Ch.4747. Deficiency.

# 47. Deficiency.

In truth, I had vaguely thought before that not just the city I’m in, but people all over the world might have died.

It was part of the negative thoughts that naturally arose from living in such a depressingly bleak environment. But there was too much compelling evidence to dismiss it as mere speculation.

Humanity, which could view the entire world in real-time through satellites in space and reach the opposite side of the earth in less than half a day, would have no reason to abandon a city like this for so long, as I’ve said many times.

Even if civilization had greatly declined due to war or disaster, and various transportation methods including undersea tunnels had been destroyed making physical travel impossible, as long as people existed outside, they would have continuously attempted communication with the outside world, whether for rescue requests or something else.

Yet in all the places I’ve passed through, there wasn’t a single trace of attempts to communicate with the outside world, including broadcasting stations and base stations for emergencies.

However, the world I’ve seen and experienced is truly tiny compared to this vast planet. As a boy who lived during humanity’s golden age, I couldn’t imagine that human civilization that once ruled the entire earth and its population of over billions could have all met their end.

Even if I couldn’t find people in the cities I traveled through, I’ve endured until now by repeating to myself hundreds, thousands of times that someday, someday I would see them.

“The land I’m standing on is The Ark? The city I’ve been walking through since I woke up was all on a ship made by humans? That’s impossible. It can’t be true, how could that be? If they had such technology, they should have first found a way to escape extinction.”

Like a habit, I’ve held onto hope, and though I repeatedly said I wouldn’t hope anymore after despair, I never let go of that hope—and now I heard the cruel truth that it could never be fulfilled.

My legs gave out and I collapsed, muttering in disbelief as I pressed my bare hands against the floor. To think that this place where I stood and everything supporting me were all remnants of humanity.

I unconsciously clenched my fist, trying to hold onto the fading hope within me. All I could feel was the cold snow and hard asphalt that mirrored this world.

…Come to think of it, had I ever seen soil-covered ground here?

I realized I had never touched or walked on soil—a symbol of nature—except for the street trees planted along roads and flowerbeds in front of expensive buildings.

The world was always covered in snow, and when it occasionally melted, I was too distracted by the flowing water to notice this fact.

“Haha…”

A bitter laugh escaped me. I had continuously denied the truth I didn’t want to accept, but my own memories were clear evidence.

I finally had to acknowledge it. The space where I now stood and everywhere I had passed through until now was The Ark—the last creation of humanity before extinction, built for survival.

“Then… what exactly is The Ark these people are talking about?”

I pointed to the damaged message, similar to my broken state. Clearly, living people told me they would build The Ark. Just yesterday, in fact.

“If where I am is The Ark, are they building another one somewhere else? Where and how? They can’t possibly be building a new ark in Paradise.”

The Robot had said Paradise was a prosperous and peaceful place. If so, there would be no need to build another ark. A place cannot truly be called peaceful if people need to flee on an ark, whether from disaster or other people.

Besides, I don’t know how many humans survived, but to sustain human life going forward would require an unimaginably large vessel. This tower isn’t small, but it’s not large enough to construct an ark. Where would they even source materials, and how would they build it?

“The simplest explanation might be a drone error. Since electricity still flows and various machines are operating, it might have mistakenly displayed an old message that was transmitted long ago, confusing it with nearby signals…”

The Robot helped me up from the floor where I had collapsed, saying I would get frostbite if I stayed like this.

Glancing at my hands at those words, I saw they had already swollen red in that short time, with blood dripping from my fingertips, yet I felt no pain at all.

Pain is a signal of life. The fact that I couldn’t feel pain even as my hands deteriorated to this state meant I was experiencing a life crisis more severe than ever before—through my mind rather than my body.

“Incorrectly received message…?”

I numbly repeated the Robot’s words. It’s not an impossible explanation, and it’s plausible. It’s possible that the drone, which sometimes appears alive, brought an incorrect message and deleted it after belatedly checking it.

But isn’t that too convenient an interpretation? In the past, I would have believed such convenient words as truth and moved forward.

But now I was facing reality more coldly than ever before. I realized that what I had thought was the worst possibility was actually closer to the truth.

“A peaceful and abundant world with warm weather.”

“People of various nationalities speaking different languages.”

“They found everything in this world unfamiliar, and marveled at the technology as if seeing something from the distant future.”

All the conversations and messages I had exchanged through the drone came back to me one by one.

I remembered the joke I used to make: “It seems like we’re living in completely different worlds.”

“Even so… the people watching my videos couldn’t possibly be from the past, and I couldn’t be on The Ark they started building…right?”

Learning one truth resolved many questions I had, but conversely, my mind became more complicated, making it impossible to know whom to trust, including myself.

Several days have passed since then. The city below was completely hidden by the tower. All I could see was snow and clusters of buildings with unknown purposes.

“I thought there would be a path leading all the way to the top when viewed from below, but surprisingly that’s not the case.”

“Uphill paths are unstable for building structures or cities in many ways.”

The tower, which I thought would have an uphill path extending all the way to the top like a pyramid, was surprisingly structured in layers like a cake.

After circling halfway around the tower, the uphill path ended, and from there a wide flat area stretched out with another tower visible in the distance for ascending higher.

“I guess we should… head straight toward where we can see the pillars?”

“That would seem most efficient, wouldn’t it?”

“Seems like you don’t know much about this place either.”

“Yes. I was made down below after all. There’s surprisingly little I can do after leaving the city I was managing.”

“I see…”

The flat area was strange. The land was vast, but it felt like buildings had been haphazardly constructed as needed.

Colorless buildings with unknown purposes were crammed together, and there were spaces made entirely of countless pipes—it didn’t feel like a place where humans could live in many ways.

[It looks dangerous up there. Wouldn’t it be better to wear a hat?]

“I don’t know if by ‘up there’ you mean above this building or the city above… but either way, if something falls from that height, wouldn’t I die instantly whether I’m wearing a hat or not?”

Looking up, unlike the relatively stable area below, I could only see a chaotic landscape. Swaying steel frames at the edges of buildings, platforms that looked like they could collapse at any moment.

They probably started building the tower to escape the cold and various crises, but in the end, they ran out of time and resources.

“Still, when small metal plates or screws fall, having a hat significantly reduces your chance of injury.”

“Hmm… that’s true. A regular hat wouldn’t help much though, so I’d need to find something sturdy like a helmet, but I have no idea where to find one.”

I looked around. There was a collapsed transmission tower, and pillars and destroyed buildings that seemed to have fallen and rolled down from above. It suddenly occurred to me that this place might not be so stable either, given how chaotic everything was above.

“Ah. We’re out of fuel.”

Alexander suddenly stopped as we were looking for a way across what looked like a crevasse in the path, possibly created to channel melted snow.

I got out of the vehicle, took one of the several oil cans from the trunk, poured the remaining contents into the fuel tank, and put the empty can back in the trunk.

“Not much oil left either. We had so much at the beginning…”

In this world, the only things that come on their own are drowsiness and cold. Everything else gradually wears out, gets consumed, and disappears.

The oil and food that were once so plentiful are now running low, making my already complicated mind ache even more.

“If we run out of oil, we won’t be able to go anywhere.”

Maybe it would be better to stop heading upward for now and look for useful things.

“How about checking out that building on the hill over there? It’s hard to see clearly from this distance, but it looks like a factory where they made something.”

“A factory…”

The factory standing tall among numerous buildings was so large that it caught my eye despite being quite far away.

A factory that big must have some oil or something useful left.

I nodded.