Ch.101. Repair.

The dark era of humanity, once brilliant enough to illuminate the night, has met its end.

In the endless cold, the great cities built by mankind have become snow-covered graveyards, and buildings that once reached the sky have turned into tombstones.

And I… am wandering alone in this ruined world.

01. Repair.

“Alright… I’ll insert this here…”

I was in a narrow, dusty, dark room.

The room filled with various books, blueprints, tools, and half-assembled parts wasn’t as dirty as the living spaces where people once ate and slept, so it still retained some of its original appearance.

Nevertheless, it had become covered in dust after being abandoned for so long.

“…I think I did it right this time.”

And there I was, fixing a machine by the light of a small flashlight.

It was a drone from the old era—a black body with eight pairs of wings.

“Surely I haven’t missed anything this time, right?”

I compare the worn-out blueprint with the completed drone in front of me. At least it looks intact on the outside. There are no visible gaps or protruding parts.

And I think I’ve checked the internal components quite thoroughly. At the very least, I haven’t done anything stupid like putting screws in the wrong place or connecting wires incorrectly.

I’ve never professionally studied or handled machines in my life, but to survive alone in this world, I’ve had to do all sorts of things.

After touching, disassembling, and reassembling machines I’d never seen before, I’ve gained enough experience to assemble them according to blueprints with just a few trials and errors.

The real question now is whether this blueprint itself is correct.

“…”

The assembly seems perfect. I really hope it works this time. No, it has to work.

After checking the blueprint one last time to make sure I haven’t missed anything, I carefully put the bracelet-shaped Controller on my wrist and press the power button.

With a beep, the Controller begins to glow.

The drone connected to the Controller does the same.

Blue lines start to appear on its black body, and with the sound of motors turning, it slowly begins to rise.

“…please.”

After several trials and errors and failures. Frustration.

Will I succeed this time?

With hope, but somewhat cynical eyes, I face the camera attached to the bottom of the drone.

All eight pairs of wings are spinning properly without any issues, and it’s not tilting to one side or shaking significantly, though that might be because there’s no wind indoors.

Seeing its relatively stable flight, it seems there are no “assembly problems” at least.

But.

“Ah. What’s the problem?”

Crash. The drone, which had risen just over a meter, couldn’t even last a minute before falling to the floor.

At the same time, the cold mechanical voice from the Controller saying [Unable to connect] seemed to mock me.

Damn it. How many times has this happened now?

I carefully pick up the fallen drone from the floor while grumbling.

It’s been a week since I stopped moving to try and fix this ancient drone, whose body and blueprint might be decades or even centuries old.

“…Should I give up now?”

‘Drone blueprint for long-distance communication and video transmission.’

I’ve been wandering for a year since waking up in a city where I’m the only living human left.

I’ve been following traces of civilization to find other survivors, but all I see are the landscapes of a world that has met its end.

That’s why I thought if I could fix this drone capable of long-distance communication, I might be able to contact survivors who might be far away.

…But it seems it’s time to stop now.

It would be meaningless if I starved to death while trying to meet living people.

“…Sigh, I’ll try just one more time and then move on.”

Meeting living people.

And asking them why the world became like this.

These are things I’ve been hoping for since waking up alone in an abandoned research lab, so I can’t help but cling to them.

Nothing threatens survival more than chasing uncertain hopes and clinging to them.

Knowing it’s foolish, but still unable to let go of that sliver of hope, I picked up the screwdriver once again.

Repeating the words I’ve already said countless times—that this is really the last, the very last attempt before moving on.

“I’m sure I did it right…”

I place the Controller and drone back on the dusty floor and calmly compare them with the blueprint once more.

But whether the blueprint is wrong or my eyes are, there doesn’t seem to be any significant difference between the blueprint and the drone I assembled.

“Is it really a connection issue…?”

While repeatedly disassembling and reassembling the drone that wouldn’t fly no matter what, I came up with three possibilities.

First, as mentioned earlier, there might be flaws in the blueprint itself, so even if assembled “according to the blueprint,” it wouldn’t work properly.

I don’t know how great a technician the person who lived here was, but there could easily be design errors at this unfinished stage.

Second, whether it’s the connection between the Controller and the drone, or with the “communication target” it was supposed to connect to, the drone might not be able to receive signals properly.

Given the long time that has passed, this is also a likely possibility, just like the first one.

The third is… that everyone in this world except me is dead or in a similar state.

I don’t want to think too deeply about this. I’d rather just believe that’s not the case.

Anyway, given the long time that has passed and various practical reasons, it’s not unreasonable that it doesn’t work… but if that’s the case, everything I’ve done so far has been in vain.

Whether it’s an issue with the blueprint or the components, it’s not something I can solve alone.

If I had the outstanding knowledge and various tools to solve such problems, I would have made my own equipment to find people, rather than trying to revive this outdated thing.

“Work this time! Please!”

I know it’s greedy of me to expect a blueprint that’s at least a few years, or at most decades or centuries old, to be accurate and for the drone to work properly… but that’s how desperate I was.

“Haah…”

However, contrary to my expectations, the drone didn’t get fixed.

Just like before, it turned on when I pressed the button and rose slightly, but that was it.

I tried pressing all the buttons I could—ascend, descend, auto-pilot mode, and what I assumed were communication-related buttons—but the drone wouldn’t listen.

Even if communication wasn’t possible, if it just responded to controls properly, I could have at least used it as a light source since it glows.

“Haah.”

I couldn’t help but sigh at the sight of the repeatedly crashing drone. I should have just continued on my way.

There’s no clear destination in my journey. I have the “goal” of meeting other survivors, but I don’t have information on where they might be.

So now I’m just a wanderer with a goal in my heart, going everywhere I can along the endless roads. Nothing more, nothing less.

But… even if it’s just vaguely following roads, it would have been more valuable than wasting resources fiddling with an item I can’t even use for over a week.

“I’ve wasted so much precious food. What was I thinking?”

Right. No matter how desperate I was.

Realistically, how could such an old item work properly now?

“…Let’s go.”

Even if I had fixed it, it wouldn’t have been of much help for survival.

And I couldn’t afford to be dejected for long over such a minor… failure when I couldn’t even fix it.

I needed to move quickly and find resources to make up for the time and food I had meaninglessly spent here.

“But I did find useful tools and things… so maybe it wasn’t such a loss to rest for about a week.”

I gather my belongings while trying to lift my dampened spirits with those words.

I organize the map I’ve drawn of the path I’ve walked since waking from my long sleep, along with the many tools that have accompanied me on that journey, into a large bag that could fit one person.

I stuff tools that might be needed someday into the empty spaces of the bag.

Finally, I put on a thick coat to withstand the bitter cold, hang a mask on my ears, and stand up.

And at that moment.

—Attempting to connect to public network.

A mechanical voice flowed from the Controller I had placed on the floor, thinking there was no hope left.

“…What?”

Attempting to connect?

-…Connection is not smooth. Rescanning.

-…Connection is not smooth. Retrying.

-…Connection is not smooth. Rescanning.

-…Connection is…

Hearing sounds I had never heard before, I couldn’t leave my spot and waited for several minutes, wondering if it might have been fixed after all, with expectations I hadn’t fully shaken off.

-…Connection is not smooth. Connection is…

“Ha… I thought so.”

This world is always like this.

No matter what you expect, in the end, there’s nothing, and it gives you despair equal to… no, greater than your expectations.

Knowing this, but feeling like I would lose my will to live if I gave up all expectations, I felt stupid for having even small hopes whenever something like this happened.

As I was reflecting on my foolishness and about to open the door, ignoring the voice saying the connection couldn’t be established…

-*~~~~~* Successfully connected to network. Now transmitting video.

“What?”

Words I had never heard before reached my ears.

Successfully connected? Really?

I couldn’t make out where it had connected to because of the static mechanical sound.

But right now, that wasn’t important.

The drone had connected to a network somewhere.

In other words, civilization and people with technology advanced enough to communicate with this drone still exist somewhere on this Earth.

“Oh my god!”

As if to prove that the claim about transmitting video wasn’t a lie, the risen drone maintained a stable orbit.

The camera at the bottom, which had been dull like the eyes of the dead until just now, was also coming to life.

At that sight, I raised my arms high and let out a cheer.

Since waking up in this world, it was the first time my wish had come true.