Honkai: Man(Sludge) From Future

Face what? He was the ancestor of future humanity now.

If anything, it was the future people of this era who had to face him, their ancestor.

Noldrei quickly adjusted his mindset. He wasn't particularly bothered by this little development.

Dr. Tesla had been thinking along these lines all along. After following Noldrei for a while, she had developed a keen, instinctual sense of which parts of herself could be replaced or discarded.

That's why she had flown into a rage the moment she found out about Mobius.

After hundreds of chapters of being a tsundere, she had now more or less figured out her own feelings, elevating her understanding of emotional matters to a whole new level.

Tesla didn't believe that the future state of marriage Noldrei described was correct. A relationship based on mutual control under absolute equality didn't seem like a marriage at all. It was more like... a twisted compromise born of helplessness.

Tesla, having flown her mecha all the way to Jerusalem, immediately grabbed Noldrei and prepared to go get married.

"Wait, wait! What's the rush?"

Noldrei thought Tesla was being a bit much. She had just arrived, didn't even know the full story, and was already trying to drag him to the "altar."

"I've thought it through very clearly! Let's go, get in the house with me!"

Tesla believed this matter should be handled sooner rather than later, faster rather than slower, especially with someone like Noldrei, who could change his mind at any moment.

Tesla's way of thinking was clearly different from Noldrei's.

Unlike Noldrei, who didn't care about a piece of paper, Tesla suddenly felt a sense of urgency, as if the marital relationships between humans would soon collapse like a sandcastle on the beach.

"Just wait a minute. We'll get back there eventually."

Noldrei wasn't in a hurry about this. After all, within Academy City, there were still original Far East ward offices that handled old-style marriage registrations.

In the near future, these offices would be abolished. Once the genetic era truly began, the last reason for humanity's genetic existence would completely disappear.

What mattered to Tesla was capturing this last little memory as quickly as possible, before it was gone. Whether it was real or not didn't matter; what mattered most was that she had once possessed it.

It was like the scenic historical sites preserved in modern society. People knew these things were of little use to modern life, yet they still sought to feel the same sentiments as people of the past. If the ancients knew that modern people, living in such comfort, would come back to feel sentimental over their leaky, drafty old shacks, they would probably curse them for being idiots.

After handling his affairs, Noldrei gave a few instructions to Mobius, telling her to find a way to control the "emotions" of the local populace. Control in the literal sense—using the Herrscher of Sentience's power to maintain a certain level of stability in the area.

Once that was done, Noldrei left with Tesla.

Enough people had been killed in this land. It was time for the new ruler to carry out the work of the future.

Compared to Noldrei's completely relaxed attitude, Tesla was actually much more nervous, though she didn't know why. It seemed particularly ridiculous to be nervous over a piece of paper, a marriage certificate that was about to become obsolete and was destined to die.

"So, why did marriage in your future turn into that kind of relationship? The kind where... this strange marital power is formed with the requirement of mutually controlling each other?"

Although Tesla knew that the marital relationships of this era were destined to die, she was still curious as to why the future would develop in such a way.

"Yeah, why indeed..."

Noldrei didn't seem to want to talk about this topic. He asked back, "Actually, you know the answer yourself, don't you, Tesla? It's about seeking a certain kind of relationship, one different from the restrictive pressure of society as a whole. A relationship you can choose for yourself, one that is absolutely faithful to life itself. It could be lord and vassal, friends, allies, or husband and wife, parents and children, and so on. People will always try to find an unchanging anchor point to establish this certainty."

"This is actually an unsolvable paradox. When you use an unchangeable anchor to stabilize a relationship, it means that the relationship itself can also be quantified by the absoluteness of natural matter. Once it can be quantified, it means that matter with the same quantified conditions can be produced to replace that relationship."

"The rise and fall of marital relationships is, in fact, just the continuous iteration of this quantification."

Tesla was silent for a long time. She still couldn't penetrate Noldrei's futuristic values. On the contrary, in the new society set up by this man from the future, her old values were crumbling bit by bit.

"Then, what about love? Do people in the future not have love anymore?"

"Love is a very dangerous behavior. It's a point of conflict with the power of social public ownership." Noldrei chose his words carefully and explained, "Love doesn't originate from human animal instinct, because love doesn't exist within the animalistic nature of humans. That's the animal's right to protect its reproductive instinct. Only when a person is in society, or when their social nature is revealed, will they develop the thought and power of 'loving' someone. Its very existence is a reflection on all social relationships. If the power born from 'love' is not enough to unite the majority, it means that the reflection on the power dynamics of the entire society is not thorough enough."

"It's like when humans see animals protecting their young and their mates. They feel that the animals 'love' their young and mates, and they derive a corresponding emotional response from it. But that's because we project human emotions onto animals. In reality, animals are simply protecting their right to reproduce. Most animals that don't do this have been optimized and eliminated by the food chain."

Tesla knew Noldrei was telling the truth. It perfectly matched the materialistic construction of the world in her mind. And yet, being human, she couldn't help but feel that such a framework was cruel and painful.

"What about your feelings? I mean, do you think the society constructed by these future people is right?"

"Of course not! What are you thinking? If I thought it was right, would I have come back to the past from the future?" Noldrei looked at her in surprise. He remembered that he should have talked to Tesla about this before.

Tesla's mind went blank, unable to process.

"What do you mean? You don't think it's right, yet you're continuing down this historical path in this era?"

Tesla thought Noldrei must be insane.

But Noldrei calmly explained, "Of course I know it's not entirely right in the future, but what's even more wrong are the things in your era. The suffering your current society brings upon humanity is clearly pushing everyone towards such a future. I just released a tiny bit of information, and humanity is already stampeding across a single-plank bridge."

"And you expect these people to reflect on the suffering of my historical society? Isn't that just wishful thinking?"

Tesla was convinced by Noldrei. The guy was right again.