Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 462: Tobba

Sparkle's figure hopped from one screen to another in the monitoring room, but Charles was no longer staring at the monitors. His gaze was on Parker next to him.

The large-framed man stood ramrod straight, and his brows were furrowed as he stared at the monitors. His gun was at the most convenient position possible at his waist so that he could draw it as fast as possible at the first sign of danger.

Parker truly was the epitome of the ideal soldier.

"What do you need?" Parker asked upon noticing Charles' gaze.

"Nothing. Anyway, are you married?" Charles asked, making small talk.

"Every adult on Island 68 will be assigned a spouse and are obliged to perform reproductive tasks. I'm no exception."

Charles nodded in understanding and asked, "Can you tell me more about your wife? What's her personality like?"

Parker seemed reluctant to discuss his personal life with Charles, but orders soon came out from the walkie-talkie, and he had no choice but to respond to Charles' questions about his private life.

Charles learned that Parker had three children: two boys and a girl. Apparently, Parker's wife had been grumbling about his missions, as Parker's position in the special task force meant that he was often away from family.

Parker had been looking for a way to assuage his wife's anger and make it up to her someday.

Parker's tone of voice sounded natural, and his speech was both coherent and logical. When Charles asked him about his children, the tenderness in Parker's voice truly made him appear like a completely normal father.

"How's the casualty rate in the special task force? Is it quite high?"

"It's fine. We just have to keep culling those pests and make sure that their population doesn't grow large enough. They're not that dangerous to handle. Actually, the entities that swim in from the sea are more dangerous than them.

"We've always had to deal with those entities as soon as possible, or there would be casualties among the residents."

Was I wrong? Was that boy just another little boy wearing a white baseball cap? Charles pondered.

Just as Charles was mulling over what he had seen not too long ago, Sparkle appeared next to him and reported truthfully, "Daddy, I've looked everywhere, and I couldn't find any big keys."

Charles snapped back to reality at Sparkle's report. "You couldn't find it anywhere? Not even a trace of it?"

"Mmhm. I searched everywhere, but I couldn't find anything at all," Sparkle answered with wide eyes.

"While you were out there, did you find any place that might contain the big key? Like an unopened warehouse or something like that," Charles asked anxiously.

"Mr. Charles," Parker interjected, "Don't you think that's a bit too absurd? You said the key is several hundred meters long. Do you really think that we can hide something that big so easily?"

Charles' brows knitted. Parker was right. A key so large couldn't possibly be easy to conceal.

"Are you satisfied now? As I said, the key you've been looking for truly doesn't exist here. Otherwise, we would have handed it to you outright rather than risk offending you." Johnson's voice echoed from Parker's walkie-talkie.

However, Charles had a different idea. He believed that even if the key weren't here, there had to be clues about it somewhere.

"With the level of technology here, you should have a database somewhere, am I right? Open it up for me to take a look, and I want the highest level of clearance," Charles said.

Parker's face twitched, and anger fleeted across his eyes. "You're going too far!"

"Why are you so afraid? Are you afraid that I'll snatch away your Island 68? Your island is capable of moving underwater, so why would you be afraid of technological bumpkins out there?

"And don't forget, clues for the key are a part of our deal."

Charles' unyielding attitude seemed to have done the trick, as the other party eventually relented. However, historical records were the only data that they would show to Charles, and irrelevant data would remain hidden from him.

Parker shoved a tablet into Charles' hands. "Look for it yourself. Everything in there has been unlocked for you to peruse, so just click on the files on the desktop. I don't need to teach you about how to use that, right?"

"Thank you." Charles nodded. Then, he pulled out a chair and sat down before scrolling through the files to look for clues.

Parker stared at Charles and saw that the latter had quickly gotten engrossed in his search for clues. Parker walked out of the room and pressed on his walkie-talkie, "The bait has worked on Target A. Approach Target B."

Soon, a middle-aged woman with an amiable demeanor walked into the monitoring room. She glanced at Charles before crouching in front of Sparkle and asking, "Darling, what's your name?"

"My name is Sparkle."

"Really? Sparkle is such a lovely name. Anyway, do you love your mommy?"

"Mmhm. I do."

"Oh my, you're such a good girl, Sparkle. I heard your mommy is angry with your daddy? What happened? Can you tell me?"

While the middle-aged woman was busy coaxing information out of Sparkle, Charles was starting to get dizzy before the hodgepodge of texts and images in front of him.

Charles began his search by typing in keywords like "key" or "surface" into the search bar, but a massive amount of data appeared as a result, and none of them was what he was looking for.

Charles had no intention of spending a long time looking for clues, yet he had no choice but to search for clues page by page. Unfortunately, the file had been recording data from 620 years ago, which made the search quite hectic and time consuming.

There was so much information that finding clues for the key had become akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.

Charles scrolled faster and faster. Just as he was about to scroll through someone's diary, an attached picture made Charles quiver. The picture depicted not the key that he had been looking for but a familiar faceTobba's face.

The Navigator of the Narwhale had his arm around a woman's shoulder. The two grinned from ear to ear while holding up a sign together with a line of text that said, "Don't overthink it. I really am Tobba. Keep scrolling down."

Charles looked up and stared at Parker, who had deliberately stood in between him and Sparkle. Moments later, Charles lowered his head and scrolled down the diary.

Charles soon found another image in one of the pages. The image depicted Tobba, who looked to be in his twenties having a barbeque on the beach with a group of young people.

Tobba was wearing a red jacket, and there was a line of text on the back of his jacket that said, "I'm still alive. They were chasing after me, but I foresaw their efforts and ran to a deeper perspective. They'll catch up soon. Hurry up and save me."

Charles' heart skipped a beat at the written text. He wanted to ask questions but realized that he was staring at a mere photo on a tablet. He had no idea how to even begin asking questions to someone in a photo.

"Hehehe." Sparkle's joyful laughter echoed. Clearly, she was having a great time chatting with her new friend.

Charles pondered over the conundrum briefly before scrolling down to the next page where he saw the next written text that said, "If you have any questions, just type it directly on the search bar. I can see it."

Charles tapped on the search bar, and the keyboard appeared. Then, he typed in a question using the characters of the Subterranean Sea.

[Who is leaving these clues? Are you the Tobba from the past or the Tobba from the present?]