Ch.3232. Empty City.

# 32. Empty City

Generally, blood flows through the body of a living person.

Similarly, electricity flows through a living city.

“Light! It’s light!”

At the edge of the snowfield I’d traveled across on Alexander.

Electricity was flowing through the city beneath the massive black pillar. Street lamps and several buildings emitted bright light that drove away the darkness.

Humanity discovered fire and began to make the world their own by driving away the darkness that threatened them.

If electricity and… technology truly remained intact in this city, there was a very high possibility that the survivors I had been searching for were here.

“People can exist without cities… but for a city to be properly maintained, it needs people to manage it, right?”

I shouldn’t get my hopes up too quickly. How many times had I been disappointed after expecting something like this?

It might just be that the city’s backup power was still working, while the people had disappeared long ago like in other cities.

But… everything is a first. The illuminated streets, buildings not stained with corpses and blood.

My heart pounds with each beat as I look at this city that seems too intact to have fallen.

“The train station is tightly closed. I could get in through the emergency exit by myself, but it would be difficult for Alexander to enter.”

What should I do? Thinking that someone might be watching me, I called out “Hello?” but there was no response.

“Hmm, should I go in myself and find a way to open the door? Why did they close the train station in the first place?”

I understand closing the doors to where trains come and go since trains can’t move anymore.

But there was no need to close the entrances for cars too.

“I hope they didn’t close it to prevent people from other cities coming in? …That’s not an impossible scenario, which worries me.”

With the fence and the tightly closed doors, a society this closed off probably wouldn’t be very friendly to outsiders.

It’s just a hypothesis, but I could be captured by people unwelcoming to outsiders as soon as I enter. They might take my bag and Alexander and chase me out of the city.

…In the worst case, they might even threaten me with weapons to eliminate a potentially dangerous presence.

“This is tricky. It would be easy for me to enter alone, but I’m not sure if I can find a way to open the door, and if they see an outsider freely entering their city and touching things… they probably wouldn’t like that.”

Rather than going in alone without Alexander and getting caught… maybe it’s better to sneak in.

It would be equally troublesome if they discovered I sneaked in from outside.

But it’s easier to escape outdoors than indoors if necessary.

“Sigh. I finally found traces of people I’ve been desperately searching for, and here I am worrying.”

I’m aware that I tend to be almost pathologically negative in my assumptions.

But isn’t it said that the living creature that has killed the most people on Earth is none other than humans themselves?

Given the various human behaviors I’ve witnessed in cities I’ve passed through, I can’t help but worry.

Besides, if I were to be mistreated by the very people I’ve been longing to meet, the thin thread of hope I’ve been clinging to would completely collapse.

For such situations, no matter how happy and excited I was, I needed to be cautious.

“—Really, I think I understand why the world has become so cold.”

With a self-deprecating smile, I slowly walk around the train station.

“As expected, there are no holes. If I want to enter with Alexander, I’ll need to make an opening…”

As an experiment, I grab the fence with my gloved hand.

Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any electricity flowing, and no alarm sounds or security robots appear.

The same was true when I lightly cut the wire with Maximus.

“Alright, guys. Let’s enter through the fence. There are too many concerns about entering honestly through the train station.”

I slowly began creating a passage through the fence. I could make one quickly using explosives from the factory… but that would be too loud and wasteful in a place like this.

As I slowly create the passage, I look around. The nearby street lights are on, but there are no signs or sounds of humans.

Something feels off—are they all living together deeper in the city?

“This should be enough to pass through.”

It took about an hour. A large passage appeared in the fence.

Each time I struck with the axe, the entire fence shook and made quite a noise, but no one came during that time.

While I felt relieved, I couldn’t shake off an uneasy feeling.

“Well, I’ve successfully snuck in… let’s look around first. Understanding what kind of place this is should be the priority.”

This world is not a fairy tale. It’s too cold and harsh to expect a fairy tale world. I’ll have expectations but not fantasies.

“Should I leave Alexander here in case something happens? It’s too conspicuous to ride around, and a stranger driving something like this would look even more suspicious.”

Saying that confirming whether there are living people should come first, I hide Alexander behind a building near the fence. So I can quickly escape on Alexander if necessary.

“I should probably leave my bag too. Let me just take what I really need.”

Carrying Maximus would look suspicious. I put it in my bag and instead conceal a gun on my body.

I’ll just carry a water bottle and energy bars, pretending to be a harmless person while gauging reactions.

With just the bare necessities for a light reconnaissance, I start walking slowly through the city.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

Half expectation, half worry.

I walk around the city in a slightly hunched posture.

I came all this way suffering just to meet people, but now that I’ve arrived at an illuminated city, I can’t help but laugh at how tense I am.

After calling out for people and wandering around buildings and streets for several dozen minutes…

“…Something’s strange.”

I realized there was something odd about this city.

The ground is clean. Except for being covered in snow, there are no corpses or blood—it looks like a peaceful and intact city street.

No crashed cars or broken glass from buildings either. The few cars visible are well-parked on the side of the road.

“Why is there no one in such a clean city…?”

Yet, there was no one in the city. Not only were there no living people, there weren’t even any corpses.

I had deluded myself into thinking that the streets were clean because of a moral and orderly social system.

But in reality, there were no traces of people in the city at all.

I walked along the large roads. I looked inside the lit buildings.

Later, I shouted loudly for anyone to please come out, but no living being responded.

“Did they all hide because they knew I was coming…?”

That’s absurd.

Even if they all united to play a trick on me, the streets and buildings couldn’t be this clean.

And yet to call it a fallen city… the streets are too clean.

“What is this, really…?”

Strangely, my breathing becomes rapid. Even when walking through streets with no light and in complete disarray, I didn’t feel like this.

Rather, it’s more difficult when no one appears in an environment where I expected people to be. Bad thoughts fill my mind.

What if all this is my hallucination? Am I dreaming? Or have I finally gone insane?

I almost wished someone was playing a trick on me. Whatever might happen as a result would be better than this current fear, emptiness, and anxiety.

“First… let me get Alexander before I get lost. That seems like the right thing to do.”

The city under the pillar, while not as complex as other cities I’ve been through, was still quite complicated with many buildings.

Since I wasn’t in the best mental state, it seemed right to bring all my precious belongings before I got lost.

I slowly ride around on Alexander, which I had parked earlier. The streets were completely empty, even of corpses, so there was no problem moving Alexander freely.

“But the buildings are generally low and… shabby. That’s a bit unexpected.”

Feeling like I might go crazy if I kept thinking about survivors and the empty city, I turned my attention from people to the city itself.

In the cities I’d passed through so far, the size of the cities and buildings grew larger as I moved forward.

But here, the buildings were actually lower and shabbier. Occasionally there were large buildings, but most were just big in size without much substance.

“Until now, no city has deviated from this rule. Is it because this is Paradise?”

I don’t think “Paradise” necessarily has to be glamorous and fancy.

If life is abundant, safe, moral, and peaceful, that’s paradise. What more do you need?

“Whether this is Paradise or not, I’m not sure yet… but one thing is certain. This place is special in many ways.”

I looked up at the black pillar that had grown closer.

Actually, at this point, I’m not sure if “pillar” is the right word for it.

The massive structure stretching to the sky has numerous buildings constructed on it.

The sight of countless buildings built on artificially created flat land isn’t much different from the cities I’ve passed through so far.

The issue is… that the city is divided into multiple complex layers.

Buildings on top of buildings.

Cities on top of cities.

…Surely, Paradise isn’t up there, is it?