Chapter 211: What A Day
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren was stunned by the creepy figure. He yanked himself several metres away from it, and he believed that his speed could have very well earned him an appearance in the Olympic Games several times in a row. When he reached a safe distance, he was finally able to see what that damn thing was: a corpse.
It was obviously not a person of Earth or any human. The corpse was about 1.4 to 1.5 metres in height. It was clad in a thick uniform, with its exposed skin being dark green. However, it was not certain if this was because of the water or it was already originally like that. This strange alien had a cylindrical head, no nose, no ears and no hair. The only thing it had were a pair of big eyes and a big mouth. Basically, it had the shape of a human but it was critically different from one. According to information given by Raven 12345, it was possibly the native race that existed far away from God’s disturbance. This figure with big round eyes had been floating in the blood-red water for some time, and could have very well been one of the crew members of the spacecraft. It was carried by the sudden rush of current as the door was opened, and drifted towards Hao Ren.
Nonetheless, it was still unknown if it was the unusual power of the lakewater or the unique quality of the alien body, because this dead crew member had been floating in the water for two months, yet showed no decay. Hao Ren carefully inched closer and found a row of words on the back of its uniform, which was translated into “Arcturus 4, Warehouse Crew”.
“This is indeed a warehouse, but the spacecraft itself may not be a cargo ship.” The MDT floated wobbly in the water. “There is no space expansion configuration. The spacecraft’s very small, probably the size of an ordinary passenger ship or a functional civilian ship.”
“Can you determine its origin?” Hao Ren asked, frowning. “I’m sure it’s not from The Plane of Dreams.”
“I need more information. Not all civilian ships are registered.” The MDT sounded serious and continued to wobble in the water. “This thing must be taken seriously. It may have come from the Surface World.”
“Surface World?” Hao Ren was shocked. “A big toy like this fell all the way from the Surface World into The Plane of Dreams?”
“Judging from the frames of the spacecraft… That is the case 90% of the time.”
Suddenly, something crossed Hao Ren’s mind. “Didn’t you say that it was very hard to get into The Plane of Dreams from the Surface World? About unidirectional teleportation or something. Even we have to resort to dormant cabins to guide us through to avoid disrupting the equilibrium…”
Lights were blinking frantically on the MDT, signalling an emergency. “That’s the problem. In theory, things in the Surface World can’t enter into The Plane of Dreams easily. For a being as fragile as a human to have an encounter with The Plane of Dreams is like getting blood from a stone. Yet now, we see a huge spacecraft that has crashed into it—it could have caused great damage to the equilibrium, or worse…”
The MDT wheeled and swam further into the cabin with Hao Ren anxiously following behind. “What’s worse?”
“Or worse, the equilibrium could break down.”
Everyone passed through the messy warehouse into a crumbling passageway, which led to the centre control room. Lil Pea was scurrying around Hao Ren like a hyperactive fish. She would swim through one crack and come back out from another crack. Everyone was worried about her safety but soon, they found that the overall structure of the spacecraft was sound, so they let her be. Her aptitude with water was so much better and nimbler than everyone else’s.
Lil Pea snuck through a large crack, the shape of a triangle, and suddenly, Hao Ren heard a scream.
He immediately lunged over only to see Lil Pea coming back out with a strange oval-shaped plastic.
The plastic sheet was a handheld device. It looked like the device was very rugged to withstand harsh working environment. When Hao Ren took it in his hands, the device was still glowing with lights. Its oval display read, “Arcturus 4, Technician’s Message: Spacecraft was drawn into spatial turbulence. All system have stopped runnin. Part of the hull suffers extensive damage and gases are leaking. Emergency quarantine initiated but ineffective. Tried to abandon spacecraft but failed. Bracing for death. Spatial turbulence recorded as follows. If rescue does come, this might comeon handy.”
“Where did you find this?” Hao Ren looked at Lil Pea. She pulled Hao Ren by his sleeve towards the triangular crack. The crack was large enough for a normal adult to pass through, except an adult like Y’zaks of course.
Hao Ren and Vivian had entered while the rest waited outside. It was a store cabin, inaccessible from the corridor. It was only exposed because of the cracked wall. The cabin was in a state of chaos, with everything collapsed on each other, and a dislodged pipeline. There was a little green creature on the floor, lying face down. It was much weirder than the one before.
It resembled a giant arthropod, a stubby mantis with four arthropod legs on its lower body. If standing upright, its upper body would be relatively thin. It had two pairs of forelimbs, which were of entirely different forms—one pair was thick and robust, seemingly used for fighting or carrying heavy stuff while another pair was slender and complex, seemingly used for performing jobs that required fine skills. It had a triangular head and two rows of purple spots beside its large compound eyes.
It looked like a large insect that had walked straight out of a horror movie. The only thing that indicated it was not an alien that had invaded the spacecraft, was the equipment it carried on its body, and its uniform with personnel ID. It was one the spacecraft’s crew.
Vivian was surprised. “The world’s a strange place where both things you can imagine and things you can’t ever imagine exist—by the way, the blood of this thing isn’t edible.”
“Fortunately enough for the unusual creatures, they came to Earth; if they had arrived on any other planet, there would not have been demon hunters, and most vampires would have starved to death as well.”
Vivian swung her head and said, “Those in Hollywood as well.”
“It’s a Torblec Hivekin.” The MDT approached it, taking an up-close look. “A highly intelligent race with a close relationship with the Empire; good in psionic technology.”
The oval-shaped device Lil Pea found was probably the Torblec Hivekin’s PDA. It contained vital records of the spacecraft’s crash. Hao Ren carefully put it inside the Dimensional Pocket and would show it to Raven 12345 later.
At that moment, Y’zaks called from the outside. “There’s movement out here!”
Hao Ren quickly held Vivian’s hand and led her out. As they got back to the corridor, they saw Y’zaks and Lily bracing themselves, straight-faced. Meanwhile, Nangong Wuyue had transformed into a sea-snake, using her tail to curl around herself to provide a sense of security. A series of metal scrapping sounds reverberated from deep down the corridor.
Vivian was on full combat mode. “What’s that?”
Y’zaks shook his head. “No idea. Lily was the one who found it. That thing had no sign of life. I hadn’t noticed earlier.”
Lily bent over on the floor and scratched the metal floorboard using her claws. She stretched her legs backwards and raised her head, growling. Just when she was about to prance forward, a huge brachiopod robot emerged from the corner, at the end of the corridor.
A huge, sea urchin-like alloy monster came into view. Its body was covered with brachiopods all around with every brachiopod flashing an ominous red light, as if the robot saw them as intruders. Perhaps, it was just confused as it had pointed three of the flashing brachiopods towards them the moment it came out from the corner.
At the drop of a hat, Vivian pumped up her power and launched a pre-emptive strike. ‘Lightning Strike—”.
Ten minutes later, everyone was back up to the surface. Lily had a complete perm with curly hair from head to toe, right down to her tail. She looked like a feather duster. She was jumping up and down, getting into a fight with Vivian. “Stupid idiot! Dumbass! Don’t you know water, the corridor, and everything down there including me are electrical conductors? Was your P.E. teacher a malatang¹ seller before becoming a physics teacher?”
Holding Lil Pea in his hand, Hao Ren exhaled a mouthful of black smoke. What a day! He thought.
Looking on, Lil Pea emulated him by puffing out black smoke. She had a healthy body.
Y’zaks looked back at Nangong Wuyue, who was not far behind. “Are you okay, siren maiden?”
Nangong Wuyue was still stuck in her sea-snake form, her tail curled up like a ball of yarn as she was trying frantically to loosen it up. “I’m stuck… and numb.”
Hao Ren and her daughter just kept puffing out black smoke. What a day…
Translator’s Thoughts
AMS2000 AMS2000
¹Malatang is a spicy hot pot dish in China. 麻辣; pinyin: málà; literally means “numbing and spicy”.
