Editing KSGU:Volume 6 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 11===

The cracking sounds of flames could be heard, and Banagher felt the heat touching his face as he opened his eyes.

A column of smoke could be seen rising up, seemingly mixing into the faint ink-like starry night. Zinnerman was beside him, sitting on the ground and setting a fire, and the shadows that were casted upon the rock behind them were swaying. Banagher’s eyes caught sight of the marks around the shadows. These pictures looked like cow herds and people holding bows and arrows, and on a closer look, there were countless marks like this craved all over the rock wall. Perhaps these marks were left behind since a long time ago by the people living here when humanity first started to move.

The wall showed people tending to their livestock, men heading to war and women facing each other while sitting on chariots. ''Does this mean that this place had greenery for people to live, that there were work, wars, families and all sorts of human activities?'' As he laid down, Banagher looked up at the wall as he lingered in a half-dazed manner, only to suddenly see Zinnerman, who had been looking at him, right in the eyes.''

He wanted to get up immediately, only to notice a blanket covering him. His body that was lying on the hard floor was completely stiff, and whenever he moved, he would feel intolerably sore. Zinnerman took up the small pot heated over the fire and poured the fluid in it over to an empty can. ''Here'', he then handed the can over while seemingly saying this. The fragrance of the hot soup flowed out from within, and Banagher received the soup can without thinking.

He hurriedly poured the hot soup into his thoroughly cold and dry body, finding it a waste of time to wait for it to turn cold. The soup that was heated by a real fire was different from a vessel that had a heating function, as it could warm even a person’s heart. His invigorated nerves were starting to move, and there was a sense of warmth inside his body. He could feel that his body that should have used all energy and strength was trembling due to delight, pulsating. ''I’m not dead yet, I’m still alive.'' The moment he understood this, he gathered all the warmth to his nose and looked up at the sky.

The tears that remained in his eyes flowed out, and he stared at the stars that flickered in his blurry sights. This night sky that was powered by something unknown was brighter than he thought. The galaxy’s arm flashed by as a river of light, causing the night sky to give a deep blue color.

“Why are you crying?”

Zinnerman threw a dried twig into the fire as he mumbled these words. Banagher continued to look up at the sky as he answered, “The stars are really so pretty…” ''My excuse here is really stupid, but it’s not a lie.'' Zinnerman then snorted and looked up above his head.

The sounds of the maggots resting in the ground were quietly welling the breath of night as they were gradually sucked in by the darkness. Banagher remembered that scorpions and snakes would be attracted by heat, and rubbed his teary eyes before looking around. He saw that there was a pesticide sensor around them, and heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed that they had already climbed over the sand dunes. The surroundings were an uneven rugged rocky stretch, and he could see rocks that were in weird shapes due to many years of constant erosion. The hard and dry ground had lithic scattered all over the place, and the shrubs could be seen growing from the ground. A small figure suddenly lit its eyes and quickly disappeared into the darkness, probably a mouse living in the desert or some other organism.

There were organisms living in this place that even humans had already abandoned a long time ago. They continued to endure the harsh conditions, followed their impulsive will to live blindly, and continued to look for prey all just to continue their daily life. ''Don’t they find this world unreasonable?'' Banagher looked up at this rocky wall that was most probably left behind by people of the past, and tried to pull through his thoughts that were not exactly thinking. Only humans were granted the ability to draw and to think. If this intelligence was the reason why humans felt that things were unreasonable, perhaps there was no other organisms who were caught in the cycle of cause and effect more than humans. If modern people could live with nature like those people who drew the wall painting—

“I feel like the saying that the Earth will be polluted is a hoax when I stay here.”

Zinnerman looked up at the clear starry sky as he suddenly spoke up. Feeling unexpected, Banagher stared the side of his face.

“But in fact, the sky here was a lot dirtier than before. It’s said that deserts would expand every year right until where Dakar is. This is a negative consequence of developing Earth again, and also a result of the abnormal weather caused by throwing down colonies and meteors…but these things probably didn’t matter to Earth.”

The wind blew through the cracks between the rocks, releasing the sound that resembled a human voice. Zinnerman did not look at Banagher’s face as he naturally continued,

“The meaning of protecting Earth is just about protecting the ecosystem humans relied on. This sentence can be established as the price of global warming, desertification, and Earth being polluted by chemicals. If humans can be considered to be the ones creating everything, the trash and toxins produced by humans can naturally be seen as part of nature. If humans are the only ones who can’t live, the likelihood is that nature is trying to achieve a balance. To Earth, it probably doesn’t matter whether there are any organisms living on Earth or not.”

Banagher, who nearly died at the hands of the desert, could empathize with this statement. Living together with nature—this kind of nature was probably a fantasy humans had after being pampered by civilization. He could only lower his head as he felt amazed by how shallow his thoughts were.

The older generations of humans who struggled against the harsh conditions instinctively knew about this. Nature will never show any mercy to humanity, so humanity created civilization to live on, and used the system called society to protect themselves. But as time went by, this system got overly complicated, and humans ended up having to live for the sake of maintaining the system. Humanity then launched wars and continued to develop, let the economy grow…until they ended up making it hard for them to live, reversing their priorities. 

''Once a fetter is set up, the task of protecting the fetter itself would become something the adults had to deal with, and this would cause them to lose their ability to view things from an objective standpoint—'' Banagher heard the words Daguza said before amidst the wind as they entered deep into his ears.

“That’s why humans tried to look for this new world in space, but the system still remained on Earth. What the system demanded was that the exceeding population was to be removed from the ground. In the end, a group of people were dumped into space and created a different system there.”

“It was Zeon. They brought hope to the Spacenoids who were basically abandoned and gave them a new system, indicating a new direction to live…naturally, the system on Earth was rejected. Two systems that originated from different sources couldn’t coexist. One side had to succumb. This was established and proven by history by people of the olden times, before the Federation’s system was set up.”

Zinnerman looked far away between the stars where his hometown was and kept quiet. Banagher felt that the vague parts in his mind were becoming words, seeping deep into his mind, and stared at the man making the fire brighter. Zinnerman then glanced over “What? I’m not suitable for such things?” and asked, hiding his embarrassed expression as he pouted. “No.” Banagher answered as he looked away from that unexpectedly amicable bearded face.

“I feel so amazed that you can arrange your thoughts so clearly, it’s amazing…my history studies will be more decent if I was taught this way.”

“That’s because nature turns everyone into philosophers.”

Zinnerman said with a comfortable voice and laid down on the ground. Banagher gave a wry look and stared at the empty can he drank from. “But…” he tried to turn the words in his heart into a voice.

“But, looking at history, humanity managed to create a united government in the Federation and created a world where billions of people could stay in space. I guess that’s just a fantasy to those in the old ages, isn’t it? Doesn’t humanity also have this kind of possibility? It should be possible for humanity to unify these two thoughts and create a new system…”

Someone believed this before. Banagher did not hope that the speech the First Prime Minister of the Federation made as he was crushed together with “Laplace” in space was just a speech. Zinnerman did not move his body that was using its arm as a pillow, “That was established with many sacrifices.” and said with a sigh.

“The Federation didn’t view everyone as equal. There’re many oppositions they shot down and fought. That grudge still exists on Earth. It’s not going to be easily removed just like that.”

Zinnerman showed his hatred of losing his wife and child because of the unjustness of history, and his face looked like a demon for a moment. Banagher was not willing to continue looking at him as he immediately lowered his head and said with a very inaudible voice, “That was really too sad…”

“Yeah, it’s sad. We lived on to abandon our sadness…so why did it end up like this…”

Zinnerman’s muttering face was no longer like a demon, but the face of someone who was tortured unreasonably by sadness as large as a mountain, but still wanted to live on as a human. It was also the face of a human who experienced pain because of knowledge and blood, and yet could show gentleness. ''This man is probably someone gentle. He doesn’t know how to deal with the cruel reality and can only let the devil reside in him—that’s really sad.'' Banagher’s chest that was telling him this was shuddering, and tears of various sizes welled up in his eyes, silencing him. He laid down on the ground, his back facing Zinnerman, and he used the blanket to cover his sniffling sound.

Zinnerman gave a sharp stare right at Banagher’s back. “I know!” Banagher said without looking at the other man.

“You want to say that a man can’t cry in front of others, right?”

He rubbed his eyes, “it depends on the time and occasion” only to hear a quiet voice, and turned to look at Zinnerman.

“It’s ugly when someone cries out of self-pity, but it’s different if tears are shed for others. I won’t trust a man who won’t cry no matter what happens.”

After saying that, Zinnerman snuggled his body into the sleeping bag and did not move. “We’ll leave before dawn.” This voice rang beside in Banagher’s ears before he was about to enter that were about to enter the silence.

“We have to at least make up time for lagging behind. Rest well. Many illnesses are caused by a lack of sleep.”

The back profile that looked like a bear swayed on the other side with the fire. Banagher had an exceptional impression on that back as he closed his eyes.

''I can understand many things by thinking about it.'' This thought caused Banagher to immediately forget about the lethargic self he showed for the past few days, and he muttered to himself that he should first cross this desert. However, the astonishingly powerful sleep monster leapt at Banagher, and in a moment, he fell into a deep slumber.