— Freedom doesn't fill an empty stomach, Render... It's abstract. It doesn't put bread on the table, heal wounds, or provide security. Everyone wants to believe in this faith called freedom. They equate happiness with freedom. Everyone outside Ceres pays for their freedom and considers it fair. Look at the nations whose people already possess enormous power and financial wealth, yet still want more. They want nothing but the power to test the limits of their own freedom: how far can they go in changing the world? And the more perverse the plan to change the world becomes... the less it has to do with changing the world.
I respect everyone's creed: gods and goddesses, creators of worlds and of the universe itself. If they themselves tried to change the world and had the humility to acknowledge that they failed... then there are human beings who believe they can change the world through their own power.
I wish them good luck.
I did it with water, food, a home, and a purpose. Freedom is merely an ornament, a reminder of what happens when we have no freedom: the responsibility that sustains it.
Freedom starved to death for lack of responsibility. Its corpse remains intact, reeking of chaos, a reminder that hunger affects even freedom.
At that moment, the room's air renewal system kicks in. In the background, the city of Ceres is illuminated by LED lights. The streets are empty and clean. As the air circulates, the sounds of the city begin to emerge: trains loaded with grain, agricultural tractors, irrigation water pumps...
The audio feed reaches the entire continent.
Everyone is stunned by the efficiency. The city looks like a living clock, operating with precision. A place where hunger does not live, while freedom weeps over its own body—and that body is right there: responsibility.
— At this very moment... this sound gives me strength every single day. We work and exchange our faith for endurance. Here, the machines are the ones that pray, and we perform the miracle every day.
With the backdrop in full view, a brilliant star appears, as if by a miracle.
It wasn't a star.
It was the CERES II space station, emerging against the sun, its artificial lights shining brightly.
None of this had been planned.
Mother Ceres notices. She looks at the camera.
A tear rolls down her cheek.
She sees it as a miracle. Through her earpiece, she can hear the sounds of that moment—something that, to Ceres, is the most natural thing in the world, but that, before the eyes of the continent, seems extraordinary.
— Oh... that... forgive me, my children. It's just Ceres II. It's just a space station that controls our agricultural machinery.
The world watches the scene unfold.
Render is left speechless, his jaw hanging open.
Mother Ceres cannot control the narrative.
In Omni Opus, the nation that had fallen before Mother Ceres's miracle kneels once again at the sight of this live broadcast.
Mother Ceres is canonized in the very country where she was most hated, a nation now prospering through economic agreements with Ceres.
Mother Ceres grows concerned about the scene. To her, it is ordinary. To the rest of the world, it most certainly is not.
Render's question had been answered by Mother Ceres, by Ceres itself, and by the very nature of Ceres.
Koee weeps quietly.
Amós smiles, cynical and arrogant.
Ysa, proud, breaks into a beautiful smile.
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