Chapter 344
Chapter 344
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 344
Chapter Title: Can One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (49)
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The hazy eyes, drunk on liquor, spoke to the figure beyond the camera.
[No matter what you do. No matter what technology you create, what means you devise. Even if you stop wars, stop natural disasters, kill, save, and dig through every cause and every result, the ending doesn’t change.]
[The only species on Earth that commits suicide ultimately succeeds in wiping ‘humans’ from Earth with their own hands. There were cases of light nuclear wars, massive sea level rise, plant bursts from nitrogen saturation in the atmosphere overwhelming everything with vegetation, and even cosmic overdevelopment blocking sunlight and killing off all temperate plant life. Press one, and another pops out. No matter what means you confront, it’s impossible to block every path leading to extinction.]
Old, wrinkled, eyes worn down by fatigue. Yet the eyes beyond the screen blazed with a chilling resolve and stubbornness.
Those eyes weren’t those of someone wailing upon hitting an inescapable wall. They belonged to the one who had planted flags in uncharted territory before anyone else, who had made the impossible his daily bread—finally confronting a wall worth staking his life on.
[....If breakthrough is impossible, then take a detour.]
[If extinction can’t be avoided, then I chose. Among all possibilities, the most ideal one—usable as a means.]
The reason humanity ultimately self-destructed was that the pace of their mental maturation was far too slow. From a world where nobles naturally beheaded commoners, to one without discrimination of nations or races.
The collective advancement called civic consciousness had steadily progressed, but those steps were too slow to match the countdown, and in the end, they strangled themselves with their own hands.
[I decided to prepare for the post-extinction world. I chose to view the unavoidable ‘extinction’ as a single means. The population would plummet drastically, and it would create a chance to reset in an instant all the norms, customs, and perspectives hardened like sediment over more than twenty-one centuries! Just like starting a ‘new game’ in a strategy game when progress has gone completely off the rails—clearing the board and beginning anew!]
Kwang!
He could listen no longer. A table flew toward the old TV, only to be deflected by Atlaheva’s hand.
“....You’re insane.”
“No. That’s not true.”
“That’s not insane?! He says he’ll wipe the slate clean like a ‘new game’ while the world ends, and manipulate it so humans become proper beings!”
“He wasn’t insane. At least not until that moment—please!”
.
.
.
.
.
“....Sit down and listen to the rest. You’ll have plenty of time to curse afterward, once you’ve faced the full truth.”
....He wished she’d at least get angry like a proper dragon.
But in Atlaheva’s earnest, desperate gaze, the Professor swallowed his surging rage and had no choice but to sit.
Had Atlaheva anticipated this moment and taken the form of a middle-aged woman in mourning? If so, the Professor thought, it was a perfectly laid trap.
[....‘Completer.’ I want to know what kind of person you are. When you think of an animal similar to ‘human,’ what comes to mind?]
[Monkey? A wise person who thinks based on facts.]
[Pig? Cynical. But not wrong.]
[Wolf? Worked in finance? That’s a good take too.]
[....I think humans resemble clams.]
[Social creatures that live in groups, yet hide their true hearts behind hard shells. You can only know what’s inside once you pry it open, but to pry it open, you must befriend them before even knowing their essence. You always have to build contradictory relationships.]
[And above all.... clams hold pearls. It means they can only take a step toward true value after being wounded.]
[All great figures rose above adversity. Precisely, adversity forged and sculpted them. Consider how different the gaze is between a child raised in their parents’ arms without ever facing a real crisis, and one who stood up on their own. The inner wound—that is like the clam’s wound, the very thing that allows a human soul to be reborn as a true existence. A wound too large kills the clam. One too small produces worthless pearl crumbs. Growth requires a wound appropriate to its level.]
[If the world were filled with such people.... If those with the potential of countless great figures—who vanish pointlessly due to accidents or environmental factors—could safely face trials in a virtual environment. If such people could lead a purified world, wouldn’t they create a better one than our current dead end?]
[Gedroits’s Game. My GG is a device not only to create future great figures but also to select ‘Completers’ among them who are close to superhumans.]
[To seize this golden opportunity, a device was needed. One to control, observe, and guide people. To educate them into better beings. Among the countless masses, to lead them toward the ‘right’ future—not someone like Andrey Gedroits, who mass-produces failures with every touch, but ones like Siddhartha, Lincoln, Teresa, Gandhi, who emerge into the world bearing perfect solutions without aftereffects. Amid the infinite branching choices of worlds, to find those who vanish without their chance and make them lead the world. That was the true answer Andrey Gedroits had found.]
Drop. Drop.
[That’s you. The ‘Completer.’ The one who ran simulations and ultimately succeeded in saving seven worlds most similar to ours yet different. A seasoned savior who did not yield to adversity, pursued a higher good, and saved the world in the end. You, listening to this message now, are the solution and key to our world. Project ‘Key-finder’ was created to find people like you, grant them power, and let them lead the world.]
Gedroits was crying. He caressed the camera as if touching a living person’s face and spoke desperately.
[I can’t do it. Looking at my results.... I wasn’t the key for our world. So I merely laid out the means, leaving everything to your free will. So that it becomes a world created by you, not achieved by my hands.]
[....So you must do it. After this video ends, Gedroits’s Game will be officially released to the world. Right now, as I record this, the Chinese premier will leak the major secrets and military base intel of the United States—observed via the ‘Big Brother system’ I provided—to North Korea. Those fools will think their hackers stole massive intel and flaunt it everywhere, and America will realize there’s a betrayer among the ‘Big Brothers’ who’ve exposed each other’s weaknesses completely. The confrontation will accelerate.]
[Soon, war will break out. A storm of fire that turns nearly ninety percent of modern humanity to ash. Among countless futures, the extinction I chose.]
[The mutant virus test succeeded. It showed sufficient lethality and somewhat excessive contagion, but a slight tweak will fix it. Humans cornered will draw closer to purity, baring their raw selves. People will raise their banners, form alliances, fight, kill.... and be ‘refined.’]
[The address to this place is held by the dragon. She’s probably told you by now.]
[Of course, by the time you clear, it’ll be a bit further in the future. Predictions say enough ‘all clear’ players will emerge right before the war breaks out. I won’t speak of money, honor, or power. The moment you stand before me as a ‘Completer,’ you’ve already proven yourself a pioneer who transcends such things. What I promise is the ‘salvation of the world.’ The only promise: to entrust the purified world amid the scheduled chaos to the most righteous hands.]
[You will come. For you are the ‘Completer’ selected through the harshest seven worlds.]
[You must succeed. If even GG fails.... No. This can’t fail. It must succeed. Absolutely, it must.... Yes, open. Time to open Gedroits’s Game....]
Chijik, chijijik,
Chiiiiii—
The video ended, with Gedroits buried in the computer and the GG logo on the screen as the finale.
The silence of confronting shock filled me completely.
‘Andrey Gedroits planned all of this.’
The war too. The mutants too. The nuke-scorched world and wasteland. The Dome. The Raptor Society. The man from special forces going mad in that tiny shelter.
Even the people who died before my eyes.
Everything was part of the process marching toward the future he foresaw.
‘And his plan failed.’
The virtual reality game that nearly seventy percent of the pre-war world population played. At the time of recording, his plan was to select sufficient numbers of ‘Completers’ before the war erupted, invite them to the long-rumored ‘server room,’ and use them as guides to lead the post-extinction world.
But reality? Eleven years after release, not even a single all clear— the limit is barely pushing into the early stages of the fourth world via forcibly inherited seeds—and not one ‘Completer,’ his last hope, has been found.
Even in footage from years before the war, before it broke out, Gedroits’s mental state seemed profoundly unstable. Sudden movements, trembling hands, forgetting mid-sentence and switching tasks—evidence that he was far from sound overflowed.
But what if that desperately anticipated plan failed completely? In a world where the beings he believed were the only solution had vanished, staring at the hellish wasteland that the world had become—would Gedroits still remain the same man as in that video?
“What.... happened to him?”
The dragon shook her head.
“He didn’t pass away. Computers accessed via his code are still detected occasionally.”
“....He’s observing.”
“Who knows. His last visit was when he met every data soul to halt the error acceleration. It wasn’t said to us, but he muttered things like, ‘mutant virus.... still, still.... now there’s no choice but to find the answer from outside....’”
Atlaheva snapped her fingers, and an image appeared of Gedroits in a far more wretched state than before. Hoarsely repeating tales of pearls over and over, he hugged the world tree, said “I’m sorry,” and vanished.
“We don’t know what answer he’s wandering in search of now, but we are moving toward the answer he once desired. We’ve modified the process somewhat, so it may deviate slightly from his intended outcome, but it’s close enough to call the next best thing.”
Atlaheva rose from her seat.
“....This conversation ends here. Soon enough, you’ll return here as a complete ‘Completer.’ I’d love to open the path to his abode for you right now, with results so certain, but I can’t break the ‘system’s’ stubbornness.”
Atlaheva’s words meant this: for me, who had been aiming for clear to return to my real body, the path to Gedroits’s ‘server room’ would open—his meticulously prepared stockpile of humanity’s pinnacle technology, meant per his plan for wasteland guides.
“Then.... the moment I return here, you’ll give it to me? The address to Gedroits’s server room?”
“Well now. Doesn’t that depend on your choice? Just as with Thousand Stream Emperor and Levit Princess before. The ‘Professor’ must make his choice too.”
Hwaaak—!
The beam of light extending from the dragon’s hand enveloped me, and the same sensation from when I entered flowed through my entire body.
“....Ah, I didn’t tell you about this.”
“....? ....! _! !!”
“Just listen. Contrary to what you think, the souls that make up this world—the data souls—are not kidnapped collaborators.”
“....?!”
“It was like that at first. But to halt the accelerating errors, the creator persuaded them one by one. To those ‘originals’ still holding their real-world memories, he showed everything: the war, the plan, the world reduced to ashes, and even that video of him planning it. Then he begged them desperately. To cooperate. As residents of this world, so that if a possible savior ever comes, this world can produce one. To hold onto this world with your own wills.”
“Many despaired at the harsh reality and became ‘errors.’ But just as many vowed to sacrifice willingly for the world. They remained in the world as ‘Hero Units,’ serving as instructors and supporters for you players.”
Hero Units. NPCs with greater power. Greater power. Greater will. Dropped into a new world with memories erased, facing repeated extinctions, deaths, wipes—and yet they do not hesitate to become supporters for players. Souls made into data, praying to be of help to the world even so.
“And.... you already know that the ‘Hero Unit’ distinction is unnecessary. It’s merely the system’s criterion. Souls who journey alongside a player, inspired by him....”
‘Come to cheer him on. As his supporters, hoping he saves the world...’
They are reborn as Hero Units. That was how the fragile balance was maintained. Already tilted beyond repair, yet preserved just enough that if someone—a true savior the creator desired—came, they could pry open the slimmest crack and wave the flag of victory.
Atlaheva met the eyes of the vanishing Professor and smiled softly.
“I see you understand. The labels before names mean nothing. Everyone here is an ordinary person—some as sturdy as rocks, others swaying like reeds. What you need to know is this: those who face your path. Those who hear your news and hold your name in their hearts—they are all your supporters. Your becoming a saint likely owes something to the deep psychology of such data souls as well. Both within and without, they call you the savior, don’t they?”
“So, long-awaited savior. Go. Finish the tale of your journey and return.”
With cheers carrying long-held prayers, Atlaheva sent off the disappearing Professor.
****
Atlaheva stood in the empty space where the Professor had vanished, eyes closed for a long while. It was a wait as long as her vast lifespan. How many souls, vowing to sacrifice themselves willingly for one who might still remain in the world, had withered away. Even knowing that the very beings who gave them reason to choose sacrifice were stored on the same server, she had hidden it to make them become the world’s pillars of their own volition—and how she had blamed herself for it.
‘One step. Now, just one step remains.’
The end was approaching. Or perhaps the final moment of a new beginning.
“....Lady Atlaheva.”
Aldarshaks approached her back cautiously.
Having glimpsed the kindhearted Professor—and the real him, thanks to the world tree’s permission—Aldarshaks couldn’t understand why his future had to be so harsh.
“....Lady Atlaheva. Must you.... force that choice upon him?”
“Why? Seems too cruel?”
“....It’s harsh. Everyone waited so long for him, even you desperately hoped for this ‘Completer’—no need to push it that far—”
“It’s precisely because we hoped so desperately. This world, barely held together by the piled sacrifices and pains of so many—it must be perfect.”
“But....”
“You peeked at the simulation examples too, so you know. How many heroes corrupt or go astray in the end.”
“....The Professor isn’t that kind of person.”
Atlaheva stroked Aldarshaks’s head at his sullen response.
“Yes. That’s why I believe in him—and push him toward that choice.”
Please, may he not waver until the very last moment.
Atlaheva prayed, recalling the player’s afterimage lingering in her retinas like an afterglow. Pouring in the desperate longing of centuries past.
May his steps toward the north—toward the end of the tale called the third world—remain as unshaken as they are now.
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