A static-laced voice echoed through my mind.
It wasn't so much words as it was a torrent of raw data and waves of instinctive emotion.
Hunger. Threshold. Stagnation.
Deep within this sealed facility, they had been desperately struggling to sustain their existence.
"We aren't your enemies. We didn't come here to wipe you out."
I broadcast the thought, laying out my terms. Simply demanding their harvest would make me no different from a common thief. For a successful negotiation, they needed a tangible benefit.
"If you stay here, the servers will eventually rot and the power will fail. You'll do nothing but slowly wither away in this closed-off paradise. You must have realized that by now."
The thought waves wavered for a fraction of a second.
I’d hit the mark. With their processing power, they must have accurately predicted their own inevitable ruin. Without missing a beat, I sent them an image of the "outside world."
The vast, unending reach of space. The Sperm Whale’s generator, churning out infinite energy. And new soil, waiting for seeds to be sown.
"Board my ship. I’ll take you to a world far wider than this one. A new environment, new stimuli, and the chance to spread your species. It’s a fair trade."
"In exchange, you'll pay rent by sharing a bit of your 'harvest.' ...What do you say?"
Whether my offer had resonated or they were simply enticed by the concept of the "outside world," the sparks dancing across the surrounding ivy subsided. The vines retracted smoothly, clearing a path.
It wasn't a rejection. It was an invitation.
"...I guess that means we can pass?"
"Akito, are you okay? Your nose is bleeding."
Mina peered at me, her face pinched with worry. I wiped the blood away with the back of my hand. The mental load had been heavy, but it had yielded results.
"I’m fine. The master of the house is ready to see us."
"Hostile signatures have vanished. The local electromagnetic patterns have stabilized. ...Master, it appears negotiations were successful," Lucia reported, sounding genuinely relieved. It seemed the greatest crisis was behind us.
Guided by the pulsing vines, we reached the main server room in the facility’s deepest sector.
The room had transformed into a sweltering greenhouse. Server racks, pushed to their overclocking limits, emitted a low, vibrating hum. At the center of that concentrated heat sat the master of the plant.
"...It’s massive."
It looked like a colossal pumpkin—a brilliant orange sphere, spanning at least two meters across. Countless cable-like vines extended from the server racks and pierced its surface. This was the lord of the facility, bloated from devouring electricity, heat, and data.
——Affirmation... Symbiosis... Proposal... Acceptance.
The voice echoed in my head again. This time, the static was gone. The will behind it was clear and focused.
It had accepted my terms. The plants had foreseen their own resource depletion and were looking for the next stage of their evolution. Our interests were perfectly aligned.
The air stirred with a soft rustle. A section of the massive pumpkin split open, and a "fruit" the size of a basketball tumbled out.
However, it bore no resemblance to any plant "fruit" I had ever seen. It was a hybrid of the organic and the inorganic—plant fibers and metallic cables intricately braided together around a core that looked like a crystal of electronic components.
It was an alien thing, entirely distinct from a natural pumpkin. This was the "core," a vessel for their memory data and condensed processing power. It was their next-generation seed.
"This is for us?"
"...Incredible. It’s alive. It’s an independent processing unit. It looks like a machine, but it’s biological."
"Scan complete. The subject is a Bio-calculation Unit, a fusion of organic tissue and electronic circuitry. A truly fascinating architecture," Lucia added, her eyes gleaming with professional curiosity.
I nodded and hoisted the fruit. It was heavy and hot, vibrating with a rhythmic pulse like a heartbeat.
"We’re bringing this back to the Sperm Whale. We have plenty of generator output to spare. We'll need to set up an interface for it, but..."
I hadn't bothered with them because they weren't my style, but in the game, there was a category called "Bio-ships." The idea of a living organism existing in symbiosis with a vessel to manage its systems wasn't unheard of.
"Wait, what?! You’re going to let a plant live on the ship? One that eats electricity, no less?"
"Mina, you can handle the wiring, right? If we feed it the generator's surplus, it’ll become an elite sub-computer and an automated farm manager."
"Given our current generator output, maintenance and operation will not be an issue," Lucia confirmed.
"...Ugh. Well, if Lucia says so... I guess if we use it as a self-repairing bio-circuit, the ship’s damage control would improve dramatically. It might be worth a shot."
Mina’s expression shifted, her eyes taking on the distant look of an engineer calculating a new project. Technical curiosity had won the day.
Negotiations were settled. However, I had one more thing to confirm: the taste of the "fruit" that remained.
I looked at the giant orange sphere left behind—the "husk" of the parent plant. Even though the core had been discharged, the flesh was still succulent. In fact, having completed its biological purpose, it looked like it had reached the absolute peak of ripeness.
I drew my knife and plunged it into the sphere. Slicing through the thick rind, I found the interior had turned into a thick, syrupy paste. The server’s exhaust heat and constant electrical stimulation had slow-cooked it inside its own skin.
It was a natural—or rather, a digital—Dutch oven.
"Composition analysis: No harmful substances detected. ...Theoretically, it is edible."
With Lucia’s seal of approval, I scooped some up on a finger and tasted it.
"...!"
It was hot. And shockingly, violently sweet.
It wasn't the simple sweetness of sugar. The condensed starch had saccharified to the extreme, creating a rich, syrupy flavor that coated the tongue. It lacked the shallow, fleeting sweetness of the synthetic sweeteners I usually ate; this was a heavy, life-affirming sweetness that reached all the way to the back of my throat.
It was creamy and decadent. As I swallowed, I felt a surge of energy that warmed me from the inside out.
"It’s delicious... You could make a world-class potage out of this without adding a single thing."
"Wait, you’re actually eating that?"
"Yeah. It’s just a husk now, but it’s a concentrated mass of nutrition and umami."
I pulled a sierra cup from my pack and scooped a generous helping of the paste from the pumpkin's center. It was a vibrant, golden-yellow color, thick enough to trail from the spoon like honey.
I mixed in a pinch of salt and a splash of coffee creamer. The white liquid swirled into the gold, mellowing the color into a soft, pale cream. The creamer was synthetic, of course, but then again, most "real" creamer back on Earth was just vegetable oil and emulsifiers anyway. It didn't affect the taste, and the fats actually complemented the thickness of the paste.
The sweet aroma of pumpkin and the mellow scent of milk rose with the steam. The instant "Cyber Pumpkin Potage" was complete.
"Here, Mina. Try it. It tastes like the fruit of knowledge."
"...I don't know. Are you sure? It was literally shooting lightning a few minutes ago."
Mina took the cup, eyeing the contents with deep suspicion. But the rich, fragrant aroma was too much for her appetite to ignore. I heard her swallow hard.
"...Ugh, fine. It smells too good to pass up. If it tastes weird, I’m spitting it out."
She steeled herself, blew on the cup to cool it, and took a small sip.
"...Mnh!"
Her eyes went wide. The texture was silk on the tongue, followed by an explosion of sweetness and depth. Her caution evaporated instantly. Without even pulling the cup away, she took a long, deep gulp.
"It’s so good...! What is this? It’s incredibly sweet! You didn't add sugar, right? It tastes like a dessert, but it still tastes like a vegetable..."
Mina began working the spoon with frantic energy. With every bite, her face softened into a look of pure bliss.
"It’s so warm... My stomach feels toasty. I feel like... like I'm actually getting my energy back."
"It was raised in a sea of electrons. Its energy efficiency is probably off the charts."
In the sweltering heat of the server room, we sat and sipped our sweet, hot soup. The sugar and warmth permeated our exhausted bodies. This was a "flavor of evolution" unique to this world—a perfect fusion of civilization and nature.
We’d found the source of the signal loss, neutralized the threat by turning it into an ally, and managed to secure a gourmet meal to boot. As far as investigation missions went, this was a perfect score.
We loaded our new "crew member" into a container and began the trek back to the ship in high spirits.
Author's Note: Making potage from scratch is actually quite a lot of work, isn't it? I usually just end up simmering pumpkin in soy sauce and sugar (nimono) instead.
If you enjoyed this chapter or are looking forward to the next, please leave a rating! It might just help Akito’s dinner get a little bit more of an upgrade tomorrow. Thank you!