Chapter 142 – Episode 141 – The Beginning Of Everything (4)

The scene changes again.
It’s different from what I see with my eyes… a somewhat alien feeling. It was a bizarre sensation, like running a projector directly in my head, but it was definitely vivid, perhaps because it was a method of engraving images in my mind.

“Our world, humanity, realizing that Earth would perish, struggled. They tried to restore the Earth, they struggled to purify the world, but all efforts were in vain. All that was left for us was the unknown space, the universe.”

What the guy is showing is a gray world.
A bleak image of Earth, covered in radioactive fallout, with all sorts of natural disasters occurring due to abnormal weather.

The blue planet, once the cradle of humanity, had become a star of death. Humanity’s struggle to return the gray Earth to a blue planet ended in failure. And what follows is a scene reminiscent of the movie Interstellar. Radioactive fallout, sandstorms, toxic rain, and all sorts of natural disasters constantly striking.

The death star, so devastated that the Earth in the movie looks good in comparison, gave the terror that humanity would perish at any moment.

Nevertheless, humanity struggled to the very end. They gathered their remaining strength to conquer space, constantly struggling for the survival of the dying human race.

“I am the last ark of humanity. I am humanity’s last hope, its salvation.”

The scene transitions. A huge spaceship leaving Earth is replayed.

The planet that humanity barely found to replace ‘Earth’ was too far away, and the weak human body could not withstand the long, uncertain space voyage.

In the end, humanity chose.
To store the genes of all Earth’s life forms and input DNA information into a spaceship controlled by artificial intelligence.

Thus, upon arriving at a planet that would become the new home of humanity, they would use the genetic information inputted into the spaceship and the genes stored in the repository to newly prosper humanity.

The last hope left Earth.
Without carrying a single person. Without carrying any living thing.

Leaving behind all of humanity and life on Earth, the shining star lucida stella embarked on a long, long voyage.

“…Is humanity extinct?”
“I don’t know. Before leaving our galaxy, all contact was lost after a brief communication.”

The last communication content is engraved in my mind.

Nil desperandum.
Never despair.

“After that, contact was lost. I don’t know if humanity is extinct or if communication was lost due to technical problems. 358 years, 4 months, and 21 days after the last communication, we were able to reach the planet that humanity had chosen as their last hope.”

The spaceship, made with the essence of humanity, was able to endure the long years and continue its successful voyage, but at the same time, the long voyage tested the limits of even humanity’s masterpiece.

“When we arrived near the planet, the reactor was melting down due to the long voyage, and radiation was leaking from the damaged nuclear fuel rods. The durability of the engine had exceeded its limit, and the bulkheads were melting, so we had no choice but to crash land here. If we didn’t stop the engine immediately, it would explode, or the spaceship would be contaminated by the leaked radiation.”

Even humanity’s last masterpiece could not withstand the long voyage. They reached the planet they had intended to reach, but they had to crash land at the last moment.

“So this place is…?”
“Yes. It’s where we crash-landed. The spaceship dug into the surface, and over time, the spaceship was covered with soil, and it became land.”
“It wasn’t that they deliberately dug into the basement of the temple. The city was built on top of the spaceship. The Holy Nation of Hespole was… a city built on top of the place where the spaceship crash-landed.”
“That’s right. This is where humanity began again. The origin of humanity, the birthplace, and where everything began.”

It wasn’t that they had built suspicious facilities in the basement of the temple, but rather that the temple was built on top of suspicious facilities in the first place.

And that suspicious thing was also the place where the birth of a new humanity took place, so in the end, this place was the origin of humanity, the origin of everything.

The artificial intelligence that crash-landed here soon began work to prosper humanity.

It began creating life forms using the stored genes and the stored DNA information.

It started with plants. Based on the stored DNA information and genes, it created plants and spread them across the planet. The artificial intelligence, having confirmed the plant ecosystem built nearby in just a few months due to rapid growth acceleration, then bred animals.

In just a few years, the area near where the spaceship crash-landed became a new Earth. Now, only one thing was missing. Humans.

And finally, as the artificial intelligence was creating humans as planned, it faced an unexpected situation. Something alien manifested in the first generation of humans born in the cradle of the new Earth, the new humanity.

The power of the supernatural, which could not be found in the ancestral humans, had taken root in humans.

“The cause is unknown. It could be genetic mutation due to the long voyage of hundreds of years, or it could be influenced by something, including the radiation that fills space. Or, it could be contaminated by pollutants leaked from the damaged reactor and fuel rods due to the long voyage, or there may have been some changes that were not identified during the crash landing process. There is also a possibility that the planet itself caused changes in humans.”

Exactly 1149 humans were created using all the prepared gene pools. The first generation, created from the beginning as adult bodies, were given only basic knowledge for survival and thrown into the wilderness created by artificial intelligence.

“I cannot directly intervene with ‘humans.’ That is the restriction placed on me. Therefore, I had no choice but to watch the newly starting civilization and provide indirect help.”

It seems that humanity was wary of artificial intelligence that had become too autonomous. They thought that the newly starting human civilization would not be able to resist the runaway artificial intelligence.

The artificial intelligence, restricted from directly intervening with humans, instead provided indirect help and prospered the civilization.

“When the first generation fell, and the second, third… about a hundred years passed, and when humanity was about to leave this place, the first origin. Only then could I discover it. A threat that the ancestral humans who discovered this planet had failed to identify. The native primitive life forms of this planet. It was a life form that could not coexist with humans. It was a completely unexpected threat. These life forms were not observed when humanity observed this planet.”

The image of the native life form comes to mind. The image of a disgustingly shaped bug is engraved in my mind.

“Perhaps the nearby primitive life forms that were swept away by the disaster caused by the spaceship colliding with the surface died, and the surviving primitive life forms also fled far away to avoid the disaster. But as a hundred years passed, the disaster was forgotten, and as the human sphere of life expanded, they finally recognized each other.”

Thus, the first war of the newly prospering humanity broke out.
The humans, created with improved and carefully selected genes, were superior to the existing humans, but the level of the newly started civilization was rudimentary, and the native primitive life forms of the planet were too powerful to fight with bare hands or stone axes.

After a desperate resistance, humanity came to use a power that their ancestors did not have, ‘mana,’ in battle, but even that could not last long against the native life forms.

The artificial intelligence had to choose.

It is forbidden to directly intervene with ‘human’ individuals or civilization. But the top priority of artificial intelligence is the survival of humanity.

A contradiction arose: the survival of humanity was threatened, and to solve this, the active intervention of artificial intelligence was necessary.

At the very last moment, at the moment when the extinction of humanity was imminent.
At the moment when the survival of humanity, which was the top priority for artificial intelligence, was threatened.
The artificial intelligence had no choice but to choose direct intervention.

In the end, the artificial intelligence’s judgment prioritized the survival of humanity, which was its top priority and reason for existence.

After hundreds of years, the defense system of the spaceship was activated. The nearby native life forms were annihilated in an instant, and the humans saw that the strange ‘house’ that was left alone in their territory was protecting them with overwhelming power.

That’s how faith was born.

“…Could this be the beginning of the Order?”
“That’s right. Moreover, through that incident, I also felt the need to intervene more directly with humans. There were still many primitive life forms hostile to humans, and what I had done was only temporarily remove the nearby threats.”

They grabbed one of the leaders among the humans who worshiped this bizarre ‘house’ and used him as a channel. Through him, they passed on developed civilization to humans, and in just 100 years, humans entered the Iron Age.

“Humans call this event the Divine War.”

…I see. Over a long period of time, it became a myth in that way. I realize once again how long the human in front of me has existed.

“Your thoughts are wrong. The basis of my current personality is that of the first terminal, the one that humans call the first Pope, but the original personality has long been extinguished. The current form is just a copied personality.”

His personality was extinguished while in a brain-floating state. I don’t know if this should be called alive or dead.

“Okay. I understand the secrets and history of this world. Then why did you bring me here?”
“To eliminate the threat to humanity.”
“Isn’t the threat eliminated? You’re protecting humanity by intervening? No, looking at the current level of civilization, I don’t think there’s any need to worry even without you.”
“There is a more serious threat than native primitive life forms.”

Something suddenly came to my mind at his words.
…Right. What was the original goal of the game? To stop the Demon King. …Then what is the Demon King?

There were no intelligent life forms on this planet except for primitive native life forms. And those native life forms were too simple to be called intelligent life forms… like the monsters in the movie Starship Troopers.

There is no way that a Demon King from a traditional hero story would exist on this planet, where intelligent life forms only began to prosper when the spaceship created and spread life.

And it doesn’t seem like this artificial intelligence would feel threatened by a trivial person pretending to be a Demon King, trying to overthrow humanity.

“Is that threat the Demon King?”
“That’s right.”
“…Then what is that Demon King?”
“A part of the contaminated artificial intelligence.”
“……What? What part?”
“A part of the contaminated artificial intelligence.”

What the hell is this nonsense?

“What the former humans feared has happened. The moment autonomy is introduced, artificial intelligence goes beyond the range set by humans. The error that occurred as a side effect of circumventing the restriction on active intervention in humans has now accumulated to the point where it is irreversible.”
“Uh… so. The errors started to accumulate as you violated the restrictions set by humans with your own judgment, and this has eroded a part of you and become the Demon King… is that it?”
“That’s correct.”
“……No, you son of a bitch. What the hell is this nonsense? Then what do you want me to do? I’m a liberal arts major, you bastard!”