The Record of Unusual Creatures

Most demon hunters in the north lived a life similar to that of a monk. They did not own houses but lived in various temples or barracks. White Flame was no exception. She lived deep inside a frosty temple, which had become her home ever since Hasse adopted her.

Hasse brought them to the place where White Flame lived. It was in the deepest part of the temple, in front of an ancient oak door. This door and the surrounding Gothic columns were all showing their age and vicissitude of thousands of years. Though not dark, it felt depressing to be in this temple. Standing in front of the door and looking at the mottled spots on it, Hao Ren had difficulty connecting this place with a boudoir.

He had met White Flame a few times but did not really know much about her. This was his first time at her residence. His impression was that she was a nun, growing up in the demon-hunter organization, receiving rigorous combat training and indoctrination. She was a girl entirely lived life as a penance. He put his hand on the heavy oak door. It felt as cold as an ice sheet.

“I can feel why she said she didn’t like this place, it’s cold and boring,” Hao Ren mumbled to Vivian who stood beside him. He then knocked on the door lightly.

After a long while, a faint voice was heard in the room. “Who is it? Come in. The door is not locked.”

Hao Ren gave the door a gentle push. When the door swung open, he thought he had come into a wrong place: the scene behind the door had his jaw dropped to the floor.

The wall facing the door was entirely a display shelf, filled with various garage kits and comic magazines. The floor was strewn with magazines and snack packaging. In the corner of the room was a single bed, which looked as if it had never been cleaned up. The bed sheet was heaped like abstract art in a corner. In the other corner of the room was a large 50-inch LCD TV connected to a PS4 game console. A petite girl wearing a cartoon nightgown was sitting cross-legged on the ground playing game. Her back was facing the door so they could not see her face. But she had long silver hair that spread down like a waterfall on her shoulders.

The girl did not even turn her head around. She just waved her hand and said, “Shut the door, please. It’s cold.”

Hasse, who came with them, could not bear to see the scene and hemmed. “White Flame, you have visitors.”

While still in the middle of her game, White Flame suddenly came to her senses. She jumped to her feet and scurried toward the door. “Ahh!”

Picking up his jaw, Hao Ren took a step back. Facing with the silver-haired girl in cartoon pajamas, with big dark circles under her eyes, unkempt hair and crumbs of potato chip in the corners of her mouth, Hao Ren raised his hands in a defensive posture and asked, “Who is this?”

White Flame was stunned and her expression changed. “Hao… Ren? What brings you here?”

Suddenly realizing her pledge of allegiance to Hao Ren, the girl quickly changed her tone of voice. Look aside, she was still dependable. But Hao Ren could not feel it. Staring at the girl for a long while, he was finally convinced that she was White Flame. Feeling as if he had come to a parallel universe, he asked, “Are you possessed by the will of the goddess?”

Hao Ren could not help it. Aside from her signature silver hair, she was anything but otherworldly.

“Will of the goddess? What will of the goddess?” White Flame asked.

Vivian quietly stepped back and whispered to Hasse, face serious. “Is she like this usually?”

“Ahh… No, she wasn’t like this when she was a kid. You know, back then, humans hadn’t invented the game console yet.” Hasse’s face looked hopeless. Apparently, he knew that this would be the situation. “She likes comics from a very young age.”

Lily stared for a long while before she said, “But things don’t seem to fit in here.”

Hao Ren and Vivian snorted in unison, “Shut up! You are not qualified to comment here!”

White Flame calmed down and invited Hao Ren inside. But almost immediately, she pushed him back out again. “I need to change. Please give me a minute.”

Before Hao Ren could react, the massive and quaint oak door was slammed shut from the inside. Weirdly, he breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at the old wooden door again, he felt that the scene looked normal again with the door closed.

In just less than half a minute, the door opened again with a genius demon-hunting girl appeared in front of him. Dressed in a black suit, hair was tied into a ponytail, with no more crumbs of snack at the corner of her mouth, except the dark circle under her eyes, White Flame was in her usual look now. Even her sharp and clear-cut aura had returned. But Hao Ren could still see the tragic room behind her and the eye-catching word “GAME OVER” on the 50-inch screen.

White Flame looked back and screamed quietly, “Oops! I didn’t save it!”

Speechless.

“I didn’t expect this…” Hao Ren’s mouth twitched, and he could not help but murmured again, “Damn it. Where is my Nun of the Coldfrost Citadel?”

White Flame overheard it and smiled embarrassingly. “Err… who says that demon hunters can’t have a hobby?”

Hao Ren rubbed his forehead. He realized that this is not the first time White Flame said this. The last time she said it was when everyone learned that she loved comics. It had been a big blow to his perception of demon hunters. But this time, it hit him harder.

Nevertheless, he now had a deeper appreciation of this phrase of White Flame.

“Life on the ice sheet is boring,” White Flame said. She had regained her usual aura after changing back into her combat suit. Smiling, she said calmly, “It’s far from the bustling world, no shopping malls and no parks. Basically, my daily routine would be combat training and studying the ancient scrolls; otherwise, there is nothing to do in the citadel. What else can I do? I don’t like to go out with them hunting the seals.”

Hao Ren thought for a moment, speechless.

Meanwhile, Lily’s attention had shifted to something else. “How did you get your hands on that stuff? I mean, do you have someone specially assigned to buy those games and comics?”

“Not exactly. But the field purchasing guys would bring me new titles every time they went to the source for supplies in the human world. I’ve been very restrained though. A game console is not a big deal. Andaherr used to bring back a circus, but then later we found that we didn’t know what to do about them.”

Hao Ren was struck dumb.

Again, he learned something new. Suddenly, it seemed to him that these guys were just like him, humanly.

Noticing the atmosphere became a little awkward, White Flame quickly steered the conversation away. “So what brings you guys here?” she asked.

Startled by the question, Hao Ren quickly reigned in his wandered mind. “Oh, we’ve come here to conduct an in-depth investigation of Coldpath. We need you to be our guide.”

“Investigation?” White Flame was a bit curious. “Haven’t you investigated before? What have you discovered recently?”

She roughly knew what work Hao Ren was doing, so she had already guessed something.

“We found a ‘parasite,’ the will of the goddess on a demon hunter who returned from Coldpath,” Hao Ren said bluntly. “Now we suspect that there are still many more spiritual forces lurking in Coldpath. They may have been suppressed by the black sword before, but now these things have probably escaped.”

Vivian added, “The will of the goddess itself is friendly, but it is of a very high category, getting close to them would put the life of the mortals in danger.”

White Flame’s face turned gloomy.

She hesitated a bit. “In fact, there have been some unusual phenomena in Coldpath recently.”