The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Hao Ren had no idea what the creature was. It just popped out in front of him. Based on his first impression of the creature, he decided to call it a sprite.

The humanoid creature stood at less than knee height, very much like a scaled-down human. It seemed that this one was a female, wearing a light-blue dress made of unknown material. She had stunning and delicate facial features and a translucent body, much like a spirit. Her hair was long with electric lights on the tip of it. The shimmering particles continuously fell from the dancing light on her hair and dispersed in the air around her.

The sprite cautiously came out of the bush and stood ten meters away from Hao Ren. She carefully observed the tall figure from a ‘safe distance.’ Her eyes were full of curiosity and cautiousness and her facial muscle tense. She said nothing.

Was this the noisy creature that he heard before? She was so quiet now. That was to say, she would only be talkative with her own people but could not speak when getting nervous?

They both stared at each other for a long while. Hao Ren thought that he had fully expressed his friendliness and harmlessness through his smile and body language. So, he waved at the sprite. “We—”

Before Hao Ren could finish, the sprite shouted, “He has spoken!”, and then scurried back into the bush.

“Is there a problem with my way of expression?” Hao Ren froze, having no idea of what happened. “She seemed to be scared.”

“Now, you finally feel how Y’zaks feels.” Vivian sighed and looked at Hao Ren with a forced smile. “Perhaps, creatures of our body size look particularly terrifying in the eyes of those little guys.”

“I don’t think so. Some residents here are much bigger than us.” Hao Ren’s arched as he pointed at the old temples and cities in the distance. “Look, over there, is the style of those things not familiar?”

Vivian looked in the direction where Hao Ren was pointing at; she was surprised. “That… that is the architectural style of the Gate of Solenne?”

“Yup. The city of the guardian giant,” Hao Ren said and lowered his hand. He was baffled. “I noticed the architectural style of buildings before landing. They undoubtedly belong to the guardian giant. It is just that I do not understand why the inhabitants here are only thirty to forty centimeters tall.”

Just as Vivian about to say something, she suddenly heard the rustling sound of the bushes, and then tiny creatures emerged one after another from the bushes.

They were all about forty centimeters tall, wearing light blue skirts or pants of material with a spirit-like translucent body. When those little humanoids stood together, Hao Ren found an interesting feature about these sprites; it was almost impossible to know their genders by just looking at their faces—they all had the same delicate face, except for their attire, which was a giveaway.

These little creatures emerged at once out of nowhere. Hao Ren looked at them, dumbstruck. They gathered in a group with bright electric lights dancing between them as if it was their way of communicating with each other.

But even though there were many of them, the sprites did not seem to have any intention of talking or stepping closer to Hao Ren. They just stared at the two uninvited guests with their big eyes. This awkward moment lasted for less than half a minute before goosebumps started to rise all over his skin. So, he had no choice but to make the first move again. “We are here to help. Can you send a representative?”

Once again, the sprites were shocked and took a step back. But this time, they did not flee but just look at each other and then burst into noisy gibberish.

“Oh, oh, oh! He has spoken! He has spoken! He has spoken to us!”

“This one looks so weird! Isn’t the guardian giant very tall? This one looks so short!”

“But he is still much taller than us!”

“Of course, he is taller than us; many things are taller than us!”

“He surely can’t squeeze himself through the secondary pressure release pipes.”

“But neither can we. The secondary pressure release pipe is narrow.”

“Obviously, we can. I’ve done it before!”

“You bluff!”

The sprites fell into a debate again. Not their argument was disorderly without any logic. Hao Ren had only said once and was utterly pushed out of their social circle. He watched for a long time and finally could not hold back anymore. “Listen here! Can you please send a representative to talk with me?”

The sprites jumped out of their skins. And then, their lively discussions escalated to another level. Just when Hao Ren thought that he was losing it again, they had chosen a few representatives. As three little guys stepped forward, Hao Ren could not hold back his tears.

At long last, he could talk in a normal way with those strange creatures, perhaps.

“So, you guys are the representatives?” Hao Ren vowed that he had never had such a strange third encounter since taking office. It did not look like an inspector was making contact with a survivor civilization, but a kindergarten teacher teaching a bunch of toddlers. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hao Ren, and the one beside me is my spouse cum assistant, Vivian Ancestor. This little guy is Lil Pea while this flying chunk of brick is the MDT. We come from a distant world. When we passed by here, we stumbled upon the battle between you and the festered monsters. We are at war with them too, so we have decided to help you.”

The MDT flew out and said, “Buddy! You should know that I have given myself a name, Pattianne.”

No one gave a hoot of the eccentric PDA. The little guys opposite Hao Ren looked up at Hao Ren, babbling, “Oh, oh, oh! We thank you!”

“Yeah, yeah, thank you for your help! Otherwise, we would have died this time!”

“Are you from a faraway place? Very very far away?”

“We didn’t know there were such powerful guys in the distant world! We thought that the guardian giant was the best!”

“The guardian giants are super powerful; it’s just that there aren’t many of them.”

“I didn’t say the guardian giants aren’t powerful.”

“It just feels like we’re the only ones who aren’t powerful.”

Cold sweat trickled down Hao Ren’s forehead. It looked like things had not changed even with the representatives. These guys only talked with themselves. He could not believe how these creatures could form their own civilization and survive in this danger-ridden galaxy.

Perhaps they were not a completely independent civilization.

A thought came to mind; Hao Ren turned to look at the old but magnificent architecture in the distance.

Other than those large buildings of the guardian giants, those little guys seemed to have not built anything themselves. They should be living in the cities and temples of the guardian giants.

Despite their quirky habits of talking among themselves, the three representatives were much better than the rest. At least, they could still communicate with Hao Ren.

When Hao Ren asked about the origins of this space continent, the sprites yelled, “This planet is called Naqdal! Very powerful Naqdal!”

“Planet is history! This is only a fragment of Naqdal after the explosion.”

“But this fragment is also very, very big!”

“It was the guardian giants who built Naqdal. The guardian giants are mighty.”

“But the enemy is also powerful, they have a fortress called Amantir, which blew up Naqdal.”

As long as you asked a question, the sprites would reciprocate with 10,000 answers. It allowed Hao Ren to collect more information this way, but at the same time, the data seemed to be disorganized. He had a hard time to analyze and sort out these seemingly related, but in fact, a mess. Fortunately, the MDT was there to help. With its data processing capability, the MDT could record all the information and sort them out. It saved Hao Ren a lot of wild guesses and a head-scratching moment.

Hao Ren learned from the babbling of the sprites that his space continent was once part of a planet called Naqdal, and this so-called planet turned out to be an armed fortress.

It was apt to call it a planetary battleship, too.

The surface buildings and underground pipes and machinery that Hao Ren had observed in space earlier turned out to be not the fortress complex. They were only components of the fortress. The planet had a planet-scale shield and propulsion capability along with some terrible doomsday weapon, which was said to be one of the most potent weapons that Hao Ren had heard in this universe.

Yet another planet fortress, the Amantir, had launched an attack on Naqdar.

One of the two equally-matched fortresses launched a surprise attack on another. Of course, it was the planet on which the sprites lived that was blown apart and sending a large chunk drifting in space.

Vivian’s brows knitted together. “Did the guardian giants build Amantir too?”

“Yes! Yes! The guardian giants built the three planetary fortresses!”

“All the fortresses have doomsday weapons called the Apocalypse Torrent!”

“But Naqdal did not manage to aim its Apocalypse Torrent at—”

“So Amantir blew it up first!”

“But Amantir seems to have suffered damage too. Its doomsday weapon seems to be damaged.”

“They got into fight suddenly!”

Hao Ren and Vivian exchanged a look, and they both had the same thought.

The civil war of the guardian giants.

Or rather, the war between the festered and the non-festered.