On the other side of the planet, this funny little Dennis guy and I, Crystal, were exploring and looking for clues. “Hey… Crystal?” “Huh?” I looked at Dennis with some eager curiosity and put my hand on my cheek, wondering what he wanted… the dumb canine… “Do you smell that? It’s like a weird… sweet yet burnt smell.”

“Mm..” I looked in the direction of the smell and sniffed.  “I do smell something, yeah. Just like that. What do you think it could be?”. “I don’t know… let’s follow it and find out.” That moment made me smile. I’m so glad Dennis and I are monsters! Thanks to our superior survival skills, we could find out something in the distance that Matt, Natalie and Arthur wouldn’t otherwise. How amazing! Ahahaha! Dennis and I walked slowly following the strange smell to find out what it was. It was definitely distant, so it might take a bit for us to get there. Whatevs!! We got time.

“So, why do you think Mrs. Natalie paired us together?” I’m terrible at conversations, but I thought it was better to get one so as to not get bored.

 “Ah… It’s probably because I’m her assistant. You’re a scientist. I help people do things and you do things. Maybe… I can help you whenever we find something. The others probably are a nice trio.” “Huh, fair enough.” And then, when we reached the source of the smell, we saw… …“Dennis… that’s…”... “AHHHH!!” Dennis yelled with all his might out of fear, out of what we witnessed. A male human which we didn’t recognize laid there on the ground. Dead…

“Who… is this? And what happened to them? This is… Wait, this means that somebody else knew about Emptiness besides us.” If someone was there, dead even, then this wasn’t a private matter anymore.

Ugh… Dennis shivered in fear, and I crouched towards the body. Dennis yelled at me almost instantly though. “C-Crystal! What are you doing?! That’s a dead body you’re getting close to!” How annoying. “Lemme check what happened, this is technically a clue to this planet. We came here to investigate, didn’t we?” I looked behind myself to look him in the eyes, as I rolled my own, wanting this silly puppy to not bother me. Dennis whimpered like a little puppy. “Alright, fine… I’ll… I’ll be watching from a safe distance then. Eugh.”

Carefully inspecting the body of the man… I realized his back was covered in weird splotches of black goop. “This is odd… We saw these splotches around the area, but now they’re on someone. Do you think they’re some sort of bacteria, Dennis boy? I know you’re scared but I really need your thoughts here.” “U-uh…. Sure, it might as well be. I’m not touching it though, you have gloves so you’ll be fine.” “Right…” With Dennis’ useless answer, I flipped the man’s body for it to face me. Its face expressed exhaustion and weakness… As if something took his energy in his last moments. “Wait…”

I took a look at the man’s jacket… And noticed a Shielder’s badge. “Right, it makes sense for him to be a Shielder. Not everyone can get here this easily… Dennis, did you talk to anyone about the Emptiness?” Dennis shook his head. “Sh-Shielder? No, never, Boss wanted everyone to keep their mouth shut. Obviously I’m gonna follow her orders!” “I’m a bit worried then. If this guy is a Shielder, with gun training and all, then whatever got him must be tough! It also means that other Shielder departments know about this… The more people know, the worse this is!”

I took a closer look at his Shielder badge… His name was Raymond Mars. From Diamond M. Big. “This is bad, Dennis. We need to inform the others about this as soon as possible.”