Michael\'s POV

"So, what do you know about this enchanted forest"? I asked Victoria.

"Whatever I just told you. I am really that clueless, and I dunno what to do. Most Goblins believe it\'s a myth, a legend, a tale of a wish granting entity for the sake of children\'s storybooks." Victoria sighed.

"Wait, then why are you so sure it exists"? Jake prompted. "What of it all is just a story"

"Stories are derived from real situations. Up until a year ago you never knew Goblin\'s existed, but you must have heard of their names right"?

"That\'s different" Jake shook his head.

"How"? Victoria snapped. She seemed desperate, more than ever. "I\'m sorry. Look, I had a pretty reliable source tell me that it exists. I have a reason to believe them"

"Then why not ask this person? About enchanted forest"? I suggested.

"Don\'t you think I already thought of that"? Victoria scowled at me. "I already asked. All I got from that person is that it\'s there in plain sight. But where"? She was utterly frustrated.

"Well, that\'s one clue" I tried to calm her down.

"How can we help you, Victoria"? Maland asked.

"Do you happen to know anything about enchanted forest? Or anyone that might know"? She asked him.

"Unfortunately I have never heard of it. I never paid heed to urban legends" Victoria\'s face fell at that. "However, how about approaching Sofosys?"he proposed.

"You mean…" I began but...

"He is a scholar right? He keeps the knowledge of thighs that is even beyond our realm. Maybe he has some ideas."

"Sofosys is too ideal for me to pull this off. He might not be on board with us. For now, he is my last resort, but I am looking for any alternative source. With the Goblin war in their hands, I don\'t want him to be distracted by this" Victoria shrugged.

"Hey, how about we go to the library"? I suggested.

"In here"? Victoria scoffed at me.

"No not here! On the island. I saw the goblin section, it was… filled with numerous books. Maybe there is some hint in them"? I offered.

"That\'s actually a good idea" Victoria seemed impressed. "Let\'s do that. Let\'s go".

"Right now? It\'s late, won\'t the library be closed"? I asked skeptically.

"Lets go to the island first, we will figure out the rest" Victoria brushed it off and opened a portal directly to the island. She walked in through it and the rest of us followed her. The whole place was completely dark, signifying that it was indeed late.

We headed out for the search of the library but unfortunately even that was locked. "Ughh!" Victoria seemed frustrated.

"Let\'s wait it out"? I suggested.

"What else can we do?" Victoria snapped with annoyance. "With every moment we spend here, up there the war progresses.My mother deteriorates. As much as I disagree with her, I wanna save her" Her voice quivered at the end. "I have so many questions for her".

As someone who never knew his own father, I could somewhat relate to what was going on. If I ever met my father someday, god knows how I will react. I will perhaps be angry, loathe him, but I too will have a lot of questions for him. Given that my father was one of the Goblins, I too needed to save their world in order to determine who my father was, that is if I wanted to. I wasn\'t really sure how I felt about going out of my way to look for my father.

"Let\'s take a rest." Maland proposed.

"I can\'t rest," Victoria shook her head.

"Vicky, I might not know everything to the details, but I do know that you have been through a lot lately. Take a break, so that you don\'t burn out. I promise you, we\'ll be here first thing tomorrow morning and we\'ll turn this library upside down for the search of the enchanted forest." I assured her.

"Fine" She sighed and left for her house. We didn\'t know if we could still access our old rooms here, but Maland urged that he could arrange that for us. Within around an hour, we were not only allotted back to our rooms, but also the dinner was served to us. I half expected it to be Taena, but a part of me was glad I didn\'t run into her.

Taking a quick glance around the room I realised that it was exactly the same as I left it. Every nook, every crease in the bedsheets, everything was just the same. Oh, the nostalgia. I remember I couldn\'t wait to get out of this place, how stuck I felt. But going back to my life, and coming back here only made me realise how much I missed this. Maybe I was clinging on to the past, just like always. Nevertheless, I was happy to be back here.

The next morning, I took Jake along with me. I know as a human he technically won\'t be able to access the Goblin records, but maybe he can help us look. The librarian was not so pleased to see me, but she was quite delighted by Victoria\'s presence. Probably that\'s why she made an exception and allowed him in with us.

"What are we looking for?"Jake asked.

"Wait" I dug in my pocket and handed him a piece of paper. "Just search the annexures or index for this word." I shrugged.

"What the hell is this"? Jake looked visibly disgusted. "Did a kid doodle this"?

"These are the ancient characters which mean enchanted forest," I informed him.

"Say what now"? Jake\'s eyes bubbled up.

"Like it\'s their language" I suggested. "This will help you look"

"Don\'t you have something here in english?" Jake scowled. "Something that is up to my caliber."

"The inside of the book might be english, This is in case it isn\'t" I assured him.

"Okay…" He trailed off, looking unsure. Nevertheless, he decided to look for the book and search the entire Right wing. I purposely asked him to choose that because I knew more books in english were there.

Meanwhile, I skimmed through the section of children\'s tales hoping to find any mention of Enchanted forest. With what we know till now, every bit of information is valid.

"Ughh! This is driving me crazy" Victoria groaned after finding nothing in the first shelf she looked through.

"This is why humans have google. This is absolutely time consuming" Jake commented from his side.

"If you are not up for it, feel free to leave" Maland who was somehow standing next Jake declared, startling Jake.

"No… I\'ll stay" he mumbled while trying to catch his breath.

I could understand their annoyance, given this was really not up to their tally, but I was a bookworm. I always loved going through multiple books. Thanks to my learning of these characters in my free time, this wasn\'t as frustrating as the last time.

After I was done through the children\'s section with no mention at all, I moved on to the section of history. Maybe history will have some record of this myth. "Found it," Jake exclaimed.We all ran to him as he held the book in his hand. It had goblin characters, so he showed us, "see the characters matches"

"Let me see" Victoria snacthed the book and looked through it. I wish she would read it out loud for us, but after a few seconds her face turned into a scowl with her pressing her tongue against her own cheeks in annoyance. "This is a dictionary dumbass"! She slammed the book on the table earning curious gazes from the central section of the library. "All it says, that it\'s a forest that is enchanted" She rolled her eyes.

"How am I supposed to know that\'\'? Jake snickered. "I can barely match these letters".

"Okay, calm down. Both of you" I interrupted. I could tell this was starting to frustrate everyone. "Let\'s look around more shall we. Jake you don\'t have to stay. I know this is a bit of a tedious job." I offered.

"No, I need to stay"! He exclaimed immediately.

"You need to"? I raised an eyebrow. His determination surprised me. As if he was as determined as Victoria. But why? Whom was he trying to save? Linda? That was a possibility.

"I mean…" He stuttered. "This is a crisis, right"? He shrugged. We all need to.. Do our best and search for the answers"

"Okay…" I nodded. I wasn\'t convinced, but I didn\'t want to confront him here, in front of frustrated Victoria and righteous Maland.

I went back to my history section and after a few books, I finally found a reference. I wanted to make sure it was authentic before I called everyone, so with my broken Goblin language skills, I gave it a read. After a few minutes, all I could gather from the text was \'The enchanted forest was created by the deity, which promised peace and harmony. But the Goblin\'s became greedy and started to exploit it for their own personal use. And thereby, the wars between the two kingdoms commenced. Before I could read further, I decided to call everyone else and check it out.