Ch.5050. Animal.

50. Animal.

Numerous documents about ‘mutation’ and ‘modification.’ Water that was unusual in many ways. Chunks of meat submerged in spaces filled with that water.

I crouched in front of the thick glass and examined the red mass carefully. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, but the mass seemed to be moving slightly.

“Mutation… and modification.”

Words I’d vaguely seen in the scattered documents kept circling in my head. I wondered what creature this mass in front of me had come from.

“…Surely it’s not human?”

“No matter what, it can’t be human, right?”

Muttering that I should have read those documents more carefully earlier, I shifted my gaze to the corridor.

The corridor, with its white floor and ceiling that seemed out of place underground, was long and complex like a maze.

Buzz, buzz. I frowned at the unpleasant sound coming from somewhere and moved forward one step at a time.

The lights attached to the ceiling had lost their glow, but I didn’t need to turn on my flashlight. The cold water in the glass walls—let’s call them tanks—illuminated the corridor.

“Wow, this is really… disgustingly formed.”

Each tank contained a different mass. And the deeper I went, the larger the masses became, taking on specific forms.

Simple masses developed bones and organs including eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was because the water in the tanks was circulating, but it was quite eerie how the lifeless eyes and organs moved around, sometimes seeming to look at me.

I moved on as if escaping from their gaze. The masses, which had started the size of my fist, grew larger with each step I took, reminiscent of those evolution diagrams showing monkeys evolving into humans.

“But I still can’t tell what animal it is. Pig? Cow? Or sheep? It looks like a mix of several animals I know, so I can’t really tell.”

The unstable mass had become a four-legged beast. It was deeply bizarre to see identical beasts just rolling their eyes around in the water.

“It seems this facility was used to cultivate these beasts. I don’t know how or what technology they used…”

Humans became the rulers of Earth through their remarkable ambition and technological prowess. Even environmental variables, once called the wrath of God, could now be somewhat controlled and managed with our technology.

However, even humanity with all its excellence couldn’t escape the limitations of life. While we found some answers to physical limitations by creating artificial organs and developing brain transplant technology, we fundamentally couldn’t discover how to create new life or achieve immortality beyond the lifespan of the brain.

…At least not in the time I lived.

“I guess I’m still a person from the old days after all.”

Before me now exists life created by humans.

Though it has a strange appearance with skeletal features and characteristics mixed from various animals, it’s precisely this appearance that confirms it was artificially created.

“Does this animal have consciousness? If it does, is it aware that it’s an artificially created life form?”

If what’s in here is merely a shell that can only blink its eyes and move its body.

Can we truly say that humanity has overcome the limitations of life?

And if this animal has emotions and free will like real animals or humans, allowing it to understand its situation.

What would it think upon waking up trapped in a tank, seeing what it has become?

Humans possess reason that distinguishes them from animals. Because of this reason, humans attach subjective and abstract sentiments to mere existence, accepting phenomena and feeling emotions.

The fact that I have various thoughts looking at the beast trapped in this tank is ultimately because I’m human.

However, that doesn’t mean I think my life is more precious or important than this animal’s.

All life is equal, given only once, and therefore deserves respect.

But what on earth did humanity of this era do?

—Whirring.

“Huh?”

The beast, which had been just a mass, grew into a magnificent creature with fluffy fur as time passed.

I was fascinated by its appearance and lost in thought for quite some time in front of the glass.

Suddenly, with a mechanical sound, a crack appeared inside the tank, and a metallic hand emerged.

“Where are you taking it?”

The hand grabbed the large animal and took it somewhere, and not long after, it placed an animal without fur yet in the empty tank.

Confused, I asked the hand where it was taking the animal, but of course, there was no answer.

“Mori. Sound signals are being transmitted from over there.”

“Really? Then take me to where the sound is coming from. I want to see what they’re doing.”

“Understood!”

The hand disappeared as soon as it placed the less developed animal in the tank.

It was both fascinating and a bit scary how the crack that had appeared in the wall vanished without a trace, but finding out where the animal had been taken was the priority now.

“By the way… the facility is still functioning properly.”

Since there are supposedly no living people left in this city, the facility must be maintaining itself autonomously.

Still, I thought there might be someone left to manage it.

I chuckled, thinking how stupid that idea was.

“It’s definitely on the other side of this door.”

“Huff… huff… they really built this place in a complicated way.”

How long had I been running after the quickly moving Robot?

Breathing heavily with exhaustion, I found myself in front of a door. It looked exactly like the door I had opened before entering the corridor.

“Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have a lock.”

“That’s a relief at least. A relief…”

The fortunate thing was that this time there was no lock.

Zing, just like at the pharmacy, the door opened automatically as I approached it.

Even though this was once an ordinary part of daily life, it was so rare in this world that I couldn’t help but flinch in surprise.

“…What is this?”

The space I entered presented such an awkward scene that I couldn’t help but ask what it was.

Blindingly bright lights, soil covering the entire floor. Trees rooted in that soil and animals moving between them.

My eyes couldn’t help but widen at the sight that seemed to capture nature before human intervention.

“Real soil and… real trees. My goodness.”

Traces of nature I thought had completely disappeared. I tightly gripped the soft soil in my hand and hugged the solid tree trunk. It conveyed sensations that artificial objects could never imitate.

“People born in this world would probably find this scenery strange, wouldn’t they?”

People born in the concrete and asphalt Ark wouldn’t have had the opportunity to see and touch all of this.

Of course, there would have been soil in places like flowerbeds or where street trees were planted, but that’s not the same as natural scenery.

“Ahaha.”

Perhaps because it had been so long since I’d seen a world that could be called alive, I felt good.

Come to think of it, even in the era I lived in, places with clean soil and trees were rare, and I hadn’t seen many myself.

Though I found it strange, I was simply happy and rolled around on the ground for quite some time.

“So this is what they call nature. It’s in the records, but this is the first time I’m seeing it directly through this camera.”

“Woof!”

Robot and Puppy also seemed to find it unfamiliar yet enjoyable as they wandered around, which made me laugh even more.

“But… what is that animal really? It moves, but it doesn’t feel alive at all.”

The animals here with the soil and trees looked exactly like the ones in the tanks earlier.

It seems they create animals through some technology in the tanks, then bring the completed animals here to raise them.

But why are they raising animals, and where do the raised animals go?

“Hello.”

I approached an animal and waved my hand. Despite my sudden appearance and waving right in front of it, there was no reaction.

“…It really is a strange animal.”

It rolled its eyes to look at me, but there was absolutely no other movement.

What was it thinking, or was it thinking at all?

Curious, I continued to follow and observe the animal.

“Are you really eating because you’re hungry?”

The animal wandered around this space, occasionally lowering its head to put grown grass in its mouth, chewing and swallowing.

Eating when hungry is natural behavior for living beings, but somehow the animal’s actions didn’t seem natural.

“…It really just feels like it’s merely alive.”

Its head was small but its body was excessively swollen, and the amount it ate was ridiculously small compared to its body size.

Moreover, it was harmless enough to humans that it showed no reaction to a stranger appearing right in front of it.

“Why did the people here create you?”

I had a vague idea, but I didn’t want to know.