Now that they weren't in the elevated rim surrounding the Oakshire Forest— a hostile environment that the two of them dubbed as "The Dark Hunting Grounds"— Goblin Slayer and High Elf Archer were able to freely roam the vast valley floor that made up the majority of the forest's inner landscape. Since High Elf Archer needed to create a surplus of new arrows before leaving the inner sanctum of Mother Nature's tranquility that was the Oakshire Forest's peaceful valley floor, she and Goblin Slayer circled around the clean-glimmering waters of the lake; the two of them making small talk, as they headed toward the base of the two-hundred foot " Grizzly Peak"; the large hollow rocky formation in the near distance, that was in the shape of a grizzly bear looking up toward the sky majestically.
The original idea that High Elf Archer had in mind was to collect bundles of sturdy twigs that she and Goblin Slayer would shear from the over abundance of trees surrounding them, before sharpening whatever small rocks that they could collect from Grizzly Peak, so as to make those into arrowheads. High Elf Archer's crude idea to create her own surplus of arrows began to crumble, after Goblin Slayer innocently asked how they were going to keep the sharpened rocks connected to the wooden shafts they needed to be stuck on.
Cursing in her native tongue, High Elf Archer began to slow her pace down as a frustrated expression formed on her elegant face. Signaling for Goblin Slayer to halt alongside her, the minty-green haired elf began to thoroughly search through the leather pouches that were attached to her belt. Eventually, after about ten minutes of cursing up a storm while getting more upset with her fruitless search, High Elf Archer gave up while feeling upset with herself. "Orcblog… I…I don't think I actually ever packed a spool of thread with me, like how I thought I did; I must have overlooked that before I left the Frontier Outpost… D-Damn it! I don't even know how the hell we're going to be able to make arrows at this point; not unless you've got some weird magic-spell for that, or whatever it is you're capable of…!"
"It's called "Magecraft"; it's basically just magic, but more science-based," Goblin Slayer replied, while trying to simplify its explanation, all without confusing the already annoyed elf. "And, uh… Yeah, let me see what I can do here," Goblin Slayer muttered, as he raised his holographic menu up from where he had it floating in front of his hip; bringing the user-interface up this eye-level, before using his fingertips to enlarge the menu by stretching out the sides of it.
Now to High Elf Archer, all she saw from her perspective was Goblin Slayer intently staring at nothing, while simultaneously swiping and poking the air as he quietly read to himself. "… What exactly is it that you're doing? Getting in-tune with Earth Goddess, or doing some weird mumbo-jumbo crap that's like… I don't know; unlocking some sort of "arcane realm", or something else like that?" High Elf Archer asked with a slightly cynical tone in her voice, which made her crack a smile as she saw how well Goblin Slayer took her sarcastic quip.
"Hehehe…!N-No, it's like that… All I'm doing right now is just doing some reading," Goblin Slayer replied, as he continued to read the instructions that BBB had written to him through a long pop-up message that came with picture examples, and highlighted notes that she had added onto the web-browser-like window. "Through something called " Structural Analysis", my friend named BB-Sensei can take whatever items that are stored within my inventory, and break them down into something that's called a " molecular structure", and use whatever, uh… " Elements"— from something called the " Periodic Table"— to pretty much create anything that's within the Moon-Cell's archives… It requires me to enter " build mode", which is… Which is done by… " Augmented Reality"…?" Goblin Slayer read aloud with a confused expression on his face; one that was trumped by the dumbfounded look on High Elf Archer's face, whose jaw was hanging open.
"I… I don't know what…! W-What?! W-What did ANY of that even MEAN?!" High Elf Archer stuttered out, while trying to grasp her mind around the instructions that not even Fairy Knight really seemed to understand herself.
Instead of admitting that she was just as lost as they were with trying to decipher what most of the words that BBB was using to simplify an already complex procedure, Fairy Knight remained calm and collected as materialized beside Goblin Slayer, as she prepared herself to give her master her advice. "As much as it pains me to say this… It would be in our best interest to contact the managerial AI to show you how to enter this "builder mode" that this " little character" seems to be adamant about you doing," Fairy Knight suggested, which made BBB cross her small arms over chest in disapproval; visually annoyed at the thought of having her other self involved with their endeavors.
Unlike Fairy Knight and BBB, Goblin Slayer genuinely enjoyed the aforementioned AI's company, and thus a soft smile formed on his face as he thought about once again seeing the scandalously dressed woman, with her long lavender hair and visible white panties that her miniskirt couldn't keep hidden. "That's a great idea, Dame Knight! Now all I've got to do is, uh… BB-Sensei? C-Can you hear me, or- Oh, there she is!" Goblin Slayer said excitingly, as he turned to face the empty spot beside him where a cloud of pixelated photon particles began to form into the shape of the enigmatic woman in question.
Wanting to make a grand entrance— even though she was fully aware of the fact that, aside from Goblin Slayer, the only two other beings who could perceive her didn't like her as a person— BBB gracefully stepped forward out of the dispersing particles of light that she formed out of; waving her metal-wand as though she was the "Fairy Godmother" from the classic Disney film that she wanted to watch with Hakuno, the lavender-haired woman gave a smug look toward Fairy Knight, before coming to a stop once she was standing directly in front of the happy ten year-old.
Behind the facade of a sweet and purposefully-disarming smile, BB had an unnerving tone behind her glowing-purple eyes as Goblin Slayer watched as her fingers tightened around the black handle of her collapsible metal-wand. "Ah! If it isn't the child whose carelessness almost cost the life of MY Hakuno-Chan! Perhaps you've gotten too comfortable without my supervisor? Allow me to correct that behavior, BEFORE I teach you a lesson in entering augmented reality; like how you SHOULD HAVE DONE earlier with that " quantum dash" spell~!" BB said with a fake cheerfulness, as Goblin Slayer watched dreadfully as she reached down toward his shoulder with her left hand.
Knowing what was to come, Fairy Knight immediately sprung into action by picking her master up from where he had been standing; lifting him up over her small body, before immediately turning around to begin sprinting away from the enraged AI. "Do not fear, Master; for I shall protect you from her wrath," Fairy Knight said reassuringly in her calm voice, before promptly letting out a confused gasp, upon feeling Goblin Slayer getting pulled from her grasp.
Even though BB couldn't be touched by anyone other than Goblin Slayer, the fact remained that she alone had enough physical strength of her own to begin playing an aggressive game of "tug-of-war" with Fairy Knight, as the two females fought to have custody of the ten year-old. " LET GO OF MY STUDENT, YOU LOSTBELT-BITCH; HE NEEDS TO LEARN HIS LESSON THE HARD WAY!" BB shouted with a crazed look in her eyes, as she fully intended on beating Goblin Slayer's bare ass, black-and-blue with her metal-wand.
From several meters away, all High Elf Archer could do was spectate the bizarre sight through widened eyes; unable to see or hear BB, all that the elf could make out was that Goblin Slayer had a terrified expression on his face, and that Fairy Knight was visibly struggling to pull him away from seemingly nothing. That's when she noticed that Goblin Slayer's pants and underwear were slowly being pulled down to the point of being bunched up around his thighs; exposing his large flaccid dick to her, before she began to hear him grunt and whine in pain, as his entire body physically recoiled each time BB managed to connect her metal-wand to his bare asscheeks, which caused Fairy Knight to shout threatening words at the managerial AI in between their struggle.
' Holy shit…This kid's fucking weird, ' High Elf Archer thought to herself, while watching the scene continue to unfold before her eyes, until finally Goblin Slayer's pants and underwear were pulled back up and he was finally let go of. Unable to snicker after seeing how brightly red the embarrassed boy's face was, High Elf Archer simply assumed by the way his eyes were turned toward the side that he was being followed by whoever had spanked him for five minutes straight; presumably while getting heavily lectured at, with his exasperated his watery eyes looked to her. " Heh… Are doing alright there, Orcblog?"
Utterly humiliated and embarrassed, Goblin Slayer swallowed the lump in his throat as he tried his best to avoid making direct eye-contact with the beautiful elf, who he figured wasn't going to take him seriously after she had been there to witness him getting punished by his overbearing AI teacher. "Y-Yeah…! Y-Yeah, I'm fine… Let me just… Learn how to build you some arrows, or whatever…" Goblin Slayer muttered in a low voice, as he stood still so that BB could finally begin tutoring him.
After an hour of practice and being tested on how to perceive the world around him through a modified user-interface that made him see the world through the holographic lenses of "virtual reality", Goblin Slayer learned that by stretching out the menu to the point that it covered his entire view-point, he was able to enter " augmented reality". Being able to see the world as it was— with the exception that everything around him either had a white silhouette, or was covered in a checkered-white grid— Goblin Slayer would be able to have BB and or BBB create anything for him, so long as he had the resources within his inventory for them to molecularly construct whatever item he chose from the secondary menu he had floating before him.
Even though Goblin Slayer didn't have an sort of tools that would have been necessary to chop down trees, shovel through the Earth, or mine through hardened metals and rocks, Fairy Knight was more than capable of breaking down whatever raw material he needed to make smaller, in order to have an easier time transferring them into BB's near-infinite reality marble. Even though he didn't necessarily need High Elf Archer to know what he was doing, Goblin Slayer still wanted her to be a part of what he was doing, so he made sure to explain to her in detail what he was doing while she followed closely behind him, as she watched his servant chopping the nearby trees into small pieces of logs.
Through BB's instructions, Goblin Slayer made sure to collect an ample supply of wood in order to have it for later uses. And even though Fairy Knight was able to chop a tree down into sizable logs within less than a blink of an eye, Goblin Slayer still needed to move around in order for his servant to reach the trees within the limits of her six-meter range. By the time that Goblin Slayer gathered enough pieces of wood to begin having Fairy Knight break down the rocks at the base of Grizzly Peak into more raw material that his AI women needed to build items with, two hours had already passed; meaning that the sun was on its way to setting over the peaceful valley.
Having never imagined that her quest to kill the dark elf responsible for slaughtering so many of her kind would involve fetching loose pieces of raw material off of the ground, High Elf Archer was distracted throughout the entire time Goblin Slayer was mining rock and exposed veins of precious metal that Fairy Knight broke down into ores. Collecting ores that ranged from copper to silver, to giving the appreciative ten year-old literal handfuls of sand and gold-dust, High Elf Archer was rationalizing their mundane tasks as an important step towards reaching their goal; reminding her constantly that she needed arrows, and that Goblin Slayer was still her best bet of defeating her dark elf target: Nerevar.
Managing his inventory by viewing the quantity of resources that were at his disposal, Goblin Slayer was using one of the bullseye oil lanterns that he had retrieved from BB's reality marble; using its focused light to illuminate the inside of Grizzly Peak's inner cave system, as he and High Elf Archer carefully walked along the natural stone walkway that allowed them to explore the inner workings of the unusual rock formation, all without needing to step foot into the rushing rapids that went through Grizzly Peak, and led out of it toward the massive lake within the center of the Oakshire Forest.
With Goblin Slayer having an extremely detailed map of the Grizzly Peak's underground labyrinthine of tunnels at his fingertips, the ten year-old was able to navigate through the surface level of the cave system, and soon enough he and High Elf Archer were entering through a hidden entrance that had been concealed by a large boulder that had fallen off from the ceiling of the one opened area within Grizzly Peak's cave system; just past the rushing rapids that made the entire inside of the two-hundred foot tall rock formation smell like river water.
The deeper the two descended underneath the Earth's crust, the more they started to notice the strange phenomena of the way the tunnels sounded like grizzly bear growls; as the sound of the rushing rapids flowing through the inside of Grizzly Peak, where it changed into bear sounds as it reached their underground location. Paired with the darkness, and that she was trusting her safety into the hands of a literal child, High Elf Archer was growing more-and-more anxious with the fact that the hollow walls around them were amplifying the artificial bear growls that was triggering her body's flight-or-fight response.
"Hey… Orcblog," High Elf Archer called out in an uneasy voice, while at the same time trying her best to not allow for her fear to show, as she saw through the dim light that the bullseye lantern was shining off the nearby rocky walls to see Goblin Slayer coming to a stop several feet ahead of her; turning his head over his shoulder, so as to meet her anxious gaze with a patient smile on his face.
"Yes, Artemis?" Goblin Slayer asked in a calm demeanor; once again noticeably being influenced by the way Fairy Knight spoke, whenever High Elf Archer would occasionally hear the white-haired servant speak.
"It's… It's a little difficult for me to see back here, and I'd rather not use up any more of my night-vision potions, if it can be helped… Is there anything that you can do to fix how dark it is in here?" High Elf Archer asked, while still doing her best to hide how uneasy she was.
Not being limited by the close-quarters of the cavern interior, BB phased through the rocky wall behind where High Elf Archer was standing; greeting Goblin Slayer's eyes with an amused grin on her sassy face. "In case it wasn't obvious, what she meant by that is that the sound from the rapids reverberating down here is giving her anxiety… But don't worry; we've got it covered," BB said with a soft chuckle, before she and the miniature version of her began transforming the interior of the cave.
Noticing that his resources were being depleted via the secondary menu floating at his chest's level, Goblin Slayer and High Elf Archer watched in awe as sparking clouds of photon particles began forming along the walls and ceiling of the cave, before slowly transforming into mounted torchlights and hanging fairy lights; all of which illuminated the entire inside of Grizzly Peak in a cozy and dim orange-glow. Even the artificial bear growls came to an end, all thanks to the two managerial AI women crafting a sound-proof door that separates the surface level cave housing the powerful rapids, and the tunnel system where Goblin Slayer and High Elf Archer resided.
Feeling far less claustrophobic now that she and her companion had a better grasp of their immediate surroundings, High Elf Archer was letting out a withheld breath through her slightly parted lips, as her mind was registering the miraculous sight of what she had just witnessed happened within less than a second. "I… Wasn't sure what I was expecting, but… It certainly wasn't that…! Wow… I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before; they're so intricate, yet simple in design," High Elf Archer mused with an astonished tone in her voice, as she reached up to gently hold one of the glowing glass-orbs that were strung-together by a silicon-covered copper-wire, which was powering the conduits of each bulb.
Being in the same boat as High Elf Archer, Goblin Slayer was perplexed by the electric light-bulbs that were attached to the dangling wires above, and was equally mystified by the fact that the torches were actively burning; despite appearing as though it wasn't using any oil or flammable substance to keep the flame active. "Yeah… Yeah, this is all rather unusual, isn't i- w-what the…?!" Goblin Slayer immediately uttered out with a surprised look on his wide-eyed face, as his head immediately whipped around from the direction of the torch he had been inspecting; his frantic eyes staring past the slender shoulder of the bewildered elf, who turned around to see for herself what had caused him such alarm.
Standing behind High Elf Archer, the almost five-foot tall girl with stark-white skin had a white-static aura enveloping her silhouette; her entire dull-gray body glitching while struggling to retain its sharpness, similar to a defective CRT television. She stared back at him with hollow pitch-black eyes, which seemed to have barely visible white-glowing pupils in the center of their void-like gaze; conveying a sense of solemn-solidarity, as well as uncertainty. The outfit she wore looked as though it was supposed to be a brown student-uniform with a blue-ribbon tied into a bow underneath the collar, while the girl's petite legs were covered completely by black stockings; or at least that's what Goblin Slayer could make out, as all she appeared grainy over her dull-contrasting form, on top of her corporal form already being unstable.
Staring off into the direction that the ten year-old boy was fixated on, High Elf Archer squinted her eyelids while wondering whether or not there was anything actually there; believing momentarily that the dim light from the surrounding furnishings prevented her from possibly seeing what was entrancing Goblin Slayer. "… Are you…? Seeing something that I'm not? Like, some sort of invisible thing; kind of like whatever it is that you keep tapping your fingers at, or that one woman you keep mentioning… BB?" High Elf Archer asked with a curious look on her face, as she calmly turned her head away from the unsettling entity, to instead look back into Goblin Slayer's unsettled and distracted stare.
Needing a moment to find his words, Goblin Slayer swallowed the lump in his throat as he felt his heart racing inside of his small chest; his blood growing cold as he watched the unnerving girl open her mouth to reveal a pitch-black void past her lips, similar to how her eyes appeared. "Uhh… Ummm… I… I guess so…? I'm uh… I'm looking at this… Girl, who's standing behind you, and uh… I… I don't think she's supposed to be there," Goblin Slayer said with a nervous tone in his voice, before going into detail about how strange the entity looked to High Elf Archer.
Upon hearing the description of the entity behind her, High Elf Archer immediately made her way over to Goblin Slayer, standing behind him, so that he was between her and the glowing figure that she figured to be a ghost of some kind. "Gods, this is so freaking creepy… W-What is it doing now? Is it just… S-Standing there, looking at us, or…? O-Or what?!" High Elf Archer stammered out; beginning to feel fear coursing through her body, as the thought of being followed by a ghost with no known intentions was making her feel unsafe.
Hearing Goblin Slayer shakingly telling High Elf Archer what the entity in question was doing, BB and Fairy Knight exchanged concerned looks with one another after failing to see for themselves what the ten year-old was supposedly seeing. Wanting to inform Goblin Slayer, BB walked over to him; obstructing his clear-line-of-sight of the odd phenomenon, as she stood right in front of him with an inquisitive look in her violet eyes. "I'm finding it odd that neither Melusine nor I are able to see what you're describing, Ashta-Kun. Furthermore, I'm not even detecting any sort of energy signal here that would suggest anything paranormal… Although, I think I may have a hypothesis as to what's happening right now," BB mused with a longful sigh escaping from her lips, as she crossed her arms over her ample chest.
"I'm not superstitious in the least bit, which is why I believe that what's happening right now is that you're able to see Hakuno-Chan by processing her through "Quantum Ghost Imaging". All that means is that you're looking at her from the combined perspective of two different layers, capturing an image through two different receiving photon particles that have never interacted directly," BB explained with terms she thought as simple, before realizing from the tone of bewilderment in Goblin Slayer's uneasy expression that told her that her explanation was still too complicated for him.
"Let me put it this way… Because your eyes are receiving information from both augmented reality AND what's actually in front of you. the two different kinds of light sources are creating a constant flash in your optic-nerves; meaning that what you're seeing is just the image of her " ghost"," BB reiterated with a disappearing smile across her frowning lips, as after she was done teaching her lesson to Goblin Slayer, the AI woman was left wondering if Hakuno was suffering inside of the ten year-old's body. ' If her fragmented data is pieced together enough for her to retain her form, then… Then does that mean she's lucid? What is she experiencing? Is she… Is she afraid? I wonder if… If she feels abandoned by me? Betrayed, even…? '
Seeing the thoughtful look in BB's saddened gaze took Goblin Slayer away from his spiraling thoughts, as for whatever reason he didn't just feel terrified after seeing Hakuno's ghost image, but rather he felt an overwhelming amount of hopelessness, despair, and fear-inducing isolation that shook him to his very core. That's when the ten year-old flinched intensely, after being forcibly spun around by Fairy Knight, who was staring back at him through her sleek-armored mask. "The dim-lighting isn't helping you, and neither is hyper focusing on matters outside of your control… Let's instead concentrate on what we came here to do, and then find somewhere for you two to rest."
Seeing Fairy Knight attempting to ease Goblin Slayer's nerves down by reminding him coldly of the goal that they had made High Elf Archer want to step in as well. "She's right, you know; I think it would be for the best if you and I were to settle down by the lakeshore for the rest of the night; get a hot meal inside of us, and rest our feet for a spell," High Elf Archer mused, while smiling upon seeing how her enticing words were beginning to pull Goblin Slayer out his negative emotions.
"The… The lake?" Goblin Slayer repeated with a quiet voice, while blinking softly as he looked over his shoulder to meet High Elf Archer's emerald gaze and pretty-pink smile.
"Yeah, the lake! Just imagine it: the full moon dancing along the gentle surface of the water, while countless stars twinkle across the cosmic sky… All of us relaxing underneath those stars, while munching on something warm and filling… Doesn't that sound like an ideal way to end our night, after all that we've had to endure?" High Elf Archer askew rhetorically, after having painted a tranquil image in Goblin Slayer's hazy minds as he continued to slowly ground himself more-and-more into reality, and away from those creeping thoughts of dread that Hakuno's "ghost" was causing him to experience.
Envisioning himself lodging underneath the moonlight resting on reclining chairs that he and High Elf Archer would be laying on, while on top of a dock attached to a house that he planned on building got Goblin Slayer thinking more clearly; clearly enough to have the sudden idea to exit augmented reality, by shrinking the holographic panel back down to its original small size. Hesitant to test whether or not that would have worked or not, when Goblin Slayer finally managed to bring himself to look past BB and High Elf Archer's bodies, he ended up letting out a quiet sigh of absolute relief, after seeing that the unsettling ghost had vanished.
Relying on BB to communicate with Fairy Knight— as to where she needed to use her powerful strength and unrelenting blades to mine into veins of valuable raw materials— Goblin Slayer focused on keeping his mind away from lingering thoughts by making conversation with High Elf Archer once again; asking her for input as to how they should build the lakeside manor that he planned on using their gathered materials for, which led to the two of them planning out a late-night swim session with one another, after their ideal house would be constructed and furnished by the Moon-Cell.
Through his imagination, Goblin Slayer envisioned standing beside High Elf Archer behind the wooden posts that would serve as his guard rail for around his lakeside dock; electronic outdoor lighting illuminating the edge of the water, while allowing him to stare deeply into the smiling face of the beautiful elf who was beginning to stir up some feelings within him. Daydreaming seeing High Elf Archer in nothing but her swimsuit, or whatever else she had on to wear into the water, Goblin Slayer idly followed behind where BB was leading him and Fairy Knight; the crotch area of his pants beginning to tighten, as he imagined the green-haired elf having a trim and athletic body underneath her light armor she wore.
Realizing how similar in shape that she was to his older sister— albeit she had a flat chest and slightly less muscles than Vivi— Goblin Slayer had managed to gather enough glances at High Elf Archer's bubble-butt that he saw so clearly from how snug her brown short-shorts were; with the hormon-drive boy's most favorite part of her not being too far from the elf's juicy bottom-mounds: her exposed soft-shapely thighs. Invigorated to retire for the night in their future lakeside house, Goblin Slayer did everything in his power to speed along the gathering process as much as he could; finally being able to let go of the lonesome feelings of despair and sorrows that he had gotten from seeing the "ghost" of the NPC rebuilding herself inside of him.