Morgan's mind was racing with ideas, but his hands moved even faster.
After spreading out the entire stretch of the newly created fertile mini rice field, he glanced at the two figures who were still standing there in a daze.
"What are you two staring at?! Start planting the seedlings!"
Wogan blinked.
"???"
Before he could even process what was happening, Morgan was already in front of him, snatching the Capsule Seedlings from his stiff hands and popping it open with practiced ease.
The seedlings spilled out in a neat bundle. Morgan split the small, bright-green stalks into three portions and shoved two into Wogan's and Maggie's hands.
"Like this."
Morgan rolled up his pant legs, stepped into the soft, waterlogged mud, and planted the first seedling.
Simple. Direct. Efficient.
Wogan stared, mouth half-open.
So he was really supposed to… plant rice seedlings?
Here, in Meteor Street?
The land of garbage, crime, and constant struggle?
A place where fighting, stealing, and surviving by force were the daily norm?
This went against everything he understood about how life worked.
He looked down at the small handful of seedlings. They were light, fragile, almost innocent. He honestly had no idea what he was supposed to do with them.
"If you don't know how, just watch her."
Morgan pointed at Maggie.
Wogan instinctively turned toward his partner.
Maggie's thin figure had already stepped into the muddy field. Her movements were clumsy and hesitant, but she was carefully imitating Morgan, placing each little stalk upright into the soil.
Seeing this, Wogan fell silent for a moment.
If Maggie could do it, then how could he not?
He clenched his teeth.
It was just planting seedlings. That's all.
If Morgan and Maggie could do something this simple, then there was absolutely no way the great Wogan would be outdone.
With a grunt, he stepped into the muddy field as well.
"You're too big. Plant over there."
Morgan pointed him to a wide area.
"And plant them straight! Don't make them lean all over the place!"
"Keep the spacing even. If they're too close together, they won't grow properly!"
Under Morgan's rapid-fire instructions, Wogan bent over and began planting, sweat quickly rolling down his forehead.
In any other situation, if someone had dared speak to him this way, Wogan absolutely would have ripped their head off and used it as a footstool.
But in this bizarre farmland created by Morgan's strange inventions, Wogan found himself obediently following every instruction.
It was surreal.
Morgan kept watch over them, ensuring every plant was positioned correctly. Maggie remained silent as always, carefully adjusting the seedlings and wiping mud from her fingertips. And Wogan, for the first time in his life, was doing actual agricultural work.
Their work was clumsy, messy, and full of mistakes.
But somehow, through the chaos, the three of them managed to plant the entire field.
When the last seedling was in place, Morgan wiped the sweat from his brow and turned toward the two mud-splattered figures behind him. Both looked like they had crawled through a swamp.
"That's good enough," Morgan said.
"Give it about two hours, and we can harvest."
"Two… hours?" Maggie murmured.
She tilted her head up at the artificial sun floating above them, its warm glow steady and bright. Then she glanced at the soft cloud drifting beneath it, releasing gentle, controlled rain.
Nothing about this setup felt normal.
Even Wogan, whose back was sore from bending over, stared at the field intensely. Planting the seedlings had tired him only because it was new to him, not because the task was actually difficult.
But as he looked at the field full of straight, evenly spaced seedlings something unexpected stirred in his chest.
A strange sense of… satisfaction.
Wogan didn't know the word for it.
But he liked the feeling.
He and Maggie stood side by side, their eyes fixed on the glowing artificial sun and the slow-moving cloud. They waited anxiously.
Thankfully, they didn't need to wait long for results.
In the original world Morgan faintly remembered, the characters planting the rice had run into all sorts of ridiculous problems. Faulty machinery, weather that went haywire, scorching heat that dried the soil, buckets of water hauled up stairs, too much rainfall, rotten crops… disaster after disaster.
But Morgan's inventions were stable.
No overheating sun.
No malfunctioning cloud.
No rotting fields.
Everything worked with smooth, reliable precision.
The sunlight warmed the seedlings.
The cloud released regular, balanced rain.
The soil absorbed it evenly and fed the plants.
More than an hour passed as the light and rain alternated naturally.
And then
"They're growing! They're really growing!"
Wogan's shout echoed through the small shack.
Maggie's eyes widened as the rice plants shot upward, growing taller and stronger in real time. The young green stalks thickened, their leaves stretching upward. Soon, small heads formed at the tips.
In the blink of an eye, those tiny heads swelled into golden grain-filled clusters. The stalks bent under the weight of the ripening rice.
Normally, rice fields like these would hide pests small clusters of locust eggs that needed to be removed or they would burst into swarms.
But Morgan's equipment eliminated those problems entirely.
No eggs.
No pests.
No rot.
Just perfect rice, growing toward maturity.
Left on their own, Wogan and Maggie could have easily ended up roasting locusts over a fire instead of making ricecakes. But Morgan had simplified everything so even children from Meteor Street could do it.
Two hours passed quickly.
By then, the field had transformed into a sea of shimmering gold.
The ripe rice bent gently under the weight of its grains, glowing warmly beneath the artificial sun.
Wogan and Maggie stood stunned, unable to take their eyes off the sight.
A field.
A real harvest.
Created by their own hands.
For two children who had only ever known survival through violence and scavenging, the sight felt unreal.
Morgan stepped forward, exhaustion still lingering on his face, but a small proud smile forming.
"Looks like it worked," he said softly.
The golden field swayed, full and alive, waiting for them.
For the first time in their lives, Wogan and Maggie saw something beautiful grow because of their efforts.
And in that moment
they felt hope.