Ries needed a moment to recover from what I told her so I went ahead to finish making dinner for everyone.

I managed to bring her back to her senses after she started eating so that's nice.

But then after we finished, she went back to brooding again.

On the other hand…

"You're handling this quite well…" Amber noted, looking at Lea who did not seem bothered at all by the revelation.

Lea shrugged, "We have a belief around the Tree of Life where multiple universes exist and are connected by the branches of the tree. So I do believe that Mistress might have come from another universe but it may not be through the medium she believes. After all, there was no clear evidence that she is indeed in a game, right?"

That seemed to shake Ries out of it and she jumped to her feet, "That's right! This might not be a simulation at all! Boss could have just dropped in through another way!"

I raised my eyebrow at that, "Like what?"

Ries Immediately started pacing around, "If I have to guess… If that VR machine of yours is like ours… I think what you experienced might have been a power surge that overloaded your machine."

"And… How does that translate to me being here?"

"It could have set off an anomaly that sent your avatar's existence straight into our universe! So it's not a simulation!"

"You're really terrified of it being a simulation huh?" I noted.

Ries grimaced, "I wouldn't call it terrified… But more like I wouldn't like it if I was told I was nothing but some virtual data in a machine… I make machines, not the other way around."

Ah… I guess it's a matter of builder's pride or something? I don't know…

I guess I would be upset too if I figured out that I wasn't a player in a game but just another NPC within another game.

I shrugged, "Well, I don't know for sure anyway so who knows… To me, I literally just blacked out and woke up here and that's all I know."

Amber giggled, "It's fine isn't it? The most important thing is that Tera is here and we are all here as well! So what if it's a simulation? All we can do is just live in the moment instead of worrying about things we have no control over!"

Ries frowned, "I would prefer to know so that I can at least work towards having control over it."

Amber tilted her head at her, "Huh… Does that mean that if you know this is a simulation, you can break out of it somehow?"

"With the right materials… And possibly some help… Yes."

Amber then went up to her and patted the cat girl on the shoulder, "Well I know I can't! So I'll leave that to you while I have fun with Tera! Ehehehe!"

Both Ries and Lea stared at her, clearly not agreeing with that arrangement.

Before they could argue though, Amber expertly drew their attention away from her to me instead by asking, "So Tera! You're from Earth right? What is it like?"

Ries and Lea also turned to me, obviously interested in the topic as well. Probably because the homeworld of humanity has been lost for ages already.

I tapped the side of my cheek, "Umm… I don't really know where to start… What looks and feels normal to me might not feel normal to you girls. So I guess from my side, humanity hasn't reached this level of tech yet so we have yet to explore space as extensively as this universe had."

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Ries took out her personal terminal and started tapping away on it like she was taking notes.

I didn't question her and just continued, "Umm… We didn't have things like these personal terminals I guess? No… We did, but they were not as advanced as this. Ummm… Oh yeah, we didn't have synthfood back then. All the food we ate was still organic in nature."

Amber gasped, "Does that mean everyone was rich?!"

"No, no. Organic food isn't as expensive as they are now so it was fairly affordable. Since… You know… The food is grown on the same planet that we live on instead of needing to be transported across the galaxy."

"And you do your own cooking?" Lea asked.

I nodded, "I lived alone so I had to cook for myself, yes. Though sometimes I still ate out of course. I would just like to say that I'm not even a professional chef back in my universe. There was a lot of good food and more skilled chefs than I am back then."

"How did you learn how to cook fish then?" Ries asked, her eyes sparkling.

I shrugged, "I just looked up recipes and followed them I guess?"

"Oh! There's space fish around Earth as well?!" The Maochatte gasped.

I blinked, "Space… Fish?"

At first, I was pretty sure that she just asked something ridiculous until I saw the look on Amber and Lea's faces which told me that she just said something that was common knowledge here and I was the one that was clueless.

I raised a hand, "Can I ask… Where do the fish we eat come from?"

Ries scratched her head, "Umm… If I'm not wrong, they should be caught in the Maochatte's sector of the galaxy. That's where most of the space fish breeding grounds are in the first place. So do humans also get their fish there?"

"Wait… Space fish… There are fish that are living in space or is that just a name of a fish?"

"Eh? Yes. It's the name of a category of fish that are found in space."

"There's actually fish in space?!"

Lea nodded, "Mistress. The main reason why the Maochatte likes fish is because of the abundance of fish that are found within their territory."

I looked at them, "But… What about fish found on planets? Like in oceans, seas, rivers and lakes?"

Ries let out an even louder gasp, "There's fish on Earth?!"

I turned to Amber for an explanation and she gave me an amused smile, "Space fish is basically like synthfood to the Maochatte. Fish that are found on planets are absolute delicacies to them. I believe most of the fish we've eaten so far are space fish."

My heart sank a little, "Does that mean… The meat that we've been eating… Are they space cows too?"

Amber giggled, "Oh no. Definitely not. Those cows definitely came from farming colonies. Although there are space animals that also have meat that taste like them too so maybe we might see those in the future!"

Hmm… Well, I don't have any particular aversion to eating those if they've already been proven to be safe to eat anyway so whatever.

I then turned to Ries, "But… The fish we've eaten so far… You seem to treat them as really good fish?"

"That's because you're the one making it, Boss!" She chuckled.

Really? Then again… I did manage to make synthfood taste good so I guess I shouldn't say anything more…

Amber cleared her throat, "Ahem… Boss… You do remember that we were fine eating synthfood and treated them as normal food until we met you, right?"

Ah… Oh yeah… I was the only one who found synthfood absolutely inedible…

Anyway…

"To answer Ries… Yes, Earth had water on its surface so there were fish living there that we would catch to eat."

She let out a squeal, "Ahhhh! I wanna see Earth! I wanna taste Earth's fish!"

Lea then tilted her head at me, "Mistress… Are you still planning to look for Earth?"

I nodded, "Of course. I mean… It is my home… Humanity's home. I'm more surprised that humanity hasn't found it yet."

Amber shrugged, "Those that care about it are still looking for it and failing. Those that don't care about it continued to struggle through life like us~"

Lea then raised her hand, showing that she had a question of her own.

I nodded at her and she asked, "Is it true that humanity had hydroponics farming as well?"

"Oh yes. We definitely had the tech to do that but it wasn't really that extensive. Most of our crops were still planted on land back then."

The Alv went back to contemplating my words so Amber was next to ask, "Is that how you knew how to swim as well?"

"Yep. It's actually a fairly common skill that people would just jump into the water and swim around for fun."

"They could do that?" Amber gasped.

I nodded, "Mmhmm, like I said, it was a fairly common skill."

"What about your fighting skills? I saw how you handle close combat fights before!"

"Ah… Err… That was all from the game actually… I just used my muscle memory to pull all that off."

"So there was no formal training involved?"

I nodded.

Amber suddenly reached out to hug my arm again, "Tera, you are so cool! If any higher up being tries to take you away from me, I'll definitely beat them up to stop that, you don't need to worry!"

First you said don't worry about it… Now you're also looking to challenge the gods… Make up your mind, Amber…