Ch.1111. Mori.

# 11. Mori.

“Hmm… but where should I start and end? Human relationships aren’t normally formed by dumping information so one-sidedly and bluntly.”

Humans inherently belong to space and time, but their essence is ultimately defined by others.

By being together, experiencing various situations, actions, and words.

Humans exist by defining themselves through the process of comparing and being conscious of each other’s existence through these experiences.

But now I’m in a situation where I have to define everything about myself, from my name to my personality and past.

It was awkward, and couldn’t help but be awkward.

Just as no one can properly describe an elephant when blindfolded and asked to touch it, how can humans, who struggle to explain even intuition formed through experience, easily explain themselves to others—a being made up of countless cause-and-effect relationships?

This required a lot of contemplation.

Beyond the objective aspects that are visually apparent, like name or appearance, I had to question my own existence.

The fortunate thing was that I’d been wandering alone and thinking about these things frequently.

“Alright. From now on, I’ll tell you what kind of world I lived in and how I ended up in this world. Like reading you a history book.”

After much thought, I decided that there’s no better explanation for the problem of life than history.

To convey who I am to people who are curious, I decided to simply share what I’ve experienced.

“Honestly, it might be boring. Like many people, I didn’t live a particularly glamorous or unusual life… Though now I suppose I’m living a more special life than anyone.”

From what I can tell, just a year ago I was living an utterly ordinary life. I laugh self-deprecatingly, lamenting how I ended up in this situation.

“Even what did happen… was as common and predictable as a children’s fairy tale. But wait, let me move this ladder and continue.”

Right now, I’m visiting the superstore I stopped by yesterday, examining various shelves.

Items that aren’t particularly rare or essential, like food, clothes, or cosmetics, are still quite abundant in the store.

Considering how chaotic everything is, many items remain.

But there’s a reason people didn’t take them—most of the remaining items are things I can’t use.

I was repeatedly moving the ladder around, climbing up to high places, only to come back down with disappointment instead of useful items.

“Phew, seems securely fixed. Okay, while I look around here, let me continue… I don’t know what you might think now, but before my body became like this—before I became ‘Mori’—I was an utterly ordinary young person. I loved IVRG (Interactive virtual reality games) and waited for news from the exploration ship sent beyond the galaxy… I was normal by the standards of that time.”

I liked thinking about my existence, wondering if I was really alive on this Earth.

Those thoughts were limited to the world I belonged to and this body that speaks and moves.

In contrast, I didn’t particularly enjoy… recalling my memories and past like this.

In time that can only flow in one direction, when all memories and happiness are left in the past, thinking about old times only brings up sad emotions.

“But… unfortunately, I was born with weak bronchial tubes, and doctors told me I wouldn’t live long. Now there’s only clean snow falling heavily, but back then there was so much dust that on bad days I had to wear masks and goggles—it was difficult for someone like me to survive.”

I clear my throat with a “hmm” as I vaguely recall the sensation of that yellowish sky and the stinging in my chest and phlegm building up just from breathing.

“So I convinced my parents to… transfer ‘me’ to a different body instead of my current one. Well, it wasn’t that special—maybe you predicted this as soon as you heard the beginning?”

A world where not only body parts but also consciousness could be transferred as long as conditions were met.

Some people even had children just to sell their healthy bodies for large sums of money.

Muttering that greed is truly frightening in any era, I pocket a well-sealed pet chew with chicken galbi flavor that I happened to find.

Maybe if cooked properly, even humans could eat it…?

“Hmm, but my condition was somewhat complicated, so time passed without finding a body that could fully transfer my consciousness. The problem was that my health kept deteriorating during that time.”

Coughing up blood, even breathing becoming painful. The chest-tearing pain continued relentlessly.

The pain then can only be described as terrible.

Even now, if someone came to me and said they could send me back to my original time but I’d have to live in that body forever, I couldn’t immediately agree.

“Eventually, I decided to sleep until a suitable body was found… though I never expected to sleep this long.”

I had promised that when I woke up in a healthy body, I would go on a picnic with my family.

When I opened my eyes, not only was my family gone, but I was alone in a darkened lab with no one left—you can’t imagine how shocked I was.

“I hoped it was a surprise event, believed it was a surprise event. When I realized the person collapsed on the floor was really dead, I cried like a child.”

While the people living in this city probably met their end sequentially as time passed steadily.

For me, who had been asleep the whole time, it felt like the world had ended in just one day.

Naturally, I couldn’t accept that fact.

Neither that I, who thought I’d wake up after a short nap, had arrived in the distant future.

Nor that the city where many people had lived happily had been destroyed like this.

I denied reality, claiming it was all a cruel prank for my newly born self.

But there was no falsehood in the world I saw with my eyes.

“…It took a really long time to get back on my feet from that state.”

This is just a nightmare.

If I sleep and wake up, I can return to my happy daily life.

Believing that, I couldn’t venture into the city full of corpses, and instead hid in a corner of the building, only seeking sleep.

Except for wearing several layers of gowns to avoid freezing to death, I really couldn’t do anything for days.

What finally made me move was none other than the growling sound from my stomach.

“The sensation of being hungry and thirsty even in this situation cruelly told me that my current situation wasn’t a dream.”

In the end, I had no choice but to accept reality and start moving.

Even though it was a changed body, I couldn’t give up the precious life my parents gave me in a place like this.

So I properly dressed myself, shouldered the large bag in the research lab, and as I was about to head into the city.

I saw the word ‘MORI’ written large on the half-collapsed outer wall of the research lab.

“I don’t know what values you hold now… but in the world I lived in, transferring consciousness to another person’s body was seen as ‘an eternal farewell to two people.'”

Because of one person’s choice, both the consciousness of my original body and the consciousness that this body’s owner would have had completely disappear, giving birth to a new being.

“There was a perception that for a human who defied the natural order to speak the names of those two would be extremely disrespectful—mocking both death and birth.”

That’s why, instead of the precious name my parents gave to my original body, I decided to take the word ‘Mori’ as my name.

“…That’s it, really nothing special and quite a boring story, right? It just leaves a bitter aftertaste. This is why I didn’t want to talk about my past, but I suppose even such trivial stories might help narrow the distance between us a little.”

Now that I’ve said it, it doesn’t seem like it will help us get to know each other much, but there’s a big difference between 0 and 1, and between 1 and 2.

If even a few people watching my video understand my situation, someone who feels sorry for me might come to rescue me, so I don’t think it was meaningless.

“By the way… there were many capsules besides mine in that place—I wonder where those people went.”

When I woke up in the research lab, I was alone.

But around me were many capsules with their lids already open, and no one was inside them.

Why did only I wake up so late?

If things had gone as planned, I should have been asleep for a few months at most.

What’s the reason I woke up alone after at least several decades or centuries?

And what happened to this city while I was asleep?

I know it’s pointless to worry about things no one can tell me and I have no way of finding out, but I can’t help wondering occasionally.

“Anyway, that’s the answer to who I am. In the end, the fact that I am now Mori remains unchanged, so please call me Mori from now on.”

Honestly, I never imagined there would be someone to call me by this name… If someone calls my name, even in text, I might cry from happiness.