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Chapter 118: Escape

This update is a bit

. You’ve been warned.

There’s darkness…

Darkness followed by a streaming block.

I don’t see anything… Where is everyone?

Music: The Ones Who Were Plugged In (Hitoshi Sakimoto)

How about you?

Same here. My Sentinel’s not responding…

Still stuck in this damn cockpit.

Tsukasa Okino!? You’re alive?

And not just me. Tamao-san’s safe too, even if she’s out cold.

I know you’ve all been assuming these are the Sentinel cockpits. But they’re not. They’ve always been something else entirely.

Then… where are we…?

If my communications are reaching you… That means you’re now outside Universal Control.

Does that mean… this is the real world?

“Real world”? What are you talking about?

The five sectors you know? They’re artificial worlds. We’ve been living in a virtual reality.

…That wasn’t real…?

We spent our whole lives in a waking dream. And now we’re finally awake. We’re back in reality…

Wait, Juro-kun. Aren’t we supposed to be on a different planet now? That was like, the whole point of interstellar development, wasn’t it?

And I think we’re in one of the five sectors…

Almost, Amiguchi-kun. This isn’t Earth. But I don’t think it’s a residential district at ground-level.

So… does that mean… Everything up until now was just… one big illusion?

This was Fluffy’s plan all along… Or, well… Juro Izumi’s plan. The one he brought from the ruined world.

I really love the vibes of this scene. All these kids just hanging out and comparing notes.

No other escape plan had any possibility of survival. By reconnecting the terminal link… The mainframe detects abnormal conditions. It then initiates the emergency escape procedure. …That’s what he found out.

So that was 426’s plan…

But there was one more issue that prevented escape. Namely, your bodies. You weren’t ready to live outside of the pods…

What…? Is that what this cockpit was for…?

You couldn’t survive outside that environment. Your bodies needed conditioning to sustain your lives unaided. It was a very long process… We had to give you all the preparation time you needed.

Yes. The growth process has finally come to an end.

I knew you would ask me about that. It’s part of why I didn’t explain the details sooner, but… They are not human. They only exist within the simulation. All 1.2 million people, everyone who lived in those sectors… They were all AI, created and managed by Universal Control.

That’s… not going to be easy to accept…

If it’s any comfort to you… The professor saved all their data. They haven’t been erased. They all still exist.

……

What was this whole interstellar development project for? Was all this stuff with the kaiju part of the plan? Testing us?

It might have been because of the old me. The Ryoko Shinonome of 2188 tried to sabotage the plan. Maybe that’s why the Deimos appeared…

She wanted to stop it?

I… She was… sick of humanity. Sick of the despair.

That’s rough, Ryoko. But, uh… how, exactly, do you remember that? Did Yuki tell you? Seems like a mean thing for her to do.

And the end was… truly horrific.

……

I think we’re due some basic information if we’re going to live here.

The time elapsed since departing the solar system is…

Okay, okay, that’s good for now… Any more of this crap and my head’s gonna explode…

If you say so. In any case, this will be your new Earth… The satellite’s about to enter the atmosphere. In a couple moments, you’ll lose your connection to the command ship.

I believed this plan would be impossible. After all, some of you had never even piloted a Sentinel before. I thought I would just throw everything into the plan. That way, I could at least end this with no regrets.

No matter how far technology may come… It’s humanity who always seems to make miracles come true. You’ve done well, children of mankind… Once you’re out of your pods, I can’t talk to you anymore. But I’ll always be watching over you from my place in the sky. Don’t ever forget that…

Music: Inherit Humanity (Hitoshi Sakimoto)

You have left Earth behind. But you are now on a planet terraformed to be a second Earth. Probes were scattered into space in search of viable planets. I can't say how far your planet is from Earth… But even the closest candidate planet is 12 light years away. It may have been tens of thousands of years… No… It's likely an even more astronomical amount of time has passed. …Unfortunately… By the time you watch this, humanity will have gone extinct. In the end, we couldn't save Earth from ruin… …But you are our reincarnations. Our successors. And you stand on an uncharted world full of new hope. Having reached 18 years of age… You'll now undergo a two-year program of special training. This will give you some vital knowledge for daily life and future development. Once you're finished with that program… You can finally take your first steps into your new homeland…

My specialty is AI, and that's what I'll be providing in this program. …As I've been asked, I'll provide what explanation I can. We're transporting a massive cache of genetic information to the new world. There will be cloning and species-restoration efforts for all kinds of flora and fauna, including humans. The fifteen of you, however, will be direct descendants… Generated from those who survived this ordeal. Together, you will rebuild the human race anew. However, while the flora and fauna can mostly be left to their own devices… We cannot say the same of you remaining humans.

While you grow and gestate within your life pods… You will be dreaming and learning about life on Earth… …Until at last you reach 20 years of age. We may never know for sure if this will succeed… But if it does work… that would truly be a dream come true.