Ch.2929. Goal.

# 29. The Goal

“Heaven and the black pillar. What connection could there possibly be between them?”

When I first discovered the black pillar from the building rooftop, I decided to make the city with the pillar my next destination.

But that decision didn’t have any clear purpose or specific reason behind it.

Of course, I do have the goal of wanting to meet living people.

But that’s just the fundamental motivation behind my aimless wandering and the ultimate purpose of my life.

To put it simply, would I have just stayed put and waited for people if I hadn’t seen the black pillar from the rooftop, since this place is relatively safe and has plenty of food left?

Anyone who has been watching me through the videos and listening to my story would know. That I would never do that.

We’ve become close enough to check on each other daily through videos and messages.

I’ve shared pretty much everything about myself, both important and trivial, so everyone probably knows what kind of person I am by now.

Yet I still don’t know where these people live or how they’re living.

I don’t even know if they’re in a position to come find me right now, so how could I just wait around blindly trusting them?

How could I possibly do that? Settling down and being content is a privilege reserved for those who already have everything they need.

Even though I’ve acquired a drone and found traces of survivors, I still lack so much. For me to settle in this reality wouldn’t be truly settling—it would be equivalent to giving up on my future life.

That’s why I keep moving forward without stopping, even at the risk of freezing to death.

Because happiness doesn’t come on its own; it must be continuously fought for.

Anyway, what I want to say is that the black pillar merely caught my eye by chance while I was wandering in pursuit of happiness. The pillar itself didn’t give me a new goal.

Even without the pillar, as long as the train station was there, I would have waited for the weather to clear and left on exactly the same day.

“When they talk about heaven here, do they mean above that pillar? Or the city with the pillar itself? When I looked through the telescope, I could see things that looked like buildings, stairs, and ladders in between… Surely they don’t mean heaven is at the top of the pillar?”

As I moved toward the black pillar, I hadn’t thought at all about what would happen after I reached it.

If I’m lucky enough to find survivors, then my goal would be accomplished. I could stop wandering and adapt to living in this era.

But what if there are no survivors in the city I reach? Would I leave the city and look for another one? Or should I try climbing up the pillar since it looked climbable?

Without detailed knowledge about such tall structures, making concrete plans would be difficult, but I could have at least established some contingency plans or guidelines for foreseeable situations.

Yet even after seeing this pillar I’d never seen before, I was still thinking the same way I always did—if something good happens, great; if not, oh well.

“Ah. When I make specific plans and think about the future like this, I start to have expectations…”

Because I’ve never properly achieved what I wanted until now.

The moment I set clear goals and make plans, the resulting expectations become like blades that only cut into my heart.

Hating that feeling, I tried to live with just one goal in mind so I wouldn’t fall into deep despair at any moment.

But then I discovered the word “heaven,” a term full of hope and light.

“The existence of heaven… surely it can’t just be the delusion of whoever wrote this?”

When I first saw the message about going to heaven at the emergency exit of the train station, I didn’t think much of it.

Humans suffering through difficult lives have dreamed of heaven since ancient times.

So when I first saw that writing, I thought it was just an ordinary blessing from someone who had decided to leave the city, wishing good fortune on their journey ahead.

But then I found the notebook. The word “heaven” was written in it too.

At the same time, the owner of this notebook had drawn the black pillar on one page and spoke as if heaven existed there.

The handwriting and style are too different to have been written by the same person.

Coincidence?

Or my delusion?

The writing suggesting that paradise—where good people go after death—exists in this world, right in front of me, stirred up many thoughts.

“There’s too little information. I can’t tell if this is heaven in a symbolic sense, or if there’s some specific place… that they call heaven. Even if I asked you all, you’d probably say you don’t know.”

I’m not even sure if what people of this era call “heaven” serves the same purpose as the “paradise” I know.

“It’s a bit sudden and confusing, but if there really is heaven ahead… that’s something to look forward to.”

Still, thinking that a heaven like the one described in religions—abundant, warm year-round, without conflict or strife—might be right in front of me naturally lifts my spirits.

…I’ll let myself be fooled just this once.

“Alright. I have a goal now. When I safely arrive at the next city, I’ll first check if there are people there… and if no one appears, I’ll look for this ‘heaven’ the person mentioned.”

A structure unlike anything I’ve seen since waking up in this world.

Nothing would be strange in parts of the world I haven’t observed yet.

Even in this dark world, the heaven this person speaks of might be gloriously spread out somewhere.

“The person who wrote this notebook is really mean. Writing so vaguely… making people like me inevitably hopeful.”

Until now, I’ve just been wandering wherever my feet took me.

But just now, I’ve found a new and clear goal.

Hoping that at the end, a happy ending as beautiful as the word “heaven” awaits me.

And simultaneously hoping that the heaven this person spoke of isn’t the kind you can only reach after death.

I held that word, “heaven,” close to my heart.

“You know, in the past, there must have been countless items placed on these rails I’m walking on.”

The day after acquiring my new goal—visiting heaven while still alive, which sounds somewhat contradictory—

I was still wandering around the factory.

The reason was simple. Though I seemed to have woken up at my usual time, the weather was so bad I could have mistaken it for the middle of the night.

And perhaps because the tension had left my body after struggling through the snowfield, various joints and muscles were aching all over.

It was time to rest if I wanted to safely reach heaven.

“Given the size of the building and the number of rails, it seems too large to have made just a few items… Surely they didn’t make every single item in the city here?”

I follow the complex intertwining rails, choosing whichever path my heart leads me to when I reach a fork, moving through numerous spaces and buildings.

Going up, going down, sometimes even going in circles. Just walking keeps changing the scenery around me, so there’s no chance to get bored.

[If that’s a factory, maybe there are useful items inside?]

“Ahaha, so you’ve seen the word ‘factory’ now? Unfortunately, I don’t see many useful items. Judging by how clean it is both outside and inside, it seems not many people visited here like they did the superstore.”

Whether supplies to the factory were cut off before the power went out or not, despite almost no signs of external intrusion, few items remained.

There are many things that were presumably made and used in the factory, like robot arms or robot bodies, but not much I can use.

“Wow, that’s a strangely shaped gun… But I don’t see a magazine or cylinder—what did this gun shoot?”

Still, occasionally I’d find boxes that were in the middle of being transported, or items left on the stopped rails, which made wandering around enjoyable.

No wind blowing, and as long as I’m careful not to fall off the rails, it’s not dangerous.

After several really difficult days, it feels like I’m on vacation.

“Hmm… what do you all think this is?”

While leisurely exploring the factory, I discovered a human body rolling on the rails.

To be precise, it was a mechanically constructed human body.

“I think this resembles ribs… and a cervical spine. I’m not the only one who thinks so, right?”

The human skeleton made of various metals and circuits looked extremely bizarre.

It’s like… the feeling of seeing something you shouldn’t see. Or like committing an act that humans should never commit.

“This doesn’t seem like parts for an android, since androids wouldn’t need space for organs… like a heart or lungs. It looks like this was actually meant to be put into a real human body…?”

In my era, there were prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, and muscles, but… not to this extent.

It seems people of this era went beyond just putting screws in bones—they could transform their entire bodies into something machine-like.

“Come to think of it, the human body is weak… and not very efficient. From a certain point, it just gradually deteriorates following its lifespan.”

But if you replace your body piece by piece with machinery like this.

Beyond just replacing non-functioning hands, feet, or blind eyes—if all organs and the skeleton were made of metal and powered by electricity.

Could such an existence still rightfully be called human?

“What is a human in the first place… and what is life?”

If someone born human, who lived and thought independently,

Removed their own heart and replaced it with a mechanical one, having both a machine’s body and a human mind.

Should we accept them as a machine?

Or should we accept them as human, just like us?

For me… I couldn’t define it.