I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm – Chapter H.2

Beep! Beep! Beep! Click~

A man pressed a button on his watch to turn off his alarm.

"Five o'clock already! The time went by fast today, huh?"

With a smile on his face, the man tossed the gadget he was using into his toolbox, before climbing down the scaffolding.

Puff!

A small cloud of red dust dissipated into the air as he stepped onto the ground.

The man continued his path toward one of the many dome-shaped buildings nearby and pressed a button on the door frame's side. A noise reminiscent of a vacuum could be heard behind the steel door.

After a few moments, the door finally opened and the man stepped forward - pressing another button once inside.

Whoosh!

Air flooded the small room, and to pass the minute-long wait time, the man watched as the number displayed on the barometer rapidly increased.

Ding!

A green light turned on above the second steel door the moment the pressure reached 1.013 bars, allowing the man to finally take off his helmet.

"Phew," he wiped the sweat off of his forehead as he wiggled out of his suit, "As nice cool as it is living here, Earth does have this place beat when it comes to not needing to wear a fish bowl everywhere you go."

He could not help but mutter those words while he hung his spacesuit between two others- one of a similar size and one half of that, but each matching with the word 'Donstar' engraved on the suit's torso. 

With the push of one last button, the second steel door rose open, finally allowing the man to go inside.

"Daddy!"

A small girl ran up and hugged his legs.

"How's my little girl doing?" The man picked her up with a bright smile on his face, "Were you a good girl for your mother while I was gone?"

"Yes~"

"Oh really?" he looked at the woman peeking at the reunion from the other room, "What about you, sweetie? Would you say she was behaving herself?"

The woman smiled smugly.

"I'm not so sure~"

"What!? I was super good!" the small girl argued with a look of betrayal on her face.

"Good girls help their mothers get the dinner ready," the woman walked over and handed the girl a basket with some cut bread inside.

"Fine~"

The girl wiggled out of his arms and disappeared into the other room.

"You were just in there... you couldn't have just put it on the table yourself?" he asked his wife curiously.

"I could have, but then I wouldn't have had the chance to do this!" the woman smiled and gave the man a loving kiss, "I missed you, you know."

"You just saw me this morning, though?"

"I did~ but I still missed you! What, are you saying you didn't miss me while you were at work?" the woman feigned a pained expression.

"No... I did miss you too," the man mumbled to the woman sporting a teasing smile.

"Then use your lips for something other than questioning me,"

Not even a moment later, the small girl returned.

"Mommy, I finished putting the bread- ew! Stop kissing! That's gross!"

"Fine, fine," the woman let go of her grinning husband, "It's time for us to eat, anyway."

The family made their way to the next room and sat down at the dinner table.

"No matter how many times I see it, I'm still not used to having fish on our plates," the man said as he cut a piece.

"It's because you did such a great job setting up that aquaponics building that we even get to eat it!" the woman added proudly.

"I guess I did do a pretty good job with that, huh?"

He put a piece into his mouth and took a bite.

"Wow! I may have brought us fish, but you cook them perfectly!"

"You're so sweet~"

"Ewww! No kissing while I'm eating! I'm gonna throw up!"

The two parents smiled and backed away at their child's complaint.

"She's right... let's save it for after dinner, sweetie."

"Fine~ I waited all day, I guess I can wait a bit longer," the woman said with a teasing pout.

The man turned to his daughter at the end of the table.

"So, how was school today?"

"It was good *munch munch*. My teacher mentioned something weird, though."

"Something weird?" the woman asked.

"Yeah. She said there was something called 'the cold cat prison'."

"... I think you mean 'The Cold Cataclysm'," the man corrected with a sigh, "They're really telling kids this young about that?"

"There's no way they're teaching about that at her grade, it was probably just a slip of the tongue" the woman refuted.

"Yeah, she wouldn't tell us about the cold cat prison even though I tried asking! She only said the name..."

"That's because it might be a bit scary for kids your age to hear about," the man explained.

"I won't be scared! Can you tell me? Please~"

The man looked at his wife who eventually nodded hesitantly. It was clear to both of them that they needed to leave out details. He took another bite of his food perhaps buying time to think of how to start the topic.

"Okay, before I tell you, you need to promise that you won't start talking about this to the other kids. Their angry parents might be scarier to me than The Cold Cataclysm itself."

"I won't tell them!"

"... Alright. It'll be a pretty long story, so be warned-"

"I know, I know! Just tell me already!" the girl whined impatiently.

The man smiled at her enthusiasm, but the grin quickly faded into a somber expression.

"Well, it started all the way back in the 2000's. Back then, there was not just one government like what we have now; there were around two hundred of them and they were constantly fighting each other over land, resources, or just petty differences.

Anyway, one of these fights was happening between two of the smaller countries, which ended up dragging in one of the largest ones. Their rival, the second-biggest country at the time, tried to take over some land during that exchange. Apparently, they thought the biggest country would be too distracted or not have enough resources to do anything about it, but they were wrong and a massive war broke out.

Both of these countries had nuclear weapons- a lot of them. They had enough of them to destroy the world, and they knew that yet-" the man clenched his fist while speaking. 

"Daddy? What's a new clear?" the little girl asked during his pause.

The man's tension loosened as he heard this daughter's innocent voice- a wry smile appeared on his face.

"Right... I'm sorry, I forgot how little you are," he paused and held his gaze on the girl, "You know what... how about we save this talk for when you're a bit older?"

"What!? That's not fair! I want to know why they put the cats in a cold prison!"

"I..." the man tried to speak but just stopped and let out a sigh, "There is no cat prison. You just misheard your teacher."

"... They didn't lock up the kitties?" the girl questioned innocently.

"No, they did not lock up the kitties."

"Oh..."

The girl stood up and picked up her now-empty plate.

"Thank you for the dinner, Mommy!" she said as she left the room with a relieved smile.

The man looked at her retreating figure and soon buried his head in his hands.

"I'm such an idiot. Of course, she just wanted to know about the cats."

He looked up to see his wife struggling to hold back her laughter.

"Pfft-"

"You knew the whole time!?"

"Hahaha!" the laughs broke through her sealed lips at his reaction.

"... I'm glad you enjoyed that," he said as he rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry, it was just too funny!"

After a few more minutes of giggling and eating, the woman spoke again.

"So, how about you continue that story?"

"Huh? I mean I could, but don't you already know all of this?"

"I do, but you seemed excited to talk about it and I want to hear your voice, so it's a win-win!" the woman explained with a smile.

"... I love you so much."

"I love you too, so start talking!"

"Okay, okay. Well, no one really knows who shot the first nuke during that whole thing, but both sides shot a whole bunch- enough to cause a nuclear winter. Everything was already half destroyed from the war and from the nukes themselves, so no one was prepared for the fallout.

The temperature was already way too cold for most crops, and the bits of farmland in the remaining warmer climates were covered in radiation, so there was a famine on a level unheard of. Before the whole war broke out, the population on Earth was roughly 8 billion, but only a few years after the nuclear winter, there were only about 25 million people left."

"It's called The Cold Cataclysm for a reason." The woman chimed in.

"Yeah... I mean, putting aside the fact that 97% of humans died during it, technology pretty much had to start from zero afterward. It's been close to 17,000 years since then yet we're only a bit ahead of what they were using back before the cataclysm. If it weren't for Donstar, we would probably still be repeating the Middle Ages right now."

"I know that's what they say, but isn't it a bit of an exaggeration? Them being close to our level of technology, I mean," she asked.

"Surprisingly, it's not far off at all! There are actually quite a few records of the people competing to be the first ones to settle on Mars. If The Cold Cataclysm was a few years later, they probably would have succeeded."

"So 17,000 years ago, they almost did something we only just managed to do? Wow..."

"See! Now you can see why I'm so passionate about this!" the man let out a longing sigh, "The world was basically a frozen and irradiated wasteland for 13,000 years. There was not even a chance for anyone to maintain what survived the explosions, let alone develop anything new.

It was only when the ice started thawing about 4,000 years ago that Donstar could finally step in and try to restore the world. Even then, most of their efforts were on bringing back what was lost. We only started developing past the point of their records pretty recently... can you imagine what kinds of things we might have developed by now if The Cold Cataclysm never happened?"

"Yeah, it is a bit crazy to think about," the woman paused for a second, "Actually, I was a bit curious. Why did the nuclear winter last for so long, anyway?"

"Oh- the fallout only blocked the sun for a few years at best. It wasn't nearly enough to cause such damage on its own. Apparently, the whole thing caused some unknown cycles to start and it was those climate cycles that sent the planet into a small ice age. The whole thing is still being debated, but that seems to be what's generally thought."

The man stood up and started cleaning up the plates from dinner; the woman joined in to help.

"Hopefully, now that we have this Mars colony getting started, progress can be made even if another cataclysm were to happen," he continued.

"Well, if it happens again, at least I'll have you to keep me warm~" the woman teased.

"Of course! I have more than enough materials here to make a heater large enough to heat the whole colony!"

The man turned, feeling an icy glare on his back.

"W-what?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it!" she pouted.

The woman stepped toward him and started pulling on his shirt.

"Come on, just for that, I'm making you warm me up now~"

"W-wait, sweetie! I'm still holding the plates! The plates, sweetie- think of the plates!"

"Forget the plates! They can watch!"

The man was dragged into their bedroom to be used as a personal heater for the rest of eternity... or until his alarm went off to go to work in the morning... it was actually only for two hours because the little girl had to get tucked in for bed.