The System Sent Me to Breed an All-Female Amazon Tribe

“Wh… what happened here?” My voice was practically a whisper, my fingers squeezing the bag I held so tightly, I felt my knuckles cold.

The coldness spread from my hands to my arms to my chest, and I could feel the numbness creeping into my heart.

The man looked at me with pity in his eyes, and I knew, even before he spoke, what he was going to say.

“Of course. A certain noble came over not too long ago and… toyed with the boy. It was horrible,” he explained solemnly, his voice heavy with the weight of what he had witnessed.

The man’s eyes were downcast, his shoulders slumped, and there was a tremor in his hands that spoke of suppressed anger. “After having his fun, he eventually gave him a pie. The boy appreciated the noble and had his meal… But he soon coughed, vomited, and was in a lot of pain. There was nothing we could do… Madam…? Madam?!”

His voice faded into the background, becoming distant and muffled, as if I were hearing it from the bottom of a deep well.

The words washed over me, each one a fresh wound, each one a confirmation of the horror that had unfolded while I was busy feeling good about myself in the day.

Ah… I didn’t feel very good right now.

The sensation was strange, almost out of body. I could feel the cold cobblestones beneath my knees, could feel the rain soaking through my clothes, could feel the tears streaming down my face.

But there was a numbness too, a detachment that made everything seem distant and unreal.

As the man tried to console me, thinking Chiron was someone extremely close to me as I cried bitterly on the ground, I could only regret not being here for him at least in his last moments.

His hands were on my shoulders, his voice a soothing murmur, but I could not hear his words.

All I could see was Chiron’s face, the way it had looked last night when he had smiled at me, the way his dead eyes had crinkled at the corners.

As he laid there, dead and cold, I was helpless as well. This boy was smiling and eating happily just yesterday.

He had been alive, full of hope and gratitude, and now he was nothing but a husk, a shell that had been discarded by a cruel and uncaring world.

It almost feel as if I killed him myself.

The thought was irrational, I knew. I had not fed him the poisoned pie. I had not tormented him or toyed with him.

But I had not been there. I had been too late. And in my mind, that made me complicit in his death.

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“Argghhhh!!! Ahhhhh!!”

She yelled and thrashed in a way that saddened everyone who passed by.

The sound was raw, primal, a scream of pure anguish that seemed to tear its way out of her throat.

Her body convulsed with sobs, her fists pounding against the wet cobblestones, her voice rising in a keening wail that echoed through the street.

She was in a visible and apparent hurt over the death of a beginning, over the loss of a chance, over the extinguishing of a hope that had barely had time to flicker to life.

“Awwwn! Isn’t that sweet, you naked centaur?” Benjamin shook the hands of the young person standing besides him.

His voice was light, teasing, and there was a playful glint in his blue eyes that seemed completely out of place given the scene unfolding before them.

The boy had dark hair and golden irises, with the lower half of a bright brown horse, from his torso below.

His horse half was powerful and sleek, his human half slender and graceful, and he stood with a stillness that seemed almost unnatural.

“…” He only watched the woman cry for his corpse with an emotionless gaze.

His golden eyes were fixed on her, tracking her movements, studying her grief with a detachment that was almost clinical.

There was no pity in his expression, no sadness, no empathy.

Just a quiet observation, as if he were watching a specimen rather than a human being.

“Alright, party’s over,” Benjamin pulled on his arm to take him away, his voice taking on a more serious tone. “Echidna expects you back as soon as possible.”

“Please…!” He held Benjamin back a bit, still watching the woman with dead golden eyes, “Let me stay for a while.”

“What, you’re in love now?” Benjamin teased him, poking his cheek playfully. His voice was light, mocking, but there was a hint of curiosity beneath the humor. “I would love to have you stay and do whatever it is you want, but chances are I would have killed you before the noble did. Sara and Lulu have gone to ’reward’ him for killing a kid, though. However, Chiron… you’re not supposed to be here.”

“I know… I knew the moment the poison hit.” Chiron brought his head down a little, then pulled his hand from Benjamin. His voice was quiet and inaudible, and there was a spark of something in his golden eyes that might have been regret. “Let me tell her goodbye!”

He immediately ran, his horse hooves hitting the ground as he bent and embraced her from behind.

The movement was sudden, unexpected, and his arms wrapped around her trembling form with a gentleness that belied his size.

He immediately poured into her some centuries of knowledge and expertise from his own reserves.

He was giving her a gift, a legacy, a piece of himself that she would carry for the rest of her life.

“H-Hey, that’s not cosmic-legal!” Benjamin shook his fist from afar, but the centaur ignored him.

His protest was loud, theatrical, but there was no real anger behind it. He watched the exchange with a knowing smile, as if he had expected this outcome all along.

After a while, he kissed the woman on the cheek and stood up, leaving her behind.

The gesture was tender and loving, and there was a gentleness in his touch that seemed out of place given his earlier coldness.

He looked down at her one last time, then turned away, his hooves clicking against the cobblestones as he walked back to Benjamin.

Of course, they were not being perceived by anything in the physical realm right then.

The woman could not see them, could not hear them, could not feel the centaur’s embrace.

To her, the feeling would be just like a dream, a fleeting moment of comfort in the midst of her grief.

“Are you ready now?” Benjamin extended his palm again, his voice soft and patient. “Let’s go. But with what you gave her, she’ll become the next Chiron here in Elyndor. And you will not be able to return if you wanted… until she is dead… Which may also be difficult because of what you gave her.”

“What are you talking about?” Chiron took his hand, and they began walking away, his hooves and Benjamin’s feet moving in near-perfect sync. “I lost my memories upon becoming a mortal. I basically have only memories of being fed by you, and seeing that woman cry and ask me for forgiveness. She has become my legacy, I’m afraid.”

“Hah! Tell that to Echidna.” Benjamin shrugged, his voice light and unconcerned.

“No, you will tell her yourself.” Chiron shrugged as well, his tone matching Benjamin’s casualness. “You are the messenger, no? And stop speaking to me like we are friends.”

As they bickered and walked, the woman’s brain was accessing and compartmentalizing the immense knowledge and information that will soon make her one of the most valuable individuals on the planet.

The centuries of wisdom, the expertise, the understanding of the world and its mysteries—all of it was being integrated into her consciousness, transforming her into something she had never been before.