-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Little Prince of the Columbarium
-----------------------------------------------------------------
#Start, Registration Number B612
It was dark. In pitch-black weightlessness, the boy floated in a huddled pose. A scene impossible without virtual reality. Here, you could witness 1,440 sunsets in a single day.
A false world responding to one person's will. No other souls existed in this place.
Within arm's reach as the boy stretched out his arm, the only light in the darkness flickered. It was a rectangular screen. The screen displayed the people the boy had to emulate. They shouted vigorously. Toni Morrison, Ogata Sadako, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler...
He had stared at them long enough to memorize them. With snow falling in his heart, the boy could easily mimic their words, intonations, and gestures.
To become an actor, one must learn to act. The days of immersing himself in acting and becoming proficient were times when the boy's melancholy deepened. But it was an unavoidable effort to obtain a star. Only with a star could the rose avoid withering. The rose had thorns, but it was beautiful. He didn't want to see the end of something beautiful. Even if it made him bleed while holding it.
The boy thought.
'The outside world always turns me into someone I'm not. Here, at least, I wanted to just be myself.'
But there was no helping it. Once more, the boy decided to tame himself. Sometimes compromising with his true heart, and if that brought occasional joy, it wouldn't be so hard.
He was fully prepared.
Let it begin.
The boring tale of the twenty-seventh game.
At that moment, the virtual reality world "Day after Apocalypse" began, as always, with the monologue of an AI mimicking the boy.
#Journal, Page 2, Camp Roberts
The origin of the apocalypse was China. A disease that turned humans into non-humans emerged, swallowing all of East Asia in just half a month. The plague's name was "Morgellons." Now it's dangerous even in Europe.
I was Korean.
I write in the past tense because there's no country to return to anymore.
Personally, I think I was lucky. I was in America as an exchange student. Otherwise, I'd be a walking corpse by now, torn apart and eaten by those non-human things.
Stateless people were transported to camps. I was no exception. With martial law declared, I could no longer stay with my host family.
Now I'm staying at Camp Roberts. This former National Guard base was America's first refugee camp. It's roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The number of people being housed kept growing. Five months after I arrived, the refugee camp had become a de facto city. Once it exceeded capacity, the plan was to disperse the rest to Fort Hunter Liggett. It's about 50 kilometers northwest in a straight line from here.
I heard from people that it's surrounded by mountains on all sides.
I also heard that new camps were being set up elsewhere.
As the population grew, so did the unsavory incidents. Refugees formed groups and started seizing supplies from others. They even killed those who resisted.
The group names were all menacing. Things like the Chinese "Hei She Hui (Black Society)" or the Japanese "Sumiyoshi-kai" were apparently names of original violent organizations. There were stories that key figures were actual gangsters.
The U.S. military was turning a blind eye to these groups. I understand why. They had just one battalion to manage, but the refugees outnumbered them vastly. Maybe the military needed middlemen?
If I compare it to something I know, it's like landowners in late Joseon Korea using overseers. I learned that tenants' resentment was always directed at the overseers, not the landowners. After all, we're people without a country. Neglect in management wouldn't cause diplomatic issues.
At the crossroads of humanity's extinction, there were no citizen groups bothering the government over human rights.
I heard rumors that each group was offering sexual tributes to the U.S. military battalion commander. It's probably true. Yesterday, I saw members of the Korean Patriots Association dragging away a woman. She was screaming. A patrolling U.S. soldier tried to intervene, but after talking with one of the association members, he didn't interfere anymore. He just frowned.
One more thing about how refugees are treated.
From 6th to 15th Street in Camp Roberts are barracks used by the stationed troops. If a refugee was spotted there, they were punished for attempted theft without fail. Was it the sorrow of being stateless? Citizens of countries whose governments had vanished or equivalent were treated very poorly. There was racial discrimination too. It was hard to find conscience or sympathy in people anymore.
According to CNN reports, over 60% of the world's population has mutated since the "Morgellons outbreak." In the crisis of human extinction, morality was gradually fading. You could feel it on your skin here at Camp Roberts.
It's sad.
#Journal, Page 5, Camp Roberts
Organizations formed in hard times are usually nationalist. And desperate people need scapegoats to vent their frustrations on. They seize what they have while they're at it.
But most of the refugees housed here were from Asia and Oceania. With Chinese and Korean refugees as the majority, feelings toward Japanese were bad in many ways.
As a result, uprisings against Japanese groups broke out. Since they were fights between violent organizations, calling them uprisings is fine.
Many Japanese died or ended up in fates worse than death. The largest Japanese group, "Sumiyoshi-kai," resisted desperately, but the scale difference was too vast from the start.
The U.S. military turned a blind eye this time too. Were they attracted by the fact that the refugee numbers were decreasing? There were plenty of soldiers and officers frowning, but none stepped in. I suspect they hadn't received orders.
Afterward, barbed wire fences were erected inside the camp. Was it to prevent the increasingly frequent uprisings? The areas were divided into small zones. Each zone held about 200 people by nationality.
In all this, I was relatively safe. Thanks to using my English skills to interpret for the U.S. military. Surprisingly few refugees spoke English. Most had come for travel or business and gotten stuck, or escaped right after the Morgellons outbreak. The latter vastly outnumbered the former.
People like me, fluent in conversation, were treated like middle managers. Above all, it was good to be treated like a person by the U.S. military. If you couldn't communicate, you were just beasts. I understand. They're in a precarious position too.
"AI Help (Insight Rank 4): You can accept or decline the administrator role. Accepting gains the U.S. military's favor. Your reputation within the community receives an upward adjustment. Declining yields no visible benefits. However, there may be unknowable drawbacks or advantages beyond your current abilities. For more detailed advice, raise your Insight skill rank."
"Player's Choice: Accept the offer."
Me, a minor, as an administrator? At first, I tried to decline out of burden, but the U.S. military officer smirked. America favors English speakers by nature.
In the 1980s, America tried to support nationalist forces in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviets. The problem was the CIA had no Arabic speakers then. It was impossible to find people to funnel money to. But there was one Afghan leader who spoke English, and despite knowing he was a stubborn fanatic, they had no choice but to support him, and he later created the Taliban to screw America over.
The officer told me this story chuckling, then said I had no choice and forced the job on me.
The area I managed was the solar power facility. Work was done across from the base along Highway 101. Panels needed periodic cleaning, and with the growing population, new panels and transformers had to be installed.
Koreans were mobilized for this. During work, I distributed food too. Adults twice my age tried to butter me up. Their smiles hid dirty hearts. Plenty tried to fool me because I was young. It gave me chills.
Various groups tried to recruit me. Rationally, shouldn't I join one? English speakers would increase over time. My position could become precarious anytime.
"AI Help (Insight Rank 4): You can decide to join an organization at this point. Joining provides various benefits from that organization. However, joining a specific group means becoming a target for others."
"Player's Choice: Join no organization."
But I didn't want to join any.
Once, the Korean Patriots Association offered to give me a Japanese woman if I joined. Honestly, it made me want to vomit. When I refused, they thought they were testing me. They spewed filth like whether other groups offered better terms, or to think about the organization's size and future beyond conditions. Later, they even asked if I liked men.
Maybe I'm naive about the world. But for now, I wanted to act humanely.
#Journal, Page 11, Camp Roberts
Word came that an infection outbreak hit San Francisco.
Due to the camp's isolation from the outside, news always arrived days late. Considering how Asia was razed in an instant, even with preparations, the San Francisco Bay Area (including adjacent Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, etc.) must be a living hell by now.
Proof came as transport vehicles flooded the camp from dawn. Races varied, but whites and blacks dominated. Listening to them, most chattered in English. Likely survivors who escaped the city.
The U.S. military guards were on edge. Sharper than ever, naturally. There could be infected among the San Francisco survivors right now.
"Morgellons" has no vaccine yet. Once infected, there's no way to stop the mutation.
Refugees were sharp too. They clamored to be separated from the new Americans. They yielded their original spots to U.S. citizens, and refugees moved to the expanded tent village beyond the water tower on the base's west side.
Right after evening rations, I overheard some refugees plotting an escape.
"AI Help (Insight Rank 4): You can escape the base with the escapees, report it to camp headquarters, or do nothing and observe. Escaping ends the tutorial. Reporting gains U.S. military favor but applies a downward adjustment to relations with some refugees. Doing nothing and observing applies a slight downward adjustment to Willpower."
"Player's Choice: Do nothing."
For a moment, I thought of fleeing with them. Escape the camp and run to the safe interior. But surviving as a fugitive was the issue. They might shoot on sight.
What about reporting? It didn't sit right. People would hold grudges. I wanted to avoid dying unnoticed. The military would take some measures, but probably not enough. They hadn't had leeway for a long time.
I decided to stay put. Self-loathing hit me— was this okay?
"Willpower downward adjustment applied / Details unknown"
Late at night, gunfire rang out repeatedly. I plugged my ears and tried to force sleep, but couldn't drift off again. In the dawn, I went outside. The barbed wire was blood-red. Torn flesh and clothing hung messily. Beyond the wire, the barren zone was full of death. Birds flew in to peck at corpses. How many died, how many escaped?
I skipped breakfast. No appetite.
#Journal, Page 16, Camp Roberts
The infection spread.
Reports said an unknown number of infected mutants broke through the San Francisco Bay blockade.
Just four days later, Sacramento went up in flames. Despite massive deployment of federal and National Guard forces, stopping the mutated citizens was impossible.
About 70% of the city population mutated. Over 300,000 in numbers. Even without human-level intelligence, their physical abilities surpassed humans. And their numerical violence was overwhelming.
Several suburban refugee camps were swept away. Even a few meant tens of thousands in personnel. The U.S. military conducted maximum rescue ops, then dropped multiple nukes east of the city.
A stopgap.
China, the first nation to collapse from "Morgellons" and a nuclear power, used massive nukes on infected areas when even the military couldn't contain it. They ignored criticism for abandoning citizens. They claimed the mutants were no longer human. But there were surely uninfected civilians there.
Right after nukes, mutant numbers plummeted. The military deployed, seeming to regain control. But soon, infection exploded again.
Experts estimated that materials contaminated with "Morgellons" pathogens were swept into the nuclear blast's updraft, carried by jet streams, and scattered back as fallout. In the end, China's nuke use accelerated its collapse.
Westerlies blow over America's West Coast. Nuking Sacramento risks spreading contamination to the central U.S. Before nuke strikes began, FEMA reportedly issued evacuation orders to all uninfected areas in California, plus Nevada and Arizona.
The camp refugee zone was silent pandemonium. Strong protests erupted demanding evacuation for us too. Tragedy struck. When radicalized protesters toppled the garrison fence, the U.S. military opened fire.
Coldly speaking, the National Guard soldiers probably wanted to flee too. Overreactions from anxious, fatigued, depressed troops couldn't be controlled even by officers. Over 700 were massacred in minutes.
Fear overwhelmed people. Anxiety of not knowing when you'd die couldn't beat fear of dying right now. A strange calm descended.
Later I learned infected mutants appeared in the small southern town of San Miguel. Now the camp's north and south were both infected zones. That was why the federal government abandoned refugee transfers. The stationed U.S. military was stuck too. Incidents of nasty soldiers assaulting refugees piled up. From their view, refugees were why they faced death.