Chapter 27

Taking a final sweep together with his entourage, he smiled as he stood in the entryway saying to an imaginary audience:

"Welcome to my home!"

*************

To celebrate his new home, Airic proposed a movie night with his bodyguards. However, he realised that he knew no movies from this era, and as such, went online to search for the current top film.

Airic found that the hottest film played throughout the galaxy at the moment of the search was a film directed by G'ha Ihn, a Halonsian with great acclaim in the movie industry, called Great Escape from Ancient Earth. It was a thriller involving the historical destruction of Ancient Earth, where a batch of people tried to escape during the countdown.

The film synopsis sounded good, and the graphic quality was sure to be beautiful, as seen with the music video, so he put it on for the group. They had all read the synopsis and were all excited.

Then it started.

The only person not engrossed was AIric who had had a peculiar look on his face as he watched the movie. The Computer Generated Imagery was quite advanced, but, it seemed inappropriate. There was no harmony between scenes, as it seemed disjointed. Also, the film played more like a historical documentary, further helped with its historical accuracy. Not to mention the performance by the actors, there was no sense of danger portrayed throughout the movie.

Airic almost yawned throughout the movie. It was incredibly tedious, even compared to the documentaries he saw on Earth. From what he had gathered from N'yall and Lunario, the century before colonisation of nearby planets and systems, the central government had issued a ban on anything non-scientific to prevent humanity from getting distracted.

The ban destroyed all things related to entertainment, from the companies to the archives. Raids ordering the removal of recordings hidden away became commonplace. It became known as the Desolate Era. As, this decision reduced creativity as there was no longer any stimulus like movies, dramas, etc.

It is one of the ugly histories talked about in the archives of humanity, as the zealous destruction of entertainment had left humankind lacking, the skills to be incredibly creative. The most developed form of creativity currently was still in technology, as promoted throughout the Desolate Era. So, it made sense that the movies and shows actors were not the best, but:

'When people said that the movies now were not the same as the movies then, I thought it would be better now, but why is it this bad?' he thought as they watched, 'I feel no thrills despite it being a thriller, in fact, I feel like falling asleep. Thrill? What thrill? Thrill your head!(╯ಠ‿ಠ)╯︵┻━┻'

When the first scenes appeared, he looked confused, as it boasted about Earth and its beauty. It felt more like propaganda advert than a thriller film. He took a look at the others and saw how they seemed to enjoy the praises it heaped on the now-demolished planet and put on a similar expression. Then as it moved forward, he noticed the actors looked like part of the background, it was like whether they were there or not, the show could go on. Their eyes looked dead as they recited lines from their scripts, movements exaggerated, and they delivered their lines with no inflexion.

Time flowed like tar, as he anxiously waited for its end(ﾉω･｀o).

Once the movie was over, he had to sit in silence as the rest of them praised the film. It was torture, as he wanted to say how bad it was, but he dared not as this was the current film standard.

As the others were celebrating, they were interrupted by the doorbell. Footage from the front door revealed a man in a suit, standing in front of the door.

"Sir, we will take care of it. Please sit down while we verify his identity." said One as he walked to the door.

On the Heads-Up-Display (HUD) screen, One appeared as he opened the door and talked with the man. It was clear that One recognised him as the man came into the house unharmed. Airic watched until they were no longer being shown on screen before he closed it and looked towards the entrance of the living room. As expected, One was leading a professionally dressed man towards the seating area in front of the big screen TV. He walked with confidence bordering on arrogance, with an interstellar brand designer suit, and a new pair of shoes. Evident with the crisp sounds of his feet walking on the marble-like floor.

The man stopped a bit away from Airic, and extended his arm in greeting, saying:

"Hello, Mr Core. I will be your new manager starting today. My name is Drala Sihxa, and I graduated from the Reynor Institute of Business. I assure you that I will help you achieve success." Drala said, oozing arrogance.

"I see... as you know, I am Airic Core, and I hope that we can get along well." Airic said, cheek twitching at the pompous introduction.

"Very well, as your manager, I have brokered an advert with a company based on Oceanid following the hype caused by Sea Dreams. They are involved in underwater equipment, from the vessels to diving gear. "

There was a strange atmosphere once he finished speaking, as Airic looked a bit uncomfortable as Airic looked a bit unwilling, unknown to the rest of the room. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, after seeing this world's version of a blockbuster, once he heard Drala talk about an ad. To be honest, he was not optimistic about it, especially with the poor showing he experienced so far. So, on hearing the smug voice of Drala expecting praise over a single advertisement video of dubious quality, he felt like he had fought K-Kong and lost brutally.

"I don't know, maybe we can look at their past adverts and make a judgement?" He said with a straight face, already loading up a past ad from the company, and barely kept himself from shouting: 'I knew it would be bad too!'