A girl full of panic ran for her life, speeding through the alleyway. Her forehead was full of sweat bullets, her hair was in a tangled mess. Not only that, her expensive brand name mini blue dress had gotten torn a bit.

Yet, she didn’t care in the slightest about it right now. Her top priority right now was to escape from that place and save her own life.

Tears were pricking her eyes as she forced her legs to run. Why it had to ended up like this? All she wanted was to have some fun since she had finished her exams, and maybe pick up a cute, decent guy along the way. However, she never thought that she would pick up a dangerous guy. She really didn’t want to die yet. She was still young. and there was lot of things that she hasn’t done in her life.

She was too consumed in her thoughts that she didn’t realize the puddle of mud in front of her. And as a result, she stepped on it and slipped a few steps ahead before falling down to the ground with loud thump.

She was about to get up from the ground, but instead she froze up, her face turning pale as she heard the sinister laughter coming from behind her. She knew who the voice belonged too without even having to turn her back. She was scared for her life.

“Aww...poor baby. You really think that you could escape from me?”

The girl then turned around to face the man, “Please let... me go….I-I’ll do...anything….j-just don’t k-kill me,” the girl pleaded as her tears started spilling down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop praying to God to save her from this evil man.

The man kneeled down to her level, “I do want to let you go, honey, but I can’t.” He used his thumb to wipe the tears from the girl’s cheek, “Don’t worry, it will not be painful as you think.”

“Nooo!!!  I’m begging you!!! Please let me go!!!”

Her prayers almost went unanswered.

Almost.

The man just ignored the woman’s screams as he leaned in closer. However, before he could do anything, a sword was being held against his neck.

“Let the woman go now if you still cherish your life,” a deep voice said.

The man huffed in annoyance before raising his hands up in a surrendering manner.

“Fine,” he said before he turned around.

The first sight that greeted him was the figure of a tall person wearing a tight jacket, long pants and high-knee combat boots. The person also had pulled the hoodie up to cover their head, shadowing their face.

The person then gave a signal to the girl to escape from there. The girl nodded before she quickly ran off in a hurry. Although she did feel curious as to who her savior was, but she didn’t want to stay there any longer. The only thing she could do was to pray for her saviour’s safety.

“Who are you?”

“Can’t you tell from simply looking at my clothes?”

The man then looked at the person from head to toe. Since it was dark, he couldn’t see the person very clearly.

“Look, mister, you seriously don’t want to mess with me. Why don’t we forget about this and go on with our life?”

The man wasn’t scared of this person that standing in front of him. He could easily fight if he wanted too, but he didn’t want to waste his energy since his prey had run out from there and he needed to find a new one before the sun went down.

“Mister? Seriously? Which part of me looks like a man?” The person, or woman asked, “ I know what you really are. And it is part of my job to bring you back.”

The demon glared at the woman, “Don’t tell me that you’re one of the hunters.”

“You finally figured it out! Now, be a good demon and follow me back. If not, don’t blame me for whatever happens.”

“Not today, witch!”

The demon then threw a fireball towards the hunter. The hunter was able to dodge it on time and it hit the dustbin behind her. The demon took this chance to run away from the woman, but he wasn’t able to do so when the woman struck him using her sword. He managed to grabbed the sword and use his strength to break it.

The hunter's eyes widened slightly and agape as she watched the blade of her sword fall down to the ground.

“Hey! Do you know how expensive this sword is! It almost costed half of my entire salary!”

“Instead of worrying about your precious sword, shouldn’t you worry about yourself right now? How are you going to defend yourself right now without any weapons?” The demon then his lips, “You know, I never a witch’s soul before. I wonder how your soul tastes like.”

The hunter couldn’t help but roll her eyes despite the fact that the demon is unable to see it, “There is one thing that I hate about demons. They always think that they are so powerful that no one can defeat them.” She then pulled out a small knife from her belt, “Sorry to disappoint you, but you aren’t going to my or anyone’s soul today.”

The hunter used her small knife to attack the demon. The demon quickly raised his hand to defend himself from getting stabbed by the knife. As result, the woman only managed to slice the demon’s arm.

The demon then created a fireball and shot it at the hunter. He let out a small groan when his fireball missed the hunter and hit the wall instead. He then threw another fireball towards the hunter. The hunter clicked her teeth before raising her hand and bouncing the fireball back towards the demon.

The demon’s eyes widened when his own fireball came back at him and he was too stunned that he wasn’t able to manage avoiding  it and as result, it hit him. He let out a scream as he slowly burned to ashes.

“This should teach you a lesson not to underestimate a witch.”

A silver haired, petite man slammed his hands down on his desk causing the other  man to flinch while his so called partner just leaned against the wall, staring at her nails like it wasn’t such a big fuss for her when she is the sole reason to why the petite man was so angry.

“Kristina Wu! Why can’t you understand that this mission isn’t a solo mission!? You dare to abandon your partner and pursue the demon alone?!”

“Look, Minseok-ssi, it wasn’t my fault that he decided to flirt with the waitresses at  the bar. I can’t wait for him to finish flirting when there is someone in danger.” Kristina answered while her partner had the decency to blush after she mentioned that.

“Even so, you shouldn’t go alone! You should call for backup if that was the case.”

“And let the demon the woman’s soul while I’m waiting for backup? Such a good idea.” Kristina sarcastically replied.

Minseok let out a small sigh as he massaged his temples. Kristina had been in his team for a very long time that he finally understood how stubborn this woman can get. He was only wasting his breath by scolding Kristina for her reckless behavior.

“Fine, I’ll let it off for this time. No more next time, Kristina. Do you understand?”

Kristina grumbled, “Yes, sir.”

“Both of you can leave now.”

Kristina’s partner bowed before he walked out from the room. Kristina was about to do the same when Minseok’s voice stopped her.

“Kristina, please be more careful. You know how much I care about you and I really don’t want anything happening to you.”

Kristina’s lips then curled into small smile, but Minseok wasn’t able to see it because of the veil that covered half of her face.

“Yes, ge. I’ll be more careful from today onwards.”

“You better keep your promise this time,” Minseok sternly warned, “Go home and get some rest. It must’ve been a tiring day for you.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow. Goodnight, ge.”

“Goodnight.”

Minseok watched Kristina walk out from his office. He shook his head. Despite the fact that Kristina’s stubbornness is such pain in the sometimes, he does cares about Kristina a lot. Not as lover cares about his partner, but as brother who cares about his little sister which is the reason why he is very strict with Kristina compared to his others subordinates.

A maid was stirring the soup when she heard screaming coming from outside the kitchen. She then stop stirring the soup and ran out from the kitchen to check what had happen. A man then emerged from his hiding spot while muttering how naive that maid had beens and how he also should be thanking his mate for helping him  distract the maid. After all, his mate wasn’t a trickster demon for nothing. He then approached the pot and took out a small bottle from his pocket. He opened the lid and his lips curled into a devilish smirk before he slowly poured out the content from the bottle into the soup.

A small girl slowly walked down the stairs while hugging a white alpaca stuffed animal. She had been woken up from her sleep when she heard yelling coming from the downstairs. She immediately went to her parents’ room to look for her parents so she can tell them about the screams. However, her parents weren’t inside the room and that made her very afraid that the scream might actually belong to one of her parents. She decided to be brave and go downstairs by herself while praying that nothing had happened to her parents.

She straight away headed towards the living room. Her steps abruptly stopping, her doll dropped  on the floor.  A man or should she say a demon was standing in front of her father who was sprawled on the floor. The demon had stabbed her father’s abdomen with a knife. Her father saw her and mouthed at her to run, but her feet didn’t want to budge from their position.  

She then looked beside her father and she screamed after she saw her mother’s body lying on the floor with a pool of blood around her mother’s body. The demon heard her scream and pull out the knife. She let out gasp as she watched her father slumped down to the marble floor. Her eyes then widened when the demon slowly turning his body.

The demon’s lips curled into an evil grin, “Well well...what do we have here?”

“Jie! Wake up!”

Kristina blinks a few times and as her vision clears, she faced Yixin’s concerned look. She sat up and leaned against the headboard. She took a moment to steady her breathing, still shaken by her nightmare. It had been years, yet, the night when her parents got killed was still fresh in her mind like it just happened yesterday.

“Are you okay, jie?”

Kristina quickly gave a reassuring smile to Yixin. She doesn’t want Yixin to worry about her.

“I’m perfectly fine, Xin.”

“Stop lying that you’re fine. You’ve been screaming non-stop before I woke you up. Are you having the same nightmare again, jie?”

“I’m not lying when I say that I’m fine,” Kristina ran her hand through her long platinum blond hair, “I’m already used to it, Xin. I’ve been having the same dream almost every night ever since that day. ”

Sighing, Yixin said, “Jie, maybe you should stay at home today. I don’t think Minseok-ssi would mind it.”

“No.”

“Jie, stop being stubborn and take a leave for a day.”

“I already said no so don’t force me. Now, will you excuse me? I need to get ready,” Kristina said before she kicked off the blanket from her body

“Fine, do whatever you want!”

Yixin then got up from the bed before stalked out of Kristina’s room. Kristina jumped a little when Yixin slammed the door. She let out a small sigh. Looks like she has lot of making up to do with her best friend.

*

“Kristina-ssi, please come to my office now.”

Kristina was eating lunch in the cafeteria when the announcement had been made. Her teammates started snickering after they heard that. After all, this wasn’t the first time it had happened. Her reckless actions were quite well known among the teams and all of them knew that if their superior called her to his office, it only means one thing, she had cause trouble again.

Kristina glared at her teammates, but her teammates just ignored it. They already knew Kristina for a very long time, knowing her, Kristina’s glare meant no harm.

Kristina let out a small sigh as she put down the spoon. She then got up from the bench before heading towards her superior’s office. She couldn’t stop wondering what she had done this time to trigger her superior’s anger again.

She stopped in her steps when she reached Minseok’s office. She knocked on the door and a soft voice asked her to come in. She took a deep breath before she stepped inside the office.

“Sit down,” Minseok said as he pointed to the chair in front of his desk, “You don’t have to look so scared. I’m not going to scold you, yet. There is something that I need to discuss with you.”

Kristina then sat down on the chair. There was a small scowl on her lips,  “Then you shouldn’t call me using the intercom. Our team thinks that I have done something wrong again.”

“Who asked you to keep acting recklessly to gain a name for yourself?”

“Tch…So what it is that you want to discuss with me?”

“I just received news from higher ups. The demon lord suddenly has fallen into illness and not even their best healer can cure his illness.”

“About time. He is getting too old after all.”

“Kristina!”

“What? I’m only speaking the truth.”

“You better filter that mouth of yours sooner or later because you are going to cause yourself trouble!”

“Ge, I thought you said you have something to discuss with me. Why are you telling me this?”

Minseok glared at Kristina, “I was planning too before you interrupted me. The demon lord has never fallen ill before. Because of this, it had caused turmoil in the demon realm as the demons start to suspect there is a foul play to take down the demon lord. That’s why our higher ups want us to stand on guard 24 hours just in case something bad is going to happen.”

“I see. This is interesting,” Kristina said as she tapped her chin.

“And one more thing, Kristina, don’t even think of investigating this matter on your own. I know you too well.”

Kristina scoffed, “Fine, sir. Is that all? Can I leave now?”

Minseok waved his hand offhandedly.  Kristina then walked out from the office and accidentally bumped into a red haired tall woman, wearing a tight leather jacket and short pants accompany with army boots.

“Sorry, Chanmi-ssi.”

Chanmi just glared at Kristina before entering Minseok’s office. Kristina sighed. She knew why Chanmi treated her rudely. Chanmi was jealous of her. Not because of her powers since Chanmi also quite strong witch, but because of her closeness with Minseok.

But it was okay.

Author's note: Hi, there. I'm the co-author, _Amy_Lea_2021. LDue to personal reason, the author of this story wouldn't able to update for a while.

Pls leave down a comment or two. Thanks.