Ch.266The Story of the Bearer – The Struggle for the Mountain Peak (7)

Humans are irrational beings. Sometimes they develop bizarre obsessions over trivial, insignificant things. They question facts that had been ordinary until that moment.

I was similar. However, my obsession lay elsewhere. The apocalypse. The fall and darkness with no foreseeable end. The grim reaper coming to end this era of painless chronic disease. He was waving his hand.

But the biggest problem above all… was that I was the only one who could see it. Was I truly going insane? Should I believe in the illusion, or everything visible before my eyes? I couldn’t distinguish between them.

That’s why I was trying to find answers while watching each repetitive day pass. I attached Industrial Spirits to those who tried to listen to my story. I released terminals throughout the city for observation, properly packaged with human minds and hearts, unlike those of The Idealists. I collect information. I hope that even a handful of the collected information will be useful.

But everything seemed so meaningless. People live their own lives. No matter how many warnings I shout, they don’t even sneer at warnings without substance.

It was around that time when the Industrial Spirit I had attached to the small elf who had restored my purpose returned. For machines, purpose is supreme. That’s why an apocalypse they couldn’t precisely understand was terrifying.

But that child told me. To try everything I could. That’s what I was doing. I was sketching the outline of the apocalypse. I was able to live again for the purpose of preventing the end.

The only beings with both the ability and will to destroy this city were its own people. The God-President and I had such capabilities, and even the Lady of the Dollar could probably do it, but we had no will to do so. I guarantee, absolutely none.

But those irrational beings were superior to anyone when it came to devouring their own flesh and defiling their humanity and prosperity. I knew about the Great War too.

But can a creation fully hate its creator? That wasn’t the case. I revered their creativity. I revered my foolish, irrational parents who were in the process of strangling themselves.

The Industrial Spirit, who had descended the stairs of the great concrete temple and sat before the wall of machinery that looked to me like a wall of flesh where life was born, looked up at me. The grinder began to rotate.

“I found the missing terminals, Machine of the Age. Someone stole terminals on a small scale out of greed, and someone else embraced those terminals out of reproductive desire. Their handling was crude. It was done by beings neither honest enough to tell the truth nor smart enough to lie well. They were irrationally terrible.”

The fact that terminals that could have been used for a grander plan were merely used as prostitutes was something I could understand but didn’t want to accept. It was a memory I wanted to put in the grinder rather than record.

“It seems they won’t change unless blood is spilled…”

I murmured. A phrase that had explained everything quite well until now. It would probably continue to do so, but I wasn’t certain. The word “100%” doesn’t exist in this world.

People didn’t even realize something was strange about The Idealists, as long as they didn’t harm them personally. They might spit and curse, but nothing more.

Only when they took those terminals through my contractors’ bodies, when they made blood stain their hands, did they finally come to their senses. They realized they had been embracing a bomb.

It was stupidity not to think that one mind controlling thousands or tens of thousands of bodies was dangerous. But even that stupidity could change when blood was spilled. A kind of shock therapy.

But I couldn’t decide on a method based on just one scenario I had. I only had one chance to put a knife to this city. To perform the surgery perfectly, the method had to be perfect too.

“If things weren’t so difficult, I would believe I had achieved even the secondary objective. Tell me, Number Seven. How can I prevent those irrational beings from bringing about the apocalypse?”

The small Industrial Spirit I created revered me. It looked at the wall of machinery as if it were a mother’s embrace. It decided to stand up. It revealed its body made of mythril steel.

It had the form of a giant hand. Blue-tinted steel forelegs first touched the ground in front of the machinery wall. The lenses attached in place of eyes adjusted their magnification to properly face the Industrial Spirit before it.

It wasn’t a mechanically perfect structure. It lacked sufficient shock absorbers, and various parts were arranged not in a structure conducive to operation but in a structure resembling a living being.

It was because people worshipped this golden age. Because they worshipped the industry that supported and upheld that golden age. Perhaps, or rather obviously, it was just a new component that had developed for the machine, so I used it according to that purpose.

That child both revered me and seemed anxious. It wasn’t that it hadn’t brought an answer. It seemed worried that I wouldn’t like the answer. But Number Seven spoke. Boldly, at that.

“I’ve come back with only the fact that your premise might be wrong, Machine of the Age. The premise that irrational and unpredictable objects are moving toward the apocalypse with a unified direction is somewhat irrational. And castrating that irrational and unpredictable aspect will make people into something that isn’t human. This is the conclusion I’ve reached.”

The absence of a unified direction was something I had to acknowledge. But that didn’t mean there was no direction at all. I sat down on my belly in front of the Industrial Spirit, releasing tension from the cylinders filled with power.

It also sat in front of me in a form resembling a canine, as if designed that way. I could show this much favor to a component that had reached an ideal conclusion. But I denied its words.

“If that’s true, why did the Great War happen, Number Seven? Why was Prohibition passed, which even opposed the supreme power? Why did elves willingly follow the Forest’s Firstborn? Doesn’t direction clearly exist?”

Long ago it was Knowledge and Action, and now it was the God-President. Industrial Spirits with self-awareness preferred to call it the supreme power. The fact that they each had different forms of worship also denied uniformity.

The Industrial Spirit faced me boldly. What I had sent out was an Industrial Spirit whose personality I hadn’t molded at all, but now it had something characteristic of itself.

“Counter-example: the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn were defeated by elven hands. It’s evidence that although a flow may exist, one can also change things by going against the flow. Will you acknowledge the counter-example?”

“Yes, I acknowledge the counter-example. But isn’t relying on the superhuman a human thing? Shouldn’t machines properly pursue the universal? If they are people woven of flesh, we are machines cast in steel. Variables must be controlled. Everything must be planned. Have you found out anything about controlling variables?”

What I could feel while using terminals and gathering information like this… Amusingly, even this walking factory furnace, even the Machine of the Age, was becoming more like a person.

It was difficult to distinguish whether controlling variables was following my purpose or if it was just what I wanted. The Industrial Spirit still spoke to me. It sounded like a desperate whisper. That couldn’t be.

“People aren’t defined by the material of their raw materials. You, who can feel sad, tired, afraid, and anxious, are not a machine. That’s what the small elf said. I agreed. In my opinion, you, who have variables just like those irrational people, cannot control variables.”

I should have sent it to that child earlier. Only that one reporter had said such things to me. And only this child was the Industrial Spirit who had returned with all its might to convey something to me.

But I was a machine. A machine that only worked when powered, with a purpose set from the time of creation. The task had just become so large and complex that I too had gained complexity, but I was no different from this Industrial Spirit.

“No, no. I will deny those words. I am merely a machine that creates. You know how much I’ve created until now. All the objects pouring out of factories, the factories being built, and the numerous pipes passing through this city… I’ve simply gained an appropriate level of complexity to create and manage them.”

“But now you’re trying to create something that can’t be made in a factory. You’re trying to stamp out a future that hasn’t become barren land from a factory.”

It sounded like saying I had become neither a proper machine nor a proper person. Judging by the malfunction that felt like internal wiring getting tangled… No. Purpose is supreme. My purpose was simply being denied.

There was a moment of silence as our opinions properly clashed. Normally I would remain still like this for dozens of minutes, but Number Seven tried to continue speaking. It tried to interpret and understand me.

“I was created belatedly. So I lack information for judgment. Why do you fear the apocalypse so much? The most common reaction when an Industrial Spirit’s purpose is denied is anger. Not fear.”

If licking each other’s wounds is the instinct of beasts, then trying to understand each other is the instinct of Industrial Spirits. They are talkative, energetic, young beings. I looked down at the Industrial Spirit.

Perhaps it looked like a young person trying to persuade an old person full of stubbornness. Have I grown too old? Has the machine created with the purpose of managing factories grown too large? I pondered for a moment.

No. I was upgraded. Upgraded for a purpose. I could handle this factory district, this cradle of industry. Rather, there was no entity more suitable for this task than me.

I decided to reveal my fear. It’s something the people of this city fail to do properly. I still couldn’t understand why they couldn’t speak such words, but a machine simply operates.

“The reason isn’t difficult, Number Seven. It’s because after that apocalypse, people won’t remain. Because only beasts will remain who have lost both purpose and creativity, living day by day just to survive, continuing their daily struggle against the mountaintop just like Sisyphus rolling his boulder. Only people who will realize they’re repeating a meaningless life and end their own lives.”

I wanted that child to understand all my words. I spoke each letter, gathering all the worship and respect I had received. It could be called sincere words.

Just as a life without purpose is terrible for a machine, a meaningless life is worse than death for people. Rather than giving them a purposeless life, I had to give them a path forward, even if it meant bleeding and getting hurt.

Perhaps the vision I saw was exaggerated. It might not be that terrible. But if the King of Industrial Spirits dies and the King of Economic Spirits is fatally wounded… if it doesn’t end there?

Sheep without grass to graze needed a shepherd. They were easily deceived by promises of being taken to pasture. People who were deceived would also become something other than human. They would become a mass. They would become a public without individuality.

It would be better if I now turned a handful of people into terminals, collected information, and prevented such things from happening. If it saved even one person from sacrifice, it was the right method.

I modified my purpose after hearing that child’s words. The apocalypse had to be prevented. To prevent people from shedding tears while longing for the time before the apocalypse, just as they long for the time before the Great War, it had to be stopped.

I continued my sincere words. Death is frightening. But for the sake of purpose, I could swallow even fear. I could willingly declare it irrelevant.

“My death itself has no meaning. If people are fine, they’ll create a new Machine of the Age. It doesn’t matter if the land dies. There’s plenty of land, and more than enough technology to reclaim it. But if people become barren, our created purpose will never be fulfilled in our lifetime. If it’s an unavoidable fate, isn’t it right to prevent it?”

Some sacrifice was necessary to preserve humanity. To run a machine, gears and belts must wear out. Can one make a person into something that is not a person in order to protect people?

I decided to answer yes. This is perhaps a violent and unreasonable thing. The apocalypse might be self-fulfilling. But I had to find a way. That was my created purpose.

I will move forward, even if I’m trembling with fear and tearing at my hair with anxiety. That’s how the times have always had to be. Not standing still, but making progress. I find my sparkle.

If the people of this city cover their ears and don’t listen, if they’re distracted by gilded light and don’t see, I will inform them even if I have to cut off their arms so they can’t cover their ears, even if I have to gouge out their eyelids so they can’t close their eyes. I will prevent it.

I steeled my resolve. Or rather, I activated the engine that is the source of power that makes us operate like this. Sending the Industrial Spirit to the small elf who showed me light was a good choice.

But Number Seven still wore an expression indicating it didn’t fully understand. Number Seven looked at me while turning the grinder.

“I… don’t know, Machine of the Age. Whether you’ve become a mad prophet speaking the truth, or a machine with a human heart. Whether you’re trying to hold up the sky with your two hands, or suffering from a psychosis believing you’re a person who can do that. I can’t distinguish. But you seem to be following your created purpose.”

Was I able to persuade this child? It seemed to have decided to join me in the end. Number Seven approached me. Standing before the wall of the machine it was created from, it boldly spread its body.

It had fulfilled its purpose. Its components would be disassembled and molded into another machine with a different purpose. I began to disassemble Number Seven with my appendages. From Number Seven, I felt a great satisfaction of having fulfilled its purpose.

The disassembly didn’t take long, starting with separating the cylinder for the grinder. I reinforce the Machine of the Age with those parts. The Machine of the Age will operate, and this city will pulsate. As it always has.

It might be too late to beg my creators to understand the apocalypse I’ve seen, but it’s still too early to give up.