Chapter 20: Too Much Poverty

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An Jin sighed at how exciting all cartoon plots were and turned his attention from the change in environment to Joey.
This was when he realized that Joey’s looks had changed and he was taller, looking about ten years old instead of five.

Joey waved his little fist.
“Holographic world, here I come.”

At this point the narrator appeared.
It was a childish voice simply and clearly introducing Joey’s favorite activity: wandering the holographic world.

An Jin didn’t understand every word, so he listened and watched the video to figure it out.
What he was watching was not a metaphysical film, but a cartoon science fiction film.
The helmet Joey wore, called a holographic helmet, was a necessary device to enter the holographic world.

Joey was obviously familiar with the holographic world and went straight to his destination: a food street.
After that, Joey began to eat and eat and eat.

An Jin stared at the sliced boiled pork in front of Joey, and the red hot soup made his mouth water unconsciously.
He wanted to eat something spicy!

He hadn’t eaten spicy food for too long, and the more he looked at it, the more he craved it.
He thought that when Norman came back, he must apply for a new recipe!

If Norman doesn’t agree, he’ll…sing more songs!

The more An Jin thought about it, the more he looked forward to it, and couldn’t wait for Norman to come back immediately.

Joey’s lips were red and his eyes were tearing up as he ate, but his chopsticks wouldn’t stop.
He took a piece of meat covered with red chili sauce and was about to put it in his mouth when the scene suddenly changed and he was back in the room.

Joey took off his helmet in annoyance.
“How did an hour go by so fast!”

A sweet, childish voiceover rang out, saying, “Children under ten years old can only spend a maximum of one hour a day in the holographic world!”

The end of the episode was over, and An Jin realized that the episode was over.
In this episode, he got to know a lot of food, some familiar and some unfamiliar, and the rich variety of food made him itchy.

So eager to eat~! I hope the master will come back soon.

At this time, Norman was still on the interstellar voyage.
Twenty hours later, he led the support fleet, and arrived in the fifth district.
Norman made a strategic deployment and led the fleet into battle, first driving the mecha into the herd.
The black mecha was a powerful force, huge but agile, and blood flowed everywhere it went.

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Norman’s face was expressionless, his brown eyes deep, and his gaze falling on the star beasts with no temperature.
It was not until the next morning, close to the time when he contacted the young mermaid, that he left the battlefield and returned to the main ship for repairs, leaving behind a bunch of shocked men.

“His Majesty has not fought like this for a long time!”

Some people were full of questions, “What happened, didn’t His Majesty just spiritually riot, why is the spiritual power so abundant?”

If he didn’t have a lot of spiritual power, he wouldn’t have been able to drive a mecha for a long time.
The use of a mecha will continue to consume spiritual power, and those who have a poor spiritual sea state would not dare to operate a mecha, because it was likely they would fall into spiritual riots in the process of using it.

Some people couldn’t help but speculate, their tone full of longing, “Could it be that the research institute has developed a new type of soothing agent?”

“I think it’s possible, maybe we can use it this time when we go back!”

Only the members of the Royal Guard were secretive, thinking: Too much.

His Majesty did not have any new soothing agent, only a solid-colored mermaid.
Thinking about it, the escorts couldn’t help but feel jealous of their comrades who stayed behind again.

In their absence, there was no telling how many songs the little mermaid would sing and how much spiritual force would be passed on to the back door escort.
The jealous back door guard, on the other hand, was filled with depression, as well as confusion.

Why did the little mermaid stop singing?

Did His Majesty leave and the little mermaid was not happy?

An Jin did not know that someone was waiting for him to sing.
He was satisfied with practicing a song and being able to cope with unexpected situations, and did not intend to continue practicing the song.
After all, practicing songs requires spiritual power, and he still had to practice his ability.

After Norman left, An Jin didn’t see a single living person except Norman in the newsletter every morning and evening.

On the fifth day, he was bored and floated on the water to empty his mind.

When his eyes swept to the door, it occurred to him that he hadn’t wandered around the villa in all the time he had been here.
He climbed out of his room and saw the robot standing in the doorway.
He tentatively moved inside the villa, gauging the robot’s reaction.

The robot stood still, not stopping him or carrying him back to his room.

An Jin’s eyes curved.
The robot obeyed Norman’s orders and did not stop him, which meant that Norman allowed him to wander around the villa! An Jin had no more worries and crawled to the nearest room, deciding to walk around the villa from near to far.
He visited one room after another, and when he came to the third room, he first tilted his head and looked at the door sign: Utility Room.

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He pushed the door open and looked inside.
The room was large and contained all kinds of things, including electrical equipment and household items.
Many of the things were brand new, and some of them were not even unpacked.
An Jin was curious about the things in this world, so he held the door frame, stubbed his tail and surveyed the various items from left to right.

When his head turned to the right, he suddenly stopped and shifted to the left.
There was a big box there, and on top of the big box was a small box, like a shoebox.
It was the small box that caught his attention.

He looked closely at the patterns and words on the box and his eyes lit up: it was the holographic helmet he had seen in cartoons.
He was surprised when he watched the video, so he was impressed and could not be mistaken.
He stared at the small box for a while, and his mind flashed to all kinds of food.

The more he thought about it, the more he craved it.
He swallowed and climbed into the utility room.

Once inside, he turned around, probed at the robot standing not far away, thought about it, and closed the door behind him.

I’m afraid the robot would report back to Norman if he noticed any perverse behavior.
How could a pet use a holographic helmet? It was too abnormal, so no robots could see it!

He propped the big box upright and it took a bit of effort to get the small box in his hands.
He slowly sat down with his tail flat on the ground, checked the packaging, and then carefully unboxed and removed the helmet.

He first read the manual.
The manual was only a thin sheet of paper, with text instructions he could not read, but there were also illustrations.
After reading, he put on the helmet, slightly adjusted it so that the helmet fit perfectly on his head, and then leaned back against the large box, in a comfortable position.

After the preparation, he raised his hand to the right side of the helmet button and pressed it.

All of a sudden, a mechanical voice sounded in his ears, “Welcome to the holographic world, you are detected as a first-time entrant to the holographic world, please read the newcomer instructions.”

An Jin clicked on the newcomer information and then silently clicked on the fork.
Compared with his ability to hear, his ability to recognize written words was much worse.
He directly clicked read, and in the next instant, he appeared in an empty white room with a “mirror” directly across from him.

An Jin looked at the person in the mirror, and all his attention was focused on those straight and slender legs.
He froze and looked down in a hurry.
It was his legs! His heart was beating wildly, so excited that he couldn’t quite believe it.

He took a deep breath, lifted his foot, and took a step.
He moved forward a little, and was just a little shaky when he landed on his feet.
It had been a while since he had walked on his feet, so he wasn’t very good at it.
He was so excited that he took two more steps, when he heard a mechanical alert, “Your appearance has not been changed, you will be recognized in the holographic world, do you want to enter directly?”

In the mirror, next to his mirror image, an option box appeared at the same time: [Yes/No.]

An Jin returned from the excitement of having two feet again and looked at the mirror.

After seeing his face, he was surprised: a little too good-looking.
With short black hair, aqua blue peach blossom eyes that were slightly upturned at the end, and crimson lips against his cool white skin, he looked stunning at first glance.
He was stunned by himself, then realized that the face seemed to be a combination of the old him and the current mermaid.

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He looked to the left side of the mirror and there were many options on it: change skin tone, change face shape, change body type… and so on, similar to a game’s face painting interface.
He surveyed himself in the mirror and finally landed on the aqua blue eyes, which were no different from when he was in his mermaid form.

He didn’t feel too safe, so he chose to change the pupil color.

He checked black, and a pop-up box popped up: [Please make sure your account balance is sufficient.]

The bottom left corner of the pop-up box showed a zero balance, and the bottom right corner was the recharge button.

I…have no money.

He tried the rest of the options, and every one of them required money, including changing his name.
Now his default name was a ten-digit symbol starting with K.
He studied the panel again and found that the cheapest way to hide his appearance was to use a randomly generated system image.

It was very mundane and almost impossible to remember at a glance.

An Jin was very tempted, however, the cheapest one was ten star coins.

An Jin was too poor and finally had to choose to enter directly.
The moment he pressed the button, the room disappeared and An Jin looked around.
He was at the corner of the street.
He looked around for a moment and noticed a square LED screen in front of him on the left, and from afar, it looked as if there was a map on it.

He immediately headed that way, starting so fast that he almost tripped over himself.

“…” An Jin steadied himself by holding onto the wall, slowed his pace, and slowly walked over.

On the screen was a map of his area, with a marker in the bottom right corner of the newcomer area: [You are here.]

An Jin looked at it carefully for a while and got a rough idea of where he was.
It was a small town, with rolling forests outside of it, and seemed rather backward.
He walked along the street to the end, and the sound of lively people suddenly came from his left.

He turned his head to look to the left.
The street was lined with all kinds of hotels, restaurants and snack bars, and the road was full of people coming and going.
Most of them were tall.

He went that way and didn’t have to walk long before he passed a restaurant.
The spicy smell came out from the restaurant and he couldn’t help but frown when he smelled it.

The spicy smell was accompanied by a not too strong, but not negligible, bitter stench that spoiled the taste.
An Jin glanced towards the restaurant.
The store was full of people, and four big men were eating against the entrance, sweating profusely.
He withdrew his gaze and moved on, but heard the name “Norman”.

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Someone was talking about Norman.
He stopped in a hurry and stood in the doorway, listening intently.

“I guess His Majesty Norman will be back in less than a week!”

“It’s been five days.
A week is too short, I guess ten days.”

“His Majesty Norman is strong, in my opinion, maybe he is on his way back now.”

The big man’s voice was loud and excited, “You should not underestimate His Majesty, have you forgotten? Ten years ago, when His Majesty Norman decided to establish a defense zone, many people thought His Majesty was having a fantasy! But you see, now there are five fortified areas.”

Another man lamented, “It’s a pity that only His Majesty has SSSS spiritual power.
Alas, if there were a few more generals with SSSS spiritual power, a few more people to deal with the advanced star beasts in the universe, maybe the defense zone plan would have been completed.”

A man with an older voice said, “It’s already great now, with five defense zones.
Most of the battles between SSSS spiritual power and star beasts have been shifted to the defense zones, and Siao is already the safest star in the Star League to live in.”

“I’m really looking forward to the day when all the defense zones are completed!”

The man’s voice lowered, “I’m afraid it’s difficult.
In the last two years, His Majesty’s spiritual sea situation was getting worse and worse, and the construction of the defense zone made almost no progress.”

“Talk.
His Majesty had spiritual riots not long ago, how will he personally go to the front line of the five districts?”

“I heard that His Majesty went just to appease the people and did not participate in the battle.
His spiritual power simply can not operate the mecha.”

“Ahem,” one person coughed lightly, “eat your vegetables, eat your vegetables, from where did you hear that blindly.”

An Jin was a little surprised, he didn’t fully understand, but could feel from these people’s conversation that they admired Norman.
His master’s identity seemed to be unusual.

“Hello, may I ask what you want to eat? Our restaurant has many dishes at a fair price.” A waiter saw An Jin standing at the door for a while and took the opportunity to come out and ask.

An Jin turned his head, found that the other party was much taller than him, and looked up slightly, smiling shyly.

“I don’t have any money.” For the first time, he stumbled over his words in interstellar.

The waiter looked surprised and pointed at his face.
“Don’t tease me.
This face of yours, it cost at least 100,000 star coins to make, right?”