What should she do?
But the answer never came, no matter how long she waited.
The more she helped one person, the more another paid the price.
The more she solved, the more new problems arose.
An endless chain.
People she could never save.
No matter how many she saved, none were truly saved.
There was a person who had fallen ill and been expelled from their village.
It was not a contagious disease, but medicine was still undeveloped at the time, and no one could tell the difference.
So Sariel reached out a helping hand to the sick person who had been driven from the village with nothing left but death to await.
She cured the disease, restored their health, and sent them back to the village.
The next day, that person was burned at the stake by the other villagers.
They claimed a demon had healed the illness.
No—more than that, they said the person had sold their soul to a demon and come back for revenge.
Anything would do. If the person came back, they might spread the disease or kill someone, so just kill them.
Why.
Why.
Why why why why why why why.
People fear what they cannot understand.
A person who had been suffering from illness was suddenly healthy again the moment they returned after being expelled.
That was beyond the scope of human understanding.
Rather than rejoicing in the miracle, it only stirred up fear.
Above all, they were the ones who had cast the sick person out.
Driven by self-preservation, they had abandoned a person begging to be saved.
They masked their guilt.
It was the sick person's fault, they told themselves.
The person must have sold their soul to a demon to be cured and then come back to take revenge on those who had abandoned them.
The sick person said: "Thank you. Now I can live with my family again."
That very family was eagerly piling up the firewood for the burning.
No matter how hard Sariel tried, tragedy would not cease.
The harder she exerted herself, the more tragedy descended with ever-darker shadows.
It would not cease.
It would not cease.
Even trying to make it cease, it would not cease.
Poverty.
Discrimination.
War.
Crime.
Sometimes someone was at fault.
Sometimes no one was at fault.
Sometimes everyone was at fault.
What was equal among them all was that these tragedies occurred because humans were human.
For every person of wealth, there were those who languished in poverty.
People desire the average, and despise and discriminate against those who deviate from it.
And yet they strive to rise above, to surpass the average and gain an advantage.
And because they seek advantage, they end up clashing with rivals.
Tragedy will not cease.
Because humans are creatures who cause tragedy.
They despise tragedy and try not to cause it, yet they keep piling tragedy upon tragedy.
They pile up like the firewood that burned the sick person at the stake.
It is irrational.
Though they possess a spirit that abhors tragedy, their actions drive it forward.
As living beings, that contradiction is far too irrational.
And yet, that is what humans are.
It is precisely those irrational, imperfect creatures that we call human.
A rational, perfect creature could no longer be called human.
And yet despite that, humans keep striving toward it.
Even though they can never reach it so long as they remain human.
And the harder they aim for it, the more new tragedy accumulates.
Because to aim for it means to look upward—an act of betraying those who love equality in order to deviate alone.
And humans show no mercy to those who deviate.
To be different is always to become a target of discrimination.
If humans want to rise, they have no choice but to keep pace with those around them and advance slowly.
And because they can only advance at the pace of a turtle, humans never truly progress.
Even as civilization develops, its substance never progresses.
And so, while aiming for the top, they just keep going around in circles in the same place.
Round and round and round and round.
☆ "
At that radical statement, the President of Dazdorudia—though he let nothing show on his face—felt a headache coming on.
In truth, the long-running meeting had given him a genuinely heavy head.
It was fatigue, but also the subject matter.
Other participants who had heard the radical statement were raising voices of agreement or, conversely, voices of condemnation.
Even in the spacious conference room, the loud clamor of arguing legislators echoed painfully in his ears.
The subject of discussion was the research results published by a researcher named Potimas Harifenas.
Whether to approve them or reject them.
The meeting was being held to unify the nation's stance on the matter.
However, one only had to look at the state of the conference room to see that the discussion had become contentious.
Potimas had announced two new discoveries.
The first was the discovery of an unknown energy called MA Energy, and the successful operation of it.
The energy problem was a matter of concern for advanced nations.
Neither oil nor coal were inexhaustible, and their consumption was increasing year by year.
Even if not immediately, it was clear they would eventually run out, and developing next-generation energy was necessary.
And now, a solution had been suddenly placed right before their eyes.
Supposedly, MA Energy was an energy source that would never run out and could be replenished from anywhere.
As long as you had the proper facilities, you could extract limitless energy from anywhere.
The President dismissed the dream-like pitch in his mind with a single word: ridiculous.
Limitless energy did not exist in this world.
That sort of thing was nothing but a fairy tale.
Not merely dream-like—it was an actual dream.
It only appeared limitless; there was always a bottom.
And with that, the President looked at the paper Potimas had published, which lay before him.
It described the method of extracting MA Energy and converting it into electrical energy, but contained no description of what MA Energy actually was.
It was described simply as a new energy that welled up without end.
There was no way they could use such dubious energy.
The President had already reached his conclusion.
And yet, the reason the meeting had become so contentious was because of the other announcement.
The other discovery Potimas had announced.
It was a method of human evolution using MA Energy.
By using MA Energy, it was possible to evolve humans.
The paper contained data from clinical experiments showing significant improvement in the subjects' physical abilities, a slight increase in thinking speed, and above all, a lifespan that would theoretically extend to roughly three times its normal length.
If one believed only the results, they were staggering.
In fact, Potimas had demonstrated this by having his subjects set new records in sport after sport.
That alone would have bolstered the credibility of the paper, but a massive amount of data had also been submitted to appear as though it supported those claims.
Data on lifespan was particularly extensive: while the theoretical value was roughly three times, taking into account predictions about maintainable health, the actual figure would be around 2.5 to 2.75 times, the paper theorized.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been dismissed as the ravings of a mad scientist.
But when the researcher was Potimas Harifenas, the story was different.
Brain transplant devices, human cloning, the normalization of cancer cells.
A new announcement from the genius who had left behind so many achievements.
And moreover, accompanied by actual subjects.
It was dangerous to call it suspect.
Above all, there was the psychological desire not to deny it.
Lifespans would be extended.
Humans would evolve.
Nothing could be more wondrous.
That was precisely why the parliament was in turmoil.
The President had already reached his conclusion.
If MA Energy was to be denied, then so too must the use of it for evolution be denied.
However, given the contentious atmosphere in the conference room, he doubted they would accept that.
The meeting continues.
A stone has been cast at humanity, which never progresses.
Will they evolve, or won't they?
And even if they evolve—will there truly be progress?