Webnovel Author In The Apocalypse World

Chapter 126 Preparing for Expansion: Tools and Tasks

"Clear land? What does that mean?" Go Okrim, clueless about farming, asked curiously.

Kim Haru grabbed a stool, leading Go Okrim and the two zombie-bots to the empty plot he had in mind.

They walked along the pond, and about halfway across, the wide, open land came into view.

"Those two bots—or zombies, rather—need to be able to use tools to turn all this soil. All the weeds here have to go, the rocks need to be removed, and the roots of the grass be pulled out too. This will clear the land for planting crops," Kim Haru explained to Go Okrim. "That's what it means to clear land."

As for whether the soil would be nutrient-rich enough to support plants after being turned over, well, that was something the bots couldn't manage. It'd be up to Kim Haru to fertilize it later.

"Alright, I got it. I'll definitely create bots that meet your standards, Kim Haru-hyung," Go Okrim said, instantly adopting Kim Haru's preferred terms without hesitation.

"Good, thanks for the hard work," Kim Haru replied, setting the stool down. "You can work here. It'll be easier to test data on both of them from this spot."

With just one "employee," Kim Haru was already showing his "exploitive" side as a farm owner.

Go Okrim agreed without delay, looking as if he was about to swear an oath to complete the task.

After assigning Go Okrim with his workstation and duties, Kim Haru walked back to the front of the wooden cabin on the other side of the pond.

He had his own work to get to.

He needed to test the machinery he'd salvaged from the Agricultural Tech Park. He wasn't even sure if they were functional yet, and if they weren't, he'd need to see if he could fix them.

With a clatter, he dumped a pile of neatly packaged machinery onto the open ground.

First, he found the irrigation equipment.

The watering system here looked quite similar to the ones Kim Haru had seen in his previous life: a small sprinkler head designed to spray water around it automatically once it was set into the ground. Besides the sprinkler head, it had a pipe that needed to be buried underground, with a fixed length. Kim Haru eyed it with some concern, wondering if it would fit the layout.

Connecting the inlet to the kitchen faucet, he took hold of the sprinkler head and turned on the water.

Nothing happened.

What was going on? This should be the right way to use it, shouldn't it?

He inspected it up and down, shook it from side to side, and gave it a few good taps until he finally heard something rattling inside the sprinkler head. On closer inspection, he noticed a broken, corroded component inside.

The other sprinklers each had similar issues—either the pipes were cracked, or the heads were rusted and corroded. Compared to those, the one with only a broken part was actually the best of the bunch.

Kim Haru disassembled the other sprinklers, scavenging parts to repair this one.

With skillful hands, Kim Haru soon had everything set up. Just as he tightened the sprinkler head, a system notification suddenly popped up.

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[ Ding! Basic Sprinkler Blueprint is acquired. ]

It's right on time!

Kim Haru immediately opened the system's crafting interface, where he could see the newly available sprinkler option.

The system's sprinkler looked quite similar to the one in his hands, with one key difference: it didn't have a long pipe. Instead, it was just a single sprinkler head. The small text explained that this system-made sprinkler used some high-tech method to draw water remotely.

Why wait? Kim Haru promptly followed the system's instructions to modify his sprinkler. He detached the pipe, took out two water-type energy cores, and placed them on the crafting table that appeared in mid-air.

After a few clanks and clatters, a brand-new, high-tech system sprinkler appeared before him.

The system sprinkler was incredibly simple to use. After setting the sprinkler head in the field, it would automatically connect to the water source from the system-supplied cabin, irrigating the surrounding four plots.

What a convenient device!

There's no bothersome pipes, and it could water four plots at once.

After doing some calculations, Kim Haru realized he currently had a 10x10 field, and since one sprinkler could cover a 2x2 area, he would need 25 sprinklers in total.

"We're short on sprinklers," Kim Haru muttered, counting the ones he'd brought back from the Agricultural Tech Park. At best, he had only 12.

"System, what materials are needed to make additional sprinklers?"

[ Ding! ]

[ Sprinkler: Requires two water-type energy cores, 50 grams of iron, 20 grams of copper, and 1 gram of gold. ]

The system wasted no time responding to his question when it came to farm-related matters.

Seeing the requirements appear in front of him, Kim Haru thought, "…Gold?"

Gold? Where was he supposed to find gold?

Just as this question crossed his mind, his gaze fell on the sparkling jewelry gleaming under the sunlight.

Since he'd gotten these jewels dirt cheap, he'd stuck them on the window as decorations. They looked especially beautiful when the sunlight hit them just right. It dawned on him that this wasn't the world he knew in his previous life, where gold was a precious metal; in this post-apocalyptic world, gold was probably worth less than food.

He remembered that he had bought several pieces of gold earrings before. The craftsmanship was exquisite, perfectly matching his taste, so he had picked them up. Now was the perfect time to put them to use.

Each pair of gold earrings had well over a gram of gold, so by using just two pairs and a single extra earring, he had enough to meet the system's gold requirement for crafting additional sprinklers.

With a solution for the gold, iron and copper were even easier to acquire.

Kim Haru dismantled the equipment he'd brought from the Agricultural Tech Park, which was mostly made of iron, quickly gathering what he needed. As for copper, he knew just where to get it.

—Wiring.

Most wiring contains copper strands. If he could strip them, he'd have all the copper he needed. But peeling those wires apart was going to be a hassle.