The Record of Unusual Creatures Chapter 230: "Old Friends"

Chapter 230: "Old Friends"
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The battle with the demon hunters was the first surreal combat experience Hao Ren ever had. The memory was still vivid. For this reason, he recognised this woman—she was the one he had fought that day—the scar was the giveaway. But never had he expected he would come to this place and bump into her—who was now a mobile phone seller!
Vivian remembered the face too as the memory struck her. The ambient temperature dropped as she took a step back. Just when the vampire was about to strike, the female demon hunter waved. "Here... is that okay?"
Hao Ren felt his heart had gotten used to surprises. He quickly calmed himself down and pulled Vivian by her sleeve, telling her to not react hastily. While people around them were sensing the unusual atmosphere, they hadn’t any idea about the strange conversation between them. People were just surprised by the sudden cold draft, rubbing their hands and looking at lost. Some were staring at Vivian though. But Vivian was quick in retracting her move. The situation hadn’t spiraled into a commotion because everything returned to normal very quickly.
Vivian sensed the demon hunter lass wasn’t hostile and hadn’t the slightest intention of getting into a fight. She felt a little relieved now though was still on her guard. She asked quietly, "Are you the demon hunter? I remember you were captured by the arcane servant."
"I was released." The demon hunter lass said quietly. It wasn’t known what she had done but everyone including her colleagues were looking elsewhere, no one was paying attention to her, Hao Ren and Vivian. Had Vivian not disrupted the strange energy field she had created, she would still be like in a kind of shield of serenity.
Hao Ren’s mouth was wide open but he couldn’t think of a word to say, he still felt it unreal to meeting his old foe here. "What are you doing here?" He finally found his word.
"Obviously, I’m working here." The demon hunter lass replied calmly. "I’ve been working here for five years. I was even selling clothes next door not long ago. If not for being captured and held by the blue creature in a strange place, I’d have still been selling clothes here."
"That’s not what I mean." said Hao Ren. "As a demon hunter, why are you even here? You should be staying in some underground bunker, appearing in various secret societies beneath the churches, holding the kill orders to go after all the demons around the world, standing on the TV tower watching sunrise, and preserving the peace in the city. That’s what I thought."
The demon hunter lass said to Hao Ren with a straight face, "I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if I were to live like the way you’ve described without even needing to work, how am I supposed to find the money to live?"
Hao Ren: "....."
Hao Ren was totally speechless. What she said was totally logical. He was dazed for a while. "Wait a second. Do you mean that all other demon hunters are living just like you—work, eat and sleep?"
Now, Vivian couldn’t bear to listen anymore. She nudged his arm from behind and said, "Doesn’t everyone need to eat?"
The demon hunter lass nodded as she said, "We live among human. I thought you should have known."
In fact, Vivian had told Hao Ren a lot about demon hunters, including of how they infiltrated and lived among human society. Obviously, Hao Ren had mistaken ‘live among’ as a superficial cover. He had now only learned that these superhumans just live like any human—that was the fault of Holywood; he thought if not fighting with monsters, superheroes should always stand on TV towers and act cool.
While Nangong was a demon hunter, Hao Ren had never treated him as one.
"So it means we need not to fight today, do we?" Hao Ren still suppressed his voice while saying even though he knew people weren’t looking at them. He stared very cautiously at the scarred lady, was still frightened by the thought of being nailed to a wall by a 500mm crossbow. "I didn’t know the psychopath has let you out. I didn’t even know where she had held you. Where was it?"
That day, the arcane servant of Raven came to their rescue, and took every demon hunters along with it—dead and alive. Raven 12345 had said she needed to teach them a lesson. But when Hao Ren reported back to the mansion soon after, he didn’t see any one of them. The arcane servant had told him vaguely that the captured demon hunters would be held in a special spatial dimension; it wasn’t just a jail but an educational facility where Raven 12345 would use her own method to correct these racial extremists. Hao Ren had thought that he probably wasn’t going to see the demon hunters again, but seeing the scarred lady was a total surprise, it gave him an opportunity to know what was actually happening to her after the she was captured.
The fact that the scarred lady didn’t draw her weapon at once when she saw Vivian just showed how successful Raven 12345’s ‘correction measures’ on them.
The demon hunter lass was in thought. Hao Ren could see the exhaustion and aftershock on her indifferent face as if she had been through hell during her captivity. But when she was about to say something, a middle-aged male voice was calling her out at the shop entrance. "Zhao Xi, could you please come—"
The demon hunter lass stood up when she heard the name ‘Zhao Xi’. The male voice was so familiar, thought Hao Ren. As he turned his head, he saw a man, clad in suit, with an ordinary face—if wasn’t for the fact that this man was the leader of demon hunters, he was truly as common as other men on the street.
Vivian was nervous again. But obviously the demon hunter leader didn’t come for a fight; he was surprised too as he waved to Hao Ren and Vivian, half-smiling and half-crying. " Here we meet again but I’m looking for any trouble today."
He then turned to the demon hunter lass. "Zhao Xi, tuck your gimmick away. Please come with your two friends."
The demon hunter lass nodded with a straight face. As she bent down and reached under the counter and took out a rune card before shoving it in her pocket, the surrounding vibes was obviously changing—those patrons and shopkeepers who inadvertently kept a distance from them were starting to wake up and glance at them curiously. There was even a shopkeeper gave Hao Ren a glance and then asked in hindsight, "Zhao Xi, you know him?"
So it was the magic of rune card that had kept people’s attention away.
Hao Ren and Vivian, as well as the demon hunter lass named Zhao Xi cluelessly followed the ‘leader’ into a quiet corner outside the shop. Then the middle-aged man started to reprimand his subordinate. "Can’t you work seriously? You’re making my job difficult if you keep using the rune card so that you could sleep on your job or play with your mobile phone the whole time—you’re dragging the sales down!"
Zhao Xi looked at her superior straight-faced. "My pay’s just a drop in the ocean. Not like what you said."
The middle-aged man frowned. "But still, you shouldn’t dawdle your life away."
"Firstly, I’ve a scar on my face." Zhao Xi pointed at the scar and then her face. "Secondly, my facial nerve was total numbed by the toxic blood of the vampire forty years ago. Tell me, how do I not drag down the sales without having to use rune card magic to draw attention away from me?"
The middle-aged man said, "...probably you’re right, but still, you’ve having an attitude problem at work..."
Listening to such mundane argument between a shopkeeper and her superior bored people to death if not for the fact that the two of them were demon hunters themselves and their conversation had involved a vampire—that was interesting when these the points were considered. Hao Ren gave a cough so that the middle-aged man would turn his attention to them—‘old friends’ whom the middle-aged man was awkward to face with. The middle-aged man said, half-smiling and half-crying, "I’m sorry. Let me introduce. My name’s Liu Sheng—name I’ve been using for decades. I’m the regional manager of the electronic store and home appliance store here. I’m also a.... senior demon hunter."