---

On my way home.

I ended up leaving late after chatting with Kanna, and now the area from the main gate to the building entrance is packed with cars waiting to pick up students.

I can see students getting into cars that are just leaving the building. Some of those cars only go a short distance before stopping after leaving the main gate.

I wonder if it’s really that far to walk, but when it comes to situations like this, it’s human nature to avoid walking if possible.

I push aside thoughts of gaining weight and continue along the path.

Nearby, I see many students entering the road to the right of the main gate. Last year, most were either commoners or poor nobles, but now, a lot of noble students are heading into the dormitory.

It seems they’re thinking about safety.

The large-scale riots have ended, but we’re not completely safe yet. No, it’s more accurate to say we can’t return to the way things used to be.

I exit the main gate and immediately turn left, walking along the high walls.

At the end of the wall, there’s a railway, and nearby, I can see a patrol cycling through the area every three days. It must be either police or soldiers.

I casually wave hello, and they wave back.

After greeting them daily, they’ve started responding warmly.

There aren’t many ways to earn goodwill that are as cheap and easy as greeting someone.

If I continue walking a bit further, I reach a broad road. The narrow road I’ve just walked on was a two-lane road, while the wide road is six lanes in both directions.

There are broad roads ahead and to the right. The place I’m at is an alleyway. Instead of going straight, I turn right and walk a considerable distance again. Despite being a wide road, there aren’t many cars passing through.

The only thing I see is a car presumed to be carrying students going into a nearby upscale residential area.

As I move further away from the royal castle, I reach the end of the upscale residential area, where the quality of houses decreases, and the commercial area begins. My house is right at that boundary.

I check the mailbox at the entrance, open the fence, and step inside. There’s a very small garden and an entrance.

Standing at the entrance, I unlock the door with a key that’s barely larger than a palm and step inside.

The house has maintained a quite elegant atmosphere since I moved in. The previous owner decorated it quite tastefully.

When my occasional guest from my boarding days complains about it being too old-fashioned, it seems the overall evaluation isn’t very high.

I think I’ll need to bring Victoria over and ask her about it.

I tidy up my outerwear at the entrance and step inside.

Textbooks? Who needs those? I can recall it all at once. When I say I’ve memorized all the books, people look at me like I’m weird, but my memory doesn’t have any limitations.

But having a good memory and being smart are two completely different things.

I used to think they were the same, but just because my memory is good doesn’t mean I can come up with better ideas.

Organizing and summarizing information is difficult too. Maybe my brain is below chatGPT levels.

Well, if I were a god or something, I’d probably have a smart brain to do all sorts of things.

But what can you do? Monsters aren’t known for being smart, are they?

So, I relied on patience instead of brains. Patience is easy and simple and can be deadly compared to doing nothing.

With those thoughts, I decide what house chores to tackle. I consider grabbing a towel, but then my refrigerator comes to mind. Now that I think about it, it’s almost empty.

I immediately grab my wallet and head outside.

Right in front of me is the commercial area, making it super convenient to buy things. No car, so that works out nicely. Moreover, this area is close to an upscale neighborhood, so the security is decent.

Although the good security isn’t particularly beneficial for me.

It presents an opportunity to expand the harvesting machine for various reasons.

People who lack something and become a menace really are enjoyable.

Reality surpasses morality, and when the harvesting machine is in play, someone will surely be killed with the power obtained. The harvesting machine doesn’t change a person’s spirit.

There’s merely a gradual transformation with no specific direction. No, if one becomes serious, grotesque transformations happen, causing the flesh to swell up, and then the body is reconstructed, so “pervert” might be the right word?

In any case.

Some will change, and some won’t.

People gain strength and health and begin to act differently than before, but that’s not too strange since they can now do what they couldn’t do before.

Conversely, most people here have proper jobs.

I walk into the store.

Of course, very high-status individuals don’t come here. They have someone buy things for them. There are even exclusive vendors, it seems.

So, mostly, it’s the middle layer of the upper class here.

Middle class? They’re not present.

They were one of the groups that suffered the most from the traitorous business incident. Many couldn’t endure the winter and died of cold, and others were murdered while trying to operate mechanical devices for survival.

Or it seems many homes went bankrupt after failing to survive the winter when prices soared suddenly.

Those in the transportation business tend to wander through every nook and cranny of the city.

That’s why they become well-informed about incidents in the city.

Now that I think about it, if I were the ruler, it’d be a complete dystopia.

It’s like surveilling from a personal perspective, right?

While I can’t read thoughts, I can know right away if someone says or writes something. So if I made a lot of harvesting machines and established thorough control, it’d be perfect…

Hmm.

Actually, not so much.

Sometimes, even in a highly developed world, the harvesting machine was already leading such a life.

There were systems in place that capture you if you think a certain thought, yet there are still people who resist. This suggests that a perfect dystopia isn’t possible.

What does a perfect dystopia look like, you ask?

I’d think it’s a gray world where one cannot even hold a speck of hope and thus knows no despair.

But then, wouldn’t humanity be unnecessary for that?

When the harvesting machine activates, rapid mutation occurs in the body. So, anyone suspected of having some illness is immediately incinerated. Unfortunately, I don’t know the details, but at least based on the memories I have, I recall it being a society where even thoughts were watched.

And since it’s taught as normal there, the harvesting machines didn’t question that fact.

They merely stumbled in their rise to power and lost everything in their downfall.

In a situation where reviving is nearly impossible no matter what they do, they faced despair and eventually reached out to me.

It’s funny how they couldn’t revive even after holding my hand.

If I had gained a plausible psychic ability, would there have been opportunities?

No, but in that place, it was already a world where individuals couldn’t act alone. As society becomes more collectivized, it becomes increasingly difficult for individuals to do anything.

Yet, would it be a better situation compared to spending one’s life living and dying in a virtual reality harvesting machine?

In that scenario, as the harvesting machine activates, the connection points embedded in one’s body are broken away, ejecting them from the virtual reality. Then, they’d be deemed incompatible or some such and discarded immediately…

Creating a harvesting machine is feasible in some worlds but not in others.

What happens if you get pulled into a world where it isn’t?

I’d love to find out.

With those thoughts in mind, I compared the vegetables on the shelf.

I use my memory to compare. Overall, the state of the vegetables in the store isn’t very fresh. They’re more suited for soups or stews than for eating raw.

But since they’re still edible, I collected some.

Next up is the meat section.

There are others out shopping like me, chatting away. From what I hear, they’re just sighing about how expensive meat has become.

Originally, meat was rather cheap in this world.

Of course, most of it was tough and sold simply as ‘meat’ without any special variety. Most of it was monster meat, you see.

However, when it came to volume comparable to vegetables, meat used to be cheaper.

But recently, prices have drastically gone up.

So now, housewives and harvesting machines like me are frequently expressing concern over the price of ingredients.

I know the reason.

The meat they’re selling comes from monsters that were killed for defense, but that meat is now halved—used as fuel instead of being fully dead and sold as food.

Thus, food prices begin to rise again.

Of course, compared to the prices during that harsh winter, food prices are still 20% higher than normal, but they’ve begun to return to previous levels.

What is this? Suddenly, if I remember that, it’s just a maddeningly inflated price.

Isn’t the original price not supposed to increase like this?

Oh no!

I missearched, and now my memories are shining impressively. No, what’s the inflation rate? Don’t bring economic theories into this! I may have it in my memory, but matching it up one by one with examples is such a hassle!

If it had a personality, it would definitely roast me for being economically illiterate.

Even with only memories, I can assert myself this much; if I had a self, it would be really tough.

Ugh.

As I organize my shining memories, I bag a bunch of ingredients and carry them away.

As I walk with a load of supplies, I notice worried gazes on me.

This has certainly decreased a lot. At first, many looked at me with eyes full of wonder as if seeing something rare.

Since I look so youthful for my age, people thought I was just a kid running errands.

After a few conversations, it somehow shifted to views seeing me as a diligent child who works hard as a maid.

I don’t outright deny it since it has its uses and often helps me find sales.

Since my house is close to the commercial area, and since the maids from the boarding house come and go, I guess they view me that way as well.

Since they never outright stated it, I never mentioned it. If anyone were to ask, I’d be happy to answer.

But nobody asks, so that’s unlikely.

The city feels bleak.

When I bring in the heavy load at home, I head to the refrigerator to organize everything and prepare dinner.

Ah. The refrigerator. It’s originally a mechanical device. However, it doesn’t operate on the conventional power system or utilize any life force.

Not long ago, the country hooked it up as a new technology.

It seems effective since they don’t come to plunder this device because it doesn’t use machines belonging to traitors externally.

Now, many people use the power device as a reason to plunder.

Meaningless definitions can swiftly corrupt into vile acts.

I find that quite appealing about humanity!

Using a tool that seems quite modern, I prepare dinner.

I wonder who will come over today…