PGVCW 51

 

Playing God in Various Catastrophic Worlds

Chapter 51: Raising a Divine Pet

"Hold on, give me a second to process this. Wang'an picked up... an angel?"

"A winged, silver-haired angel??"

The overwhelming majority of personnel back at headquarters were utterly floored by this sudden turn of events. Only the Contingency Planning Department was buzzing with jubilation. Sifting through tens of thousands of speculative scenarios, they pulled up Entry #3,421: "Encountering an angel in the magical realm."

"See! Our department doesn't just pull wild guesses out of thin air! Look how spot-on we were!"

An agent from the Special Cases Handling Department retorted, "And did your pre-set protocols account for Wang'an becoming completely smitten with this angel?"

"Er, we had a contingency for Wang'an being seduced and mesmerized by honeyed traps, but nothing for her treating an angel as a cute household pet and getting smitten that way..."

Indeed, Xia Wang'an had immersed herself wholeheartedly in the joyous atmosphere of "raising an adorable little pet." Unusually for her, the girl who habitually adhered to a rigid, disciplined cultivation schedule actually pushed back her six o'clock meditation block by ten minutes just to draft a "Pet Care Manual." Although she rigorously made up for those ten minutes before turning in at night—even multiplying her effort by two to maintain spiritual precision—for the headquarters staff who understood her habits inside and out, this was a historic, unprecedented anomaly.

The angel youth—possessing a face so devastatingly gorgeous it bordered on a celestial crime—turned out to be meek and docile to the extreme. He was mute, bereft of memories, and a complete blank slate. Strangely, however, he clung to Xia Wang'an with intense devotion; despite meeting her for the first time, he acted as though he had instinctively recognized his true master.

An angel of completely unknown origin had attached himself to Xia Wang'an, following her step for step every single day. How could this fail to set off red alerts across headquarters?

"Still, if angels actually exist in this magical world..." The head of the World Background Analysis Division remarked, "...then doesn't that imply the legendary God of Light is also real?"

These overarching mysteries kept thousands of personnel at headquarters scrambling around the clock, attempting to deduce the unknown parameters of this realm based on available data fragments. Yet, despite Blue Star treating his arrival as a potential crisis, the sudden angel displayed zero aggressive intent.

Calling himself "Lux," the angelic youth behaved less like a formidable celestial entity and more like a newborn animal. Incapable of articulate speech, he could only vocalize his own name, yet he harbored an intense dependence on Xia Wang'an, tracking her movements wherever she went. A medical team conducted exhaustive examinations on him for half a day without discovering a single anomaly. Although he looked like an adult youth, Lux didn't even know how to walk initially. Once he slowly mastered bipedal locomotion, he would trudge after Xia Wang'an with slow, clumsy steps, his expression brimming with eager urgency.

"Lux... Lux..." He would softly chant his own name, trailing behind her like a baby chick following its mother.

Xia Wang'an would gleefully sprint ahead, and once Lux caught up, she would toss a rubber ball across the spotless grassy lawn of the courtyard. The angel—still unsteady on his feet—would droop his gorgeous white wings, waddle over step by step, pick up the ball, and present it back to Xia Wang'an with shining eyes.

He would call out happily, "Lux! Lux!"

Xia Wang'an would take the ball and throw it again, and Lux would excitedly scurry off to fetch it once more.

Witnessing this entire routine, the remaining members of the Five Tongs Squad stood frozen in dead silence.

Cai Cai asked hesitantly, "Is Wang'an... playing fetch with Lux as if he's a dog?"

Yuan Ning maintained his unshakeable conviction in Xia Wang'an's absolute righteousness: "Nonsense. Wang'an simply enjoys playing catch."

Qiu Zhuang clicked his tongue: "What a shame. So drop-dead gorgeous, yet completely simple-minded."

Lin Ke remained silent. Crouched on the roof, he watched Xia Wang'an and Lux play fetch, looking eager to join in.

Flight Lessons and Misunderstandings

Samples of Lux's hair and blood were dispatched to the Xia Kingdom, alongside a medical student on the cusp of graduating who arrived with a suite of diagnostic gear to perform a comprehensive physical evaluation. Yet every test yielded the exact same result: physically, he matched a standard human physique.

However, one detail was worthy of note: despite possessing a pair of majestic wings, Lux could not fly.

Xia Wang'an attempted to teach him. She took her role as his caretaker quite seriously; seeing that he couldn't fly, she accessed the Blue Star archive, sifting through a vast compilation of airborne species before singling out the extinct eagle. Enthusiastically, she marched Lux up to the edge of a sheer cliff and pushed him right off.

Terrified out of his wits, Lux let out a shrill scream and curled into a tight ball, forcing Xia Wang'an to swoosh down on her spirit sword to scoop him back up. He was so devastatingly handsome that even his terrified, tearful state looked mesmerizing.

On her way back, she ran into a cluster of local aristocrats, who all wore expressions of “Ah, Her Highness the Princess certainly possesses exquisite tastes.”

In this world, high-level mages were capable of flight, so the nobility had assumed all along that Xia Wang'an was merely an imperial princess endowed with immense mana. Awestruck by her formidable power, everyone had shifted their strategies. None dared harbor malicious intent, choosing instead to curry favor with her. Someone had even drawn inspiration from Lux's presence, spending a fortune to acquire an exceptionally handsome beastkin with the intention of presenting him to Xia Wang'an as a tribute gift.

Considering that these nobles had gifted her a vast quantity of translation scrolls, Xia Wang'an tolerated their idle, lingering presence around her domain, entirely unaware of the bizarre "gift" heading her way.

Upon returning to the residence, Lux trembled uncontrollably, occasionally gazing up at the sky with an expression of acute dread and phantom pain. Yuan Ning spent ages trying to soothe him to no avail, but the moment Xia Wang'an gently patted his head, he quietly drifted off to sleep. Following this incident, Lux attached himself to Xia Wang'an even more intensely, having entirely forgotten who had kicked him off the cliff in the first place.

After a series of failed aviation lessons, Xia Wang'an was forced to concede that Lux was an angel afflicted with a severe fear of heights.

Even so, she remained exceptionally fond of him. Furthermore—whether it was mere placebo or reality—she noticed that her cultivation speed surged noticeably whenever Lux was near her side. Upon realizing this, regardless of whether it was an illusion, Xia Wang'an felt immensely energized.

She promptly declared that she would be cuddling Lux to sleep that night.

Hearing this, every member of the Five Tongs Squad—excluding Lin Ke, who understood nothing—nearly choked on their own breath.

"Wang'an, Lux is male! You two cannot sleep together!"

Cai Cai stared at the angel whose beauty transcended dimensional boundaries and declared with righteous indignation, "Unless all three of us sleep together!"

Xia Wang'an countered calmly, "I know opposite genders shouldn't share a bed; I'm not a child." She laid out her logic with absolute conviction: "Lux is an angel. Haven't you read the lore? Angels are genderless, so sharing a bed is completely fine."

Yuan Ning, who had personally helped Lux bathe and dress: "He has a gender! He is unequivocally male!"

Xia Wang'an turned to Cai Cai: "Then the three of us will sleep together."

Qiu Zhuang hurriedly grabbed Cai Cai: "No way!"

Xia Wang'an and Cai Cai fixated confused gazes upon him: "Why not?"

Qiu Zhuang stammered for a long moment before blurting out, "Because... because I'm afraid you two will pick on him! It's two against one—what if you start treating him like a pet dog again?!"

Xia Wang'an clicked her tongue: "Then you come sleep with us too. You can supervise."

Qiu Zhuang froze, completely caught off guard by the proposition.

Beside them, Lin Ke's eyes lit up: "Me too! I want to join!" He then generously invited Yuan Ning, "Yuan Ning, come along! Let's all sleep together!"

That night, the Five Tongs Squad abandoned their comfortable individual beds, making a giant collective floor-bed in the main hall.

Infrastructure and Social Reform

For the time being, Lux's threat level was downgraded. While personnel back on Blue Star remained busy, the operational team in the magic world was equally occupied.

Across the domain granted to Xia Wang'an, rows of neat residential houses materialized. They were simple, single-story brick structures, constructed from standard mass-produced bricks that gave them a uniform grey facade. Yet the serfs were overflowing with joy, because Princess Wang'an had declared that these houses were to be distributed directly to them.

The serfs' enthusiasm for work reached unprecedented heights. In the mornings, they diligently cultivated the fields; in the afternoons, they shouldered agricultural tools to clear surrounding wilderness. Several robust, hardworking serfs earned Princess Wang'an's approval, receiving authorization to join the construction corps.

Previously, the serfs had never heard the term "construction corps," nor did they realize that the muddy, rutted tracks they walked on daily could actually be paved. But Princess Wang'an preferred cleanliness and despised walking on roads that splattered mud during rainstorms, so she established the construction corps.

Spacious, clean, and immaculately flat concrete roads began to unfold across the terrain. Initially, the serfs didn't even dare step on them. Even when their new sovereign, Princess Wang'an, announced that these roads were free for everyone to walk on, timid hesitation prevailed.

An overseer who had once visited the capital city shared the exact same mindset as the common serfs: "Merciful Light God! Even the main thoroughfares of the royal capital aren't this spotless and smooth. This road looks more comfortable than my own bed—how could we possibly dare tread upon it with our filthy feet?!"

Consequently, despite the roads being completed, not a single soul walked on them. The locals meticulously bypassed the pristine concrete, continuing to tread through the surrounding mud and weeds.

The two civil engineering students who had led the automaton units to construct the roads stood speechless: "......"

Though there were only two students on site, they were backed by an entire brain trust of veteran engineering experts back on Blue Star. These experts—many of whom had participated in the emergency construction of the Five Districts' backup shelters—had approached this minor road-paving project with absolute, rigorous perfectionism. After all, it was confirmed that this domain served as the strategic foothold for Xia Wang'an and Blue Star's expansion into the magical realm—their main base.

To the serfs, it appeared as though the knights beside Princess Wang'an had casually surveyed a stretch of land, bustled about for a short while using magic-like techniques, and brought forth a breathtaking, level highway. In reality, a hidden mountain of preparation—blueprints, structural calculations, resource allocation, site clearance, and cross-departmental coordination—had been executed by dozens of personnel back at headquarters. They had even accounted for aesthetic integration!

If nobody walked on the finished roads, what was the point?

Ultimately, Xia Wang'an issued an absolute decree: everyone leaving their homes was strictly required to walk on the newly constructed roads.

Not daring to disobey their sovereign, the serfs meticulously washed their dirty, calloused feet in nearby streams, copying the pristine habits of Princess Wang'an's guards. Only when their feet were thoroughly clean did they gingerly step onto the stone-free concrete.

The children acclimated to the concrete roads far faster than the adults. They darted back and forth merrily, calling out to their parents, "It doesn't hurt when you step on it! Your feet don't bleed!"

Most serfs possessed no shoes, habitually walking barefoot across rough terrain without batting an eye, treating cuts from sharp stones or brambles as an ordinary part of daily life. Clothes and footwear were precious household assets reserved for extreme necessity. Every child grew up crying from thorn pricks and stone cuts until their soles built up thick, impervious calluses like their parents.

Now, everything was changing. The roads built by Princess Wang'an's construction corps meant children no longer suffered injuries. They were breaking free from the generational suffering that had bound their ancestors.

Though uneducated and burdened by relentless daily toil, the serfs could feel a strange, unfamiliar sense of peace and happiness blooming within their chests as they watched their children run freely across the smooth concrete. This emotional shift was made possible because they had just eaten a full meal—hearty roasted potatoes and actual slices of bread.

Their bodies no longer felt perpetually weighed down by exhaustion. Being sated was a miraculous feeling; tasks that previously demanded three hours of grueling labor were now completed in an hour and a half. Stream water was efficiently redirected straight to the crop fields via newly installed irrigation systems, eliminating the backbreaking routine of manual watering. Agricultural implements had been completely overhauled with unfamiliar designs that drastically boosted farming efficiency.

People began bathing regularly, washing away layers of accumulated grime. Though slightly unfamiliar at first, the refreshing feeling of physical cleanliness quickly won them over.

Public latrines were stationed along the roadways. Initially, the serfs felt awkward using them, preferring their habitual method of squatting anywhere in the wild. However, once agricultural officers began teaching them composting techniques, demonstrating how foul manure could enrich the soil and yield bountiful harvests, their attitudes transformed instantly. They shifted overnight from "sneaking off into the bushes" to "insisting on using their designated neighborhood latrine."

This shift occurred because Princess Wang'an's agricultural officer announced that every latrine was assigned a specific numerical ID. The compost harvested from a specific latrine would be allocated exclusively to the fields belonging to the households assigned to that ID.

Virtually overnight, neighbors began monitoring one another like hawks. If a serf caught someone from their assigned latrine block slipping off to use a different facility, they would fly into a rage equivalent to "How dare you dump our precious treasure elsewhere?!"

Patrol guards even apprehended two serfs caught red-handed attempting to steal nightsoil from another latrine to dump into their own block's collection pit. The victimized households were so incensed that they gathered the courage to file an official complaint with the agricultural officer, demanding harsh punishment for the shameless thieves.

They demanded a penalty payment of one pound of nightsoil!

No, two pounds!

The Xia Kingdom agricultural student serving as the local agricultural officer stood utterly speechless: "......"

She had heard that members of the previous dimensional expedition squad spent their days battling mutated flora and monster hordes across exotic battlefields. Why had her own assignment devolved into presiding over a legal dispute regarding nightsoil compensation? Wasn't this a job for law school graduates?

In the end, this undergraduate student—experiencing the raw realities of grassroots administration ahead of graduation—was forced to issue a fair verdict: for the next month, the two nightsoil thieves were required to answer nature's call exclusively at the victimized latrine to compensate for the loss.

Though they didn't receive an immediate payout of two pounds of nightsoil, the serfs were thoroughly satisfied with the ruling. They praised the agricultural officer's absolute fairness and once again sang praises of Princess Wang'an's divine wisdom.

Perhaps initially, the serfs had been confused about Princess Wang'an's true origins. But as more attendants and guards appeared by her side, the truth gradually spread.

Princess Wang'an hailed from a mighty, mystical empire known as the Xia Kingdom. She was the sole royal princess of the Xia Kingdom, destined to ascend as its future Queen. She had arrived in this realm by chance, fallen in love with the fragrant freshness of their local soil, and accepted the domain gifted by Count Albert to establish her residence.

Her boundless benevolence ensured that the serfs ate their fill every day, received superior farming tools, walked on paved roads, and learned to turn waste into agricultural treasure. Crops flourished because of Her Highness; children grew lively and healthy because of Her Highness. Even the soldiers and attendants she brought were overwhelmingly powerful, remarkably kind, and never abused their authority over them.

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