When I opened my eyes, I found myself tied up in chains and sitting on the edge of a dark room. It seems like I have been in here for a long time because the chains had already left red marks on my skin. I tried to yell for help, but I could not make any sound; someone had left a silent spell in my throat. I cannot disable this spell because I only have one element left, so I decided to try untying myself first. The chains are easy to break. I stand up and use a light spell so I can see around the room. The room was huge, and I felt like there were others inside this room, so I tried to walk around. I found a cat-shaped creature with two tails tied up with ropes and lying on the floor in a corner. I slapped the cat, and the cat opened its eyes. The cat tried to speak but soon found out that it could not make a sound, so I left it there to work out the spell while I kept exploring. That is when I stepped on a button, and a door on the wall suddenly opened while bringing in the lights. A man came into the room, he was wearing a black suit and his face was covered by a dark mask.

“Hey, do you know what he is doing?” the cat was finally able to speak, pointing at the man.

The man was using a stick, poking the people lying on the ground. 

“I think he is trying to wake up the others.”

The "others" on the floor were a puddle of liquid and a human with glasses.

"So," the man seeing that the puddle won't move, gave up the idea of waking it, and started to speak, “you guys are my Clean-Up Crews, and your job is to protect me.” the man said in a calm and low voice. He said that he is a soul detective, and his job is to rescue souls. He needs to send souls to the underworld, but there are monsters in between trying to harm him and the souls, so he needs someone to protect him, and that is why we are here.

"Can we disagree with this weird labor?" the pile of puddles on the floor suddenly spoke.

"I don't think this is a double-sided agreement, Ms. Nancy." Replied the soul detective with magical elements glowing in his hands, "Now please go across that door."

Outside the door, there is only a plain field, with boxes with signs written on them.

The detective seems impatient, "You four creatures will be trained by me from now on until this team can defeat a zombie. Only then can you leave and join my mission. The time limit is one week. If you four fail to defeat that zombie in the time frame, you four will die."

"Also, don't worry about dying during this week, this plain is covered with spells, it would bring you back to life if you are killed, but after one week, this spell will break, and you four die under the zombie's hands. Do you understand me?"

We nodded our heads and looked at those boxes.

"What do you think is in that box?" I whispered to the human with glasses.

"My name is Nana; nice to meet you." She replied.

"No, I mean, what do you think is in that box" I tried again.

"I think it would be a zombie."

Then, suddenly a wave of Rumplestilzchen appeared next to the box and poured toward us. We don't have elements left, which means we need to use our pure strength to fight. 

"Run! Although they are very fast, they are very short-handed, which means they can only attack when they are close to the enemies!" The cat shouted, and we all ran to the opposite sides.

After we get into position and recovered from the fear. We soon defeated all of them, although we each died around two or three times in between.

"Nice work, guys," I said, "Maybe we can defeat that zombie."

"Even if we all died about three times, it's still nice work?" the cat was rubbing his two tails because the fur on them was nearly all gone due to the fighting.

"Yes!" I replied.

The soul detective seemed to be impressed with our fight. He came over to us and showed us a map. It was a large map so we placed it on the ground.

"This is the map of the land where you are standing; use the rest of your days to make sure that you are familiar with this."

He kicked the map towards us. This map showed marks of different areas, a forest, the Altor, and a place called the Elbe River. We think this was magical because we saw a red glowing dot on the Head Quarter. We figured that this might be where we are.

"This will be certainly a hard job," I said, "I am terrible at remembering things."

"Come on, it is just some names," the cat said, "this is much better than fighting monsters, isn't it?"

So, we tried remembering the map between fights, it was a formidable job, and the soul detective only provided us with little food and water. We tried fighting back, but we found that this man was so powerful that we would still lose even if we were four versus one. The days passed quickly, and soon it came to the day of the zombie. The zombie was a powerful creature with strong strength and thick skin, so we were all pretty scared. Although we can be reborn back to life, it would still be excruciating.

It was a hard fight, but we won, like always. We used nearly all the attacks that we know against this zombie, and we are all very tired. After the zombie disintegrated into ashes, we all fell to the floor in exhaustion. After a few seconds of resting, we were teleported to the soul detective.

"Congratulations, you defeated the Zombie," said the soul detective with a cold smile, "I hope you all remembered the map, and now let us go on our mission."

"Wait, we need a rest, we just defeated a zombie, and we are all tired." I am shocked by his decision. I mean, come on, although we were kidnapped here, just give us some time to rest before the actual adventure.

"Sorry, the time is passing fast, and our souls are waiting for us." Then he pushed open the gate, and we all passed out.

When we woke up, we found ourselves lying at the entrance of a forest.

"Where are we?" I asked. I felt so sick and dizzy I couldn't even think correctly, "What had just happened?"

"You guys have just been through a long-distance teleport. It was common to pass out at the first time." The soul detective was standing in front of me, "Also, I recovered your elements, which means now you are able to perform your spells."

"Why are the others still sleeping?"

"They will wake up soon."

After we are all awake, we move forward. The forest was old, the trees seemed to be reaching for heaven, and abundant leaves covered the sky like a roof blocking the lights. It was strangely quiet, no birds, no monsters, just the sound of our footsteps and the footsteps of something else.

"What was that!" Nana froze; she also heard those footsteps.

Suddenly two Poodles, a big black wolf, and five Alps surrounded us. To be honest, I am scared. It was the first time for me to face monsters in a real-life situation, the ones that you can die from.

"Yep, this is what we called a messy case, and now you guys should protect me." The soul detective said while he moved back between us.

"Wait, what? Are we going to fight those now?"

Before I could finish my question, the poodle attacked; our team stood in position and was ready to fight. I could see that we were all nervous and everybody gripped their weapons tightly. After a few moments to react, Charlie rushed toward the poodle, and with a jump, he landed on the poodle's neck and strangled it to death with his tail.

"Nice job Cat!" I shouted; his move encouraged me to attack. Maybe we can win this. The rest of us all rushed toward the monsters and started attacking. Nancy expanded herself into a large area of liquid and wrapped the enemies inside, the monsters were suddenly surrounded by water, and they were all choked to death. I looked around and saw a poodle near me, and I pulled out my holy water gun. After checking the amount of holy water left, I chose a stable standing position and shoot. Holy water sprays out of the weapon and shoots toward the monsters in a bullet-like shape. When it touched the poodle, it disintegrated with a scream of pain. Nana was standing behind us with her gun, she has accurate shooting skills, and she is like the sniper of our team. It did not take much time to defeat all enemies, we had excellent group work, but Cat and I are scratched by the monster.

It was the first time we ever saw Cat using his spell. After a few seconds of chanting, our wounds were magically cured.

"So that is your spell!" I rubbed Cat's ears, "I used to be curious about wood spells."

Charlie moved away from my hand and nodded, he seemed to dislike my rubbing, so I started to pack up my things and move deeper into the forest with the detective.

After hours of walking in the forest, we come to a place with piles of dead animals lying in front of us. We were all nervous because the marks on those bodies looks perfectly like the marks from a zombie.

"Oh no, are those zombie marks?" Nancy's voice was a bit trembling, and I understood her. We had died several times when we were fighting the zombie, and now we won't be reborn. 

Suddenly, as we expected, a Zombie jumped in front of us. The blood on its claws was still wet and warm.

"Move back, I'll handle this," I said with one finger pointing at the zombie, "All into the water!" I shouted, and with a splash, the zombie turned into a puddle of water.

The others were all shocked. They stared at me in amazement.

"Why don't you use this against the detective? Then we can all be free."

"Where did you learn this spell?"

"Is this a forbidden spell? You might get into big trouble."

Questions from my teammates overwhelmed me, I tried to answer, but the detective shut up their mouth.

"First, she cannot use it against me because it requires a massive amount of elements. Second, this should be an inherited spell, which means it is not forbidden, and now we shall rest." After saying this, the detective opened his magical tent and went inside.  

"Hey, now we have Hesper's water spell, and the detective is asleep. Should we run?" Charlie suggested after we heard the detective's snore.

"Yeah, I agree," I said, "it would be our only chance."

We think that this might be a possible chance, so we all run for freedom to the east of the forest, where the map shows the closest exit.

The moonlight shined on our bodies, and the howl of monsters came from afar. I know that there will be dangers waiting for us in the future. But that doesn't matter now, I am free, and I have a trustworthy team. This might be a dangerous move, but I won't regret this decision. No matter what problems are going to come, we will face them all together.

"Let's go, guys, faster, before the sunrises, before he wakes up," Nancy shouted, and we all dashed toward the moon.