The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren did not intend to stay on the planet for too long; the wise ancient souls could take over the subsequent reconstruction work. The Petrachelys lifted off from the mooring platform, circled Requiem’s jungle of needle towers for a while, and left. Hao Ren turned to the lens of the external monitor, taking a final look at the world that was about to regain a new life.

Like a crown of thorns nailed on the earth, Requiem was flashing with lightning in the center where needle towers were connected to the huge tentacles. Some sporadic white yurts were scattered around the high-tech city. The tribal people called it the City of Miracles and gathered around it ready to begin a journey of the revival of their civilization. It was foreseeable that the indigenous people of the world would come from all over the world and gathered in this place where the people of the Sun Dynasty would listen to the teachings of the ancient souls to free themselves of ignorance to return to modern civilization.

Requiem would stand here and keep watching until the end of the day.

He was happy that he finally did not have to play the role of a mourner as the civilization was set on the road to recovery. Although the process was less dramatic, it was better than leaving with just a tombstone.

When the Petrachelys passed through the surface crust, Hao Ren saw the excavation work was in full swing. Hundreds of light beams shot down from above and cut the crust out piece by piece. All the dirt on the land, including the hostile and mad twisted monsters, were burned into ashes by the powerful rays or would soon become a cloud of smoke in the mineral processing furnace. Huge crust fragments were broken into rock streams in midair, like the tentacles reaching into space. The Petrachelys rose along with a rock stream. The sun shone through the broken clouds, creating a breathtaking scenery of awe and hope.

Hao Ren sent a probe to take a snapshot from a distance and post the image on the inspector’s forum. He added a caption to the image: Scarred Nebula, the planet Inferno is reborn, tentatively named the new Sun Dynasty, the civilization has survived the harshest winter, as witnessed by the Imperial inspector, Hao Ren; co-witnessed by the mining division of Fairy Void Consortium.

As always, he posted the news and forgot about it, thinking that probably no one would bother to reply to the post of a rookie inspector. It was not until after finishing a few regular reports. He asked the MDT to check the thread and was astonished by the overwhelming replies and comments from the inspectors around the universe. Some of the comments were like:

“You didn’t blow anything up this time?”

Some replies were irrelevant; some were asking if his auspicious aura had expired; some were asking if it was an angle problem that the rising rocks were a result of an explosion of the crust, and some even asked if he had prayed before going to the mission. At last, he saw a comment from an acquaintance—Galazur, the dragon queen just a couple of minutes ago. “One like for you. Finally, you didn’t use explosives,” the dragon queen commented.

“Did I provoke anyone?” Hao Ren scratched his hair. “How did I get such attention? I’m just a rookie.”

“Do you think nobody is giving you attention?” The MDT snorted. “You already have your epithet, and you’re famous among the mortals. Not many inspectors like you could make a name for themselves even if they have served for thousands of years. You’re talented,” the MDT said.

Hao Ren was shocked. “When did I get an epithet?”

“The bomb-happy,” the MDT replied with a sly voice. The tone of voice sounded odd from the mouth of a girl whom the MDT appeared in now. “There are more, like the deadly stare, which sounds coarse. The more philosophical ones are ‘The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception,’ ‘professional grave digger’ and so on. Of course, they are not malevolent. You’re not going to notice these things if you don’t surf the data network.”

Hao Ren had cold sweat trickling down his forehead. He recalled his works for the past two years, where most of the time he was tasked to recover dead bodies, or recently, dead planets. It would be too naive of him if he did not know what it meant to be ‘bomb-happy” by now.

Lily poked Hao Ren with her finger. “Mr. Landlord, I think this sounds awesome.”

Hao Ren flicked the maiden’s ear with his fingers. “What could the feeling of awesomeness do? If thing continues like this, sooner or later, I’d become the most unwelcomed person in the universe. I didn’t expect people as serious as Galazur could be so sarcastic.”

“You can’t do anything about it,” Lily said, moving her head from side to side dodging Hao Ren’s hand. “You’re taking charge of the Plane of Dreams, where you know it is the biggest ruins, like a cemetery, there are wrecks of civilization everywhere.”

Hao Ren pulled his hand back and rubbed his arms. “Let’s not make a joke out of such a serious matter.”

At this time, Vivian, who had been silent all this while, spoke suddenly. “Now I start to wonder why the Goddess chose to send you a rookie taking charge of the Plane of Dreams.”

“Probably because I have strong execution capability.”

There was a silent. Then Lily poked Hao Ren with her fingers again. “Do you believe in what you said?”

“Yeah, I’ve never thought about this question.” Hao Ren scratched his hair. The question began to bother him. “I was too busy, especially after each mind-boggling event, to think. I went from one mission to the next but never think of why me. MDT, do you think the Plane of Dreams is meant for the rookie inspector?”

The MDT was startled for a moment, and then it said with an unsure tone of voice, “There is no clear rule dictating inspector should take charge of any particular mission according to seniority, but it is usually a step-by-step process. The Plane of Dreams is a massive historical site with a complicated situation, handing it over to a rookie inspector does sound unusual, but it’s not without precedent. There had been a similar case in the Macroworld.”

“Even though there are precedents, I am still a rare example, is it?” Hao Ren scratched his jaw, questioning his role in the mission. “I don’t know others, but Galazur is more experienced and knowledgeable than I am, and she is the ruler of a civilization, she is better suited for the job of recovering dead bodies than I am. But why me?”

He added, “It landed me a freaking ‘bomb-happy’ epithet.”

In reality, all he cared was his new epithet.

Lily sat in her chair, wriggling. It was habitual especially when she was in thought, usually when her mind went blank. “Why don’t you ask your Goddess since she is the one assigning the mission?”

“Do you think she will tell me? She would have told me if she wanted to. If she did not want to tell you, she wouldn’t say a thing even if you pester her for a lifetime.” Hao Ren shook his head, totally knew Raven 12345’s characters inside out.

“Then, what’s your problem?” Lily asked. Since only the Goddess knows why and you also know she’s not going to tell you, why are you still troubled by it?”

Suddenly, Hao Ren could see things in a new light. It turned out that the female scholar had bottled-up wisdom, she would stun and open your mind with her wise words at the crucial moment.

While he was still impressed, Lily took a small brush out of her pocket suddenly. She turned around and put her tail on Hao Ren’s leg and shoved the brush into his hand. “Since you are not troubled any more, come and brush my hair. It’s itchy when shedding hair!”

Hao Ren was dumbstruck and was speechless.

Deep inside, she was still a husky after all.