Garden of Eden || Apocalypse Paradise #2 [Complete]

116: The Status of Women in the Garden of Eden

"Why... Why?"

The pub was filled with cheers and whoops, which grew with each minute, so loud that the robotic arms serving alcohol vibrated slightly. The quiet comment was easily drowned out by the raucous noise and was heard only by the man directly opposite the speaker.

The man's face was hidden once again under his hood, so half his face was covered by shadow. He did not reply immediately but instead leaned to a side, listening to the crowd's crazy celebratory hubbub before he gave a dismissive snort, curling one side of his lips.

"Because we aren't human to them," he responded with his baritone voice while he took a sip of his blue cocktail.

The man in front of him was slim and dark-skinned. He was probably in his twenties or early thirties. He was stunned, and somehow, his usually bright and inquisitive eyes were covered by a dull glaze.

He gaped, almost as if his voice was turning as pale as his face, "I don't understand... even if we are different, this is too..."

"Too what?" the man in robes gave a wan smile, "Don't humans have the same attitude towards cockfights, bullfighting, and dogfights? The only thing is that we look exactly like them. That's why there are those—" he did not finish his sentence. At that point, the slim man lost focus in the conversation and suddenly covered his own mouth. Cold sweat appeared all over his body as he tried to hold back his nausea, making a muffled voice.

The light from the screen flickered over his face while the cheers from the crowd abated. The slim man turned and saw that the recap had ended, and the female host was back on the screen. He quickly downed a few large gulps of beer, but his face still looked sickly. "I... I don't understand." The slim man gripped his beer bottle tightly. The disgust he felt when he saw those images previously made him so uncomfortable that it was as if he could feel his soul cringing.

The man hidden in robes continued sluggishly, "No one knows the exact date that this apocalyptic world called the Garden of Eden descended. Everyone only knows that it has been a few decades. At that time, the citizens here had advanced technology. They created this city enclosed in glass, and many normal people with zero Potential Growth Value survived. Even though they cannot leave this radiation-free zone, they are not subjected to random transportation to other apocalypse worlds. Thus, they continue to thrive today."

"Do you know how large this the Garden of Eden City is?" he suddenly asked.

The slim man shook his head and did not say a word as he was afraid that he might spit out the gastric juices he barely managed to keep down.

"By foot, you could explore the entire place in three hours." The voice that escaped the robe was as calm and unwavering as before, "Can you imagine a life like that? Living in a restrictive cage from the day you were born, unable to leave and knowing that you will just have a job that the government assigns, raising a limited number of children as dictated, dying in a designated spot, and out there... there are those free posthumans coming and leaving as they want."

"Mr. Gong, are you condoning their actions?" The slim man slammed his beer bottle on the table. Suppressing his anger, he muttered, "There is no reason to let—"

The man in a robe shook his hand and replied, "I don't mean to absolve their sins. I just feel that their psychological changes are very interesting. It's just my occupational disease."

"What sort of changes?"

"At first, this group of people probably only envied posthumans and wished that they could leave this glass city. That was until they realized that the posthumans that arrived were desperate to enter the city."