Ch.9292. Space Spaceport.

After returning to my daily routine following a brief escape that felt both long and short, I found myself back in the familiar landscape.

The vast snowfield stretched before me, filled with nothing but endless snow and abandoned buildings.

It was truly a familiar sight that made me sigh involuntarily.

“…Ugh. Why is it cold even inside?”

While my mind had grown accustomed to this environment, my body seemed to find the cold unfamiliar after just a few days away.

I had finally found a somewhat livable place, but now my body kept shivering as if scolding me for crawling back to this hell of my own accord.

“Really, I was only there for a few days.”

I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly as I shivered despite zipping up my coat all the way inside Alexander, where I had never once felt cold since our first meeting.

Fortunately, I had the windbreaker from the city. Without it, my teeth would probably be chattering non-stop.

Why is it that we adapt so quickly to things that make life comfortable, like warmth or soft beds, but find it so difficult to readjust to harsh conditions?

Humans are supposed to be animals that adapt to survive, so shouldn’t we adapt more quickly to harsh environments than comfortable ones?

…Or perhaps my body is warning me not to adapt to an environment unsuitable for human habitation, urging me to flee to a more comfortable place.

“There’s nowhere to go, though.”

Unfortunately, there were no comfortable places left in this world.

This harsh winter, the hazy sky and snow-white ground—this was my home and daily life.

Would things be different if I went to Paradise?

Going to another world beyond reality would certainly change things, but that was truly a last resort. Even in a world like this, I didn’t want to abandon my life that way.

“Sigh. It’s suffocating, so suffocating.”

A world with no future, where even robots that could live nearly forever wish for death.

The end of this increasingly cold and dark world wouldn’t be entirely beautiful.

“After all this passes, will flowers bloom again…?”

Earth has embraced countless life forms for quite a long time, but the time we’ve lived is just a tiny fraction of Earth’s entire existence.

Small life forms appeared in the sea, evolved, and moved onto land… Even those hundreds of millions of years of evolution are merely a fleeting moment to a planet that has lived so long. To the Earth, this cold is nothing more than a natural change that came with the passage of time.

I looked at the vast snowfield, then closed my eyes and imagined the Earth turned white.

Our planet would still be beautiful, like the countless planets floating in the distant sky, though perhaps not quite as striking as the pale blue dot it once was.

How long would the Earth remain frozen like this?

Thousands? Tens of thousands? Millions? Billions of years?

It would take an unimaginably long time for all this snow and ice covering the world to melt and for Earth to return to its original blue state.

But that’s only if we hope the Earth will return to its original state.

There’s also a good chance that Earth will continue moving away from the sun, remaining frozen forever until the star itself disappears, like countless planets in distant galaxies.

If that happens, even if beings similar to humans are born on some distant planet in the far future and observe Earth, they would never know that this was once the land where we lived.

Of course, that’s just one possibility, and it’s so far in the future that I won’t live to see it, so it’s not really something I should worry about.

Nevertheless, as someone who remembers when this planet was bluer and more vibrant than any other star, and who existed alongside the stars and humanity during that time, I couldn’t help feeling preemptive regret.

From Earth’s perspective, we might be nothing more than tiny beings that suddenly appeared and disappeared just as quickly, but to us, Earth was everything.

Even if the world freezes over and becomes uninhabitable, I hope that after a long time passes, the ice will melt and the planet will regain its original blue appearance.

And if beings who come to live on this land again discover traces of our existence from the distant past and remember us, that would be more than I could ask for.

“What is it? Want to come up?”

“Huff, huff.”

Just then, as I was driving Alexander slowly and lost in thought, Puppy scratched at my leg with his front paws. This was something he usually did when he wanted to climb onto my lap. Why was he suddenly doing this when he normally only climbed on my stomach when trying to sleep?

“Are you worried because I look cold?”

“Woof!”

I could feel concern radiating from his metallic body and eyes. It seemed he was bothered by my unusual shivering from the cold.

“Thank you.”

In a world where people can no longer care for other people, having a friend who only looks at me and thinks of me is truly a blessing.

Touched by the pure emotion that transcended our inability to communicate and difference in species, I thanked him and patted his head.

Pleased by my touch, Puppy smiled with his eyes and wagged his tail vigorously, then stood on his hind legs and stretched out his front paws as if asking me to pick him up and place him on my lap.

“But it’s okay. You don’t have to come up.”

However, I had no intention of putting Puppy on my lap right now. Hearing my response, Puppy tilted his head dramatically, as if to say “what nonsense is that when you’re shivering from cold?”

“Sure, having you on my lap would keep me warm… but I can’t stay like that forever. This is something I need to adapt to.”

I didn’t know how much longer we’d need to wander this snowfield before reaching Paradise. The longer we wandered, there would certainly be times when I’d need to go outside of Alexander. If I couldn’t endure this level of cold and relied on others’ kindness, what would become of me?

“Besides, we haven’t seen the sun many times since coming up here. I don’t know if it’s just bad luck or if the season has changed… but what if you run out of battery?”

“Whine…”

Obviously, Puppy’s battery depletes whenever he emits heat.

Fortunately, the battery consumption doesn’t seem too high compared to the heat output, but with solar power being our only charging method in the current situation, we couldn’t waste it carelessly.

The cold wasn’t severe enough to freeze me to death immediately—I could endure it by gritting my teeth through the shivering. But if Puppy’s power went out because of my selfishness, and if the skies didn’t clear enough for him to wake up again, the guilt and despair would be unbearable.

“It’s fine, so just rest there. When the sun comes out later, let’s go for a walk for the first time in a while.”

Thinking about it now, I was glad Puppy was a robot and not a real dog.

Food would have been an issue, but if he were a real dog, he wouldn’t have been able to endure spending time in this cramped Alexander.

What would it feel like to spend most of the day sleeping in a space barely a hand and a half wide between the seat and the door?

If I were in the same situation, I might have gone crazy before long.

No matter how bad things got, among the three of us here, I was the only one whose mind or body might deteriorate.

I turned the steering wheel forward, seriously wondering whether I should be happy about that fact.

* *

Several days passed. All I’d done during that time was sleep, eat, and drive.

Doing nothing unusual in a familiar environment, the biting cold I had felt became familiar again, and I no longer shivered.

It was during this time, when the clouds covering the sky showed no sign of clearing, when both Puppy and my friend had entered power-saving mode, and I was moving forward silently alone like in those old days—

—Thunk.

Something caught in Alexander’s tracks. A small vibration accompanied by the faint sound of something breaking reached my ears.

“Seems like there’s something down there, but I can’t see it because of the snow…”

There was definitely something there, but not enough to interfere with driving. I could just turn the steering wheel and continue forward without any problem.

Nevertheless, I took out my windbreaker from the choker around my neck and hurriedly put on my coat, preparing to go outside.

I needed this kind of different stimulus after being in the middle of nowhere without talking to anyone.

“Whew… the wind isn’t too strong. That’s good.”

I put on thick gloves, got out of Alexander, and slowly took a breath.

“Nothing’s as dizzying as the temperature difference that hits you when you leave the relatively warm Alexander.”

My foggy mind cleared instantly because of it—but even considering that benefit, I grumbled that it wasn’t good for my heart as I bent down to clear the high-piled snow.

“A flower? Why is this here?”

Like a dog digging through dirt, I was scooping snow with my hands—too lazy to walk the few steps to get the shovel—when I discovered a faintly colored flower beneath the snow.

Of course, it wasn’t a real flower. How could there be a flower that maintains its shape and color even when buried in snow?

I twirled the fake flower and looked around. Though buried in snow and not visible, there was a line of colorful flowers extending outward.

“A flower bed like this means there must be an important facility nearby…”

Squinting as I looked around, sure enough, I could faintly see the outline of a building through the snowstorm.

Though not as exciting as when I entered the Underground City, I was somewhat thrilled by the discovery and immediately climbed back onto Alexander to approach the building.

“…Wow.”

But what was there wasn’t just a single building. It was a collection of numerous buildings. Wide rather than tall structures connected in a circular pattern, with a tall pillar made of steel framework in the center. It didn’t take long to figure out what kind of facility this was.

“It seems the people who lived here, like me, wanted to escape while still alive. Even if it meant abandoning the planet where they were born and raised.”

A spaceport built at the highest point humans could reach. But there was no rocket to be seen anywhere.

“Now, how do I get in there?”

The door made of thick walls was firmly shut. I tried activating the authority I received from the city just in case, but either the facility’s electricity was cut off or it couldn’t be used here—no window appeared.

“There’s an open window up there, but is there any way to climb up…?”

As I wandered around the building looking for a way in, staring up at the open window and pondering—

“Ah. Come to think of it, I had that.”

I remembered something I had picked up from the superstore long ago.