Dream Life Vol II Chapter 82.2: “The End of a Certain Civilization”

(Magic Crystals… Huh? Do you mean Magic Crystal Stones? Do you mean crystals that can be extracted from living organisms?) (Voice)

　I nod deeply.

(The soul dwells in the Magic Crystal Stones, the Magic Crystals you call them. I thought so too. And I was right. The proof is what I am now.) (Voice)

　It seems that he thought that souls resided in magic crystals, what they called magic crystals, and developed a technique to extract them and transfer them to new magic crystals. He also made it possible to take memories directly from the brain and transfer them to storage media. Apparently, it was a fairly advanced civilization that surpassed the Earth I lived in at the beginning of the 21st century.

(My wife’s body, which had been damaged, was disposed of in the lab where the procedure was performed. I then transferred only the extracted soul and memories to a clean, uncontaminated lab. I was so absorbed in my research that I was separated from the outside world for about 60 years. In other words, in your time frame, that’s 3,000 years…) (Voice)

　He was immersed in research to transfer his wife’s soul and memories to an artificial life form, a homunculus, and so sixty years passed in his physical time, while three thousand years passed in the outside world. During that time, no contamination from the Great Calamity was found in this laboratory. The fact that the measures he took were correct seems to refer to that.

“You mean to say that you connected with the outside world a thousand years ago?　But why?” (Zack)

(A thousand years ago, which was 20 years ago here, I was in despair. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore. I was half desperate… and that was the day I accepted the fact that I would never get my wife back…) (Voice)

　He proceeded with his research to transfer his wife’s soul and memories into a homunculus, transferring her soul and memories into magic crystals and an artificial brain.

(She did not return. To be precise, my beloved, former wife no longer existed…) (Voice)

　His research was successful, and the memories were almost perfectly transcribed. However, he failed to transcribe the soul. The transcription itself was apparently successful. But her soul, her soul from her time with him, was not there.

(…In the excitement of success, I shouted my wife’s name. But she was confused and did not look at me. Yes, her soul had gone mad and broken in the prison of the magic crystal. I did not know what had happened. Then, in despair, I looked into the outside world with the intention of killing myself…) (Voice)

“Why was your wife’s soul broken? Was it the effects of the Great Calamity?” (Zack)

(No, this is because of a mistake I made. Inside the Magic Crystal is a world isolated from the outside world. My wife could not bear that solitude. In fact, I did not realize this until I transferred my soul. I was disconnected from the outside world for what I believed was a very short time, as the input and output connections connected. But even for that brief time, the loneliness was unbearable. In the darkness, there was no sound, no smell, no concept of time. And so lonely that I questioned even my own existence. …I had trapped my wife in that lonely world. My ignorance is no excuse and saying that it was the only way is hollow. It was such a hopeless place…) (Voice)

　I couldn’t even imagine it, I couldn’t say anything.

(I thought about erasing my soul and my memory and taking my life. But before I proceeded, I suddenly wondered what happened to the outside world. Whatever had gone wrong in the lab was of no concern to me, as I was ready to die. So, I decided to satisfy my own curiosity before death. And then I connected to the outside world. …I was concerned about the effect on the lab… but it didn’t have much impact. I modified a machine in the lab and surveyed the area…) (Voice)

　He built a small exploration device and spent several decades, about a year for him, surveying the area. He couldn’t build a flying machine, so he only surveyed a part of the northern area of the Caelum Empire, about a hundred kilometers square.

(…I have concluded that our civilization has collapsed, at least on the Third Continent, after the “Great Calamity”.) (Voice)

“Why is that?” (Zack)

(First, my community of bioengineers disappeared without leaving a trace. Furthermore, when we were here, four thousand years ago, there were no mountain ranges here. And there were no mountain ranges that big in the east either. There should have been many communities to the east, as there are here.) (Voice)

(Are you saying that the Caeum Mountains, and the Aquila Mountains for that matter, were not tectonically active or something… but the topography has changed?” (Zack)

(Perhaps you are right. The place where our community was located was a beautiful place surrounded by forests and lakes. There is another reason why I thought our civilization had collapsed.) (Voice)

　I asked, “Besides the terrain?”

(That’s it. Another reason is that we decided that our technology, our magical engineering, could not be used by the people living here. But after meeting you, I changed my mind…) (Voice)

“What is the reason why this ‘magical engineering technology’ cannot be used? And why am I involved?” (Zack)

　He forgot his previous heaviness and answered with some amusement.

(Your brethren are imperfect. I have only observed them from a distance, but I have never found a being whose affinity with mana is perfect. And today, I have met a being with a perfect affinity, you, and I have changed my mind.) (Voice)

“Affinity with mana? Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that I can use magic of all attributes?” (Zack)

(That’s right. To be precise, it is a little bit different. …In my interpretation, “magic” is the reproduction of the theory of Magical Engineering inside the body of a human being. In fact, we can handle all forms of mana. There were a few who were constitutionally incapable of handling mana, but this was regarded as a congenital disability, the same as being congenitally blind or deaf. And as far as I have investigated, there were only people with congenital disabilities, I mean, those who were imperfect. Therefore, I thought that our civilization would not be inherited here and that our own civilization had vanished. But then I looked at you and changed my mind a little. You have the same qualities as we do. Furthermore, you understood most of what I explained. So, I thought that our civilization might have been passed on somewhere.) (Voice)

(This is going in the wrong direction, isn’t it? Should I get back on topic…) (Zack)

　I ask further questions to get back on topic.

“You said that a thousand years ago you despaired and tried to take your own life. But after that, you have been in this laboratory for 20 years. Why is that?” (Zack)

(The effects of the catastrophe were still there. It’s faster to look. Open the back door and take a look inside.) (Voice)

　I did as I was told and opened the back door. There was a golem, a walker, sitting there.

(Look behind the walker, around the waist. You’ll see something interesting.) (Voice)

　I went behind the walker and looked at the waist, as I was told. There was small writing on it.

(Is the serial number or the manufacturer also written? Huh? This thing!) (Zack)

　The letters I saw were the same string of nonsense letters I’d seen in Professor Ruspede’s lab before.

(The letters are not the ones we use. Yes, the influence was still there. And it is still affecting this lab. All of my materials have been replaced with coded material, including what remains in storage media. Including the ones that remain in the storage media. I was interested, you know. What was it that had taken my wife? To find out, I immersed myself in the study of it…) (Voice)

“And did you find out what this ‘Great Calamity’ was?” (Zack)

　He gave a small chuckle and said, “I didn’t find out anything at all.”

(My life is coming to an end, and I still have no idea what happened or who caused it, not even a clue. Not an iota. Well, I’m a bioengineer, not an expert on history or civilizations…) (Voice)

　He realized that it was impossible to determine the cause through his own speculation, so he decided to tell someone about his existence and what happened to this world before he died. To that end, he dared the Walker to walk conspicuously, so that researchers of a high intellectual level would come to him.

(Originally, I was going to invite the woman who was with you, but then I realized it should be you. I thought it was you, who had the same qualities as us, that I should express my feelings to.) (Voice)