“Didn’t you say that worldborn were asexual?! And that all of my worldborn aspects are a part of my worldborn soul?! Then how come I–I–I…” Noah couldn’t continue.

Blackie ‘Oh’-ed in realization, then corrected, “No, no! I did not say that. What I said was that worldborn were basically asexual.”

“Is there a difference?!?” Noah flipped. Things have already reached this point, yet his system was still quibbling!

“Of course there is a difference,” Blackie continued matter-of-factly, “Do you think the Bureau would intentionally make you guys into eunuchs? Nonsense! That’s immoral! Unethical! Naturally, this whole asexual matter is a feature, not a bug!”

Now it was Noah turn to narrow his eyes, “Is that right? The bureau intentionally made us “basically” asexual?” (ꐦ ◠‿◠)

Blackie realized that his host had misunderstood, so he hurried to explain, “Now, hear me out! It’s not like that! It was for our ow–no, your own good!”

“Oh? Taking away our ability to have a normal relationship is for our own good?” For a moment, Noah felt so angry he smiled.

Seeing his host’s rarely seen chill-inducing smile, Blackie’s entire chip tingled with dread, “Think about it! Think about your high specs! Worldborn are balance-breaking existences! Beautiful beyond compare! Both smart and athletic! Gifted in everything they try! And a great personality to boot! Fuck, you are practically the definition of a dream lover! If we just left it like that, wouldn’t the whole world be plunged into chaos?! You’d cause downfalls of nations!”

Blackie’s speech was so rapid, Noah could imagine him spraying his spit everywhere in his efforts to explain.

“In the best-case scenario, you might get harassed and sexually assaulted! In worst, kidnapped, locked up, and raped by some rich and powerful geezer! And even if, by some miracle, you avoided all that bad shit, you’d still be circled by bees and butterflies wherever you go 24/7! How would you be able to live a normal life?! Even if we sent down an apocalypse, you’d have better chances of making it out unscathed!”

Blackie continued his barrage, not giving Noah a chance to respond.

“Think about how that would impact your psyche! The development of your personality and world views! How would we get talented, morally upright agents dedicated to our noble cause from such life circumstances? Instead, we’d get an emotionally and mentally scared mess in a serious need of therapy!”

Blackie paused briefly to take a breath, “Never mind all that, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you were bestowed by heavenly luck and absolutely nothing bad happened to you. Even in such circumstances, how can we make sure that you wouldn’t be led astray? That you wouldn’t take advantage of your good specs to seduce people to get your way? How many would manage to remain pure of heart if given the ability to easily get whatever they wanted–whoever they wanted, by just selling their ass?”

Blackie internally cold sweated at the thought. Never mind if their worldborn project failed – the real issue here was if it succeeded! Once that person found out about the ass selling… Blackie couldn’t help a shiver running down all his circuits.

Noah’s eyebrows furrowed while he listened to Blackie’s explanation. He couldn’t help but recall everything he had been taught about worldborn.

Worldborn were said to be inviolable. Creatures that one could only desire but never obtain. Watch from a distance but never touch. Revere or love, but not profane.

Everyone agreed on this point, though their opinions on why varied.

The nun that raised Noah believed that worldborn were the favorite children of God, born pure and bestowed with His protection so they would forever remain unsullied.

The scientists had another explanation – why would a race that can’t reproduce, have a physical urge to reproduce? It was only natural that they had neither the desire nor the ability to have physical intercourse. As for the ‘technical difficulties’ of being intimate with a worldborn… that should be a self-defense mechanism?

Noah didn’t know what other worldborn thought about this issue. He himself preferred not to blindly speculate, and, in his life on Cradle, he had only met one other worldborn. After his memory wipe, Noah couldn’t remember what the other was like, but he did remember that at the time, he had thought that the two of them were peas in a pod. They instantly hit it off as only two kindred spirits could.

Noah couldn’t remember how they met, nor how they ended up getting drunk together, but there was one thing he said that stuck with Noah even through his rebirth: “We have hearts that feel, beat and bleed just the same as every humanborn! Yet, unlike them, we have no fertility and no libido! Not only can we not get it up, but we are also untouchable! I say, it’s like the gods themselves don’t wish for us to have sex! Is this some kind of cruel test for humanborn who can only look but not touch, or is it a punishment for us, worldborn, to die as single dogs?”

Either way, after one removed the hearsay, the only thing that remained was the hard fact – not only were worldborn disinterested in sex, but they literally couldn’t have a physical relationship with anyone!

Call it divine protection or whatever, the fact was, whoever attempted to be intimate with them would suffer an immediate ‘heavenly punishment’!

Recalling Blackie’s spirited self-justification, Noah sneered mockingly. There were simply too many flaws in that explanation he didn’t even know which one to pick at first.

“Isn’t making us untouchable enough? Why did you have to make us asexual as well? To make it easier to remain single for life? But if so, why not also strip away our ability to love? Also, didn’t you claim that my worldborn qualities originate from my worldborn soul? Then where is my divine protection? My chastity belt? Hmm? How come my brother-in-law could touch everywhere without getting fried?!”

Blackie’s shard shook within Noah’s chest, “Hear me out! It’s all related!”

“Oh?” Noah glared into empty space, waiting for an explanation, “I’m listening.”

“When we were working on the whole worldborn project, we quickly and wisely realized that your high specs would cause endless troubles.” Blackie paused to light a candle in his heart for the several batches of worldborn who were either still in therapy or so damaged that the only thing that could be done is to send their poor unfortunate souls through reincarnation.

Blackie cleared his virtual throat, “So we thought long and hard about how to solve the issue most effectively–”

“Obviously not long and hard enough,” Noah’s rarely seen sneer was really scathing.

“That’s not it!” Blackie jumped to refute, sounding very righteous, “We really dedicated our all to solving this issue! We even ran many trials and errors!”

“And this is the best thing you could come up with?! Who are you trying to kid?!” (°ㅂ°╬)

“Hear me out!” Blackie insisted, “While we were brainstorming how to solve this issue, Steve mentioned that there was a race in one of the worlds under his management which might be a good role model to follow when designing this ‘chastity belt’. See, humans are mostly visual creatures attracted to others based on their appearance, but this race was attracted to each other based on their souls. And they had an interesting racial characteristic called Soul Coupling that made it so that they could only be intimate with their soul mates. It was either this one person that was made for them or no one.”