A Zoologist’s Guide to Surviving Magical Creatures

Muffled sounds floated in and out of my consciousness as I wrestled my way back to reality. Two voices—casual, unbothered—drifted through the haze.

For a second, I wondered if I was dreaming. Because honestly, who chatted like it was a lazy Sunday picnic after a catastrophic magic event?

I pried my eyes open, groaning under my breath. The world was blurry at first, shapes bleeding into each other. Slowly, outlines sharpened: two figures sitting by a lake, their silhouettes haloed by the morning mist.

One of them had a fishing rod in hand; the other had jammed his into the ground and was busy annihilating what sounded like a family-size bag of chips.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

"I'm telling you," grumbled the burly one, voice low and gruff, like someone who had fought bears and won. "This guy's hopeless. Faints every time he touches a fragment. Pathetic."

I blinked harder, trying to unscramble my vision. Burly Guy looked like he was complaining to his friend, who just chuckled and reeled in his line with zero urgency.

"He's weak now because he lost his memories," said the other guy—smoother voice, lighter tone. "Give him time."

The burly one harumphed, shoulders stiff, clearly unconvinced. Just as he shifted in place, the smoother guy's fishing rod jerked.

"Oh look, my bait caught something!" he cheered like he'd just won a carnival prize.

I squinted, fighting the vertigo as I pushed myself into a sitting position. My head pounded like someone had been playing drums inside it. A soft groan escaped me as I massaged my temples, the sting of absorbing the fragment still lingering like an aftershock.

As my sight finally cleared, I recognized them.

And my heart sank.

Creation and Destruction.

The two powers of Kaleon themselves, just… fishing by a lake and roasting me alive with casual insults. My last memory of Destruction involved him cold-clocking me straight out of a memory realm, a punch so brutal I still felt ghost pains in my jaw. And now he was here—looking as smug as ever.

Creation turned first, giving me a warm, almost pitying smile. Destruction just glanced over, unimpressed, before grunting and refocusing on his fishing line like I wasn't even worth the air I breathed.

"You're awake. Did another fragment pop out?" Creation asked lightly, like we were chatting about the weather.

Still dazed, I mumbled, "Creation and Destruction..."

Saying their names out loud sent a weird shiver through me. They weren't human. They weren't gods either. They were... well, them. Forces given form. And right now, they looked more like a pair of semi-retired fishermen than entities who could wipe out entire worlds on a whim.

I pushed myself shakily to my feet, every muscle protesting. My frustration simmered. Without thinking, I marched over to Destruction, arms crossed, squaring up like a very determined, very stupid penguin challenging a grizzly bear.

"You," I jabbed a finger at him, "you punched me!"

Destruction didn't even flinch. He just stared at me with those burning red eyes, his long hair ruffling in the lakeside breeze like he was starring in some dark fantasy shampoo commercial. Somehow, he managed to look both effortlessly cool and terrifying.

Internally, I was sweating buckets. Externally, I held my ground—barely.

Destruction gave me a long, slow once-over like I was something stuck to the bottom of his boot. Then he lazily turned his head toward Creation and muttered, "If I kill him now, he won't really die, right? Just get booted out?"

The color drained from my face. "Wait. WHAT?"

Creation sighed like he was used to fielding these kinds of questions. "He won't die permanently, but he'll still feel the pain."

"So I can kill him?" Destruction perked up, almost hopeful.

"No," Creation said, patient but firm. "And why do you want to kill him anyway?"

Destruction shrugged, as if it should've been obvious. "He's annoying."

I spluttered, completely scandalized. "Excuse me? How am I annoying?!"

"I don't like how silly you look," he said bluntly, turning back to his fishing with a dismissive flick of his hand.

I stood there, mouth flapping uselessly, trying to process the sheer unfairness of the universe. "Creation looks like me! Why don't you wanna kill him?"

"Creation's strong," Destruction replied without missing a beat. "You're weak. Pathetically weak."

He snickered, waving me off like a mosquito he'd decided not to bother swatting. "Anyway. I'm not killing you today. You ruined the mood."

Destruction kicked back on the grassy bank, crunching noisily into a handful of salted egg chips like he'd just discovered the holy grail of snacks. Every bite echoed in the quiet air, the lake rippling lazily behind him, perfectly undisturbed by the chaos of my thoughts.

I stared, utterly dumbfounded.

Where the hell did he even get that?

My brain lagged a full three seconds behind my mouth because before I could stop myself, I blurted, "Wait—where did you get a bag of chips?!" My voice cracked embarrassingly at the end, betraying the spiraling confusion hammering my skull.

Destruction tilted his head, deadpan, as if I was the idiot here, not the guy conjuring junk food in the middle of... wherever this was supposed to be. Without missing a beat, he casually fished out another chip, slowly, like he was making a point, and crunched it with exaggerated relish.

Then, with a sudden jerk, he shoved the half-empty bag right in my face.

I recoiled on instinct, nearly tripping over my own feet, assaulted by the overwhelming scent of salted egg and deep-fried something.

"This?" he said, raising a single eyebrow, chips crinkling as he waggled the bag like it was a golden ticket. His smirk deepened when he saw me flinch. "We can conjure anything out of thin air. You think you're the only one with imagination around here?"

I gawked at him, utterly betrayed by reality itself.

I opened my mouth to argue... then closed it again with a helpless noise. There were bigger battles to fight today, and apparently, the fight against casually reality-bending chip thieves wasn't one of them.

Instead, I folded my arms, glowering as I dropped onto the grass a safe five feet away, just in case Destruction decided to conjure something even more ridiculous next.

Like a bazooka. Or a second fist.

Still.

Conjuring snacks.

That was so unfair.

"You can conjure snacks," I croaked. "And yet you—" I jabbed a finger at him, sputtering, "you wanted to kill me the moment I appeared instead of, I don't know, offering me a sandwich or something?!"

Destruction popped another chip into his mouth, his red eyes glinting with zero remorse.

"Violence builds character," he said around a mouthful, shrugging one broad shoulder like he was some ancient philosopher instead of a living natural disaster in human form.

Creation, who'd been quietly reeling in his fishing line nearby, snorted under his breath. "He's not wrong."

"You're enabling him," I accused Creation, pointing wildly between them like a stressed-out referee at a boxing match. "This is why we can't have nice things!"

Creation just chuckled, re-baited his hook with almost surgical precision, and cast his line back into the lake with a serene flick.

Destruction, meanwhile, crumpled the now-empty chip bag into a ball and casually tossed it over his shoulder, where it promptly disintegrated into a puff of shimmering dust before it could even hit the ground.

I blinked. "Did you just—"

"Clean magic," Destruction said, flashing a grin sharp enough to slice through steel. "You're welcome, Blacked out-boy."

My eye twitched. I opened my mouth, ready to fire back, when Creation mercifully cut in, his voice gentle.

"Did you get another fragment? What is it this time?"

I swallowed down my pride, deciding maybe picking a fight with a walking extinction event wasn't the best survival strategy. I turned back to Creation, grounding myself.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "It's the space-time fragment. And... one of the guardians, Bifang's dead."

The words left a hollow ache in my chest. For a second, the lake breeze felt colder, the world a little heavier.

Creation's smile softened into something almost mournful, and even Destruction, for all his gruffness, went still.