The night wind howled fiercely, hissing through the dry, rustling leaves across the hills of Suka Makmur Village. Standing upon the barren, marginal patch of earth, Danu remained frozen, holding his breath. His index finger had just tapped the [ YES ] option on the floating blue holographic screen suspended before him.

Instantly, the pulsing glow across the display morphed into rapid golden energy pulses wrapping around his wrist. The system's mechanical voice resonated clearly inside his head once more, carrying a tone of absolute, pristine authority.

(Phase one activation successful. Marginal Soil Restoration Module and Macro Territorial Scanning unlocked. Welcome to a new era of agrarian sovereignty, Host Danu.)

Danu blinked, feeling a sudden wave of warmth surging upward from the soles of his feet straight through the earth, as though he could sense the microscopic heartbeat of every single grain of sand beneath him.

"Incredible..." Danu whispered in sheer awe, staring down at his hands, which now faintly shimmered with a soft luminescence. "It feels like... it feels like this dead dirt is finally breathing beneath my feet."

(That is merely the foundation, Host,) the system's voice replied briskly in his mind. (Dirt is just the starting point. The true threat looming over Suka Makmur Village isn't the infertile soil, but an impending biological catastrophe descending from the air. Does the Host wish to expand the scanning range across the entire village territorial map right now?)

Danu frowned. He glanced toward the vast, distant expanse of farmland where thousands of hectares of golden melon fields belonging to the villagers and Pak Darma stretched grandly beneath the moonlight.

"The village's territorial map?" Danu asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean? Is something wrong with their melon fields? Aren't the villagers' crops growing lush, green, and thriving right now?"

(Visual impressions frequently deceive the limited human eye, Host. The arrogance of local farmers chasing raw quantity without regard for genetic crop resilience has engineered a biological time bomb. Please issue a macro-scan command to witness the raw truth.)

Danu drew a deep breath. A suffocating mix of burning curiosity and profound suspicion made his heart hammer against his ribs. Clenching his fist, he spoke with fierce resolve: "Fine! Display a macro-scan of all Suka Makmur Village right this instant!"

Zzzzt!

The translucent holographic screen before Danu suddenly expanded tenfold. Blue ribbons of light flashed outward, generating an intensely detailed 3D holographic wireframe map of every corner of Suka Makmur—from the eastern river streams and the dense residential hub in the center, down to Pak Darma's lavish, sprawling paddy plots out in the village's western reaches.

Danu gasped, stumbling back a step, utterly spellbound by a level of visual sophistication he never imagined could exist in the real world.

"Good God... is this... is this a map of our village?" Danu muttered, his voice trembling as he watched the miniature replica of his home slowly rotate in midair beneath the night sky.

(Scanning complete,) the system reported coldly. (Observe the color indicators on the territorial map, Host.)

Initially, every single farming zone on the 3D map glowed with a soothing, bright green hue. But moments later, millions of tiny blood-red dots began creeping in from the eastern border, multiplying at terrifying speeds and swallowing almost the entirety of the villagers' melon plantations within seconds.

The green color that had previously dominated vanished instantly, replaced by a churning, ominous ocean of deep crimson dots pulsing in a sickening rhythm.

Danu felt his chest tighten violently. His eyes blew wide open in sheer horror as he stared at the red clusters converging precisely over the golden melon fields owned by Pak Darma and the arrogant villagers.

"What are those red dots?!" Danu panicked, his voice pitching an octave higher. "Why is everything turning blazing red over the melon farms?!"

(Those indicate high-level pathogen infection zones, Host,) the system answered in a flat, lethal tone. (Based on atmospheric analysis, eastern wind vectors, and this week's extreme humidity levels, a hyper-aggressive mutant strain of Fusarium OXY fungal spores is being carried down by the winds from the eastern highlands.)

Danu shook his head violently, refusing to accept what he was hearing. "A parasitic fungus? But... but their melon plants just fruited heavily! The leaves are broad and the vines are thick! How could the entire plantation possibly be infected?"

(Because the expensive, imported hybrid melon varieties forced upon them by Pak Darma possess zero immunity against water-logged local clay soils,) the system explained without pause, pulling up a detailed analytic data pop-up window right in front of Danu's face.

A transparent text box featuring bold red lettering drifted outward from the 3D map, presenting detailed data that instantly turned Danu's blood run cold:

[CRITICAL BIOLOGICAL THREAT REPORT]

Pathogen Type: Fusarium OXY Spores (Aggressive Mutation).

Transmission Vector: Airborne (Eastern Winds) & Irrigation Water.

Primary Targets: 100% Monoculture Melon and Chili Crops.

Early Symptoms: Invisible Root Rot (Vascular bundle decay).

Virulence Level: Inside-out destruction. Crops will appear lush and green on the surface, but internal stems and fruit interiors decompose into foul-toting sludge within 24 hours of total infection.

Danu fell into a prolonged silence. He read every single word of the report over and over while mental images of the villagers' flourishing melon fields flashed painfully through his mind.

"Wait a minute..." Danu whispered, his voice shaking as his fingers gripped the fabric of his dusty shirt. "If what this system is saying is true... then every single melon field the villagers are so proud of... every last cent of the billions in capital borrowed from Pak Darma..."

(It is all a fragile illusion built upon a foundation of rotting glass, Host,) the system cut in firmly. (The plants appear healthy to untrained human eyes, but biologically, their life-giving hearts are already rotting away underground.)

Danu swallowed hard. His throat felt parched and desert-dry. He imagined what would befall all of Suka Makmur if this biological disaster struck without warning. Hundreds of families depended entirely on this season's harvest. Their debts piled high with Pak Darma, their homes mortgaged, and the entire village gambling everything on a single commodity: Golden Melons.

"If this plague hits..." Danu whispered in horror, picturing the catastrophe waiting to sweep through his home. "...the entire village will face total bankruptcy overnight. Nothing will survive. Even Pak Darma will be utterly ruined."

(Precisely, Host,) the system confirmed. (A mass economic collapse in Suka Makmur is now mathematically unavoidable. The real question is: what will Host Danu choose to do with this absolute intelligence?)

Danu stood motionless. The night wind whipped up again, swirling fine dust around his boots. On one hand, the villagers and Pak Darma had just humiliated him, degraded his family, and threatened to tear down their rundown shack. Letting them crash and burn might just be the ultimate payback for years of arrogance and oppression.

Yet, on the other hand, Danu was a young man raised with a conscience. He knew intimately what starvation felt like, how agonizing it was to watch his father weep in the paddy mud, and how lethal financial ruin could be for ordinary working people.

"If I warn them..." Danu muttered to himself, his voice wavering with doubt. "...is there even a single person in that village who would believe me? They think I'm just a fool, a farmhand's son who knows nothing about farming."

(Predicted village trust rating toward the Host's warning: 0.01%,) the system delivered its merciless, realistic calculation. (Humanity naturally rejects painful truths, preferring cozy lies that feed their false hopes.)

Danu clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked sharply. The corners of his lips trembled, fighting back a turbulent storm of fury, pity, and a crushing moral dilemma weighing heavily on his chest.

Suddenly, the hologram before him flickered rapidly, shedding a blinding, blood-red glare. A low-frequency warning alarm vibrated fiercely inside his skull, forcing Danu to grab his head as a sharp wave of dizziness struck him.

A massive countdown timer materialized with a glowing, fiery animation right in the corner of his field of vision, ticking relentlessly downward, demanding absolute attention:

[SYSTEM EMERGENCY WARNING]

Time Until Total Outbreak: 20 Days, 00 Hours, 00 Minutes.

Village Melon Survival Rate: 0%

Danu stared at the blood-red numbers through ragged breaths. That wasn't just a countdown of time—it was the ticking clock toward a miniature apocalypse that would flatten Suka Makmur into a sea of tears and desperation.

He lifted his gaze to the gloomy night sky, then offered a bitter, fragile smile, his eyes igniting with a sharp, lethal determination.

"Twenty days..." Danu whispered with heavy emphasis, his voice suddenly shifting into something cold and commanding amid the quiet night. "...these twenty days are going to change everything. Those who walked in pride will fall to their knees, and those who endure will seize absolute control over this land."