Ch.4242. Curiosity.

# 42. Curiosity

Several days passed as I slept, woke, ate, and moved forward.

Nothing particularly special happened during that time. Perhaps finding a superstore and grocery store while wandering the streets was the most notable event.

Unfortunately, as the robot had said, they had incinerated all expired goods, so no food remained in either place.

Couldn’t they have left some canned goods or solid foods behind!

I knelt in frustration before the empty shelves—but my efforts weren’t entirely fruitless.

“Wow, I can’t believe batteries in such good condition are still available!”

Was it because, unlike other cities, the people here had gone up to the Tower?

For a destroyed city, quite a lot of items remained. Among them were various things I could use.

Like a water container large enough to hold a week’s supply of water, or an oil-powered lantern.

In the past, I would have had to give up on items I liked if they were too big and heavy for my bag, or if they required resources like oil.

As you know, weight and size were no longer obstacles for me now, and the same went for oil.

“I wasn’t made to carry such heavy objects!”

“Just bear with it this once! One, two!”

With the robot’s help, I loaded the cargo compartment with survival supplies and headed toward the pillar.

It was a very satisfying time, except for the fact that the food in my bag was gradually diminishing.

“Yawn, I’m getting sleepy… Maybe I should stop here for today and find a place to sleep…”

I pressed the back of my hand against my tired eyes after driving all day. My eyelids felt heavy and my body was limp. My back and neck were stiff from maintaining the same position for so long.

“Ugh…”

I never realized how tiring driving could be since artificial intelligence used to do everything for me.

It’s certainly better than walking around with a heavy bag, but being less tiring doesn’t mean it’s not tiring at all.

“We’re not far from the pillar, so I’m a bit tempted.”

Normally, I would have parked Alexander in a safe place and gone to sleep as soon as my body reached this state.

I knew that forcing myself to stay awake would only ruin my condition for the next day.

How many times had I pushed myself to reach a supermarket or clean building I’d spotted through my telescope, only to end up sick all day and unable to reach places I could have otherwise?

That’s why I’d decided to listen to the signals my body sent—fatigue, hunger, pain—as much as possible, since my body was my only asset.

—But now, right in front of me was the base of that pillar that had seemed so distant.

Not just a glimpse of the lower part, but I could actually see with my naked eye the entrance, the elevator inside, and the beginning of the path that climbed along the outer wall of the pillar.

The fact that I could reach it in just an hour or two if I continued driving safely whispered in my ear, wearing the mask of temptation.

It said that it would be a shame to just sleep when the goal was right in front of me, and that I’d feel much better if I arrived and then got a good rest.

Rationally speaking, even if it was my goal, it was just the first gateway to Paradise, so I should conserve my energy rather than push myself.

But humans aren’t robots. There’s no human in this world who can always maintain composure and rationality. Including me.

—Grip.

I tightly grasped the steering wheel again with my weakening hands.

Reaching out even knowing it’s meaningless, challenging even knowing it’s too much.

Isn’t that spirit of challenge, unique to humans, the driving force that has taken us to higher and farther places?

“Above all—I’m curious about what’s inside.”

When I saw the pillar from a distance, I only noticed the path climbing along the outer wall.

I never imagined there would be an entrance or elevator leading inside the pillar.

My interest was piqued. Could there possibly be villages and cities inside the pillar, not just on the outside or middle levels?

As people grow up and complete their own worlds, becoming what we call adults, they tend to fear and reject phenomena they haven’t experienced or don’t understand.

This is because they instinctively know how painful it is when their constructed world becomes chaotic and destroyed.

But we all know that we cannot move forward if we remain trapped in the world we’ve created, in that completed world like an egg.

Just as a bird must break its shell and come out into the world to fly freely, there are times when a human must throw themselves into unknown territory to live differently and move forward.

And because this is such a painful and difficult task, humans named the emotion that helps with such challenges and made it a virtue of scientists and explorers—that name was curiosity.

The sky was filled with grayish clouds, but in my eyes looking forward, there was a sparkle of light.

It was the light that, in the distant past, had allowed beings born and raised on Earth to leave their home planet and arrive on unfamiliar stars.

*

“…Mori. Driving without looking ahead can cause serious accidents.”

“I know. But there aren’t any buildings ahead, and the streets are clear, so it’s fine for a moment… Yaaawn.”

Though I was driven by curiosity to head toward the pillar with determination, that didn’t make my physical fatigue disappear.

I tried everything to escape the drowsiness that threatened to kidnap me to the world of dreams—holding cold water in my mouth, pinching my cheeks, even biting my tongue slightly.

But it wasn’t for nothing that humanity named this demon despite its non-existence. Drowsiness clung to me and refused to let go.

After endless deliberation between reality and ideals, I came up with a compromise:

I would lie flat on the steering wheel and just slightly turn my wrist to move Alexander.

I know, as the robot said, that this is extremely dangerous. In the era I lived in, any driver caught doing this would have been immediately arrested and had their vehicle confiscated.

But—Alexander is a sturdy snowmobile that maintains its direction quite steadily unless the steering wheel is turned sharply.

And from where I am to the pillar, it’s completely open with no buildings, and there are no moving cars or people on the street.

Just slightly turning my wrist like this won’t cause me to crash into anything or have a major accident.

“Besides… I have you and Puppy. You’ll stop me if there’s danger.”

Moreover, I now had excellent friends. If something dangerous happened, Puppy would alert me by barking loudly as he had done before.

I believe in everything I have. It’s more like I have no choice but to believe because I have so little to trust, but it’s because I didn’t doubt what I had that I’ve been able to survive until now.

So trusting my few friends, I half-closed my eyes. I felt my consciousness sinking, pulling me away from reality as if someone were dragging me down from beneath a lake.

Ah. Is this why people of the past called drowsiness a demon? It’s actually our fault for pushing ourselves this far, but I felt a little sorry for drowsiness, which was unfairly labeled a demon.

The repetitive engine sound of the snowmobile became dull, and the stiffness I felt in my overworked back and neck disappeared.

The only sensation that remained was in my hands gripping the steering wheel. I moved forward relying only on the unstable vibration and movement of the steering wheel.

Just until we reach the pillar, just this once I’ll push myself like this, and I won’t do such dangerous things again.

I thought that subconsciously—but was this the price for being careless in an unknown city?

The time for me to wake from my light sleep came much faster and more suddenly than I expected.

—CRASH!

“Whoa!”

“Yip!”

Alexander collided with something. There was a loud noise and the vehicle shook violently. Puppy, whom I had trusted, only made a pitiful yelp after the collision.

I reflexively turned the steering wheel toward me and sat up. What was that? What did we hit?

During my half-sleep, the pillar had gotten much closer than I thought, but it was still ahead of us.

And the fact that I could see the pillar straight ahead meant we hadn’t hit a car or building.

“What is it? What did we hit?”

I staggered out of Alexander.

Surely I didn’t hit a person? No, that can’t be. The robot explicitly said there were no living people in this city.

Then what was it? With my heart pounding, I went to the front of Alexander.

And there—

“A robot…?”

—A small cylindrical robot about half my height was pathetically rolling on the ground.

“Why was a robot in the middle of the road…?”

The robot’s surface was frozen solid. It meant it had been standing in this place for quite some time.

Would there be any reason to place such a small robot alone on a straight road?

Thinking it was strange, I looked around.

“…What is this?”

I couldn’t help but be surprised when I looked around. The scenery of the road had changed so much while I was briefly asleep.

The city that had been consistently bright was completely dark in this area. No lights were on in the buildings or street lamps.

Unlike other areas of the city, this place felt desolate—and there were numerous robots standing frozen.

After setting the fallen robot upright, I slowly walked around the street, trying to understand why robots that hadn’t been visible until now were gathered here.

“A park…?”

The robots, large and small, stood on the streets and roads without any apparent pattern, but they were all facing one direction.

Following the direction the robots had been looking at until the end, I discovered a park not far away.

Instead of real trees, the park had trees made of iron.

And far more robots than trees stood frozen there.

What… is this place?