Chapter 1 – Earth in the Distant Future

In the distant future of Earth.

There was a huge island in the middle of the wide ocean.

It was an artificial island made by the human race that thrived in ancient times.

The Ancients.

On the island, there were only small houses sprinkled all over the island. There was no shopping malls, factories, and other such buildings.

The was quite a distance between each house, and every house contained a large garden, but there were few signs of people.

Since the artificial island was maintained and managed by various robots, the houses maintained their appearance of when the Ancients were still alive.

On one such house, you can hear the sound of a girl humming.

The girl in the small house was cooking up a nice meal in her cute and lovely kitchen.

The girl would occasionally take off her apron and go for a walk and see how the barrier of the artificial island was holding up.

The girl then smiled with satisfaction as she looked at the barrier for a while, then she returned home to resume her cooking.

In the entire artificial island, only this girl was living here.

No, to be precise, this girl is the only human being left in the universe.

This girl is the last survivor of the Ancients, and is also the crystal of science and technology.

Roughly 200 million years ago, humanity evolved from apes on Earth.

Then, humanity quickly grew and achieved various scientific and technological advancements.

With its technology, humanity sprang out from the Earth's orbit and extended its influence throughout the universe.

Also, with their proud military might, they invaded and fought other planets, continuing to expand their sphere of influence.

The planets that were invaded by Earth formed a [Planetary Alliance] and retaliated against Earth, but it was powerless in the face of the overwhelmingly powerful army of Earth.

Planets one after the other were invaded and controlled, driving the Planetary Alliance down to the ground.

It seemed as if it was the return of the era of exploration and colonisation, but it did not last long.

To put it simply, the Ancients were exhausted.

The species which managed to rule the vast universe.

In order to maintain control, wars were being fought daily.

Furthermore, new elements and technologies were already all discovered and perfected.

The old humanity knew everything there was to be known in the universe.

Even a baby was able to understand the basic of warp navigation.

To the Ancients, immortality was easily obtained.

Problems regarding energy, the environment, racism, religion, and other such problems have been a thing of the past.

To the omnipotent and omniscient Ancients, the universe has lost its charm.

As a result, there was no longer need for the vast space and resources the Ancients acquired. They abandoned the planets they have conquered one after the other.

The enormous cosmic armada, the prosperous planets, the perfect management by the Ancients…

It was all abandoned.

The Ancients, like twilight, disappeared from the universe just like that.

And after a short while, as if by instinct, various Ancients from all over the universe slowly returned back home. To Earth.

For some reason, the Ancients population which numbered at units of billions at one time, slowly dwindled as time went on.

At that point in time, the Ancients decided to leave the supercontinent which has formed after millions of years, and construct an artificial island to live in.

When the crystal of intelligence of the artificial island was completed, the total Ancients population was already less than 10 thousand, but no one viewed it as a problem.

"At last the long history of the Ancients have come to an end."

Such thoughts and feelings were flowing among the people.

Perhaps there were maybe still some earthlings on other planets, but it no longer mattered.

The people were thinking, "you can return to Earth if you want, if you don't, you are on your own."

On the artificial island where the Ancients lived, the slow demise of time was flowing.

The immortal Ancients died one after another the moment they got tired of their own lives.

All the various arts produced by the Ancients, science, technology, and even cooking could not stop the Ancients from leaving the world.

About 100 million years or so ago, I became the last Earthling.

The last person I saw off was a neighbour of mine.

I never had a conversation, let alone greetings with that person. The only companion I had was a portrait of a deceased person.

That was because I did not step out of the house. I was just quietly waiting for time to pass.

One day, I was watching a black and white movie.

I was watching the silent monochrome movie without any interest whatsoever.

At that time, I had received a message from the artificial island.

In that message,

<You are the last of the Ancients. This island is now all yours.>

That message was both happy and sad to me at the same time.

Reading that message, I learned that my neighbour had finally got tired of this world and chose to die.

The neighbour had a simple funeral.

Without a will or a suicide note, the robots were supposed to do a simple funeral.

The body was cremated by the robots carefully.

I dressed up in a mourning dress and attended the funeral of my neighbour and became the last person to see him off.

If I am dead, there won't be anyone who would see me off now.

My corpse would definitely be handled by the robots just like the way my neighbour's body was handled.

But I did not think much of it.

The next day, I was slowly reading books and listening to music in the house, waiting for time to pass.

I had been content, living such a simple life.

The contentment lasted for a hundred years.

One day, I was enjoying a walk outside in the park.

Then I found a small green caterpillar moving restlessly about my foot.

At that time, I don't know why my foot had stopped.

I could not take my eyes off the caterpillar.

The green caterpillar was eating leaves while moving restlessly.

I continued to watch the caterpillar patiently.

The caterpillar then wrapped itself with a thread and turned itself into a pupa.

And from a pupa, it turned into a beautiful butterfly and fluttered into the sky,

The butterfly flapped its wings freely in the sky. It produced another caterpillar and died.

At that time, I did not want to part with the butterfly.

When I came back to myself, I realised that a year has passed.

I wasn't eating nor drinking all that time, but that wasn't a problem.

For the Ancients with God-like powers, this was nothing.

The ants found the dead butterfly who fell to the roadside and brought it back to the nest, and the butterfly became rice to the ants.

When I saw that, I noticed.

I was crying.

I was still crying.

My body was trembling with emotions.

I felt that suddenly, my eyes had been opened.

I didn't know why.

At that time, the feelings I could not describe surged.

And I cried out loud for the first time in my life.

After that, I decided to continue observing the various insects and animals.

And I was able to experience the same surging emotions each time.

I continued to observe the creatures which were common in the area.

With immortality, time is of no essence.

I kept observing as much as I wanted.

I who has observed all creatures that existed on the artificial island, turned my attention to outside the artificial island for the first time.

There was no longer any Ancients out there.

I thought that the creatures that were not managed by the artificial island's controlled environment would be wonderful.

I was so excited about that thought, like a pearl that was going to explode.

The drones flew around the sky frivolously with no regards to gravity, and when it left the artificial island, it left with several times the speed of sound across the entire Earth.

The drone dove into the sea, roaming about on the soil, and naturally was flying around in the sky.

At first glance, it seemed like there was no microphone or cameras on the drone.

But I can sense what the drone sensed.

By sharing the senses with the drone, everything the drone saw, heard, felt, tasted… all of it came to me.

The brain will die if it was overloaded with too much information, but to me it was nothing.

The Ancients has even improved their brains to the point that it can easily handle the information transmitted by the drones.

I sat on a chair and enjoyed the outside world.

A flowing river, a lightning bolt streaking across the sky, the huge earthquake shaking the earth…

Various living creatures were living in the outside world.

I enjoyed observing the outside world for a long time.