I’m not sure if I really arrived at that city.
Its name, Fontaine, is encoded in a subdirectory of the daily system.
On that morning, the system suddenly opened up permissions, and Catherine said to me: “You have unlocked the daily commission of Fontaine.”
Her voice was like a drop of oil sliding between mechanical gears, without emotion.
I looked at her, and couldn’t tell if she still had a soul.
And am I still “me”? This “I” was marked as “traveler” in the log record, with omnipotent authority and an inescapable fate.
So, I entered Fontaine.
It is transparent. The buildings, air, people’s faces, and even the water flow all have a highly consistent linear structure.
Everything can be judged, and everything needs to be judged.
This is a gaze of the system itself – I know clearly that I am not here to “complete” the task, I am here to “be recorded”.
—
Daily commissions are divided into four units.
Four is highly metaphorical. It is not the stability of three, nor the expansion of five, but an infinitely replicable rectangular prototype, which constitutes the eternal rhythm of the system.
I started to perform the first task.
“Help the researcher to retrieve the out-of-control underwater device.”
The task description is very short, without any details to imagine.
It seems that it is not a real event, but an exercise of some philosophical proposition.
I moved on the map, approaching the target point, and the air around me seemed to begin to thicken.
I saw the researcher, standing by the water, his expression blurred and his tone hollow.
He said, “It escaped. I need you to bring it back.”
I asked, “Who is it?”
He did not answer, but only raised his head, his eyes looking at an invisible top.
I understood. He was not looking at me, nor was he talking to me.
He was just completing a statement call that triggered the condition.
And I was also a link in his task chain.
—
As my reputation increased, I obtained system products such as “Water Phantom Identifier” and “Folding Light Cone”.
The system listed their uses for me, for detection, for positioning, and for folding space paths.
But no one can explain their true meaning.
Just like we learn and use language, but we can never name the truth with language.
I began to suspect that the reputation system is not a reward mechanism, but a screening mechanism –
Who can stay awake in repetition and obedience?
Who will gradually forget the boundaries of “self” in the system simulation?
From level one to ten, every “upgrade” is a silent molting.
I get the right of passage, new production blueprints, and more “free” behavior rights in Fontaine.
But because of this, I know that I have fallen deeper and deeper into it.
I am absorbed by the system, named by it, and monitored by it.
The more I am needed, the more I can’t escape.
And the system always calls me “Excellent Traveler”.
No name. No history. No future.
—
The task cycle is five days. Events cannot be changed.
I often stand in the same place, perform the same action, and talk to the same NPC.
The only thing that changes is the angle of sunlight, the thickness of clouds, and the gradually cooling enthusiasm in my heart.
In one mission, I was asked to go from the theater to the court to submit a document.
It was a straight line, completely unobstructed.
But halfway through, I stopped.
I realized: I don’t actually need to complete it. The system will not really punish me for my escape.
But I still finished it.
This is a deeper fear.
It is not the coercion of the command, but the domestication of the structure.
I have become accustomed to being needed by the system.
In the world of the system, only completion can prove existence.
—
I remembered the name of a certain task – “Light rain falling like no reason”.
An overly poetic title, as if trying to cover up its inner emptiness.
That “rain” has no beginning, no end, only the eternal “falling”.
When the task was completed, I stood on a stone bridge, under the bridge was the flowing logic, and on the bridge was me – an executor trapped in the simulation world.
For a moment, I suspected that the entire Fontaine was just a large-scale AB test,
and “them” (NPC) and I were just debuggers of different variables in the data set.
We interacted and triggered each other, and finally generated an unsolvable dream.
—
The moment when the reputation reached the maximum level, Catherine appeared again.
She smiled and said, “You have gained Fontaine’s full trust.”
I looked at her and wanted to ask, “Who trusted me? Does this world really exist?”
But I didn’t speak.
I know that my language has long been disciplined and formatted in the system rules.
It is no longer an expression, but a trigger condition.
I walked out of the task interface,
The reflection in the water shattered.
Night fell, and the cursor stopped.
I am still here.
But do I still exist?
—