With her leather satchels backed with healing potions, buff vials and small explosives that she had created prior to their important mission, High Elf Archer stood prepared with her quiver full of arrows secured tightly to her hip, while her wooden bow was strapped to her back. Being amongst the seven other adventurers who were fully prepared to dive deep into the goblin fortress that no adventurer above their rank had managed to successfully clear out on their own, the only thing that the eight of them were waiting on was for Goblin Slayer to say what he wanted to say to his older sister, in private.
Having already waited fifteen minutes longer than they expected to have, High Elf Archer was keeping herself occupied by closely inspecting each one of her arrowheads— using her thumb to gingery feel the blade of each one, before putting it back into her leather quiver to pull another one out. The minty-green haired high elf continued to pass the time like that, up until finally her attention switched focus over to Noble Fencer, who broke the dreary silence with an annoyed groan.
"Ugh!This is simply unacceptable behavior! I mean, what on Earth could he and his sister be doing alone before an important quest such as this, that takes THIS amount of time?!" Noble Fencer asked with a mildly frustrated tone in her voice, as she crossed her arms over her medium-sized bust, while pouting her bottom lip out as she gave a sideways glare at nothing in particular. "With the sheer amount of hatred he has against goblins, you'd think that this would be more urgent to him than it is to us…"
Giving the honey-blond teenager an empathic stare, High Elf Archer silently lamented to herself about how her interactions had been with Goblin Slayer that morning, before giving her two-cents out to Noble Fencer. "I can't say for certain, but… Something seemed different about Orcblog this morning, compared to how he was when I first met him," High Elf Archer mused with a methodical voice, before briefly going silent until adding, "Now that I think more about it… He's been growing more-and-more distant since we've cleared out that cave… Can't imagine why though; maybe it brought up some bad memories for him?"
Reeling back from how she initially felt about his tardiness, Noble Fencer let out a soft sigh as she raised her chin up toward the ceiling— her hands lowering down to rest on the sides of her curvy hips. "He's an enigmatic kid, I'll give him that… You'd think that someone his age who had the powers he does would be more eccentric, or even egotistical than how he actually is… Anytime he speaks to someone, it's almost like he's trying to appease them in some way— like he's making up for something he did to them, despite probably never having met them before," Noble Fencer mused aloud, as she figured she might as well add on to the discussion while they still had time to do so.
And as silence followed after her boss had finished speaking, Wizard herself felt beckoned to join in on the conversation by giving her own perspective on her thoughts of the preteen she had spoken to the night before. "I've been studying the arcanic arts since I was old enough to read… In sacrificing my free time to improve my craft, I've been nominated as the top-of-my-class for every year I spent in the mages' university. I spent nearly fourteen years of my life perfecting every spell that I could learn… And yet I am to accept that a supposed ten year-old child is more capable than myself?" Wizard asked rhetorically with skepticism in her voice, which made Noble Fencer roll her eyes at her.
"Sounds to me as though you're just speaking from a sense of envy, Lunamaria. Besides, from what I've come to understand about Goblin Slayer is that he's not even all that well knowledgeable about magic in general. As a matter of fact, I'd wager that he doesn't know a thing about the "Thaumaturgical Theory"," Noble Fencer argued back with her hired party member; revealing to everyone around her that just like Wizard and her younger brother, she too had studied at the same university as they did.
Furrowing her brows slightly at the girl who was younger than she was, Wizard sighed annoyingly before gathering her thoughts to form a counter argument. "You must not be understanding what I'm insinuating, Bernkastel… The point I'm trying to get across to you and everyone else is that I have my suspicions about him even being a child to begin with… I mean, for Earth Mother's sake, what sort of ten year-old talks the way he does, and is mature enough to be THAT sexually active?!" Wizard pointed out, which seemed valid enough to everyone else to begin feeding into the idea that Goblin Slayer wasn't who they all thought he was.
Not usually one for discourse himself, High Priest had an uncomfortable look on his feminine face as he gripped his fingers tighter around his long wooden staff that he was holding upwards with both of his soft hands. "I… I haven't ever felt lustful toward a child before I laid eyes on Goblin Slayer… Isn't it odd that all of us feel so attracted to him? We haven't even known him that long, and yet… And yet last night, we were all eager to sleep with him. That's… That's not normal, r-right?" The femboy asked meekly with a single bead of sweat rolling down the side of his pale skin— causing the room to erupt in quiet and embarrassed mutters, as each person in the room discussed amongst one another about the other valid point that High Priest brought up.
Holding his chin tightly with his gloved hand, Wizard Boy narrowed his eyes with a thoughtful look behind his spectacles, as he said aloud, "It's almost as though… As though we were all put under some sort of spell that made us have a high affinity for him from the get go."
And as they all began diving deeper and deeper into their own theories as who Goblin Slayer really was, and if he had indeed manipulated them from the very beginning without any of them having caught wind of it, it was then that all voices became silent as their eyes fell upon the catatonic-looking teenager who came walking into the spare room where they were supposed to fast travel. Looking as though she were dead on the inside, Vivi was utterly silent as she slowly looked around the room to stare back at the eight adventurers who she had overheard talking about her little brother.
In the mind of the traumatized teenager, goblins personified the worst of the worst that lived amongst any civilized society. Greedy thieves, degenerate rapists, violent criminals who hurt those who were easy enough targets for them to feel more grandiose than they actually were;, and the worst part of the kind of evil that goblins were meant to represent was that they were numerous— always growing in size, and yet none in power made it their priority to eradicate such behavior from society. Sniveling, disgusting cowards who preyed on children, women, the elderly, and anyone else who couldn't defend themselves from their selfish desires: this was why goblins had been so prominent in all of the sessions Ren Ashta had been in charge of administering in his past life.
But now that he had donned the armored suit, Goblin Slayer was about to fulfill his duties of his namesake by slaughtering an entire fortress of vile green-skinned rapists, with the help of Fairy Knight. Having sprinted at speeds faster than the human eye could perceive since he had fast traveled back into the confines of the cleared out cavern, the only thing on Goblin Slayer's mind as he broke the sound barrier while on the way up the rocky terrain toward the peak of the Mythril Mountains was to begin the domino effect that would lead to the goblin's genocide.
It didn't matter to him whether or not what he was about to do had meaning or not; Goblin Slayer was done feeling his feelings, and only craved the pain and suffering of those who had shaped him into the monster that he was. Scaling up the mountainous incline with his crimson eyes burning brightly behind the slits of his helmet's face protector, the moment Goblin Slayer caught sight of the fortified walls of the nearly four-hundred meter tall black-stone fortress covered in a heavy dusting of snow, he no longer had anything in mind, other than to deliver death and destruction to those who had once plagued his nightmares for years.
"Look at them, son… These wretched little cretins thought themselves to be above the law of the land; high off their own hubris, they saw me as easy prey when I approached them. Only when I had spring my trap that I lured them into by allowing them to approach me, did they realize far too late that they were in over their heads," Levi mused with a sinister calmness in his deep-toned voice, as he stood behind his petrified eldest son; his strong hands clamp down on Ren's shoulders, as the two of them stood before the three young adults who were hanging from the ceiling by the glowing-red magical chains that the doctor had casted to bind them by their wrists and ankles.
"F… F-Father… W… W-What… W-What have you done…? W-Who…? Who are-"
"-Don't pretend not to know who they are now, son; it's obvious from the way you're shaking in your boots that these "lab rats" still have a hold on you," Levi interrupted with an amused tone in the gravelly voice he spoke with— his blackened eyelids narrowing slightly, as he tightened his fingers around Ren's shoulders. "You fear them, even when they are clearly in no position of power over you… That's a weakness of yours that I've brought you down here to amputate from your very soul, Lorenzo," Levi explained as a matter of fact, rather than opinion.
Letting go of his mortified fifteen year-old son's shoulders, Levi flashed a wicked look at the sobbing low-lives; reveling in the way they were begging for their lives and for his forgiveness, as he made his way past him toward the surgical tray of tools that he and Ken Kishinami had gotten for their latest "experiment". "What many consider to be a " soul" is simply just a cluster of mana that exists within the body to transfer photonic particles from the consciousness from the brain, into the cluster of mana that archives that information. Many consider the " soul" to be sacred— who they truly are, underneath the veil of flesh that they were born into— I consider it what it truly is: a source of tangible energy that's perhaps one of the most versatile mediums ever created from the Swirl of the Root itself…"
Picking up a sharp scalpel from his array of tools, Levi had an excited look in his tired eyes as he casually approached the nearest low-life rapist. Grabbing the young man's bearded jaw and forcing it open by using the scalpel to sever the tendon's to the man's lower mandible bone, Levi smiled as his victim shrieked in agony as he proceeded to violently cut into the thrashing rapist's gums— cutting two teeth out from his lower row of pearly whites, before flicking them into the back of the tormented man's throat, to force him to swallow them or die choking on them.
"Here son, have a go at it while I get the headset I've been working on bolted into this poor bastard's head— I've even greened it for you, my boy," Levi said calmly with a erie warmth to his voice, as he turned away from the sobbing man who he had just mutilated before Ren's widened eyes, before handing the fifteen year-old the bloodied scalpel. Walking past where Ren was standing with his eyes staring down at the bloodied metal-tool in his shaking hand, Levi made his way over to his and Dr. Kishinami's workstation— opening up several holographic monitors that were floating above the metal desk, before walking back with a sleek-black headset equipped with a rectangular eyepiece in one hand, and a bolt gun in the other.
Unleashing Fairy Knight onto the tall battlements surrounding the towering fortress in the center of the perimeter of brick walls, Goblin Slayer's movements were too unpredictable and quickly for any of the goblin archers to even land a single arrow near the vicinity of where his afterimage was— not that they were able to fire many arrows to begin with, as both armored intruders were quickly with their blades, after having crumbled their walls with their reinforced strength. Showing no mercy to those who hadn't been crushed by the falling debris, Goblin Slayer used what he had learned from Fairy Knight by hacking and slashing the goblins to mutilated pieces, rather than giving them a quick death by simply decapitating them.
With the memory fragments from the day his father had killed the final piece of his innocence that his tormented soul had left to cling onto melding into what he was actually seeing before him within the moment of commanding Fairy Knight to crumble the door to the ground— by having her use her noble phantasm to fly towards it at light speed, with her Arondight swords having transformed into two, long lances— Goblin Slayer's eyes were burning brighter than they ever had, as he watched as the white-haired knight shot through the four-hundred meter tall tower like a bowling ball crashing through a set of pins.
Standing still with his bloodied scalpel still in his hand, after having failed to even step a foot closer toward the same grown man who had once plunged a knife several times into his own chest and neck, Ren noticed the annoyed and disappointed look on his father's face, as the doctor tighten the strap of the headset around the low-life; connecting the device securely, before pressing the side of the power-tool against the broken-minded man. "Go to my desk, and take a look at the two screens I've brought up," Levi ordered, while beginning to smile as he glanced over at the horrified expressions on the two other men's sobbing faces. "Death has abandoned you in your hour of need— he will not come to save you from what I have planned for you, and your souls."
While Levi was mentally tormenting the other two scumbags in front of the other one who he was physically tormenting, Ren tried to distract himself from his father's horrendous deeds by doing as he was told. On the screen to his left was a realistic three-dimensional, and rendered goblin stuck in what looked like a looped idle-animation, and on Ren's left screen, there appeared to be a black backdrop with white-colored analytics from the man's vital signs— his heartbeat and rapid shallow breathing being reflected through the numbers that were laid out before him.
"Observe the key differences," Levi called out bluntly, before making Ren flinch the moment he heard the two other chained-up men scream in horror, after the bolt gun had fired a round straight into the side of the tortured low-life's forehead. According to the vital signs of the man, his brain activity had taken a plunge along with the oxygen level, and his heart rate was quickly plummeting the moment his breathing came to a halt. And at the same time, the goblin character who had been stuck in a looping indie animation suddenly began showing signs of duress as it reached up toward the spot where the low-life had received a six-inch spike into the temple.
Even as the man's vitals flatlined within less than a minute, the goblin character who Levi explained to Ren as being the avatar of the low-life who he had just killed, the avatar in question seemed very much alive; appearing extremely panicked and full of despair, as the pathetic-looking creatures huddled its knees closely to its small chest, as it wept within the infinite white cyberspace that Levi had sent his soul to. "Here's a refresher in quantum mechanics, Lorenzo: when two particles are separated by an extraordinary distance from one another, but yet are still linked to one another regardless of said distance, that phenomenon is what's known as "quantum entanglement"…"
"… What you're witnessing is an example of quantum entanglement on a much grander scale than two isolated particles. Using Master Zelretch's theory on "Greater Magic Formula", your Uncle Kishinami and I've created a two-way transceiver capable of establishing a photonic link between two separate… Oh bloody hell; enough staring at the fuckin' goblin already!" Levi scolded with an annoyed attitude, before beginning to tap through the menu options of the holographic screen. With only a few sways of his magic-crest imprinted hand, Levi had transformed the terrain of the white infinite nothingness into that of a fiery lake of brimstone; watching with a hardy laugh of triumph, as the low-life's trapped soul began to burn in a cyber-Hellscape.
"I detest all religions equally; but if there's one concept that they got right, it was that of eternal damnation… Allow me to show you son just how uncreative they were back then, compared to the punishments that I can think of on a whim," Levi said with a sadistic look on his deceptively calm face— the corners of his mouth twitching, as he used his holographic interface to begin piling more torture onto the goblin, whose soul was that of the deceased lowlife.
Unable to shake the horror of hearing the terrified cries of the two surviving adults who Ren had never thought he would have ever felt bad for in his entire life— especially after what they had done to him and Hakuno five years prior— the fifteen year-old teen was trembling with the bloodied scalpel still shaking in his sweaty palms; all the while Levi explained to his son about how he could manipulate the trapped soul's perception of time, in order to make a few seconds in their time feel like an eternity spent burning in a lake of brimstone, all while slowly regenerating their wounds, so that their nerve endings would never get used to the feeling of being melted, along with the flaying, salting, and disembowelment that Levi added for good measure— half jokingly telling him that he better pay attention to him, otherwise he would see first hand what an eternity of true horror felt like.
Standing in the wake of the dust cloud that had erupted from the stronghold's crumbled debris hitting its foundation all at once, Goblin Slayer's fingers were constantly twitching around the handle of his sword— the deep seated resentment and the burning hatred he had bubbling inside of him made him all the more eager to take his anger on something else. Underneath the surface though, Goblin Slayer felt sick to his stomach at the thought of him having finally lost control of his own pent-up rage; the thought of his father looking at him while he held the same bloodied scalpel that he refused to use made the teenager disgusted with what he was, and who he ended up becoming since that memory.
Deep down, a drowned out voice was begging him not to go— warning him of something catastrophic that fate had in store in him, just beyond the closed metal sliding doors of the untouched steel cylinder that stood amongst the rubble, and of the settling dust. Not only did the sight of seeing something so modern and space-age before his very eyes elicited an uncanny sense within Goblin Slayer— considering that by all accounts something that resembled a futuristic elevator shaft shouldn't exist in a fantasy setting— but seeing the dark-blue metal plating of the nearly large, two-story tall elevator entrance made the young man feel a deep-seated fear that sparked within him almost instantaneously.
Narrowing his eyelids behind the slits of his helmet's face-shield, Goblin Slayer took an involuntary step back as Fairy Knight stood beside him with a puzzled expression on her pale face. "That's… Considerably out of place, wouldn't you say Master?" The white-haired servant asked rhetorically, as she turned her head over her armored pauldron to raise a brow at Goblin Slayer. "Although… All signs point to this being the work of your father, or perhaps even Dr. Kishinami's doing; we need to remember that underneath the surface, this place IS just a reality marble— so anything's possible here," Fairy Knight mused, before raising her two Arondights in place, as her luminescent fairy wings sprouted from her upper back— in an phantasmic, dreamy way, as gentle particles of pastel rainbow orbs gently radiating from their glowing aura.
"It doesn't matter: so long as whatever's inside can't escape, there's really no need for us to risk falling into some sort of trap by taking it down to Aurora-knows-where," Fairy Knight said logically, before traveling at the speed of light, as she performed her noble phantasm by launching herself at the massive hunk of blue-steel like a drill. With Goblin Slayer having to raise his forearm up to block the sparks flowing from the rapid collision of her Arondights scraping against the haul of the elevator, the teenager heard the intense cacophony of steel grinding against steel for approximately two minutes straight, before finally Fairy Knight floated back with an expression of utter confusion written all over her usually stoic face.
"H… How…? How d-did that…? W-What?!" She stuttered out in a low voice, while floating closer to where her blades had been drilling against the surface of the elevator's tubular-shaped haul— unable to grasp the fact that there wasn't even a scratch left in her noble phatansm's wake. "This… T-This isn't… This isn't s-safe for you to be here, Master. I-If I can't…" Fairy Knight trailed off softly— mumbling underneath her breath, before going silent for about five minutes. Having thought deeply about their next move, the white-haired servant shook her head at the large elevator shaft, before floating back over to where Goblin Slayer was standing amongst the scattered chunks of destroyed bricks. "… Forget about the quest, Master: your life isn't worth whatever's down there."
Even though he knew that Fairy Knight had always had his best interest in heart, it was still surprising for Goblin Slayer to hear what sounded like fear coming from the usually monotone servant— masked underneath a distrusting voice that she had used to speak to him about how she wanted him to abandon the quest entirely. In that moment, all of the anguish and anger that been clouding Goblin Slayer's decisions seemed to clear up— like the morning fog near the bay of an ocean fading away in the light of the rising sun, the teenager began to get a sense of clarity that seemed to have been clouded for the entire time, since he got there.
"… This world… This world it… It was first created as a computer simulation, before it grew into what's around us," Goblin Slayer said with a look of heavy concentration hidden away behind his helmet, as he lowered his sword down slowly. "It's… It's all like a sandbox; with the way one could edit it at a moment's notice, just like I have. But there lies the problem: you can't edit anything in or out while you're the one whose soul is transferred into a character. It's… It's beginning to all make sense now— some of it, at least," Goblin Slayer spoke up, as to allow Fairy Knight to hear him better.
Gently landing with her two feet touching the ground, the white-haired servant tilted her head toward one shoulder, as she let out a soft breath through her small nostrils. "Master… What is it that you're… Insinuating? Please… Say what it is that you need to say," Fairy Knight ushered; the suspense of hearing whatever revelation was on the tip of Goblin Slayer's tongue was making her feel uneasier by the passing second.
Swallowing back the lump in his throat, as he felt his blood beginning to run colder and colder, Goblin Slayer became petrified as he noticed the large metal, sliding-doors of the massive cylinder apparatus beginning to slowly open— revealing a crimson light inside that reminded him of the gates of Hell itself. Immediately noticing the glowing magic chains shooting out from the humming glow of whatever it was that was inside the opened shaft of the elevator, Fairy Knight attempted to parry the twelve cyan-glowing chains with her two Arondight blades— failing miserably, six of the chains wrapped themselves around her body, and binding her arms and legs securely, just like how the other six were doing with Goblin Slayer.
Watching Fairy Knight furiously thrash in her magical bindings— using her teeth, fairy wings, and everything else at her disposal to fruitlessly attempt to free herself— Goblin Slayer didn't bother to struggle as both he and his servant were dragged through the dust and crumbled pieces of what he now realized was nothing more than a facade to get him to where the chains were taking them to. What he wanted to tell Fairy Knight was that he now realized that he was never in control of the world around them; someone else was manipulating the reality marble, and only allowing him to think that the holographic interface actually responded to him— somebody who so happened to "run into him", and who was the one who " guided" him, before he and Fairy Knight had " coincidently" stumbled upon the letter from the Adventurer's Guild that brought them to the Mithril Mountains to begin with.
Realizing that there wasn't escaping whatever fate she would be dragged into by staying Goblin Slayer's side, Fairy Knight looked up from her magical bindings to look her master into the eye as best as she could; the intense crimson light engulfing them in its glow, as they were only but a few meters away from being dragged inside the elevator shaft, "I… I love you… F-Forgive me," Fairy Knight uttered out in a remorseful tone, before closing her eyes shut as she forced herself to be fragmented into a cloud of glowing photonic particles— disappearing completely into that safe haven she had only gone to once since accompanying him.
Alone and abandoned by the one person who was supposed to stick by his side no matter what, Goblin Slayer felt cathartic with the knowledge that at least Fairy Knight wouldn't have to suffer whatever horrible fate was waiting for him, down underneath the surface of the mountain. In that moment, as the other six chains wrapped themselves around him like a spider cocooning its prey, the teenager harbored no resentment toward the servant— taking what little comfort he could from the thought of her freeing herself from him, as the sliding doors closed once it had dragged him into the center of the metal platform that was inside the cylinder-shaped haul.
Believing what was to come next would spell out his eternal torment— exactly like how his father had once threatened him with— when the crimson light that had been radiating from the edges of the platform he was chained to the center of faded, the disorienting change of lighting coming from the standard ceiling lights above the large elevator shaft he was in caused him to see stars. With only his head poking out from the glowing-white chains that were still wrapped around his entire body, when Goblin Slayer's vision began to accumulate to his surroundings, it was then that he noticed that there was a catwalk-platform mountains along the inside midsection of the elevator shaft he was in; and behind the metal railing overlooking his incapacitated body were two beings that the teenager immediately recognized upon seeing through the slits of his helmet.
Furrowing his brows with bewilderment flooding his senses, as the beating of his rapid heart rate increased, Goblin Slayer felt a breath escaping his parted lips as he looked up at the resentful pair of violent eyes that were looking down at him. "B… BB…? W… W-What… W-What is this?! What are you doing next to…?! I… Is that Zeldric-"
"-It's Dr. Kishinami; I'm merely using an avatar that's a look alike of Zeldrich— it was the only way that I could confuse your father long enough, to allow me and the others to trap him in this very elevator," Ken Kishinami said in an empathic, yet determined voice, as the white-bearded magus he was speaking through looked down at his godchild with an apologetic frown on his wrinkled face. "I'm sorry that things had to come to this, Lorenzo— if you even still remember that name— but I'm afraid that there was no other way for me to lead you down this rabbit hole; not without leading you on with the false promise of accomplishment, as if though you were actually making a positive difference onto the world," Kishinami said with a heavy-hearted sigh, as he looked away from the glowing red-eye that was visible through Goblin Slayer's helmet.
"… W… W-What you're talking about…?! What the hell is even going on here?! W-Why am I here?!" Goblin Slayer shouted in his restraints, demanding answers that the managerial AI beside his uncle didn't think he deserved to hear as politely as Kishinami wanted to tell him, but simply couldn't at that moment.
"To save Hakuno-Chan, Ashta; why else would your life matter up until this point?!" BB shouted back angrily, before growing cold as she narrowed her eyelids at him. "How does it feel to be on the receiving end of things, Ashta…? To be living a life of fulfillment fueled wanderlust, only to have it all taken away from you, as the growing realization that you're at someone else's mercy; someone who you thought you could trust, nonetheless…" BB said spitefully— her once joyful and sassy smile replaced by an expression of absolute resentment, as she tightened her grip on the metal guard rail that she was leaning on— gaining satisfaction, from seeing the position that the same boy who had made her life a living hell several times over, in her past life, was in before her very eyes.
Knowing that the armored teenager had questions that he figured deserved an explanation, Kishinami gathered the courage within him to look into the glowing red eyes of what had become of his godchild— a sense of sorrow and regret bubbling up inside of him, as he watched the teenager squirm in his bindings.
"Right now, the sense of betrayal and anger that you're feeling amongst all the confusion that's plaguing your mind perhaps seems overwhelming— and rightfully so— but I do ask that you listen to what I have to say, before you cast judgment. Know that what I must do doesn't reflect the love that I still have for you, Lorenzo; so please, allow me to be the uncle that I wish I always could have been for you, by explaining everything to you while I still can," Kishinami said with an exhausted sounding voice— closing his eyelids softly, as he took in a deep breath, slowly exhaling through his wrinkled lips. "W… What I must show you will not be easy for you to see, nor hear, Lorenzo: for it is the tragedy that we call our past… And like such tragic stories as old as time that came before ours, it all started when a man fell in love with a woman— a beautiful romance that became the catalyst for all of what we know today."