For a moment, Caio thought that the neighborhood was having a blackout. He muttered a curse at the power company, trying to get his bearings in the complete darkness, when a pop-up PC window appeared in front of him.
It was like a generic window from a sci-fi movie, neon-green lines in the dark. The weirdest thing was that it was floating in front of him and not in the PC monitor.
Only then did he think that if this was a power outage, he wouldn't be in such total darkness. In the city, there's always some light coming from the outside.
He gulped and read the text that was in the pop-up window.
[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED]
[COVENANT LATTICE: LOCAL NODE – KHALYMERA]
[SUBJECT: CAIO ESTEVES – HUMAN (BASELINE)]
He tried to move his hands, but his body didn't answer. He noticed at that moment that he wasn't breathing either.
The feeling of being watched ran through his spine.
What the hell… Where the fuck am I?
The pop-up window had no button, not even the [X] in the top-right corner. And the text inside kept changing.
[Your pattern demonstrates efficient problem-solving under constrained rulesets.]
[That is sufficient.]
He felt the instinct to chuckle, but no movement affected his body.
'Efficient problem-solving' was a polite way of saying 'guy who plays too many strategy games because reality is rigged.'
Another line appeared.
[Heroism is optional.]
If this is a dream, my brain is being unusually creative today.
He tried to form the words 'who are you?' in his mouth, but it didn't move either.
Yet, the text changed again.
[Overseer – Local Node. Interface of the Covenant Lattice.]
[You may conceptualize me as your System. This is imprecise, but tolerable.]
Huh? Overseer? System? Are you like a game master?
If he is in a dream or hallucination, he might as well just play along and have some fun, right?
[More like gravity. You do not have to like it. It still applies.]
But this is too clear and consistent to be a dream… Well, I guess you can read my mind even if I can't speak. Was that challenge in the game a test?
[A filter. Many patterns failed. You did not.]
He thought of all the losses before the win, all those tiny digital people starving because he'd miscounted wheat.
I'm not so sure of that. Many villagers died.
[You learned. You adapted within constraints instead of attempting to delete the constraints. That is the desired trait.]
He felt the darkness around him stir. A form began to take shape below him, like a low-poly terrain model.
[World: KHALYMERA]
His mind was assaulted by several images. Rivers glowing violet under a radioactive sky, forests twisted in agony, empty cities being reclaimed by the wilderness.
[Status: Post-Collapse. Mana: Degenerate. Ecological Stability: Marginal.]
[Male Population: <0.001%]
[Reproductive Viability: Critical]
He remembered the diagnosis he had just received that very day.
You're kidding me… You can't be serious.
[Your fertility anomaly increases your Utility Score.]
Utility score… I'm sorry, but no. I'm not a breeding machine. I'm not-
[Clarification: Utility includes cognitive and social traits.]
[Your capacity for consent is also part of your pattern.]
Consent?
[Your prior choices indicate aversion to coercion. To systems that grind people into metrics. That is relevant.]
Those words triggered some memories. Pavement, boots… He pushed it all to the back of his mind and focused.
So you want me to fix a broken world. By doing what, exactly? Playing it like a game?
[We will provide interfaces familiar to you.]
[Khalymera is not a game. Losses are permanent.]
'We…'
Before he could complete the thought, he suddenly felt the darkness around him shift again. The vague form of a terrain below became more polished, like a game terrain being loaded slowly.
[Primary Assignment: Seedbearer]
What is this hentai trope?
Despite the meme name, he felt the weight of the responsibilities that the role threw onto him.
Wait, wait, wait. You're literally telling me to go to a world of women who never saw a man in their lives to father a lot of children with them? Is that it? Like, literally? What the fuck, man?
[We are not asking. We are offering alignment.]
[Khalymera requires fertility, strategy, and consent-conscious leadership.]
[You require a context where your traits are not pathologized.]
That last line punched harder than he wanted to admit.
It was right. He did want that. A place where being obsessed with systems and terrified of abuse of power didn't make him a weirdo. Still…
I don't want to be used.
[You will be used. All power is.]
[The question is whether you are also loved, heeded, and capable of refusing.]
He began to feel his body again. Not completely, though. It was like he was under the effect of anesthetics that were slowly fading.
[Consent Check]
[Initiate Transfer to World: KHALYMERA – Local Biome: YARIVOA ("Listening River")?]
The options hung in front of him like they had in the monitor of his PC after he finished that Ultimate Challenge of the game Goblin Fortress.
[YES] [NO]
He thought about what would happen if he chose 'no.'
Staying in São Paulo. Finishing his degree in History in a country eating itself. Knowing, for the rest of his life, that somewhere out there was a world where his mixture of wounds and talents could have mattered, and he'd turned away.
He also tried to imagine saying yes and ending up as some faceless resource for an alien system that saw his body as a fix for its fertility graphs.
Will I keep my memories? Remember my family, my city?
[Yes.]
[Your memory pattern will be preserved. There will be adjustments for biome compatibility. Minor physiological optimization.]
Optimization?
[Muscle tone. Metabolic efficiency. Structural resilience.]
[You are currently fragile. Khalymera is not safe.]
'Fragile' is a kind way of putting it.
Those old memories threatened to come to his mind again, but he pushed them back.
Fine. But I choose who I touch. Who I lead. Who I… make children with. No matter how bad your graphs are.
He wasn't saying yes because he wanted to be 'optimized.' He was saying yes to the possibility of being more than a pawn who knows more about chess than the player moving it.
The pop-up window blinked. He thought that if there was a mouse cursor in this interface, it would be showing the 'waiting' pointer.
[Acknowledged.]
[Constraint: Seedbearer agency prioritized in relational bindings.]
[Note: This may decrease short-term reproductive output.]
Well… Too bad for you, I guess? I won't accept less than that, though.
For a heartbeat, he thought he sensed something like amusement.
[Consent Recorded.]
[Initiating Transfer.]
He felt like he was in a falling elevator for a moment. He could see the world materializing around him, with pressure hitting his body from all sides.
It was like his body was being made again. He could feel his bones thickening, his muscles weaving stronger around them. Aches and pains accompanied the transformation, but he endured it.
After a few heartbeats, a cacophony of sounds burst into his senses. It was like the São Paulo metro in rush hour, but it lasted only for an instant before normalizing.
Only then was he able to recognize it. It was the sound of running water.
On top of it, there were some voices. More than one, chiming words in a cadence that almost sounded like music.
"...yari… ...voa… ...kona…"
It wasn't in a language he could recognize.
Another voice whispered in the back of his thoughts. This one was in good old Portuguese.
[Transition Complete]
[World: KHALYMERA]
[Biome: YARIVOA ("Listening River")]
[Subject: CAIO ESTEVES – Seedbearer]
So that voice is the Overseer? It's a nice voice.
A wet, cold touch snapped him into reality.
He was lying half-submerged in reeds, their green stalks bending under his weight. The sky above him was alien… Too deep and clean to be Earth's. A canopy of broad leaves framed a strip of it, their undersides veined with faint bioluminescent threads.
Shapes moved around him. He thought of some documentaries he had watched about Amazon Rainforest's dangers and tensed, but then he recognized the forms for what they were. Women.
They stood on a boat made out of wood and woven reeds less than two meters away, pointing spears at him. Their skin was light brown, painted with white patterns on her thighs and faces.
Though the spears' tips were made of stone, the women wielded them like veteran warriors, and their muscular arms showed that they had the strength to make the best use of them.
They didn't seem friendly, yet not outright hostile either.
One of them stepped closer, jumping down from the boat onto the reeds. She touched his chest with the tip of the spear and asked softly.
"Na-ta sowa mena-ta… kona vatu-ra a-hu vi?"
Of course he didn't understand a word. It sounded vaguely similar to some languages of native people of Brazil. But that was all.
He tried to sit up. The woman quickly moved the spear from his chest to his throat. That language didn't need translation.
The gesture dug up old memories once again. Memories of being beaten up, of being bullied for being 'too nerdy' and 'wanting to know too much.'
In the middle of his fear, he noticed that the spear was well-balanced and that the tip was probably very sharp, despite its material. Also, the woman holding it had shoulders that would cause envy in an olympic swimmer.
He forced his hands open, palms up, in what he hoped was a universal 'I'm not attacking you' gesture.
"I… don't know if you… understand me? I'm Caio. I-"
The women reacted badly to his speech. They talked to each other in sharp tones, and he was able to catch the word 'nuhu' being repeated in a way that sounded like a mix of disgust and fear.
One of the women crouched down, touched the surface of the water with her fingers, then took them to her lips. To Caio, it looked like one of those gestures made to protect from evil spirits. He being the evil spirit, in this case.
Do they think I'm like an evil river spirit or something? Like the old 'pink boto' folklore? Heh, the irony. Even though I'm being sent to a world where there are no other men, the way I'm treated didn't change.
Something flickered at the edge of his vision.
It was a translucent rectangle, like an in-game pop-up.
[TURN 0 – GENESIS PROTOCOL: ACCEPTED]
[Subject: CAIO ESTEVES – Seedbearer]
[Local Population Cluster: TRIBE "YARIKARI" – STATUS: STABLE, FERTILITY-STARVED]
[Auto-Translation: LOCKED]
[Condition to Unlock: ???]
Ugh... It's one of those events, isn't it? How do I unlock it? I need that auto-translation ASAP.