Yes, Krunzer and 1 had a long conversation.
"Yeah, boss, life's meaning? Work, or join a quick get-rich scheme and wait for your luck to shine. Wallah, you'll be a billionaire—just try until you succeed. That's the path to success. Life is all about success and a well-earned gamble. Most people gamble until they're broke, not knowing their next gamble could've been the one that hit." He said it with fervor, but looking at his outfit and manner of speech, I slowly started to realize what kind of man 1 was—and that 'One' might be his code or slave name or something if he has to do everything Krunzer says.
"Yeah, that's why they even banned your access to any electronics," Krunzer said and continued, "You were so addicted that you learned to code and use all those LLMs and whatnot to turn even a smart refrigerator into a device that could access all those weird websites in the dark end." He looked like he wanted to say more but held himself back from going full criticism mode, it seemed.
"Okay, dude." He became professional, and his outfit complemented his professionalism. But that robot droid 1 beside him, when mixed in, gave a weird feel to it…
"Hey, listen, alright? There are lots of weird things going on nowadays—lots of mind fuckery. And lots of things, even if I want to say them, I can't, since I myself am not clear or don't have enough evidence. And I'm especially not authorized to say. But the thing is, the world is ##### alright. It was already #$#$%=, but now it's turned into an eraser that wipes everything away. And people are way more cautious. See the device I'm using? This is one of them. And the only reason I'm telling you this is 'cause you're my closest bud, and this whole meeting was a coincidence made by some higher entity or something. But be safe..."
It seemed like he wanted to say more, but then some kind of band appeared on his neck.
"Wha—" he turned pale. "Yeah, bye. See you later." He suddenly seemed to be in a hurry. 1 followed him quietly. He grabbed my arm and made me follow him into an alley.
"I can't say," he said. "I don't—" he muttered to himself. "You just listen to me, okay, bro? Enjoy the rest of your life. Maybe we can meet in the future. And 1, follow me. We have to go now."
They quietly took their departure, and it was as if they never existed. And why did he grab my hand and take me to a corner? It was a mystery. But all I can say is—
"F##### this whole complicated mess. I have to enter that shi$## uni or they might really not give me the credits for my TecBM degree," I shouted, and ran as fast as I could to reach the college vehicle driven by a smart droid.
"You are pretty quick, young man," the droid spoke in a human-like manner. It looked quite goofy with the fake beard and moustache and spoke in an old man tone. This was all new to me, but still felt welcoming.
"Hmm… quiet, I see. Or absent-minded," it said while rubbing its long, croissant-shaped moustache.
"Sorry, I had a few messy interruptions, so I was late by a few hours," I said.
"No problem. Get ready—we're headed to the campus soon," he said while pointing at a QR code scanner, as if asking me to do something.
As he made that gesture, something clicked in me. I took out an ID and pointed it at the scanner.
"All aboard, take your seating," he said as I sat—the only one in the bus.
I somehow felt sleepy. Maybe I was tired or something.
"Haah," I yawned and started to close my eyes for a few minutes, I thought to myself.
"Interesting" was the last sound I heard before falling asleep.
.......
Slowly, some kind of red mark appeared on his shoulder. It was the same mark he had before he was in this world—the mark which always glowed when he had a nightmare. It was weird for it to appear now, but MC didn't see this occur to himself. Even if it occurred when he was awake, it wouldn't have mattered as he would've required a mirror to check that.
Slowly, the bus flew up and went on up, and at a point where people couldn't even see a tiny dot, it disappeared and was like it never existed in the first place.
Over in the other corner, when it went above the barrier and flew, a city similar in size to the previous one appeared, and the bus entered it through a remote location where people couldn't even doubt that there was a city below their city—like the levels of a building.
It went through the area. The forest, where it went, contained few mutated animals; their grotesque appearance resulted from pollution.
Mimicking a human—or displaying advanced features like self-awareness—the robot said to itself, "Ok," and pushed a button. Slowly, some weird spray was sprayed which was the same as isopropyl, and as soon as it fell on the surroundings, it evaporated and turned into gas and disappeared.
"Haah, did I just fall asleep this early or what?" he thought to himself while he was combing his hair and slowly stared at the window to see different exotic and grotesque, and cute animals and got mesmerized by it.
"So these were the causes of environmental degradation and the result of pollution," he was contemplating.
"So you, why are you thinking of these kinds of questions? Wasn't this what you saw from your childhood?" the robot asked him in curiosity after it heard his statement.
"I didn't know, but all this feels pretty fascinating—how global warming and pollution and chemical waste and other pollutants caused such harm to the environment that back in 2020, it would've seemed like a fantasy for all this to happen," he said. He felt a bit nervous as he didn't know about any of these kinds of animals existing in his world—the previous one at least—so he gave his genuine opinion.
"You are an interesting human. But you know, from my database, I know that even in the past, when technology developed in the early 21st century, the temperature drastically increased by 1 degree compared to before that—which took centuries to millennia to occur. It is just the cost of curiosity and wasting resources in such high abundance," it said in its neutral voice.