The explosive increase in plant life changes many things.
That doesn’t mean Earth’s oxygen concentration suddenly shoots up all at once.
Earth is big. Vast. No matter how much plants grow, they won’t just raise the average oxygen concentration from 21 percent to 30 percent.
But they can produce enormous amounts of water vapor. And that alone can change a lot.
On the scale of the Earth, it would be nothing more than a minor incident.
But not for the humans living there. For them, it is nothing short of a disaster.
First of all, extreme localized downpours became frequent.
Rain that couldn’t even be compared to the squalls often seen in Southeast Asia.
Rain is normally something to be grateful for. But if it’s a localized torrential downpour, that’s a different story.
Localized downpours that pour down as if being dumped from the sky in a short span of time ruin many things.
Crops, of course, and even structures built by humans.
Add landslides and overflowing streams on top of that.
Nature is extreme. Or should I say, natural?
If rain falls like madness in one place, then that much rain stops falling somewhere else.
Experts—no, not even experts, really.
In any case, people called it the regional concentration of precipitation.
In one place, rain pours down, while in another, not a single drop falls and everything dries to a crisp.
So there were quite a few absurd reports where news of floods and droughts came at the same time.
Droughts are serious.
For people to gather and live together, they need to consume a considerable amount of water.
Humanity didn’t flourish around great rivers for nothing. Water control wasn’t considered important since ancient times for nothing either.
In any case, droughts brought that many problems.
On top of that, as the days grew drier, the risk of wildfires also increased.
With plants already growing far more than usual, there was more to burn, so those wildfires blazed without restraint.
That was especially true in our country. The plants that exploded in number during spring and summer dried out through autumn and winter, turning into massive kindling.
Wildfires were already common in spring and autumn as it was.
Now, such things had become commonplace. To a rather serious degree.
But people still didn’t really feel the severity of it all.
That’s what weather is like.
Sometimes there are heavy snowfalls, and sometimes the monsoon doesn’t come. Hail can fall, and a cold wave or heat wave that comes once every few decades can arrive.
People had grown indifferent.
That was the problem. Just as there are no Koreans who fret over the missiles fired by the northern pig, abnormal weather didn’t draw much attention from people.
They just thought, Things have been a little strange lately, huh? That was about it.
But the people on the front lines were growing more concerned.
Especially those who farmed. If the weather was like this, their worries and troubles could only increase.
It was only natural, since it was directly connected to the year’s harvest. Farming was the kind of work where getting the timing even slightly wrong made the words “We’re screwed” come out on their own.
And there were others like that too.
Doctors.
They must have been feeling it firsthand. Isn’t something happening right now? they must have wondered.
The changed weather conditions and increased water vapor created a humid and warmer environment.
As a rule, when it is hot and humid, infectious diseases run rampant.
Mosquitoes and ticks would multiply like mad, and rodents and wild animals would also explosively increase in number.
That was also why the worries of farmers were so severe.
They were already losing their minds trying to read the weather, and now everything else was acting up too. Of course it was difficult.
In any case, with all kinds of infectious diseases appearing, doctors were having a hell of a time as well.
On top of that, absurdly enough, malaria even spread in our country.
Malaria is a disease that already exists in Korea, with people still getting infected.
Even now, malaria patients appear near the DMZ in northern Gyeonggi or northern Gangwon.
A few dozen every year? Maybe in the hundreds when there are many?
But the malaria that spread this time went beyond that level.
Besides, the name malaria itself sounds frightening. So people’s fear was considerable.
Even though the malaria that spread in our country was different from the falciparum malaria found in places like Africa, and had a low fatality rate.
But that didn’t mean the malaria spreading in our country wasn’t dangerous.
There is no malaria vaccine. To begin with, it isn’t a commonly epidemic disease here.
Originally, if you caught it, it was a disease that could be treated quickly through early diagnosis.
So there was no reason to get something like a preventive shot.
That was something people traveling overseas got.
Because of that, the malaria outbreak passed through quite severely.
However, our country has a well-established medical system.
On top of that, Wuhan pneumonia had changed many things. It had raised people’s experience level too.
So although it did become a fairly large outbreak, it wasn’t to the point of shaking the foundations.
People also let it pass with, “Well, all sorts of things happen.”
But to me, all of it looked like signs right before the world came to an end.
This is how it gets gnawed away bit by bit. Things like this accumulate, and in the end, it collapses with a thud.
So I, who had already been convinced, did what I had to do even more diligently.
I don’t know how much time is left. So until that very moment, I will believe the world is ending and make the preparations I need to make.
In the meantime, my house was completed.
A low mountain in Yongin. My house there.
It was something I had never imagined. That I would build my own house in a place like this and live there.
The house was finished, but to other people, it would look close to an eyesore.
Even the construction company wore a reluctant expression after completing it.
But it’s fine. I’m satisfied.
A single-story building, but with a basement. The space is fairly large too.
Since I didn’t know how much I would have to prepare, I made the area large for now. As large as it could be built.
While my house was being built, I got a license to operate a crane.
Honestly, I don’t even need a license. As long as I have a crane, that’s enough.
Still, I wanted to learn in advance. If I’m going to do something, I should learn how to do it properly.
Now that the house is complete, there is a lot to do. First, I need to fill the inside.
On top of that, I need to create the conditions for this house to be self-sufficient.
The most important thing is electricity, after all. One source of electricity isn’t enough.
First, the main source is hydroelectric power. That’s the reason I bought the entire low mountain. To use hydroelectric power.
It’s also why I chose this mountain.
There are two valleys here where water flows year-round.
This area is low, so a fair amount of water gathers from the connected mountains. That means I can prepare to connect hydroelectric generation there.
Honestly, hydroelectric power is nice, but its capacity isn’t that large.
No matter how I calculate it, one hydroelectric generator can only maintain about one refrigerator.
So I need to use other things alongside it.
Wind turbines and solar panels. Things that can be used indefinitely as long as maintenance is possible.
While the house was under construction, I checked everything related to those two. I received all the necessary permits and selected all the contractors.
It cost a lot of money, but that doesn’t matter. It’s not as if I’m going to take this money into my coffin.
So I also installed wind turbines and solar panels throughout the mountain.
The problem is that these things won’t keep working forever.
They will definitely break down. They’ll age, and problems will occur.
Especially as abnormal weather becomes more frequent like now, and pollen and spores keep increasing, those breakdowns will become even worse.
Of course, I thoroughly prepared dustproofing so that wouldn’t happen. I even spent money to have the contractors make it more meticulous.
Even so, problems will arise in the end. So I need to secure plenty of spare parts.
So that whenever something breaks, I can replace it myself. For that, I also need basic knowledge about these things.
That was why I didn’t have enough time. For the year the house was being built, I spent every day in a frenzy.
And fortunately, there is still a little more time left. Of course, I’m not certain whether the world will really end or not.
If it doesn’t, well, I can just live doing this kind of work later.
I don’t know. Since I bet on the world ending, I don’t think about the opposite possibility at all.
In any case, all of that costs money.
No matter how much inheritance and death insurance money I had left, I still needed money. There was so much left to prepare.
So now I needed to increase my money a bit too. I had already bought a ton of stock in filter companies and pharmaceutical companies, so the returns were sweet, but that wasn’t enough.
So I took out a loan using the mountain and the house as collateral.
Loans are truly wonderful. It was as if about 60 percent of the money I had spent buying the mountain and building the house came back to me.
Of course, this is something I can do because I know the world is going to end.
If that weren’t the case, I never would have done something like this, not even if I died. Do you know how much money would go out every month?
Of course, I set a fairly generous grace period, so for the time being, I only have to pay interest.
The house is ready. Electricity and water have also been secured, at least to a minimal degree.
With just this, no matter what happens, I should be able to live while preserving the bare minimum of dignity.
But there is still so much left. There is so much to prepare. So much that it’s difficult to do alone.
Even so, I have no desire to work with anyone else.
Trust someone else? How?
I don’t have that kind of confidence. Even the doctor doesn’t know that I’m doing this right now.
Trusting someone requires great courage.
And I am a coward without that courage. I know that well.
So I will continue to remain a coward.
Rather than create useless variables, worry about them, and live in complexity, I will keep working alone like this.
Quietly. Taking only what I need.
Once the minimum preparations were complete, my heart became much more generous.
I hope the world ends quickly. So I can hurry up and enjoy the good life alone.
But it seems like it will still take a while for that. It’s not as if an alien ship will suddenly appear, or a zombie virus will sweep over everything.
Humanity is slowly dying.
This world is a vast garden of death.
Plants will flourish faster than the gardener’s hands can manage and kill this garden.
No, the one who dies will be the gardener. The plants in the garden will instead come back to life.
So I give up on being the gardener.
I have no intention of going against the plants.
Rather, I will use them as an opportunity and simply watch quietly from one corner of this garden.