Creatures of the Ice

Fourth Ice

Fourth IceCreatures of the Mist

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##### Fourth Ice #####

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How fragile a soul,

Tainted or pure are just colors,

Let him be the judge of mercy,

When the midnight visit arrives.

It’s a beautiful world out there, with green as far as you can see and lives are happily ever after ─ just not mine. I live in my own dark universe.

"What are you?" I ask while placing the bouncing fish on the sea of small pillows that are spread on the carpet in front of the fireplace. It is obviously not an ordinary creature, but I have never seen such creature like it.

"The right question is, what are you, Miss?" I freeze when the fish suddenly talks back to me. From its voice, it surely sounds like a male, even though it has a rather funny voice. His big eyes are also looking right at mine when I stare down at him, cuddled comfortably among the pillows.

"A wizard," I answer. "What about you?"

"A talking fish. The name is Avin, Magistress." Avin moves down his head to gesture what seems to be a polite bow.

"What kind of a creature are you? I have never seen anything like you from Lilythene." Lilythene is The Book of Creatures, so every creature that ever walked on dimensions should have been recorded inside. Yet, I never quite have seen anything like Avin before, on record or not.

"Honestly, I'm not sure as well. I just woke up and found myself lost. But I do know that you're not human," Avin answer with his unusual high pitch tone.

"How so? How can you know that I'm not a human? And how did you end up at the corner of my apartment outside?" I ask, starting to take off my long gloves starting from my right.

"I can feel your aura — and it is very dark there. And like I said, I don't know what happened. All I know is just that I suddenly woke up there, on the top of a very tall building. I don't know how I got myself there," he replies as I took off my right glove.

"Why were you bouncing?" I place the gloves on a small table beside the fireplace.

"Bouncing?" Avin asks, confused. Then something clicks. "Oh, you mean when I was jumping out there? I was trying to get a better look behind from the tower across from here. I wanted to get a better look at where I am, so I tried to jump as high as I could," he explains.

I just nod as a reply, and then go on by taking off my boots. I place my black boots just right under the shoes case under the small table where I had put my gloves earlier.

"So, Avin, since you're pretty sure that you don't remember anything before, I might as well offer you a place to stay. There are a few guest rooms on this floor that are included when I bought the place. You can pick anywhere you like to stay in," I gesture him where the guest rooms are.

"Well, thank you so much for your kindness, Magistress. I will never forget your good deed," Avin says while bouncing— I mean jumping on the carpet towards one of the rooms.

"I'll be mostly in my room if you need anything, but I won't be available at night time," I say before slipping into my chamber and rest.

It feels more like a wild dream when I jump into the portal to Hell. The sky is foggy, pale and cold, but that is just how it is usually. The layers are as endless as they almost do. The wind sometimes blows me away from land, but most of the time just goes through random directions. Nevertheless, I still fall freely down to the ground and land marvelously smooth with both of my feet standing perfectly straight.

The air smells rather different when I do stand on Hell, though.

And it is a sign that something will happen.

"Frost, there you are," Abel says loudly and pulls me to his side, his right arm circling around my shoulders instantly while his left hand takes a hold on my left one to drag me in the first place.

"I've been looking for you everywhere."

Abel does not say where everywhere is specifically, but I am sure that it his everywhere does not include Earth. Aside from the fact that it is a very questionable place for demons to be around, he also does not have the permission to travel there except for hunting down trespassers. And we do not have any mission right now, which I know since we are given missions together in presences at the same time.

"What's the matter?" I ask while he drags me somewhere that I am not sure where just yet.

He likes to lead me in circles before we arrive at our real destination, though. To avoid being followed, he said. And since he already used to the cautious way, I just tag along each time he does. He is the one that leads the way, anyway.

On the bright side is that he knows a lot of shortcuts that will consume the same time as if we just walked straight towards our destination.

Abel waits until he is in a crowded place before answering, though.

"She's coming," he whispers to my ear, still holding me close to his lean, black body.

"Who is coming?" I whisper back without moving my head, knowing that he will hear just as fine.

"His daughter," he replies.

"Um, okay...." I don't know what else to say.

"No, no. You don't get it. His daughter is coming." Abel sounds insistent.

"So?"

"I just told you that The Devil's daughter is coming and you just said 'So?’?" He asks in disbelief, but still keeping his voice low.

"Yeah. So what? It's not even my business to care," I reply.

"Oh, you should have care," he presses. "Don't you know? She doesn't like you, so you should really care about her arrival."

"Why?" I ask.

Abel knows that I never even met her. I told him that. So why would she even hold a grudge against me? It is not like I ever killed any demon she likes.

"She, The Devil's daughter, Rtona, doesn't like newcomers. Especially if the newcomer is her own father's right hand. You should really learn the real reason why the last Knightmare was never around for so long. Rtona was the real reason why there has not been one since the past millennium," Abel explains, and that is when things start to get clearer.

Although even if Rtona does feel threatened against a Knightmare for some reason I don't even bother to know, it still does not mean that she can erase my title. The Devil gave it to me personally, under the sealing of our deal. To make me lose the title is practically the same as taking an outdaring with The Devil himself. And even if Rtona is his flesh and blood, I still do not think that it is very wise to defy him.

But then again, it is not like it is my business to care after all.

“Nope. I still don’t see the reason to be worried about her arrival.” I shake my head a little. “I’ll say if she wants to come then let her be,” I tell Abel and immediately got off from his grip before he tries to insist his opinions on me.

If I get too irritated, there is no question about what I will do. And if my partner gets hurt, there might be a delay on the progress of my release. I can still go on solo, but the risk will be higher and the consequences will never be deadlier. Still, it can save time.

The Devil summons me through a ringing frequency that comes from my ears. It does not hurt, but sometimes I do wonder if it should have if I was a human now. I cannot feel any pain when the demon me appears. Not physically, not even emotionally.

“Yes?” I ask when I arrive at the doorstep of his personal chamber. I never went very deep into the castle, yet alone inside the dark room in front of me. I want to avoid trouble as much as possible.

Going through the halls of the castle is rather easy, since I can move at any speed I desire without using too much power. Unlike in the wizard me, moving and fighting come in rather natural way. I do not even need to breathe to catch my fast, heavy breaths when I use too much energy.

“I assume that you will be ready for your next mission right away?” His voice echoes from inside the darkness of his cavy room.

“Yes,” I reply flatly, wondering why there is a need to go through this by stages ─ him giving me the details of the next target, me being able to hunt the wanted, me going with Able to hunt the wanted, and then we bringing the corpse of the trespasser back to The Devil so that he can give us the next order. Why can’t he just give us the complete list of the target so that we can finish this faster?

“Well, expect more from it. I believe that you already heard the news of my daughter’s arrival, yes?”

I nod a little. “Abel had told me about it.” But where is this leading? I have a strong, cold feeling that I won’t like it.

“I’ve decided to let you work in a larger group of hunting.” There it is. “The group will consist about six to twelve demons, including her, you, your partner, and more demons to form groups of two. The purpose of this joint is so that the members can accomplish more missions faster and assuredly complete them to the point of perfection. I don’t say that your work is not good up until now, but since you do want to hurry and that I need more demons to finish off my jobs, I just think that this will be the excellent idea.”

The Devil doing me a favor? That is rather off the normal sense. So what is the catch?

Sensing my mind, he replies, “There will be some differences between the groups of two you’re in now and the joint group later, of course. The missions your team will take will be harder. Your targets might not be just one or two at a time but more and probably in groups such as the one you will be dealing later. The targets are still under the category of criminals, so they will still be under the count of the deal.”

Fine by me. Plus, Abel is going to be there, too. I do have some suspicions of the reason why he got me working with his daughter, but I will just silently accept it. As long as this will finish soon.

“One more thing you have to be aware of,” The Devil says, stopping me from walking away from my right foot moves aside from the sight of the door. “This will demand more time from its members, so I hope my expectation from you will be more than the less.”

I nod before walking away this time.

The lines have been formed by the time I am about to walk out of the castle. Too late, it seems. The demons are welcoming their princess through the front hall and it seems to me that the lines keep going on to the tip of the gates. Not the gates of the castle, but from the gates that defines this area of Hell. The distant cannot be underestimated, but it is a good thing that she does not have to come slowly.

From the so crowded lines, I can spot the dark-skinned demon who I am looking for easily. The lines are thick and tight, but at least I can slide through the crowd.

“I have news,” I mutter to Abel when I manage to get to his side.

“Good one, or bad one?” He asks while sparing the time to look at me.

“Depends on how you will take it as.”

“Alright then. Tell me.”

Right at that moment, the crowd chooses to chant close to as loud as when The Devil was about to announce who will be his Knightmare. It means they are welcoming Rtona’s advent.

It takes a really great deal of patience. I feel like the crowd has just scammed me with their chorus, as if she were already right in front. But she does eventually show up.

The similar feature that Rtona and The Devil shares are their hair colors, only hers is longer, curlier and appears with the additional red highlights. The red highlights give her hair a blazing, hot magma twist. I notice all of those when she steps through the doors of the castle, which leads right away to the huge ballroom behind me and Abel.

Her skin is really tan. Her eyes are a pair of fury red. Her lips are red shot. And her body figure is short, but still curvy. She is not afraid to show off her small pair of red wings, horns, pointy ears and tail.

The color of her mini dress, which is an ivory white, is rather out of the question, though. It has a lacy cravat around her neck. Down is what looks like a smooth satin material. Cascades are dangling from the belt of her waist and just stops a few inches from where these start. The dress comes along with a pair part of gloves that only cover her wrists to her elbows, which are more useful as a fashionable style. The gloves have laces at the edges of their tips. And to complete the outfit, a white high-heeled boots on her feet.

“Heads up. We are going to be working with her,” I tell Abel finally.