The first thing I felt was...cold.
A chilling numbness that wrapped around my body like a heavy, wet blanket.
I blinked slowly, but saw only darkness.
No walls, no sky, no ground beneath me.
Just endless black — an abyss that swallowed sound, sight, and even time itself.
Am I dead?
The thought floated through my mind, strangely calm, detached.
Memories came back to me in fragments —
Late nights at the office.
Coffee-stained papers.
The quiet, hungry meow of a stray cat at the corner of the street.
Headlights.
Pain.
And then...nothing.
"Akira Yamada."
A voice echoed through the void — deep, warm, almost amused.
I turned instinctively toward it, though I had no body to turn with.
A soft golden light flickered in the distance, growing closer.
"You have died. Yet, by a twist of fate... you have been given a second chance."
A second chance?
I felt a flicker of something — hope? Confusion?
"You shall be reborn..."
The voice grew stronger, vibrating through the emptiness.
"Not as a man, but as a Seed. A Seed of Worlds."
A...Seed?
Before I could ask, a rush of sensations overwhelmed me.
Warmth, like sunlight filtering through dense leaves.
Moisture, rich and heavy, clinging to my skin — no, to something else.
To roots.
I was underground.
Deep beneath the earth, surrounded by sleeping stones and whispering currents of magic.
I could feel the pulse of life around me, faint but desperate.
"Awaken, Child of Soil."
"Grow."
The light exploded inside me — and I changed.
I could sense it: the broken land above, scarred by centuries of war.
Ashes of ancient cities.
Forests burned down to twisted husks.
The dying breath of a world abandoned by its gods.
And yet, beneath all that ruin, a tiny sliver of life remained —
waiting, trembling, for someone to nurture it.
For me.
A screen blinked open before my mind's eye, simple and faint:
---
> [Genesis Garden] Activated.
Status: World Seed (Dormant)
Abilities:
— Soil Purification (Level 1)
— Mana Root Extension (Level 1)
— Sprout Summoning (Locked)
---
Genesis Garden?
It sounded like something out of a video game.
Except this wasn't a game.
This was real.
Somehow, someway, I'd been reborn...
not as a hero,
not as a wizard,
not even as a monster.
But as the last hope of a dying world.
A tiny seed buried beneath endless dirt and darkness.
I felt a slow, thudding heartbeat — not from myself, but from the land around me.
Weak. Sick. But alive.
And I understood, deep in my very core:
If I wanted to survive,
if I wanted to grow,
I would have to heal this broken world first.
There was no one else.
Only me.
Alright, I thought, steeling myself.
Let's see if I can make something grow out of this mess.
The earth shifted gently around me, cradling me like a mother's arms.
And so, my new life as a Seed began.