The tomatoes sprouted in five days.
Rem knew that wasn't normal. On Earth, tomatoes took weeks to germinate and months to bear fruit. But here, on the morning of the fifth day, when he went out behind the house with sleep still clinging to his eyes, he found six green shoots breaking through the soil like little fingers pointing at the sky.
He crouched there, staring at them for a long time.
He didn't know whether it was the soil, the world's magic, or whether the seeds he created already came with something extra. Maybe all three. It didn't matter. What mattered was that it worked.
Elara noticed that same day.
"Rem." She stood behind him with her arms crossed and an expression somewhere between surprise and suspicion. "Are those your tomatoes?"
"They are."
"In five days?"
"The soil must be good."
Elara looked at the packed-earth ground that had never produced anything in its life, then looked at her son. Rem held her gaze with the calm of someone who had already prepared three different answers to that question.
"Hm," Elara said. Then she went inside.
Rem let out a slow breath. He needed to be more careful.
In two weeks, the six tomato plants were loaded with fruit. Red, firm tomatoes the size of fists—bigger and prettier than anything the neighbors grew. Elara stopped questioning them and started harvesting. She made sauce. She made soup. She dried some in the sun to preserve them. For the first time since Rem had awakened in that world, the pantry didn't look empty.
Aldric said nothing about the tomatoes. But one night, while eating the soup, he looked at Rem with half a smile and said:
"Good soil, huh?"
Rem nearly choked.
"Yeah," he replied without looking at his father. "Lots of luck."
Aldric went back to eating. But the half smile stayed on his face for the rest of the night.
The trouble began with a visit.
Rem was out back, crouched between the tomato plants, when he heard voices in front of the house. Not the neighbors' voices—he already knew those. These voices were different. One was deep and drawling, with the kind of authority that came from being used to obedience. The other belonged to Aldric, and sounded careful in a way Rem had never heard before.
He slowly made his way around the house, keeping close to the wall.
On the dirt road in front of the door, a man sat astride a chestnut horse. He wore fine clothes—not extravagant, but clearly the clothes of someone with money. Beside him, a younger man stood holding the reins of a second horse, a leather bag slung over his back.
"...the quarterly taxes, Aldric. Does the Count know they're overdue?"
"The Count is aware, yes. There was the drought last month, and—"
"The drought affected everyone. The territories of Viscount Harlen paid on time."
Aldric fell silent for a moment. Rem saw his father's shoulders stiffen—not with anger, but with the kind of tension that came from swallowing words.
"I'll speak with the Count," Aldric said firmly. "The taxes will be delivered."
The man on horseback looked around with studied disinterest. His eyes passed over the house, the dirt path, and the surrounding fields. Then they stopped.
On the tomatoes.
"That's new," he said, nodding toward the back of the house. "Since when have you been growing things here?"
"It's just a small garden," Aldric said. "My son planted it."
"Your son." The man raised an eyebrow. "Pretty tomatoes for a child's garden."
Something cold slid down Rem's spine. It wasn't fear—it was recognition. He knew that kind of look. It was the look of someone calculating the value of things. Someone who saw an opportunity where others saw tomatoes.
The man tugged on the reins and turned his horse. "Tell the Count that Viscount Harlen expects the taxes by the end of the month. No delays."
Aldric nodded without saying anything. The man rode off down the road, his assistant following behind, and the dust kicked up by the hooves took a long time to settle.
When the silence returned, Aldric stood in the doorway for a long time, staring at the empty road. Then he turned and saw Rem leaning against the side wall of the house.
"You heard," Aldric said. It wasn't a question.
"I did."
Aldric ran a hand over his face. He looked ten years older than he had five minutes earlier.
"Viscount Harlen collects taxes from the Aldren territory. That's how it works—the counts answer to the viscounts, the viscounts to the dukes, and the dukes to the king. And Viscount Harlen..." Aldric paused, as if choosing his words. "He doesn't like Aldren."
"Why?"
"Because Aldren treats us like people. And that bothers anyone who thinks they shouldn't."
Rem fell silent. Aldric looked at him—really looked at him, the way he sometimes did, as if trying to understand something in his son that he couldn't put a name to.
"Don't worry about it, Rem. Adult stuff."
Rem nodded. But he didn't stop thinking.
That night, lying in bed and staring at the dark-beamed ceiling, Roberto's mind worked the way it always did—assembling pieces, calculating risks, looking for ways out.
Viscount Harlen didn't like Aldren. Aldren had little land and little money. The taxes were overdue. And one of the Viscount's employees had just noticed that an employee's son was growing tomatoes far too good for what should have been possible.
Rem closed his eyes.
The seeds had been the beginning. But if he kept going like this—creating things that were too good, too quickly, without explanation—it wouldn't be long before someone started asking questions he couldn't answer.
He needed to be smarter. He needed a plan that wasn't just about creating things, but about how to present them to the world without arousing suspicion. He needed a story. An explanation. A mask.
And above all, he needed the Aldren Estate to become strong enough that no one could take anything from them.
He turned onto his side and looked out the window. This world's moon was larger than Earth's—or at least it seemed that way, without São Paulo's light pollution competing with it. It bathed the fields in a silvery blue that made everything look like a dream.
But it wasn't a dream. It was real. And real things could be protected.
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow, I start for real.