Rescue? Tartarus Investigates

"What happened?" Takehiko weakly asked as he sat up. He tried to move his head and looked around. He attempted to count the bodies in the area. He could not see the goblin's body anywhere. There is another body that appeared instead. Realizing that he could not find the familiar goblin appearance, he looked at Serthiel anxiously.

Serthiel was quiet. He did not exactly know what happened a moment ago, but the goblin is missing.

"W-Where is my older brother?" Takehiko anxiously mumbled. 'Is this an anime cliché?' he thought. When people reunite, after a big fight, someone dies. It's the kind of cliché scene that makes a story or a show so dramatic that he and his brother criticize but now he can't believe it. It's a scenario that he would like to avoid but he dreads that it may have just happened.

Serthiel and Riven could not find the body and instead, another body appeared. The appearance of the body out of the blue made them cautious. The body that appears to be a man had a jet-black hair unlike the bald goblin who was fighting earlier, and the body is bigger and almost identical to a humanoid body. The skin is pale black comparing the goblin earlier which had a darker green skin color. He himself is not sure if that is the same person or not. If it's the same person, did he evolve?

"Young master… Master is still alive." Fuji interjected. He could sense their master's mana still lingers in the area. As wolves, they are particular also to the scent that belonged to their master after all they were together for a few days. As he looked to the odd body lying on the ground. Although Fuji himself is quite scared himself to approach as he and his brother Raiji were still conscious when 'that' happened earlier. It was fascinating yet horrifying at the same time. For him and his brother, they could probably classify their master as a being similar to gods due to that intimidating presence and unknown power.

They never had seen a goblin evolve into another creature. They only have observed it happening with beasts and they only observed from afar. According to the records in Valereth, the mana that surrounds the area is usually volatile and affects nearby mana sensitive creatures including elves. However, no elf in Valereth had seen how the process of goblin evolved into hobgoblin or other humanoid species. If the goblin indeed did evolve, how come the surrounding mana in the environment is still the same.

"Older Sister!" Elan cried and every naturally looked at him. His tears rolled down uncontrollably and was gasping for air. It took a while to move before he could muster his strength to ran up to his long-lost sibling. Elves might live a long time but having not seen her for a year with a lot of things happening in the Valereth was taxing to Elan. Not to mention today's events.

Elyara quietly hugged her brother. She sighed as a sign of relief. After she had seen a sprite named Hoa who warned about her little brother being in danger, she could not help but worry. She smiled as she looked at the crying youth. He had grown as a young man despite having not seen him for a year. However, he is still too young and naïve to be away from Valereth. If she recalled, he just turned seventeen this year and already he was sent to this dangerous place. If one would compare, she was already in her twenties when she left a year ago. Although it was not a good circumstance when she left because of a certain person.

Elan who cried to his heart's content suddenly stopped as he watched several figures appear behind the woman. He saw a mountainous figure slowly emerging from the shadow of his sister. He involuntarily trembled. He had too many things happening in a day.

"Interesting…" A low baritone voice commented. The people in the area noticed this hulking figure in shabby robes appeared beside the princess. In contrast to the neat clothes the hulking figure is adorned with bones and jewelry which made it weird and intimidating at the same time.

Riven and Serthiel grew anxious at the sight of the hulking figure. One could feel judging from the mana alone, that the figure had more mana than any of them. It's comparable to the black saint mana. Only if he was not in this state right now. But they were also baffled with the fact that they have some sort of relations with the princess. They further got anxious as few more figures emerged from the shadow.

"It is indeed fascinating how it happened." A petite cloaked figure added. The figure had a raspy but high-pitched voice despite the petite figure. "I envy him."

"Don't worry you will be able to evolve one of these days, Miss Fugh." A tall figure emerged and politely comforted the petite cloaked figure. Riven, Serthiel and Elan could see the snout of this figure, it had scales.

"Ye all goblins want to evolve that badly, eh?" Another cloaked figure appeared emerging from the darkness and mist. It was a small figure half the size of the princess and similar to the petite figure with the raspy voice Under the cloak, only a long black beard that is braided could be seen. He carries an unfamiliar contraption that sticks out at his back.

Riven and Serthiel looked at the stature of the short man with some contraption at his back. Based on the accent and the beard, they guessed it might be a dwarf. But dwarves usually live beyond the nowhere near the valley area so an appearance of a dwarf right now is quite an oddity.

"Of course, unlike dwarves and elves, evolution races like ours means more time, my friend." The scaly figure replied politely.

"Hmph. Never understood that at all. But whatever oils your gears, eh!?" The dwarf snorted. He took out a flask from his pocket and got a sip.

"What did happen here?" Elyara asked softly to the trembling prince. She held Elan's hands and she could feel his hands were trembling. She looked at the prince's face and she saw a complex and perplexed look. Then Prince Elan fainted. "Elan!" She cried as she supported the unconscious prince.

"Your highness!" Riven yelled in succession. He was horrified as the body of the young elf seemed to have fallen and the princess was supporting him.

The mountainous figure sighed and muttered as he glanced at the bodies littered within the area, "This will be a long afternoon..."

***

Yubis, Morticia and Horus were all busy checking on their own computer screens when the door swung open. This caused them to look up at the same time at the direction of the doorway. They saw Hades and Sefie enter at the same time.

"Did I hear about a glitch?" Hades asked. He received a message from Yubis through their internal messaging system which he found very cryptic to look at.

"Yeah. It seemed that way." Yubis looked back at his screen with a resigned look on his face. He had been playing the recording of what happened earlier. He found the overall recording weird and up until now, he could not understand a thing that was going on.

Horus and Morticia looked at them while listening to the conversation between them. Yubis asked questions that did not make any sense and they also watched the same recording and understood why Yubis asked those questions. But like Yubis, they don't know how to answer or give any explanation to it at all.

"Did we record it?" Sefie asked in turn. She heard that her husband is visiting Yubis at the Lab #2 and she definitely planned to go because of her son's welfare. However, Hades told her about a cryptic message that Yubis sent, and she got curious as well. Since it had a topic at hand. She took the initiative to ask.

"Yes." Yubis gave another sigh. He then turned to Horus, "The projector is set up right?"

"Yup." Horus then looked back at his screen and tried to type something again.

Yubis then moved the video of the window to the big screen. The video seemed to be recorded very poorly like CCTV recording that had a lot of interference. They watched the whole thing unfold where a man that looked like Galvalen stabbed their child. Sefie flinched. Hades patted and caressed the goddesses' back to comfort her. Though he looked to the man with hatred as he watched. Like the confusion of the elves in the Spring of Origin, the next second confused him. The man who stabbed Takehiko was gone into thin air. It abruptly happened as if they thought that the video was tampered and edited. The next few clips gave Sefie some sort of an answer to her worries and somehow felt great relief.

"It's like the recording got spliced?" Hades looked at Yubis.

"I don't think so…" Horus replied instead.

"What do you mean?" Sefie asked.