The Reversed World (3)
My eyes snapped open with a flash.
A wave of nausea surged in right after.
“Ugh! Uuuugh!!”
“S-Siso-nim! Here…!!”
I retched, and a hand appeared before my eyes.
I opened my mouth over those pure white palms and emptied my stomach into them.
“Gueeeeeck…!!”
As I vomited thin, foamy gastric fluid, my head began spinning at high speed.
What the hell? Why am I throwing up?
This is a hospital room.
And Penny is right in front of me.
That’s right. Penny.
Her arms and legs are intact, her head hasn’t been sent flying, and both eyes are still in their sockets.
A perfectly fine Penny is catching my vomit.
Just like the moment I first woke up from cryosleep.
“What the actual fuck is this…!!”
“Siso-nim! Please calm down! You’ve only just awakened from cryosleep, so…”
“Not that!!”
No matter how much of a prank this was, it had crossed the line.
I knew getting worked up wouldn’t help.
But I couldn’t help it.
After all, hadn’t I just been sliced in half and killed?
I had literally experienced the “bisected death” I’d only ever heard about as a joke.
No matter how I thought about it, that hadn’t been a dream.
The sensations I felt back then were still vivid.
So, as absurd as it sounded, if I had to explain the current situation in one line…
──I had returned to the moment before I died.
“What the hell is going on?!”
“S-Siso-nim…”
And then.
Ding!
Administrator ‘Kim Siso’s’ death has been confirmed.
The 「Adam Project」 has been activated.
Welcome, Kim Siso-nim.
“Huh…?”
I stared blankly at the window that had appeared before my eyes.
Penny, who had been in front of me, poked her head forward with a worried expression.
She slid forward.
Her face passed straight through the screen and approached me.
“Siso-nim? Are you all right?”
“You… you can’t see this?”
“This?”
When I pointed, Penny looked around in every direction through the empty air.
It seemed she couldn’t see it.
But she quickly understood what I was referring to.
“Ah! It looks like you’ve received Mother’s revelation!”
“Revelation…? Mother…?”
“Yes! As expected of Siso-nim! Please take your time confirming the revelation! I will wait right here!”
“……”
What the hell was a revelation, and what was Mother?
Mother… come to think of it, Lansi had kept mentioning it right before I died.
‘Did Mother give you something? How are you still alive?’
Those words floated up again.
So was this screen in front of me also sent by that Mother?
It was then.
──[Affirmative.]
“Whoa, what the hell!”
“I-I’m sorry! Did I make some kind of mistake?!”
“No, I wasn’t talking to you…!”
A woman’s voice rang inside my head like telepathy.
Completely flat.
The kind of voice you’d expect from someone giving directions in the Summoner’s Rift.
And that voice continued.
> The message before you is a system message delivered from Mother AI to Administrator Kim Siso.
“……”
It was an explanation.
About the screen that had appeared before my eyes.
Without any warning, suddenly.
> Negative. It is not sudden. Every answer currently appearing is Mother AI’s response to Administrator Kim Siso’s questions.
“……”
Did it just answer me…?
To my thoughts…?
> Affirmative.
“Oh my fucking god!!”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“I keep telling you I’m not talking to you!”
Just a few minutes ago, a stacked beauty had sliced me in half.
When I opened my eyes, the beautiful girl whose head had been chopped off was alive and well.
I was alive too.
And now a mechanical voice in my head was speaking to me.
Had I gone insane…?
> Negative. Administrator Kim Siso’s current Mental Pollution level is estimated at 12%.
> It is still judged to be within normal range.
“……”
I calmed my mind.
Yeah, I mean, fourteen years ago I got frozen after saving a kid, so.
I could handle something even weirder than this, right?
The world was full of astonishing things.
So calm down, assess the current situation first…
> Negative.
Then.
That thing that kept reading my mind answered again.
> The current time is not fourteen years after the execution of Administrator Kim Siso’s cryosleep project.
“What…?”
> Current time is 09:32 AM.
> The date is February 2nd, 3047.
“……”
I must have gone crazy.
That had to be it.
Or I was having some insane dream while still frozen.
> Negative.
Otherwise, how could something this delusional happen in reality?
> Negative.
Fuck…
For real?
Not bullshit?
…A thousand years really have passed while I was cryogenically frozen?
“Siso-nim…?”
“……”
> Suggestion. Administrator Kim Siso is strongly advised to quickly acknowledge reality, prepare countermeasures, and take action.
While I sat there covering my face with both hands and hanging my head, a screen flickered alone in the darkness.
The same one as before.
A translucent window.
Survival Mission
Detected first death of Administrator Kim Siso.
Data has been recorded. Presenting milestones for survival.
📍 Objective: Escape the hospital
Survive those seeking your life and escape the hospital.
🎁 Reward: Tutorial complete, System unlocked
[Deaths in current cycle: 1]
A milestone for survival.
Mother AI had shown me something that looked exactly like a game quest window.
The goal was to escape the hospital.
Just get out of the hospital?
> Affirmative. It is recommended that you act based on this objective.
“……”
“Siso-nim…?”
I still didn’t fully understand what was happening.
The Penny before my eyes.
The Lansi who had killed me.
The imaginary friend Mother whispering in my head.
> Negative. That voice is not imaginary….
Shut up.
Anyway.
There was one thing I understood amid all this chaos.
If things continued like this, I would die.
At the hands of that crazy bitch Lansi and her chain-scythe.
“Hoo… Okay. I understand perfectly.”
“As expected of Siso-nim! Excellent!”
“More importantly, Penny, I have something to tell you.”
“Yes? What is it?”
After roughly calming down.
I shared the situation with Penny, who was sitting beside me.
After all, even in the previous timeline, she had been the one who helped me while getting torn apart. She was someone I could trust.
…Or rather, she wasn’t a person.
Anyway, I explained everything to Penny.
“…And that’s what happened.”
“You died but came back to life… As expected of Humanity-nim! How is something like that even possible?”
“No, it’s not like I did anything… But what do you mean by Humanity-nim?”
“Yes? Well, because Siso-nim is Humanity-nim…”
“Haa…?”
Lansi had said something similar before she killed me.
Humanity-nim this, Humanity-nim that.
Now that I thought about it… the way Penny looked when Lansi killed her.
No matter how I thought about it, that hadn’t looked like a human at all.
Could it be…
> Solution.
The entity named [Penny] is an Eve-class human-mimicking android prepared specifically as an apostle for Administrator Kim Siso.
“Android…?”
It clearly referred to a robot that looked like a human.
So was Penny something special?
> Negative.
All human-shaped entities currently existing on Earth have been replaced by Eve-class androids.
The only existence on Earth that can currently be called “humanity” is Administrator Kim Siso alone.
“What…?”
“What did Mother tell you?”
“No, it’s just… it says I’m the only human left in the world…”
“Ah, I see.”
At my words, Penny nodded with a smile as if it were the most obvious thing.
“Yes. The only great human left in this world is Siso-nim! Isn’t it truly amazing?”
“……”
No, not at all.
> Negative. The title “The Last Remaining Human” is an insufficient evaluation of its greatness and is──.
Shut up.
‘I’m the only human left…?’
Information that was almost impossible to accept had just penetrated my brain.
It was confusing.
The year 3047 was already hard enough to accept…
> Warning. Administrator Kim Siso’s Mental Pollution level has risen.
> Current level: 15%.
“I’m sorry… It must be confusing, right?”
“……”
“I originally planned to observe your condition for a few days before explaining…”
“No, it’s fine…”
I forcibly steadied my dizzy mind and took a deep breath.
Yeah, whether this was 3047 or I was the last human on Earth didn’t matter right now.
There was only one thing that mattered.
If I wasted time like this, I would die.
I could leave the confusion for later.
Right now, I would focus solely on surviving.
“Penny, I need your help.”
“Yes. Please tell me anything. I exist for Siso-nim.”
“…Thanks.”
Could we really escape?
Lansi had approached me with the clear intention of killing me.
Plus she had swung that bizarre magic-like chain-scythe at a speed I couldn’t even see.
I wasn’t sure if we could safely get out of the hospital without getting caught by that crazy bitch…
Honestly, I had no confidence.
But…
I had to do it.
To survive!
We escaped immediately.
“What the hell?! This is fucking easy!”
“Yes! As expected of Siso-nim! You’re amazing!”
“No! You did a great job, Penny! Wahahaha!”
Right now I was riding in a taxi with Penny, speeding the hell away toward her house.
While escaping the hospital.
After escaping the hospital.
Even now, riding in this taxi.
Not once did the crazy bitch with the chain-scythe come chasing after us like I had imagined.
Current time: 10:39 AM.
Hospital escape successful!
Let’s goooo!
The tension drained away completely and adrenaline surged through me.
“Hahaha, sir, you must have had some good news, huh?”
“Yeah! I feel fucking fantastic!”
“When Siso-nim is happy, I’m happy too!”
“Hahaha! When the passengers are happy, I’m happy too!”
So what if a thousand years had passed?
So what if I was the only human left?
So what if Penny was a human-mimicking android or whatever?
She was still insanely pretty, wasn’t she?
Besides, I had just survived a deadly crisis.
It couldn’t get any better than this.
Right, Mother?
Mother?
She had been answering nonstop until now, so why was she suddenly silent?
“Hahahaha!”
“Hehehehe!”
“Wahahaha!”
Mother must be panicking because she didn’t expect us to escape this easily.
Typical machine bastard.
When Humanity-nim puts his mind to it, this is how it goes.
“Haa, I feel refreshed.”
“It’s been a while since you’ve been outside.”
“Yeah… almost a thousand years…”
Anyway.
There shouldn’t be any problems now.
The time Lansi had found me was after sunset, at night.
Since we had escaped the hospital in the morning, Lansi probably didn’t even know I existed yet.
And even if she did?
All we had to do was gather what we needed before nightfall and go into hiding.
No problem.
It would be fine.
Definitely.
With this, I had avoided the future where I died.
Definitely…
I had survived.
“Siso-nim! The city should come into view soon!”
“Really? Where…”
“Huh…?”
“…The fog makes it hard to see.”
“It does…”
[Warning. Get out of the vehicle immediately── reco, gltch, mmend, gltch, reco, gltchgltchrecorecommend──]