Fantastic Creatures’ Travelogue Chapter 23

Chapter 23 Absorption

Hao Ren picked up the handful of black wolf hair from the ground, and broke out into cold sweat across his forehead. Fortunately, he had encountered many weird events recently, and his nerves were getting somewhat stronger, so he wasn’t severely intimidated by the weird situation. After he calmed down, the first thing he did was to  confirm that there was no abnormal phenomenon around. He’d learned to conduct this procedure after living for two days with Lily and Vivian, as he found that when an “Alien” was active around, the Alien would be surrounded by clear abnormal phenomena, such as Lily’s primal scent and Vivian’s cold and b.l.o.o.d.y wind.

It was hard to tell whether or not the previous situation was simply a dream or not, but he felt sure that it was related to the Aliens. However, searching around, he found no trace of any anomalies, and his own sixth sense — which had always been effective — had no response either.

“Landlord?” Lily asked him, blinking. Her unusually bright eyes were a little weird in the darkness.

“What?”

“Do you think there is something… strange around here?”

Hao Ren suddenly remembered that the wolves were also creatures who were very sensitive to crises. Thinking about that reminded him of the scene in his nightmare, where a group of wolves were chasing behind him before he woke up. He shook his head a few times to clear his second thought.

“Such as other ‘Aliens’ or something like that,”  Lily sniffed and, as Hao Ren watched  speechlessly, carefully smelled the ground by lying p.r.o.ne on the floor, and then got up and shook her head. “Nope, all the smells are those familiar. No strange people came through here. Landlord, have you encountered an accident?”

“We’ll talk about that when we get home,” Hao Ren said, clenching the hair in his hand and moving towards the house. While Lily followed him without knowing what had happened, it didn’t cause her to forget to carry the recliner back with her — it successfully proved that she was really the right one safeguarding the house.

In the living room, Hao Ren sat on the couch with a solemn expression. Sitting across from him was Lily, who was confused, and Vivian, who was curious. Roll was sitting beside them. The four members of the “family” were all present here, and since the tea set had been ruined by the two superwomen, there was only a slightly old low table in front of them. Hao Ren put the pinch of black wolf fur on the table, looking straight at Vivian’s eyes, “I encountered some strange thing.”

Then he explained the previous weird dream in as much detail as he could, especially focusing on the endless prairie and the two moons in the sky in the “dream”. Finally, he pointed at the hair on the table, “After I woke up, this stuff was there. and you’re telling me that I did a  poor man’s traverse, or accidentally grasped the ability to twist reality through my fantasy?”

Vivian frowned her good-looking brows, ignoring Hao Ren’s meaningless tease. She picked up some hair, held it under her nose, and sniffed. “The smell of the beast, with no traces of black magic. This is indeed from some natural animal. The big dog over there should come smell it, her nose is better.”

Lily “Oh”ed, and put the wolf hair under her nose and took a deep breath, “It smells quite different from the smell of the wolves I know, and it has a kind of smell… different from that in this city. It has a scent of clay and green gra.s.s mixed inside, and only werewolves can distinguish such subtle things.” After a few seconds, she finally reacted, banging on the table, “Wait, who did you just say was the big dog?!”

“Hey, relax!” Hao Ren looked at the outdated table. Fortunately, Lily was in human form, and she didn’t use her real strength, so the table was not in ruins like the tea set. He looked at Vivian, “Then what do you think what all these are? The so-called magic?”

“The dream on its own is easy to explain,” Vivian said, still frowning, “All kinds of magic and hypnotism can achieve the same effect. I can weave a dream big enough to make hundreds of people dream of simultaneously, and before you wake up, you have absolutely no idea that you’re dreaming. If your imagination is rich, then you would definitely think that you have traversed. But as for your bringing something out of the dream… I can’t explain it. None of the magic I know can do that, and it might not even be the magic, as the dark side of the world is very complicated, and what I know is also limited.”

“Maybe it’s something like this,” Lily suddenly interrupted, her expression showing that she was quite interested, “First cast an illusion or hypnotism on landlord to make him have nightmares, and preset the nightmare’s content. And then while he’s asleep, secretly stuff the wolf hair into his hand.”

Vivian listened stupefied, and she could not help but draw her mouth’s edge, “Come on, can you stop ruining the atmosphere?”

But Hao Ren thought that Lily’s argument was quite justified, except that it was quite a pain in the a.s.s. It would explain the phenomenon perfectly. How to say it, the soft-headed had the soft-headed’s worldview, and usually it was simple and crude, but unusually  useful…

But Lily had also confirmed that there was no scent of strangers left on the spot, so the pain in the a.s.s guess wasn’t very convincing.

“Overall I am sure that what I encountered was not normal, and the natural environment certainly couldn’t have made me dream a reality-eroding fantasy dream,” Hao Ren said, sighing, “I have more or less accepted my fate. As the saying goes, you will have no worry about your debt when you already have too much. Whatever weird situations there are, just let them come. But before that, I have to find a way to let myself live in safety, since I’m entangled with you supernatural creatures… I’ll be dead if things go wrong!”

Vivian and Lily knew that Hao Ren signed a labor contract with the calling-herself-G.o.d woman and was aboard the pirate s.h.i.+p sort of things, so this time they didn’t mention the leaving stuff, and instead, they began to think about the problem thoroughly. Vivian was a very smart girl, and she found that although Hao Ren was just an ordinary citizen and a youth who was scared of trouble, his courage and acceptance was abnormally strong. Every time he encountered something which would destroy any normal person’s worldview, he was just surprised for a couple of seconds, and then he began to conduct a careful a.n.a.lysis to find a way out — And this time there was no difference. It was a very precious quality. But even though his courage and acceptance was strong, Hao Ren was still a normal person, and Vivian really didn’t know how to make an ordinary person become powerful simply in seconds.

“Didn’t the Raven12345 give you a cheat code or something?” Lily asked curiously, lying on the table, “I found that it always happens in the human novels. Now that you are working for the G.o.d, the so-called STA should more or less give you some labor-protection supplies, right?”

“She might have forgotten it, and I did not ask,” Hao Ren said, “Maybe I should ask her directly the next time. The phone number was unable to get through, and I’d guess that to contact her, I would have to go to that h.e.l.l place again… I feel that the STA is getting more and more unreliable.”

“The water far away won’t solve your imminent thirst,” Vivian said, as she slowly transformed into the vampire form, “You’ve already dreamed the strange dream once, and you didn’t solve the source of it, and according to the general rule of illusions, the dream will keep happening. You can’t stay up all the time, right? First I will make an amulet for you, and whether or not the thing you got caught by is an illusion or whatever, as long as it’s suppressed, it will soon dissipate.”

Hao Ren suddenly remembered Vivian’s “s.h.i.+eld” all over her body, and asked subconsciously, “Is your pile of stuff really reliable?”

“Who said that I would use my treasures?” Vivian frowned a little, “I’m talking about the power of high-end Blood Tribe!”

Without another word, Vivian used her sharp teeth to bite on her finger, and suddenly a drop of blood glowing a strange golden red began coming out of her fingertip. “Come here, let me put the blood on the back of your hand, and it should be sufficient to suppress the nightmare – If it was really an illusion.”

Hao Ren hesitantly held out his hand, and watched as Vivian smeared the blood on his hand, and he could not help but whisper, “I remembered that the legendary vampires can use their own blood to change the average person into a vampire. Am I going to mutate?”

“Don’t worry about it, they were just bluffing,” Vivian said, laughing loudly, “I have heard of you humans’ legends, such as a simple bite uplifting inferiors… If it was that easy for the Blood Tribe to reproduce, do you think you humans would have had a chance to play a role in history? Before the Bronze Age, vampires would have covered all of Asia, Africa and Europe, but then how could we have been reduced to being chased by the witchers and the churches?”

She talked about the vampires being forced to the edge of the history by humans, but she had no hostility towards Hao Ren the human, which was quite interesting.

“Eh? How can this be?” Vivian exclaimed in surprise. The moment a drop of her blood touched Hao Ren’s skin, it quickly disappeared!

It was like the drop was being absorbed by the skin, at a frightening speed.