A Zoologist’s Guide to Surviving Magical Creatures

"The two are connected. Light and dark, sun and moon—they balance each other. Without one..." He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to.

"Let me guess," I said, crossing my arms. "Without her, things start falling apart. Realms destabilize, domains get cranky, deities start bickering...chaos ensues."

"Exactly," Agnos replied.

I sighed. "Great. So no pressure, right?"

I turned back toward the throne, its light still warm but noticeably dimmer. Amaterasu was missing, and with her, the vitality of this place—of her entire domain—was fading.

Whatever had happened, we needed to find her. And fast.

We exchanged a look. There were too many questions with too few answers. The mysteries surrounding Amaterasu's disappearance only grew deeper the more we uncovered.

"Before we go," Agnos said suddenly, his voice breaking the silence, "there's something else we should check."

I blinked, pulling my attention away from the empty throne. "What?"

He didn't answer, just motioned for us to follow him.

I hesitated for a moment but then nodded, falling in behind him.

We navigated through the winding halls of Amaterasu's palace, the Sun Wing, past golden statues that seemed to glimmer even in the absence of her light. The further we went, the more the atmosphere shifted, and not in a good way.

It was as if the very air had grown heavier, weighed down by her absence.

We reached her office, a spacious, elegant room filled with scrolls, celestial maps, and tablets. It was a space that had always radiated her presence—calm, collected, and purposeful.

But now, it felt eerily hollow. The once vibrant room seemed to have lost its warmth, as if a part of her had been wiped away entirely.

Even the scent of her favorite incense, which usually lingered in the air, had vanished.

Stepping inside, I felt like an intruder in a place that should've been alive with her energy. But it was all wrong now.

The silence here was different from the silence of the Solar Sanctum—it was heavier, laden with the weight of her absence.

We carefully examined her desk, the shelves, the artifacts that had always been a part of her daily routine. The absence of her presence was unsettling.

I stepped closer to her desk, my eyes scanning over the cluttered papers and celestial maps scattered about. Amaterasu's office, usually a beacon of light and order, now felt strangely vacant, almost as if her very presence had been erased.

The silence was suffocating.

Then, my gaze fell on something that caught my attention—her tablet. It was lying on the desk, half-hidden beneath a pile of notes, as if forgotten in a hurry. I picked it up, feeling the weight of it in my hands.

It was sleek, a perfect reflection of Amaterasu's taste—elegant yet functional.

I pressed the power button, and the screen came to life with a soft hum, the bright display illuminating her darkened office. But as soon as the home screen appeared, a lock screen popped up, demanding a password.

"Great," I muttered under my breath, already knowing it wouldn't be easy. A password—just what we needed.

I tapped the screen, attempting the usual guesses: "Sun," "Light," and "Amaterasu"—but nothing worked.

I could feel the weight of the moment pressing on me. If we were going to find out where she went, this tablet might be our best clue.

I stared at Amaterasu's tablet, the sleek device glowing faintly under my fingers. The silence around us deepened as I punched in one failed guess after another. The frustration was beginning to gnaw at me, the answer just out of reach.

"Any luck?" Agnos asked, leaning over my shoulder.

"Nope," I muttered. "It's locked, and I can't make heads or tails of the password."

Jiuge, who had been idly examining a nearby tapestry depicting the sun's journey, turned her attention to us. Her footsteps were light as she approached, her expression unreadable.

"Any ideas?" I asked, glancing over at Jiuge, who had been silently watching me. She stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as she studied the tablet with quiet intensity.

She raised an eyebrow, an almost imperceptible smile tugging at her lips. "You know, I used to play riddles with Amaterasu when we were younger," Jiuge said, her voice laced with a hint of nostalgia. "I'm pretty good at them."

I looked up, intrigued. "You and Amaterasu played riddles?"

"Oh yeah," she said, stepping toward the tablet. "You wouldn't believe how many puzzles she's thrown my way."

I watched as Jiuge tapped a few times, analyzing the screen before her. Then she grinned. "This one's easy."

The hint for the password was a riddle, a simple line that seemed deceptively easy. But I knew better than to dismiss it. As Jiuge entered the answer, the tablet's screen flickered, and then—success.

"Wait—how did you know the answer?" I asked, surprised.

She shot me a sly look. "I once asked Amaterasu this same riddle, and she failed to get it right. You should've seen her face—she was so frustrated."

"Seriously?" I shook my head, laughing. "I guess even the Sun Goddess isn't perfect."

Jiuge shrugged, a smirk on her face. "Well, she's been known to get a few things wrong now and then."

Once the tablet unlocked, we dove straight into her recent activities. We found that Amaterasu had discovered discrepancies in the astrology charts of the sun and moon across the realms—anomalies that couldn't be ignored.

Instead of panicking, she had quietly decided to investigate. And that's when things started getting strange.

Her usual routine of keeping everything in perfect order was slipping. Her notes became disjointed, more frantic as she went deeper into the mysteries of the celestial anomalies.

"I didn't see anything about her coming back," I muttered as I scrolled through her leave forms. "But it says here she applied for a week's leave. The Council approved it…"

"Approved by Pangu," Jiuge added, narrowing her eyes. She was quick to pull up the leave approval page from the Council's employee site. "Her direct superior, Pangu, personally gave her the time off."

Agnos leaned in, looking over our shoulders. "Something's off. She wasn't supposed to just vanish after her leave ended. The Council's been trying to contact her ever since, but no response. She hasn't reported back to work."

I noticed a strange detail in her calendar: "Wait, Amaterasu linked her tablet to her phone's navigation. Look here." I tapped the screen, and a map opened up, revealing the last known location of her phone.

"The Forest of Forgotten Tales?" I read aloud, furrowing my brow. "Never heard of it. Is that another mythical landmark?"

Agnos' face went grim, and Jiuge's expression tightened. "It's not just a place," Agnos said slowly, his voice heavy. "It's a legend—a dangerous one. I saw the name in one of the Mythica Cold Archives files. The Council sent many investigators there, but none have returned. And even if they did, they're not the same."