Ch.381The Cradle of Superhumanism. City of Lorentina (4)

In the Nariaki Empire, the definition of human was extremely broad.

In a civilization so advanced that one could upload consciousness and soul into mechanical devices to literally achieve immortality… such a civilization’s perception of humanity inevitably differed from our current understanding.

Whether one liked it or not, the Extinction Era, heavily influenced by the Empire, strongly adhered to the ancient imperial laws, so the definition of humanity remained largely unchanged.

There were cases where the definition of humanity was interpreted somewhat differently for religious or cultural reasons, but searching across all 13 continents, these remained minority views.

Generally speaking, however, less civilized regions tended to define humanity more narrowly, while more advanced civilizations dramatically expanded the definition of humanity.

It might sound extreme, but seeing is believing. The more humans made of iron and cables rather than flesh and bone surround you, the broader your own definition of humanity inevitably becomes.

“Will you be changing the laws regarding augmentation in this empire?”

“I have no particular intention to do so. You’ve all been doing well so far. If a factory like this were to be shut down because of a few lines written in a legal code, there could be no more foolish regression than that.”

“It’s an honor to hear you say so.”

Laws are problematic everywhere. One need only skim through history books to see countless examples of the harm caused by impractical laws created through armchair theories.

Viktor moved with the mayor to the next district, where a massive marketplace was organized in the form of a department store.

“This is the Replace Department Store. Half of the city’s augmentations are supplied to this enormous store. There’s even a saying that you’re not a citizen of Lorentina if you don’t shop here.”

“Where does the other half go?”

“Most is exported, and the rest is donated. Mainly to hospitals and orphanages. Hospitals need no explanation, and orphans in this harsh world rarely emerge unscathed in body and mind. While we can’t heal their hearts, we can at least fix their bodies.”

“I see…”

Viktor and the mayor entered the department store.

Instantly, the space packed with people and carts parted like paper cut by scissors, and Viktor looked around at the items being traded.

Augmentations. Augmentations. Everywhere, nothing but augmentations.

The open trade of mechanical limbs, eyeballs, and organs created a mechanical grotesqueness, but Viktor could tell that these citizens weren’t simply driven by the desire to ‘improve themselves.’

They also had the natural desire to become more beautiful, more attractive.

Reflecting the human tendency to prefer nicer, prettier, and more stylish options when spending the same amount, custom-made artificial limbs from famous brands were excellent ways to satisfy one’s desire for ostentation—just like purchasing a famous sword.

A sword is meaningless unless drawn from its scabbard, and a bag is pointless unless carried, but one cannot leave their limbs at home.

For the citizens of Lorentina, cutting off and attaching parts of their bodies was essentially no different from citizens of other city-states showing off gold necklaces or luxury watches.

When you think about it, it’s quite natural. Don’t innocent children deliberately sit too close to the television because they think glasses look cool, even though they’re only meant for poor eyesight? Fundamentally, there was no difference between those children’s behavior and these consumers’ actions.

What would it feel like to unhesitatingly replace one’s body with machinery? Viktor wondered but didn’t particularly want to know. This was literally a cultural difference—something he could understand but not accept, a difference in sensibility.

Just as a man can never truly know the pain of a woman being punched in the stomach, nor can a woman fully understand the agony of a man being kicked in the groin, or just as stabbing a man’s stomach with a dagger cannot convey the pain of menstrual cramps—this was a realm that only those born and raised here, who had accepted the city’s customs, could truly comprehend.

After leaving the department store, Viktor continued to explore various places.

Everywhere he went, machines were present, and everywhere, people coexisted with machines.

Their trust in machinery, bordering on madness and obsession, seemed to reflect a firm belief that science and technology would solve all of humanity’s problems.

Viktor couldn’t hastily deny this.

With the spread of home appliances, housewives were liberated from labor; with the development of artificial wombs and human cultivation technology, women were freed from childbirth. Furthermore, as autonomous machines emerged, mothers could entrust childcare to machines, and fathers could delegate the burden of military service to mechanical soldiers.

Without technological advancement, housewives would still be washing clothes by hand in nearly frozen stream water until their fingers turned red, even in the bitter winter, and fathers would have to leave their young children behind to march to distant battlefields at the nation’s command.

Technology liberates humanity.

It transforms what must be done into what need not be done, and makes the impossible possible. This alone makes the advancement of civilization worthwhile.

Before sex reassignment technology was invented, transgender individuals had to endure social contempt while wearing clothes matching their mental gender in narrow, dark cafes. Before gene editing technology was invented, countless parents had to experience the tragedy of passing on genetic diseases to their offspring, watching their children die cursing their own birth.

But what about now?

Transgender individuals can be reshaped into bodies with the sexual characteristics they should have been born with, and those suffering from genetic degradation and errors can be healed under doctors’ care.

Humanity has progressed thus far because of this fundamental desire.

When this desire ran rampant, the Century of Stars received divine punishment and met its eternal end, and ultimately, even the Solar Empire could not overcome human desire, collapsing into the Eclipse Era when the Four ascended.

To advance further. To become better. To enjoy more.

Once, humans could not fly, and in some ways, this remains true.

Yet if you told a modern human that “humans cannot fly,” even a child from the countryside would laugh at you.

In the distant past, the first airplane was invented, flying for barely 10 seconds.

And now, humans have created sky islands and floating fortresses, claiming the sky as their domain.

After more than a million years, technology has advanced and completely transformed both the living space and the principles of human life.

Since humans first invented machines that make machines, since humans first created machines that make humans, humanity has explosively advanced forward.

There is no regression in the wheel of history. Only progress.

Even degeneration is part of evolution. Didn’t humanity succeed in surviving and prospering despite the curse of the world’s destruction?

The stars shining in the night sky are the glittering medals of humanity’s great achievements, and the 13 continents are proof and evidence that humans, having lost everything and fallen, have begun to rise again, however miserably.

This is what this city was showing him.

That humans are beings who ceaselessly move forward. Even if their bodies are replaced by machines, even if their brains are converted into combinations of 0s and 1s, as long as their souls live on, the human race will forever advance toward the future.

Filling the sea made of the blood of the dead. Paving the way with the corpses of the fallen.

In the past, humanity was once consumed by civilization.

The atrocity of killing each other for their gods, away from the light of the sun.

Massive arcologies housing hundreds of billions melted into glass from orbital laser strikes, and armies numbering in the quadrillions dyed the 13 continents with blood, fighting until everything was erased for the sake of One, or Four.

For 50,000 years, the sun hid behind the moon, afraid to witness it.

Nothing could stop the runaway faith.

Watching things that once existed for humans being twisted, modified, and distorted into tools for killing humans, in the coldly dying continents, people pondered not how to survive but how to die with less suffering—this was the Eclipse Era.

Eventually the Eclipse ended, but when the sun shone on the earth again, nothing remained.

The mighty empire that had ruled humanity for 300,000 years, the warriors and heroes who waged war for the newly ascended god—nothing remained.

Even now, 1,200 years later.