A sense of relief filled Hao Ren as solution had been found for the Aerymian elves. After all, he had just put in little effort; he thought about it and made decision, that was it. As the saying goes, somebody’s gotta to do it—and this was the only thing Hao Ren could do, and he was the only one who could accomplish this.
But he was clear the real work had yet to come, it would take more than just a phone call to accomplish it. Until the elves were safely arriving at the new home and able to adapt to the new environment, his mission was yet accomplished. So he had to get down to work.
Before seeing Hilda and informing her about all this, he had to write a report to Raven 12345.
"If I were to tell Raven 12345 everything, is she going to kill me?" Hao Ren asked the MDT worriedly while writing the report. "I’m clearly taking advantage of the loopholes. Just writing this alone would have God strike me with lightning: In order to conduct exploration, mining, scientific research, and build outposts and settlements, 1,076,520,000 elves have been recruited as employees and tenants..."
Squatting on the bench and scratching her face with her foot while listening to Hao Ren reading out the report, she said, "Landlord, honestly, it wouldn’t just be lightning strike..."
"There’s something you lot don’t know about Ma’am Raven; she wouldn’t just not get ballistic after reading the report, she would also feel she and you are totally in sync with each other temperamentally..."
"What you say has no difference from being struck by lightning." Hao Ren smacked the MDT back onto the table. "And you said it like you know her very well."
"I was almost system-crashed when she was meddling some plug-ins with me, it was during that life-and-death moment that I got a deep impression about Ma’am Raven. You must impress her by unleashing your wild imagination because her brain was already unresponsive to normal level of brain wave."
After working his fingers to the bone, Hao Ren finally completed the thousand-word length report which was filled with death wish and open-minded views. He knew he wasn’t good in writing, but the report was important. After he had entered everything into the MDT, as usual he pulled Lily over and said, "Help me with the editing part..."
Not to be misled by the husky’s flaky outlook, she was a literary worker through and through. No doubt, her weirdness displayed before Hao Ren and Vivian was her true self, she didn’t have to fake it before the very people she had been familiar with. Lily took over the MDT and started correcting the bad grammars, death-wishing sentences and other minutiae. When she was finally done, the report had been reduced to seven hundred words...
"Still no more than eight hundred words. I didn’t get eight hundred words in my high school exam either. It looks like I’m stuck there forever." Looking at the edited report which now sounded nicer, Hao Ren shook his head haplessly. He then sent it out, sat in the chair and waited for the lightning to arrive—if there wasn’t any lightning strike in five minutes, that meant the MDT’s assessment of the psychopath was right.
Five minutes had passed. Nothing had happened. Only a one-sentence reply from Raven 12345 was received. "Reading, please wait, no comment so far."
The check-post was passed. As long as the god on duty had no opinion, the migration of Aerymian elves should be clear sailing from now on.
It was time to meet Hilda. But Hao Ren had another thought: He and Hilda needed a break as much as Battie, Doggie and Y’zaks. Since they arrived from Earth, they had been snowed under with propulsion system explosion and its aftermath, then writing up the report and meeting with the elders. Be it superhuman or mage of the higher-order, both Hao Ren and Hilda had been really exhausted, a day off was an absolute necessity. Not forgetting that the 883 captain was still in his long-haul flight, if he wasn’t in a hurry, no one else could.
After keeping quiet for a moment, Lily began mumbling as she lay on the table, feeling hungry and bored. To a husky, the latter was fatal. Food wasn’t a problem here, she had enough supply in Hao Ren’s dimensional pocket for her to pig out several rounds, but when it came to boredom, not much could be done: in Aerym, there was no video games, no entetainment, no place for shopping. The highly restrained society had long discarded activities that were deemed unproductive; their people hadn’t the privilege for leisure activity, they hadn’t in the mood. The fact that Hilda was in shock when she saw balloon with a banner in the air was telling. What’s more, the city was in the disaster aftermath, Lily couldn’t just go scampering outside. Looking at the pitiful maiden mumbling to herself, Hao Ren grabbed the MDT and passed it to her. "What about playing tetris?"
"Goddamn you! Couldn’t you use me in a more proper way?"
"No. I’ve to control myself. People’re suffering here, I can’t let myself immerse in pleasure." Lily suddenly got serious. She hadn’t in the mood. She came to the window, looking out. "They’re clearing the Royal District now. Landlord, could you please pass me the spicy strip, I’ve just finished mine."
"You should eat a proper meal." Hao Ren took out a few packs of spicy strip from his dimensional pocket. Lily took them and walked into her room. A loud noise came from afar. Then a royal guard came in hurriedly. "A giant white monster has just jumped off from this level, it’s scaling the wall in front of the shield. Do you know that?"
Hao Ren fell off the chair. He now realised why Lily asked for the spicy strip when she saw the street-clearing work in the royal district beneath; the fidgety husky felt the need to help and she formshifted.
They scurried to the window. What they saw was, at the edge of the royal district, a three-storeys-tall husky was scambling left and right, up and down, trying to get away from a group of halpless elves which was encircling her. Both were in a stalemate. The naive maiden always dived in headfirst—probably from the effect of eating too much spicy strips, she could only bark like a dog in her transformed body, no way the guards were going to understand her. Worry filled Vivian’s face. She spread out her wings and about to go. "I’m going to her. She might get into even bigger trouble formshifted."
Hao Ren quickly reminded. "Go to her room and check if she had left her cloth. Bring it to her."
Vivian had thought Lily how to not spoiling her cloth during formshifting, but she hadn’t mastered it. So Vivian had to follow with her cloth wherever Lily goes. During the few times of formshifting recently, Lily was doing it in the waste land behind the house whenever she felt like wanting to get some fresh air during full moon, so she hadn’t caused any trouble to those around. That aside, Hao Ren had noticed an interesting thing though: the two didn’t seem to like each other very much, and fought like cat and dog at time; apart from that, they looked more like friends than foes, Hao Ren thought.
The elven guard who came in was dumbstruck. Hao Ren tried to explain with a hollow smile. "That’s our friend. She would like to help clear the streets."
The elven guard left in confusion; the mind of another good boy was thus destroyed by the arational creature. Hao Ren hadn’t time to lament because the voice of Raven 12345 came into his head. "Whoa, it seems you’re doing very well over there."
Hao Ren became instantly nervous. "Thanks to the administration..."
He knew Raven 12345 would be calling eventually after seeing the report.
"Save it. Where the hell you learned that from?" Raven 12345 sounded in good mood though. "I’ve read your report, you’re pretty broad-minded. I fact I knew you were going to evacuate the entire elven race, but I didn’t expect you’d bring them over to my place—and hell, you still remember that planet."
"That’s...."
"Approval granted. It’s not a big deal. Since you already could handle that yourself by using civilian’s help, I don’t have to send a colonial fleet. And thing will be kept below Category-E operation. As long as the operation doesn’t go against civilisation preservation, everything’s negotiable. Regulations of Macroworld are a lot lax then the past. If i’m not mistaken, it must be the MDT which taught you, isn’t it? Navigating the loopholes in the regulations and incident qualitative customary law is beyond the ability of a rookie."
Hao Ren glanced at the MDT—it shut ifself off and lay on the table pretending it was a coaster.
It was the first time Hao Ren had felt that the MDT was awesome.
A sense of relief filled Hao Ren as solution had been found for the Aerymian elves. After all, he had just put in little effort; he thought about it and made decision, that was it. As the saying goes, somebody’s gotta to do it—and this was the only thing Hao Ren could do, and he was the only one who could accomplish this.
But he was clear the real work had yet to come, it would take more than just a phone call to accomplish it. Until the elves were safely arriving at the new home and able to adapt to the new environment, his mission was yet accomplished. So he had to get down to work.
Before seeing Hilda and informing her about all this, he had to write a report to Raven 12345.
"If I were to tell Raven 12345 everything, is she going to kill me?" Hao Ren asked the MDT worriedly while writing the report. "I’m clearly taking advantage of the loopholes. Just writing this alone would have God strike me with lightning: In order to conduct exploration, mining, scientific research, and build outposts and settlements, 1,076,520,000 elves have been recruited as employees and tenants..."
Squatting on the bench and scratching her face with her foot while listening to Hao Ren reading out the report, she said, "Landlord, honestly, it wouldn’t just be lightning strike..."
"There’s something you lot don’t know about Ma’am Raven; she wouldn’t just not get ballistic after reading the report, she would also feel she and you are totally in sync with each other temperamentally..."
"What you say has no difference from being struck by lightning." Hao Ren smacked the MDT back onto the table. "And you said it like you know her very well."
"I was almost system-crashed when she was meddling some plug-ins with me, it was during that life-and-death moment that I got a deep impression about Ma’am Raven. You must impress her by unleashing your wild imagination because her brain was already unresponsive to normal level of brain wave."
After working his fingers to the bone, Hao Ren finally completed the thousand-word length report which was filled with death wish and open-minded views. He knew he wasn’t good in writing, but the report was important. After he had entered everything into the MDT, as usual he pulled Lily over and said, "Help me with the editing part..."
Not to be misled by the husky’s flaky outlook, she was a literary worker through and through. No doubt, her weirdness displayed before Hao Ren and Vivian was her true self, she didn’t have to fake it before the very people she had been familiar with. Lily took over the MDT and started correcting the bad grammars, death-wishing sentences and other minutiae. When she was finally done, the report had been reduced to seven hundred words...
"Still no more than eight hundred words. I didn’t get eight hundred words in my high school exam either. It looks like I’m stuck there forever." Looking at the edited report which now sounded nicer, Hao Ren shook his head haplessly. He then sent it out, sat in the chair and waited for the lightning to arrive—if there wasn’t any lightning strike in five minutes, that meant the MDT’s assessment of the psychopath was right.
Five minutes had passed. Nothing had happened. Only a one-sentence reply from Raven 12345 was received. "Reading, please wait, no comment so far."
The check-post was passed. As long as the god on duty had no opinion, the migration of Aerymian elves should be clear sailing from now on.
It was time to meet Hilda. But Hao Ren had another thought: He and Hilda needed a break as much as Battie, Doggie and Y’zaks. Since they arrived from Earth, they had been snowed under with propulsion system explosion and its aftermath, then writing up the report and meeting with the elders. Be it superhuman or mage of the higher-order, both Hao Ren and Hilda had been really exhausted, a day off was an absolute necessity. Not forgetting that the 883 captain was still in his long-haul flight, if he wasn’t in a hurry, no one else could.
After keeping quiet for a moment, Lily began mumbling as she lay on the table, feeling hungry and bored. To a husky, the latter was fatal. Food wasn’t a problem here, she had enough supply in Hao Ren’s dimensional pocket for her to pig out several rounds, but when it came to boredom, not much could be done: in Aerym, there was no video games, no entetainment, no place for shopping. The highly restrained society had long discarded activities that were deemed unproductive; their people hadn’t the privilege for leisure activity, they hadn’t in the mood. The fact that Hilda was in shock when she saw balloon with a banner in the air was telling. What’s more, the city was in the disaster aftermath, Lily couldn’t just go scampering outside. Looking at the pitiful maiden mumbling to herself, Hao Ren grabbed the MDT and passed it to her. "What about playing tetris?"
"Goddamn you! Couldn’t you use me in a more proper way?"
"No. I’ve to control myself. People’re suffering here, I can’t let myself immerse in pleasure." Lily suddenly got serious. She hadn’t in the mood. She came to the window, looking out. "They’re clearing the Royal District now. Landlord, could you please pass me the spicy strip, I’ve just finished mine."
"You should eat a proper meal." Hao Ren took out a few packs of spicy strip from his dimensional pocket. Lily took them and walked into her room. A loud noise came from afar. Then a royal guard came in hurriedly. "A giant white monster has just jumped off from this level, it’s scaling the wall in front of the shield. Do you know that?"
Hao Ren fell off the chair. He now realised why Lily asked for the spicy strip when she saw the street-clearing work in the royal district beneath; the fidgety husky felt the need to help and she formshifted.
They scurried to the window. What they saw was, at the edge of the royal district, a three-storeys-tall husky was scambling left and right, up and down, trying to get away from a group of halpless elves which was encircling her. Both were in a stalemate. The naive maiden always dived in headfirst—probably from the effect of eating too much spicy strips, she could only bark like a dog in her transformed body, no way the guards were going to understand her. Worry filled Vivian’s face. She spread out her wings and about to go. "I’m going to her. She might get into even bigger trouble formshifted."
Hao Ren quickly reminded. "Go to her room and check if she had left her cloth. Bring it to her."
Vivian had thought Lily how to not spoiling her cloth during formshifting, but she hadn’t mastered it. So Vivian had to follow with her cloth wherever Lily goes. During the few times of formshifting recently, Lily was doing it in the waste land behind the house whenever she felt like wanting to get some fresh air during full moon, so she hadn’t caused any trouble to those around. That aside, Hao Ren had noticed an interesting thing though: the two didn’t seem to like each other very much, and fought like cat and dog at time; apart from that, they looked more like friends than foes, Hao Ren thought.
The elven guard who came in was dumbstruck. Hao Ren tried to explain with a hollow smile. "That’s our friend. She would like to help clear the streets."
The elven guard left in confusion; the mind of another good boy was thus destroyed by the arational creature. Hao Ren hadn’t time to lament because the voice of Raven 12345 came into his head. "Whoa, it seems you’re doing very well over there."
Hao Ren became instantly nervous. "Thanks to the administration..."
He knew Raven 12345 would be calling eventually after seeing the report.
"Save it. Where the hell you learned that from?" Raven 12345 sounded in good mood though. "I’ve read your report, you’re pretty broad-minded. I fact I knew you were going to evacuate the entire elven race, but I didn’t expect you’d bring them over to my place—and hell, you still remember that planet."
"That’s...."
"Approval granted. It’s not a big deal. Since you already could handle that yourself by using civilian’s help, I don’t have to send a colonial fleet. And thing will be kept below Category-E operation. As long as the operation doesn’t go against civilisation preservation, everything’s negotiable. Regulations of Macroworld are a lot lax then the past. If i’m not mistaken, it must be the MDT which taught you, isn’t it? Navigating the loopholes in the regulations and incident qualitative customary law is beyond the ability of a rookie."
Hao Ren glanced at the MDT—it shut ifself off and lay on the table pretending it was a coaster.
It was the first time Hao Ren had felt that the MDT was awesome.
