The Record of Unusual Creatures

A young soldier – who really looked out of place in this blood-soaked place- ran helter-skelter away from the battlefield. The young man wore a breastplate made out of sheet metal and synthetic leather, two streaks of worn cloth dangled down from the gap of his pauldron. Bloody covered his face, and the sword in his hand was already a piece twisted metal. Such a poor quality weapon did not bring him glory in the battlefield, and he was on the losing side. Thus, the young man could only run with all his might before his side got overwhelmed.

The soldier dashed towards a low wall across the street, and in his panic he did not notice the figures hiding behind the wall. A leg suddenly extended from the corner of the wall, tripping the young man flat on his face.

Hao Ren immediately pounced on the soldier. He was originally thinking on how to greet the first person he meet and how to introduce himself, and that plan went to the dogs as the scenario changed and now he was slightly perplexed at the situation he found himself in to speak to someone. The soldier was even more shocked, thinking that he was ambushed and immediately stiffened and did not struggle. He gingerly looked up to see who had taken him down, and what he saw was a group of oddly dressed strangers.. The young man’s voice was winded. “Sirs.. and Maams? I… I’m just soldier….”

“Silence. We know that you are a soldier, and we have questions to ask you.” Hao Ren loosened his grip and glared at the soldier, motioning him to not struggle. “Who are you people? And why are you fighting here?”

The soldier gawked at the strange man, but fear had stayed his tongue of questions and he obediently answered Hao Ren. “The Kingdom of Highspire and the Eisenstadt are fighting for control of the town of Cogwheel. I’m only following orders… I don’t know anything else.”

As he said, he instinctively hid a piece of coloured cloth that was hanging on his armor with his hand, fearing that his allegience will be the death of him. Hao Ren noticed the movement and asked. “So which side are you on? What’s your name?”

“…. The Kingdom of Highspire.” The solider said softly. “Willy. I’m Willy Mormont.”

At the same time, Lily had peeked over the wall and with a hushed voice said, “Looks like they’re done and they’re heading this way!”

The battle was over, and those bearing the same emblem as Willy were clearly outmatched and ran for their lives, leaving the dead and pools of blood all over the place. And their enemies, the soldiers of the Eisenstadt broke up into several parties, some to loot the corpses, while others pursued the retreating foe. A few of the massive warriors came in Hao Ren’s general direction and one of the yelled. “Over there! I saw that blueblood wimp running over there! That nancy wouldn’t have made it far! His ransom is worth ten men!”

Hao Ren gave Vivian a resigned look. “Take all of them down, but hold back. We are not here to cause a scene.”

As he said that, Hao Ren got out of the cover of the wall, and the rest followed.

The Eisenstadt soldiers saw a few oddly dressed strangers appearing before them and they stopped in alarm. After a quick glance, the soldiers noticed that the strangers were not armored, and thought that they were probably refugees who had stumbled upon an ancient trove. Without a second thought, they lifted their weapons and charged.

Vivian raised her hand and a massive frost aura started gathering around here as a giant block of frost appeared in the air. With a gentle wave, the frost swept towards the soldiers. Nangong Sanba immediately pulled out a runic card and threw it into the air. The Letta Runes on the card exploded above the soldiers and threw them into disarray, leaving them with no room to avoid Vivian’s Frost Storm.

Upon witnessing a massive iceblock flying towards them, the soldiers were scared senseless. One of them started yelling. “The Ice Witch!! They have an Ice Witch! Winter has come….”

The soldier’s yell was prematurely cut short as a chunk of ice smacked him right in the face, knocking him out. Vivian had already greatly reduced her offensive powers. She could have easily liberate these men out of their mortal shells by freezing them into popsicles.

They had expected a simple and brutal charge to do the work, but now, all of the soldiers were laid low in a blink of an eye. The scene was witnessed by those looting the corpses. After recovering from a momentary stun, everyone of them scream at the top of their lungs as they ran away. Odd terminologies like “Ice Witch”, “Winter” were heard as they went. Nangong Sanba drew his magical crossbow as he glanced at Hao Ren. “Should I take them down? I promise to only shot them at the legs.”

Hao Ren waved. “Let them be. Perhaps once they report what they’ve seen we’ll be able to meet some important figures much quicker.”

He recognised that the ark’s law and order had already suffered a catasthropic destruction. The original administrators and crews were probably no longer around, and the search for this ‘world’s rulers had to start from zero again.

People sure are fast when they are running for their lives. Even when they were decked in full armor, the escaping Eisenstadt soldiers disappeared in a blink of an eye and soon, it was only Hao Ren, his group and a group of unconcious soldiers covered in frost. And oh, and another stunned ‘Highspire’ soldier. Hao Ren turned back to him and asked out of curiosity. “What did he mean by Ice Witch?”

Willy shuddered as he heard the name. Turning towards Hao Ren and the rest, his eyes exudes the same fear the Eisenstadt soldiers did. “The legends are real… they are real… You are the Heralds of the Frost! Heralds of the Frost! You will freeze this world….”

Lily had enough of the mumbling coward and slapped the young man’s head. “Who’s freezing you, silly?! We just saved your ass!”

Nangong Wuyue quipped with a hushed voice. “We actually had to hold him down, or this unlucky fellow would have ran off…”

Lily shrugged. “Details. Oh by the way, it was Mr Landlord who stuck his foot out.”

Hao Ren placed his hand on Willy’s shoulders and that seemed to have calmed the terrified soldier a bit. “Relax, relax. I don’t know what you mean by Ice Witch and Winter… but we are not evil.”

“You know sorcery…” Willy took a careful glance at Vivian before shuffling to the other side. “But Nan never said that the Ice Witch and the Heralds of the Frost could speak human tongue… Are you really not them?”

Lily pondered for a bit before pulling out Flamejoy. “Look, how warm and toasty that is! I can even use flaming attacks!”

“…”

“We are… a group of outlanders passing by.” Hao Ren spat out the words that even he did not believe in. It was indeed weird to press the notion of ‘outlanders’ to someone who had lived in a hundred kilometer long isolated world. But he had no idea how to explain to the cowardly and naive young man what was beyond the ark’s hull. “You know anywhere that we can rest?”

“This is Eisenstadt lands. They would probably take any outsider’s head off with an axe stroke.” Willy stood still, his legs still woobly. “If you can escort me back to my family lands, I can vouch for you. And get you a warm room near in Hearthfire. All that is incumbent on you not making a snowstorm in the city.”

“Escort service for a place to stay? Sounds good to me.” Hao Ren shrugged. “Where is Hearthfire?”

Willy pointed towards a wide road not too far away. “We will need to go till the end of the Path of Abundance, and then through to the Royal Highway. We will see the walls of Hearthfire after a while.” But that road is rather dangerous of late. Not only the Eisenstadt soldiers are around, you might run into the Freistadt marauders…”

Hao Ren was just hoping to meet more people and that sounded like a plan. As he nodded, he said. “Oh, we’ll take that path then.”

Willy gave a belated “Eh?”

“We’ll take care of any trouble.” Lily glanced at the boy. “Just lead the way.”

Willy shrunk into his armor, and nodded without saying anything else.

“What about them?” Nangong Sanba pointed towards the frost-encrusted soldiers. “This one will probably wake soon.”

One of the strongest soldiers started moaning in pain as he tried to recover from the daze. Willy immediately slammed his sword’s pommel right in the soldier’s face, knocking him out again. He then bend down to rip off the emblematic piece of cloth off the soldier’s armor before repeating it on the rest.

“What are you doing?” Hao Ren asked.

“Taking their emblems back.” Willy’s face was red. “…For my mission.”

Vivian sneered. “But you were in fact deserting.”

“Forget about that. That’s his problem.” Hao Ren waved his hand before turning towards Willy. “We’ll keep that a secret. Now, bring us to meet the ones in charge.”

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