Ch.7979. Festival.

“First of all, yes! Since we have a special guest, we should hold a festival!”

“A festival?”

“It’s a cultural practice from the past. In times and places like these, having more people to live with was always a good thing.”

I wondered if it was like a welcoming ceremony for new residents.

The people who lived here must have been those with comfortable lives, so holding such festivals wouldn’t be strange.

I’m not a resident and just a traveler who will leave soon, but… a festival, huh.

“If it’s a festival, will there be food?”

“Of course! I can’t say it’ll be abundant, but we have some preserved food!”

Food that’s still remaining.

My eyes sparkled at the news, as I’d been feeling anxious about my dwindling food supplies lately.

Is it because this city, unlike others, was abandoned by choice rather than necessity?

With so many functioning buildings and robots, I felt excited at the possibility of having a proper meal for the first time in a long while.

“However, since it’s been a while since we’ve held a festival, it will take some time to prepare. Is that alright?”

“As long as there’s food, I don’t mind. I’m not in any rush.”

“Good, good! Then rest here in the city and recover from your fatigue. As for that request from that foolish robot… well, we can address that after the festival.”

“…You seem to know what that robot wants to ask me?”

“In a small community like this, it’s harder not to know about each other, especially for beings like us who can’t hide our true feelings.”

“Then can you tell me what that request is? When I asked, it just said it couldn’t tell me now.”

“I’m afraid I must decline. Everything has its proper order, doesn’t it? Knowing about it now wouldn’t do either of us any good.”

Robots cannot lie, and they cannot refuse commands as long as they don’t harm humans.

Seeing the robot’s seemingly troubled expression, I nodded, having formed a rough idea of what the big robot might ask.

I could probably dig deeper if I wanted to, but there’s no need to know a truth that might harm all of us prematurely.

“Now then! Everyone, attention! Let’s prepare for a festival after so long!”

The small robot climbed onto the long bench where I was sitting and called out to everyone.

Despite its small size, its voice was so powerful and commanding that it could easily be mistaken for the city’s leader, and cheers erupted immediately.

The robots’ faces, which until just now had shown a mixture of joy and sorrow, bloomed with smiles.

The laughter coming from the robots with their bright expressions was uniform like a chorus, but…

In reality, no happiness was conveyed from it.

It was as if the natural rise and fall of emotions that would exist in humans was completely absent.

I cannot define what constitutes genuine emotion versus learned emotion.

But I could at least tell that the robots weren’t as happy as they appeared to be.

“Hello, Mori. I apologize for the late introduction. My name is Lucy. From today until you leave, I’ll be your guide to this city.”

As the commotion ended and the robots who had gathered in anticipation of the festival returned to their positions one by one, a robot with a familiar face approached me. It was the humanoid robot that had first approached me and offered a handshake.

Among all the robots here, Lucy looked the most human, but paradoxically, her eyes felt the most distant from humanity, emotionless despite her smiling expression.

But well, I couldn’t exactly tell a robot who volunteered to guide me around the unfamiliar city, “You’re creepy, so no thanks.” It’s not like she chose to be born this way.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be staying, but I look forward to your guidance.”

After exchanging brief greetings, I was told that it would take some time to prepare my accommodation, so I decided to explore the city with Lucy in the meantime.

“Even though it’s underground, it’s surprisingly warm. The air is pleasant too.”

“That’s because there’s a system that maintains the city’s comfort.”

This circular city preserved the remnants of a once-brilliant civilization.

Numerous robots performed minute adjustments to maintain the city, both on the ground and in the air, and the streets were filled with machines I had never seen before, emitting light as they operated.

“This pillar is the energy regulation system. It manages all the power generated and consumed in the city, allowing it to function as a city. And over there is the environmental control system. It regulates temperature, humidity, and everything else to maintain a comfortable environment.”

Where Lucy pointed, there was a black, spiral-shaped pillar with a sharp tip. Each time a blue light wrapped around the surface of the pillar and disappeared, the seemingly rigid pillar would expand and contract, looking almost alive.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Rich neighborhoods really are different!”

“Yeah, there are so many amazing things here.”

“If your clothes feel uncomfortable, I can hold them for you.”

“Ah, please do.”

The coat I would never take off outside because of the cold was just heavy and hot in here.

I took off my outer coat and handed it to Lucy.

Lucy draped my coat over her arm, but then, perhaps deciding it was inconvenient to carry, she put it over her shoulders.

Maybe it was the height difference, or the difference in what we wore underneath, but the same coat looked completely different on her than when I wore it.

Even though I knew she was a robot inside, it had been so long since I’d seen a living, moving human form that I found myself staring blankly at Lucy wearing my coat. Suddenly, I felt a sharp gaze from behind me.

“…Why are you looking like that?”

When I turned around, I saw a robot’s face looking quite pouty as it stared at us—or more precisely, at Lucy.

“Mori, just so you know, I’m the robot who has been with you the longest and is closest to you!”

Having been with me for so long, it seemed unhappy seeing me get close to another robot.

A robot feeling jealous of another robot? Seeing it anxiously worried that I might choose Lucy over it made me question whether this was truly an artificially created personality.

In contrast, Lucy maintained an expressionless face despite being openly envied, as if she couldn’t understand such emotions at all, which heightened the contrast between them.

A robot that resembled a human more than anyone else but thought like a machine, and a robot that looked most mechanical but thought most like a human.

Finding the situation quite amusing, I just gave a meaningful smile and held my tongue.

Soon the shocked robot began to whine, asking me not to abandon it and demanding my attention, but…

Whether because I had grown accustomed to robots, or because I felt drawn to a human-like being even if rational communication was impossible…

At the moment, I was more interested in Lucy than the robot.

* * *

I continued following Lucy, observing the landscape of this city abandoned by humans.

The sight of numerous robots performing their roles was spectacular and seemed lively, but…

At the same time, it emitted an unmistakable sense of dissonance that I couldn’t ignore no matter how hard I tried.

“How long has it been since humans disappeared from this city?”

“It’s been nearly 10 years.”

Ten years. Not a short time by any measure, yet time in this city had stood still.

Even after human hands had completely disappeared, the remaining robots continued to repeatedly perform the instructions left by humans.

All the windows of the buildings on the streets were transparent, and the shops visible through them looked ready to receive customers at any moment.

And there were robots circling the same areas cleaning dust and debris from the floor, or robots reaching into trash cans that were obviously clean since no one used them.

In stark contrast to their smiling faces and displays of human-like emotions whenever they saw me, their mechanical repetition of maintenance tasks created a strange harmony that didn’t quite mesh together.

“I wonder what emotions those robots feel as they repeat meaningless tasks?”

Their behavior looked so unnatural that even their smiles began to seem alien. Are these robots truly living happily in this city?

Robots clearly have emotions. They possess the intelligence to perceive the world around them and can objectively assess their own state.

In other words, robots, like humans, experience deficiency and fulfillment. The existence of deficiency and fulfillment implies the existence of unhappiness and happiness.

Humans constantly move between deficiency and boredom, experiencing momentary happiness when deficiency is satisfied.

From that perspective, can robots find happiness in what they’re doing now?

It must be difficult to feel happiness while repeatedly performing tasks without autonomous will, tasks that have no meaning and no one to appreciate them.

Of course, there’s a possibility that through artificial manipulation, they could be designed to feel eternal happiness even in repetitive actions.

But if such technology existed, humans who constantly suffer throughout their lives would also enjoy eternal happiness through the chips implanted in their heads. Yet the world I’ve seen so far could hardly be described as one filled with perpetually happy humans.

…Perhaps everyone here is living in endless suffering, I thought.