Chapter 220: Hilda’s Marvel
Raven 12345 had emphasized “You’re in charge” twice. It probably meant something or implied some sort of test or the adorably psychotic goddess was assigning him some heavy responsibility; no matter what, he had to accept it.
Despite the stress, Hao Ren was looking forward to it. Knowing that Raven 12345 was his fallback, he felt this time, it was a relatively safe opportunity to broaden his horizons.
Waiting for Hao Ren to finish studying the MDT, Hilda spoke quietly to him, “Can you send me back?”
“No problem.” Patting his chest with confidence. After reading the idiot’s Guide To Traversal Problems, he felt things were not as complicated as he had thought. “We’ll perform a check once we’re back. As mentioned in the guide, we’ll be able to determine your place of origin in two or at most three days. Then I’ll send you back to your planet myself.”
Hilda wanted to say something when Hao Ren mentioned the word ‘planet’ but, she choked and just nodded her head. Hao Ren looked up at Raven 12345 and said, “That’s all for today, I’m leaving.”
Raven 12345 held her bowl up, gulping down the noodle soup. “Please go…”
Hao Ren stared at her gross demeanor, reminding her before leaving, “The noodle’s too salty…”
It was the first Holy Communion Hao Ren ever had—in all senses, a true holy communion, prepared by the goddess herself in the heaven’s communication room. To say it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that every king and pope had been craving for, was no overstatement but, Hao Ren would rather go home and drink dough drop soup with Vivian: the holy communion just consisted of plain noodle soup with some vegetables in it plus, it had way too much salt. Raven 12345’s cooking skills could not even compare to that of Lily’s.
Hao Ren came out from the broken ‘heaven’ with Hilda. Instead of going home, he wanted to go to the town to buy Hilda some cloths and Lily, some snacks. Hilda blushed. “I’m fine with my dress. Don’t spend unnecessarily—”
“You’re welcome. After all, it’s claimable,” said Hao Ren as he looked at her: the queen was still draped in her white clothing—which was kind of a hybrid between a windcoat and a dress, a fine piece of clothing. However, it was reduced to shreds after days of action in The Plane of Dreams. The dress was not suitable for trekking so, Hilda had to cut off the bottom part of the dress, which had a lot of lace. It was stained and tattered. It was not appropriate for such a beautiful elf to run around in ragged clothing. While Becky was about Nangong Wuyue’s size, Hilda was even taller than Hao Ren—she had no choice but to get new clothes.
Before they reached the town, Hao Ren reminded Hilda to pull her hood up; her elf ears would attract too much attention. But then again, her looks and height were good enough to make heads turn. Pulling her dress tighter inadvertently, she said, “Do I look weird here?”
Hao Ren did not expect the streets to be so packed. He hoped Hilda’s ears would remain hidden while he was looked for a quiet place. “You should be fine as long as you act normal. After all, people are wearing all kinds of weird attires nowadays.”
“Okay,” Hilda replied as she observed everything that went on in a world so strange to her. She followed Hao Ren closely behind as they navigated past several junctions filled with people. Soon, they found that there were less and less curious stares like people were no longer interested in Hilda’s weird appearance. Hao Ren was perplexed. As he looked up, he found himself standing in a cultural square; a group of youths draped in leather armour, wooden armour and mail were wielding swords, blades, staffs and meteorhammers; two men clad in black hoodies were distributing flyers and a girl was in the same attire as Hilda not far away—however, the girl looked tidier.
Hilda was astounded, observing the chaos. She could think of nothing as she said, “Are we back to The Plane of Dreams again?”
Smacking his forehead, Hao Ren realized what was going on. “Ahh… it’s a cartoon and animation festival. There’s a cosplay exhibition here!”
“C….what?” Hilda was tongue-tied.
She had a special linguistic skill where she learned foreign languages by utilizing magic to read the superficial thoughts of intelligent creatures around her. The more crowded the place, the faster she learned. But, this magic was not as powerful as the translation system Hao Ren was using. She would be tongue-tied when she pronounced rare and special foreign words.
“COS is a subculture on Earth. We’re at the right place at the right time but, you don’t have to understand it,” said Hao Ren happily. His unusual tenants could now roam around freely—undisguised thanks to the cosplay festival that was going on. Vivian and Lily could let out their wings and tail respectively for some fresh air while Nangong Wuyue could find water facilities such as indoor swimming pools like fish to water. The only one who found it hard to blend in was Y’zaks. He was a six-meter lava monster. It was something you could not make up with props or special effects. Anyway, Y’zaks was already a real-life cosplayer in his human form. His face was too postmodern. So much so that you could not just explain it away with hereditary and genetic development reasons except with make-up.
His thought spun for a moment before he dragged Hilda towards a nearby mall. He kept reminding her as they walked, “If someone asks, just say you’re into cosplay… but, it’d be better if no one asks.”
Hilda nodded cluelessly. After all, she was just tagging along. The queen suddenly let out a silent scream when they walked past a fountain.
Hao Ren was shocked. “What’s wrong?”
“The water…the energy that’s making the water spray out…” Hilda pointed at the fountain in disbelief. “What is it for?”
“For…for show.” A little stunned by her strange question, Hao Ren said, “It’s a fountain. Don’t you have fountains in your place?”
“I know this thing.” Hilda frowned as she found it hard to swallow what she had seen. “But, only in the eco-dome, much smaller but just as powerful, used to sustain the ecosystem in the botanical garden. You guys put the fountain in the open just for show?”
Hao Ren could only respond by nodding. Soon, Hilda discovered something more which she found hard to believe. “What’s that giant display on the building? Isn’t it a notice board or something? Why do I feel like it just keeps repeating the same meaningless thing?”
“Err…that’s also for show. An .”
“What about that balloon in the air? The fabrics beneath it, couldn’t they be used to make clothes or something?” Why are they painted in different colours and hung in the air?”
“For show too.”
As Hilda’s marvel slowly died down, she began to be engrossed in the finer details of the world. She continued to find more and more incredible things. While The Plane of Dreams was a land of plenty, she found the earth to be so much more abundant that people were living an excessive lifestyle. As they finally crossed the square to the mall, she no longer held back her emotions. “You people are simply… wasteful.”
Hao Ren looked at her cluelessly.
“So many resources… water, energy and all kinds of materials; they are so precious and yet, you people are using them in a wasteful way.” Hilda looked down at the thing in her hand. It was a snack Hao Ren bought for her from a stall in the square. “The packaging is meaningless. It seems like this flexible material is just for a one-off use. In our world, all of this is unimaginable. We haven’t had a surplus in a long time.”
Hao Ren suddenly became interested in the world Hilda came from such as how it looked like for instance. It seemed like her world was experiencing a much more severe case of resource depletion than he had thought.
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