Chapter 176: “What if there were six of me?”

“Thank you, Gorka,” Jimmy looked at her, nodded, and smiled, “You did what you thought was right, and I have to assume you were dead on about your suspicions. If you, as an elder yourself, didn’t mind slaughtering other elders, people you’ve known for years, then I will take your word for it. Thank you for protecting me.”

“I tried my best to protect you,” She sighed, frustrated, “But your body… your real body is in a leather bag right now, so I don’t think I did a good job. I’ve failed The Invisible.”

“Oh? Don’t worry about them, I’ll put a good word out for you.” He chuckled, “You did good today, everyone did.”

Afterwards, he turned to the crowd, called for their attention, and then expressed himself, “Everyone, you did well today. You went out there, and protected your home with no regard, or selfish care towards your own personal safety, and it is willpower like that which will keep us standing for many winters to come! I’m impressed with all of you, and I’m proud to be part of this tribe.”

He then added, “I hear the archers did not blink at the face of danger, and I hope you guys are aware of that. They protected our people, a home they couldn’t care less about some moons ago, and bravery like that deserves an applause! They’ve earned their keep, and I hope they feel welcomed.”

Jimmy then started clapping his hands. Most people in the room did not know what clapping hands would achieve, but as they saw his enthusiasm, they joined in, and applauded the archers. The archers joined this tribe after they ran into Jimmy and Anna in the forest, and as of now, they felt honored to be here. They enjoyed the grand gesture of appreciation which reverberated across the cloning room, even if such a simple applause paled in comparison to risking their lives.

“Thank you!” Zelna spoke on behalf of the hunters. “We’re honored to serve your purpose. After we lost everything, we learned just how important one’s home can be, so you can count on us to protect your home, your people. If your… our livelihood faces a greater risk someday, I can promise you that we will die far before any of the elders, mothers and children do!”

That little speech was met with another round of applause. People liked heroes, even heroes themselves, like this room full of people so vividly portrayed.

With that topic out of the way, Jimmy called for everyone’s attention again, and said, “The Invisible told me that I was going to die today, and they were right. I want to clear this up for anyone who’s still confused, I did die today, but since I was warned beforehand, me and Mika took it upon ourselves to save my body, or essentially, my essence, so that I can sacrifice myself to protect my people, and then live to reap the rewards of my sacrifice afterwards. This machine, this weird water you just saw, helped me preserve my body, and it allowed me to keep living with you all.”

Seeing that everyone was still confused, he tried to dumb things down, and added, “The guy who led you into battle may be dead, he may be in a bag, but I need you to know that I’m still Jimmy, I’m still the same guy who’d do anything to protect his friends, his family, and his people, and just like him, I’d charge into battle right now without thinking about it twice. The only difference now is that we gave the enemy some false hope, by giving them my former body as a sacrifice, as an executed target, to give them some inner peace, and hopefully, a lot of stupid confidence. They think they killed me, but as you can see, I’m still here, alive and standing. I’m not a ghost, I can still poop and pee, and when the time comes, we will use that fact to surprise our enemies, and piss all over their plans! This machine made all of it happen!”

Explaining how cloning, or DNA preservation worked to cavemen and cavewomen was as difficult as one could imagine it was. Jimmy tried his best to explain himself, so the people wouldn’t be weirded out by him still being alive, and it looked like they took it well. They accepted him with open arms, deep, loud cheers, and loved him as much as they loved the other guy who was in a leather bag somewhere.

It went without saying that they barely understood how he was still alive, despite the visual aid that gave them a good example, but that didn’t matter right now. They were simply happy that Jimmy was still alive, and since they saw him as their young Chief, they’ve made peace with the fact that he could achieve anything he wanted, a long time ago. Including cheating death.

“Okay, guys,” He said, “I know that all of you are tired, so how about you go and rest? I’m sure the enemy is gonna need a lot of time to try and attack us again, so we’re safe. Rest, you earned it.”

Everyone started walking back to the cavern after that point. It was a long trip to get up there, but no one minded it. They protected their home, got their tribe’s Chief back even after seeing him suffer a gruesome death, so they were happy overall. Walking up the one-thousand foot long set of stairs was the easiest part of their day so far.

Jimmy followed after them. This was the first time ever where he didn’t want to be in the bunker. He was having a hard time going on with the rest of his day, because even though he understood how cloning, or preserving DNA worked, he still felt weirded out.

The Container saved his DNA to the very last detail, including his soul and consciousness, according to what Jurassic Jesus said, and promised to him last night. But he was still weirded out, because in his logic, although he just restarted his life from his last saved checkpoint, he couldn’t help wondering of other possibilities, which made the possibility, the purpose of functional immortality that the containers offered, infinitely more complicated.

He thought, ’If I went back and cloned myself six or seven times right now, would I even be different from them? Will we all share the same soul, mind, and ambition? Will they care about these people as much as I do?’

This thought haunted him like the plague. It was deeply philosophical, but before he spiraled down that path, Anna snapped him out of it.

She said, “You gotta come out and talk some sense into Gutty. He has been losing his shit ever since you died. He’s mourning you.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep