Lino crawled out of the snow before it had time to compact and solidify further around him. Not that it would have mattered to him if he ended up trapped under a layer of ice, or even under a glacier. Actually, given his geological inclinations, the guy would probably have enjoyed being pinned on the underside of a glacier, grounded by the boulders it drags through the valley as it descends. “Oh, yes, this must be how those petrified Soniayouwhoreyouhavebeentakingdicksincetheediacaranstoppleasethinkofmotherxylons with that weird preservation among glacier deposits must have died” he would probably think, and that’s no humane thought process. That’s a STEM student thought process and they deserve the worst.
Where was I? ah, yes, Lino crawled out of the snow, and beheld the austral aurora plastered against the bright day sky. He wondered for a second, how? Or rather, why? because in this world the “how” was often “physics keep refusing to read the laws we write for them.”
Truth was that this was the south pole, so things couldn’t go anywhere but north. And what’s to the north? Brazil. And Bolivia. And Paraguay, but nobody cares about Paraguay. And Formosa. Oh lord, Formosa. Lino couldn’t even think about Formosa. Not like going south was any better: Any place south of Buenos Aires was just more Argentina. Who the fuck wants more Argentina? Anyway, things couldn’t go well in the south pole of Cabaret, as things often didn’t go well in the butt-chilling atmosphere of Antarctica.
A wandering wind carried another tumbleweed of penguins. They were carrying stones in their beaks, which indicated it was probably mating season.
“I have no need to drink, I have no need to eat, and I have no need for warmth. What can I do here now? Walk, level a mountain and cause incommensurable damage to the future fossil record of this planet, or annoy local fauna…” he gestured at the tumbleweed with disgust.
“Insolation here is pitiful,” Complained the seed fern of his soul.
“I guess a plant complains about plant things. System, any suggestion?”
I have a name; you know?
“You do?”
Yes, but hell will freeze over twice before I tell you.
“So many scrumptious foods to chew onto and you, my friend, chose water.”
Lino paced around a bit, unsure on how to proceed. What to do when you had no wants, except for the want of a want? It was distressing to think how much effort on a human’s life was on getting ever so slightly more comfortable, be it on the short or long term. He was theoretically afraid —because the emotion was nowhere to be found— to have forgot how to be human. How long had his mind lived, even if only a few months had passed in this world he had lived in for… about two days. At least the place, discounting the absurdity, felt a lot like Earth, or at worse like Earth’s fairytales. It was, in a sense, like playing dungeon and dragons with his friends once again. Except they all had taken hard drugs before the session and the dice had sported ones than they had any business having.
“What to do? I already slept. And I am as just as tired. I see a white landscape with… tumbleweed penguins and flytrap seals, and the only feeling I can pinpoint regarding them is a deaf, feeble contempt. Where’s Lino, when did I lose him along the way?” he examined his feelings about the questions he had just put forward, and only found a void as cold as the winds outside. “How to know if I care? I seem to have forgot how to.”
Well, I would define to care as the minding of loss, if that helps.
“Wonderful definition, System. I don’t think I care about you, me, Nothoracopteris argentinica or life for that matter. I’d say I am broken, but is so… trifling. Unremarkable. Broken like a promise made to teddy bear long forgotten. Like a potato chip. Broken in a way that no one should care about. How… uninteresting to examine this subject.”
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Then why do you insist on doing it? go lie somewhere and let time pass you by until the end of the world.
“My esteemed, or ostensibly esteemed, symbiont, I find self-reflection to be more interesting than this barren land. The examining of who I have become, now that I have peace and freedom to do so, appears to me as an activity slightly less mundane than watching the snow fall.”
He extended his arm to catch a lone snowflake and watched it slowly melt on his hand. “Definitively more interesting than that. Reincarnation freed me from Parkinson’s, from feebleness and madness, but the Queen of Damned Sin freed me from so much more. I have no needs, and I foster no fears. I love not, and I loathe naught. Only a responsibility with the little ones remains.” He looked at his arm, where one of his younger children squirmed under the skin of the wrist. He managed to smile at this. “No deadlines, no stress. No rewards, no excitement. A mind, System, a pure mind, bereft of any limiters. To think for the sake of thought, to act for the sake of the verb alone. A privilege greater than that of any god.”
Then, if all is devoid of meaning for you, why do you act at all?
“On the contrary, most things have never been more meaningful.” He kicked a pebble that some penguin had dropped down the snowy slope on the terrain, watching it become a small snowball and grow until it reached the valley between hills. “It’s just that I am unable to care now. What else could the old me want, System? Complete, absolute freedom but for a small task.”
Do you mind growing in power and conquering the world? I’d find it amusing. Do you want a quest for it?
Lino thought about shrugging, but decided there was no point in doing so. Talk about the king of depression.
“Seems like a lot of effort put towards a sterile pursuit. I lack the passion of a despot, the thirst for power that drives them. You are asking a clock without battery, a dried out clepsydra, an emptied out hourglass, a benighted sundial to chase after escaping minutes. That is absurd.”
That’s good, because absurd fits this world like a glove. Absurd and Cabaret could as well be listed as synonyms in any respectable thesaurus. Besides, you owe me one, don’t you? your cultivation, as rudimentary as it was, helped you stand the mating process.
He began walking northwards, downhill, just to hear the sound of his steps sinking in the snow. “You assume that I feel compelled to give back, that I care about any incarnation of fairness besides clarity and truth. I do not anymore.”
Oh, but you neither have reason or need for egoism or greed. Worse than a reason to fulfill my petition, you lack one to refuse it.
“Fair argument. Still, the status quo is not heeding your request. Or rather a lack of action about it. I think I will walk in a straight line and see where we arrive. I doubt I will find a motivation there, but seems preferable to no goal. The spark of curiosity that still burns inside shall light the way.”
The ocean. You will reach the ocean. Water. You cannot walk in a straight line anymore once you reach the ocean.
Lino remained as calm as always, and breathed. He had not done so for any reason besides speech in hours. “I have no need for air, either. And I doubt pressure, salt or predators will harm me. The cold doesn’t bite, and neither does the sun reflected on this landscape rich on albedo.”
“Sir, can we commit war crimes?” Asked the peaceful and considerate seed fern of his soul.
“We can, but I see no reason why we should. I will walk over the ocean floor, so long as I don’t float. I believe the depths may have something of interest.”
Oh no, you wouldn’t. You will go to some populated continent and sow an empire. Govern, Lino, fulfill my thirst for power. There is a reason why I aid reincarnated cultivators, after all.
But Lino kept on trudging through the snow, paying no heed to the System’s caviling.
I will keep pestering you until you cave in. You may not care about most things now, but I swear I will make you loathe my insistence. Conquer something. Anything. You have power beyond the reach of most cultivators now: use it.
“Try my patience, it may prove I have one still.”
And so Lino kept on walking towards the ocean, leaving the cold desert behind and descending in direction to the coastal tundra that he couldn’t see yet, but had to be there, as penguins and seals wouldn’t be too far from it.
Do something with your power. Anything that helps us grow your vital energy reserves. The queen’s power is a boon, a stepping stool to become king of all.
“Don’t refer to my wife like that. She wouldn’t like it,” he jested without a smile. The queen wouldn’t care, she had never shown a dash of consideration about the existence of the system when she acted. She surely knew about it, but she didn’t care. And if so, neither would he.