“Sir, I have a problem with my estate…”

“Get an estate salesman…”

“A monster appeared out of nowhere.”

“Interesting, shouldn’t say it to the salesman, though.”

“Are you paying attention?”

“Not until you state the details…”

“Froglike creature with a pond on its head.”

“A kappa? Do you have problems with your prostate?”

“What?” Exclaimed the customer. He was outrageous as his private matters where dragged into an official conservation.

“In the old times, they were the prostate doctors of humanity. Yeah, let’s put it that way...”

“What is this nonsense?”

“That is actually, true. If you do not like it, you do not have to employ me.”

“You are too expensive.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to pay about eighty percent of my income to the government. I need money to live, as you do.”

“Damn.” He took out his purse on second thought.

“Here is the contract…” The customer signed it.

“There are several ways to deal with a kappa, though some of them brings bad luck. The first option is that you grow some cucumber and give it to the spirit. Or you be polite, and when you are friendly with the creature, you bow to him, and it will repeat it, spilling the water from its head. But you could ask it to help as well, they are not all malicious.”

“Yeah, I found that on the Internet as well… You made me pay for an advice that could be given free? What an asshole.”

“You signed the contract.” Stephen had a feeling this case will not result in an act of honour and grace.

“Moron…” He murmured.

“You can shit in its headpool, too. But the stool must be in liquid form. If you do that, you will enslave the creature.”

Random baffling words left the customer’s mouth.

“Kay then. Since you are dissatisfied with what I have told you, I might give you some discount.”

“Eh.”

“Thank you, Bye.”

“What, that is all? This is not what I have paid for.”

“This is actually what you have paid for. It’s in the contract.”

The man left, he never came back again and never paid Stephen. He left it as it is, since this customer was particularly hard to deal with.

*****

“I remember. So that guy was it? Shame. I hope he could deal with the kappa.” Searching through the newspaper and saw a man desecrated by a mystical creature. “I have given him the means to get rid of the kappa. He was stupid to do otherwise.”

Someone knocked on the door. “Stephen Silver. We have come to escort you to the nearest police station on account of fraud and scam.”

“It’s Silworth!” He yelled from his room. As he was searching through his shelf, he heard the police crashing his door. “Suck my kappa…” He shouted and activated a teleport token. In a moment, he found himself in the mountains with the Aephala in his hands. Then his phone ringed.

“Yo, look up.”

He saw a golden dragon serpent with wings flying circles in the skies. “Why you here?” Asked Stephen.

“I’ve got to bring you to a place…”

“Where exactly?”

“Do you know the old henge, which remains a mystery still today?” The dragon landed next to the detective.

“The stone one?”

“Duuh. Is there any other?”

“Sure.” He mounted Ealion, who took off and flew towards the portal. “What do I have to do?”

“A purification rite with the Aephala.”

“You want me to?”

“Banish all magic creatures from this world.” The dragon smiled.

“I could create an ideal world for you, you know…”

“That is why Kami wanted you.”

“That is why I was given cancer?”

“Well, consequences I guess. You could remove it during the ritual, though.”

“He?”

“The Aephala grants you what you wish for. Be careful…”

“Do you know how I became a supernaturalist?”

“No, no I don’t. How?”

“When I was a kid, we were living at a huge estate, where I could go exploring. I’ve met lots of creatures, which helped or attacked me, depending on my actions. But none of them wanted to kill me.”

“Sounds like the Forest of the Thousand Mistakes.”

“Yeah. Then I met a scribeast.”

“A what?”

“It’s a creature selling stories from other dimensions. A very interesting creature. They tend to be part of the big publishing companies. That one brought me writings on a Mage called Merlin, from a similar world to ours.”

“Merlin? I think I heard his name before.”

“He was helping King Arthur getting the Holy Grail, which I believe that it is that world’s Aephala.”

“Interesting.”

“It turns out he was a charlatan. He made the king think he was a mage. He was just a homeless guy, who got wasted one day and had a bet with his hobo friends. ‘Can you persuade the king you are a magical being, a mage?’ Clearly there were no such things in that world. He used this Arthur to get rich and built himself a monument, which happened to be a portal between worlds by chance. Stone Henge, I guess? In the end, he was poisoned by his friends out of envy.”

“These people are strange…”

“So I’ve read his story, and decided to pull the same prank, but it turned out to be a serious business. I met a man of excellence, whose specialty was to remove malevolent creatures from this world. I learnt everything I could, a lot of things happened while I was studying.”

“Your brother died?”

“Yes.”

“And you erased him, didn’t you?”

“This is something I wouldn’t talk about.”

“There might be a way to bring him back.”

“With the artefact?”

“And your life, too…”

“Well, it’s my duty…”

“I wouldn’t say that. You could just accept his death.”

“It’s not me I think about, it’s them.”

“I understand.”

“So, how come you have a phone?”

“I bought it last time I went to the city. Don’t worry, I paid for it. The guy called himself an IT Specialist, but who knows what that means”

“Information Technology. They are like magicians, but with electricity and data.”

“Electricity?”

“That is a type of magic…”

“I see.”

“Are you familiar with cars?”

“Yeah, they burn my ancestor’s remains to move forwards. Gravediggers.” The dragon spat.

“That’s explosion magic, I guess…”

“So you use magic to improve life quality? Interesting.”

“Somehow toasters enhance magic abilities. But only if you put some butter on the toast first.”

“Duuh. You are not familiar that the butter bread setup is a part of an old magic ritual that increases magic volatility? That is why it always lands face-down.”

“Interesting”

“We are almost there…” The inbound flight approached the lone valley rapidly, implying Stephen to start preparing for the ritual.

On arrival Ealion transformed into his human form, and Stephen took the Aephala out of his pocket.

“So what should I do now?”

“Just focus and use the amulet I gave you.” He sat down and waited for his disappearance from this dimension. Stephen closed his eyes and concentrated. Nothing happened for the first try, but the second exploded. The blue-purple mist it generated chanted in a mysterious language. An aura of creation was unfolding.

The golden dragon was sleeping in the background.

Stephen channelled all his emotions and experience into the aura, which started to resonate with low pitch sounds. The mist changed its colour to green and gold, resembling the atmosphere of the forest Stephen grew up in. Then the Aephala exploded again and he lost consciousness.

*****

In his dreams, he felt the cold biting his back, the abyss crushing his chest. Beside that he felt incredibly light and strong. He saw several portals in the interdimensional space, which was similar to the mist of the Aephala, and started focusing his energy. Knowing he wasn’t in any dimension, he did everything he could in order to set everything right, which included separating his world from magic, and creating a new dimension to cope with the replacement. Then his thoughts shifted to his brother.

*****

When he woke up, Steward found himself at the old car crash site. He did not know what happened, but the only thing that came to his mind was being hungry to say the least. Like he wouldn’t have eaten for a decade. Thinking through what happened, he realized he died a long ago, yet he was here, in the living world. His family’s estate was close by, so walked over.

“I am home.” He said aloud when opening the front door of the house.

“Did I hear Steward’s voice?” Asked an older woman in the living room.

“Heard it, too.” Said his male partner.

“Did you guys hear Steward’s voice, too?” Replied a younger woman. All three were agitated, since nobody knew what happened. They all went to the front door.

“Is this truly you?” Asked his mother in a heart-broken voice. All three embraced the man.

“You died!”

“How are you here?”

“Don’t know. I am hungry…” The three were almost dancing of happiness.

“I’ll call Stephen…” Said the mother.

“He will not answer the phone.”

“What?”

“The only thing I remember is that he sacrificed himself for me.”

*****

“Gillian, have you finished with the code?” Asked a man from behind the programmer.

“One sec.” He replied. Being eager to go home to his newly born daughter, he was completing all the tasks in advance. And now he finished. After giving the code to his boss, he left the building and called for a Sober. It was hard to catch one in London, though, but he had to try it. While waiting for the vehicle, he intruded a bookshop, where he wanted to buy books on artificial intelligence and deep learning. A book with a strange cover caught his eyes.’

After spending half an hour in the shop, the Sober arrived. He left, and got into the vehicle, where a friendly chauffeur greeted him.

“Thank you for using our service.”

“Could you bring me to this address?” He handed over a piece of paper.

“Sure, no problem.” He accelerated.

Gillian was watching the city’s landscape from the car, and had no intention to get into a conversation, but the driver started speaking nonetheless.

“Can you recommend me a good book?”

“I read books of specialty, nothing else.”

“What do you do?”

“Programmer.”

“You came out of a book shop…”

“I was there waiting for you. Who knows when it would start raining.”

“Seen anything interesting?”

“Something with a yellow dragon as a cover.”

After finishing his shift, the Sober Driver went to the closest bookshop, and checked the piece.

“Adventures of Stephen Silworth, huh? I didn’t know someone would write a book about me.”