Ch.7373. Distortion.

# 73.

When people have a moment in their busy lives, or when they’re about to fall asleep after a tiring day and open a video platform to watch something entertaining, they often see Mori’s broadcast.

This mysterious broadcast that appears and disappears at the same spot every day has become part of daily life for many people living in the 21st century. The world, once thrown into confusion by the videos, has somewhat returned to its original state.

Morning roads are lined with cars and public transportation carrying office workers to work.

Busy downtown areas at lunchtime are, as always, filled with people who have come out for their own reasons.

Evening streets shine brighter than the stars above, illuminated by people preparing for tomorrow under bright lights.

Seen from afar, it’s such a peaceful, ordinary daily life that it’s hard to believe the world is heading toward destruction.

But looking closely at the streets, you can see that daily life has changed somewhat from before—doomsday theorists handing out suspicious flyers in deserted streets, or believers standing at crosswalks loudly proclaiming salvation from the end times.

“God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

There’s still too much time left to truly feel the end of the world.

Since people wouldn’t have known about the end until the moment of death if not for Mori’s videos, few directly agree with those who speak as if doomsday could come at any moment.

But as evident from the fact that no one steps forward to stop them, the seed of the end times has already been planted in people’s hearts—a seed made of snow and death, like the future landscape shown by a young girl.

“Mom, is the world really going to end?”

“It might, sweetheart. But it’s too early to worry about that now. And there’s nothing we can do even if we worry. So look ahead, not at your inner fears.”

Unlike animals, humans have superior intelligence that allows them to be aware of death from a young age, which is why they fear it. The same goes for the end of the world.

But since humans cannot live by merely fearing an end that might come at any time, many people in the world have turned their eyes away. Instead of focusing on cold snow and corpses, they try to feel the warmth of the sun right in front of them and the warmth of many people.

Some might criticize this attitude as foolish, saying people are pursuing trivial happiness instead of facing problems they can’t solve themselves.

But it’s because of people who never lose hope and pursue small happinesses regardless of the situation that the world can remain intact.

———However, all this peace was nothing but a sandcastle built on people’s illusions.

A sandcastle maintained by the subconscious belief that the time Mori lives in is unimaginably far from their own time, and therefore nothing will happen to the world around them no matter how they live.

What if Mori’s videos had shown their homes in ruins, or people who looked exactly like their family members rolling on the ground?

Would they still be able to live peacefully, pursuing small everyday happinesses?

The Ark, unfamiliar cities, robots that speak and think like humans—even if people accept the world in Mori’s videos as “reality,” it appears to be such a distant future that it’s difficult to accept as “our reality,” which helps cover up people’s anxiety.

Everything that happens in this world has cause and effect.

When something seems to happen suddenly, it’s only because we don’t know the cause and effect behind it.

Even a single machine we use without thinking has countless causes and effects intertwined with it.

It’s not just about machines being made in factories and then purchased; the design of the machine and even the machines used to extract raw materials are part of this causal chain.

The time that has passed since humanity first existed on this earth is connected in one line. While battles and wars recorded in history books may seem fragmented, the future includes the past, just as today’s world exists because of all those events.

[Looks like they’ve collected big and small incidents from the past here.]

And then, the history of the world that everyone was curious about—the blueprint of human civilization that included the past and future—was revealed through Mori’s broadcast.

The photos, which seemed to have been deliberately collected by someone, answered many of the questions people had about Mori’s broadcasts.

When exactly did humanity meet its end, and what happened leading up to it? What could have possibly caused the collapse of such a robust human civilization?

It’s impossible to know if the wars and numerous incidents in the photos were the direct cause of the end.

But they were significant enough events that anyone could see they had no small connection to the end.

And even if they weren’t heavily involved in the end times, they were accidents of such scale and damage that they absolutely needed to be prevented.

[These are all photos of wars and disasters. What unique taste.]

Black and white photos of World War I, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Haiti earthquake and tsunami, and more.

All the photos that brought great damage to humanity had the year of the incident written on them.

Through this, people of the 21st century came to know in advance about future wars and natural disasters.

Wars and disasters never seen before, photos of collapsed cities. Among them were wars that were uncomfortably close.

“…This is going to be a big problem.”

Eugene sensed it.

Whether Mori intended it or not, just these few minutes of broadcast would throw the world into great confusion.

As Mori’s broadcasts became routine, fewer people kept the videos on all day.

But it was still the only place to get information about the future, and it had a unique sensibility not found in 21st century broadcasts, so many people still watched Mori’s broadcasts despite them being mostly about snow and complaints.

While it’s impossible to directly confirm the number of viewers, at least tens or hundreds of thousands of people have seen humanity’s future.

“This is bad. News articles are already being published.”

“‘A major war will break out in 2029. Is it World War III?’ Wow, that was fast.”

Just as time is fair to everyone, the same future was shown fairly to the many people watching the broadcast, making it impossible to control the information.

As soon as Mori’s drone captured the future on camera, many people began spreading what they saw through various channels, saying humanity’s future was dark.

“What should we do? Society will surely fall into chaos. Should we try saying it’s fake information… even now?”

“Maybe in the early days, but at this point, no one would believe such a statement.”

By now, people who believe Mori’s broadcasts are fabricated or not from the future are a minority, like vaccine deniers who can’t trust publicly available information.

It’s too late to claim that Mori’s broadcast is a staged show like “The Truman Show” and that citizens can rest assured—that would only increase anxiety.

“All-out war between superpowers and the collapse of alliances. Presidential assassination using drones, large-scale war, and disasters—all the sensational material journalists love is here.”

The speed of transmission is the same as the speed of light. News articles hastily uploaded by journalists who discovered sensational material spread throughout the world.

Predicting events that haven’t happened yet is nearly impossible, but inferring the process from events that have already occurred is relatively simple and comparatively accurate.

Curious people who smell a story gather one by one. Rumors created this way spread through sound. People face war and disaster and realize that the end, which they thought had nothing to do with them, has always been nearby.

‘Breaking news: Information suggests a strong earthquake measuring 8.0 will occur 7 years from now…’

‘In 2052, information about a major war breaking out centered on the United States has caused confusion among many citizens. Authorities…’

Breaking news after breaking news. News from around the world was filled with stories of the future. Many people looked for the causes of future events and condemned things that hadn’t happened yet.

People who had been turning a blind eye, saying it wasn’t their business, began to face the end more actively and desperately sought ways to escape the coming disasters.

“The only thing I’m worried about now is this: there’s absolutely no way to know if this is a good sign or a bad one.”

The history of humanity is also a history of war. As all future wars and disasters are revealed, the future will naturally change as well.

Wars that were going to happen won’t happen, and wars that weren’t going to happen originally will newly occur.

Mori looked at the history full of wars and said, “If you’re in the past, please don’t fight each other.”

But ironically, by learning about future wars, humanity has come to trust each other even less.

“Even if the future changes this way, what’s changed is just the process of approaching the end. We need to find a more definite way to escape the end…”

Eugene and the other researchers stared at the large screen.

A day had passed since Mori filmed past and future events.

But Mori’s broadcast was still frozen on the scene where Mori collapsed in shock after seeing photos of herself taken in the past.

Faced with an endlessly turning circle, all people could do was pray.