Chapter 782: Catharsis, followed by…monkeys?
[If we received nickles every time we find out about a world that’s similar to the director’s original one but wasn’t it, we’d all have two nickles. Which isn’t a lot, but weird it’s happen twice.]
[Did you just make a-]
[Yes I did, I have stolen your schtick, frog bitch!]
[You razor tongued slut!]
[Jokes on you, I’m a virgin!]
[What the fuck are these retorts?!]
[You’ll get used ti Screamira, you’ll get used to it.]
[Shouldn’t…we…be…more… respectfully…quiet?]
[Eh, he can’t hear us.]
________________________________________
‘Seriously? How many different versions of Earth are fucking connected to this place?!,’ Zhen Liu cursed while grinding his teeth in frustration.
Twice now, Zhen Liu had met otherlanders from a world they called Earth. But at the same time, he learned that these Earths weren’t exactly like his.
A part of him had expected that he wasn’t going to find a connection to his original Earth that easily or convenient, but he was still frustrated about it. At this point, he was convinced that Valresta only allowed one person from every version of Earth to show up.
Evidently, his personal frustration at the situation must’ve been showing in his face, because a worried and confused look began appearing on Jack’s face.
“Hey, Zhen Liu…are you okay? Because you look like you just bit into an egg salad sandwich and felt something crunch between your teeth…”
“Huh? Oh, yeah…I’m fine, I’m fine, just…noticing and figuring out just how different your world was from the one I was from…”
“Oh? Really? What makes your world so different?”
“Well, for starters, the name of that company, you called it Mango, Inc.? In my world, it’s a completely different.”
“Really?”
“And the founder was a man who never ran for office.”
“Seriously?!”
“Yeah…the guy we got instead was…questionable.”
Figuring there was no harm in telling Jack things about his own version of Earth, Zhen Liu proceeded to tell the kindly diner cook a couple more details in regards to his own world. Unsurprisingly, Jack was incredibly surprised by Zhen Liu’s description.
“Seriously? That’s what Mango, Inc. is called in your original life?”
“As far as I can remember, yeah,” Zhen Liu confirmed. “But its very possible they might rebranded while I was dead. Then again, they might’ve cancelled that thought since their leaving the name as is, is arguably the best way for them to keep the memory of their founder alive…”
“I can understand that…wait, are they stilled oPhones where you’re from?”
“Nah, they’re called iPhones.”
“Really? What a strangely, selfish sounding name.”
“Huh? The ‘i’ in iPhone is supposed to mean inspire, Internet, indi…huh, okay, I see what you mean…what does the ‘o’ in oPhone mean?”
“It stands for ‘our’ and supposed to be symbolic of a globe, to remind us that all of us are connected.”
“Huh…”
After that short little exchange, Zhen Liu and Jack continued to discuss about the differences between their two worlds, where the former learned that the latter’s world was much more…peaceful than his own. Granted, a lot of the world events were the same but the reactions were different.
“You’re telling me that Pl@ystation stopped backwards compatibility after the fourth iteration? Seriously?”
“Yeah, it’s bullshit…although, I personally find it bullshit that your world has C0nker 2-4 and a new V!va Pin@ta every few years! Come on! I wanted those over a lifetime ago!”
“I’d offer to buy ya console but I get the feeling that it would be a bad idea to do so. Bringing one from my world to here, that is.”
“Fair.”
Eventually, the conversation between the two otherlanders came to a natural end. There was only so much they could tell each other about the other’s world until it was redundant. On the plus side though, Zhen Liu managed to relieve a weight in his heart that he didn’t know he had.
Granted, it probably would’ve been relieved a lot sooner if he expressed these feelings to a certain lady friend of his who was in a similar situation.
“Well, in going to go back home and probably pass out. That said, I will probably be back for breakfast.”
“Gonna order in diner lingo again?”
“Maybe, but I don’t know what the term for Eggs Benedict is.”
“Fair ’nuff!”
________On the walk back________________
∆Hey, milord?∆
‘Hmm?’
∆Now that you know that there is a door connecting Valresta to another Earth, are you going to go and pay it a visit? Could be informative.∆
=She’s not wrong, surprisingly, visiting another Earth could provide a significant boost to to our shelves.”
‘Huh? Don’t you guys already know practically everything? I mean, you two are literal spirits of a library filled with enough books to make the Library of Alexandria look like a bitch.’
=Oh please, it’s impossible to know everything. Especially since there are other worlds and universes out there.=
∆Besides that, libraries are meant to collect the wisdom and knowledge of multiple humans and places and centralize them so that all can learn from them. We only know as much as what you, your predecessors and what the kaijin contribute to the place. Don’t you remember the first time you made a donation to the library?∆
‘The first…wait, you mean that time I extracted that Bloody Boiler guy’s arts and formula?’
∆Bingo!∆
=All sorts of information get locked away in the brain, which the ring connecting you to the library is able to extract. That’s also why the kaijin have an innate desire to bring you the severed heads of enemies they defeat.=
‘Wait, that’s why they collect trophies?!’
∆Oh, did we not mention that? Our bad.∆
‘That…that explains a lot…’
=Speaking of trophies though, you should probably get ready for tomorrow.=
‘Eh? Why?’
∆I believe, “Aranea” is going to be giving a full report about all the changes that has occurred to Stone Claw while you lot were away in Roaring Tide. That and that old dude Jinju Ren brought with her might be needing your help.∆
‘Eh?’
___________The next morning…___________
“KHIII! KHIII!”
“Well…this is…different.”
“GROAA!”
“Gotta say, I knew beasts from the wandering ruins were different, but damn this aura…”
“…”
“KUUU!”
“Mini, no. We’re not fighting these apes…yet.”
After the previous day’s breakfast, the original plan for the Zhen Clan was to just get back to their regularly scheduled affairs and get back to cultivating.
However, that didn’t happen.
Due to a mix of travel exhaustion, collective food comas and sheer shock out of confirming everything they’ve been told with their own eyes, the patriarch, elders, scions and associated family members, all decided to just call it a day and worry about it tomorrow.
Which is why, bright and early, the core members of the Zhen Clan were being familiarized with some of the aether beasts that they’ll probably face when entering the new wandering ruins that showed up on their property.
Aranea and Lucille were going to give the scions a more personalized introduction to the beasts, while the elders and patriarch did it in their own, but they were pulled into last minute meetings about their respective activities. Apparently it was considered taboo to teach children how to hide in shadows like assassins, and it was also taboo to strip a pompous nobleman down to the loincloth with blades of wind.
Thankfully, the two of them left some decently detailed dossiers in regards to the first three type of ape aether beasts they found in what the two of them had labelled as “The Jungle Temple of Primates”, aka, that new wandering ruin.
“Is the reason they called it that because of all the primate type aether beasts,” Zhen Xing asked the others, “or…”
“The dossier states that the they’re calling it that because they found a temple-like structure that seems to be dedicated to an ape or monkey god. These guys have apparently been just sort of living there despite normally being territoral,” Zhen Yue answered as she flipped through her copies of the documents.
Zhen Liu stared at the document with interest, not because the contents were fascinating, but the way Arachnidame and Lacerage had presented it.
‘Damn thing reads like an RPG monster stat sheet…or how my brain processes the kaijin at least…’
________________________________________
Name: Red Furred Marmoset
Attribute: Ignati
Danger Level: First tier
Description: A small monkey-like aether beast characterized by its rich red fur. In times of battle, they’ve been known to curl themselves up into a ball and launch themselves like living fireballs that are easy to predict.
…
Name: Bronze Bodied Ape
Attribute: Terraqi
Danger Level: 2nd Tier (4th Tier with leader)
Description: A large, ape-like bipedal aether beast with bronze-like skin. Surprisingly, this aether beast only uses it’s brute strength when alone. When encountered in groups, the apes will use their bronze-like bodies like drums in order to coordinate with one another. In some rare cases, they’ll use the percussive force produced by their powerful bodies to release a devasting AoE attack.
…
Name: Three-Eyed Nightmare Beast Ape
Danger: 3rd tier to 5th tier depending on age.
Description:
Weird.
Just…weird.
Don’t look into it’s eyes.
________________________________________
“Should…should there be more to this document, or…”
“I don’t know, but just…just don’t look at that third ape in the eye.”
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
