A Zoologist’s Guide to Surviving Magical Creatures

"You're here again," rumbled Usumgallu, adjusting his monocle with the kind of poise that screamed 'ancient knowledge and weekly spa days.' His golden eyes flicked over me like I was a mildly interesting scroll he'd seen once in a dream. "Welcome back, Owner. What is it this time?"

Beside me, Heim had gone eerily still. His complexion faded from sun-kissed bronze to 'I-just-saw-my-childhood-fear' pale. I gave him a side glance. Great. Another god-malfunction. I resisted the urge to check if he'd short-circuited.

Focus, Carl.

I cleared my throat and addressed the god-librarian-dragon-whatever. "Yeah, I was hoping to pull up some files on Stragglers. And maybe—if it's not too much—on War Beasts too."

Usumgallu arched a scaled brow. "Stragglers? As in… survivors of the Ruined Worlds?"

I nodded. "Yep. The apocalyptic creatures. That bunch."

He didn't answer right away. There was a flicker of something in his eyes—a rare thing for someone who probably lived through the invention of punctuation. But then, with a slow sigh, he dipped his head.

"So it begins again," he muttered. "You'll find the Stragglers archived under Past Worlds. As for War Beasts—divine classification, naturally—you'll want the Mythical Hierarchy wing."

I thanked him, but before I could even start walking, Usumgallu's gaze shifted to Heim, who was still locked in what looked like a spiritual staring contest with Death.

"Little wolf," he said with the kind of voice that could turn thunder into a bedtime lullaby. "You didn't come all this way just to stand there trembling, did you?"

Heim flinched so hard I thought he might shed his skin. He shook his head like a terrified bobblehead.

I leaned in, hissing, "What is your problem? You look like you just peed next to a divine relic."

His whisper came out ragged. "You seriously don't know who that is?"

I blinked. "Yeah, I do. Usum-something. Usum for short. He runs this place. Manager of this Book Mall. Why?"

Heim gave me a look that bordered on betrayal. "That is Usumgallu. One of the World-Enders. The Lion-Dragon God of Calamity."

I blinked again. "Wait. World-Ender? I thought he was, like, a regional manager of divine scrolls."

As if on cue, Usumgallu, perfectly unbothered, casually slid a stack of parchment into a drawer like none of this was news. "I retired," he said simply. "Left the apocalypse business. Now I manage this repository. More peace, less screaming."

"Wait, wait." I squinted. "You're telling me you used to be an abomination of destruction and now you're... what? A librarian with a pension?"

"That is correct," he said with serene satisfaction. "I am also happily married. So are my brothers. We host game nights now."

That... was a lot to process. I offered the only response my shocked brain could muster: "Good for you, man. Truly. Domestic bliss suits you."

I grabbed Heim by the collar and dragged him toward the snack corner before he could faint dramatically into the Rare Texts section.

"But what if he turns back into a god of mass extinction?!" Heim hissed in protest.

"He won't. He's got retirement benefits and probably a wife who makes him herbal wine," I muttered. "Besides, that corner over there?" I pointed. "It's Agnos's favorite place in the whole mall."

Heim stopped squirming instantly. His eyes locked onto the snack corner like it was holy ground.

"Agnos lounges here?"

"Every time," I said. Not entirely a lie. He did eat here once, and said the lemon custard was divine. "Now sit, snack, and let the grown-ups ask the eldritch horrors about doomed civilizations."

Heim practically sprinted to the section, leaving me to navigate the rest of this apocalypse archive on my own—with only an occupied Wolf god and my curiosity to keep me company.

What could possibly go wrong?

I spoke too soon.

Plenty could go wrong. And plenty did, starting with the size of this cursed place.

The interior of the C.C.C stretched far beyond what the outer architecture hinted at. Vaulted ceilings melted into mist. Shelves stacked higher than mountains stood like forgotten titans. Scrolls, books, tablets, floating glyphs, and whispering parchments loomed in orderly chaos. If knowledge had a smell, it reeked of old ink, burnt divine sap, and aggressive enlightenment.

I paused on the central platform, squinting down a row labeled Post-Existence and Cataclysmic Survivors. Real casual.

"Don't tell me there's more than one ruined world," I muttered to myself.

The shelves didn't answer, but I could feel them judging me.

Okay, Carl. Deep breath. First thing's first: Find out how to deal with the Stragglers.

No Creation.

No Destruction.

Vorta? He was as reachable as a radio signal in a black hole.

That left… research. Glorious, terrifying research.

I took another deep breath, clutching my token like it was a flashlight and I was spelunking through the mind of a mad god.

Stragglers.

Even the name sounded like bad news wrapped in a horror movie poster. I found a cluster of tomes with spines that looked like stitched leather and titles that liked to change when I blinked.

I finally settled on one that felt… sticky with relevance.

The moment I opened the cover, divine text crawled up my arm like warm static. My token pulsed against my chest, and suddenly, I understood.

The Stragglers weren't just monsters. They were vestiges. Remnants. Survivors of divine extinction events—worlds that had been shattered, overrun, and poisoned by corruption.

Creation had mentioned this once. Sort of in passing. You know, during one of those classic "By the way, Carl, if you see a world-eating horror, don't panic!" talks.

The ruined worlds had become hollow husks, so saturated with corruption that even time itself refused to pass through.

The ordinary died. The divine… mutated.

And those that remained—twisted, half-starved, no longer what they were—drifted, feeding off any corrupted world they stumbled upon. Like cosmic leeches on the scent of rot.

And their appearance?

Like something that crawled out of a failed chimera experiment—patched together from divine nightmares, stitched with desperation, and soaked in corruption.

Nothing about them made sense. Wings where arms should be. Eyes in places eyes had no business being. The kind of thing you'd unsee if you could, but your brain just refuses to delete the file.

One of the older tomes, probably written by someone who'd gotten way too close and lived to regret it, said it plainly:

"Stragglers, once manifested in the Real World, cannot be killed. Not by sword, spell, or divine wrath. Their corruption is too deep. Their form too fluid. To defeat them… one must unmake what they've become. Strip the mutation. Return them to their true selves. Before they remember how to consume everything again."

No big deal. Just revert corrupted, reality-eating gods back to their pre-trauma state. Super casual.

"No one's ever done it successfully," the entry added, just to twist the dagger.

"Cool," I whispered, closing the tome carefully like it might explode. "No pressure."

I glanced over toward Heim. He was sipping on a bubble tea in the snack corner, oblivious, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk. Totally unaware that we might be heading toward a realm extinction sequel.

I rubbed my temples.

Okay, so here's the sitrep:

No major gods on speed dial.

No weapon strong enough to cut through corruption.

Our only shot was a long-dead theory that involved emotional reversion, identity restoration, and probably an entire therapy arc. Which was great, because I was basically an interim owner with a zoology degree and a backpack as part of my trusted arsenal.

Oh, and let's not forget the part where I nearly blacked out—everytime—because apparently absorbing memory fragments from Unknown Gods via Kaleon's essence is the magical equivalent of downloading forbidden memories straight into your soul... with dial-up speed and a side of nausea.

But hey—Trauco said this place had answers. Maybe even a miracle or two.

And if Creation's cryptic hints were anything to go by, Mythica had already survived a Straggler invasion once.

Somehow.

And Vorta—the Unknown God of Space and time—knew how. I just had to dig deeper, connect the dots, read between the divine lines.

And if that didn't work? Then I'd move on to researching War Beasts… and if that still failed, well—guess who's planning a one-man raid on the Eternal Prison to drag answers out of Vorta himself.

So I straightened up, summoned my inner academic chaos, and dove back into the vault.

The world might be falling apart again, but damn it, I had a library and a pathological refusal to give up.