Chapter 520
Chapter 520
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: The Greatest Creditor (10)
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[Have you ever imagined the life of a genius?]
The camcorder's light flickers, and Andrey Gedroits's question, spoken from within his spacesuit helmet, echoes down to the survivors below.
[Just think about it for a moment. Not just smart—I'm talking about a mind bordering on the occult, where the rough answer to any problem pops into your head the instant you see it. If you'd had a genius like that before the world turned to shit, what would you have done?]
His confession begins with a question. A very simple one: "What would you do if you were me?"
[Money? Ah, that surplus capital overflowing the world? I could've published a formula I scribbled down as a joke in high school, patented it, started a company with it—or just followed the obvious flow of the economy and made some investments. To me, money was like tap water. All it took was turning the faucet, and it poured out endlessly. Utterly meaningless.]
[Fame? Better. After making my money, I wanted fame too. But I already had it. The world's greatest inventor, genius, humanity's treasure, a living singularity... I just turned my innate talents into cash by learning what was around me, and fame came trailing after like a receipt. When I gave away piles of meaningless money to those in need, even buying ice cream on the street got me praise. Fame wasn't worth much either.]
[Power was the same. Once I had the first two, the so-called 'power players' started slinking around me. Power's just a throne built from stacking wealth and fame. I didn't even try hard, but my piles of both put me higher than most. Look at this spaceship right now. Could a single private entrepreneur prepare something like this? The fact that a massive space survival facility exists in Earth's orbit—a spot reserved sixty years ahead for launch vehicles—screams power involvement.]
[So, all those complicated pursuits you—no, humanity—chase your whole lives? They were trivially simple to me. Self-evident. Like '1+1=2,' the answer hits you just by looking, no thought required. In short, my life was like a game where all the content vanished from the start.]
In his youth, life felt empty to him. Like playing a game with every cheat activated, the world handed him everything too easily, leaving nothing worth striving for.
[What gave purpose to that empty life was 'fear.' A painfully simple problem. Fleeting specks of dust were driving the world—not just moving it, but burning and destroying it. Can you even grasp a fraction of how terrified I was? Imagine the whole world bickering over 'Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?' then suddenly pulling guns and slaughtering each other! Ridiculous! Idiotic! But the results weren't idiotic at all! Even as cities filled with the stench of spilled brains and guts from burst skulls, people screamed 'So is it a vegetable or fruit?!' while tearing into each other harder! That's the world I saw! Fools ripping at each other nonstop over nothing! And those fools had the power to destroy the entire world!]
His slurred speech, damaged by brain injury, resonates eerily from inside the spacesuit helmet.
A scientist too brilliant for society, alienated as an outsider. He felt hollow, terrified by the endless destruction born from that hollowness.
[So I tried to stop it. Unlike those fools, I knew so much more. Foolish as they were... they were still people I talked to, shared emotions and life with. Couldn't just let them die so pointlessly.]
In the end, he felt responsibility at the precipice. Call it a messiah complex or the enlightened one's scorn for humanity's fathomless stupidity. Either way, Gedroits leaned toward the good side, so he tried to halt these fools' endless self-destruction.
[...It didn't work. No matter what I tried, it failed. It only got worse.]
And he failed. Miserably.
[I failed.... Me! I found a problem where the answer didn't come easily! Not just emptiness, but a massive one demanding everything I had! Like any ordinary person! If everyone has their place in the world, I finally found mine!!]
From that moment, his life of emptiness and fear gained a mission. The sole purpose for one whose genius left nothing human-scale to do: reverse the colossal self-destructive tide even he couldn't handle, letting these deficient fools live better lives!
Wearing his helmet like a dreamer's mask, Gedroits spoke passionately of the life that ignited after that day.
It started with solving basics like food, clothing, shelter: developing "Faji Meat." It birthed the "Faji Bullet," creating countless amputees in war zones. Failure.
Free humans from labor to align their views with his: advanced AI and multipurpose drones. It sparked global protests over labor rights, human dignity, and environmentalism. Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure....
The rest was familiar. Endless failures. The world changed technologically but not at its core. Realizing endless trial-and-error wouldn't work, Gedroits created his life's masterpiece: the future prediction program that birthed GG.
Faced with every quantifiable scenario ending in "human extinction," he grew desperate, believing his sole life goal would fail. That led to the "Completer Plan": WW3, nuclear war, wasteland, GG.
Even confessing his sins to the world, he stood unshakeable, proud.
[Yes. I'm the one who made this wasteland. I incited war, leaked state secrets to breed suspicion, turning 90% of humanity to ash in an instant. Me, Gedroits.]
[Even after such sacrifice, the outcome was uncertain. The Completer Plan slipped my grasp, I still hadn't found the answer, and the world deviated from predictions bit by bit.]
[Then... purely by chance, I found it. Unimaginably, by latching onto this man's personality: 'Gustav al-Harb.']
Murderer, war addict. Unable to let go after wars ended, he formed the Raptor collective. Through this madman's eyes, Gedroits gained revelation.
[Gustav al-Harb 'Raptor' wasn't just a destroyer. Astonishingly, he was a thinker bent on saving and remaking the world on his terms!]
[Professor, are you listening? Gustav was more like you than imagined! He endured tragedy, lost family, shattered through endless loss! Unlike you, luckless, he plummeted in agony. Then one day, he realized he'd hit rock bottom.]
Clang! Rattle!
Saying this, Gedroits flung off his spacesuit helmet. Eyes staring different directions, uncontrolled tongue lolling out drooling, yet his face lit with ecstatic joy recounting Gustav's epiphany was unmistakably another 'Raptor,' fully inheriting the dead one's memories.
Gedroits, wearing Raptor's face, spoke with Raptor's inherited memories.
[It was endless relief. No more depths to fall, nothing left to lose. After enduring, enduring, enduring, nothing could hurt him anymore. Nirvana isn't vast heavens—it's the mud's very bottom, where we thrashed to escape.]
[Gustav built the Raptor Society and pursued endless war as his holy crusade to 'save' more people in this pain-filled world. Accepting his mindset taught me much. It let me find a solution utterly unlike before.]
Whirr—click!
Gedroits operated a device, and the camcorder zoomed in on me, frozen to the spaceship's surface.
[Much changed in appearance, but to any wastelander, it's unmistakable. Professor. Saint, hero, symbol of survival... Many names, but I prefer Completer. Ah, no misunderstanding. Frozen without gear in space's void, he's still alive. The mutant virus's original purpose was 'If we free humans from physical limits, might they find some peace?' A human evolution project to survive any environment, reborn in ideal forms—if humans become robust, most conflicts fade.]
[Of course, overambitious, it failed spectacularly, birthing the monster-making 'mutant virus'... But he's different. My Completer is the sole success matching the original intent. He just needs time to adapt to space's extremes—he won't die. His mind's awake now, hearing me.]
Gedroits winked at me—or tried; only a eyelid twitch, tipping his unbalanced body to crash. Clearly, his brain-overriden body was losing control.
[The one, only success.... My everything-forged sole masterpiece.... Noble, good, unbreakable—the perfect human...! Who overcame my trials and beyond, the sole shepherd of humanity...!]
[My plan resembles Gustav's but differs.... Reset to origin, reborn under the one truest hand...!]
Failing to rise, Gedroits's device lit the cosmos.
Mysterious metallic pillar, ringed by space junk metal.
[I concluded my plans—all failing, humanity doomed regardless—stem from humanity's 'evolutionary direction,' set in some ancient, unfathomable moment.]
[Human evolution meant distancing from savagery. Escaping innate 'animality' for reason's realm. From ancients killing for survival, to primitives cooperating against rivals. From knights slaying serfs for fun in the Middle Ages, to modern taboos on murder, guaranteeing rights and happiness pursuit.]
[That was progress: shedding animality. Soon even male-female reproduction blurred; pre-WW3, full electronic personalities were proposed, ditching flesh. Somewhere it went wrong—maybe from the start. Overemphasizing reason raised happiness thresholds too high! Humanity went from satisfied with filling food to craving tasty, then beautiful, then philosophically-laden meals. Grass-eaters, meat-only, shaming specific foods! Past vs. modern happiness totals differ? Fierce savage guarding family from beasts vs. office worker's paycheck joy—qualitative gap? No! None! Savage and evolved acts offer equal value, just reshaped! Humanity 'progressed' for nothing! So I deemed it wrong!]
His on-screen voice mixed with ragged breaths.
Gedroits screamed hoarsely, fading. Pale, unbalanced at screen's edge. Trapped in dying flesh, his living ego thrashed for his life's sole goal: humanity's salvation.
[The further from animality, the weirder, crueler acts needed for joy—aberrant species reborn! All futures end in doom from choosing this malformed civilization!]
[So I reset everything, entrusting new humanity's fate to our old one's sole success: the flawless perfect human, the Completer...!]
Fingers clawing from chair tremble on keyboard. Code inputs; five Earth-orbiting metal rings—near-small-celestial-bodies—vibrate in unison.
[Satellites. Military sats. Three space stations. Failed orbital elevator debris. Abandoned moon base scraps. Humanity's irresponsible space junk was long a crisis, cleared bit by bit. That black pillar at the ring's center? One clever solution.]
The vibrating metal masses glowed red-hot even in cold void.
[Just huge electromagnets. Battery-core ones rocketed up. Activating in junk zones, magnetic pull gathers metal debris, propelling it sunward forever. Direction strays from forces? Fine, if junk clears orbit.]
[Failed project ultimately. Deviated wildly, smashing active sats and stations, astronomical losses—scrapped. Sub-escape-velocity pillar and junk caught in Earth's gravity, becoming more GEO trash.]
-Crack!
Heat now scorched my frozen body. Alive? Movable? Unknown, but thawing limbs freeing felt real.
[Those discarded electromagnet pillars are them. Output boosted near self-gravity. Thus gathering all orbit's metal shards, as seen.]
[Each ~100 billion tons metal mass. Five total 500 billion. Dinosaur-killer asteroid's 680 trillion dwarfs it, but this is my best. Best alternative for me—us.]
Gasping against glass, face brimming pride, he drew a small box from his pocket, opening toward me.
[Five buttons. Each detonates a different uranium-3 explosive. Installed at pillar bases. Hydrogen-bomb equivalent—plenty thrust.]
[...Professor. Our species' sole success, Messiah. I'm about to drop them on Earth.]
Thud, drip! Crack! Crunch!
[Don't rush. Your task isn't stopping me physically.]
-Thud
[Thought and choice. Your only options left.]
My spacesuit-frozen hand toward Gedroits. A base drone placed atop that desperate, futile resistance: syringe of thick green liquid.
[Mutant virus cure. Restores human body, grants long life. Path to old age as human Professor. And this...]
-Click!
[...Targets Sector 47's heart: 100-billion-ton metal storm detonator. Spectacular. That mass entering atmosphere—friction, compression heat immense. Red-burning skies rain fire-metal; survivors pummel surface like meteors. Numbers won't be few.]
[Satellite Meteor. Named it so. Confident nothing survives on that planet below.]
[If you reject the choice for Sector 47's people watching our talk.]
Drone set cure in my hand, approached head. Sealed mouth, pumped warm air to lungs—felt it.
[...Old scientist's long tale ends here. Now, your thoughts—as bearer of all ahead....]
-Rumble!
Boom!
Finally, my hull-stuck body detached. Half-frozen, brief space swim ended at Next Space's reinforced glass where Gedroits leaned.
"Sai, co.... Old, bas...!"
Grind, crunch!
Mouth device relayed monster-teeth-grinding menace to Gedroits.
[Speak freely. I can mash all buttons, spare Sector 47—whatever you do changes nothing. My will won't.]
His ragged gasps turned whisper-soft, serene.
[Forsaking flesh, world, scant lifespan left—what more could this old man crave beyond lifelong wish?]
Slumping against glass, our eyes met: mine stuck, his.
No more twitching, moving—lifeless pupils.
Still pulse. Breath nonstop.
"No... way...."
He was already dead.
[No time to gawk. Time's short! Deal—your preferred way!]
Gustav's skull-brain electrically jerked the corpse to speak. Contracted muscles tugged diaphragm, sparked brain—mere twitches till battery dies... Flickering candle-stub Andrey Gedroits.
"....Speak. Gedroi,ts...."
But that twitching corpse's fingertip held my everything.
My reply drew faint laugh from dead Gustav's mouth.
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