Chapter 200: Goddess, Please Come (5)
43,000,000,000 Days.
Approximately 120 million years.
Compared to the age of the universe, the Earth, or the Sun, it was an insignificant span of time... Yet, when measured against the mere millions of years of human history, the few centuries of machine civilization, and the not even few decades of my own life, it was an eternity beyond comprehension.
A hundred million years was a span so vast that the gap between the era of humans fiddling with smartphones and the time of dinosaurs felt just as distant. I could feel my legs weaken in the face of such an overwhelming passage of time.
"Sc-Scientist! Please be careful!"
Aile, who had rushed over in a panic, supported me as I staggered. I carefully straightened my posture, though my limbs had already begun to tremble. But there was no time for this.
I turned to the computer. I had to check the logs inside. ...This was the duty that remained for me.
[Day 1. Commissioning Ceremony]
[Day 148. First Space Navigation Training]
[Day 666. Space Parasite Eradication Operation]
The logs from the first few years after this warship was built were records I was familiar with. Training exercises, exterminating pests harmful to humans, navigating the vast expanse of space to expand humanity’s reach.
But then, something began to change. The records shifted to a period I knew nothing about—roughly a decade after the warship’s construction.