Chapter 185
Chapter 185
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 185
Chapter Title: Dofamine Farming
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Dofarming.
A neologism that literally meant farming dopamine.
Back when past civilizations were still thriving, it mainly referred to the habits of internet ghosts wandering around in search of stimulating videos or news.
But even after the world ended, history progressed.
In this apocalyptic era, we had finally succeeded in achieving "dofarming" in the truest sense, not just as a metaphor.
"H-Happy...!"
Sim A-ryeon trembled.
"W-What's this? This happiness? I just cooked and ate some rice. I just consumed a lump of carbohydrates! Happiness! Overwhelming happiness is enveloping me! Guild Leader! What... is this...?"
"It's a new rice variety called Dopamine, destined to become the staple food of the Korean Peninsula from now on."
"It's too delicious! Even if I just shove down white rice for every meal, I'll be screaming with joy! I've wasted my whole life until now... N-Normal people have been living every day basking in this happiness... this dreamlike melody without even a speck of depression?"
"No. Even ordinary people probably didn't have lives that happy..."
Who could have predicted it?
After the First, Second, and Third Industrial Revolutions came the Fourth—not an AI revolution or a robot revolution, but an "agricultural revolution."
Now, every arable plot of land on the Korean Peninsula produced nothing but Dopamine.
It looked identical to regular rice on the outside, so a foreigner might glance at it and think, "Huh? Is this Korea or Joseon?" and mix up the years.
"My belly's full, and happiness just comes along automatically... I-It's insane. This is an insane crop, Guild Leader..."
Did Dopamine consume a lot of mana? Not at all.
In fact, it used far less mana than growing real rice. Just fertilize diligently and transplant seedlings vigorously, and Dopamine would literally duplicate itself.
Naturally, the atmosphere on SG Net changed dramatically.
-Anonymous: Confession) I actually used to lurk anonymously and post malicious comments all the time.
-Anonymous: But after about a month of living off Dopamine, I started wondering why I ever lived like that. Grinding my teeth to find flaws in others doesn't make my life any better...
-Anonymous: Especially, I want to apologize to the regular member Witch Trial Judge. The one who always left comments calling her a railroad otaku auntie? That was me.
-Anonymous: I scolded her, saying that as a representative Awakener of the Korean Peninsula, she should maintain some dignity, that it's the responsibility of public figures, acting all high and mighty—but really, it was just my miserable life trying to pay back with your misery.
-Anonymous: I regret my past. Can you forgive someone like me, Witch Trial Judge?
└[Three Thousand]Witch Trial Judge: Of course I'll forgive you^^ So, which city does my friend live in?
Even such changes were minor.
On top of that, there were upheavals that truly shook heaven and earth.
-Goryeo Jang: Retiring from SG Net.
Sim A-ryeon announced she was quitting SG Net!
-Goryeo Jang: Too busy with real life these days.
Sim A-ryeon used the term "real life"!
-Goryeo Jang: If I've hurt anyone during my activities so far, I apologize here and now. I'm sorry.
Sim A-ryeon apologized!
I was so shocked that my jaw practically dropped off.
In 671 regressions, whenever SG Net was invented and Sim A-ryeon survived, she had never once abandoned her identity as the villainous Goryeo Jang.
Yet Sim A-ryeon was turning her back on the net's world? Focusing solely on living as a saintess in the north in Pyongyang? Could something like this actually happen in the world?
"A-ryeon. You... Are you serious about this?"
"Huh? Y-Yeah. These days, just living day-to-day eating Dopamine feels happier than posting dumb threads on SG Net..."
Of course, a week later, the villainous Goryeo Jang snuck back onto SG Net.
Leaving behind her famous line to me: "Guild Leader, turns out you can't live on happiness alone in this world (smile)."
But conversely, it meant that villainous Goryeo Jang had voluntarily stayed off SG Net for a full week.
My jaw showed no signs of returning.
"Is that really such a big deal...?"
"Try living like me sometime, Corps Leader No Do-ha. The sun has risen in the west plenty of times, but A-ryeon acting like this is a first."
"You're more shocked by one internet troll than celestial movements. What a valuable life for a regressor..."
"By the way, won't you have some? Dopamine."
"No."
No Do-ha replied curtly, as if annoyed. She slurped the coffee I'd brewed—finding it utterly distasteful—while flipping through documents.
"Even if it's passed 50 years of side effect tests, why consume something as suspicious as a Void plant? I have no intention of volunteering as a lab rat..."
"But it's basically a side-effect-free drug. They say it makes you incredibly happy. There are statistics showing life satisfaction is higher now than when civilization was intact—should be in there somewhere?"
"Oh. Happiness. Such a sweet ring..."
No Do-ha sneered.
"I lived without that crap before, and I'll keep living without it. Fine. Thanks to Dopamine, crime and complaints have plummeted, labor productivity has skyrocketed, and my workload as Corps Leader has shrunk dramatically..."
"Hmm."
"And Awakener Undertaker. Do you think I don't know your shady intentions? You just want to peep at me grinning like an idiot, lost in happiness...?"
"Misunderstanding."
How did she know? Did No Do-ha gain mind-reading powers too? She's like a ghost.
"By the way. The Magical Girl Council requested some Dopamine seeds. In exchange, they'll expand arable land usable in Kyushu..."
"What's there to hesitate about? Share them. We should share good things with those in tough straits."
"Hmph."
No Do-ha's eyes widened behind her monocle.
"You're not deliberately expanding the test scale to check if this miracle crop truly has no side effects? Awakener Undertaker. You're not avoiding Dopamine entirely like me...?"
I stayed silent on that suspicion.
It was half-true.
――In the end, all human civilization was nothing but flailing to achieve those two letters: happiness.
The minimum condition and average of happiness: "avoiding unhappiness." In other words, not having one's rights infringed.
As the number of society members grows from hundreds to thousands to tens of millions, the happiness pursued by that society increasingly converges on the average.
Thus, laws in societies grown beyond a certain scale always focus on the minimum condition of happiness: preventing rights violations.
The rest of happiness must be sought individually, and "societal happiness" and "personal happiness" diverge in principle.
Achieving the gap between the two happinesses—torn apart by the numbers of tens of millions, hundreds of millions—simultaneously.
That alone is humanity's and civilization's ultimate goal, isn't it?
"Dopamine might be the tool that takes human civilization to its peak."
It might sound ridiculous, but I seriously considered the possibility.
After all, life had been painful for countless people.
Could I give these people a crop packed with Awakening effects, fatigue recovery, productivity boosts, hunger reduction—and a blank side effects section?
Perhaps life could finally become lucky seven instead of suffering.
As a regressor who'd lived over thousands of years, I couldn't help worrying about the world even after all anomalies were purged.
"If Dopamine truly has no side effects at all. The Sword Marquis will become humanity's eternal savior."
――And by now, having heard my tale up to here, you can easily imagine it too.
The miraculous crop bringing "happy" to everyone unfortunately didn't end in a "happy ending."
"Undertaker."
One year later. Dang Seo-rin visited and spoke.
"No babies were born in Busan this year."
3
News that Korea's birth rate was setting new world records daily was no longer surprising.
But zero birth rate? Never before, not even in this apocalypse overrun by anomalies.
Dang Seo-rin said the record had been set in Busan, of all places.
"...Not a single one?"
"Yeah. None."
Dang Seo-rin's tone sounded flat at first listen.
A defense mechanism. The graver the situation, the colder her voice inversely became.
A human trait: if she wavered, the whole organization crumbled.
"I cross-verified multiple times because I couldn't believe it. How could a city with that many residents have zero newborns? Maybe they weren't born in hospitals or clinics."
"......"
"But it's confirmed. This year, not a single new human was born."
Yet to Dang Seo-rin, I was the one existence who could uniquely make her drop the coldness briefly.
After a moment of silence, Dang Seo-rin parted her lips. Overlaying subjective truth upon objective fact.
"All the babies were stillborn."
According to her investigation, it happened commonly around the 8th week of pregnancy.
The fetus, settled in the womb, would "stop" growing.
It would even curl up tighter and tighter.
As if it didn't want to leave even a trace in this world.
As if every pregnancy was merely a "figment of imagination."
"......"
"......"
During this verbal report and written data, I could only stay silent.
Dang Seo-rin and I already knew.
What lay behind this bizarre phenomenon. The cause.
Thus, we silently shared the premonition that this wasn't limited to some city clinging to the peninsula's south coast.
"Of course, it might just be happening in Busan."
It wasn't.
A week later, Cheon Yo-hwa came to Busan and said,
"Teacher. The babies are dying."
"......"
"Or not dying, but vanishing, I guess. Anyway, they're disappearing. Constantly."
From Busan, Sejong, Pyongyang, Daejeon, southern Seoul, and further to the Japanese archipelago—in every city and village where humans clung to life in this harsh world—the news was the same.
No children are being born.
No human visits the earth. Any longer.
"......"
"......"
The Returner Alliance conference room sank into gloomy silence.
Lee Ha-yul, who had knocked on the world's door most recently among us, murmured softly.
"...Maybe it's just this year?"
It wasn't.
Even a year later, the same reports came in.
"Busan. Birth rate zero."
"Ugh. Zero newborns in Sejong too."
"P-Pyongyang too..."
It was bizarre.
There were no more unhappy humans. Aside from a tiny minority like No Do-ha deliberately avoiding Dopamine—truly a minuscule few—everyone was happy.
Human civilization had finally reached its peak.
And at that highest point, for some reason, humanity suddenly exercised its veto on repeating life.
Why?
We'd all witnessed the phenomenon: "No kids because life is unhappy."
But the exact opposite: "No births even though life is blissfully happy"?
Unprecedented.
The cause, however, was clear.
"There's one thing I want to test."
Everyone in the conference room turned to me.
"This is definitely an anomaly's doing. Something ominous related to Dopamine is happening to the 'fetuses.'"
Cheon Yo-hwa tilted her head.
"But Teacher. We observed the fetuses in every way possible, and really, from the 8th week, they just suddenly shriveled up out of nowhere?"
"Yes. Outwardly observed, that's what happened. Flip it around: it means the anomaly originates 'inside' the fetus, not from its exterior."
"Inside the fetus...? What does that mean?"
"Dreams."
Swoosh.
I glanced at one corner of the conference room. There, Fairy No. 264 was playing with stacking Legos.
Gazing at the anomaly written "fairy" but read "dream demon," I said,
"I'll enter the newborns' dreams myself and check what anomaly is abducting our futures."