At other place, there are eight people resting under a big Maple Tree. From the look of their face, it seems they are tired from long walk and battles they had from morning until afternoon. Out of eight people, a Dwarf wafts his hand to cool him down while chugging a bottle of water. Meanwhile, a Terra Elf and a Sylph Elf sit opposite from the Dwarf's location while wiping out the sweats on their face and neck. When catching their breath, they are talking about gigantic beasts such as Brown Ligelt Bear and Giant Black Scorpion.
The Sylph Elf grumbled about his arrows that fail to hit the bear even though the beast is huge but the Terra Elf comforted him by saying it's normal in this world to fail at something even though you had set everything perfectly. It's as if that their life is decided by the dice of fate. After that, the Sylph Elf sighed and shook his head, it's the first time his arrow missed its mark even though the beast he faced didn't use any kind of protection or deflecting magic at all. The Terra Elf chuckled when he saw his frustrated Sylph Elf comrade. But their conversation is cut short after another Sylph Elf came to them and gave them two bags that full of water.
Jack opened the bottle, "Thanks Yavia-san."
"Ouh, nice Yavia! By the way did you feel something unpleasant when we arrived here?" asked Arnold.
"Yes. This forest's aura is a bit wicked."
"You heard that Robert? She said this forest has a wicked aura…eh…"
The Terra Elf is turning his head to left and right but he can't find the Dark Elf that he was conversing to. At the same time, a Kitsune walked out from brushes while calling the Dark Elf's name. The Sylph Elf quickly stood and ran to the Kitsune. He panicky asked the Kitsune from where she went. The Kitsune said that she was separated by a Treant that pulled her right leg and dragged her down to somewhere and she definitely could die if the Dark Elf didn't help her. But after helping her and asking her to regroup, the Dark Elf went away somewhere. She panicked and went alone to find him, but she didn't find anything except eeriness aura that is lingering around the forest. She finally gave up on finding him and decided to regroup after she ran out of water.
"Hey, hey…this is not even funny anymore ya know? The Vice Leader went missing…? What must we say to White Elf boy if we come back without him?!" Khazim stood up from his place.
"Slow down Khazim-san, we just arrived here. The best thing right now it's to replenish our stamina and mana. If we wander aimlessly when our stamina is dropping, we will fall into victim of the forest."
"But we don't have any time, Forest Boy. Moreover, it's already 3.00 P.M.E, we must come back soon before night comes. Otherwise, the White Elf boy will get mad."
"Don't waste your time here. Yuna, drink your water and let's go!" Said Arnold while picking his sword.
Far, far away from this place, a Dark Elf is sitting on a tree branch. Above there, he equipped his battle gears, a shirt, chain mail, robe, gloves, boots, leather armor, mouth mask, cloak and he also didn't forget to cover his head with hood, in order to perfectly hide his face. He equipped his belt along with few rings, daggers, knives and four swords. Then, he picked five bottles with different colors from nowhere and lined them up on his belt.
After he rechecked every gear that he has equipped, he raises his head and staring straight to the western side of the lake. From there, he felt something sinister and wicked calling his name. His instinct as a hunter and adventurer becomes intrigued and he can't help but go and check the place before reporting it to his older brother. He started to jump between the trees after he activated his skills that make him easier to jump, run and maneuvering on the middle of air. When he is jumping between the trees, he looks like a skilled performer of circus rather than "The Hunter of Abyssal Valley".
Along the way, he encountered small resistances such as medium-sized birds or mantises. But with his splendid evasion that looks like a swan dance and his deadly strikes, those who called "resistances" only became a laughing stock of The Gods. It sure took a long time to reach the place that he wanted to explore, but finally The Dark Elf reached a ruin of civilization. The Dark Elf is monitoring the area around him and found a dungeon west from the ruins. By the way, he is learning the area in purpose to give him in an advantage when a battle occurs.
"Activasher Ablistar [Preizendarc Conclivament]" (Activate Ability [Presence Concealment])
The Dark Elf activates his class and race abilities, he jumped down and ran to a ruined house. He stopped and he looks around. Then, he runs to another house and looks around again. He kept doing this until he reached the dungeon's entrance. Strangely, there are no living beings around him and the place itself is too quiet to begin with until he starts wondering something.
"The city was abandoned by the people long time ago. Much likely, because the beasts appeared from the dungeon or…was it because something else?" The Dark Elf jumped to the dungeon's roof from the ruined house's roof instead of entering it normally from the entrance. Then, he quickly gets down and starts peeking from the dungeon's roof. From close, there is nothing below him, but he, who had trained into a natural born killer found something that normal people can't see with their naked eyes.
"Hmm…found you… Activasher Majikka [Airlavannarsia Igniviar]" (Activate Magic [Hellfire])
Suddenly, a black flame blazed something on the midair; revealing a sinister creature that had been hiding by changing its body color. The creature crawled in agony before turned into ash. Its effort to extinguish the fire by crawling its body onto ground is useless because the fire became bigger and bigger until it devoured all of its body. After the creature completely turned into black ash, the Dark Elf jumped down and stands before the creature's ash.
"…You had been hiding in the shadow but I have noticed you since I entered the ruined house. I had no idea why a dangerous creature like you appeared on Gaia…rampaged my homeland, and…"
The Dark Elf is hanging his words.
"…It's no use to mourn for the past, because the dead can't be brought back, except…"
…and he is hanging his words again.
"Ugh, it's already 4. I must explore this dungeon fast and go back immediately. Otherwise, Aniki would kill me."
The Dark Elf walks into the dungeon. On the way, he marked the wall with chalkstone to prevent him from getting lost. He also mapped the dungeon, disabled the traps, looted the treasures, destroyed the mimics, looted the treasures, checked every rooms inside and killed the mobs. It's quite tiring for him but he doesn't mind since it is his job. After spending a heverra inside finally, he reached the [Boss Room]. He peeked inside and he saw a giant creature, wielding a big scythe and holding a hostage near it.
"…That is…?"
Suddenly the creature turned its body to where The Dark Elf is. However, he saw nothing other than dungeon rats. Then it turned its body back.
Meanwhile, The Dark Elf who hides in the back of wall on the second floor was taking his breath deeply and slowly to avoid being noticed. He tried to peek again, but when he turned his head, there is a shining red giant eye and a quarter of skull face right in front of him, looking at his face.
Startled, he jumped back as the creature raise its scythe to attack The Dark Elf. The Dark Elf is running to another wall when his system alerting him that [Activate Special Attack: The Cycle of Retribution] skill has been activated by the giant creature. The Dark Elf jumped to the ceilings in hurry to confuse the enemies while simultaneously evading the incoming attack. After that, he jumped down toward the creature.
"Acriv Orivierl Sivilla: [Dreysium Argeloreisher]!" (Activate Original Skill: [Thousands Cuts of Time Reversal]!)
Luckily, his attack landed a [Critical Hit] because he struck it right in the head and made the creature's HP dropped down a lot. The Dark Elf used a big pillar as stepping stone to jump and strike the creature again. However, as he prepared to renew his attack, he saw that the creature has five big HP Bars with million health points on each bar. He quickly threw a smoke bomb and used this chance to escape from the room. Fortunately, the creature is too busy with the smoke bomb to notices that The Dark Elf has safely escaped from the dungeon.
"Haah…haah…holy shit! That was close. To think that wasn't just an ordinary oversize Soul Eater….Wait, can Soul Eater grow bigger than its normal size in the first place? Whatever, what time is it…" The Dark Elf opened his [Status Screen] and it shows him the time, 5.30 P.M.E.
"Damn, this is bad. I left Jack in the middle of forest and now I still haven't returned to base before the agreed time (5.00 P.M.E). Holy shit, Aniki and Jack would hang me for sure."
"Indeed, you are right Robert-chan. Why are you wandering by yourself?"
"What the———!"
Surprised, The Dark Elf throws three throwing daggers to the location where the voice come can be heard, from the roof of dungeon, exactly above him. He also jumped back and unsheathed both of his swords as an anticipation. However, the woman with black hair catches the daggers with her hand effortlessly.
"…You don't need to throw such dangerous toys at me you know. What do you think am I?"
"Rania nee-san?!"
"Oh my, my…you are a naughty one Robert-chan. You have made your Onii-chan worried as hell you know…"
"Uh…sorry…" He sheathed his swords.
"But you surprised me you know? I didn't think you could reach this place all alone. What are you doing in this place anyway? I smell burned corpse from "them" …"
"It's nothing…" He glances away.
"Hmm…"
The Arachne jumped down from the roof and walked to the black spot on the road outside of the dungeon. Then, she touched the ash with her finger and rubbed it between her fingers.
"This is a dust from "them", am I wrong here?"
"No. You are right."
"Then, why are you hiding it from me?"
"…I'm not hiding anything from you."
The Arachne approached him and looked at him intensely, "Hmmm….and what did you do in this dungeon?"
"Mapping, looting treasures, farming EXP…"
"Alone?" The Arachne asked him with stern tone and The Dark Elf replied with a nod.
The Arachne raised her left eyebrow, "Seriously?"
"Yeah, serious—" Before he finishes his words, a loud roaring voice can be heard from inside the dungeon.
"Then, what was that?" The Arachne pointed her finger to the dungeon.
"That is voice from [Dungeon Boss]. A huge skeleton ghost, to be exact."
"Did you defeat it?"
"No." The Dark Elf instantly replied.
"…It's pointless if we are talking here. Let's go back Robert-chan. You need to explain a lot of things to your older brother and Jack, obviously." Then, the Arachne quickly grabs the Dark Elf's left hand and holds it tightly.
"Eh, eh, wait, wait, wait…!" The Dark Elf panicked and tries to shake off The Arachne's hand but he failed.
"[Return Base]!" The Dark Elf and Arachne disappear from dungeon entrance.
******************************
The Sol has begun to set, trying to hide behind the dark horizon of oblivion. On the same time, the Skoll climbs onto the darken Wina, trying to replace the dying light of the Sol with gentle light of the stars. The birds are flying back to their nest, the animals are running from the black mist and the night hunters begin to awaken from their slumber. Ignoring the nature that trying to change its face, far, far away from the heavenly land of northern mountains, where both of "The Lights" themselves embracing Gaia with their benevolence, there is a child of darkness sits in kneeling position and he is being stared by angry gazes of other children of light, flame, thunder, earth and wind. The child of the light raises his almighty hand and hammering it down to the child of darkness's head. But he means no harm, he only did that to punish the naughty child or darkness.
"So…care to explain something to me, My Dear Beloved Little Brother?"
"Yes…" The Dark Elf answered with scared tone.
Now, we can see a Dark Elf sits in kneeling position in front of the people with angry gazes. Then he, the guilty one started to explain what he did few heverra ago.
It's all started when The Dark Elf went into north forest with his friends. He explored and mapped the north forest while subjugating huge monsters that they encountered along the way. From north forest, they went to west forest because The Terra Elf and Dwarf wanted to chase a monstrous deer that their Arachne friend spotted yesterday. They explored the forest and took a long time enough to find the deer. Unfortunately, the monstrous deer ran when it saw them coming but thanks to the female Sylph Elf's quick action, her friends can block its escape way and hunted it down. But after the battle, every people felt exhausted and the Sylph Elf girl saw a good place that can be used as resting place, a big Maple Tree that grows on the top of small hill.
The Dark Elf and his friends was too tired to walk, even they were too tired to carefully watching their surroundings. Because their recklessness, a Kitsune girl got dragged down by a wicked root of a starving Treant but other people beside the Dark Elf didn't notice that. The Dark Elf quickly chased the dragged Kitsune girl until he reached an open area where the Treant lived. He surprised, because the Treant who dragged his friend was an Elder Treant, a C++ Rank Monster. Although, the threat rank is rather low, but that monster has long-range AoE skills and spells, with various kind of nasty debuffs that have high success rate. But The Dark Elf didn't falter, because he had had enough experience with them on his past life, so he can disposed the Elder Treant without breaking a sweat.
After the battle, The Dark Elf escorted the Kitsune girl back to the right forest track and asked her to follow other members that had gone ahead of them. The Kitsune girl nodded and walked first before The Dark Elf but after she walked for a half of heverra, she looked back and she didn't found her Dark Elf friend. She panicked and went back to find her Dark Elf friend, but since she ran out of water, she decided to return. Meanwhile, The Dark Elf went to western side of the lake, following his instinct that said there was something sinister there. Long story short, he reached there after passing through the jungle and massive crack. Then, he monitored the area until he found his old nemesis and killed it.
After he disposed the threat, he went inside the dungeon and doing everything that normal adventurer and explorer did, from mapping the dungeon, exploring tunnels and rooms, defeating monsters and mini-bosses, disarming traps, looting treasure chests, destroying mimics, and marking the tunnels with chalkstone in purpose to prevent him from getting lost. Spending almost two heverra inside, he finally reached a large room, which was none other the [Boss Room]. He glimpsed huge skeleton ghost holding a little ghost girl as a hostage. The Dark Elf quickly hid away when the skeleton ghost turned its head to his direction. Unfortunately, when he wanted to take a peek again, the Dark Elf's presence has been noticed by the huge skeleton ghost.
He surprised and struck the skeleton ghost's head with his skill, but when he wanted to strike the skeleton ghost again, he realized the ghost has five big HP Bars with millions of health points on each of the bars. He quickly threw a smoke bomb and escaped from the [Boss Room]. After he succeeded escaping, he met an Arachne, which was none other than his friend and she questioned him many times about what was he did inside the dungeon. But because he kept avoiding her question and glancing away, the Arachne dragged him back to his party base, when his angry older brother and friends were waiting for him.