Ch.8585. Awkwardness.

85.

The container designed to hold only white pills was extremely small. At most, it was about the size of a finger joint, and made of a material that wasn’t particularly heavy—it was as light as it appeared. So light that when held, you could barely feel its presence in your hand.

“…Hmm.”

But that was only from an objective perspective. Strangely, I felt the pill in my hand was heavy. Despite knowing the container was light, from the moment the Robot handed me the pill until now as I left the store, my hand felt weighed down. It felt similar to holding a gun.

“Is this the weight of conscience?”

After learning about the Robot who made the pill and what would happen when I took it, I unconsciously assigned an invisible value to the container. It was fascinating how something physically light could feel heavy just because of how I thought about it. Perhaps, like the substance in the park, the world is more a collection of subjective consciousness than objective truth.

“…Ah. This isn’t the time to be lost in thought.”

After rolling the container in my palm for quite some time, absorbed in the strange sensation of its weight, I suddenly noticed the lighting overhead had dimmed. Goodness, when did it get so late?

Even in the Underground City where the sun wasn’t visible, day and night still existed. At certain times, tiny drones—almost invisible to the naked eye—would fly up one by one, emitting light to brighten the city. After some time, when their power ran low, they would descend to the ground to recharge.

In this cycle, there was a time when all drones were in the sky, and a time when all were on the ground. The people living here called these periods day and night respectively. And now it was evening, when the drones were returning to the ground.

Of course, even at night there was minimal lighting from streetlamps, so it wasn’t dangerous, but since all the Robots I was friendly with said they returned home in the evening, I wanted to get back on time too.

“Which way was it again? I think it was that direction.”

I put the container I’d been rolling in my palm into my pants pocket and picked up the paper bag firmly, starting down the alley. Unlike the haphazardly built lower city, even the alleys here had consistent width, and you could easily see where each path led, so there was no chance of getting lost.

Good. At this rate, I could get home before the Robots arrived. Thinking it’s better to wait than to be waited for, I quickened my somewhat sluggish pace, perhaps due to the heavy pocket.

* *

“Ugh. My arms are numb. When I only had clothes, it wasn’t this bad. Why is everyone being so generous?”

At the outskirts of the city, I grumbled quietly while loading a heap of packages onto Alexander, which I had parked next to the elevator. I wasn’t really complaining because I disliked it, but rather lamenting about my arms that had gone beyond aching to trembling on their own.

Tomorrow morning when I wake up, my arms will probably be stiff. Sighing deeply at this predictable future, I examined the bags piled high in the cargo area.

“Clothes, tools, dolls… Wow, there are even canned goods. And what’s this, batteries? Why did they include children’s toys?”

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Whether Robots had some communication method I wasn’t aware of, at every alley I visited, Robots would emerge from their shops, insisting I take bags full of items I might need, then dash away at lightning speed. They moved so quickly I didn’t even have the chance to say I couldn’t carry any more because it was too heavy.

Fortunately, I only passed about five shops while wandering the alleys. If there had been more, I surely would have collapsed under the weight.

“…Looks like things are winding down.”

After somehow organizing the luggage with my suddenly heavy arms, I crouched by the cargo area to rest my tired body and looked back at the city. The city that had been perfectly normal until just a while ago had completely transformed. The change was so dramatic it felt like a different era compared to when I first arrived.

“Really, how can the atmosphere change this drastically?”

Blue lights, rippling waves, endless stretches of sand.

It went beyond just a lively atmosphere in preparation for a festival—it felt like I had entered an entirely different city, a completely different world. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the city’s transformation.

What I was seeing was merely projections reflected on buildings and roads, but just like the lodging and the park, the images were so detailed and enhanced with such advanced technology that it felt like I was standing right at the beach.

“Just a moment ago, this was an ordinary concrete jungle.”

I knew they activated the equipment for a final check before nightfall to ensure everything was working properly. But for the city to transform so completely in the few minutes it took me to leave and organize my luggage—even knowing what was happening, I couldn’t help but be surprised.

“But why the ocean, of all things? The world is always winter, and the city is always in darkness—perhaps they dreamed of the opposite world.”

A festival and the ocean. It’s a fitting combination, though the ocean isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of festivals. But the Robots here decorated with ocean imagery as if it were the most natural thing, explaining that it had been this way since the city was first built.

Well, all living beings long for what they don’t have. It’s not strange that people on The Ark, who ironically never see the ocean despite living on a ship, would dream of bright beaches.

“…I never thought my dream would come true like this.”

And… I too had longed for the ocean since childhood. With my weak body, even leaving the city where I lived was a struggle, so I had to give up that dream. I never imagined it would come true like this. Even if what I was seeing was closer to virtual reality or a game, I didn’t want to deny that what lay before me was a beach.

“How refreshing.”

A cool breeze blew from somewhere. Neither cold nor warm, but pleasantly moderate, it clearly carried the scent of the ocean. Though I had never been to the sea in my life, I could tell that this breeze, accompanied by the sound of waves, came from a distant ocean.

The somewhat irregular breeze made my hair flutter. Usually, I kept it tucked inside my thick coat, but with nothing to secure it now, it moved freely with the wind, even slapping against my face.

Stay still. It wasn’t painful, but the ticklish, annoying sensation made me try to tuck my hair inside my necklace cape, but the space was narrower than expected. Looking around for a hat or something to tie it with, I realized there was nothing, so I clumsily tied it by hand, vaguely recalling how my parents used to do it.

“This feels awkward, so awkward.”

Truly. Me tying my hair. The city suddenly becoming a beach. Me talking to myself like this. Everything felt incredibly awkward.

…Well, the first two might be unusual, but talking to myself had been a normal part of my daily life until I met the drone, so why did it feel strange now?

“It’s all because of you guys.”

This time genuinely grumbling, I held the drone and Controller that were sleeping in a corner of the cargo area for the first time in a while.

“Still asleep. How long are you going to sleep?”

Just as the connection had been sudden, it had been suddenly cut off. That’s all there was to it.

Since learning that the friends I talked to through the drone weren’t living in the same time period as me, since the drone stopped working, I’d been thinking that way. But accepting a sudden farewell was still not easy.

I put the Controller, which I had missed, on my wrist and pressed the familiar button. Meanwhile, I wiped the surface of the drone, which had become dirty with snow or dust, hoping it would work as usual.

But the Controller only repeated a mechanical voice saying it couldn’t connect, and the drone didn’t even emit light.

“How nice it would be if it were you walking around that street, not Robots.”

In a place where no one else was, I let the wind carry away my solitary sorrow. Like the Robot who longed for freedom, living with an unattainable dream is only painful, but it’s precisely because we know it’s painful yet can’t let go that it becomes a dream.

“It doesn’t have to be meeting in person. Just being able to talk again would be enough…”

But if the friends who talked with me really lived in the distant past… maybe it’s better if the connection is never restored.

Just as every action has a cause and effect, the future and past are connected in a single line. Being able to hear my voice and talk with me would mean they too would experience everything that happened in this world. I couldn’t ask countless people to face destruction just because of my selfishness.

“…I wonder how much time I have left to stay in this city.”

I put down the drone and looked back at the city. As the sky’s lighting decreased, the darkened city had returned to the concrete jungle it was before.

From what I just saw, preparations seemed almost complete, and I thought they might hold the festival as soon as tomorrow.