Ch.5757. Advice.

# 57.

“Ah… it’s getting cold.”

“Should we go back to the car?”

“Let’s do that.”

Lying on the chair and basking in the warm sunlight had been incredibly blissful.

But like all human happiness, after a few hours, clouds rolled in from somewhere and obscured it all away.

I had thought we might enjoy clear skies for the entire day, but I could only sigh as I watched the sun being devoured by thick clouds.

“At least our clothes are dry, so that’s fortunate.”

Wet clothes are dangerous. If you let your guard down thinking you’re fine because you’re wearing thick clothing, your body temperature can drop suddenly, leaving you fighting for your life.

I had left the blanket unwashed just in case, but even for someone like me who’s grown accustomed to the cold, it would be difficult to endure with just thin clothes and a blanket.

…In that sense, it was definitely lucky that the sun stayed out until my clothes dried.

When misfortune and fortune come simultaneously from the same event, it’s better to just consider it fortunate.

“I’ll clean up the chair and cloth. Could you climb up there and cut down the cable we tied?”

“Sure!”

Positive thinking is important. If I were a negative person who only saw the bad in situations where I could see the good, I would never have days to smile in this place where good things rarely happen and bad things could occur at any moment.

People who accomplish a lot during their lifetime are probably those who objectively understand reality while possessing exceptional abilities. But those who survive longer are the foolish ones who adapt quickly to their circumstances and can still smile even when things get a little depressing.

So today too, thinking that it’s best to focus on the positive, I cleaned up our surroundings with gratitude for everything that had allowed us to rest comfortably for those few hours.

It was a simple act born from the ordinary desire not to leave a mess in the place that had given us rest.

“I guess this is good enough?”

“What about the scorch marks on the ground?”

“That… should we pretend we didn’t see them?”

“Hey now.”

Well─ I can’t restore the scorch marks from the campfire to their original state.

But I think it’s okay to leave this much as evidence that I existed here.

“Oh. The bridge has collapsed.”

“If we take a wide detour to the right, there’s a temporary bridge. We can go that way.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I found this information through blood and sweat… I mean, oil! It’s definitely reliable!”

“You’re not a robot that runs on oil.”

“Oh come on, it’s just a figure of speech!”

I follow the Robot’s guidance as we move forward. Thanks to the path the Robot found while Puppy and I were sheltering from the rain and preparing to rest, we were able to get closer to the Tower without getting lost in this complex place.

I don’t know what happened—or if it was simply the passage of time—but there were surprisingly many collapsed bridges and paths blocked by building debris. If we had come without any information, we would have wasted a lot of time and fuel.

“Dead end here, dead end there… I would have gotten lost a lot without you. It wasn’t for nothing that you came back after a day. Thank you.”

“Ahem, this is basic stuff for an advanced robot like me!”

Both time and fuel are precious resources. I honestly praised the Robot for helping us conserve them.

It was quite amusing to see the Robot, securely tied down in the cargo area, wiggling with pride at the compliment.

“It’s neat yet complex. This definitely was a town where people lived.”

“Only humans can simultaneously display both orderliness and spontaneity.”

“Really? From what I’ve seen, robot language seems pretty spontaneous too. All those shapes and lines going this way and that.”

“That’s an incredibly orderly and beautiful language. Even robots that can’t express emotions can convey their feelings through…”

Several days later, we arrived at an abandoned city.

After passing through endless identical buildings of unknown purpose, half-constructed structures, and roads lined with various generators, we reached a city that looked strangely familiar.

Each building was large, and they were all intricately connected in a way that felt so familiar it gave me an odd sense of comfort.

“It looks like the city I wandered around before.”

“Before?”

“Yeah. The city I was in before I met you… Come to think of it, that was quite a while ago.”

Because of the repetitive cycle of sleeping and driving, my sense of time had dulled, and I stopped counting days. But judging by the length of my hair and the reduced amount of food, I could tell that more than a month had passed since we started climbing the Tower.

If I add the time spent in the city right below the Tower and the time in the snowfield and factory… it must have been about two or three months since I left the city where I found the Drone.

Time really flies. If nothing special had happened during that time, my sense of time would be even more messed up than it is now.

“But it’s strange. The city feels old overall. I thought it would be more stylish and sophisticated than other cities since it’s up on the Tower.”

The city had many buildings, but they lacked harmony. It felt like everything had been built in a hurry. It was in stark contrast to the city below the Tower where I met the Robot.

“There are many collapsed houses, and holes in the ground… I wonder if there was some kind of battle here.”

I carefully navigate through the disorderly streets. Old houses and collapsed buildings kept blocking our path. To put it bluntly, it felt like a poor neighborhood.

The entire town had a slum-like feeling. It wasn’t as chaotic as the slum where I had left graffiti before, but the distinctive atmosphere of a slum permeated the entire city.

This came as a shock to me, as I had naturally assumed that living conditions would improve the higher we went, the closer we got to Paradise.

“Maybe this is where people who couldn’t go straight to Paradise lived?”

“That’s possible. People with wealth probably took elevators straight to Paradise. Perhaps those who tried to reach Paradise on their own but gave up for some reason settled here.”

“Hoping that someday the gates of Paradise would open?”

“Exactly.”

A city built by those not chosen for Paradise. The firmly closed door of the Tower visible from here must have been both hope and despair for the people.

People who lived and died in despair without even knowing Paradise existed.

And people who knew Paradise existed, came right up to it, but couldn’t enter due to circumstances and could only look at it.

I won’t compare which situation is more desperate—that’s not my intention. Even with good intentions, it could end up belittling the lives of those who died. How can there be “more” or “less” in the emotions and pain each person feels?

Instead, I simply put my hands together in mourning. That’s the minimum—and maximum—respect that the living can offer to the dead.

“Anyway, how do we open that door?”

“How about blowing it up with the explosives we have?”

“Don’t say such scary things… The pillars might collapse or something might fall from above and crush us to death.”

As expected, there was no one in the city. But the emptiness felt different from other cities—it seemed like people had disappeared a long time ago.

“I guess we’ll have to look around until we find a way.”

I sat down on a creaky chair. The space that was probably once a home was completely empty, without a single piece of common furniture. I couldn’t tell if no one had lived here or if someone had cleaned it out, but it felt quite desolate.

[Hey Mori. How did you live before?]

A message arrived then. Is it asking about me before, like right before I met the Drone?

…No, we’ve talked about my life in this world plenty of times already. It’s probably asking about when I was a boy.

“How did I live… well, I think I lived pretty normally except that I didn’t go outside much. As I’ve told you several times, there’s really nothing special about my past.”

Just like how I now repeat the cycle of driving and sleeping, my past self also repeated days of sleeping, gaming, and reading books at home.

“I lived with my parents so I didn’t have to do anything special, and I was too young and inexperienced to have a job.”

The life of an ordinary boy. But thinking about it now when I’m busy just surviving day to day, it seems incredibly special—and nostalgic.

I closed my eyes and recalled the past. The precious past that I can’t return to, and knowing I can’t return makes me cling to it even more.

“Ah. If I had a way to go back to the past now, I would have gone out to create memories with my family instead of just staying in my room, even if it was a bit difficult. I would have looked for more fulfilling and satisfying hobbies, not just games for momentary pleasure.”

I lean against the windowless frame and exhale black smoke. The small tears forming in my eyes are just because of the strong smoke.

“So I hope you all live today without regrets. If you have someone you love, express it through words and actions when you can. If there’s something you want to do, it’s not bad to try it. If you’re too accustomed to the same life, it’s not bad to reflect on what you used to enjoy.”

When I was young, I found advice about life really boring. With so many things to do and enjoy right now, I didn’t understand why I needed to hear such talk.

But now I understand. All that advice came from people thinking of their own past with lingering regrets, hoping their loved ones wouldn’t end up the same way.

Why didn’t I understand back then? I looked up at the sky. Night was falling a little earlier than usual.