Translator: Mukyuu
Editor: Mikyuu
Wang Xiaoming and Baal ate and drank their fill and then casually strolled into the second ring.
There were a lot of creatures in the second ring and most of them looked strange, but the strangest of them remained that pig they had eaten the previous night that had been altered beyond recognition.
Wang Xiaoming said, “Actually, pigs look quite nice.”
“…” Pigs look quite nice? Baal couldn’t understand.
“At least better than the strange way it looks now.” Wang Xiaoming wondered curiously, “I wonder what pigs think everytime they see their reflections in the lakes.”
“Since it’s a high level illusion, of course it wouldn’t feel strange about its appearance because it thinks that it has always looked like that.” Baal paused and then asked, “What do you think of my looks?”
“Huh?” Wang Xiaoming’s mind blanked at the unexpected question.
“Do you not have any thoughts on this?” Baal frowned.
“You look really nice!” Not only did Wang Xiaoming say that with utter sincerity, he also made a point to emphasize the words.
Baal murmured in a quiet voice, “How come I don’t feel happy at all?”
“Yeah, how come?” Wang Xiaoming thought his attitude had been very sincere.
Baal figured out the reason very quickly. “Because you just said pigs looked quite nice.” So anything that Wang Xiaoming praised as beautiful was automatically one degree less so.
…
Wang Xiaoming tried to make it up. “Then… I think you don’t look nice?”
Baal’s anger was rising. “Why don’t you just say that pigs don’t look nice?”
“… Because that’s not the truth.”
So, Wang Xiaoming would rather deny that he looked beautiful and refuse to say that pigs looked ugly?!
Baal felt anger rush from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then he simply used instant movement and vanished from the spot.
…
“Baal?” Wang Xiaoming stood stupidly in the same spot and called out cautiously.
The rustling wind that breezed past the flowers and grasses answered him.
Wang Xiaoming found a tree and leaned against the trunk, slowly sitting down.
This was the first time he and Baal had fought so much that Baal had left without saying a word, though Wang Xiaoming didn’t think he had done anything wrong.
The sky remained dark and foreboding.
Wang Xiaoming sat for a long time without seeing Baal return and started to get worried.
“He’s not lost, is he?” Wang Xiaoming murmured to himself.
Baal, who had been floating not far above him and was looking down at Wang Xiaoming like a king upon his subject, almost rushed down. Him? Lost? With his intelligence? Hmph!
Wang Xiaoming stood up and glanced around. He still had the map and he roughly estimated his location before starting to walk toward the center ring.
Baal looked speechlessly in the direction Wang Xiaoming was walking. No matter what happened, the average person should be walking toward the safest outermost ring without him around, right?
The animals in the second ring didn’t possess the ability to attack voluntarily, so Wang Xiaoming’s walk went smoothly.
When he got to the center ring, he could feel the obvious difference.
The trees had practically no leaves and were all blackened and bare withered branches.
Wang Xiaoming silently gulped and
circled the same spot as he hesitated.
…
Stop walking if you’re afraid.
Baal thought in vexation.
“Baal… is probably in there, right?” Wang Xiaoming unconsciously connected the real Baal with the Baal in the game.
Baal, “…” What made Wang Xiaoming assume that he’d be in there?
Wang Xiaoming gave him the answer to the question very quickly. “Baal would like it here.”
……
Why did he think that he’d like…
Baal was utterly at a loss for words.
Wang Xiaoming cautiously walked toward the center and softly called out, “Baal… Baal…”
…
It was just a very common voice, but why did Baal’s heart itch at those words? His body seemed to have desires of its own.
Baal started to believe that it hadn’t been a good idea for him to leave just like that. But how should he go back? If he appeared just because Wang Xiaoming called a couple of times, he’d have no pride. Baal stroked his chin and thought about it.
“Awooo—”
From ahead came a sound that sounded very much like a pack of wolves howling in TV shows.
Wang Xiaoming’s legs wobbled from fright and he almost fell to the ground.
…
Baal watched it happening and suddenly a wonderful thought appeared in his mind: he could wait until Wang Xiaoming ran into danger and then appear like a savior. That would make Wang Xiaoming feel touched.
He fantasized.
But below him, the scene that played out was the direct opposite of what he had imagined.
“Maybe I should go back.” Wang Xiaoming swallowed silently and turned around to walk back.
……
Hadn’t Wang Xiaoming said that Baal would love this place and would definitely be there?! How irresolute!
Baal was extremely unhappy!
Wang Xiaoming slowly moved to somewhere between the second and third rings, then suddenly stopped and said to himself, “If I’m in danger, would Baal appear?” A lot of TV shows seemed to have that scene. When the protagonist ran into danger, the person they had been looking for the past 800 years would suddenly appear from the bottom of the hills or the cliffs and play the role of the savior.
…
Yes.
Baal answered affirmatively from his place above Wang Xiaoming’s head and silently encouraged him to be brave and keep walking. Only then would Baal have the chance to show off.
“But what if he doesn’t appear…” If he didn’t appear, there would be no director to say “cut” and then ask for another shot. “Nevermind.” Wang Xiaoming decided to treasure his life and stay away from the wolves.
Baal silently watched Wang Xiaoming’s feet move toward the green grass.
All of a sudden—
A wolf, silver from head to toe, shot out from the bushes. Its speed was so fast it could be described as having only taken a millisecond.
But that kind of speed was practically slow motion when viewed through Baal’s eyes.
He easily froze the wolf in midair and then watched as Wang Xiaoming slowly walked toward the second ring unawares.
“…” Baal descended from midair and landed in front of Wang Xiaoming.
Wang Xiaoming jumped and then leapt forward happily. “Baal!”
“…” In light of his exuberant passion, Baal decided to let things go. “Look behind you.”
Wang Xiaoming turned his head. That silver wolf was frozen bizarrely in midair and those green-tinted eyes were staring straight at him.
“Ah…”
Baal waited for Wang Xiaoming’s worship and gratitude.
“So that’s a magical beast!” Wang Xiaoming cried out excitedly. “So amazing! It can actually stop itself in midair!”
Baal, “…” Why did reality always have to be so different from his imagination?
“But what is it doing in midair?” Because the other realms had so much that was curious and strange, Wang Xiaoming instinctively attributed everything that couldn’t be explained as
par for the course in other realms.
Baal answered, “It’s not frozen there voluntarily.”
“Huh?”
“I froze it there.”
“Why?” Wang Xiaoming looked at him in incomprehension.
Baal enunciated each word carefully, “Couldn’t you tell that the direction it had been pouncing in was you?”
…
Realization dawned on Wang Xiaoming, and then cold sweat broke out on his back after the fact.
“Baal.”
“Hmm?” Now the gratitude should come, right?! Baal lifted his chin slightly. Though the delay had dissipated most of his expectations, it was better than nothing.
“You’ve been following me this entire time, right?” Wang Xiaoming’s hands silently snaked around Baal’s waist and he rubbed his head furiously against Baal’s chest.
Baal’s mind automatically converted that sentence into words of gratitude.
“Alright!” Wang Xiaoming raised his head with the hair that he had mussed up himself and declared confidently, “Let’s start working hard on gaining the approval of the forest!”
Baal asked, “How do you want to do this?”
“We should start from the flowers and grass.” Wang Xiaoming had a thorough plan. “To protect the forest, to protect nature, is everyone’s responsibility. So what we need to do right now is work hard and protect every blade of grass and every tree in this forest, and also the small creatures.”
“For example?”
“For example…” Wang Xiaoming glanced around and then pointed at the wolf in midair. “Put it down.”
Baal asked, “Aren’t you afraid it’ll bite you?”
“But I have you, right?” Wang Xiaoming replied without even thinking about it.
The speed at which he answered satisfied Baal very much, so Baal snapped his fingers and the wolf fell from the air and onto the ground. Its eyes looked guardedly at them and it neither moved forward nor backed down.
“I heard that wolves are the most loyal partners in the world.” Wang Xiaoming turned around as if he thought of something. “Wait, its model is a wolf, right?” From its physical appearance, he thought the pig that didn’t look like a pig was more of a magical beast.
“It’s a wolf,” Baal answered, “but its fur shouldn’t be this color.”
As Baal pointed it out, Wang Xiaoming realized that the wolf’s fur shone with a slight sheen of silver. If it hadn’t been a gloomy day and the surroundings so dark, its fur would have been much more eye-catching. “So, the wild beasts in the Kindred Realm are pigs and the magical beasts are wolves?”
Baal shrugged. “Probably.”
“I really wonder what tigers would look like in this place.” Just as Wang Xiaoming finished speaking, they heard the roar of a tiger.
The wolf waved its tail in the same spot and then vanished with a whoosh.
“So fast.” Wang Xiaoming stared dumbfounded. “No wonder it’s a magical beast.”
In the middle of the sentence, a tiger that shone with a dull golden light appeared.
Baal asked, “Have you ever considered being a prophet?”
Wang Xiaoming answered, “I’ll start considering that right now.”
The tiger slowly walked toward Wang Xiaoming and stopped when it got to about three steps away from the man. Then it slowly lowered its body and let out a—“Mew.”
……
“Did I hear wrong?” Wang Xiaoming’s body froze.
“It’s a tiger.”
“So the sound it just made could be described as… out of tune?”
The tiger sneaked a bit closer to Wang Xiaoming. The soft light that shone from both eyes was filled with docile gentleness.
“Awwoo…”
“Awoo…. Awooooo… Awoooo…”
The howls of wolves suddenly rose and fell and came from everywhere around them.
The tiger suddenly stood up and turned around so that its butt was facing Wang Xiaoming and its face was looking in the direction the wolf had just disappeared. It let out a ferociously threatening roar!
…
“It’s a tiger,” Wang Xiaoming declared affirmatively. He realized for the first time that an animal could simultaneously mew like a cat and roar like a tiger.
Suddenly, countless dark green eyes lit up around them, like legions of ghost-fire, chilling people to the bone.
Baal sensed Wang Xiaoming’s body getting ever closer to his own and reached out a hand to pull the man into his arms.
The tiger suddenly raised its front paws and slammed them down heavily, the earth shaking with the force!
“Roar—”
The tiger’s roar rang out once again, like thunder that resonated throughout the world!
…
Who could tell him what was happening?
Wang Xiaoming looked dazedly at the standoff in front of him—was he watching a live-action version of Animal World?
