Honkai: Man(Sludge) From Future

Elysia felt like an absolute idiot. Why did she follow Noldrei out for a social observation?

Only to be brought out to see this kind of situation.

Fortunately, she had lived for so many years and had seen all sorts of things. She had even heard news about similar apocalyptic orgies.

It was not surprising that humanity had fallen into depravity once or twice during an apocalypse.

But to fall into depravity during a time of prosperity was truly the most tragic.

The two watched as the middle-aged man engaged in a primal struggle with the underage girl. Elysia had thought Noldrei would intervene, but he didn't move a muscle, instead watching intently from beginning to end.

In his eyes, the supposedly titillating scene was as unexciting as two stray dogs mating on the side of the road.

"I thought you were going to stop them," Elysia said, feeling she should say something to break the awkward silence.

"It's obviously not the girl's first time, nor is it the man's. It's like an animal venting, with none of the necessary foreplay, nor any of the post-coital emotional tenderness. I've seen plenty of video recordings, after all. Some hotels have even had videos from their love suites leak." Noldrei didn't think there was anything wrong with what he saw, nor did he have any intention of respecting modern human privacy.

In Noldrei's view, modern human privacy was somewhat laughable. The point was not the privacy itself, but whether its exposure affected their lives. If it didn't, the person whose privacy was violated probably wouldn't even know it had happened.

Take those candid videos online, for example. Most of them ended up as junk data in some storage, and you'd never know which god had filmed you.

"Look at that man. It's like he can't figure out what he should be doing. Trying to have a heart-to-heart conversation is pointless because he knows she's just looking for a temporary place to park. And look at the girl, doing her best to pretend to cooperate. Even if a genuine emotion were to slip out, she knows he wouldn't feel it."

"Because she also knows the man is just venting and has no intention of taking responsibility for the future. In this situation, the woman knows that not a single word the man says is credible, and the man knows the woman is being completely fake. Tell me, besides a few hormones, what else is there between them?"

"A relationship stripped of human emotion... isn't that just purely animalistic?"

"To turn people into such animals... I don't think that's anything to be happy about. Human reproduction is different from animal reproduction. Animals have a simple mating instinct and will carry out this instinct at specific times and places."

Elysia fell silent as well. She truly hadn't expected Noldrei to be so concerned with these strange issues in the human reproductive process. As he said, the tragedy lay precisely there.

During the post-nut clarity after the "sperm-goes-to-the-brain" phase, instead of continuing to immerse themselves in emotion, they realize in that moment of lucidity that theirs is a purely physical relationship, devoid of genuine feeling.

"Is it like this in your future, too?"

Noldrei shook his head. "No. In the future, this specific kind of relationship is no longer needed to sustain human reproduction, so this type of emotion has evolved into a form of control over the other person. Only through exercising power and control over another can one feel the re-emergence of this emotion."

Elysia was speechless. She felt that this future didn't seem any better. In fact, it sounded even more... terrifying.

She now understood why Noldrei had brought her to see these things. Only the most extreme and marginalized members of society could display the greatest tension of its internal contradictions. Noldrei had even considered her feelings by not actively showing her more nauseating situations.

"The current situation is quite troublesome. Ely... let me ask you a question. There are two stories. One is about a shepherd who raises sheep, has children, and continues to raise sheep, repeating the cycle day after day. The other is about someone who has been beaten down by modern society's family and social relationships and wants their child to live the happy life they never could. Which of these two do you think is more noble and progressive?"

The two of them squatted on the balcony of the man's small apartment, a floor above where he'd taken the shrine maiden, chatting idly.

Hearing the question, Elysia's instinct told her the latter was the correct, progressive choice. But after thinking it over, she realized that wasn't necessarily the case.

"If you hadn't specifically asked me, I would have said the latter is better. But now that you've put it this way... Ely isn't so sure anymore. But I'll still follow my heart. The latter is clearly the more progressive educational method for children in modern times."

Elysia didn't offer a third option; she answered Noldrei's question honestly.

"As society progresses, the direction of family education also changes. But in reality, both choices are the same. It's just that one social background is a mountain valley that won't change for a long time, and the other is the society of the Current Era. In essence, both are 'parents choosing to give their offspring what they believe is best'."

"This is the fundamental driving force behind humanity's own pursuit of reproductive relationships—the desire to pass on what one believes to be beautiful. If it were purely about venting lust, one wouldn't care about offspring. Once caring about this reproductive relationship is involved, one will inevitably consider whether they can entrust what they believe is good to others."

"The reason it has degenerated to this..."

He pointed to the two in the room who had started up again. "...is that people clearly know that the ownership of the 'good things' they believe in is not in their own hands, and they can never entrust it to a partner in a loving relationship."

"It is because a material foundation exists that an equal marital relationship can exist, not by trying to control people's marital relationships to achieve material equality. The former is the logical structure of a normal social relationship; the latter is the oppressive distortion of normal relationships by class power."

"So I've been thinking about a question. Should I completely shatter this kind of relationship that modern humans have? Or should I change the way reproductive relationships are constructed? In the future, they won't have reproductive rights anyway, so they'll have no ability to pass on what they believe is beautiful, no matter what."

After Noldrei finished, he suddenly changed the subject. "Ely, what do you think? How about I let you choose the answer to this question?"

Sometimes Elysia felt Noldrei was very good to humanity. Other times, he would strike without mercy, just as he felt no pity for the many who died when Palestine and Israel threw bombs at each other.

The pink-haired elf suddenly realized she might be standing at a turning point in history.

Was Noldrei asking her how to decide the future of human reproductive relationships?

'Oh no, oh no, how is Ely supposed to answer this?!'