Chapter 6

The Apocalypse Game I Created Became Reality Chapter 6

After the entrance, the next thing that needed work was the ventilation system.

“...”

I stood in the middle of the underground workshop and looked up at the ceiling.

An old exhaust fan was covered by a dusty plastic cover.

Rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle!

It worked, but the unpleasant noise pierced my ears.

‘That’s my lifeline.’

An underground space needed to breathe.

Wooooong!

I immediately connected the external hard drive to my laptop and opened the file.

[UndergroundBunkerBalance]

As I scrolled down, I saw a familiar section.

[Major Causes of Underground Base Failure]

- Oxygen deficiency

- Carbon dioxide buildup

- Humidity and mold

- Internal odors leaking outside

- Contaminated outside air entering

- Location exposure through ventilation shafts

- Intrusion attempts around ventilation shafts

“Intrusion attempts around ventilation shafts.”

I quietly read the sentence.

Players who built underground bases in Last Protocol usually repeated the same mistake.

“Because they only looked at the doors.”

Front doors, back doors, windows, things like that.

But as the developer, the place I paid particular attention to was none other than the ventilation shaft.

Air circulated through it, smells leaked out, sound escaped, and even light could spill through.

“A ventilation shaft is both a lifeline and a weakness.”

Block it, and you die.

But leave it open, and you get discovered.

So there was only one answer.

“You have to control it.”

I climbed back onto the chair and lightly touched the exhaust fan cover.

Tap.

Dust poured down.

“Cough, cough!”

I immediately started coughing.

I quickly adjusted my mask.

Creak!

Right after removing the plastic cover, the inside became visible.

A narrow duct, dust, dead insects, old tape someone had stuck there long ago, and most importantly, a very faint light coming in from outside.

“...”

I narrowed my eyes.

‘As expected, light from inside could be visible from outside too.’

It might not seem like much, but it was a fatal problem.

Because nights after the apocalypse would be extremely dangerous.

A tiny light leaking from somewhere in a city that had lost power and gone dark.

‘That’s practically a signboard.’

There are people here.

There’s electricity here.

There are supplies here.

Please come rob us.

‘So I need to fix it properly.’

So that it becomes the eyes, nose, and ears of the underground base.

That was what I needed to make it into.

_____________

Building a proper ventilation system required an expert.

Ducts, dampers, activated carbon filters.

They were terms I had dealt with plenty in planning documents. But I had never handled them in reality.

Then I would have to learn now.

Swipe, swipe.

I turned on my phone and immediately started searching.

Workshop ventilation, basement ventilation, low-noise exhaust fan, backflow prevention, activated carbon filter, fine dust filter, humidity removal, duct noise...

The more I searched, the more my head started to hurt.

“There’s way too much to do.”

On top of that, there was another feature I had in mind besides ventilation.

‘I’m planning to secure visibility too, so I can see outside through the ventilation shaft.’

In an apocalypse, the surest winning strategy above all else is to avoid fighting altogether.

See first, avoid first, hide first.

I wrote something new in the notepad.

[Primary Ventilation System Objectives]

1. Be able to breathe

2. Prevent odors from leaking out

3. Prevent light from leaking out

4. Reduce noise

5. Be able to check outside conditions

6. Detect signs of intrusion quickly

Not merely a facility for ventilation, but a system that also provided early warning, surveillance, concealment, and even bought time.

“...Good.”

Now I had a clear direction.

____________

The hardware store owner was wearing his white undershirt again today.

“Huh? You’re back again?”

“Hello.”

“Hehehe. At this rate, you’re going to become one of my regulars. What are you buying today?”

I answered with a friendly smile.

“I’m going to work on the exhaust fan.”

“The exhaust fan?”

The hardware store owner looked at me in surprise.

“You said you did woodworking, but now you’re fixing doors and exhaust fans too. Looks like you’re rebuilding the whole workshop from scratch?”

“The workshop is underground. There’s a lot of dust, and it smells a little too.”

“Well... basements are unusable if you don’t get the ventilation under control. Mold grows like crazy too.”

As expected of an expert, he immediately got to the heart of the issue.

“Do you have any low-noise exhaust fans?”

“Sure. But how big is your current fan?”

“I figured you’d ask, so I took a picture.”

“You’re unusually thorough for a young guy.”

I immediately showed him the photo of the exhaust fan.

The hardware store owner looked at the screen and immediately furrowed his brow.

“That’s old. You’d be better off just replacing the whole thing.”

“I’ll need backflow prevention too, right?”

“Oh, you know about that?”

“I did some searching beforehand.”

“I like you more the longer I talk to you. Makes my job easier.”

The owner chuckled and walked toward the shelves.

After that, following his advice, I picked out the things I needed one by one.

A low-noise exhaust fan, backdraft damper, insect screen, filter housing, activated carbon filter, fine dust filter, rubber packing, soundproofing tape, black blackout sheet, a small inspection mirror, a wireless door-opening sensor, and even batteries for the sensor.

“What’s that for?”

When I picked up the small mirror, the hardware store owner asked.

“I’m going to use it to inspect the inside of the exhaust vent. It’s hard to see in there.”

“Hmm, I’ve been thinking this since earlier, but people tell you you’re meticulous a lot, don’t they?”

“Uh... I guess so?”

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to find it particularly strange.

But then the hardware store owner looked at the wireless door-opening sensor and asked again.

“You putting this on the door?”

“Yes. I want to check if someone opens it while I’m away from the workshop.”

I puffed out my chest a little more confidently.

‘There’s no reason to shrink back. It’s not like I’m committing a crime.’

More importantly, everything I picked was perfectly ordinary.

Things someone setting up a workshop could reasonably buy.

Though,

‘Depending on how they’re combined, they can be used for something completely different.’

I placed the items on the counter.

Yeah.

This was a system I needed to survive in a world that was going to end.

___________

After returning to the workshop, I immediately stood in front of the exhaust fan.

“Phew...”

A sigh escaped me for no reason.

Buying the parts was one thing, but actually doing it myself felt overwhelming.

Wires, screws, covers, ducts.

“Can replacing one exhaust fan really be this difficult...?”

I put on a YouTube video and spent a long time following along with the installation.

Disassembly, cleaning, checking the wiring, comparing sizes, positioning the filter.

“Cough! Cough!”

In the process, I got covered in dust several times.

Even with a mask on, my throat felt scratchy.

‘Good thing I started with the ventilation after all.’

If I was going to stay in this place for a long time, the air needed fixing first.

Clunk!

First, I removed the existing exhaust fan.

A thick layer of dust clung to the old blades.

“I was breathing in all this dust?”

I immediately tried fitting the new exhaust fan into place.

But it was slightly the wrong size.

“Ah.”

I repositioned it while fitting rubber packing and reinforcement plates around it.

It wasn’t perfect, but it fit well enough.

After several rounds of trial and error, I finally got the exhaust fan into place.

Whirrrrrrr!

When I turned it on, it made a low sound.

Much quieter than before.

“Perfect.”

I quietly listened.

It wasn’t completely silent.

But it no longer rattled like before.

“Next is the intake...”

If air was going out, naturally there also needed to be somewhere for air to come in.

If I only ran the exhaust strongly, the pressure inside would become strange.

Dust and smells would get sucked in through cracks around the door, and it would create noise too.

“Hmm.”

I moved to the auxiliary intake location I had looked at beforehand.

Near the bottom of the wall.

A small gap that seemed to have been used back when this was a woodworking shop.

It didn’t connect directly to the outside, but there was an empty space leading toward the rear wall of the commercial building.

‘It’s not perfect.’

But it seemed usable as an auxiliary air intake.

Of course, if I left it open as-is, insects and dust would come in.

So I needed filters.

Snip!

I cut and attached insect screen mesh, then secured the filter housing.

I prepared an activated carbon filter, a fine dust filter, and a black blackout sheet to keep it from being visible from outside.

Whoooooosh!

When I held my hand near it, I felt a very faint flow of air coming in.

“Good.”

At that moment, it felt as though the characteristic stuffiness of the basement had eased ever so slightly.

‘Next is light.’

If I turned on lights at night, light could leak through gaps in the ventilation shaft.

This absolutely had to be prevented.

From outside, it needed to look like nothing more than an old ventilation shaft.

Swipe! Swipe!

I added blackout sheeting to the inside of the exhaust fan cover.

So that air could pass through without letting the light inside escape.

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

If I covered too much, air wouldn’t flow. If I left too much open, light leaked out.

I attached and removed it several times.

“Haah...”

Adhesive got on my fingers.

It felt unpleasant, but this work was important.

“Let’s do this properly.”

Sweating heavily, I attached the blackout sheet again.

Finally, I turned off the lights and went outside to check.

When I stepped into the alley behind the commercial building, the ventilation shaft simply looked old.

Exactly how I wanted it to look, something no one would care about.

“Okay.”

I turned on my phone flashlight and shone it toward the ventilation shaft.

Almost no light leaked from inside.

“Done.”

Next was the mirror.

I fixed it at an inspection point inside the ventilation shaft.

Nothing could be seen from outside, but from inside, if you looked at a certain angle, you could see part of the rear alley.

Creak! Creak!

I adjusted the angle several times.

At first, all I could see was the ceiling, then the outdoor air-conditioning unit, then only the lid of the trash can.

“Ugggh...”

Eventually, after fiddling with it for quite a while, I could finally see part of the entrance to the alley.

It wasn’t perfect enough to clearly identify someone’s face.

But I could tell if someone entered the alley or stood near the rear emergency exit.

That was enough.

“This is good enough.”

Of course, I could install a camera.

I had actually considered going in that direction too.

A small CCTV camera, Wi-Fi camera, motion sensor, and so on.

‘But cameras need electricity.’

Since they were electronic devices, they could also break down and needed regular maintenance.

But a mirror was different.

Primitive as it was, it avoided most of those disadvantages.

“Now for the last thing.”

Early warning.

Not something designed to hurt anything, but something that told me whether someone had tampered with it.

I installed the wireless door-opening sensor on the inside of the rear emergency exit.

So that an alert would sound if the door opened.

‘Next...’

The ventilation shaft cover.

I set it up so that a small indicator would become visible if the cover was opened.

It wasn’t anything elaborate.

I simply wedged a thin strip of paper into place.

So that I could tell if someone had touched the ventilation shaft.

‘And.’

Near the bottom of the door, where dust tended to accumulate, I placed an extremely thin thread.

If someone passed through, the thread would naturally be disturbed as well.

‘In an apocalypse, things like this last longer than high-tech security.’

No electricity or parts required. All I needed was my own eyes.

“Phew...”

There was still plenty to do, but that was enough for today.

Thud!

I dropped down onto the floor.

My whole body was covered in dust.

The undersides of my nails were black, there were scratches on my arms, and my shoulders ached.

But strangely enough, I felt refreshed.

_____________

After sleeping for a while and waking up, I habitually took out my phone and opened the Last Protocol message board.

The post I had seen yesterday was still there.

[Oh my god, the game became reality lololol]

There were even more comments now.

I absentmindedly checked the new ones.

ㄴ I’m looking through the early-game guide I posted before, and it’s surprisingly fun.

ㄴ Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. Watching games is more fun than playing them now lololol

ㄴ Looking at that made me realize all over again that the bastards on this game’s development team or planning team were fucking vicious.

ㄴ For real lol

ㄴ It was fucking ridiculous when I worked my ass off to build a base as a newbie, only to get the suffocation ending because there was no ventilation lololol

ㄴ It really was a game with insanely realistic details in weird places.

ㄴ Still, part of the fun was discovering mechanics even the developers didn’t know about and messing around with them lololol

ㄴ It was also fun breaking the meta the developers built in all kinds of ways.

ㄴ What was your in-game nickname, by any chance?

ㄴ Why are you suddenly asking?

ㄴ Just wondering. Seeing you talk about breaking the meta in every possible way made me think you might be one of the veteran players I know.

ㄴ Not telling you^^

ㄴ Keep your cliquey crap inside the game, please.

ㄴ Anyway, watching newbies block every door and get the suffocation ending was hilarious lolol

ㄴ Tsk tsk. This is why newbies never lasted long and all quit.

ㄴ I’m telling you, people are scarier than zombies.

I quietly stared at the message board.

“...”

As always.

The articles about the Bermuda structure were quickly buried beneath other new stories.

But I knew.

Somewhere out of sight.

Very slowly.

The game was consuming reality.

And,

‘The people noticing it too.’

Little by little.

Even at this very moment, their numbers were increasing.