They ended up sitting where Toku had once sat alone a year ago—on the low stone wall beside the canal, where the water moved slowly enough to look thoughtful.

  For a while, neither of them spoke.

  People passed by, smiling. Someone waved at Toku. Someone else handed the stranger a wrapped pastry “just because you look like you might need one.”

  They accepted it with a polite bow.

  “…This place really is like this all the time?” they asked.

  “Yep,” Toku said. “No catch. No hidden quest. No tragic backstory NPC waiting to unlock a darker arc. Trust me, I checked.”

  They looked down at the pastry as if it might contain answers.

  Instead, it contained custard.

  “…I see.”

  They sat with that.

  Toku glanced sideways. “So. You’ve got a name, right? Or did you also panic and choose one that sounded cooler in your head?”

  The stranger hesitated.

  “…It’s Lots.”

  Toku blinked.

  “Lots?”

  “Yes.”

  “As in, ‘many’?”

  Lots coughed. “I didn’t think I would have to say it out loud this often.”

  Toku grinned. “No, no, it’s good. Strong. Memorable. Sounds like someone who clicked ‘randomize’ and then convinced themselves it was fate.”

  “I chose it intentionally,” Lots said, trying—and failing—not to smile. “It comes from the idea of abundance. Of possibility. Of… more than one way forward.”

  Toku tilted his head.

  That was a very deliberate answer.

  “…You didn’t just come here because it looked comfortable, did you?”

  Lots didn’t respond immediately.

  He watched the people crossing the bridges. The conversations. The easy laughter. The effortless kindness that flowed through the city like a law of physics.

  “When I read your book ‘That Fantasy Novel You Would Want to Live In.’ ”

  “I chose this world,” Lots continued, calm and certain, “I chose it because of what it was trying to be.”

  Toku, embarrassed, peeked through his fingers.

  “Trying?”

  “Yes.”

  Lots turned to him—not accusing, not hostile. Just… serious.

  “You wrote a world without suffering. A world governed by fairness. A world where people are rewarded for doing good, where cruelty has no space to take root.”

  “…That was the idea,” Toku said slowly.

  “But that isn’t the same as a world without conflict.”

  Toku frowned.

  Lots gestured to the street.

  “Everyone here is kind. Everyone is understanding. Everyone wants the best for each other.”

  “Yeah,” Toku said. “That’s… the point.”

  “And because of that,” Lots said gently, “nothing pushes back.”

  Toku didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t come here just to live peacefully,” Lots continued. “I came here because I wanted to see whether a world like this could grow. Whether goodness means anything if it is never tested. Whether ideals can exist without something to challenge them.”

  Toku stared at him.

  “That sounds dangerously close to wanting to start problems.”

  “I don’t want to create suffering,” Lots said. “I chose this story because it rejects that.”

  “Good,” Toku said. “Because the anti-misbehavior system here is… extremely enthusiastic.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Lots admitted. “It gently corrected me for trying to jaywalk.”

  Toku nodded. “It once corrected me for ‘attempting to brood excessively.’”

  They both shuddered.

  Lots exhaled, then looked back at the city.

  “I don’t want to break this world,” he said.

  “I want to introduce something it doesn’t yet understand.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Lots met his eyes.

  “A difference in belief.”

  Toku blinked.

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  “No villains. No violence. No cruelty,” Lots clarified. “Just… disagreement. Purpose. The idea that even kind people can want different futures.”

  Toku leaned back, staring up at the sky he had once described in a throwaway paragraph.

  He had written this world to be safe.

  Stable.

  Finished.

  But sitting next to Lots, he felt something unfamiliar creeping in.

  Not danger.

  Not dread.

  Something much quieter.

  Something alive.

  “…You’re trying to start an argument,” Toku said.

  Lots smiled.

  “I’m trying to start a conversation this world has never had.”

  Toku let out a long breath.

  “…You know what?” he said. “That actually sounds like something I would’ve written if I were a better author.”

  Lots laughed.

  And somewhere—far beyond the parts of the world Toku remembered creating—the horizon felt a little less like an ending, and a little more like an invitation.

  Lots stood, brushing invisible crumbs from his coat. He looked less like someone preparing to rebel, and more like someone about to submit a proposal.

  “That system of yours,” he said, “rewards kindness, yes?”

  “Virtue Points,” Toku replied. “Help someone, contribute to society, improve someone’s day. Points go up. Use them for housing, food, travel, hobbies. It’s basically morality gamified.”

  “And no one needs to struggle to survive.”

  “That was… kind of the goal.”

  Lots nodded. “It’s elegant. But it also means goodness here is automatic.”

  Toku raised an eyebrow. “Automatic goodness still counts as goodness.”

  “Does it?” Lots asked—not challengingly, just curiously. “If a person cannot choose to do wrong, are they choosing to do right?”

  Toku opened his mouth.

  Closed it again.

  Lots continued walking slowly along the canal, hands behind his back like a lecturer who didn’t realize he’d become one.

  “On Earth,” he said, “being kind costs something. Time. Effort. Pride. Sometimes opportunity. That cost is what gives the action weight.”

  He gestured to a group of citizens helping a stranger reorganize dropped belongings. All of them smiling. All of them perfectly willing.

  “Here, kindness is the path of least resistance. The world itself nudges you toward it. No fear. No consequence. No uncertainty.”

  “…You’re saying it’s too easy,” Toku said.

  “I’m saying it’s incomplete.”

  They stopped at a bridge.

  Lots rested his hands on the railing and looked out over the water.

  “I don’t want to add suffering to this world,” he said. “I want to add friction.”

  “Friction,” Toku repeated.

  “Yes. The ability for people to pursue different ideas of a good life. Not bad ones. Just… different ones.”

  Toku frowned. “Give me an example before I accidentally allow something disastrous.”

  Lots smiled faintly.

  “In this world, everyone contributes in small, harmonious ways. Acts of service. Acts of care. Acts that maintain balance.”

  “Correct.”

  “But what about ambition?” Lots asked. “What about building something unnecessary, simply because someone believes it should exist?”

  Toku thought about that.

  There were restaurants.

  Parks.

  Art galleries.

  All pleasant. All approved by the system.

  All… safe.

  Lots continued:

  “What if someone wanted to dedicate years to mastering a craft that helps no one immediately?

  What if someone wanted to compete—not to harm, but to test themselves?

  What if two people disagreed about what ‘a good society’ looks like, and both were sincere?”

  Toku blinked.

  The system had no clear answer to that.

  It rewarded measurable good.

  But not conviction.

  Not vision.

  Not the stubborn, irrational desire humans had to chase meaning that didn’t yet exist.

  Lots straightened.

  “I want to create a place,” he said, “where Virtue Points are not earned just for helping… but for striving. For failing. For trying again. A place where people must decide what they value, not just follow what feels naturally right.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like hard work,” Toku said.

  “It is.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like responsibility.”

  “Yes.”

  Toku groaned. “You’re trying to invent personal growth. I explicitly wrote this world to avoid that.”

  Lots laughed.

  “And yet you also wrote people who can change.”

  That landed harder than Toku expected.

  Because he had.

  He just never imagined change would require resistance.

  They stood there quietly.

  The city behind them hummed with effortless happiness.

  The road ahead—though nothing looked different—suddenly felt unwritten.

  “…You realize,” Toku said slowly, “if you do this, you’re basically starting the world’s first philosophical movement.”

  Lots tilted his head.

  “I thought I was starting a small community garden.”

  “That’s how it always starts!” Toku pointed accusingly. “First it’s gardens, then it’s manifestos!”

  Lots considered this.

  “…There may be a pamphlet.”

  “I knew it.”

  They both laughed.

  But beneath the humor, something had undeniably begun.

  Not conflict.

  Not rebellion.

  Just a question the world had never needed to ask before:

  If happiness is guaranteed… what do you choose to do with it?