I was truly feeling the need for civilization.
However, the situation before my eyes was still ongoing.
“Hoo!”
The Avalon youth wiped the sweat from his forehead as if he could finally breathe.
Elder Wilgrim approached him cautiously as he squatted in the dung field, slowly sorting out his work.
“Hmm.”
“Oh, Elder.”
The young man greeted Wilgrim happily.
It was Wilgrim who had helped him deal with the urgent matter.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier. You seemed to be in a hurry, so I raised my voice too.”
“No. Thanks to you, I was able to work comfortably, wasn’t I?”
A young man smiled broadly with his butt exposed.
Just like Elvenheim, the resurrected Avalonians were completely without wrinkles.
Wilgrim, also smiling, handed him two green leaves.
“What is this?”
“It’s a leaf from the World Tree. It’s a luxury I couldn’t even dream of, but… Thanks to Representative Jeonggyeom, there are so many World Trees. Now, take care of this quickly.”
“Now, Elder…!”
The young man’s face was filled with emotion.
He took off his pants in a hurry without even thinking about the future.
I was worried about the aftermath, so how could I not be grateful?
What Wilgrim held out were two leaves, each half the size of his palm.
But the frugal young man of Avalon waved his hand.
“Oh my! One sheet is enough! If you fold it well, you can easily wipe it a dozen times!”
“Hey, you! I’ve only cleaned it once or twice in 700 years, don’t you know? Take it easy, take it easy!”
The affection between neighbors brought a smile to my face just by looking at them.
A miracle of a single roll of toilet paper was taking place in a field of savory shit.
“…Why on earth are you doing that?”
I could never understand why anyone would save on a World Tree that could be copied infinitely.
No, shouldn’t they have just used toilet paper in the first place?
Thud.
Drizzle.
A sudden downpour of rain.
Their extreme frugality continued.
“Oh no! I have to hand over the bucket!”
Wilgrim stomped his feet, worried that he would miss all the precious water.
The Avalon youth, who had cleaned up after himself, consoled him.
“Elder, how about doing it this way? Now, look.”
The young man opened his mouth toward the sky.
He continued speaking after filling his mouth with water and drinking it as the rain poured down.
“It may not be a bucket, but… can’t you quench your thirst like this?”
“Heh heh… I thought he was a young guy, so I let my guard down. Turns out, I got schooled.”
“Even so, this body has been dead for 80 years. It’s been a long time. Hehe.”
A battle between the dirt-poor of Elvenheim and Avalon, showing off the years they had endured.
My heart felt so heavy with their poverty that it almost made me shiver.
“Why are you doing this? The stuff piled up in the distribution center is drinking water.”
Pax, who had learned the behavioral patterns of Elvenheim and Avalon, answered my continued questions.
[Presumably the result of repeated actions.] [This is all related to what humans call ‘thrift.’] [Both Elvenheim and Avalon appear to have developed unique behavioral patterns due to their long-term experience of poverty.]
Even though they were provided with an infinite amount of food and resources, they could not change the elves’ habits.
They were experiencing cognitive dissonance—understanding in their heads that the logistics center’s resources were infinite but unable to actually put it into practice.
Swaaa…
The rain gradually became heavier.
The manure piled up in the field crumbled, and the murky rainwater scattered all over the dirt floor.
“Oh, this is what it ended up being.”
“Of course. A mere creature cannot overcome the great ecology of nature. We just have to live in step with it.”
It was the result of decades, centuries of poverty.
Their brains were already steeped in a life of comfort and luxury.
‘There’s a mountain of work to do.’
Elvenheim was the next major base for Pax FC after Seoul.
Given its potential for development, it was unthinkable that it would not have a water and sewer system.
In addition, new homes had to be built for the people of Avalon, who had lost their homes in an instant.
The situation was such that large-scale construction was inevitable.
If they were to build neat houses with water and sewerage facilities, wouldn’t they also be able to adapt to a better environment?
However, since it involved building infrastructure and residential facilities, it was necessary to establish a specialized system of its own.
I immediately contacted Yoo Seong-cheol of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Because I couldn’t leave him out when it came to the ‘reconstruction project.’
Yoo Seong-cheol answered after hearing my story.
“I see. Construction of infrastructure and housing facilities… But if you’re going to dig up Elvenheim, you probably won’t need that many people, right?”
“So, I’m thinking of creating a new organization called <Pax Construction> to manage construction personnel separately. I’d like to recruit new members from among the Paxmen…”
After the battle with the Sumangyo, the number of Paxmen had increased rapidly.
Although the percentage of awakened ones among them was less than 10%…
“Please select the technicians needed for construction. Everyone necessary, such as a plumber, a construction engineer, an electrician, a locksmith, etc.”
It didn’t have to be an awakened person.
Because the destroyed world still needed them.
About a week had passed since the recruitment notice was posted to Paxmen.
But the list that Yoo Seong-cheol gave me was extremely short.
“…200 people? Is that all?”
“There were so few applicants. I guess they just weren’t interested.”
It was different from the Paxmen who were trained as combatants.
Ordinary people who had become members of Pax FC but did not feel a sense of belonging.
Although they may feel grateful to Pax FC, they were driven more by practical concerns surrounding survival and safety rather than loyalty or duty.
<Pax Construction> had advertised fresh ingredients and products from the logistics center as conditions for employment, but it seemed that it was not enough to elicit their response.
Yoo Seong-cheol added,
“Because water and food are being supplied steadily anyway.”
“This…”
As for supplies, they were limited to rice, bread, ramen, drinking water, and a few other necessities.
In any case, the minimum supplies necessary for survival were being provided.
I had planned to be satisfied with that level.
‘Is this the end of poverty?’
It was no different from Elvenheim or Avalon.
Because the people of Earth were also adapting to the destruction that had befallen the Earth.
If we put it nicely, it could be said that they were living a carefree life, but if we put it badly, we could say that they were accustomed to poverty.
As if he was dissatisfied, Yoo Seong-cheol suggested a more daring strategy.
“How about we just cut back on the supply of materials? So that we can force people to take on roles.”
I quickly calmed him down.
“That is not the spirit of Pax FC. If you give and take away, they will only harbor resentment. Our way is to charm people with infinite benefits. And as a result…”
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I thought about the overwhelming level of benefits that made Pax the best in the industry.
“It stimulates greed.”
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Pax fattened the appetite for consumption.
From our perspective, it was breaking the principle of contentment.
Although the Paxmen were supplied with ample food and supplies, there was one thing that was still missing.
“Don’t you want to have a house?”
“Home?”
Of course, there were many houses in Korea and in any city abroad.
Even though there was a housing shortage, there were more people who died than houses that were destroyed.
The majority of survivors were living in empty houses, without any regard for their belongings.
But…
“That’s not a nice house, is it?”
It simply blocked the wind.
It was just a shell with no water, electricity, or gas.
“But isn’t that the situation where there is a shortage of manpower to build those houses?”
“We’re just going to build a few of them. They’re kind of like model houses. Instead, they’re going to be ‘real’ houses with running water, electricity, and gas.”
There was no need to make a lot.
A few per city would be enough, and it would even be in the form of renovating existing buildings.
Moreover, that was not all.
“They let you stay there for a day. It’s like a tourist attraction.”
The convenience of everyday life that would return in a few months.
Even after tasting it, you could never go back to a life of poverty and hardship.
We put the plan into action right away.
Gangnam, Busan, and several other overseas cities were selected, and 200 people who volunteered for were mobilized as a priority.
Rather than building new ones, this work involved gradually repairing damaged buildings.
Thanks to the mobilization of the abilities of those with awakened construction abilities, it took less than three days to complete.
I slowly wrote down the text message, hoping that people wouldn’t just give in to the destruction that had come.
Paxman, Park Yoon-ho, worked as an electrical engineer before the destruction.
He was looking around with a blank expression.
“Well, it’s nothing special…”
It wasn’t much different from the house he used to live in.
A neatly remodeled 27-pyeong three-room apartment.
The only difference was that when he opened the window, he could see the Han River.
In the past, it would have been worth hundreds of millions of won, but since the world turned upside down, that meant nothing.
On one side…
“Wow! Wow!”
A black leather sofa in the living room.
On top of that soft texture, his young son was jumping around.
Park Yoon-ho, who was looking at that sight, also smiled faintly.
‘…Yes, this is the original way.’
A safe fence called home.
It was the environment that a child of that age should have been given.
But destruction ruined everything.
How many horrible situations had that little kid witnessed in the past few months?
‘Phew…’
It was the first time in a long while that he had enjoyed peace, but…
The son’s sudden question broke the peace.
“Dad! Is this our home now?”
“Haha… It’s not my house. I just came to play for today.”
That wasn’t home.
At those words, the son’s face was quickly covered in shadows.
“…Then should we go out tomorrow?”
“…”
Check-out time was 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Park Yoon-ho felt conflicted again at the thought of having to hand over this house to someone else in just one day.
There was no need to worry about monsters appearing.
When he turned on the water, water came out, and when he flipped the switch, the light came on.
There was even air conditioning.
An everyday scene that he had completely forgotten.
It all came back vividly as if it were yesterday.
“Honey, let’s eat.”
When he entered the kitchen at his wife’s call, a delicious meal was laid out for him.
A warm meal his wife would prepare for him when he came home late at night after work.
The apartment provided by Pax FC was fully equipped with various home appliances, including a rice cooker, and various food ingredients were also stocked in the large double-door refrigerator.
“Hey…”
Well-cooked mackerel grilled on top of hot rice.
He slurped down the warm seaweed soup, feeling the rice grains dissolving in his mouth.
After swallowing his food for a long time, he seemed to have made up his mind and patted his son’s head as he clumsily used chopsticks.
“Jaehyeong. Should we live here?”
“Huh? Really!?”
It was possible.
A large-scale construction project led by .
He heard that the laborers who participated in the project were given residency rights after the combatants.
Meanwhile, his wife asked cautiously.
“I thought you wouldn’t do it. I thought it would be better to just quietly bury it…”
“I’ve changed my mind. In fact, even if it’s a little harder… isn’t this the right way to live? And if you look at it in the big picture, I’m also helping out. Pax FC intends to turn everything back to the way it was before.”
Park Yoon-ho’s desire blossomed naturally.
And that desire could completely overlap with the cause put forward by Pax FC.
Because in Pax FC’s vast scale of trying to restore the world, anyone could find their role.
“Maybe… we can really live like in the old days.”
He dared to dream so.
After a while, Yoo Seong-cheol entered the logistics center with a smile on his face.
“Okay. The number of applicants has increased several times.”
The knot was finally untied.
A system of providing houses that people wanted and mobilizing them to build houses.
Thanks to this, they were able to plan various civil engineering projects, including water supply and sewage facilities.
It might take some time, but they would also be able to solve the problem of residence in Elvenheim and Avalon.
Although the problem he had been worrying about had been resolved, Yoo Seong-cheol added that he was concerned.
“But… aren’t construction workers still going to be needed in the future?”
“Right?”
“Will people want to work after they receive their homes? Are you giving them away too easily…?”
It was just as he said.
If the goal was to get a house, then there would be no reason for people to come forward after that.
But that was okay. Ownership comes with ongoing costs.
“Well, that’s okay. We have to provide the water and electricity.”
They would have to keep working.
That way, they could get resources from Pax Energy Corporation.
Moreover, that was not all.
“Now people will be more willing to fight.”
“…Why?”
“Because they have something to lose.”
The world covered in broken concrete was finally about to change.
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