Chapter 73 – Someone Else’s Dream
Kang!
I hit the ball that the batting machine spit out.
A true hit struck in the exact center of a baseball bat. The clear hitting sound resonates pleasantly.
After a while, a second ball came, and he hit it easily, and it was ruled a home run.
It’s not that my baseball skills have improved. It’s just that my senses have become more sensitive than before.
The third ball flies.
Not only did I hear the faint sound of a baseball cutting through the wind, but I could clearly see even the thread when it got close to me.
Kang!
I didn’t use acceleration. The visual acuity itself was greatly improved.
In addition, a three-dimensional sense is felt as if the blind swordsmen in the creation understand surrounding objects through sound and air flow.
It feels like cat whiskers have sprouted all over my body. It is also several meters long.
I clenched my fist 30 cm in front of my belly button.
“Shoot the next ball this way.”
[Okay.]
And I closed my eyes.
After a while, I heard a faint sound, and felt a spherical object entering the area of my senses.
Kang!
I didn’t miss it this time either.
The reason I stopped playing betting was when I thought it was pointless to play the game anymore after hitting 15 balls in a row.
“This is ridiculous.”
To exaggerate a little, if someone tries to kill me, I might even feel alive.
“Do you remember the motive I talked about before?”
[The son of a general who received an implant?]
“That’s right.”
I left the baseball bat where it was.
“I think I know why he died so quickly. “If you live with this sense at a young age, your confidence will naturally explode.”
However, no matter how good your physical ability is, you cannot avoid blind bullets or fragments.
[What your classmate received was strengthening treatment based on strengthening muscle strength, endurance, and vision. That may be absolute in training or physical fitness evaluations, but in actual combat, what makes the difference between life and death is ‘sense and judgment.’ Depending on the person, reckless confidence may actually hasten death.]
After quitting the betting game, I tried table tennis, and my opponent was a robot with a racket in both hands.
Even though it was set to the highest difficulty, neither side could score, so time passed by. Later, the ping pong ball went back and forth in a straight line in the air without bouncing on the ground.
When I looked at the photo Artemis took after I quit the match, I couldn’t believe my reaction speed even though it was my own doing.
When playing an airplane shooting game, there was no need to use the black bombs at the bottom, so they just piled up, and even in a rhythm game, not even a single note was missed.
The same applies when playing fighting games.
You’re the same age~!
I sat down and avoided an uppercut from a grumpy-looking middle-aged man with white hair.
A powerful fist wrapped in blue lightning split the air.
Ha!
What came next was sweeping the abyss.
‘It is impossible to stop it by looking at it.’
‘In psychological warfare, it is prevented through prediction.’
Although it was a skill that was commonly referred to as an easy choice, I was able to see and respond with full-body vision.
[How?]
Artemis, who had planned to deal with the situation moderately, became thin.
She attacked me by showing off incredibly difficult techniques that even a decent number of players would be dazzled by, but I was able to block it without difficulty.
After finishing the virtual fight, I sparred with a new security robot at a real martial arts gym.
This model, which replaced the main frame with a new alloy steel and the outer armor with reinforced plastic, was lighter and had considerable agility.
For safety reasons, I was powered down to the level of an adult man, but I easily dodged the robot’s attacks.
I didn’t feel any fear as I looked straight at the incoming punch and avoided it with as much movement as necessary.
Improved nerves make it possible to do ‘fist staring’, which can only be achieved through long training.
When I tilted my head to the left to avoid a straight right hand, the robot turned half a turn and fired an elbow with its left arm. Step back and avoid this.
But elbows are bait. The right foot high kick using the rotational reaction was the real attack.
If it were me not long ago, I would have been hit by a surprise kick coming from outside my field of vision, but now, with my heightened senses, I could feel the attack coming from an invisible place.
By the time the robot’s feet were visible, it had already bent down and struck its exposed groin.
If the opponent was a human, he would have just stuck his fist there, but unfortunately, since he was a robot, that wouldn’t be an effective hit.
The sparring, which was almost like a dog fight, continued like that, but I did not allow a single attack.
After completing the exercise to get used to the senses, night fell.
But I couldn’t sleep today.
This is because, as the development of the neural network for acceleration implants approaches its end, the strength of the signals sent from the nerves has become even stronger.
After tossing and turning for a while and realizing that I couldn’t sleep, I went out to the park and took a walk.
A cool breeze blows and tickles my hair pleasantly.
Just the right coolness.
Just the right wind speed.
A shape of wind that somehow seems to be touching my face.
This is an underground city where there is no natural wind. There is no need to say more if it is a wind that perfectly suits my taste.
“Hello, Artemis.”
[I guess I couldn’t sleep well.]
Men are creatures who sometimes go into caves wanting their own time.
Artemis understands this, so she doesn’t bother to disturb me by talking to me first in special situations, such as walking at night.
Even if it’s boring, it just appeals as a kind of ‘out of office message’, like the artificial wind from earlier.
If I didn’t react, he walked away and respected my time.
[The neural network is more active than expected.]
She said after scanning my body.
“Is it good?”
[Yes. There is a lot of room for strengthening.]
“Then that’s enough. “It’s just a matter of not being able to sleep for a few days, but it’s nothing compared to being safer on future expeditions.”
In the field of battle, just being able to perceive and move 10% faster can be life-changing.
The price of losing sleep for a few days is very cheap.
As I walked, my legs started to hurt, so I sat down on a nearby bench.
I practiced various sports and martial arts sparring to test my strengthened nerves during the day, but I was quite tired.
[Are you going to go outside again?]
Artemis asked.
“It’s full of neglected treasures. “You can’t rot them all, right?”
Buildings classified as nationally important facilities have automated power generation means and can autonomously maintain power for a considerable period of time even when human management is stopped.
Just like the Metacraft lab I visited last time.
But that period is not long.
After that, everyone will die, and in such a situation, it becomes very difficult to explore a large-scale facility and extract the contents.
Whether it’s technology or equipment.
There is no need to rush too much, but there is also no room for delay.
[Is it not enough even though we have everything to eat and drink, medical services, entertainment, and even safety?]
“It somehow sounds like you’re trying to stop me from going outside?”
Artemis was speechless.
I got up from the bench and headed to the information screen in the center of the park.
“Show me the camp accommodations. Any neighborhood.”
As soon as I finished speaking, the screen turned on and played a video from the dorm.
Because it was in night vision mode, it looked gray, but because the image quality was clear, each and every face of the sleeping women was clearly visible.
There was also a woman sleeping lying on her back, a woman sleeping curled up like a fetus, a woman sleeping on her stomach, a woman sleeping in the posture of a woman with the blanket kicked up, and finally, in the corner, two women were seen sleeping while hugging each other.
“Look at me sleeping. How does it look?”
[You look stupid.]
Artemis spoke without hesitation.
Let alone wondering if there is anyone who isn’t stupid by her standards.
“It looks peaceful to me. The belief that a safe, satisfying, and warm life will continue in the future.”
The right temperature, neither too hot nor too cold, clean bedding and space, and safety.
The faces of the sleeping women were truly peaceful.
“It’s now my responsibility to maintain it. So that we don’t go back to the sight of everyone dying in a maritime prison.”
[If you’re sane, shouldn’t you be grateful just for letting us hang on to your life? That seems like an excessive sense of responsibility.]
Artemis approached it with a machine-like mindset.
“This is my second time. Leading the people who have been pushed around by the world and come under me. I knew this after living with conscripts when I was a commander. “Only when a leader has a strong sense of responsibility can those under him at least be able to breathe.”
When he was a first-time officer, like Artemis, he treated soldiers from the perspective of ‘natural duty’ and demanded their capabilities.
But it didn’t take long for him to realize that was a bad idea.
“Especially in difficult times like now. Well, our shelter is an incredibly nice environment.”
A woman hurriedly got up from her seat and headed outside. She is probably trying to go to the bathroom.
There is no night shift here, and escaping prison is even more meaningless.
“When I saw those women, this thought suddenly occurred to me. Even if it is a well-equipped shelter, it is ultimately an isolated city. How long can this closed cycle continue? And that’s it. Those women probably never thought that a maritime prison would end up like that from the beginning.”
A life of isolationism in a shelter is certainly safe, but there is no such thing as 100%.
“An unexpected big accident, an invasion of infectious agents that have evolved beyond imagination. “Other unforeseen problems may arise.”
[The probability of that happening is so low that calculating it is meaningless.]
Both she and I know this topic well because we have simulated it countless times.
“It’s not 0% anyway, right?”
[…
In the world of predictions, there is no such thing as 100% or 0%. If you hit that blind spot, even Artemis will have nothing to say.
“When the infection first broke out, and we went into emergency lockdown, I didn’t think much of it. “Because I was busy trying to survive and come up with measures to prevent the invasion of infectious agents.”
The woman who had gone to the bathroom earlier came back. She kicked off her blanket, pulled the woman’s blanket over her, covered her, and then went back to her own place and lay down.
“Then, after recovering the city and finding a safe life, I began to think about what came next. It’s not bad to spend the same day every day like this, but I wondered if I would have any regrets later.”
At the end of a life with no changes, the emptiness felt while looking at the still desolate world outside.
Or, a feeling of regret for choosing isolationism as one sees the shelter collapsing due to unexpected events and accidents.
Either way.
[So, are you going to explore outside to find better value?]
“You too were very interested in the outside world. “Didn’t you always say you wanted to go to the moon?”
Even before the city was recaptured, she was more interested in the outside world than I was.
Artemis was originally the goddess of the moon, and the girl next to me lives up to her name.
He had a grand ambition to advance to the moon after wiping out all infectious agents.
That ambition will not be able to proceed without excluding technologies and materials that lie dormant in the outside world.
Even if it were possible, it would take too long.
It’s probably impossible for me to bear fruit before I grow old and die.
[But you are the one risking your life in the process.]
“Well, that’s right.”
If the operation goes wrong, I’m the one who can’t come back.
After her first expedition, she no longer said she wanted to go to the moon.
[Is there anything more vain than losing one’s life while following someone else’s dream?]
“It may be dangerous, but I don’t think it’s all in vain.”
A woman who works part-time to support her boyfriend studying for the exam, a wild goose father, a high school graduate who works in a factory to pay for his younger brother’s college tuition, and a soldier full of patriotism.
Such people are not rare in the world.
“Some people live for other people’s dreams. I couldn’t understand that before, but now I think that kind of life isn’t that bad.”
Artemis had no answer.
It’s just that a pleasant wind blows from somewhere.
“I just had that thought.”
After that, we walked around the park in silence.
That day, Artemis saw me off until I entered my house, which was out of her sight.
[Sleep well.]
The signal from my nerves was still there, but was it because of the feeling of the night wind remaining in my body?
After some time passed, I was able to fall asleep.
