In Vivaricus, the sun rose like a yellow smudge of phlegm coughed up into the sky. As the smog burned my throat, I gathered with Joseph, Ava, and Ulysses in that damp, moldy corner of the shelter. Before us stood the priceless treasure we'd guarded with our lives for weeks a pot of imported soil and a few frail tomatoes sprouting from it like a miracle.
"F-ck off, is that actually a tomato?" Ulysses muttered, reaching out with his rusty prosthetic arm toward the pot. "Touching something real after all those synthetic shits... it feels weird."
Ava narrowed her slanted eyes, eyeing the pot. "Don't touch it, you'll break it with that heap of iron. It looks like those old-world fruits everyone talked about. Red, firm... and bloody."
Joseph smirked as he stirred the tomato mixture with a few eggs cracked into it over an old, rusty burner.
"Shut it, just eat so your stomachs see something real before you kick the bucket. The water's bubbling, guys—doesn't it sound like a melody from paradise?"
As I rubbed a piece of stale bread against the edge of the pot, I forgot about Dante for a moment—the invisible golden collar around my neck and last night's cream-stained humiliation. At that moment, I was just an ordinary guy with a foul mouth, wanting to eat. But peace was the shortest season in Vivaricus.
Three gutter rats lunged from the shadows, bursting into our shelter like hyenas. For these pricks with hollowed cheeks and crazed eyes, the two eggs in that pot were worth more than their lives.
"Leave it the f-ck alone!" Joseph roared, but one of them had already latched onto the pot, biting Adalin's hand until it bled. The poisonous rage Dante had planted in my soul finally exploded.
I grabbed a scrawny kid reaching for the bread by the throat and slammed him into the concrete floor.
"You can't take what's ours, you scrawny f-ck!" I shouted, bringing my fist down right in the middle of the kid's face. The sound of his teeth cracking was like music to my ears. This wasn't a fight over food anymore; it was the raw, brutal reality of Vivaricus.
Just as I was about to rip the guy apart, the body beneath me went stiff. The kid's eyes rapidly turned purple.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: AGGRESSIVE INTERACTION DETECTED. DEFENSE PROTOCOL ACTIVE.]
The kid's muscles tightened like a machine. A cheaper, shittier version of those "Premium" updates Dante gave me had been activated in this street thug. The kid threw me off him with a single move. I let out a curse and some blood as I slammed into a rusty pole.
Right then, that familiar, stinging bite sensation appeared on the nape of my neck.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: MASTER IS WATCHING. ACTIVATE SLAVE PROTECTION MODE?]
Spitting blood onto the ground, I heard Dante's mocking, icy whisper in my mind.
"I let you play with a bit of dirt, and you immediately get into a fight with a stray dog, Dorian? And you've soiled that beautiful cashmere shirt, my little savage soldier boy..."
"F-ck off, Dante!" I shouted into the void. "I handle my own sh-t! I don't need your toys!"
But for the gasping kid across from me, the situation was different. The rusty iron collar around his neck seared his skin with every system warning. The kid tried to steady himself on his trembling knees and wailed to his own master.
"Master... please, just a little food...Mercy."
Disgusted by this pathetic, helpless plea, I lunged forward. "GET UP, YOU WRETCH!" I roared, delivering another hard punch to his jaw. As I pinned him down and grabbed his throat, I felt Dante grow bored with this "entertainment."
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: MASTER INTERVENTION. PROTOCOL: HUMILIATION AND OBEDIENCE.]
The kid beneath me suddenly went stiff. His eyes rolled back, and he sank to his knees against his will. He began to bray and make wretched animal noises, not like a human, but like a beast. This punishment, given in front of everyone, was a soul-shattering shame. Then, as if pulled by invisible chains, the kid prostrated himself at my feet.
He began to lick the dust off my boots with his tongue.
"We fight with our fists, Dante, f-ck your soul!" I screamed, my stomach turning. "I had already beaten him, shut this circus act down! What the f-ck is this?"
Dante's voice echoed not just in my mind, but like a heavy fog descending over the entire street.
"I am not dealing with that fool, only with the leech who is his master and who tried to touch my property," Dante said, his voice as cold as an executioner's axe. "His master tried to gamble on my turf and is paying the price with his slave's honor."
As I panted with rage, Dante's next sentence pierced my heart like a poisoned needle:
"Don't go thinking you're something special, Dorian. I don't protect you because of your greatness, but because you are my property. And soldier. I won't allow my toy to get dusty, that's all."