Plant a Seed (7)

A message blinked steadily on the transparent panel floating above Azihiro's head.

[Mission: Build sixteen pillars.]

Azihiro narrowed his eyes at the message, confused and uncertain. Pillars? His body was still sore, muscle fibers aching from the violent regeneration caused by the XIWEIS potion. Every breath carried pain, and his joints still ached whenever he moved. And now he was being asked to build?

He stared at the screen, waiting for further instruction, hoping the system had more to offer. A second prompt appeared.

[Each pillar must be eight feet tall. All sixteen must be installed across fifteen acres of clean, cleared land.]

Azihiro blinked slowly, lips parted in disbelief. Fifteen acres? That was enormous. And more importantly, clean land? He stood up and walked outside the recovery chamber, stepping into the open plain of the planet.

Trash is everywhere.

Rust-eaten wreckage of transport ships, shattered circuit boards, snapped wires tangled like vines, dismembered robot limbs, and heaps of broken metal sheets stretched across the horizon. This planet was a dump, a wasteland of forgotten technology, discarded by civilizations too advanced to care.

How was he supposed to clean fifteen acres of that?

He turned his head back toward the interface and tapped on it, requesting a list of available tools. Maybe there was hope. Some drone or mech or plasma sweeper. Anything.

But SOL's response was quick and disappointing.

[The system will only issue potions that would help you. You need to survive on your own.]

Azihiro stared at those words, his heartbeat heavy in his chest. He was mute. He had no physical voice to scream, no way to beg or plead. But inside his head, he shouted in protest. Survive on your own. That had been the constant mantra since the day he woke up here. No weapons. No helpers. No machines.

Just him.

He clenched his fists and stepped out into the scrap-laden plain. The stench of old metal filled the air, mingled with the heat of the sun above. The atmosphere was still, the silence broken only by the creaking of broken structures that groaned in the wind.

Occasionally, something moved in the distance, a metallic beast, perhaps. One of the mutated scavengers that feasted on the waste. If they saw him, they would chase. And if they chased, he would have to run. Fight. Hide. And yet, the pillars had to be built.

Azihiro walked forward, feet crunching over a mixture of gravel and wires. His movements were slow but cautious. He wouldn't let despair take root in his chest. Then, he looked up at the sky and brought his hands together.

Dear God, please give me courage. Strengthen my resolve.

He returned to the storage module, a tiny metallic hut partially buried under trash. SOL had assigned it as his temporary quarters. Inside were minimal supplies, nutrient solutions, purified water, and one folded set of new clothes, dark gray and reinforced for movement.

Azihiro changed slowly, grimacing as he moved his limbs. The sleeves of the uniform fit snugly over his arms, and the boots offered better protection than the worn pair he had used on his last mission. The fabric was sturdy, dust-resistant, and had a minor temperature regulator built in. Small comfort for what lay ahead.

He strapped on the belt issued alongside the clothes, a simple utility pack that carried three potions. All unmarked. He had no idea what they were for, only that SOL had issued them with the words "emergency use only."

He gathered other things he had scavenged during his past missions, scraps of metal that still held structural integrity, a handful of circuits, coils of copper wire, a chipped solar blade that barely functioned as a machete, and a crowbar that had saved his life more than once.

Azihiro knelt beside a shattered ship wing and began clearing it out, pushing pieces aside. He started small, organizing a method. First, he marked a space, a circular area roughly ten meters wide. Then he worked outward from that point, bending metal sheets away, tossing the lightweight junk aside, piling anything useful into one corner.

By midday, he had only cleared maybe twenty square meters. It wasn't enough. It wasn't even one percent of what he needed. But it was progress. Azihiro sat down for a moment and wiped sweat from his brow.

His blurred left eye pulsed with dull pain, but he pressed his palm over it, taking slow, deep breaths. The suns continued to glare down at him, heat waves rising from the wreckage like ghosts. His throat was parched. His body ached again. But he didn't stop. He returned to work.

Hours passed. The land remained unchanged in appearance to anyone watching from above, still chaotic and ugly, but if you looked closely, the space around Azihiro had begun to take shape. A pattern emerged. Cleared lines. Piled segments. Steel cables arranged into bundles. Land, dry and cracked beneath the metal, finally touched sunlight again.

The mission was nearly impossible, but he could feel himself adapting to it. Each movement became more efficient. His sense of balance returned. His arms no longer shook after each haul. The XIWEIS potion hadn't healed his eye or voice, but it had done something else. It had awakened a resilience within him.

As he cleared more ground, he scouted ahead for a wider, more suitable place to construct the pillars. Eventually, he found a slope that curved into a natural basin, protected from strong winds and partially cleared by an old explosion. The debris here was less dense. It would be easier to clean.

He marked it on his digital map, his fingers swiping over the interface. That would be the construction zone. Now came the hard part. He needed to build the pillars.

He opened the images SOL had sent again. The design was complex. Each pillar needed to be reinforced from the base, eight feet high, embedded with core connectors that would eventually be linked into a planetary grid. He didn't understand it fully, but he didn't need to. All he needed to do was follow the diagram.

Azihiro scavenged for core supports, searching for beams, tubes, and anything that could serve as a skeleton for the structures. He carried them one by one, dragging heavy pieces through the trash fields. His arms burned. His back screamed. He used the crowbar to pry apart the fused metal. He used his hands when the tool failed.

The sun began to lower. The sky turned crimson. Still, he worked.

Even as the distant sound of beasts howled in the wind. Even as fatigue tugged at his limbs like an invisible weight. Even as the planet whispered its loneliness into his bones. He had a mission. And he would not fail.