The Outer God Needs Warmth-Chapter 168: Don’t cry. Don’t cry (8)

While I was engaged in after-school harvest machine creation activities.

Vern City eventually became a battlefield.

At first.

People gathered in front of City Hall, where the mayor works, holding signs and protesting. Some had already died, so there was justification. They protested by throwing stones and bottles.

It was a very peaceful protest.

In a world from faded memories, it might be considered a violent protest, but that’s what’s strange. Regular protests aren’t that different from riots.

People are creatures that can’t change without shedding blood, so it’s actually strange for it to be peaceful.

But one of the protesters demanded an investigation.

Not just asking why the incident in Vern City happened, but questioning why there had been issues with the mechanical devices in the city and why they had been unable to act despite warnings for the past ten years.

When the person asking these questions died, the surviving people continued asking in public spaces.

Instead of an answer, fire came.

The police massacred the protesters.

It wasn’t just the men and women involved, but also passersby. Even children were caught up and killed.

When heads were blown off and people instantly died, those who fled in panic became enraged and began fighting back.

And there were many harvesters among the protesters.

There were superhumans who could control water like Victoria or even fire, and some who displayed impossible strength that no normal person could match.

The police were armed with mechanical devices, and the protesters had their own superhumans.

At first, the police, led by powerful mechanical devices, gained the upper hand. But most people who had received secondary education in this world were able to use magic.

While the police didn’t lack powerful mages, the protesters outnumbered them. Additionally, there were superhumans among them.

In fact, the protesters had more power.

Thus, the enraged protesters gradually overwhelmed the police, forcing them to retreat inside City Hall.

Then, a problem arose.

It wasn’t the police’s mechanical devices, but the industrial-grade mechanical devices that had powered the world that began to kill people.

As if someone had ordered it, people were killed by mechanical devices all around Vern City. Unlike the previous chaos, this time it wasn’t just a malfunction. Simple mechanical devices were fine, but those with some intelligence, like the cabs from the Cogni Transport Company, became problematic.

Rather than rampaging, these devices specifically targeted and attacked people.

Mechanical devices began killing people here and there. In faded memories, there are stories about machines starting a rebellion, but this was different—humans were ordering the machines to kill.

Several taxis ignored people nearby and targeted specific houses. They crashed into them and exploded, leaving the houses drenched in blood.

They were clearly moving with a goal in mind.

Again, when knowledge is suppressed, it spreads widely.

What they want to hide is this.

The current power source of the mechanical devices is flawed. They use magic to generate kinetic energy, but the structure itself is problematic.

They draw in 100 units of magic and use 80, while the remaining 20 is expelled. The problem lies in this 20. It’s clearly magic, and the detectors show it as such. However, if you gather this 20 and turn it into 100, then place it in the machine, the machine doesn’t work.

The harvesters refer to this as “heterogeneous magic,” a kind of magic that neither machines nor humans can use.

Of course, if left alone, it would eventually return to its original magic, but in cities like Vern, where there are many power sources, the rate at which this magic accumulates surpasses the natural rate.

That’s when the threshold was breached.

At least, according to the data checked through the harvesters.

There’s something similar in the faded memories. The Great Smog of London. In terms of disaster, this event is quite similar.

Even after searching through the harvesters’ memories, it seems that there hasn’t been an incident like this before, meaning Vern City is the first.

The most advanced city. Vern City.

As such, there were more power sources than nature could handle, and the disaster that was bound to happen occurred. And I could vaguely guess why the mechanical devices were attacking people.

Mechanical devices have spread across the world, making life convenient and generating massive wealth. The power sources used in almost all of them are almost irreplaceable.

There’s a similar group in the faded memories. Oil companies. They desperately denied global warming.

It will be the same here.

To prevent the foundation from crumbling, they’ll do anything with the money they have.

That’s why Vern City was set ablaze once again.

The first event was a disaster, where people rolled up their sleeves and worked together for each other. The second event, however, became a situation of mutual killing.

Meanwhile, the harvesters used their abilities to kill people, absorbing warmth.

Chaos is quite satisfying.

It’s just a little strange that no one is talking about Vern City.

Even if it’s a controlled broadcast, is it really this controlled? Either the royal family is involved, or the communications company is on the side of the mechanical devices. One or the other.

Or maybe both.

And so, while observing this country from the perspective of others, I went out with the guard to drag the witch out.

I walked blindly towards a path I had never taken before, turning on the map, and went to a person crying near a harvester to turn them into a harvester.

Today, I turned a man, who had torn his chin and chest in an accident at work and was prepared to die, into a harvester.

When will the witch come?

I walked thinking she might have knowledge like Yasle.

But I couldn’t return to my lodging.

The road was strange.

Late afternoon.

The sun had just started to set. Even though tomorrow was a holiday, the road was completely empty, with not a soul in sight. The streetlights that had just turned on flickered.

The road I was walking on had completely changed at some point. The Maryweather who had been beside me had disappeared.

The witch?

But there was no one around.

The buildings visible around me weren’t the same as the ones in my memory. Moreover, the entrances and windows were boarded up, making it look difficult to enter.

And inside the building, visible in the darkness, it was a mess.

Cobwebs and dust, broken furniture. It looked like it had been abandoned for a long time.

When I looked up to the sky, thick black clouds were wriggling. This wasn’t a proper sky.

If I think back a little, there weren’t many clouds in the sky.

If I’m not sure, I guess I’ll need to complete the map.

Thinking this, I walked forward.

Then, I saw a human shadow ahead. But it wasn’t human.

It wasn’t a living being in the first place.

There was no light inside.

But it walked toward me, its head half-stuck with a clock and brass parts, with veins wriggling between them. Its outfit looked like an ordinary gentleman’s suit, but according to Kanna’s memories, it was a style that was over 80 years out of fashion.

The half-cut eyeball moved and looked down at me.

I looked up at it.

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The half-cut surface was covered with glass, and the watch hands inside were moving. A long pipe rose above its head, with a yellowish fatty lump wriggling on top of it. It pierced through the gentleman’s hat, two of them.

It was no surprise since it wasn’t alive.

“It’s late. It’s late. It’s laaaaate.”

It spoke. The last words stretched out with an unpleasant crackling sound.

And it reached out to point at something.

“Find it. Faster. Hop hop.”

It spouted out strange sentences like a translation device and immediately turned its body to leap forward.

Its legs were strange. Not like flesh, but more like compressed springs, they stretched out and flew far away.

Pyoong pyoong.

With an exaggerated and ridiculous sound, it vanished in an instant from my sight. And as if to tell me to follow, gears and spring-like fragments fell along the path it took.

A strange space.

I moved forward as it had indicated.

Rumble!

No, I was about to move.

But the ground collapsed.

The scattered bricks were fine. After the bricks, I saw brass-colored drainage pipes and dry soil. It looked as if there had been a hole there from the start, and it was dry.

Normally, when you dig soil, it’s damp.

And I fell down.

Down. Down. Down. To my surprise, the wall turned into bookshelves. Countless books were stacked or eaten by insects. Some were wet or burned.

Thud.

And I fell lightly onto the sandy floor.

When I jumped on the surface in the Heavenly Demon Arts, my lower body shattered. But here, I was fine. It felt like I was in a dream.

It’s strange.

I haven’t slept since I became a monster. The body I use often falls asleep, but my mind is always awake.

Is it a dream, or reality? Or maybe it’s some kind of illusion.

I don’t even know if I can distinguish that.

I lifted my head. I could see the hole I had fallen from above, surrounded by rocks. Looking down, there was a cave filled with darkness. Looking further down, I saw the corpse of a dead rat.

Pyoong!

Then I heard the same sound I’d heard earlier, from above.

I tore my gaze away from the rat’s body and looked up, where something with a clock embedded diagonally into its head came down to the floor. In its hand was a child, who hadn’t been there before.

Its head was pierced with a broken bottle, and it was even on fire. Its hand was limp, and its legs were drooping. Through that, there was a distinct feature.

White skin. Purple hair.

It was the child I had revived recently. And it was the child who died today.

Death wasn’t a big deal. Unfortunately, the child, who had gained the ability to walk, excitedly ran around and bumped into a dresser. And unfortunately, the jam jar on top fell onto its head.

The child who couldn’t walk learned how dangerous it was to wander around in a house where the child who could walk hadn’t had a chance to learn the danger.

And in the clock-head’s hand, there was a child with jam in its head instead of a brain. The child waved at me. But before I could speak to the child, the clock-head once again stretched its legs like a spring and made a ridiculous sound as it rushed forward.

Hmm.

I couldn’t see from the child’s perspective, so that wasn’t a harvester.

I couldn’t reproduce it that far.

Anyway, the only way to leave this world seemed to be to follow that thing, so I walked in the direction it had gone.