episode_0144

It came out of the sewer, but it was pure water, so the clear water turned the waterfall to the side and entered the burning house.

As if gravity were pushing sideways, the water jets shoot up from the ground and flow sideways, wetting the entire building.

Soon the fire in the house died down, and Victoria and a group of people rushed out of the building.

Before Maurice could approach her, a man ran out from the side, knelt down in front of Victoria, and pointed to the building next door, saying that there was a child up there and there was nothing he could do because of the fire.

Victoria heads straight for it.

Beatrice is busy evacuating the company and survivors to a distant place, while Maurice just stands there, looking at Victoria.

What are you doing standing in the middle of the road?

I see the world through the eyes of a harvester.

The five people working from afar also noticed something strange about Bern City. To be exact, almost everyone around them was looking at Bern City.

The entire city of Bern is on fire.

Black smoke is rising from all over Bern City. A little while ago there was white smoke, but not anymore.

There is also a story that can be heard from the perspective of five people in the suburbs.

For example, if a fire truck gets inside, it could suddenly accelerate or spread out on the roadside.

There is also a story that even a wizard who sets out to put out a fire is only able to stamp his feet because he lacks the magical power in the air.

Civilization was paralyzed in an instant.

And in that situation, there are people who go inside to try to save people.

There are five harvesters among them. That’s not strange.

He is a person who does light evil deeds, so he walks lightly as people do. In other words, at least in this country, it is a society that naturally moves in that way to help people.

At least for now.

You get caught up in a group and move to save someone.

But if you get hurt like that, it’s your loss. No one will come to your rescue, and at the time, you’ll be treated as a hero, but soon forgotten.

That is, it is a foolish act for each individual.

The right thing for an individual to do at this time is to ignore the unfortunate event that has occurred far away and hope that someone will come and take care of it.

The problem is that this world doesn’t run on such icy, fake rationality.

Social and mental gains sometimes outweigh physical and material losses. There are those who give in to their impulses, like creatures who climb mountains.

Just like the body of a seal that starved to death while climbing a rocky mountain in Antarctica for no reason was found halfway up the mountain.

The inexplicable impulse is always there.

in short.

A group of strong men and women are approaching the burning city of Bern.

We guide fleeing people to safety, try to drag out burning areas, piece together horribly mangled bodies from traffic accidents, and keep the injured alive.

Meanwhile, Victoria is getting used to it and is using water to put out fires in buildings at an increasing rate.

The number of people who are saved by people is increasing.

Of course, there are some people who behave strangely among the people who survived.

Some people have panic attacks and seizures. Some people tell me not to save others but to save myself, or to get my stuff out.

It’s not because he’s evil.

When reason becomes paralyzed, you scream, saying that you just want to live, holding on to what you thought was most important.

In reality, it’s such a confusing situation.

People who go into buildings and steal expensive items and come out. In fact, there are people like that among the people who go into buildings that are soaking wet and come out.

I find that in these situations it helps to be selfish.

If someone were to talk to you and you said you just brought something you needed from my house, what would they say?

Of course, there are only a very small number of such people, but they definitely exist.

On the other hand, in order to save someone, there are those who do not just wait for Victoria, but also take up their tools and move to help strangers.

Some people pour water over themselves in the bathroom and run into a burning building to rescue people, while others collect water from buildings that aren’t on fire and pass buckets of water in a relay format to put out the fire.

It’s a confusing situation.

Depending on which side you focus on, you can see people in different ways.

I’ll just watch it quietly.

It’s not time for me to move yet.

Wait for your moment on the road where screams, yells, shouts, cries, explosions and various other sounds resonate.

If you make too few harvesters to begin with, you’ll end up with too few harvesters.

If you just make it like that, the world will fall apart.

So, you have to move carefully.

In fact, the key to handling this situation without me is right here by your side.

It’s none other than Maurice.

It may seem like a useless invention, but Morris’s machine is not one that has no residual horsepower. Of course, the output is several times lower.

If you consume human life force instead of the magic power in the air, the lack of output will be resolved. The fatal flaw is that the lifespan decreases with each use?

But in other words, you can also use that machine to suck the life out of other people and inject it into yourself.

Of course, it’s inefficient and doesn’t simply add up.

If you could trade hundreds of people for a year of lifespan, anyone would do it.

Because humans are cheap.

But that will destroy morality. Human beings will become mere commodities, and human rights will lose their value. The logic of thoroughgoing capitalism will trample on morality and stand on top of it.

It means that the society that appears when you say cyberpunk in faded memories appears.

Or before you get there, you’ll be treated as an enemy worldwide.

But once something is created, it doesn’t disappear easily.

The world will be divided into before and after the event where humans became fuel.

I was looking forward to Morris’s choice, so I walked up to him and stood next to him. Then he saw me and spoke to me.

“Bell, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Can you solve this situation?”

I think I said this before, but you seem out of your mind so I’ll say it again.

“I am not God.”

It’s not that it can’t be done, but it could break the world, right?

I can’t do it.

“You said you gave Tori his powers. Then share those superpowers with others.”

“It’s random. You don’t know what kind of power you’ll get, and you don’t even know for sure who will get it.”

I have some guesses though.

Maurice says now look at Victoria flying in the sky. She has beads made of water attached to her feet. She knows that water floats in the air and applies it.

“But, if this happens, Tori… … .”

In this situation, one person suddenly stands out.

It’s perfect for pushing someone into being a hero.

In other words, they are the public’s playthings. When heroes become a group, it may be fine, but when they become individuals, they are torn to pieces based on their own interests and left as corpses, or their honor is taken away, they are trampled on, and thrown on the ground.

Or, you can seize that honor and use it to your advantage, only to fall into the trap of becoming an evil creature.

Victoria found a child buried in a building a short distance away, half of his body burned, and hugged him.

He suffered serious burns on his left side and will die if left untreated.

After Victoria came out holding the child who was about to die, instead of going down to the floor, she suddenly stopped moving and looked around.

Are you looking for something?

At that moment, Victoria’s gaze was fixed on me.

And Victoria flew to me.

Slap.

Victoria, standing on the floor, hugged the child and bowed her head in front of me.

“Bell. Bell. I have a favor to ask. Please save this child.”

It’s polite speech.

Hehehe.

I made the worst choice I could have made. I gave up my child to a monster when I could have just left him as a corpse.

It was a really great choice.

I just said one last thing.

“You’ll regret this.”

But Victoria looks at me with unwavering eyes. It means there’s no need for words. I nod and approach the child. My breathing is rapid, and I’m losing my mind from the intense pain that is burning.

But that’s no reason not to make a contract.

“I’ll give myself to you, but later, when you’ve finished everything, I’ll take everything you have. How about that?”

I asked the child.

The child answered that he wanted to live.

The contract has been established.

In an instant, the child’s skin swelled and a blue-skinned boy burst out like broken porcelain.

“Your skin is blue. Something is wrong… … ?”

Victoria looked at me with a helpless expression, so I shook my head.

“For some unknown reason, anyone who contracts a contract with a fatal wound will have their skin turn blue.”

And while I was at it, I looked around and said this.

“If you want to heal the wounds no matter what, I will make a contract.”

The opportunity came and I seized it. Among those who saw this sight, the first ones to run were parents with children.

They gave me the child, and I made a contract with the child.

Half of them have white skin, half of them have blue skin. But they either got burned, or their limbs were cut off, or their eyes were crushed.

If you survive, you will return to your original form.

It was a snap for the kid to turn into a harvester, and it was easy for the injured person to decide to sign with me.

In an instant, people gathered around me, and it was filled with screams for help and cries of gratitude.

In the midst of the chaos, there are those who push away those in more serious situations in order to survive, or even kill their children.

I like those so I made them into harvesters right away.

As the sun went down, the night passed, and the sun rose again, I stayed there making harvesters.

After a day, things had stabilized somewhat, and firefighters and soldiers with huge equipment entered the city to clear out the interior.

That brings the matter to a close.

And I got exactly 9,190 harvesters.