The System Sent Me to Breed an All-Female Amazon Tribe-Chapter 89: Benjamin, The Unloved

Benjamin thought deeply to himself.

’Empty myself... Empty myself...’

But the words felt wrong in his chest, like swallowing something incredibly bitter.

’I don’t think I like that very much. I feel like I want the heaviness to stick always... in reminder of the pains I felt. Or maybe... I’m just too scared to confront those burdens...?’

He finished his thought and drew in a long, slow breath again.

Then exhaled.

The air left him in a noiseless rush, carrying with it the first threads of his own magic.

It poured out like smoke escaping an opened room; gray-white tendrils curling from his skin, his mouth, and his fingertips.

The released magic power mingled with the magic already present in the atmosphere, twisting and tangling until the boundary between Benjamin and the world began to blur.

At that moment he became something else; A concept rather than a human. More of a weightless specter.

In doing so, he effectively "died"—at least in concept.

He stood motionless for nearly twenty minutes with an extremely calm expression.

His body was completely still, and not even the gentle rise and fall of breathing disturbed the surface tension of the moment.

The shrine maidens, Sakura, Princess Lily, Gin, Aoi, Midori, Sumire, Kuro, Yukari, Akane, Ayaka, Usagi-sama, Silverøse; all of them seemed to watched in reverent silence.

Benjamin could hear no one speak, nor hear anyone move.

The only sound was the soft splashing of water somewhere far away against unseen banks, and the occasional rustle of night wind through the cherry tree far across the lake.

Most importantly, before he "died," his life flashed before his closed eyes. Not as mere images, but as the weights Sakura told him about.

Weights he chose not to recognize overtime:

The moment his parents died when he was only ten.

The cold faces of relatives who turned him away because they already had mouths to feed.

The nights he ate scraps from trash cans behind restaurants, the smell of rotting food clinging to his fingers.

The time he stood outside a brightly lit family restaurant and watched a family laughing over dinner through the glass; mother, father, and two children, all smiling like the world belonged to them.

The agreement he made at thirteen, to work for a farmer in exchange for schooling.

The bullying that followed in said school because he was too good at everything; too quick to learn, too good at sports, and the greatest sin of all—too nice.

That time he got his first—and only—rejection from the girl who was his first love. And the sting of her laughing at him, with her friends, still echoing somewhere deep in his heart.

The farmer who paid for his college out of this silent and persistent kindness.

The farmer’s teenage daughter who asked him out one summer evening, curious about sex, and the way he turned her down.

Not because he didn’t want to, but because he was terrified of being wanted only for sex.

The farmer’s death from a long, wasting illness.

Followed by the diagnosis that came too late to Benjamin: cancer, and already advanced.

The doctor’s calm voice telling him his time was short and numbered.

The office job he finally landed, despite all the tragedy; some decent pay and decent hours, but the same insults, the same sidelong glances from colleagues, the same way people treated him like trash even when he outperformed everyone around him.

The nights he returned to the small apartment he had rented after leaving the farmer’s house.

The bench outside under the stars where he sat alone, wishing—just once in his life—he could share the view with someone who cared.

And the realization that no one ever would.

The memory of the farmer’s family—so warm, so loud, and so loving—and the way he always kept himself at arm’s length, afraid to intrude, and afraid to be seen as a burden.

The regret that he never let them in, and never let himself feel the full warmth they tried so hard to give.

The silent nights when he lay in bed and truly understood that he would die alone.

And yet, despite all his suffering, he had still thought, in his final moments on Earth:

"C’mon... it wasn’t that bad. There are people more worse than me. I should be thankful."

He had smiled through tears as life slipped away from his fingers, in that empty apartment.

Forgotten. Unloved. disregarded.

Now, standing blindfolded at the edge of the black lake, all of it undeniably hit him at once.

He had never been truly loved.

He had never had a family of his own. No real friends, or lovers, or offspring, or possession to call his own.

Even the eight years with the farmer’s family had been kept at a careful distance; polite and grateful, but never fully open.

He had achieved nothing lasting on Earth.

And he had died alone. That was the reality.

The weight of it all settled in his chest like a huge boulder.

He let it sit there for one long, final breath.

Then he deliberately let it go.

Of course, not forever. Not totally erased.

But just set aside, for the time being.

The magic around him loosened, and the smoke-like aura that had poured from his body condensed, then dissipated entirely.

His form grew impossibly light, as he took the first step.

The leaf beneath his foot barely dipped, but it held.

***

"Hehe," Benjamin breathed after his life flashed before his eye, the sound of him barely louder than a sigh. "Maybe my corpse began to smell before anyone realized I was even gone, I wonder."

{Apologies, Master.}

[Oh, Sys, you saw those flashbacks too? And you can actually "feel" sorry? You sure are evolving...]

{...I’m sorry, Master...}

[Idiot... Don’t pity me...]

Then he began to move. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

He had climbed atop the first leaf with a slow and deliberate evaluation.

The surface gave the slightest dip beneath his weight, yet it held.

Then another step. And another.

The blindfold remained snug across his eyes, but now that he had merged with the ambient magic, he no longer needed physical sight.

The leaves appeared in his mind’s eye as clear as if they glowed: pale-green discs outlined in faint silver threads, each one a fragile foothold across the black water.

He could almost see the entirety of Shishi-no-su. In fact, every rooftop, every winding path, every distant lantern flicker, every beastkin roaming in every district, and even the faint boundary that separated him from the outside: Sakura’s barrier.

Yet one small patch remained strange: the space where Sakura and the others stood was completely hollow, a void in his awareness. But he only noted it, filed it away at the back of his mind, and kept moving.

He was feathery now: Not merely light; but above gravity. In the way that meant he was no longer fully physical, but now a spirit in form... If not in fact.

Each landing produced no ripple, no sound, no disturbance on the glassy surface. The lake accepted him like air accepts a ghost.

He reached the miniature island sooner than he expected, then settled his palm against the rough bark of the enormous cherry tree.

Ancient power thrummed deeply, but slowly and patiently, beneath his fingers.

"This... must be a really old tree," he murmured to himself. "Are you sure it’s a cherry tree at all?"

He was grasping for distraction.