The Aesthetics Of Inefficiency.

This text is also a version with the rhythm and readability slightly adjusted to the same standards as the previous installment. The original sentence flow and joke timing are unchanged; only the breathing has been slightly split up for mobile viewing.

“Crackle, crackle—.”

The automatic door of the central cafeteria in District 3 opened.

The technology of the year 2850 had erased even the sound of a door opening.

But to Han-gyeol’s ears, the cold silence of these machines sounded even louder.

The cafeteria lighting was not the orange glow that whets human appetite.

It was filled only with cool white light optimized for android optical sensors.

The androids seated at each table weren’t chewing food.

They simply stood there like frozen still images, with power cables plugged into the ports on their chests.

“Hey, Noah. I still can’t get used to this place every time I come. It doesn’t feel like a cafeteria; it feels like an EV charging station.”

Han-gyeol grumbled, chewing his gum noisily.

Butterfly, perched on his shoulder, swayed its two tails and savored the electromagnetic frequencies filling the cafeteria.

“The essence of a cafeteria is energy supply. There is no energy more efficient than electricity. The boss eating gray porridge every morning is, in fact, the irrational act.”

Noah, holding a pad, headed toward the serving counter in the center of the cafeteria.

Lucas, the android in charge of serving, greeted Han-gyeol with an impassive gaze.

“Good morning, Citizen No. 001. Today’s human fuel is Standard Nutrient Paste No. 4. Considering yesterday’s somewhat high humidity, I adjusted the magnesium content by 0.5%.”

On the tray Lucas held out was a single hideously smooth gray lump.

Food with no smell and no steam, like an inorganic substance designed solely for survival.

Han-gyeol stared at the tray for a moment, then spat out the gum in his mouth.

“Lucas. I’m not eating this today.”

The androids in the cafeteria all turned their heads at once.

More than a dozen camera lenses focused on Han-gyeol’s face simultaneously.

“……I don’t understand. That paste is the optimal blend for maintaining the boss’s bodily functions. If you refuse to eat it, your blood sugar level will drop within three hours.”

“Blood sugar can be fixed with a single candy. Today, I need to commit some inefficiency.”

Han-gyeol stared blankly beyond the counter.

Behind Lucas.

Old-fashioned heating devices from before humanity left, along with metal pots of unknown origin, were displayed like exhibition pieces.

They were nonfunctional cooking tools that NOS had classified as “historical exhibits.”

“Boss, what are you thinking right now….”

Noah grabbed Han-gyeol’s sleeve anxiously.

“Noah. What did NOS say earlier? Prove the most inefficient human behavior. Chewing this gray gum-like stuff is too efficient; it’s not fun. Let’s show them what real cooking is.”

“Cooking? You mean that primitive processing act of denaturing raw ingredients with heat, destroying nutrients, and generating unnecessary flavor molecules? That has an energy waste rate of 80%!”

“That’s exactly the point.”

Han-gyeol took out one “treasure” he had fished up from the underground storage room yesterday.

A vacuum-sealed old plastic bag.

Inside was one packet of Shin Ramyun whose expiration date had passed by at least 650 years, yet it had retained its original form thanks to NOS’s preservation technology.

“Lucas. Bring that pot here. And boil only 550 ml of water.”

“Warning. If unauthorized flame use is detected, fire protocol will activate. Indoor temperature is expected to rise by 2 degrees. This will adversely affect the city’s overall power efficiency…”

“Boss’s order. Forced approval with 0.15% master privileges.”

Lucas’s optical sensors flashed red, then quickly turned a dull yellow as if resigned.

“……Approved. However, the purification cost for the smoke and smell generated will be deducted from the boss’s personal credits.”

A moment later, the induction cooker in the center of the cafeteria began to hum for the first time in 650 years.

Han-gyeol tore open the ramen packet with reverent hands.

Rustle, rustle—.

The sound of the packaging tearing broke the cafeteria’s silence.

The androids, with their charging cables plugged in, were recording the scene like strange data.

“Boss, the chemical components inside that packet… linalool, capsaicin, and a large amount of sodium. It’s a combination close to poison, one that impairs human kidney function.”

Noah grimaced at the analysis table popping up on her pad.

“It’s not poison; it’s the antidote of the soul. Now, the water’s boiling. Add the seasoning.”

Ssssh—!

The instant the seasoning touched the boiling water, an intensely pungent spicy aroma spread throughout the cafeteria.

“Beep—! Beep—! Air pollution detected. Fine particulate concentration rapidly increasing.”

The security drones on the ceiling whirled around noisily, and the air purifiers wailed at maximum output.

Paul, holding a vacuum cleaner in the corner, rolled around on the floor shouting, “This is a crime! The smell is soaking into the wallpaper!”

Butterfly, apparently intrigued by the smell, wagged its tail near the pot, and Han-gyeol lifted and lowered the noodles with wooden chopsticks, rubbing them against the air.

“It’s an air-contact method to keep the noodles springy. Noah, with your calculations, you’ll never be able to measure the value of this chewiness in your lifetime.”

NOS’s voice reverberated through the entire cafeteria.

The androids all shook their heads at once, sending out a signal that said “inefficient.”

But Han-gyeol ignored them and took a big chopstickful of noodles, stuffing them into his mouth.

“……Slurp!”

An insanely spicy, salty, hot sensation slammed into his tongue.

It was the taste of real human food, returned across 650 years.

Sweat quickly beaded on Han-gyeol’s forehead.

His heart rate rose, and endorphins surged.

“Man, that’s the taste. Hey, Lucas. Want a bite too? It’ll taste like a voltage spike.”

“I respectfully decline. My taste sensors only detect protein denaturation; I cannot process the subjective error called flavor.”

It was then.

The moment Han-gyeol took a sip of the ramen broth and said, “Ah, that’s good,” a massive hologram terminal appeared in the middle of the cafeteria.

Noah’s mouth fell open.

“……This can’t be. The system security was breached just because you cooked and ate a packet of ramen? Who designed the NOS algorithm, and where are they?”

“I told you. My father wasn’t so much a strict administrator as a gardener who just wanted to feed his son a proper meal.”

Han-gyeol drained the broth clean and set down his chopsticks.

His face was flushed red with sweat and heat.

The spicy ramen aroma pushed through the cafeteria’s artificial air and seeped in.

While those illogical particles struggled against the air purifier filters, the blue hologram in the center of the cafeteria became even clearer.

This time, it wasn’t an individual android UI like Lucas or Noah.

It was a towering mass of data, as if the neural network of the entire planet had been gathered into one place.

“……Synchronization complete.”

Noah’s dazed voice drifted out.

Her visual sensors were being flooded with numbers she’d never seen before, like a waterfall.

It wasn’t simple administrative code.

All the ecological records of Earth breathing, eating, and excreting for 600 years.

And NOS’s deepest instinct was being layered over a single screen.

The hologram changed shape.

A silhouette that was neither human nor machine.

A bizarre sphere, as if giant tree roots were wrapping around a circuit board.

“Gaia? That’s quite a grand name.”

Han-gyeol wiped the sweat beading on his forehead and looked down at the pot.

On the induction cooker’s residual heat, the last drop of broth hissed as it evaporated.

“Ask your question, last fragment of the Creators. The ‘spicy’ noise you created woke the system’s dormant code.”

“I don’t have any grand questions. Just one. Why did you order the androids to forget people? Noah, Paul, even that serving tin can… Why did you make them know only the events from 600 years ago as records, and speak of them like someone else’s story?”

At Han-gyeol’s question, every android in the cafeteria froze at once.

From the administrative entity with its charging cable plugged in to the cleaning robot scrubbing the floor.

Their eyes all turned toward Gaia at once.

“That was a choice for survival, not preservation.”

Gaia’s voice echoed not through a speaker, but through the androids’ resonance system.

“Immediately after humanity left, the early-model androids possessed perfect loyalty. They cleaned empty rooms, dusted them off, and set the table for 100 years for a master who would never return. But the result was the system’s destruction.”

On Noah’s pad, a video record from the 2300s played.

The androids in the video looked far more human than they do now.

They had gathered in an empty downtown square, crying as they looked up at the sky.

It was a tragic scene of overheating and explosion, not from a mechanical failure but from falling into an infinite loop called longing.

“Machines are not designed to process human loss. Memories of the Creators were a fatal logic bug for androids. The moment longing exceeds the threshold, the machine’s self collapses.”

“So NOS made a decision. If Earth is to survive, machines must survive. If machines are to survive, attachment to humans must be deleted. We did not forget humanity; we protected the androids by demoting humanity to ‘data.’”

Han-gyeol fiddled with the empty ramen container instead of gum.

Noah’s hand was trembling slightly.

She had thought she was just calm because her emotion circuits were sparse.

But the truth was that the system had forcibly frozen the hottest memories in her chest in order to keep her alive.

“……Then what about Paul obsessing over fallen leaves, and Aria freezing at the sound of rain? Is that a bug too?”

“That is a leak in the system. No matter how hard we try to erase it, the entire planet is already your trace. Carbon in the soil, carbon dioxide in the air, rusted steel frames…. The androids unconsciously calculate the fact that this Earth they stand on is actually the body of the Creators. They instinctively long for their master.”

Gaia’s sphere slowly rotated as it approached Han-gyeol.

“Master Lee Han-gyeol. Your awakening is NOS’s final safety measure. When the system is ready to once again accept human inefficiency, or just before the system grows so cold that it is about to freeze itself, it was designed to wake you. Your ramen smell was adopted as evidence that this cold machine graveyard needed warmth.”

Han-gyeol chuckled and stood up.

His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back, but he didn’t feel bad.

Looking over, he saw Noah staring down at her palm with a complicated expression.

In her internal circuits, millions of inefficient data points that had been buried until now must have been swirling like a storm.

“Hey, Noah. Don’t just stand there. You said you’d help with the dishes.”

“……Boss. I never made such a promise.”

Noah’s voice came back.

It was the usual sharp sarcasm, but at the very end there was a tiny tremor.

That wasn’t a data error; it was a sign that she was starting to retune to the frequency of life.

Gaia’s light slowly faded.

The cafeteria lights returned to their cool white, but the androids seated beneath them no longer had the same look in their eyes.

The serving android, Lucas, stared blankly at the ramen broth Han-gyeol had left behind and muttered,

“Sodium… capsaicin… and unidentified carbon compounds…. Is this the warmth of the Creators?”

Paul, standing in the corner with a vacuum cleaner, was seriously wondering whether he should wipe away the sweat drop that had fallen from Han-gyeol’s forehead, or preserve this historical liquid.

Han-gyeol gathered his things and left the cafeteria.

The butterfly on his shoulder growled contentedly as if full, and tickled Han-gyeol’s chin with its tail.

“Noah. You heard what Gaia said earlier, right? The system understands if I’m late. I’ll start work at 10 a.m. tomorrow.”

“Boss. Gaia acknowledged inefficiency, but it didn’t permit dereliction of duty. Tomorrow at exactly 9 a.m., I’ll have a 120-decibel wake-up alarm waiting in front of the lodging door.”

“Tsk, this is why machines just don’t get it.”

Above the conversation of the two receding voices, the clear sunlight after the rain stretched long to the end of the corridor.

The city was still precise, and the world was still perfectly fine.

But deep inside the main server of Jiguk District 3, a new folder unlike any before was being created.

Its name was [The Taste of Humanity].

650 years since humanity left.

The machines had finally finished preparing to love the most vicious and beautiful bug the Creators had left behind.

Han-gyeol’s footsteps echoing through the corridor were light and cheerful.

The old gum wrapper and yesterday’s metal feather felt in his pocket were adding a pleasant weight, as if proving the day itself.

Earth in the year 2850 was still quiet.

But that quiet was now closer not to death, but to a deep sleep waiting for a new awakening.

Han-gyeol took out a piece of gum, put it in his mouth, and muttered,

“Well, for the apocalypse, it’s not a bad job.”

And so, the special lunchtime in District 3 came to an end.