by Kumo Kagyu
“Aaaaghh…!”
All she could do was clench her teeth, keep the tears from her eyes, and stare down the goblins.
Two armed monsters approached. Leering grins split their faces; threads of drool hung from the edges of their mouths.
It would be best if she could bite off her tongue and die. But her goddess did not allow suicide, and she seemed destined to suffer the same fate as her friends.
Would they slice her open? Or rape her? Or both?
“Ohh…no…”
She trembled; her teeth started chattering helplessly.
Priestess pulled Wizard close, using her own body to shield her companion, but suddenly she felt something warm and wet on her legs. The goblins seemed to pick up the scent, and their faces twisted in disgust.
Priestess desperately repeated the name of the Earth Mother, trying to avoid seeing what was in front of her.
There was no hope.
But then…
“Wha…?”
Deep within the darkness, there was a light.
It was like the evening star shining proudly against the encroaching twilight.
A single, ever-so-small but vividly shining point of light, and it steadily came closer.
The light was accompanied by the calm, determined footsteps of someone who held no doubts about where they were going.
The goblins looked back in confusion. Had their friends let some prey slip past?
And then, just behind the goblins, she saw him.
He was not very impressive.
He wore dirty leather armor and a filthy steel helm. On his left arm, a shield was fastened, and in his hand was a torch. His right hand grasped a sword that seemed a strange length. Priestess couldn’t help thinking that her own woefully unprepared party had seemed better prepared than this.
No, she wanted to shout, stay away! But terror froze her tongue, and she could not call out. She was deeply humiliated that she lacked Fighter’s courage.
The two goblins turned toward the newcomer, demonstrating no reluctance to show their backs to the powerless Priestess. They would deal with her later. One nocked an arrow to his bowstring, drew, and fired.
It was a crude, stone-headed arrow. And the goblin was frankly a terrible archer.
But darkness is the goblin’s ally.
No one could dodge an arrow that flew suddenly out of the blackness…
“Hmph.”
Even as he offered a derisive snort, the man cut the projectile out of the air with one swift swipe of his sword.
Incapable of comprehending the implication of what had just happened, the second goblin leaped at the man. The creature wielded the only weapon he carried, another of the monsters’ rusty daggers. His blade found a chink at the man’s shoulder and drove deep.
“Nooo!”
Priestess gave a scream—but there was no other sound. The goblin’s blow made only a quiet scrape of metal on metal.
The blade had been stopped by the mail beneath the man’s leather armor.
The bewildered goblin pushed harder with his blade. The newcomer made the most of it.
“GAYOU?!” The goblin cried out as the man’s shield bashed into him with a thud and pressed him against the stone.
“You first…,” the man said coldly.
His meaning became clear when he took his torch and drove it dispassionately into the goblin’s face.
An unbearable muffled screech. The stench of burning flesh filled the cave.
The goblin struggled, half mad with pain, but pinned by the shield, he couldn’t even claw at his own face.
At last, he stopped moving, his limbs flopping lifelessly to the ground. The man made sure the monster was still, then slowly pulled his shield away.
There was a heavy whumph as the goblin tumbled to the ground, its face scorched.
The man gave the monster a casual kick, rolling him over, and then stepped deeper into the cave.
“Next.”
It was a bizarre spectacle. Priestess was no longer the only one who was terrified.
The goblin with the bow unconsciously took a step back, understandably looking ready to abandon his companion and flee. Courage, after all, is the last word anyone associates with goblins.
But now Priestess was behind it.
She exhaled sharply. And this time, she was able to move. She may have had an arrow in her shoulder, a goblin in front of her, her legs giving out beneath her, and her unconscious companion weighing her down, but she moved.
With her free arm, Priestess thrust her sounding staff at the goblin.
It was a meaningless gesture. She hadn’t even really meant to do it, acting on instinct.
But it was more than enough to make the goblin pause for an instant.
In that instant, the creature thought harder about what to do than he ever had in his entire life. But before he could reach a decision, his half-formed answer was slammed into the stone wall, propelled by the sword the armored warrior had thrown through him.
Half of the goblin’s head remained on the wall. The other half, with the rest of him, collapsed to the ground.
“That’s two.”
The brutal fight over, he ground his boot into the slain goblin’s cadaver.
He was stained crimson with the monster’s blood, from his grimy steel helm and leather armor to the mail made of chain-linked metal rings that covered his entire body.
A small, battered shield was fastened to his left arm, and in one hand, he held a brightly burning torch.
Heel braced against the creature’s corpse, he reached down with his free hand and casually withdrew his sword from its skull. It was a cheap-looking blade, its length poorly conceived, and now it was drenched in the goblin’s brains.
Lying on the ground, an arrow in her shoulder, the young girl’s thin frame shook with fear. Her sweet, classically lovely face framed by long hair almost a translucent gold was scrunched up into a mess of tears and sweat.
Her slim arms, her feet—her whole gorgeous body was clad in the vestments of a priestess. The sounding staff she clutched jangled, the rings hanging on it striking one another in time with the quaking of her hands.
Who was this man before her?
So strange was his appearance, the aura that cloaked him, that she imagined he might be a goblin himself—or perhaps something far worse, something she had no knowledge of yet.
“Wh-who are you…?” she asked, pushing down her terror and pain.
After a pause, the man answered, “Goblin Slayer.”
A killer. Not of dragons or vampires, but the lowliest of monsters: goblins.
Normally, the name might have seemed comically simple. But to Priestess, at that moment, it was anything but funny.
How must she have looked to the man—Goblin Slayer—as she sat dumbly, forgetting even the pain in her shoulder? He strode closer until he loomed over her, frightening Priestess and making her tremble.
Even now, up close and with the torch illuminating him, his visor hid his face, and she couldn’t see his eyes. It was as if the armor was filled with the same darkness as the cave.
“You just registered?” Goblin Slayer asked quietly, noticing the rank tag hanging around her neck. He had one, too. It swayed gently in the light of the torch, which he had set on the floor. The color reflected dimly in that little bubble of light—it was unmistakably silver.
Priestess let out a small “oh…” She knew what that color meant. It was the third-highest rank in the Guild’s ten-level system.
Only a few people in history had achieved Platinum rank, and those of Gold rank usually worked for the national government, but after those came Silver, indicating some of the most-skilled unaffiliated adventurers plying their trade independently.
“You’re…Silver rank.” He was a hardened veteran who could hardly have been further removed from the Porcelain-ranked Priestess.
“I’m sure if you wait a while, some other adventurers will show up…”
“So you can talk.”
“Huh?”
“You’re lucky.”
Goblin Slayer’s hands moved so easily, she didn’t have time to react.
“Wha—? Ahh!”
The arrow’s hooks tore her flesh as he pulled it out, the sudden wave of pain leaving her breathless. Blood flowed from the wound as her eyes welled up with tears.
With the same casual manner, Goblin Slayer reached for a bag on his belt and took out a small bottle.
“Drink this.”
Through the clear glass, she saw a green liquid that emitted gentle phosphorescence—a healing potion.
Just what Priestess and her party had wanted but had had neither money nor time to buy.
She could have simply taken it but instead glanced back and forth between the bottle and the wounded Wizard.
“S-sir!” To her surprise, when she managed to make her voice work once, the words came pouring out of her. “C-couldn’t we give it to her? My miracle couldn’t—”
“Where is she hurt? What happened?”
“I-it was a dagger…in her stomach…”
“A dagger…”
Goblin Slayer felt Wizard’s abdomen in that same assured way. When he jabbed it with a finger, she coughed up more blood. Throughout his brisk examination, he didn’t so much as glance at Priestess, who huddled protectively over Wizard. Then he said flatly, “Give up.”
Shocked, Priestess turned pale and swallowed heavily. She hugged Wizard tighter.
“Look.” Goblin Slayer pulled out the dagger still lodged in the mail under his shoulder. A dark, viscous liquid she couldn’t identify was slathered all along the blade.
“Poison.”
“P-poison…?”
“They make it from a mixture of their own spittle and excrement, along with herbs they find in the wild.”
“You’re lucky.”
Priestess gulped again as the full meaning of Goblin Slayer’s words dawned on her.
Lucky the arrowhead hadn’t been dipped in poison, so she was still here. Lucky the goblin with the dagger hadn’t been the first to attack her…
“When this poison gets in your system, first you have trouble breathing. Your tongue starts to spasm, then your whole body. Soon, you develop a fever, lose consciousness, then you die.”
He wiped the chipped blade with the goblin’s loincloth and stashed it on his belt, then murmured inside his helmet, “They’re such dirty creatures.”
“I-if she’s been poisoned, all we need is to cure it, right…?”
“If you mean an antidote, then I have one, but the poison’s been in her for too long. It’s too late.”
“Oh…!”
Just then, Wizard’s rolling eyes focused ever so briefly. She gurgled from the blood in her throat, and with trembling lips, she formed words without a sound, without voice. “…ill…e…”
“Understood.”
No sooner had he said it than Goblin Slayer cut Wizard’s throat.
Wizard jumped, gave a low moan, then coughed up one more mouthful of bloody foam and died.
Inspecting the blade, Goblin Slayer clicked his tongue when he saw it had been blunted by fat.
“Don’t be upset,” he said.
“How can you say that?!” Priestess exclaimed. “Maybe…maybe we still could have…helped her…” She clutched Wizard’s body, gone limp and lifelessly heavy.
But—
She couldn’t get the rest of the words out. Had Wizard really been beyond saving? And if so, was killing her a kindness? Priestess did not know.
She only knew she had not yet been given the miracle cure, which neutralized poison. There was an antidote here, but it belonged to the man in front of her. It wasn’t hers to give. Priestess sat on the ground shaking, unable to drink the potion or even to stand.
“Listen,” Goblin Slayer said brusquely. “These monsters aren’t bright, but they’re not fools. They were at least smart enough to take out your spell caster first.” He paused, then pointed. “Look there.”
Hanging from the wall were a dead rat and a crow’s feather. “Those are goblin totems. There’s a shaman here.”
“A shaman…?”
“You don’t know about shamans?”
Priestess shook her head uneasily.
“They’re spell casters. Better than your friend here.”
Goblin spell casters? Priestess had never heard of such a thing. If she had, maybe her party would still be alive…
No.
She resigned herself to the thought in her heart. Even if they had known, they wouldn’t have considered these shamans something to be afraid of. Goblins were weak prey, a way for new adventurers to cut their teeth.
Or so she had believed until earlier that day.
“Did you see any big ones?” Goblin Slayer studied her face again as she knelt on the ground.
This time—just barely—she could see his eyes. A cold, almost mechanical light shone from within that dirty helmet.
Priestess stirred and then stiffened, disturbed by the unflinching gaze that watched her from inside the helm. She suddenly remembered the warm moisture on her legs.
She had been attacked by goblins, watched her friends die in moments, saw her party all but annihilated, and she alone had survived.
It seemed unreal.
The throbbing pain in her shoulder and the humiliation of wetting herself, on the other hand, were undeniable.
“Y-yes, there was one…I think… Just running away, took everything I had…” She shook her head weakly, trying to call up the dim memory.
“That was a hobgoblin. Maybe they took on a wanderer as a guard.”
“A hob… You mean a hearth fairy?”
“Distant relative.”
Goblin Slayer checked his weapons and armor, then stood. “I’ll follow their tunnel. I have to deal with them here.”
Priestess looked up at him. He was already looking away from her, staring into the blackness ahead.
“Can you make it back on your own, or will you wait here?”
She clung to her sounding staff with exhausted hands, forcing her trembling legs to push her up as tears beaded in her eyes.
“I’m…going…with you!”
It was her only choice. She couldn’t bear either going back by herself or being left there all alone.
Goblin Slayer nodded. “Then drink the potion.”
As Priestess gulped down the bitter medicine, the heat in her shoulder began to fade. The potion contained at least ten different herbs and wouldn’t do anything dramatic, but it would stop the pain.
Priestess gave a relieved sigh. It was the first time she had ever drunk a potion.
Goblin Slayer watched her down the last of it. “All right,” he said, and he set off into the murk. There was no hesitation in his stride; he never paused to look back at her. She scurried to keep up with him, afraid of being left behind.
As they went, she cast a glance back. Back at the still, silent Wizard.
There was nothing Priestess could say. Biting her lip, she bowed her head deeper and vowed to come back for her friend.
Somehow they didn’t encounter any goblins on the short trek to the tunnel. They did, however, find awful chunks of meat scattered about. Perhaps it had once been human. There was no way to know. There was enough blood in the small cavern to choke on, and its smell mixed with the thick odor of scattered viscera.
“Err, eurrggh…”
Priestess spotted the body of Warrior and reflexively fell to her knees and vomited.
It seemed like her last meal of bread and wine had happened years ago. For that matter, it might have been an eon since Warrior had invited her on this adventure.
“Nine…” Goblin Slayer nodded. He had been counting the goblin corpses, unperturbed by the scene around them.
“Judging from the scale of the nest, there’s probably less tha
n half left.”
He took a sword and dagger from Warrior’s body and hung them from his own belt. He checked the goblins’ other victims as well but apparently found nothing that satisfied him.
Priestess, wiping her mouth, gave him a reproving look, but he didn’t pause.
“How many of you were there?”
“What?”
“Guild Girl only said some amateurs had gone goblin hunting.”
“There were four of—Oh!” she accidentally shouted, wiping furiously at her mouth with both hands. “M-my other party member…!” How could she have forgotten?
She didn’t see Fighter’s body. Fighter, who had sacrificed herself, suffering unspeakable things to save the others, was nowhere to be found.
“A girl?”
“Yes…”
Goblin Slayer held the torch close and carefully searched the floor of the cave. There were fresh footprints, blood, a dirty liquid, and a track like something had been dragged along the ground.
“It looks like they took her deeper in. I can’t say if she’s alive or not,” he said, fingering several long strands of hair to which scraps of skin still clung.
Priestess nearly jumped up. “Then we have to save her—”
But Goblin Slayer didn’t answer. He lit a new torch, then tossed the old one into a side tunnel. “Goblins have excellent night vision. Keep it lit. The dark is our enemy… Listen.”
She obeyed, straining her ears for any sound.
From the blackness beyond the flame of the torch, there were footsteps, slap-slap-slap.
A goblin! Probably coming to investigate the light from the torch.
Goblin Slayer took one of the daggers from his belt and flung it into the darkness.
There was a harsh sound as it pierced something. The body of a goblin rolled into the dim torchlight. The moment he saw it, Goblin Slayer leaped forward and drove his sword through the creature’s heart. The goblin died without a sound, for the dagger had run through its throat. The whole thing happened almost too quickly to track.
“Ten.”