Chapter 12345 Raven Emphasized Handling Everything Twice

Haoren felt that this was likely a hint, perhaps some kind of test, or perhaps this seemingly silly, mentally unstable goddess was planning to assign him some heavy responsibility. In any case, he could only accept it now.

However, along with the pressure came a bit of anticipation. Hao Ren knew that 12345 Raven would jump out to remind him before the situation spiraled out of control, so he felt this was a good opportunity to broaden his horizons under relatively safe circumstances.

Hilda waited until Hao Ren had finished studying the data terminal before quietly asking, "Can you send me back?"

"Oh, oh, no problem," Hao Ren patted his chest confidently. The idiot-proof Transmigrator's Guide made him feel that there was nothing complicated about the whole process. "After we get back, I'll give you a checkup. According to the guide, it should take about two or three days to determine your world of origin, and I'll personally send you back to your planet."

When Hao Ren mentioned the word "planet," Hilda opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end, she didn't. She just nodded gratefully. Hao Ren then looked up at 12345 Raven: "Then I have nothing else to do, I'll go back now."

Raven 12345 picked up her bowl and continued slurping the noodle soup: "Yeah, go ahead..."

Hao Ren looked at the goddess sister's ungraceful appearance and couldn't help but remind her, "There's too much salt in the noodles..."

This was the first time in Hao Ren's life that he had eaten the Eucharist—a real, genuine Eucharist in every sense of the word, made by the goddess of this universe herself, and eaten next to the Heavenly Reception Room. If this were a slightly more normal religious setting, it would be an honor that all the kings and bishops in the world would fight to the death for, but Hao Ren felt it was better to go home and ask Vivian for a bowl of dumpling soup: the Eucharist was just a bowl of noodle soup with only a few strands of noodles and vegetable leaves, and there was too much salt in it. Hao Ren felt that Raven 12345's cooking skills were not as good as Lily's.

Hao Ren led Hilda out of the "Heaven" that had several large holes. The first thing he did was not rush home, but go to the city to buy the latter some replacement clothes and some snacks for Lily to take back. Hilda looked embarrassed when she heard this arrangement: "I'm fine like this, you don't have to spend money..."

"Don't be polite, the higher-ups will reimburse me anyway." Hao Ren said, looking at Hilda's current appearance: the Queen was still wearing the white robe she had when they met in the Dream Plane. The style of this dress was a bit like a combination of a windbreaker and a long skirt. It used to be a well-made dress, but Hilda's actions in the Dream Plane for those days had severely damaged it. Originally, it didn't look like clothing suitable for long-distance trekking in the wild. In order to facilitate movement, Hilda had cut off the overly long hem of the dress and many decorative frills. Moreover, her activities in the mountains and dense forests had left the dress full of scratches and stains. Hao Ren felt it was inappropriate for such a beautiful elf to run around in this kind of clothing. Becky could still wear Nangong Wuyue's clothes, but Hilda was half a head taller than Hao Ren—he really had to buy her a new one.

Before the two of them arrived in the city, Hao Ren reminded Hilda to put on her hood, because the latter's long elven ears would definitely attract attention in the downtown area. But even so, Hilda's particularly eye-catching figure and appearance still attracted a certain amount of attention. Hilda subconsciously tugged at her clothes: "Am I very strange here?"

Hao Ren didn't expect to encounter so many people on the street. While telling Hilda to be careful not to expose her ears, he looked for a relatively quiet place: "It's okay, it's okay. There are all kinds of strangely dressed people these days. As long as you look natural, it's fine."

Hilda said "oh," curiously observing this world that seemed strange and novel to her. She followed behind Hao Ren through several crowded intersections, and then they quickly found that the curious gazes around them had decreased a lot. It seemed that people didn't pay much attention to Hilda's strange clothes. Hao Ren was wondering what was going on when he looked up and found himself standing in front of the Cultural Plaza. Before his eyes were a group of young people wearing leather armor, plate armor, and chainmail, carrying swords, staffs, and meteor hammers. There were also two cloak men dressed like Dark Jedi handing out flyers everywhere. Not far away, there was even a girl dressed almost exactly like Hilda—except that her clothes were much cleaner.

Hilda stared in astonishment at the chaotic... noisy scene in front of her. Her mind couldn't turn around for a moment: "Are we back in that Dream Plane again?"

Hao Ren slapped his forehead and finally remembered what was going on here: "Hey, the city is holding an anime festival. This is a Cosplay convention!"

Hilda's tongue was a little tied: "C... what?"

She was learning strange languages by forcibly reading the shallow thoughts of intelligent creatures around her through a special language understanding magic. The more people there were, the faster she learned strange languages, but this magic was, after all, not as good as Hao Ren's group's global translator plug-in. When faced with some foreign words with less usage and special word formation rules and their pronunciation, her tongue would be tied like an ordinary person speaking a foreign language for the first time.

"Cos, one of Earth's cultures, you don't have to worry about what it means. Anyway, it's very helpful for our current situation." Hao Ren said happily. He had finally discovered a place where his group of aliens could return to their original forms and run around happily—it turned out to be this kind of cosplay scene. In this place, Vivian and Lily could let their wings and tails out to breathe fresh air, and places like indoor swimming pools were also suitable for Nangong Wuyue. It's just that Izhaks still couldn't do it. It was really difficult to explain a five- or six-meter-tall lava demon with props and special effects—in fact, even if Izhaks showed up here in human form, he would look like a Cosplay. The demon brother's face was too postmodern. Apart from explaining it with makeup, it was difficult to understand why a person could grow up like that with normal genetics and genes...

After this thought explosion in his mind, Hao Ren pulled Hilda towards the mall near the plaza, explaining as he walked: "If someone really asks later, just say you're participating in Cosplay... of course, it's best if no one asks."

Hilda nodded in a daze, listening to whatever Hao Ren said. But when they passed the fountain in front of the plaza, the Queen suddenly exclaimed in a low voice: "Ah—"

Hao Ren was startled: "What's wrong?"

"This water... and the power used for the fountain..." Hilda pointed at the pool in disbelief, "What are you doing with this?"

"Doing what... for beauty," Hao Ren felt that this question was very inexplicable, "This is a fountain, don't you even have fountains over there?"

"I know this kind of thing," Hilda frowned in disbelief, "But it's only in the ecological domes, used to maintain the ecology of the botanical garden, and it's much smaller than this, and the water distribution efficiency will be very high. You put this 'fountain' in the open air just for beauty?"

Hao Ren could only nod, and Hilda quickly discovered more situations that she couldn't accept: "What is the display device on that building doing? Isn't it supposed to announce important information? Why do I feel like it's repeating some meaningless things over and over again?"

"Uh... that's for beauty, and advertising."

"What about the balloons in the sky? And so much fabric under the balloons, can't those fabrics be made into clothes or something else? Why are they painted with so many colors and hung in the sky?"

"Still for beauty."

As Hilda calmed down from her initial surprise and excitement about the surrounding scenery, she began to have more energy to pay attention to the details in this complex world. So she discovered more and more "unbelievable" situations. In her opinion, the Dream Plane was already an exceptionally abundant world, but here, she saw an even more abundant, and even more wasteful and extravagant way of life. Finally, after she and Hao Ren passed through this large open-air plaza, she couldn't suppress her intense emotions: "You... are very wasteful."

Hao Ren looked at her in confusion.

"Too many resources... water, energy, all kinds of living materials, these are all very precious things, but you consume them on a large scale in useless activities," Hilda looked down at the things she was carrying in her hand. These were snacks that Hao Ren had bought for her on the edge of the plaza, "And this kind of meaningless packaging, this flexible material seems to be disposable. This is unimaginable in my world, we haven't had this kind of余裕 (yoyu, leeway/margin) for a long time."

Hao Ren was suddenly very curious about what Hilda's hometown was like. It seemed that the resource depletion there was more serious than he had imagined.

(It's the end of the month, reflexively asking for a monthly ticket =.=)