Endless Journey: Infinite Realms

Chapter 74 Fire and Shadow

The shadowy figure knew that it had a name, but it was never interested on using it on itself.

"After my rebirth, my name doesn't matter anymore." The shadowy figure muttered to itself as it walked carefully on the forest floor.

"Really, you do not want to use your name anymore?" The musings of the shadowy figure were broken as it heard a raucous voice beside it.

"Ted, I don't like using my name." The shadowy figure said as it gave the monster beside it a withering look. "I don't want to use anymore, and I will not change that."

Ted only gave the shadowy figure a naughty smile, as if what it said to him was interesting.

"Really? But I think Carlie is a great name! Isn't that your name before?" Ted replied as he tilted his massive head. "It's a waste to not use it!"

"...."

If it were a normal situation, the shadowy figure could have already resorted to attacking Ted. But it could not, as Ted is someone that the shadowy figure could not fight off.

An ethereal body made up of flames and fumes.

This is the body that Ted had.

For someone like the shadowy figure, whose power was affiliated with the darkness, Ted's pure flame body was its bane.

Because of this, the shadowy figure knew that it will be hard for it to offend Ted.

So in order to prevent some complications, the shadowy figure has no choice but to acquiesce to what Ted wanted.

"Ok, I shall call myself as Carlie temporarily." Carlie said as her shadowy body twitched slightly. "I do not like using it, but I think I can manage on using it for now."

"Good." Ted nodded, seemingly satisfied with Carlie's reply. "A fair maiden like you should have a beautiful name.."

"I don't like using this name. It reminds me of my past life." Carlie said, with her body showing some of her discomfort.

"Well, consider what you do right now as your training to resist your bad memories." Ted said he blew some sparks of fire towards Carlie's direction. "Facing your past life with a steely heart is something that you must do."

"Your fire sparks are a little irritating. Please stop blowing them on me." Carlie's voice this time, sounded a little mad, as if what Ted said to her struck a chord with her.

Ted noticed this, as he immediately backtracked his prank.

"Ok…"

"….." Carlie only had a few recollections of her life before she was taken in the Queen Mother, but she can remember that it was an extremely bad one.

Carlie went silent as she remembered the sounds of whip and chains that haunted her even now.

She shook her head, knowing that she should not be distracted by her erroneous memories for now.

She and Ted had a mission to do, and they must achieve it with ease.

"So what is our mission this time?" Carlie asked Ted as both of them left the Monster Hall. "Its something related to Phom, right?"

"Yes." Ted nodded as he gave Carlie a grave look. "You can say that Phom… needs some post-mortem treatment."

Upon seeing Ted's look, Carlie let out a light sigh, as she realized what happened to him.

"Phom died."

"Yeah, he died just a day ago." Ted said as read off something in a paper that he held.

Carlie suppressed her curiosity as she saw that the paper was not burning even with its proximity with Ted. Asking would not give her answers, as Ted will surely not answer it.

Ted took Carlie's silence as the cue for him to talk.

"So basically speaking, our mission will be retrieval and monitoring." Ted said after he finished reading the paper.

The paper then let out a crackle as it was consumed by flames.

"Ted, from what I can understand, the object that we will retrieve is Phom's body." Carlie said as she watched the ashes of the paper being eaten by Ted. "But what do you mean by monitoring? Are we monitoring the one that killed Phom?"

"Monitor Phom's killer? Hahaha! Do that if you want to die!" Ted said as he started to wheeze in laughter. "Hahaha, you, monitor Phom's killer? Hahaha!"

"…." Carlie felt offended as she saw Ted's extreme amusement.

"I may be a Shadow Fiend, but I can fight against strong enemies." Carlie said as shadows around her began to dance. "You know that I can beat up Phom pretty easily. That means that I can survive against the one how killed him."

"Even if it's Divine Knight Glaivewood?" Ted snickered as he bowled over, still laughing loudly. "Hahaha, try spying him, let's see if you can live!"

"Wait... Phom is killed by a Divine Knight?" Even if Carlie was usually stoic, even she could not help but get surprised with what she heard. "How could this happen?"

"Well, according to General Chimera, he sent Phom to meet up with two Visiting Monsters, with the intent to invite them to talk to the General himself." Ted said as he calmed down from too much laughing. "But it seems like the situation did not end that well."

"Of course it will not end well." Carlie retorted as she let out a snort. "Queen Mother told us that as much as possible, we should not meddle with the affairs of the Visiting Monsters. Letting them do what they want is better rather than us making them angry."

"Yeah I get that ok?" Ted snorted as he started to walk. Carlie trailed behind him, continuing to listen to what he said.

"General Chimera did not tell me more details but from what he did say, it seems like Divine Knight Glaivewood rushed to the Visiting Monsters with the intent of killing them. Phom… is just an unlucky bystander."

"In the name of Mother!" Carlie swore as she felt sympathy for Phom. "Phom really is unlucky this time."

"Unlucky indeed." Ted said as he gave Alina a look of sympathy. "And to make it worse, General Chimera told me that the two Visiting Monsters were able to leave the confrontation alive."

"They were still alive?" this time, Carlie was really surprised. "But how?"

"General Chimera just told me that the Visiting Monsters held something that they used against the Divine Knight." Ted said as his face held a wry smile. "As for what is that, he did not say it."

"… Maybe its wrong for me to say it, but how did General Chimera get this information?" Carlie mused as she and Ted chanteg their tracks. "He does not have a spy monster like me, so how could be this good at espionage?"

"Why do you want to know that?" Ted said, sounding a little defensive. "What the Generals do is none of our business. What we should to is to follow them, or else Queen Mother will get angry."

"…You're right. Forgive me for being impulsive." Carlie said as she bowed in front of Ted.

"Geez, can you learn to loosen up, even just by a little?" Ted muttered as he shook his head. "Ok, I forgive you for now, but do not repeat what you just said."

"Ok." Carlie nodded.

Both of them then went silent, with Carlie waiting for Ted to say something, and with Ted waiting for Carlie to talk too.

"….."

"….."

"..."

"Tsk, seems like you are quite eager to take the mission now." Ted mumbled as his body changed color from red to green.

"Doing a mission for the Queen Mother is the best thing that I can hope to do." Carlie said with conviction clear on her face. "Nothing can make me quite as eager as that."

"Ok, ok. I get it." Ted saved as he waved his hands, indicating that Carlie should stop talking.

"So, by this point you already know the target that we should Monitor, right?" Ted said as he and Alina stopped in front of a massive gate.

"If my guess is right, the ones that we will monitor are the Visiting Monsters." Carlie said with a slight dip of her head.

"That's right." Ted said as he gave Carlie a nod. "General Chimera told me that those two Monsters must be monitored from a distance. We should record everything that we can observe from their actions, everything, even down to their eating habits."

"That's… very specific." Carlie frowned as she narrowed her eyes. "Why would the General want that?"

"I don't know." Ted shrugged as he gave Carlie a helpless smile. "He just told us to do it."

"Do we even have any choice now?" Claire mumbled as she sighed. "From what I can see, we have none."

"Well, General Chimera told me that if we pull this off, we can get a promotion program." Ted said while giving Claire a pleading look. "So please, make sure that we do not f**k this up, ok? We can get promoted if we do this mission right!"

"Ok." This was Carlie's only reply as she stopped walking. "So, how should we delegate our tasks?"

"Easy." Ted replied as he used a fire tendril to carve on the ground. The ground let out a his as the fire tendril gouged out some marks in it.

"Once we see Phom's body, I will go back here with his body, while you will start monitoring the Visiting Monsters." Ted said after drawing a circle with a line drawn inside it. "You will only end monitoring them until they leave this world. As for me, I will come and meet you every month to get your written report on them."

"Wait, so that is the gist of what we will do?" Carlie asked as she stared at the poorly-drawn circle. "Somehow, I could not help but feel that I am the one that is in most danger here."

"Well, as long as you do not do anything that can offend the visiting Monsters, then you will be safe." Ted replied as if it was already an accepted fact. "So… just be careful when watching them, ok?"

"…" Carlie wanted to just refuse Ted's arrangement of the mission, but she found it hard to do so, as she did not want to be in the range of his flaming temper again.

Carlie then shivered, as she remembered the last time that Ted's flames had seared her body.

Even until now, she can still feel some phantom pains from that.

"Fine, let's do that." Claire said as she tried to not show her tense body. "Just… be sure to come on time every month, ok?"

"Will do." Ted said as he gave Carlie his signature cocky smile. "Now that we have set the terms of our mission, let's set off already. After all, our targets have distanced themselves already. We have to catch up to them now."

"Ok." Carlie let out a small sigh of relief as she saw Ted staying calm.

Having him angry is something that Carlie dreaded and feared.