there were no Chinese troops, he advanced beneath the greenhouse roof, hid in the shadow of the tropical jungle, and watched with fearful eyes the distorted view outside the greenhouse glass.

There is no one.

The Chinese soldiers who were looking at him and the Chinese soldiers who were walking around with guns in hand.

But the fear did not subside easily with that alone.

J had no means of communicating with the outside world.

Whether the war was over, or the tide was turning in their favor, or whether most of the country had fallen into Chinese hands.

The method J chose was the safest and most conservative.

He lived in seclusion deep in the tropics, waiting for the typhoon known as the Chinese army to pass.

Since that day, no Chinese people have been seen.

Neither gunshots nor the murmur of Chinese could be heard any longer.

But J thinks to himself.

Let’s hold out here a little longer.

Let’s hold out here until we are absolutely sure that the Chinese are gone.

At least by winter, won’t they all go away?

Or maybe they come through the frame they were trying to come out of and appear in front of you.

“So you ended up surviving there and going to Seoul?”

When the tempo of the story was about to break, I mustered up my courage and opened my mouth.

Everyone’s eyes were focused on me.

“That was an interesting story. Survival in an eco-center. I’m from a doomsday community myself, but this is the first time I’ve heard of someone trying to survive in a place like that.”

Because the story of Jonnae-non is not over yet.

Now that the conversation has reached a lull, it would be a good time to tell the story that I couldn’t finish.

“While listening to the story, an anecdote about John Nae-non came to mind. It was a very interesting story.”

The secret episode I prepared is the story of my first meeting with Jonnaenon, when I was grilling meat at a meat restaurant.

In order to understand the complex character of Jonnaenon, we need to review from the first meeting.

My memory is a bit confused, but it wasn’t Emgu that was grilling the meat at the time, it was this skeleton.

That was when I was about to talk about my first fan meeting at the “Night Market Raw Meat Restaurant.”

“Hey, we’re not done talking yet.”

Hong Da-jeong, who was sitting far away as if to emphasize that she did not want to mix with others, kept complaining.

“?”

It’s not just Hong Da-jeong.

“That story is a bit······.”

“Let’s stop this nonsense.”

“Are you kidding me again?”

Dissenting opinions are heard here and there.

Only Valentine has a naughty smile on his face, but that alone doesn’t seem to be enough to turn the tide.

“?”

It’s incomprehensible, but when public opinion is this bad, we have no choice but to take a step back.

Besides, it seems like Bang Jae-hyuk’s story isn’t over yet.

“The moment I gave up trying to escape from the eco-center, J realized.”

He was scrolling through his phone and showed us a photo.

The photo showed the eco-center in a faded state, as if the building itself had died and decayed.

The sound of thunder echoed as everyone’s attention was focused on it.

As the sound of thunder faded, Bang Jae-hyuk’s voice echoed inside the bunker.

“The ideal form of the eco-park that I had longed for had finally appeared before me.”