Goblin Slayer Side Story: Year One, Vol. 2

by Kumo Kagyu

  It was the adventurer they had come to call…

  …Goblin Slayer.

  As he walked toward her, Guild Girl put her hands neatly in her lap, blushing when her coworker noticed her.

  “Er, uh,” she said, sitting up straighter. “Wh-what can I do for you today?”

  “Goblins.”

  One sure word. The same one every time. Guild Girl felt her cheeks pull toward a frown, although for a different reason from earlier.

  “But…you just handled some goblins recently, right?”

  I’m sure… She didn’t even have to check the paperwork. He hardly, if ever, took quests other than goblin hunting.

  Otherwise, they wouldn’t have called him Goblin Slayer.

  “Maybe you’d like to take on something else for a change? Like, uh, a Manticore or something…?!”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Goblins.”

  Hmm… Guild Girl pursed her lips worriedly. She felt like all those trips to that wizard’s place recently had changed him somewhat, but…

  At last, she gave a long, resigned sigh and said, “All right.” Then a nod. “I’ll have a look… Oh, have some tea, if you like.”

  “Yes.”

  Thankfully, she hadn’t taken a sip from the cup yet. She offered the tea to him and started flipping through pages. There was no end to goblin-hunting quests in the world. There was a half-joking proverb that held “every time a party of new adventurers is formed, so is a goblin nest.” That’s how ubiquitous they were.

  “Uh, here. There’s…two today. These ones.”

  “I’ll take them both,” he declared without even looking at the quest papers, causing Guild Girl to smile awkwardly again. If an adventurer was willing to take on goblin quests, though, she wasn’t going to turn him down. The main thing was that he got the job done—like that spearman.

  “I’m going, then.”

  “Uh, right! Be careful!”

  Goblin Slayer did the absolute minimum of paperwork, then walked away as boldly as he had come.

  “Not the warmest guy around, is he?” Guild Girl’s colleague smirked as he left.

  “No…” Guild Girl agreed.

  He didn’t chat. He attended only to what was necessary. And then he did what he had to do. And…

  The cup… It’s…empty?

  She didn’t know how he drank through his visor, but somehow the fact made her very happy.

  “…Heh-heh!”

  Guild Girl pursued her work cheerfully all afternoon and well into the evening.

  §

  “GOROOGORO!!”

  He stopped the screaming, onrushing goblin with his shield and a slight “Hmph,” and the creature bounced back. Jumping ability didn’t vary much from one goblin to the next. Not even if the creature was clinging to a tree root poking down through the ceiling of the cave.

  So it was possible to learn and be prepared for them.

  Goblin Slayer moved in on the downed monster and stabbed him in the throat.

  “GOBGRG?!”

  “Three,” he said as he looked down at the expiring monster, choking on a geyser of its own blood.

  Very few goblin-slaying quests are truly unique.

  This one simply involved a goblin nest that had appeared near a farming village, nothing special. He’d visited Arc Mage, then dropped by the Guild, prepared some food, and set out. A few perfunctory greetings at the village, then directly to the cave.

  Goblin Slayer had entered the cave at twilight, prepared for the little devils to resist him. Night belonged to the Non-Prayer Characters.

  “…Hrm.”

  Now though, as he kicked the goblin corpse over into a corner, Goblin Slayer grumbled to himself. There weren’t nearly as many guards here as he had expected.

  Aren’t goblins active at night?

  Their eyes could see in the dark, letting them traverse the shadows to attack a village, looking to steal livestock or crops or women.

  That was how goblins worked. Even children knew it. And yet…

  “…”

  Was that why?

  The possibility came to him in a flash, like intuition, like inspiration, but he shook his head and said, “No, it can’t be.”

  He couldn’t jump to any conclusions based on guesswork. Observe, confirm. Consider soberly. Wasn’t that what he had been taught?

  He pulled his sword out of the goblin’s throat, wiping it on the creature’s loincloth. Then he dropped into a low stance, proceeding one careful step at a time.

  There was some filth here, but there were no bugs, no bat excrement—probably, he thought, because they had all been turned into meals already.

  The cave was not all that large. Before his first torch had burned down, he’d found the room he was looking for.

  “I thought so.”

  The words escaped him without his really meaning them to. His intuition had been correct.

  They’re sleeping.

  It was, in practical terms, a goblin sleeping chamber. Here, deep in the cave, five or six goblins lay abed.

  It must be “dawn” for them right now.

  The goblins had learned at some point that adventurers came during the day. Thus, it made perfect sense for them to post guards in the middle of their night—people did the same thing. The night watch was an important duty.

  But “early morning”… Perhaps that was different.

  No such thing as a hard-working goblin, eh?

  Even the handful of guards had looked sleepy. The goblins who had foisted the duty on them were in dreamland.

  No goblin, it seemed, would purposely get up early to perform a trying task for the sake of his comrades.

  If one were not among those who had words… If one were a goblin…

  A face flashed through his mind. That girl. Was she waiting for him today, too? At the farm. Until morning.

  Goblin Slayer set the torch delicately on the ground, grabbed his sword in a reverse grip, then walked carefully into the room.

  He put his hand over the mouth of the nearest goblin, simultaneously stabbing him in the throat and slashing.

  “GBBG?!”

  The monster’s eyes flew open and he opened his mouth to shout, but only a few garbled syllables came out. And those were muffled by the hand, and then the monster slumped down, dead.

  “…Four.”

  Soundless, unnoticed, Goblin Slayer went about his business quickly and quietly so that none of the creatures would wake up. He hardly breathed; he stepped as silently as he could, performing his task with an almost benevolent detachment.

  It was an exhausting way to do things. All the more reason he needed to remain detached, treat it like business. Pay attention to what warranted attention and ignore everything else. That way he could stave off the fatigue.

  “Five… Hrm?”

  Goblin Slayer executed another goblin. But the feel was wrong; he clicked his tongue when he saw the blade of his sword was dulled with blood and fat. He was about to throw the weapon away—

  “GOBBGR…”

  —when suddenly there came a mumbling from one corner of the room, and Goblin Slayer immediately flung his sword in that direction.

  It sliced through the darkness, landing in a goblin’s throat with a dull thump, taking his life. The creature crumpled back and died, never knowing what was a dream and what was reality.

  The sound of the corpse collapsing to the ground made Goblin Slayer nervous; he grabbed a club lying at his feet. He ducked down low, watching the surviving goblins closely as the last of the echoes faded.

  “GOBGR?!” One of them spoke. He swung out with his right arm. Muttering and mumbling, the goblin turned over in his sleep.

  Goblin Slayer slowly let out a breath.

  Three left.

  It would be a certain amount of trouble, but it never even occurred to him to resent it. If he could have washed them all away with a flood, it might have been slightly more efficient, but…

  “…Hmph.�
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  It was worth thinking about. Goblin Slayer nodded, then walked toward the remaining goblins.

  By midnight, it was all over.

  §

  “Ahh, man, now I’m running late…!”

  It wasn’t that far from the farm to the town, but after factoring in the time it took to get ready, and sometimes hurrying became a necessity. Considering the amount of cargo, she didn’t really need a horse, and in the end, Cow Girl pulled the cart herself, huffing and puffing.

  ’Fraid this is gonna make me all muscly.

  That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it would have happened naturally in the course of doing farmwork. But be that as it may, as a young girl, she wasn’t sure she fancied the idea…

  No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she giggled, finding it strange that she should have considered such a thing at all.

  I never used to be even slightly worried about that sort of thing.

  She wiped the sweat trickling down her brow, breathing deeply as she pulled the cart around behind the Guild building.

  This was hardly the end of it; she still had to unload the cargo.

  There were stories in the world of a carpet that would produce food just by unfurling it, or a spoon from which soup bubbled up endlessly. But the Adventurers Guild tavern possessed nothing of the sort; they used fresh ingredients every day.

  With an encouraging hup, she got started: grab a box or a barrel, set it down, grab another one, set it down. There were a great many boxes and barrels to pick up and move since eating and drinking were among the chief pleasures of the town’s adventurers.

  After everything was unloaded and the paperwork was done, the sweat wasn’t just trickling; she was soaked in it.

  Cow Girl sat down on a nearby barrel, leaning against a wall in exhaustion.

  “Pheeew… Now I’m tired…”

  She opened the collar of her sopping shirt, which stuck to her skin, fanning her chest to get a breeze going. She looked at the sky and saw that twilight was near; the cool breeze on her flushed cheeks felt lovely.

  Next, she cast her gaze to the side and saw some adventurers. Were they heading out, or coming home? They went in and out of the Guild, wearing and carrying every conceivable type of equipment.

  She watched intently, searching the crowd for a cheap-looking steel helmet with horns.

  Not here, huh? Didn’t think so.

  She had expected as much. Or did she just want to think that? Lately, he’d started coming home only near dawn. Today, once again, he’d left early in the morning, and she didn’t expect him back tonight.

  Anyway, if she had seen him there at twilight, it would have only made her wonder what he was doing with all those hours until he came home in the morning. Sure.

  “…Ergh.”

  An image of him and some woman, like hazy graffiti, drifted through her mind, and she felt a flush rise to her cheeks.

  This is all because Uncle said those nasty things…

  She hadn’t been aware of it, but it seemed his words still lingered in her mind.

  Yes, she understood that men were like that, sort of, but still…

  Cow Girl shook her head vigorously, trying to drive away the ugly imaginings.

  “Hey, have you heard?”

  “About what?”

  “Goblin Slayer.”

  Just who she’d been thinking of—she perked up her ears.

  Breathing as quietly as she could and paying careful attention to her footsteps, she climbed down off the barrel and slid closer along the wall.

  A couple of adventurers were chatting outside the door of the Guild Hall. One of them appeared to be a young warrior, but as for the other, Cow Girl couldn’t guess at his profession. He wore leather armor, and a sword hung at his hip. So did a helmet, but that was about all she could see. She didn’t know if he was a warrior or a scout, or some sort of blend of the two classes.

  These are real adventurers, she realized, her eyes going wide, and kept herself hidden against the wall without really knowing why.

  “Who’s that again?”

  “You know, the guy who only ever hunts goblins.”

  “Err………?”

  “He registered the same day I did… Oh, and he never takes his helmet off.”

  “Ahh, yeah, the sorta filthy one.”

  Cow Girl had something to say about that, but she had nothing even resembling the courage to jump out and confront the men. She took slow, deep breaths, trying to soothe the nameless anxiety that made her heart pound in her chest.

  He was called Goblin Slayer. She knew that. It was all right. She already knew.

  “Okay, so, this Goblin Killer or whatever. What about him?”

  “Goblin Slayer,” the young warrior corrected the other adventurer with a frown. “Anyway, I hear he’s been going to that shack on the riverside.”

  “The riverside…,” the other adventurer said, and then, after some thought, he said, “You mean where that freaky lady lives?”

  Lady.

  Cow Girl swallowed hard. She grabbed the loosened collar of her shirt.

  No, it was too soon. She couldn’t draw any conclusions yet. She should wait. Yeah, wait.

  “You know her?”

  “She’s this weird…sage or mage or something. Doin’ some kind of ‘research.’” The hostility was plain in the adventurer’s voice; perhaps he had some sort of unpleasant memories of this woman. “I went to her for an identification once, and she was all, ‘Surely you don’t need me to identify something this obvious.’”

  “She chased you out?”

  “Out? I never even got in the front door.”

  “Let me guess—it turned out to be junk anyway.”

  “I took it to her because nothing happened when I used it… Eh, turned out to be that sort of staff.”

  “A magic staff, huh? So what was the effect?”

  “When y’hold it, you won’t fall down.”

  The adventurers shared a dry laugh. Had that been some sort of joke? You carried a staff exactly so that you wouldn’t fall down when walking.

  Cow Girl scraped at the flagstones with her toes, totally lost as to the meaning of the adventurers’ conversation. She wasn’t interested in their strange jokes. She wanted to know about the other thing they’d said. Before that.

  “So, hey, why worry about this…uh…”

  “Goblin Slayer.”

  “Yeah. Why worry about him anyway?”

  “Well, we came in at the same time,” the young warrior said softly, his expression difficult to read. “I thought maybe he’d joined a party or something, and I can’t get the thought out of my head.”

  “You’re solo yourself, ain’tcha? Wanna join up with someone? I could introduce you.”

  “No, I’m—” He shook his head slowly. “Fine like this, for now.”

  “Yeah, okay,” the other adventurer answered, and then a smile with a hint of malice came over his face. “Too busy watching out for newbies, huh? Gotcher eye on that silver-haired gal?”

  “No. No, not really,” the young warrior said indignantly, but then he soon wore a relaxed smiled. “Anyway, never mind about me. So you’re saying he’s partied up with that spell caster?”

  Yes, this was it. Cow Girl gulped, leaning out from the shadows ever so slightly.

  “Dunno. Can’t say she looked like the type.”

  For better or for worse, the adventurers were so caught up in their discussion that neither of them looked her way. Cow Girl listened with every iota of her being, like the adventurer who robbed the dragon’s hoard in the story she’d heard growing up.

  The adventurer who seemed to know something about the spell caster was trying to explain to the warrior, but he found the subject hard to articulate, and his explanation was hard to follow.

  “She wears this dirty robe, and her room is full of all this junk. And it smells funny, like medicine or something.”

  “Huh… An alchemist, maybe?”<
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  “Maybe. She sure don’t look like an adventurer. If she were the studious, scholarly type, I’d have chatted her up already.”

  “C’mon, now…” You’ve got a weird type. The young warrior sighed, shaking his head slowly. “I guess Goblin Slayer doesn’t seem like the type to party up, either…”

  “Yeah, but they’re both kinda dirty. Birds of a feather, y’know?”

  Cow Girl found the sound escaping her: “Wha?!” One of the adventurers let out a puzzled “Hrm?” and she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “What’s up?”

  “I thought— Eh, probably my imagination. Not like there’re gonna be any monsters in town anyway.”

  “The heck are you talking about?”

  I found this shop with a cute waitress. She’s totally into me. What, this again? No, it’s for real this time. Let’s go.

  Thus conversing, they faded into the evening crowd. Cow Girl stayed in the shadows, watching them leave. So he was frequenting a woman’s house. They were doing something together. Apparently. Apparently?

  Not that it was anything to be so shocked about… At least, that’s what she thought. Probably, she was pretty sure.

  The relationship between him and her was just that between the landlord’s daughter—no, his niece—and a tenant. Nothing more and nothing less.

  She still had secrets, things she hadn’t told him.

  And surely he, too, had things he hadn’t told her.

  She was getting too involved. Just butting in. So…

  “Birds of a feather. Birds of a feather……”

  She covered her face with her hands, feeling like she had no idea what to do. The odors of sweat and dust stung her eyes, tickled the inside of her nose. She rubbed her face with her palm.

  “……I’m going home.”

  Yes, she would go home.

  The sky was crimson already; night was near. The wind was cold, and her body felt so heavy.

  Going home would be the best thing.

  Even if she knew he wouldn’t be there that night.

  §

  The Adventurers Guild was already cloaked in silence by the time he got there.

  The lamplight was kept to a minimum to conserve fuel, casting the hall in a clinging dimness.