Ch.332Afterword – Existing Nevertheless

Living as an external auditor for Belwether wasn’t particularly busy. To be precise, it wasn’t busy at all.

My only duty was occasionally attending the LA branch’s internal investigation team meetings and having trivial conversations with Stephanet or the Shepherd.

Yet the reason I say it wasn’t “particularly” busy is because… being a father of two children is quite a demanding job. Even my innate excellence was useless now.

Though Nora and Hazel were completely different from the child I was, with those pitch-black hole-like eyes… it was as if Type IV had been genetically passed down, as they never stayed still for a moment.

They gave Chance a hard time too, but he didn’t seem to mind. This suited his tastes much better than war. Naturally so.

While my children ran to me after bathing with my Eve, asking me to dry their hair, I received a communication request from Mr. Günter. Channel 1 after a long time.

‘Ah, yes, Mr. Günter. What brings you to call? There wasn’t anything noteworthy at the investigation team meeting. Is someone trying to become the second Walter?’

While mentally responding to Mr. Günter, I simultaneously spoke to Chance through our home communication channel. At the same time, I was stopping Nora from jumping into my arms with her hair still wet.

I’d have to leave Hazel to Chance. Even for a Type IV, holding and drying both my children with only two hands was impossible. Really.

‘Chance, could you please take care of Hazel?’

“Nora, Nora. You should ask daddy to dry your hair, not try to dry yourself with daddy. Hmm?”

Fortunately, handling three or four layers of simultaneous thought was simple; otherwise, it would have been exponentially more difficult. Three conversations proceeded simultaneously without issue.

“Pretending to have even a little interest in work, I see. Don’t worry, I’m just calling to ask if you could deliver the keynote speech for this year’s Belwether Foundation Day. How are the kids doing?”

‘They just finished bathing and immediately thrust their heads at me, so I’m fending them off. As for the speech… personally, I’d recommend the New York branch director. I’m retired, after all.’

The most tactful way to refuse was to recommend someone better than myself. The Belwether New York branch was the epitome of the efficiency and robustness that Belwether revered.

Nora, prevented from pushing her head at me, looks up with her hair plastered to her face and smiles brightly. Though she’s the spitting image of her mother, this clear smile is an expression rarely seen on my Eve.

If my Eve had been born somewhere other than Hollowed Creek, would there be photos of her smiling like this? With such idle thoughts, I began drying Nora’s hair as Mr. Günter continued.

It was a nostalgic voice. Not the old and powerful beast I remembered, but the voice of Günter Lighthammel, the man who once held my position and my role.

“You must be busy. And I’m not asking personally. The board requested it. They liked your speech at the shareholders’ meeting and have been requesting you every year.”

‘For the first three years, I was beside the chairman on Foundation Day, and last year and the year before, I was busy following the audit team. Since they’ve waited this long, I suppose I should go at least once…’

In the past, I would have eagerly seized such an opportunity, but I had left my ambition to burn with the funeral pyres of Hollowed Creek. These days, my interests extended only as far as family outing destinations.

It wasn’t the listlessness that followed the annihilation of Madeleine’s Lot. I simply had no reason to be ambitious anymore. There were now more things I didn’t want to burn with the fire of my ambition than things I could gain from having it.

‘Well, the kids would be happy to see their grandfather again… I’ll go. I should also show them that daddy isn’t just someone who ‘plays at home all day.’ I’ll do it.’

“I thought you would. You can send the draft of the speech by next month…”

The beginning of the speech had to start with the expected words and formalities. They were superficial, but necessary superficialities. I didn’t need a month. I recited leisurely.

‘For the company, its employees, and shareholders. I am the external auditor directly under the chairman of Belwether, or by the name more familiar to you all… Belwether certified freelancer, callsign Boogeyman.’

Nadia and Valentina laughed for a long time when they learned what this name they had given me had come to symbolize. It was a pleasant laugh. After all, I had added meaning to their words.

I deliberately placed natural pauses between my words. I caught the moisturizing lotion and children’s hair essence that Chance tossed to me. The world had improved somewhat, but the air was still not good for children.

Without needing to look, I distinguished the bottles by their shape in my hand and continued speaking. The pause was about half a second.

‘Five years ago, I had to fight against Belwether for what Belwether believed in. I had to stand at headquarters to resolve the cross-departmental inefficiencies caused by information asymmetry.’

While speaking, I naturally responded to my Eve’s instruction to apply lotion first, opening the lotion bottle I held and soothing Nora, who was fidgeting to escape my embrace.

She resembled her mother in this too. Even down to how she would calmly rest her head in my palm and become docile when stroked.

A child is born with all the lovable parts of the person I loved, and all the parts that person found lovable in me.

Perhaps that child with pitch-black hole-like eyes from my childhood might be hiding within… but it doesn’t matter. I too was able to grow into an adult who no longer had those pitch-black hole-like eyes.

Belwether should have taught a child who didn’t even know what that feeling was like the joy of helping others, how to love and be loved, and how to be human, but what I had to do was much easier.

The pause between sentences was again about half a second. I deliberately infused my voice with a sense of pleasure. Even for a draft or rehearsal, I couldn’t be satisfied unless it was done impeccably.

‘But now I can stand here with a much more comfortable heart. You have shown me that Belwether’s initial mindset was sincere and has not changed.’

This was my excuse for appearing after five years. I had simply been living my own life diligently, but it was better for both sides to make it seem as though I had been waiting for the right time.

The pleasantries ended here. After this, I needed to say something substantial. Belwether’s belief in efficiency often led to a conviction about substantive robustness and conciseness. I recalled old memories.

What method did I use to persuade Belwether during the musical chairs operation? I declared myself as someone who knew about the Extinction War and announced that I would walk the path they had walked right after the war.

What was that path? A fanaticism for efficiency? No. It was the image of people who, in a situation where all systems had collapsed, could rally again under the banner of efficiency, using that flagpole as a staff to stand up.

Now efficiency is efficiency, goodness, beauty, and value, but it wasn’t then. Efficiency was simply… almost a declaration that humanity had not yet given up. That’s the deepest point.

Now I needed to go deeper. What was it that people hadn’t given up on? Order? Systems? No, something much more primal. I began to bring up relevant materials at the edge of my vision.

‘That the mindset of never giving up and never stopping hasn’t changed, that we didn’t believe in efficiency simply because we were people left in the wasteland after the Extinction War, with all beliefs shattered…’

I continued speaking, hearing Mr. Günter’s soft affirmations. He seemed to like it for a basic draft. While speaking, I tied Nora’s hair and… thought about what to say next. Three layers was routine.

‘But that we believed in efficiency because it was right, that you have shown this by willingly acknowledging flaws and changing for the sake of efficiency even now when you have everything. That was the Belwether I loved.’

Though I say this, I know it was a political judgment. I merely exposed the truth about Operation Prometheus and the end of the Extinction War to claim moral high ground.

The moment Belwether admitted its moral flaws became an opportunity to denounce the federal government’s hypocrisy, making Belwether’s declaration of change appear as if it were moving toward goodness.

The headquarters marketing team wasn’t at Belwether, wasn’t at headquarters for nothing, it seemed. But as I’ve always said, the world is a representation of will. That truth is merely the surface, the shell.

Now what I needed to do was… apply lotion to Hazel, who was waiting in my arms since Chance’s household drone couldn’t do it, and make the speech resonate with people.

If I only spoke like this, I would be telling a story of too-old efforts, speaking only to those who had burned their lives at Belwether.

Personally, I respected them. I wanted to give them the best words. But I didn’t want to speak only to them. I needed to reach ordinary people, to make it resonate with them.

Additionally, I made my lotion-covered hand touch my daughter’s cheek. With only a half-second pause, I continued the draft. I properly made an “ugh” sound when Nora clung to my neck, her turn finished.

‘When we first held that belief, the world was racing toward its end. Pre-war technologies had killed ten billion lives and torn the world to shreds. They had thrust a blade into hope’s throat.’

But if I speak like this, won’t I only reinforce that rumor about me being at least a sixty-year-old special operative who received a young body? I pondered, but I had no ability to read the minds of the unspecified masses.

‘But hope refused to cool quietly, slowly, coldly. It devoured inhuman technology, twisted itself under the name of corporate governance, and survived by dwelling in efficiency.’

Inhuman technology helped people survive in that inhuman era. We live in a Red Queen’s world, a hell of savage capitalism, but… if this is hell, it’s a more livable hell than expected.

It’s certainly not ideal. We may never know how vivid the color and solid the form of the word “hope” had in the pre-war era. But that’s not a major issue.

‘No, we didn’t just survive. We made ourselves survive. We transfused efficiency, confined people in cities to shield them from seeing this barren mire, and somehow kept that hope breathing.’

After this, I needed to acknowledge that it wasn’t ideal.

We don’t live in a utopia. The Farmers’ plant species have only just begun to reclaim the wasteland, and the blackness of the sea has only started to lighten slightly.

Peace where national coverage occurs if gunfire doesn’t sound for five days is routine, and LA’s school buses still wear armor plating.

We’ve willingly shed our birth bodies to don new ones. Eight-tenths of our food is made from pseudo-ingredients, and that fact won’t change until the wasteland is reclaimed.

Morality has become a subtle suggestion rather than a principle, and if one leaves this world of keeping up appearances and formalities, that fact will sting the skin.

‘We still live in a world that is not ideal but not hellish. The scars of that war now wander like ghosts of trauma, and malice and greed are rampant.’

To prove that not all black swans are black, one need only show a single white swan. I had a few white swans, and others had some too. There were many examples.

And these examples were from this high-speed era, not the Extinction War era, so they would resonate more. Before giving examples, I touched on generalities. The pauses remained at half a second each.

‘Therefore, our hope is not ideal either. It is fragile, easily corrupted, rare, expensive, and even dim like a dying light bulb… but it exists nonetheless.’

Here, I couldn’t allow a half-second pause. I had to continue naturally, as if it were one statement, to bombard them with examples before they could question “Really?”

If someone sat down to think about it, anyone could find counterexamples. I needed to employ the technique of making them applaud before they could think. I hoped I could.

‘It was proven to exist when the Market Keepers liberated Denver, when the Las Vegas Strip was reborn, when Hollowed Creek’s fanaticism was burned down, when Belwether chose the hand of efficiency over hatred.’

While formulating the content and finishing drying both daughters’ hair, my Eve playfully lowered herself and leaned into my embrace as our daughters had done. She giggled playfully, looking at Nora and Hazel.

At times like this, I somewhat dislike being capable of simultaneous thought. If I could only think one layer at a time, I might have fumbled a bit, but I could have fully enjoyed this moment.

Still, since I had caused the events I cited as examples of hope for the sake of my Eve who was now leaning against me, perhaps it was appropriate that she was here at this moment.

At the very least, I wanted to finish the communication quickly and enjoy the rest of the weekend, so I leisurely concluded the draft. The real version would be more polished, but that wasn’t important.

‘So today is the day efficiency was born, the day we kept hope breathing with our own hands, the day we enabled even faded hope to accompany us in this high-speed era. It is our day. For the company, its employees, and shareholders.’

“You didn’t have that prepared in advance, did you?”

‘I thought of it while drying my daughters’ hair, didn’t I?’

I decided to postpone drying my Eve’s hair for a moment. While I could work while taking care of my family, the work had just ended with the completion of the draft, and now this was a personal call.

“Ah, yes. There’s one thing I should point out. Do you know what it is?”

‘That the speech leans a bit toward compassionate efficiency? I’m also inclined toward compassionate efficiency if I had to choose, and I didn’t speak as if we’re in a field of flowers. It’s a good day, after all.’

Procedural efficiency advocates are people too. They have emotions and know that good days call for appropriate words. Mr. Günter let out a hearty laugh.

“Of course you’d know. Still, with this speech, you might escape that rumor about being a sixty-year-old special operative who received a twenty-year-old body.”

‘Really? I don’t think I said anything that young and immature…’

I had scored a point earlier, but this time I was caught off guard. I had forgotten that Mr. Günter and I shared even the timing of such jokes.

“Seeing you include references to the Extinction War era, the rumor might be revised to say you’re at least eighty years old, so you won’t be called a sixty-year-old special operative anymore.”

‘Ah, damn it.’

The actual speech a month later… I delivered it well enough. Probably.

It wasn’t particularly important, so I didn’t commit it deeply to memory. The honor of giving the Foundation Day speech at headquarters didn’t feel as glittering as it might have.

For me, the time spent talking with father-figure Mr. Günter, caring for my daughters, holding my wife while drafting the speech—this time with my feet firmly planted on the ground—was more memorable.