The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 328

Chapter 328: The Orb?

 

Hao Ren followed Lulu all the way to the central tower of Kuiper Station. The station master had specially prepared a temporary conference room for the meeting. The room was simple; aside from the obligatory table and chairs as well as a few fixed data terminals, there was only an aquarium and a few pots of plant at the end of the rectangular room. Due to the limited resources in the space station, there was no tea, coffee or cookies served like normal conferences on Earth.

When Hao Ren stepped into the room, more than a handful of little green men were already seated on both sides of the table. Just like the dead little green men at the bottom of the Blood Lake, these people were no taller than a human kid. But, their heads were disproportionately large with strange-looking facial features and they had green skin as well as slender limbs. They all wore the same yellow-green clothes, which looked like they were made from a rubberish fabric. They also wore different badges that indicated which commonwealth they were from. The scene reminded him of popular, yesteryear sci-fi movies, where Earth people met little green people…

It appeared that the little green men had been waiting for a while. As Hao Ren stepped in, they all got to their feet and greeted him by bringing their hands to their chests—a standard gesture that the Xi Ling Empire set for all races when meeting each other. It signified friendliness. A little green man, whose skin was visibly more yellowish seemed to be the representative of the delegate. He spoke in a standard diplomatic tone as if reading straight out from a script. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Inspector. I am greeting you on behalf of the Kabala Commonwealth of the Kerbal Civilisation Sphere. We will—”

Hao Ren interrupted him politely. “Please make yourself at home. I’m not used to formal etiquette like this…”

The little green man quickly nodded and proceeded to speak like a machine gun, “Let’s get down to business then. How is the spacecraft?”

Hao Ren was stumped for a while. Like a country bumpkin, he thought he was just trying to be polite. Little did he expect that the little green men were so forthright…

But, he liked it. He laughed as he sat down and pushed a stack of data disks towards the middle of the table. He then motioned for them to circulate the disks, after which he introduced himself. “We’re here for business, so save the formalities. My name is Hao Ren, you can just call me by my name…”

Lulu was at the side, moonlighting as their server at this moment. Meanwhile, the leader of the little green men was fiddling with the disks as he nodded. “Nice to meet you too. My name is Kabala, President of the Kabala Commonwealth. I want to thank you for finding my spacecraft. The spacecraft was performing an important deep space experiment, and it has several new flight paths stored in it. The information is very important to us…”

Hao Ren acknowledged with, “Okay,” before getting to know each of their names. He was still a rookie and he knew little about the major civilisation spheres. He did not know the little green man, Kabala was a well-known figure in the universe. Although he was just the leader of a small commonwealth, he was almost a superstar. As a Kerbalian, he was the most outstanding space explorer. He had been on an exploratory expedition to a remote region outside the Kerbal Civilisation Sphere, flying for 37 years without once going home—well, he could have gotten home a few years sooner if he had not gotten lost in space. During his run, he found dozens of habitable planets and three space flight paths were named after him. He had even lost count of the number of colonies he founded. Like a spacecraft engine missing its shutdown button, he did not know when to stop; he was also like a whirlwind, blowing through space as he never stayed on any colonial planet for more than two years. His famous quote was, “The mission of an explorer is to discover new worlds; building them is the job of those who are to come.”

Because of this explorer’s weird character, he founded numerous colonial planets, but never really stopped and took the time to develop any of them. He took pleasure in discovery, but as soon as he stepped foot on a new world, he would lose interest instantly. He would move on until he found the next one. All the colonial planets were not developed by him, but by people who came after him. His style had earned him the epithet, “Kabala the Vagrant”.

It was two years ago when his wife threatened to kill herself. And so, from then on, he was forced to stay at home and he became the President of the Kabala Commonwealth. His life as a legendary explorer was over; but his crew, wife, and insurer of his spacecraft were the most happy people when this happened.

Kabala and his delegates were watching the holograms projected out from the disks. The images of the half-buried spacecraft, which looked distorted under the blood-red water had the little green men nodding their heads like pigeons. “It’s the one, it’s the one.”

One little green man rubbed the back of his head, lamenting. “Those on the Arcturus 4 were really lucky in a way. They flew a very great distance before they died…”

Hao Ren’s worldview was completely shattered when he heard this.

“The spacecraft is still lying at the bottom of the lake in The Plane of Dreams,” Hao Ren spoke, getting the little green men’s attention back to him after they finished watching the images. “You may have learned about the situation in The Plane of Dreams.”

Kabala nodded. “Yes, it is a mysterious dimension. Unfortunately, development is not allowed there. I’ve always wanted to bring my fleet into The Plane of Dreams and look for some places of interest. I once applied for development rights, but I was kicked out.”

Hao Ren almost choked upon hearing that. He had now seen the little green men’s strong spirit of exploration for himself. Their devil-may-care attitude was no less defiant than that of Lil Pea! Fortunately, Raven 12345 was around in the universe to take control of things, or else the world would have been turned upside down by more races just like the little green people.

“Great.” Hao Ren did not grumble; he just nodded calmly and said, “Because of the instability of the place and the recent small problem with the Wall of Reality, we have devised a safer method to bring out the salvaged wreckage without affecting the stability of the universe and alerting the natives.”

Hao Ren began to explain his plan in detail before confirming anything with Kabala. Though one of the data disks contained the plan, it just scratched the surface. The little green people nodded as they listened. Kabala gave himself a fist bump and said, “Okay, very good. In fact, we have brought our salvage equipment with us today. We will place them in your custody afterwards. But before that, I would still like to ask again… Can I go around and see what’s in The Plane of Dreams?”

Before Hao Ren could said anything, the MDT jumped in. “There’s already a conflict brewing between The Plane of Dreams and the real world. Getting you in to salvage the wreckage is risky enough. Standing out in the Dream Plane is just looking for trouble.”

Dejected, the little green people had no choice but to budge. Kabala said, “Excuse me for a second. Let me talk with my chief minister about the details.”

Two little green men then spoke with Kabala quietly. Hao Ren noticed that the little green people were very similar to him personality-wise: they were unpretentious, no-nonsense, non-bureaucratic, dependable men of action. Kabala for instance was a man who was not afraid of standing up on the table to make his presence felt. Anyway, this was a group of interstellar explorers who had gained the respect of many. Perhaps, it was such personality traits that made Kerbalians the youngest race in the history of space exploration to become a major civilisation sphere.

While Kabala was in the midst of his discussion, the other little green men were chatting among themselves. Sitting nearby, Hao Ren was able to hear their conversations, which revolved around some trivial topics. He heard one talk about the trouble in their commonwealth. “…I was terrified at that time. An explosion out of nowhere left a huge crater behind…”

Another one said, “Have you found any information on the four men in the crater? Where did they come from?”

“They didn’t speak our language, so communication was impossible. When we finally understood what they said, they told us they didn’t even know how they got there. They weren’t particularly friendly, they looked at us like we were monsters…”

“I heard they almost got into a fight with you guys two days ago.”

“Yup, but that was just a misunderstanding. They thought we were after their ball. They said the ball was a holy orb or something, they wouldn’t let us touch it…”

While it was just out of curiosity initially, the more Hao Ren listened the more he felt like they were talking about something familiar. He gave it some thought for a long while, and the penny dropped. “Wait a second! Did you just say ‘holy orb’? Were there four people? Four ascetics?”

Chapter 329: Hitting the Jackpot

 

Hao Ren never thought he would actually hit the jackpot, but the conversation between the two little green aliens had him frowning at the complexity of the issue. The two green aliens looked perplexed too when they heard him, and one of them ruffled his shiny bald head before asking. “An ascetic? What does that mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” Hao Ren quickly interjected. “Tell me more about the pearly orb and those four people. I’m interested, and I might just be of help to your investigations.”

The two Kerbalians looked at each other and were probably trying to understand why an inspector would be interested in the matter. Nevertheless, they were pleased about it and the Kerbalian who mentioned the orb spoke, “It was a few months ago when an explosion happened near the mines in one of our commonwealth stars. It may have something to do with the dimensional teleportation case. After the blast we found four…. oddly dressed humanoids. Hmm, in fact, there were just like you. Using our categorisation methods, we found out that they were a Class II humanoid species. They could not communicate with us, and they did not carry any identifications either. Our sensors also detected a strange gravitational anomaly after the teleportation but… we reached a dead end after investigating. We don’t know where they came from and they can’t tell us.”

The little green man demurred for a moment trying to recall some minor details. “As for the pearly object, it came along with them. It seemed like something very valuable, but looked like your normal metal ball. They called it the ‘Oobbu’. We originally wanted to study the thing but almost got into a fight with them for that. They treated that thing like it was as valuable as knowledge.”

The Kerbalians viewed exploration and the knowledge that followed as the most important things in life. So, it was very common for them to compare something important to knowledge as opposed to life. In their culture, lives were simply a currency to spend… not a shared sentiment like it was for your average Earthling.

“Is it called the Orb of the Holy Synod?” Hao Ren queried after hearing the little green man’s description of the item. He was sure he was not far off. He quickly adjusted his translation plugin to match the Kerbalian’s pronunciation of the item. “Oo-bbu of the Holey Synod, that thing?”

The little green man immediately nodded. “Yes, yes, yes! That’s it. It was troublesome to speak with those four humans, especially because their language was just plain weird… We only managed to decipher what they said after renting an Imperial Data Network Chain and the Oo-bbu of the Holey Synod was the thing they talked about the most.”

Hao Ren then leaned forward towards the Kerbalians. “Where are they now? Both the men and the Orb are safe?”

They were taken aback by Hao Ren’s sudden movement and one of them almost fell backwards. “They are safe. We placed them in a specialised settlement… Mr. Inspector, do you know who these people are?”

Hao Ren nodded. “Yes, but it will be a bit difficult to explain the matter, plus some of the details are… I’m sorry, classified and may affect the safety of the local universe. I want to meet them, and I may take them away after that. Can you arrange that for me?”

Hao Ren thought that the request would require a meeting of sorts, but little did he know that the word “classified” had an unexpected effect. The Kerbalian sitting across him immediately turned very green (the Kerbalians did not have much facial animation when compared to humans, and they used colours to emphasise their feelings; green being the colour of seriousness) and said, “Sir, I understand. I’ll inform the Commonwealth’s department in charge to make the arrangements.”

He then spoke in a cautious whisper, “Sir, I have another thing to ask… Many day-to-day staff who have not undergone confidentiality training have come into contact with the four asectics and the Orb… Do we need to wipe their memories or take any other measures to ensure secrecy?”

Hao Ren quickly waved his hand. “No need for that. Don’t panic, it hasn’t gone to that level yet.”

To many races in the universe, The Plane of Dreams was not a classified subject. In fact, the Xiling Celestials even handed some of the research tasks regarding The Plane of Dreams to common races. However, the matter of its stability and the cracks on the Wall of Reality were kept under the lid. While the matter was indeed sensitive, it was still not classified and it could be accessed by anyone with sufficient level of clearance. The only classified part was the results of the deteoration—the end the world was classified. Hao Ren had been studying his job manual, and he learned a lot about the various levels of classifications as well as balance in power. But, even though he had made some progress…. they were mere baby steps on the long road he needed to take.

The MDT had kept its silence throughout the meeting and it was quietly monitoring Hao Ren’s first attempt at diplomacy with other civilisations. If there was something off it would say something about it. In this regard, its silence meant things were going rather well for Hao Ren.

Kabala and his other two ministers finally concluded their delibrations. Hao Ren then stood up as well to mention the Orb of the Holy Synod and motion for the delay in plans regarding The Plane of Dreams. It may have to wait a bit as he needed to retrieve the Orb before sending in a team to extract the remains of the ship.

And not forgetting, there was also the four ascetics.

The Kerbalians nodded in an understanding manner and did not seem to mind the slight delay. To them, it was a golden opportunity to go into The Plane of Dreams with authorisation. A few days meant nothing to them.

After setting the agenda and time to meet the next day, the little green men bid their farewells. They formed a line and bowed. “May your death be far from whence you came from!”

Hao Ren had to strain himself from not breaking into a hysteric fit of laughter and returned the heartfelt wishes… “May all of your deaths be far from whence you came from.”

And thus, the meeting was concluded.

After that, Hao Ren decided to head home. He wanted to at least bring Becky along before he headed off to the Kabala Commonwealth to look for the ascetics.

As he was on his way to the space station’s teleportation chamber, Hao Ren began to discuss the matter with the MDT. “What do you make of this?”

Hao Ren had pretty much guessed that the Orb ended up in the Surface World, but he just thought it was floating around somewhere in space. The spacecraft behind the incident at the Blood Lake was clearly navigating through space before being dragged into a spatial anomaly. If those on board were opening a two-way portal in space, the individuals in the church along with the Orb would have been thrown into deep space. And, they would have landed where the ship originally activated the portal. It was under this assumption that Hao Ren had put aside searching for the Orb. It was a tall order trying to look for something that small in the void, and on top of that, it was something no one had seen before. Finding a needle in a haystack did not even begin to describe the magnitude of the search. But as luck would have it, the four ascetics and the Orb had landed safely on a physical planet.

“Maybe there’s a deviation between The Plane of Dream and the Surface World that caused this,” the MDT theorised. “Teleportation between two worlds is not necessarily a direct two-way communcation. Maybe, the Orb itself has some special properties that helps it to select a physical point for landing after a teleportation. If that’s the case, we are lucky that it didn’t fall directly into the system’s sun. The place where the Arcturus 4 ran into trouble was indeed near the Kerbal Civilisation Sphere and the Orb landing on one of the nearby planets is understandable.”

Hao Ren nodded and kept quiet. Once he stepped into the teleportation chamber, he returned home in a flash of light.

The moment he appeared in the living room, a white silhouette charged happily towards him. “Mr. Landlord you’re back!”

Hao Ren laughed at the sight of the hyper-energetic Lily. “You’re back to normal now?”

Lily was hugging his arm as she licked it like a dog. She then turned around to show off her tail. “We had it trimmed twice. Battie said the effect is starting to wear off. My resistance is just that strong! Does it look good?”

Hao Ren was not sure on how to react and it was uncommon for a girl to be all flighty around him, asking the classic “Does it look good?” question. But woe be to him that the item in question was her tail… Hao Ren coughed drily and put on the sincerest face he could imagine. “Looks great. So, can stop going around and smacking others with it anymore?”

Lily gave a loud cheer and darted towards the cookie jar to reward herself. Hao Ren saw the recovered… maybe a little too recovered husky and sighed. “Haih… let’s just treat this as a good thing.”

Vivian was knitting some clothes for Lil Pea when she looked up at him. “Things went well I assume? Were the aliens cordial?”

“Yes, much better than expected really. I thought we would be talking all night long.” Hao Ren nodded as he gestured towards Becky. “Becky! Come with me to the space station. We are going to look for the Orb of the Holy Synod!”

Chapter 330: The Kerbal Nebula

 

Hao Ren’s words stunned everyone in the hall, and even the usually more open-minded Lily did not think that the meeting would end up in Hao Ren finding the Orb of the Holy Synod as well. Becky was even more perplexed that she blurted out the question. “What orb?”

“Have you become addled from the time you’ve spent on Earth?” Hao Ren laughed out loud. “I’m of course referring to the Orb of the Holy Synod from The Plane of Dreams. You’ve been dreaming of finding it to afford a mansion in the inner city. I already found it. It’s in the Kerbalian home planet. Even the four asectics are alive.”

Only then did Becky managed to process everything, and after a surprised yelp, she darted like a whirlwind towards Hao Ren. “The Oooooooorb of the Holy Synod?! What about it?!”

Hao Ren told everyone what had happened in the meeting and the reason why the Orb may have landed in the Kerbalian’s planet. But, all present were not concerned with the actual location of the Orb; they were more interested in what it looked like. Becky smacked her forehead as glee appeared on her face. “Heh… that does it. If I bring the Orb back I’ll probably be knighted. If I’m lucky, they’ll make me a noble… and give me a mansion Hehe… Hehehe….”

Hao Ren looked on as Becky descended into pits of avarice and decided to pop her bubble. “Well… you having titles and a mansion means nothing you know. You’ll probably only spend 10 days there a year.”

It took a while for Becky to break out of her stupor and her initial glee turned into hatred as she grabbed him by the arm. “I really, really, really, really, really, really want to kill you…”

Cold sweat started to form on Hao Ren’s forehead as he quickly calmed Becky down. At least Becky had not drawn her sword yet. But come to think of it, the mercenary lass was rather unlucky; she had no other hobbies other than her greed for wealth and fame. Even her search for the Orb of the Holy Synod was driven by that. Now that the Orb had been found, she did not even have time to go home and enjoy her fame…. To be frank, at worst, she would get a knighthood or a title of nobility… a posthumous one.

“My point is, let’s get the Orb back,” Hao Ren said after Becky calmed down, in an attempt to divert her attention, “and those four high monks”

The ascetics from The Plane of Dreams were not the typical monks Hao Ren had pictured. They were church knights who swore the oath of righteousness and poverty. They were very much akin to a battle cleric. However, Hao Ren had allowed his imagination to run wild and called them “high monks”. Becky was too caught up in her despair of the posthumous nobility title to correct Hao Ren.

After confirming Becky’s participation in the trip to the Kerbalian planet, Hao Ren asked if others were keen to join. Bereft of anything to do, the whole house joined in on the trip in a hurrah. Of course, Y’zaks, being the mature one simply nodded. But, the great demon with a mind so vast and knowledge so wide was actually interested in aliens. He ruffled his shiny bald head as he laughed. “I think I may have a common topic of conversation with them. If only the fools back home invested half their energy in exploration like the ‘little green men’, they would have conquered the stars.”

So, this trip to the Kabala Commonwealth was a risk-free, official holi… assignment. Bringing the whole lot along was not a problem, thus Hao Ren agreed to it. He even took the chance during lunch to explain the Kerbalian culture to the rest, especially the part on “may your death be far from whence you came from’. Even the well-travelled Vivian was aghast by such a cultural difference. Y’zaks was the only one laughing. “Cultural differences can be such a thing. Over at my old place, many would call themselves XXX of True Evil and those first three words carried a very proud meaning as it would bring fear to humans. I wasn’t interested in that shtick of course.”

So at 8 in the morning, Hao Ren and the group prepared to depart for Kuiper Station. Lily, the werehusky was all dressed up for a road trip. To be fair, it was a holiday for her. Vivian had changed into her best dress too (the one Hao Ren bought for her; she treated it like treasure). Seeing how excited Lily was, Vivian could not help but snort. “Did you become this excited after your tail recovered?”

Lily wagged her tail as she sneered back. “Of course! Grow one if you can!”

Vivian then deployed her wings. “Well, fly if you can then.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

These two never changed. Things only managed to be calm for a few days. They just had to pick a fight on the oddest of topics. Well… maybe this was a sign that they were getting along?

As they were heading to an alien planet, and given that the Kuiper Station was not Earth’s domain, none of them bothered to hide their identities. Lily wagged her tail excitedly and Vivian’s eyes were crimson red. Even Becky dressed up in her mercenary gear in anticipation to meet the ascetics. Only Wuyue and Y’zaks maintained their human form. Those two were just too large in their original form and they could not fit into the teleportation gate. Wuyue had both a serpentine form and a mermaid form, but her ability to flop around on the ground was worse than Lil Pea’s…

Speaking of Lil Pea, Hao Ren could not help but look at the little mermaid, who was clinging onto his sleeve. The little one was comfortably resting on his arm. She looked up at her “father” and let out a happy gurgle as she tapped her tail to greet him. It was also done to state her determination in not being left behind.

Well, it was not somewhere dangerous, so Hao Ren had decided to bring her along.

The only missing person was Hesperides. The evening goddess realised that the group of oddballs were on a mission to do something special as well as confidential, and she had good sense to bid her farewells. She was fully recovered after all. Plus, with the current state of Athens, the city would need the guiding hands of the Ancients. Vivian did not insist on her staying either.

But, Hao Ren knew that as he got further embroiled in the neverending war between the demon hunters and the unusual creatures, the chances of him meeting with Hesperides, Hessiana and his other unusual friends would be common place.

After sending Hesperides off, the group happily set off for Kuiper Station. As the teleportation device at home had limited space, they had to go in two batches. Even Lulu was surprised when she saw the big entourage that Hao Ren brought with him… Guess the guide had never seen such a rowdy group before…

Kabala led a small group of Kerbalians in the station and as they were there for the missing spacecraft, they would be staying at the space station until the matter was settled. Due to the Kerbalian’s special administrative structure and their free-spirited nature, Kabala’s ‘President of the Kerbal Commonwealth’ title was not something that bound him to a desk. His absence would not affect the Commonwealth’s administration so to speak. However, the most important and prestigious post in the Commonwealth was ‘Minister of Space Exploration’, and Kabala had relinquished that position many years ago at his wife’s insistence.

The Kabala Commonwealth was a highly autonomous confederation of stars and the actual landing point of the Orb of the Holy Synod was not in the main planet of the Commonwealth, but rather a colony planet. Thus, all Hao Ren needed to do was look for the planet’s governor. After exchanging greetings with Kabala, Hao Ren was introduced to the governor of the planet, and the Kerbalian who told Hao Ren about the Orb. He was named Tamula.

Hao Ren figured that the Kerbalian names probably bore no meaning as they looked almost alike. Aside from their big heads and green skin, they lacked any features that were distinguishable from one another like humans. Hao Ren had to use other ways to remember some of the Kerbalian’s names. Kabala’s skin for instance had a shade of yellow, and that was the only distinguishable feature the Kerbalian had from the rest.

He was not sure if the little green men could tell humans apart too. Well.. that was a question for another time.

At the very least, the group that Hao Ren brought with him was such a colourful bunch; you could tell who they were just by their silhouette!

To save time, Hao Ren had declined Tamula’s offer to board on his spacecraft. He instead led Tamula and the rest of the crew on to the Petrachelys. The imperial frigate’s speed would leave most common spacecrafts in the dust, especially after removing the limiters on its main engine and entering a full speed warp jump. The rate of travel could not be described using “speed” any more. It became an all new mathematical process.

Creating a whole new spatial calculus and having the ability to reach any part of the universe in the blink of an eye… The matter of the Orb of the Holy Synod was something Hao Ren took seriously, thus the ship went full speed ahead.

It did not take long for the Petrachelys to reach their destination, a star system two million light years away from the Milky Way.

The Kerbal Civilisation Sphere, the only galactic power in the system.

On the bridge, Tamula eagerly introduced the star system to everyone onboard. “I’m proud to present to you our homeland, the Kerbal Stars. Our explorers have died all across this system, and this is our glorious home….

All present really felt that the cultural difference was something to behold…

Chapter 331: Planet of the Little Green Aliens.

 

Due to the Kerbalian’s exploratory prowess, the entire Kerbal Star System was under their influence. On the outer rim of the system lay the smaller star confederations like the Kabala Commonwealth. Hao Ren turned the ship’s outer sensors as well as monitors towards the core of the star system and saw two gigantic halos. It looked almost as if two giant suns were hiding behind the space debris. Tamula explained that this was a unique feature of their system. About a million years ago, two of the core stars in their system went supernova and caused a distortion so bad, that it compressed thousands of miniature suns in the area into the two giant halos. The Kerbalians had been trying to figure out a way to explore and research the mystery behind the halos, but they never succeeded.

“It’s just too hot, too radioactive and too gravitationally unstable,” Tamula explained excitedly as his head bobbed about. The whole incident seemed like good news to him. “Not many are lucky enough to have such a phenomenon happening to them, and we have one just outside our doorstep. It brought us much joy, and oh… a little trouble as well because it’s difficult to live anywhere near the halos. They look majestic, don’t they? But the distance from here to Earth is about two million light years… Hmm.. Based on humans’ current sensor and detection technology, they’ll probably see the explosion about a million years later.”

Tamula remembered that Hao Ren was from Earth and added the last bit for his benefit. However, Hao Ren’s mind was preoccupied with something else: These little green people were probably the most intrepid and daring explorers in the universe. It was his first time hearing someone so excited about a star going supernova near his home planet…

The Petrachelys did not fly directly into the star system rather, it circled the more sparse outer rim for a few light years before arriving at a more barren part of the space. They had already exited the Kerbal Civilisation Sphere’s network, and were now in confederation territory. Hao Ren noticed that the communication monitor had switched from the official Kerbal Civilisation Sphere channel to a new channel with lower volume. An automated welcoming message popped out through the holographic projector, “The Kabala Commonwealth welcomes its new visitors from beyond the civilisation sphere. We, in good faith welcome all races who come in peace. A blessing from the Kerbalians: may your death be far from whence you came from.”

“Say… how did you guys not get into a fight with other races because of that greeting of yours?” Hao Ren popped the curious question as he looked at Tamula. The latter patted the back of his head for a while as he said, “I don’t know to be honest. But, the chronicles say that the Kerbalian’s first diplomatic efforts with an alien race went swimmingly. After the first contact, we established a long lasting friendship and consensus. Although it seems like something awry happened later on. Nonetheless, that is what our history books describe as an unqualified diplomatic success.”

“…”

Hao Ren thought something was definitely wrong with these jovial little green men.

The spacecraft had arrived on a purplish-blue planet. The planet orbited around a pretty old, peach-coloured sun. There were three other planets in the system, but they were all gaseous bodies. Tamula’s planet was the only one within the system that was habitable. The commonwealth had received word from their leader, and three ships were deployed to guide the Petrachelys. With the reception ships guiding the way, the Petrachelys broke into the atmosphere of the planet and landed safely on the starport at the city’s edge.

Lily was the first to bounce out of the ship. She had already caught sight of the gathering Kerbalians at the starport, and she wanted to be the first doggie to step foot on the Kerbalian’s planet (But of course, she would call herself a werewolf). In any case, she was always the first to dash out when they reached a new planet and even Vivian gave up when it came to that. The moment the werehusky got out of the ship, she waved at the Kerbalians with all her might. “Ohh, ohh! How are all of you? Thanks for coming! I’m from Earth…”

Hao Ren knocked the werehusky at the back of her head as he stepped out. “Behave yourself. We’re on official duty.”

Vivian sighed. “Forget about it. You think you’ll ever be first with that husky around?”

Hao Ren had developed a habit by now; every time he visited a new place, he would spot the characteristics of the local architecture. This would help him quickly understand the general attitude and lifestyle of a race. He noticed that the Kerbalian architecture design was focused on simplicity and efficiency. All of the buildings near the landing zone were made of pre-fabricated alloy or concrete modules. The colours on the buildings were dull, but as the building materials were modular, there were plenty of designs and styles. So, the dull colours did not dull the atmosphere. In an area with squarish, modular buildings, a conical tower stood out like a sore thumb while most civilian buildings were decorated with spacecraft engines. It seemed like the architects had a whale of a time designing the houses. This showed off the Kerbalian’s signature characteristics: Free-spirited, informal, and doing things on a need-to-be-done basis. As long as the basics were there, they did not fret about the details.

There was already a giant horde of Kerbalians waiting to welcome their leader and the inspector representing the Celestials. But, there was not much pomp to the welcoming party. In truth, most of the crowd were just normal civilians who heard that something interesting was happening in that part of town. They came to see what was happening, so Kerbalians in all sorts of uniforms gathered around. Aside from a few personnel who were maintaining order, there were no formal lines of sorts and no uniformed slogans as well. Not a single person came forth with flowers. It was just a whole group of Kerbalians yapping about seeing how the inspector would look like….

Despite that, Hao Ren was grateful for their informal nature. If there had been a group of Kerbalian lasses in line with flowers and kisses, Hao Ren was not sure if he would have survived the experience…

Together with his men, Tamula went towards the crowd and pulled out a few high ranking officials from there. After a few exchanges in the Kerbalian language (basically exchanging pleasantries and giving updates on the happenings during the last few days), Tamula motioned at Hao Ren and his party.”Inspector! This is the person in charge of the monitoring facility.

Hao Ren had lost track of Tamula by then and after Tamula blended into the crowd, he could not tell anyone apart at all. It was a sea of cloned, bobbing green heads. Hao Ren could not even tell their gender apart. It was only when Tamula called out to him that he managed to identify the governor from the crowd. Hao Ren dared not blink as he quickly ran towards the Kerbalian and grabbed him by the hand. “Yeah, let’s get on with our business.”

Hao Ren was really afraid that the moment he blinked, he would confuse another Kerbalian for Tamula… The governor was dressed almost no differently than the other little green men. And at least a few hundred present were dressed in similar garbs.

“Oh! I like this kind of alien visitors!” the Kerbalian in charge of the monitoring facility said as he stood aside. He or she looked at Hao Ren with a satisfied glance. “You are way better than those uptight, rule-bound aliens. Come, I have prepared the cars. We will be heading straight to the facility.”

The Kerbalian in charge brought them to a long, floating vehicle and Hao Ren immediately noticed a problem. Y’zaks would not fit in.

The Kerbalians’ transportation was designed to fit their small frames and their official vehicles while wider than most, were still pretty small. An Earthling of Hao Ren’s frame could squeeze into it, but a giant like Y’zaks could barely even get a leg in. The great demon pulled his leg out from the door and scratched his head. “That’s a bit tight.”

Y’zaks was literally a giant to the Kerbalians and many of them were very interested in the gigantic lifeform. The Kerbalians standing closest to him had to look up to see what he was doing and with that big head of theirs, quite a few lost their balance and fell backwards. Hao Ren laughed awkwardly and pulled out his new car from the Dimensional Pocket. “I think it’s best if take our own transport…”

The Northstar may have looked like a small car for someone like Y’zaks, but the vehicle came equipped with a spatial adjustment device and it could easily fit everyone in it. After a moment, the Northstar was darting through the planet’s massive speedway.

It was barely a few moments before they reached the facility, which housed the Orb of the Holy Synod and the four ascetics.

Chapter 332: The Ascetics

 

The monitoring facility was a cylindrical building and along its perimeter were long rectangular walkways. The whole design was similar to that of an antiquated rocket; it was a design particularly favoured by the Kerbalians. The monitoring facility was mainly used for scientific research and the Kerbalians would send all the odd or funny things they found in their explorations to this centralised facility for research. Clearly, the Orb of the Holy Synod and the four ascetics fit the bill of being odd. Hao Ren and his party alighted from their vehicle not too far away from the monitoring facility, noticing the amount of guards on duty. All of them were armed (presumably with lethal force) as they stood guard over the facility. There were also plenty of smaller, spinning alloy towers around the area. The towers were probably some sort of sentry tower or detection device.

Tamula personally served as the guide for the tour. “…Since the four weird people were sent here, we have doubled the amount of guards on duty. The four of them kept trying to escape. While they are not technologically advanced opponents, they have all sorts of weird abilities. For safety, we had to increase the amount of guards.”

The guards had already received their orders, thus were not surprised by the visit of the planet’s governer. They quickly completed the verification and other formalities. Tamula then led Hao Ren and his party along the walkway into the oddly-shaped building. As they walked pass a group of Kerbalians who were busy minding their duties, Hao Ren asked, “How long have you locked them up?”

“Technically, we have not ‘locked them’ up.” Tamula’s head bobbed as the colour of his skin took a darker shade of green. This signalled that he was serious. “They have not broken any law… It’s just that they are not… stable. Plus, we are not sure if they are important members from other civilisation spheres or just a bunch of explorers. So, we have not been too strict with them either. Under agreed conditions, we left them in the biodome behind the facility to clear their thoughts, and that got us some good will in return. If it wasn’t for that, we would not have deciphered their language at all. They were silent during the first two months of captivity.”

“The ascetics are a bunch of stubborn goats and they have a lot of prohibitions as well,” Becky muttered softly next to them. “Especially since both them and the Orb were transported from the church. They probably saw this as a ‘trial’ from the goddess and viewed the Kerbalians as… a bunch of demons.”

Such characters were probably the hardest people to have a conversation with. Hao Ren had yet to meet them, but he had a feeling that the ascetics would probably not be the best. conversationalists. So, he was busy thinking of a way to break the ice. After hearing what Becky said, he asked, “What do you think will earn the ascetics’ trust?”

Becky demurred for a moment before nodding. “Probably anything to do with religion. Or if you’re daring enough, talk about something related to the goddess.”

Hao Ren nodded and followed Tamula. They were told that the four ascetics had gone to the biodome behind the facility to unwind and Tamula led them through a walkway that cut through the main building towards the back of the facility. The biodome was self-contained with solid glass panels and a laser netting covering the surface. Through the transparent screen, Hao Ren saw many purplish and greenish-blue plants, which towered over the rest of the inhabitants. The plants transformed the biodome into a very unique alien botanical garden. Tamula pointed towards the silhouette between two giant leaves. “All four of them are there. Now is their time to…. what’s the word.. Ah yes, ‘meditate’. They call the process of sitting still ‘meditation’.”

Hao Ren stretched his neck to get a better view and saw that four monks in grey robes were seated on the piazza in the biodome. One of them was in the middle while the other three formed a protective triangle. Their grey robes were well worn, but they did not seem to be famished like how one would imagine an ascetic to look like. Three of the four had taken off their conical hats and Hao Ren was surprised to see women amongst them. In fact, from their side profiles, there were obvious clues that pointed to them being women.

The four ascetics had since broke out of their meditation, and were now talking to each other softly. Hao Ren thought it was a good time to go in and he beckoned Becky as well as the rest to follow him. He motioned to Tamula, saying, “Leave the rest to us. You can wait outside.”

Tamula nodded as he let out a sigh of relief. His green head while still impassive, was a much lighter shade of colour now. This meant that he was relieved. And truth be told, the four ascetics had caused quite the amount of stress to everyone present; it was mainly due to their odd nature and prohibitions. These things caused the usually blunt Kerbalians to become a little loss on how to interact with them. Even the guards deployed were requesting for leaves more often than usual. Kerbalians were not afraid of death, but they were truly terrified of the ascetics’ volatile behaviour (in their eyes, it was volatile).

But thankfully, the little green aliens were made of stronger stuff and they had good foresight. It was to their credit that they tolerated the ascetics’ behaviour for that long.

A sudden bristling noise came from the entrance of the biodome as shoes stepped on the fallen leaves on the ground. The four ascetics immediately stopped talking and leapt towards the source of the sound with much agility. Their face was cautious and grim.

However, their face of caution quickly turned into surprise.

What appeared before them were not gun-totting green lifeforms, which held “unholy intent” towards the Orb of the Holy Synod. Instead, this group was the same as them: they were humans—to them, even werewolves and vampires were humans at this point. The fish that was latched onto Hao Ren’s arm would be a matter for another day.

“Goddess have mercy!” one of the ascetics exclaimed. He quickly crossed his hand over his chest and looked at Hao Ren as well as his party. “Humans! Humans like us! Are you saviours sent by the goddess or are you brethens who have been captured by the green creatures? Where did you come from?”

“We’ve come to take you away from here.” Hao Ren had expected that sort of reaction and he motioned for the four ascetics to calm down. “Sit down, sit down. I know of your situation, where you come from and how you ended up here. Let’s introduce ourselves first. I’m Hao Ren…”

“I’m Becky!” the mercenary lass quickly chimed in. “I’m a mercenary from the Kingdom of Holetta! I’m a Northerner!”

The four ascetics in grey robes perked up at the mention of Holetta. They were initially surprised when they saw humans appearing in front of them. But upon hearing “Holetta”, they were sure that these group of people were on their “side”. The younger of the two female ascetics then spoke in a rather hoarse voice, “How did you find out that we were here?”

“You were transported here from the small church.” Hao Ren remembered Becky’s reminder to link all topics of conversation to the church’s mystery. “There was probably a blinding light, then all four of you and a part of the church got pulled into this place. You probably can’t feel the power of the goddess here as this place is very, very far away from your homeland. Even farther than you can ever imagine. It’s a place where the Disciples of Glory have not set foot in.”

“It seems like you do know a lot…” The first ascetic who spoke nodded. Seeing as how the stranger was able to narrate what happened, it built another layer of trust. “Friend, are you an envoy of the goddess? Why are you not in the church’s holy raiments?”

Hao Ren shook his head. “I’m not a clergy… Uh, no… I am… but not the same as you…. Uh, that’s not right either. I’m a contracted clergy… Never mind, forget about it. I don’t know how to explain this. I’m not a member of the Disciples of Glory, but I can help you.”

The ascetic did not have much of a reaction upon learning that Hao Ren was not a member of their religion. He simply nodded. “Do you know what actually happened? Why are we here?”

“Actually… you are not in your own world anymore…” Hao Ren sighed. With Becky’s aid, he explained the situation behind the Surface World and The Plane of Dreams to the ascetics. Hao Ren initially thought of overwhelming the ascetics with information to intimidate them, but thinking back, there was nothing scarier than The Plane of Dreams itself.

It did not take much for Hao Ren’s explanation on the concepts behind The Plane of Dreams and the Surface World to shock the ascetics. Plus, the whole explanation regarding crossing into another dimension had all of them stunned beyond words. The female ascetic with the hoarse voice looked at Hao Ren with bulging eyes. “So, you mean to say that we actually crossed a portal and came to a different world? How far is this place from the blessed lands of the goddess?”

“It can’t be described.” Hao Ren opened his arms wide. “It is akin to the distance between two heavens—a concept that can only be measured by the gods themselves.”

“Then, who are you?” a bearded ascetic who had been silent the entire time seemingly recovered from the shock and he spoke as he gave Hao Ren a steely gaze. “You are not a servant of the goddess and you do not even look like a child of the goddess. Nonetheless, you are clearly on our side. Who are you?”

Hao Ren then raised his hand and said, “Traffic Police!”