Chapter 235


While the harvesting machine is being horrifically experimented on in the Fourth World.

Bell woke up in the Third World.

It wasn’t anything special. It was simply because morning had arrived.

I got out of bed, washed up, and groomed myself.

Then, when I went outside, a guide came to lead me to the dining hall.

As I sat there eating breakfast and relaxing, a soldier-like person came to take me somewhere.

And I found myself traversing the heart of a city I didn’t know much about just yesterday.

But now, I know this city well.

I had browsed through the memories possessed by the harvesting machine.

Instead of just having a few thoughts like a regular person, I see the world through all the perspectives of the harvesting machines simultaneously.

Additionally, I can also move with both Bell and the chunk of meat from the Fourth World at the same time.

It’s not like I’m generating different personalities; it’s all me. I share memories and act as one thought.

To put it metaphorically, a cell on my fingertip and a cell on my toe moving together forms one self, but each cell doesn’t have its own self, right? That’s how it feels with the harvesting machine, Bell, and the other bodies.

So, I had enough time to examine and analyze the memories I acquired this time.

If I summarize the memories gained from this harvesting machine, it’s like this.

This place is called Atlan Fortress City. It was created to fend off sea monsters that come up from the eastern sea.

It looks clearly dangerous, so I thought there wouldn’t be many people here other than soldiers, but it turns out there are many merchants as well.

The reason there are so many merchants is that they unload cargo from the sea and bring it up here.

On the eastern coastline, due to the monsters sweeping through, there aren’t any proper ports where people have touched. So they unload materials from ships and haul them straight here.

And no one finds that strange.

In fact, they think it’s safer because of the firm defensive posture in place.

It’s a little surprising, but the Third World also has many monsters.

No.

Actually, no.

In the Second World, just stepping a little into the forest, monsters would pop out, and in the First World, I saw many when harvesting machines spread everywhere.

Aside from faded memories, every world has its monsters.

Hmm.

Perhaps in those days, I just didn’t know about monsters, but they existed in reality.

Anyway.

The wild monsters are indeed dangerous. They are much more ferocious compared to those faded memories. There are large, strong individuals alone, smart creatures, and beings that gather in groups to hunt.

Among them, there are monsters dwelling in the eastern sea that hunt in packs.

However, since they are aquatic creatures, they can’t climb mountains very well. So, people have built walls at paths where they’re likely to come.

That’s Atlan Fortress City.

But simply closing off this place meant sacrificing transport through ships.

So, even though it’s a hassle, they unload goods at a place without proper ports and hire people to carry the loads on foot.

Of course, even then, the actual loads being carried by people are just a few.

They mainly use carts pulled by cars or animals. But if too many people gather, monsters will ambush them.

That’s how soldiers get injured.

In this world, human lives are considered cheap, and just by imposing tariffs on export items that must arrive via the sea, this area is surprisingly wealthy.

So, what happens, you ask?

They buy people with money and wear them out.

This could very well be the most modernized place.

The value of people shifts from carelessly tossing them aside to buying and throwing them away, which is what modernization embodies.

Of course, in the era of carelessly tossing them aside, they at least provided minimal food and shelter to maintain labor, but now they take money and goods and re-appropriate it to let them starve to death—there’s a distinct difference.

But wouldn’t that reduce the labor force?

That’s what new laborers from the outskirts are for, right?

Instead of being lasting items, they become disposable items.

However, just because they are treating them as disposable doesn’t mean the people handling it are disdainful of humans. They possess enough humanity to feel sympathy for those injured at the workplace.

As I got out of the car, the commander came to greet me.

The place I alighted was a hospital—not the soldier hospital I visited yesterday, but the one in Atlan Fortress City.

The commander took me inside.

Upon entering, what caught my eye were the tightly packed patients. From those in hospital gowns to a person missing limbs with old scars, and others suffering from various ailments or injuries stood there.

Then a commander and person who seemed like a local dignitary appeared, along with who I believed to be the owner of this hospital, and they bowed to me.

They begged for a miracle.

I nodded enthusiastically.

And I began the production of harvesting machines in the guise of healing.

Many had sustained serious injuries, but those wounds that were treatable had already been tended to, and there were many who could have been discharged from the hospital long ago.

When I turned them into harvesting machines and examined their memories, I found that last night, soldiers had come to take them to the hospital, claiming they could suddenly heal wounds.

It was an act of goodwill.

A goodwill that wished to share such goodness not only for themselves but to all the injured.

And with that, they reached the worst outcome.

What a misfortune.

The three who had bowed their heads to me—despite belonging to a high position in Atlan Fortress City and being respected by many—had traits that made them deserving of that respect.

They possess that kind of character.

Hence, they brought in the injured and sold them to me.

The phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” springs to mind.

The one packaging hell with goodwill is me. In reality, those three aren’t bad. They are truly worthy of respect, and the one who deceived them is me.

Blaming those who were deceived is the essence of a fool.

The truly bad ones are only those who deceive. Even if the method of deception is utterly crude, it’s only someone who believes they’re not being deceived who curses those who were deceived.

They are pitiful losers, unable to live without belittling weak individuals as foolish ones.

Hehe.

I know a lot about the defeated.

The light that fell below the surface was all such beings.

They were utterly annihilated, completely broken in mind. Those who realized that everything in the world is an enemy and that no one is there to save them.

Thus, when I reach out my hand, they fall for it again.

Because they mistake that they have nothing to lose by being deceived.

My thoughts drifted, but anyway, the only bad one here is me.

For now, let’s assume they look happy.

Unaware they’ve taken an unreasonable loan, they’re delighted that money has come their way.

Look at this.

They even sing songs of gratitude towards me. The harvesting machine from this land knows the classic folk song very well.

From the lyrics, it seems like a song sung during a harvest festival after finishing the autumn harvest.

Inside the hospital, it transformed into a festival scene.

Some cried while touching the suddenly regrown limbs, while others held hands with harvesting machines and ran around joyfully.

The harvesting machine sings a song of blessings with a cheerful smile.

A perfectly unhappy end is destined, but.

If they’re happy now, then it’s good to laugh.

I dashed outside the hospital, mixing in with the jubilant harvesting machines, brazenly grinning.

*

The Fourth World is boring.

My body, still unnamed, has no memories.

At first, I was confused because my cheeks were particularly thin, but there were a multitude of girls with completely similar faces to mine.

They were likely clones or chimeras.

Artificially created humans.

So, it makes sense that they put together such a tragic sight. Since they made the vessel artificially, there’s no fuss about the vessel becoming a god or demon that enters with a body.

Daegon’s memories flicker, saying that with here’s technology, it’s difficult to create a vessel that can contain a god, and I think I’ve found the reason.

While seeking the memories of the harvesting machine that were perished while being dissected by the wizard, I found an interesting fact.

That harvesting machine spoke an unfamiliar foreign language, but I had knowledge of a language.

There was a relatively well-off woman whose family fell apart due to a failed political marriage. She contracted me after dying of a sexually transmitted disease.

She didn’t gain a psychic ability, but with improved intelligence and physical prowess, she killed those who destroyed her life. In a fit of returning resentment, there was a harvesting machine that died.

Her memory shines as it resembles her younger self.

This place is likely the world where she lived.

Then a series of reasons became apparent.

Why Yasle’s technology mixed with summoning incantations.

Why the clone legion was entirely contracted with me.

Why clones were used as vessels to contain demons or gods.

Oh, by the way, according to Daegon’s memory, the cloned subjects undergo degradation. Therefore, it’s rare for them to be used as vessels.

However, there’s Choseol.

She was originally the mother that would birth Daegon’s vessel.

If it’s a harvesting machine, it possesses sufficient abilities to serve as a vessel for small targets, and if they want to improve quality, they just need to breed clones and produce a second generation.

This is likely the result.

So far, I believed that only harvesting machines could pull me up.

However, there’s a possibility right in front of me that traces left by the harvesting machines could bring me up.

Hehe.

What good luck I have.