Goblin Slayer, Vol. 8

by Kumo Kagyu

  It was probably, from the perspective of one who could see only three dimensions, not from this plane of existence.

  “…I feel like just looking at it chips away at my sanity,” Sage said, her face uncharacteristically pale and sweaty. She was not yet a planeswalker. It would be such a shame to go to other worlds when she had yet to see and understand the whole of this one.

  Now she gritted her teeth, her fingers on her staff, her very fingernails, the way every part of her body and hands moved, carving out precise words of true power. Sage alone had the ability to seal away this shade, this horrifying thing, this pulsating collection of guts. Every minute, every second, she felt like her soul was being scraped away by a rasp, but…

  “That right?” Sword Saint slid her feet back and forth, exquisitely minute moves that maintained the distance to the enemy. She judged her opportunities, striking out at the stretching, probing feelers whenever she had a chance, forcing them back or slicing them off. Each time, a spray of blackish blood would burst outward, like a crimson flag flying from her sword, painting the sky. Even an observer with no martial ability would have understood that she was the keystone of the party’s defense.

  “If it bleeds, that means we can kill it,” she said. “Somehow.”

  Not every problem could be solved with a sword. But every problem that could be solved with a sword, she would solve.

  To Sword Saint, this monster was nothing more than a lump of flesh that had come to her world from the stars. It came cursing her land, and now that she was within sword’s reach, she would destroy it. It was as simple as that.

  Yes, simple… That’s her.

  Sage breathed out, heh, and smiled, resigned to her companion’s ways. Her shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly.

  When they thought you were crude, be technical. And when they thought you were going to be technical, be absolutely crude.

  That was best. So it was in everything, Sage thought, and then she said lightly, “Maybe I should just use Fusion to blow it away once and for all?”

  “Aw, if this mountain ends up shorter than it started, they’re gonna blame me!” Hero said, slicing away some tentacles that were making for Sword Saint. Despite her evident fatigue, though, she smiled.

  It was Sage who prevented the thing from spreading, Sword Saint who handled defense, and all the attacking fell to Hero. Her small body was already weighed down by a gigantic sword, and now she had the peace of the entire world riding on her shoulders, too.

  “At least its movement pattern is easy; that helps.” Hero sounded as mellow as if she didn’t even feel any of this burden; she readied her sacred sword in her two hands. “It just comes charging at you… Maybe this thing’s really dumb?”

  “It knows only expansion and attack. That’s why we have to stop it now.”

  “I think His Majesty would really enjoy this, though.”

  “…I would rather not envision what would happen if we failed here and got absorbed by this thing.” Sage gave up her former professed admiration for her bantering comrades. “However, you two are right about one thing. I don’t believe its intelligence is highly developed…”

  She strengthened her barriers as an attack came from a strange angle; Sage was thinking fast. It seemed likely that this thing, this shade—if it could be called that—learned by absorbing other living things. They were simply lucky that the creature it was trying to parasitize at the moment was so incredibly stupid.

  But… Sage gave voice to the obvious question.

  “How did the corpse of a goblin drop onto a mountaintop…?”

  “Some guy on a goblin hunt somewhere must have—done it!” Hero sliced at the monster with all the strength in her slim arms, unconcerned about proper swordsmanship, lopping off a piece of the creature.

  All just as usual. The black-haired girl smiled. It would be a big mistake to think she alone could take care of the whole world.

  “He’s doing his part—so we’d better do ours and not lose this fight!”

  She smiled again, looking like a girl who could have come from any village in the world. Then she swung her sacred sword like a club.

  “XEEEEEEEEENOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNN!!!!”

  “As if we ever lose!”

  An explosion of sun.

  “GGRROROB!”

  “GRBBR! GOORGGBG!”

  Grumbled, filthy curses echoed through the burial chamber. The princess heard all of it from where she lay on the floor, bound with torn shreds from her own vestments. She tried to see, but the dark, the gloom, and the clinging miasma made it difficult.

  Her face was swollen, her tilted vision blurred with tears, and her nose and mouth were so dry they burned.

  Only natural, after the beating she’d received, she thought distantly. She must have looked terrible.

  The thought made her nose prickle, and tears threatened to gather in her eyes again. Then they spilled out, along with a stream of sniffles; the resolution to restrain them had been pummeled out of her.

  Whatever was waiting for her next, it wouldn’t be better than what had already happened. The thought terrified her. When she thought of the awful, blasphemous possibilities, even the chill of the dirty stones she lay on faded to insignificance.

  “GOROGGBGO! GROG!”

  “GGGOROGB!”

  At the altar, the one goblin wearing elaborate clothing was shouting something.

  His outfit was that of a magic user, one turned comically, hideously theatrical. His whole body was covered in geometric tattoos—they were “hands”—and he was the goblins’ leader.

  The princess found herself shaking at the idea that she would soon be beaten, raped, violated to the very brink of death. “Heek… Eek…!”

  “GGBGOROGOBOG!”

  “GOR! GBOGOGB!”

  The goblins had started laughing at the pitiful child again. They weren’t specifically amused that the king’s little sister had been reduced to such a state. No, they simply enjoyed the fact that someone more pathetic than them was cowering and weeping.

  If the goblins had known who she was, they would probably have treated her even worse. Goblins made no attempt to hide their jealousy or grudges. The girl knew full well that she had sunk into a dark pit where these monsters’ lusts raged unchecked.

  There was no help.

  There was no salvation.

  All was lost, all had been stolen from her, all debased.

  And yet, the goblins still intended to take every last vestige of what she had.

  They’ll never be satisfied. I’m sure of it.

  She could apologize, cry and beg, but it wouldn’t be enough for them, even if she died.

  The only way they might be distracted was if they tired of her, or forgot about her, or if their interest was drawn by some other poor victim.

  “Ooh… Ah… Ergh…”

  In light of that fact, she had resolved, at the very least, not to plead for forgiveness. Not because of a desire to resist the goblins, or out of pride. Simply because she didn’t want to sink so low, and because she knew pleading wouldn’t do any good anyway.

  She was under no illusions: the goblins would steal that resolve from her, too, and probably in just a matter of minutes.

  “GGBGBG!”

  “GRB!”

  The goblin leader lifted his staff—it was a dried-out hand—and waved it around, giving his subordinates some kind of order. There was a flurry of wet footsteps as the dirty monsters came closer, full of greed.

  The faces of her dearly departed mother and father flashed through her mind. Then she saw her older brother.

  Was he angry at her? she wondered. Worried about her? She could only imagine.

  All she wanted, the only thing, was to go home.

  But she never would. Not without a miracle…

  §

  “I attempted to investigate at the temple, but their tattoo is of a kind I myself have never seen.”

  The elevator bore the adventurers downward s
ilently. If it weren’t for the floaty feeling under their feet, they would never have thought they were in a moving box.

  High Elf Archer frowned and flicked her ears, whereupon Lizard Priest advised her, “Swallow.” She did as he said, and the discomfort in her ears seemed to vanish.

  “However, I strongly believe they have a spell caster with them.”

  “A goblin shaman, right?” Priestess said.

  “I can’t say for certain,” Goblin Slayer said, causing Priestess to blanch a bit. She was well past the point where she might go limp with fear, but such an enemy was not one to be met without anxiety. She gripped her staff and took a deep breath. Then another. Fill the lungs, then let it out.

  High Elf Archer patted her rising, falling shoulders.

  “…Doing all right?”

  “Yes,” Priestess said, smiling bravely. “I’m fine.”

  She glanced over at Goblin Slayer, who was talking to Dwarf Shaman and Lizard Priest. Planning and calculating, no doubt. It helped her relax to see them going about business as usual.

  “I think we can assume these are the same goblins who have been causing trouble in the area lately. He would be their chieftain,” Goblin Slayer said.

  “If you’re right about that, then…taking down the spell caster first would be the obvious way to go,” Dwarf Shaman replied with a stroke of his white beard.

  “Nay, but I think it would depend on the number and equipment of our opponents,” Lizard Priest argued. The cleric, a member of those most renowned warriors, the lizardmen, turned his long neck this way and that, vigilant. “In any event, were we to be ambushed when these doors opened, it would be something of a duck hunt.”

  “Projectiles, then,” Goblin Slayer grunted. “How troublesome.”

  “Hey, Long-Ears,” Dwarf Shaman said grimly. “Can y’hear anything below?”

  “Just because I’m an elf doesn’t mean I can hear everything, okay?” High Elf Archer frowned and closed her eyes, her ears working up and down. Everyone instinctively fell silent. Only the soft sounds of their breathing filled the space.

  After a few moments, High Elf Archer opened her eyes again. “…Hmm. There’s a lot of them, I think,” she said, but she didn’t sound very sure. “More than ten, I’d guess? Maybe even twenty. I hear a lot of footsteps. I can’t figure out what they’re wearing, though.”

  “Anything else you noticed?” Goblin Slayer asked. “Anything at all.”

  “Not a sound, but—” High Elf Archer twitched her nose. “There’s some sort of weird smell. From down below.”

  “Do you think it’s poison gas?”

  The answer to his question came from Lizard Priest. “No, I should think they are performing a ritual of some kind. Burning some sort of incense would be natural enough.”

  “Whatever it is, I guarantee it won’t do us any good to breathe it in,” Dwarf Shaman said. He humphed thoughtfully then clapped his hands as an idea occurred to him. “Say, Beard-cutter. Do you have those—those things we used once? The cloth-and-ash things that filtered out bad air.”

  “Those were improvised out of need. Given enough time to prepare, it would be better to soak a cloth in antidote.” Goblin Slayer pulled a bottle with a string wrapped around the neck from his item bag. “I’d rather not use a potion now, but I suppose this is the time for it.”

  “Oh,” Priestess said, raising her hand, “then let me…!” The party turned to look at her. She blushed, not quite used to being the center of attention. “Er, I just, ahem, thought maybe we could open with Holy Light like we usually do…” She sounded more apologetic the longer she spoke. “I thought maybe that would be… the safest thing to try…”

  Goblin Slayer did a quick mental calculation of their remaining spells. Three, and this would mean using one on entry.

  If the captive was safe—meaning alive—she would almost certainly ask for healing.

  That would leave them with one miracle. Was that “just one miracle,” or “one whole miracle”?

  He shoved the potion back in his pouch.

  “Handle it.”

  “Right!”

  His response was simple as could be, and Priestess nodded vigorously, her face lit up.

  “Very good. Mistress Priestess shall make our opening gambit, while I shall, I suppose, be on the front row.” Lizard Priest made a strange palms-together gesture, looking positively excited. “Thankfully, I’ve been able to conserve the miracles that I can ask from my forebears. What of you, master spell caster?”

  “Lessee, here… I’ve two more spells—no, make that three, but…” Dwarf Shaman dug through his bag of catalysts as he spoke then grinned. “How about it, Beard-cutter? What d’you want?”

  “A source of light,” he replied without even thinking. “The rest is up to you.”

  “You got it. That’ll be me, then.”

  “And I’ll just do what I always do,” High Elf Archer said, restringing her bow and feeling out how many arrows she had left. “You mentioned projectiles. That means shooting. I’ll stay loose. In case the dwarf falls over or anything.”

  “I won’t fall,” Dwarf Shaman said, glaring at her. “As long as no anvils stumble on top of me!”

  Huh! High Elf Archer went red and shot back something in kind, and then they were off and arguing, as usual.

  Lizard Priest, who seemed to find the sight relaxing under the circumstances, rolled his eyes in his head. “After that, the key will be…flexibility.”

  “…You don’t mean just act at random, do you?” Priestess said with a wry smile.

  “No,” Goblin Slayer answered, shaking his head. “Flexibility is something goblins aren’t capable of.”

  §

  “O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, please, by your revered hand, cleanse us of our corruption!!”

  Thus came forth Purify.

  A sacred wind swept through that place of filth and pollution; Priestess’s prayer, offered in loud voice, broke through the elevator doors like a miracle.

  “I swept away the miasma!”

  “Perfect!”

  The adventurers jumped out into the room, now free of the choking fog. The rusted alarm, which had once been a trap, jingled once and then fell silent.

  “GGOBOGOB?!”

  “GORO?! GOBOGOR?!”

  Goblin jabber, words most likely of blasphemous import, sounded in the gloom. Dwarf Shaman, who could see in the dark, frowned and immediately grabbed some coal from his bag.

  “Hold your torch up, give us light, will-o-the-wisp, burn in the night! Onibi, I call on thee, give a little light to me!”

  He flung the coal into the air, where it burst of its own accord into a blue-white flame. The thing he had called forth with Control Spirit shone brightly in the dungeon.

  The space it illuminated turned out to be a burial chamber in the truest sense of the words. A pair of doors in the distance must have been the elevator to the depths that former adventurers had sought. There were signs of furious battle all around the dim stone room, along with shattered steel, tattered armor, and bits of skeletons in black outfits.

  If this had been any normal dungeon crawl, it would have been a place of absolute solemnity.

  But now, it was inhabited by goblins. The very heart of this dungeon was piled high with goblin junk, filth, and food scraps.

  By the walls all around were those who had tried this dungeon without a plan, or perhaps who had lost to the goblins…

  “That’s awful…,” Priestess said, involuntarily putting a hand to her mouth at the horror of it. Goblin Slayer grunted softly.

  Several corpses dangled there, suspended by meat hooks dug into their flesh, like strange, hideous fruits. It was all too easy to imagine that being hung by their skin was the last stage of untold tortures.

  “GOROBG!”

  “Ohh… Ah…”

  At that moment, among the confused shouts of the goblins, a soft, weak cry could be heard. It was the hostage—the princess, up on the al
tar.

  A goblin dressed in elaborate clothing, likely their leader, had her by the hair and was pulling her up.

  She’s alive!

  “One staff. Five swords, five clubs, two spears, seven bows, no hobs—twenty in all!”

  One of the adventurers was wearing grimy leather armor and a cheap-looking helmet; on his arm was a small, round shield, and at his hip, a sword of a strange length.

  Goblin Slayer, who had flung the torch from his left hand into the room, quickly assessed the situation.

  “As we expected. A shaman is—”

  “No…!” Priestess interrupted.

  Her joy at the princess’s survival was fleeting; now both her eyes were open wide. She was looking squarely at the goblin with the staff, tattoos all over his body.

  Was it fear? Past experience? No. A sharp tingle ran along the nape of her neck.

  A handout!

  Priestess correctly interpreted the revelation from the munificent Earth Mother and exclaimed, “That’s a priest!”

  Apostle of the heinous gods of Chaos! Non-Prayer to the rightful and just gods!

  “GBOB! GOROBGGRB! GOROBG!!”

  As if in response to Priestess, the goblin’s prayer echoed through the room. He waved his staff and gibbered in his bizarre tongue, and a hazy, sinister light began to gather around the altar.

  “That son of a…!”

  Far be it from High Elf Archer to let him get away with that: she loosed an arrow at the goblin, meaning to take him before he had time to react—but the arrow bounced away with a dry clack.

  “No way…! Protection?!”

  The goblin cultist gave them a vile grin, and they perceived a wall of pale light around him.

  Goblin Slayer knew well the strength of that light. He had relied on it more than once.

  It certainly wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of this possibility. His battle with the goblin paladin on the snowy mountain had been close to a year before, but he still remembered it vividly.

  But a goblin believer?

  In the whole world, there seemed few things less amenable to each other than goblins and faith.

  Now he clicked his tongue at himself to realize he had been making this unconscious assumption.