Chapter 1626: NO. 240: Involuntary

NO. 240: Involuntary

Only for the person involved does such wonder often become truly understood after seeing others' loss or personally experiencing that gap.

Before that realization, most people's view of having an opponent was not some 'precious arch‑enemy' but merely a nuisance.

People driven to equal haste by a hurried social atmosphere and pace of life often, even in victory, have no mind to savor the process of chasing victory.

They simply rush straight to the next victory.

This is the instinct of all living beings.

It is precisely through those repeated victories that their kind and they themselves have endured to this day.

But precisely because that struggle has long been instinct—victory being taken for granted as necessary to survive—it also drives the vast majority of beings to be passively drawn into conflict and then resist it, rarely pausing to consider the meaning of it all.

And what makes humans human is precisely their ability to think, and in thinking to obtain ways to lower survival costs, thereby freeing up more time for thought.

By then they can freely discuss the lofty definition of spirit, which is what truly sets them apart from the teeming multitude of life on this planet, allowing them to step into the realms of gods, demons, and even extraterrestrial beings.

Yet even humans who reach this point cannot long retain that capacity for thought.

More often, they simply follow the inertia of life, letting the single word 'habit' dominate everything.

Even when they have engaged in thought, they never reflect on why they think that way.

When such a state gradually occupies all of life, the boundary between humans and AI becomes especially blurred, allowing the earliest wave of AI to easily replace the habitués of human society.

Of course, the fact that this replacement did not directly spark riots was still due to the promptly following relief policies.

Although some will still resent, accuse, and attack AI, and even a few years later armed clashes have erupted, it is undeniable that after the enactment of AI‑grading laws and the widespread integration of electronic life into all industries, humanity ought to return to the mental liberation not yet urged or driven away by society.

And then more thought should burst forth from that carefree life!

But the facts clearly never developed according to that ideal.

Because among humans there still exist groups that want to find work or start businesses.

This in itself is not blameworthy, after all the AI Act also grants strong AI human‑rights protections, and the issues of production efficiency and wages are enough for human employees and firms to continue existing, while the Heart of Terra also deems it necessary to inherit the tradition of earning compensation through labor.

That helps stabilize the thinking of future humanity, preventing society itself from being torn apart in the midst of great change.

But when human enterprises and human employees coexist, the tendency to drag the new era back into old‑era flaws often resurges as well.

Oppression knows no end.

Whether it is oppression of one's own kind, of machinery, of breaking the law, or of exploiting legal loopholes, humanity, driven by greed, always demands more, together with the flaw of wanting work when unemployed and finding work yet deeming it a hassle…

It is truly a thunder‑bolt fit, easily reproducing that familiar yet loathed oppressive work atmosphere; its ill effect on children is likewise immeasurable.

Thus you cannot expect human thought to be truly fully liberated, nor can you expect the sub‑human and alien peoples who live and work like humans to make any breakthrough.

After all… intelligent beings living under the same society, even if they have different life needs, cannot escape the shared requirement of survival——

——as long as there is desire, there will be consumption;

as long as there is consumption, there will be stratification, there will be a division of luxuries, and more wealth will be needed to satisfy higher demands.

Thus you cannot escape labor.

All have to go to work, huh. jpg

Only those whose material desires are very low can long sustain themselves on social welfare alone; otherwise everyone must seek some side‑income channel to some extent.

Those sub‑humans and aliens are no different; indeed, the horse‑girls, a branch of humanity said to be born with a seemingly beautiful but actually harshly allocated track, are likewise unavoidable.

But compared to federal citizens who work solely for a better life, those federal citizens bearing horse ears and tails often stably prevail through a single motive: their dream.

Even if some individuals' motives may later corrupt, the dream is indeed where their shared original motive lies.

That does not help them gain insight from life, nor does it allow them to reflect on everything about the course they run, yet it can point out the road ahead—it is their star and compass, so they will not lose their way even in the vast, sea‑like night.

And while they pursue that star and compass, they often become the star and compass in the eyes of others.

Bright and radiant, conspicuous enough that people find it hard to look away.

But when that star and compass grow dim and dust‑covered, the hearts of countless people will be tugged and tightened, turning what should have been a roaring sea of cheers into a brief hush after the clamor.

Because of the commentator's situation, and because the athletes kept surging forward one after another, the four horse‑girls whom everyone expected fell behind together with the Senlinbaoxue, while it was clear that the dozen or so riders had occupied the entire inside and outside of the front track, leaving absolutely no room to break through.

So‑called darkest moment is nothing more than this.

Someone once reported it thus:

Great sport is precisely what enables spectators who witness the athletes' bearing to feel vitality, fill with longing, and then ignite courage for life.

This remark may be somewhat biased, but the reason the horse‑girls' competitions have developed to this day is indeed because of these words.

Because they have accumulated too much gloom and too much pressure from life and work, to the point that they often want to give up, and indeed have already abandoned some childhood goals and dreams—even in the Holy Terra Federation, which at first glance looks like a utopian society, such people are as numerous as cow hairs.

After all, human desire has always been a variable, not a constant.

The lower classes have lower‑class dreams, the upper classes have upper‑class goals; everyone, according to their circumstances, yearns for the same distant scenery, then, amid failure in different situations, they slump and must rely on external motivation.

Leaders, idols, athletes—people easily see longing in those distant, glittering images, place hopes upon them, for seeing efficacy and success makes them feel encouraged as well, feeling that it is their inner compass and starlight; but what if such figures themselves fall into decline?

Then it will be those scattered cheers that are about to become the leaders' rallying cries.

"Don't lose, AdmireVega!!"

"Come on, MihonoBourbon!!"

For a moment, from what seemed like an Olympic‑style light‑gathering set, the names called out in anticipation of the second‑round performance were followed by those of Ailisuzhi and Manchester Chazuo, the newcomers who truly burst onto the scene and chased after their teammates' steps.

Obviously, horse‑girls are not Ultraman.

Fans' shouts can indeed add a bit of drive, but on this mid‑point, which is only half the racecourse, several horse‑girls never considered disrupting their own pace to speed up excessively chasing those frantic sound‑figures.

And those shouting fans also never noticed that nearby there might be the silent fans of those thirteen horse‑girls.

An oppressive silence spread among the spectators watching the idols' running posture, merely because their fleeing‑like, far‑from‑easy run.

Watching their smile spreading like a virus, those spectators seemed to see tears.

Seeing that, indeed only true fans could perceive the pain and sorrow.