The Earth is Online Chapter 16.2
The turkey egg that the big mole had given him was the size of an adult man’s fist. After taking it, Tang Mo had rapped it a couple of times and then just put it in his pocket. He didn’t realize that it happened to have been brought out of the game.
It was an extremely ordinary white egg. It was no different from an ordinary chicken egg except that its size was a bit bigger. The big mole had said humans couldn’t incubate turkeys and that giving this egg was just so that Tang Mo could casually eat it. However, Tang Mo tried his hardest to knock it against the steering wheel.
“Dong!”
There was a dull sound. Tang Mo stared at it.
Tang Mo: “...”
The turkey egg hadn’t broken. Instead, a small crack had been smashed into the steering wheel!
How can this be eaten? You’d have to have teeth made of copper or iron to eat it, okay!
Tang Mo had no idea, but at this very moment, on the Black Tower’s first floor, in the mole cavern of Underground City, the big mole was holding its head in both its claws and muttering continuously.
“How can anyone attack the first floor now?”
It thought for a long time and finally consoled itself like this - “At any rate, it wasn’t from my place that they passed.”
After saying this, the big mole was suddenly much more relaxed. It gave a sinister laugh and began to dig in the dirt with both its claws.
“Today I ate such a delicious turkey. It really was too profitable. That person didn’t know how precious Mosaic’s match is. When can those humans come again and bring me another Mosaic’s match, ah…”
The big mole dug a huge pit, revealing a large number of white eggs. It was precisely from here that it had just before taken an extremely ordinary white egg and given it to Tang Mo. The big mole laughed, pleased with itself, and continued to use its claws to dig into the depths of the white eggs, all the while talking to itself.
“But I didn’t give you my precious egg. [1] I must lock it up carefully in a chest and fall asleep holding it every day. Only an idiot would give…you…AHHHH!!! Where’s my egg!!!”
All that could be seen in the pile of white eggs was a tiny iron chest. It was unclear when it had been opened, but there was nothing inside but air.
Black Tower First Floor, Turkey Nest.
A giant turkey the size of a tiger lay on the ground, on its dying gasp. Beneath its body, blood flowed across the dirt. It was still calling out, “gu gu gu,” its sharp talons moist with human blood, but it was already unable to stand up. So long as it was hit one more time, it would certainly die.
However, it was very lucky. The person that had inflicted such heavy damage to it also lacked the strength to stand.
The turkey gnashed its teeth.
“Gu gu…stowaway…gu gu, I’ll eat you, gu…” [2]
One of the legs of the black-clad man had been torn off by the turkey and blood flowed across his body. A bloody gash had been pecked into his left arm by the turkey and his right arm shockingly had no hand. From the point of his wrist sprouted a huge, pitch-black metal cone, suffused entirely in a black and purple luster.
The man coughed up a mouthful of blood and swung his right arm. That terrifying and violent metal cone disappeared, changing into a right hand that was covered in cuts and bruises. Without using his two hands, he climbed into the turkey’s nest and extended a hand to take the white turkey egg that the turkey had treated like a treasure and hidden in the heart of the grass pile.
The turkey snarled, “You put my egg down!!!”
“During the fight just now, you constantly avoided hitting this egg.” The man wiped the blood he had coughed up off the edge of his lips, appearing serene as he concluded, “It’s a treasure.”
The turkey fluttered its wings, unable to restrain its anger, but it didn’t even have the strength to stand. For the first time, it regretted having seen this stowaway and being moved by the desire to eat him. If it hadn’t wanted to eat this stowaway and hidden behind him to mount a sneak attack, the two of them wouldn’t have fought. If they hadn’t fought, the turkey wouldn’t have ended up like this. Who could’ve imagined that this stowaway was actually so strong? He had actually forcibly cleared the Black Tower’s first floor from the turkey’s place!
It doesn’t matter that he cleared the first floor - what matters is its egg! Its most precious egg!!!
“Give it back to me!!!”
The turkey exhausted all of the strength in its body and, in spite of everything, actually stood up, staggering toward the man. But just as it was about to peck at him and snatch back the turkey egg in his hand, the sound of the Black Tower’s clearance notice rang out. The man’s figure suddenly disappeared and the turkey pounced on air, falling to the dirt.
“Gu gu gu gu…my egg…gu gu gu…egg…gu…”
All of A-Country’s players left the Black Tower’s first floor at the same moment.
Fu Wenduo had escaped with his life from the turkey’s nest with great difficulty. A leg had been torn off by the turkey and left in the nest. Upon leaving the Black Tower’s first floor, he lay down in an abandoned construction site, his surroundings devoid of any people. A creaking sound came from his cut-off right leg. Looking carefully, his leg had actually become a bit bigger.
Although the speed was very slow, the cut part was really growing back once again.
Situations like this were actually not few. Throughout A-Country, every player had been pulled into the Black Tower’s first floor to carry out a tower attack game. There were players like Tang Mo who had Mosaic’s match and didn’t have a violent conflict with the big mole, however they were too few. There were even more like Fu Wenduo who directly exchanged blows with the Black Tower’s creatures like this.
There were those who died on the Black Tower’s first floor, and there were those who saw the light of day.
The people who escaped from inside had, for the most part, obtained a treasure. Even if their bodies were covered in injuries, they were also beside themselves with happiness, tightly holding the treasures they had obtained through untold hardships.
Right as the flesh on his right leg had grown up to the point of the knee, Fu Wenduo opened both his eyes and took that white turkey egg out of his pocket.
He stared at it as the setting sun drooped down, sunlight shining on the turkey egg. Suddenly, a colorful ray of light blossomed, and a small line of words appeared on the white eggshell –
[Item: Momo.
User: Fu Wenduo.
Quality: Rare.
Level: Level two (can be raised).
Attack Power: Ordinary.
Function: Save current game progress.
Restrictions: Can only be used once every seven days and can only save one hour of time.
Remarks: As a Chinese person of the new era, don’t you know in your heart what Momo is?] [3]
Fu Wenduo: “...”
At the same moment, Tang Mo was right then carefully studying the hard and incomparably strange turkey egg, occasionally tapping it a couple of times and, becoming interested, smashing it twice with the ability book which he still held.
He couldn’t figure anything out by studying it, so Tang Mo didn’t waste his time. He gave up studying the turkey egg for now and drove toward S-City’s Anding District. He placed the turkey egg beneath the front window. A ray of light came shining through the window and, little by little, colorful words emerged on the turkey egg.
Tang Mo immediately stopped the car to observe the turkey egg’s change.
[Item: ####### (damaged).
User: Tang Mo.
Quality: Rare.
Level: @#¥@ (can be raised).
Attack Power: Ordinary.
Fun@$#: Save game #%^@$@#.
Restrictions: @#$#%@$@!#.
Remarks: As a @$@$%@#$!@#.]
Tang Mo: “...” What the hell is this!?
Tang Mo bent his middle finger and tapped on the turkey egg a few times. Right as he tapped it a third time, suddenly, a deep male voice sounded from inside the turkey egg.
“Momo?”
Tang Mo was abruptly stunned. It couldn’t be that the turkey egg was also a living thing and was even able to know that his name was Tang Mo?
But to immediately call him ‘Momo’ seemed a bit too intimate, right… [4]
He hemmed and hawed for a moment, [5] then lightly “en”d once. He thought about it, and said, “Are you a turkey or turkey egg?”
The voice in the turkey egg suddenly stopped. The next moment, a cold and severe voice sounded: “Who are you?”
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Translation Notes:
[1] There’s a joke here that’s hard to translate. The mole calls its treasured egg ‘蛋蛋’ (dandan) rather than the singular ‘蛋’ (dan) that means egg, I think as a way to emphasize how special it is/be cutesy, like how you can repeat a syllable in someone’s name to make a cute nickname. (e.g. ‘Momo’ for Tang Mo) However, in this case… ’蛋蛋’ means balls. The testicular kind. :| So this sentence actually reads, ‘I didn’t give you my precious balls.’
[2] I’m pretty sure there’s another joke here that doesn’t translate. The onomatopoeia 咕 (gu) is both the sound that a bird makes and the sound an empty stomach makes. It’s both a bird and failed to secure a meal… lighting a candle… won’t someone have pity on these poor, hungry Black Tower monsters… (I alone will.)
[3] Momo (陌陌) shares a name with a Chinese social media/networking app that connects you with others by physical proximity. It’s branded as an app for making friends, but when I was looking it up I saw a lot of stuff about using it to find dates. So it’s Tinder. Momo is a Tinder joke. Fu Wenduo and Tang Mo met through Tinder. (And at this moment, when I realized the meaning of this joke, I was SO glad I decided to translate from the raws. Instant validation for an otherwise dubious life decision.)
[4] Momo (陌陌) uses the same character as the Mo in Tang Mo. As I mentioned above, doubling a syllable in someone’s name is a way of giving them an affectionate nickname.
AND. I am NOT saying that the author named Tang Mo this way in order to make this specific joke. But it IS something that I would do. So I’m also not ruling it out.
[5] 沉吟 - the dictionary says that this is ‘to mutter irresolutely’ but other sources say ‘to ponder,’ so I split the difference and used an English turn of phrase that is basically both.
