by Kumo Kagyu
“Your life?”
Goblin Slayer nodded yes. “Even my life.”
“So if I say die, what will you do?” Spearman asked. He sounded exasperated, like he couldn’t believe what was happening.
They thought they knew how he would answer. But after a long pause, he said, “No. I cannot do that.”
No, of course not. The tension in the air lessened ever so slightly. This guy might not be quite right in the head, but even he was afraid to die.
“If I died, there is someone who would weep over my death. And I have promised not to make that person cry.”
Adventurers who had been listening with bated breath looked at one another.
“So my life is not mine to give, either.”
Spearman swallowed heavily. He glared at Goblin Slayer. At the metal helmet that stood between him and the expression behind it. He met Goblin Slayer’s eyes in spite of the mask.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking.”
Goblin Slayer said nothing.
“I get that you’re serious.”
“Yes.” He nodded quietly. “I am.”
“Damn it all!” Spearman said, tearing at his hair. He began to pace back and forth in front of Goblin Slayer, tapping the floor with the butt of his spear. The agonized moment stretched on and on. Finally, Spearman heaved a sigh and said in a voice heavy with resignation, “What would I do with your life, anyway? …But you owe me one hell of a drink.”
He pounded his fist once against Goblin Slayer’s leather chest plate.
Goblin Slayer tottered. The steel helmet looked vacantly at Spearman.
Spearman stared back at him. Got a problem? “A Silver-ranked adventurer just took on your goblin-slaying quest. At market rate, no less. You ought to be grateful.”
“…I am.” Goblin Slayer nodded firmly. “Pardon me. Thank you.”
“Save it for after we’ve slain some goblins.” Spearman’s eyes widened a bit, and he scratched his cheek uncomfortably. He’d never thought the day would come when he would hear “thank you” from this man.
“I-I’m with you, too!” A clear voice rang through the Guild Hall. Everyone turned to look at an elven archer who had kicked over her chair as she stood. She quailed under their gaze, her long ears trembling. “I…I’ll slay those goblins with you.” Her courage seemed to well up then, and she walked straight across the room to Goblin Slayer and stuck a finger in his chest. “So…so next time, you have to come on an adventure with me! I found some…some ruins.”
“Very well.” Goblin Slayer nodded immediately. The elf’s ears stood straight up. “If I survive, I will join you.”
“Gosh, you didn’t have to say that,” the elf huffed, glaring at the helmet. She spun around. “You’re coming, too, right?”
The dwarf answered first, sighing as he stroked his beard with a touch of annoyance. “Guess I’ve no choice. But I won’t be bought off with one drink, Beard-cutter. You’d better bring me a whole barrel!”
“You’ll have it,” Goblin Slayer said.
“Right, then!” the dwarf exclaimed happily. “And…supposin’ I could join you on your adventure, long-ears?”
“Of course! We’re party members, aren’t we?” The elf laughed, and after a second, the dwarf joined in.
“Let it never be said that I would leave my companions behind.” The lizardman stood slowly. He touched the tip of his nose with his tongue. “Nor that I would turn down a friend in need. But speaking of rewards…”
“Cheese?”
“Precisely. Ah, I can taste it now!”
“It is not mine. But it is made on the farm that’s being targeted.”
“Indeed? All the more reason to destroy those bottom-feeding beasts!” The lizardman’s eyes rolled, and he joined his palms toward Goblin Slayer. The latter understood that this was a form of lizardman humor.
So four adventurers gathered around Goblin Slayer.
He didn’t see Priestess anywhere.
“So, we have five…”
“No. Six.” Witch stood with a rustling sound. She walked over and stood beside Spearman, hips swaying all the way. “It might well be seven…though, I can’t, be sure,” she said meaningfully; then she drew a long pipe out from her bosom. “Inflammarae.” She spun the pipe around, stuffed some tobacco in it, then lit it with a tap of her finger and took a long breath. The sweet-smelling smoke wafted around the Guild Hall.
The remaining adventurers babbled excitedly. It wasn’t that they wanted to abandon the farm to destruction. Many of them simply weren’t ready to risk their lives for a pittance. And who could blame them? Everyone values their own lives.
They just needed one more push…
“The Guild is— The Guild is offering a quest, too!”
That push came from an energetic voice. Guild Girl came bounding out of the back room clutching a sheaf of paper. She was breathing hard, her face red, her braids bouncing wildly up and down.
She began to pile the paper on the front desk. “There is a reward of one gold coin for each goblin you slay. Now’s your chance, adventurers!”
The crowd gave a collective stir. It was of course the Guild that would provide the money for the reward. The ability to work on a large scale was one of the advantages of such an organization.
There was no telling how hard Guild Girl had fought to convince her superiors that this was a good idea.
“Feh. Guess I’m in, then.” An adventurer—the heavily armored warrior—gave his chair a little kick as he stood and took one of the sheets of paper. Knight, seated beside him, looked up at him in surprise.
“You’re going?”
“I’m no fan of Goblin Slayer, but hey…money is money.”
Knight got a devilish grin on her delicate face. “I can’t abide liars. You ought to just admit it’s because he’s the one who drove the goblins out of your hometown.”
“Hey, keep it to yourself, woman! Anyway, I’ll still get a gold coin per goblin.”
Me, too. Yeah, count me in. I owe that guy. One by one, the murmurs started; people rose to their feet.
“And what about you? I thought you hated his guts.”
“I aspire to be a paladin. When someone asks for help, I’m bound to offer it,” Knight said with a smirk, to which Warrior, in armor, responded with a shrug and a laugh.
“Aw, well. If you two are going, I guess we’re coming along.”
“We are?”
“Now, now, of course we must help!”
Despite a little arguing, the rest of the armored warrior’s party stood up.
“Hey…”
“What?”
Watching them, the greenhorn warrior they had sparred with many days ago called to the young Cleric.
“I’ve still never been goblin slaying.”
“…I guess not. They say it’s dangerous.”
“But…I’ve got to try it sometime, right?”
“…You’re hopeless,” she said. But…if you must. And the boy held out his hand to her.
Somebody watching them gave a short sigh. “I became an adventurer the same day he did. Guess this is what you’d call fate.”
“If I didn’t hear that voice asking after goblins every day, it wouldn’t feel right.”
“I agree. He’s kind of a…fixture here—an institution, you know?”
“I hate having him around. But…I’d hate not having him around even more.”
“I was just looking for a way to get some cash. One goblin, one gold, huh? Not bad.”
“In all my life, I’ve never seen such a weird quest giver,” someone muttered. Someone else nodded. One after another, adventurers rose.
Yes, they were adventurers.
They had dreams in their hearts. They had principles. They had ambitions. They wanted to fight for people.
Maybe they didn’t have the courage to step forward. But they’d been given that little push. There was no more reason to hesitate.
Goblin slaying?
Fine. That was their job. If there was a quest, they would take it.
Someone raised their sword in the air and cried, “We ain’t party members, and we ain’t friends—but we’re adventurers!” Others joined the shout. Those who did not carry swords raised staves, spears, axes, bows, fists.
There were beginners. Veterans. Warriors, wizards, clerics, and rogues. There were humans, elves, dwarves, lizardmen, and rheas. The adventurers gathered in the Guild Hall filled the air with their voices, pounded the floor with their feet.
Goblin Slayer, embraced by their shouts, surveyed the room. His eyes met Guild Girl’s. She was sweating a little, but she gave him a puckish wink. Goblin Slayer bowed his head to her. He felt it was the least he could do.
“That worked out well.” There was a little giggle.
He turned around and saw, standing close as a shadow, Priestess.
Of course she was there. How could she not be?
“…Yes. It did.” Goblin Slayer nodded.
That day, perhaps for the first time, there was no shortage of adventurers ready to take on a goblin quest.
It was the start of a long night.
“GRARARARARARA! GRARARARA!!”
Seeing the moon at the top of the sky—“high noon” for his people—the goblin lord gave his orders.
His words were conveyed in an instant by a clamor of growling voices, and the goblin army began to advance. Hidden in a field of grass as tall as they were, they raised their shields as they came to their feet. The goblins called them “meat shields”: boards to which captured women and children had been tied. In all, ten naked prisoners were held before the army. They periodically moaned, or spasmed, or twitched uncomprehendingly.
The goblins, for their part, had already had plenty of sport with these prisoners. Whether the meat shield lived or died mattered nothing to them. What mattered was that this would cause opposing adventurers to falter when launching an arrow or a spell. By contrast, if an adventurer had captured a goblin and used him in the same way, no other goblin would have hesitated to shoot straight through him. True, he might have been angry about having to kill his fellow goblin, but it would only be all the more motivation to tear his enemy apart.
The goblin lord cackled at the thought of what fools adventurers were.
At the edge of sight, they could make out the lights of the farm. The city could just be seen farther beyond.
There were adventurers in the city. Adventurers! A filthy word for filthy creatures.
The goblin lord came to a snap decision. He would take each adventurer and pound them full of stakes until they died. Maybe by the end, they would repent of all they had done to his kind.
Just like the adventurers who had attacked his nest—his home—and had abandoned him in the wilderness because he was so young.
They would start with the farm. Steal the cattle and sheep to fill their bellies. Take the girl for their own to increase their numbers.
The farm would make a convenient beachhead to attack the city, slaughter the adventurers, and further bolster their ranks. Then, finally, they would turn toward the human Capital, raze it, and raise up a goblin kingdom in its place!
That day was still a dream, but the plan in the goblin lord’s mind was quite real.
The rank and file below him could not make sense of it. But they had their anger, and their hatred, and their lust roiling within them. Reconnaissance of the farm had revealed the presence not just of fresh meat, but of a young girl.
They moved ardently through the grass, which rustled as they went. Finally, the lights of the farm were near. In moments, the attack would begin.
Then it happened.
“GRUUU?”
A sweet-smelling mist drifted over the field. One of the shield bearers at the front of the army was pulled into it, and a moment later, he reemerged, facing quite the other direction, and collapsed on the ground. The other shield bearers began to fall one by one. In the instant it took the startled goblin lord to blink, dark forms leaped from the shadows around the farm’s wall.
Adventurers! This is magic!
“GAAAUU!!” The lord gave a high screech.
“GAUGARRR!!” A goblin shaman shouted something and waved his staff. A bolt of lightning shot out and struck an adventurer in the chest. But as the one adventurer fell, the others rapidly closed distance with the goblins and grabbed the meat shields. They ignored the enemy entirely, instead retreating as quickly as they had come. The shaman waved his staff again and chanted, hoping to hit one of the fleeing adventurers.
“GAAA?!”
An arrow made from a branch pierced his chest. His mouth worked open and closed for a moment, and then he fell faceup on the grass, dead.
Thanks to their excellent night vision, the goblins soon located the source of the shot.
Up in one of the trees on the farm—an elf. An elf was shooting at them!
Goblin archers rushed to return fire from their short bows, but the elf only snorted and leaped into the brush.
The adventurers carrying the meat shields made it over the wall, and in exchange, a group of their armed companions appeared. They kept low as they raced toward the goblins, accompanied by the clatter of their armor.
“GORRRRR!!”
The goblin lord hurriedly shouted at his troops to counterattack, but they were not quite conscious enough to obey him. The Stupor spell was working its magic on them, and one after another, they were struck down by arrows with the haze still in their minds.
“So those are their ‘shields.’ Twisted creatures,” the elf said, disgust playing across her face. She dashed across the field, firing arrows like the wind. She could shoot as easily as she could breathe. She could have hit her targets with her eyes shut. Her arrows reaped goblins like a scythe through wheat.
She had not actually killed that many of the foe. But she couldn’t go on forever.
“I took out their spell caster!”
“All right, you louts! Time to earn your pay!”
“Ha-haaa! Lookit our gold marching right toward us!”
The adventurers made contact with the enemy before the confused goblin army could reform itself.
Now neither side could use spells that might catch their own allies in the effect—the adventurers naturally, but even the goblins had some sense of risk and reward. They had no qualms about using their companions as shields, but they had to be careful that the number of shields available didn’t get too low. And anyway, even when it came to using spells, goblins were still goblins. They were cowardly and cruel.
Thus, the battle began.
The ring of swordplay resounded. The smell of blood was everywhere upon the night-wrapped plain. Screams, wails, war cries. Amid the clamor, silhouettes—adventurers, goblins—could be seen vanishing one by one as the combatants fell.
“Gods, there’re enough goblins here to put you off ’em for life!” Spearman roared with laughter as he knocked down foe after foe.
As each monster tumbled to the ground, Lizard Priest leaped upon them and struck the finishing blow. “Indeed, even milord Goblin Slayer was at his wits’ end…” He made his palms-together gesture and drew his fang-sword. There were still many goblins to slay.
“Not that, I mind, but for your own sake…stay within, my Deflect Missile spell, won’t you?” Witch stood nearby, staff in hand and letting off spell after spell, her generous chest heaving as she gulped in breath.
Nearby, Dwarf Shaman had used Stupor as many times as he was able and had resorted to his sling. “Bury me, Beard-cutter was right that no one could handle this lot alone!” He fired a stone that traced a perfect line from his sling to a goblin’s head. “Goodness,” he said, “around here you hardly even need to ai— Wha—?!”
Dwarf Shaman squinted. High Elf Archer noticed immediately and shouted, “What is it, dwarf?”
“Riders, long-ears! Mounted goblins on the way!”
Howls echoed across the moons-lit field. Goblins straddling huge g
ray wolves and swinging swords came cleaving through the darkness.
“I’ll shoot them from here! Hold them off!”
“Right! Spear wall, don’t let them through!” At Spearman’s orders, nearby adventurers stood shoulder to shoulder and thrust out their weapons. The wolves came on as if oblivious to the hail of arrows raining down on them. Adventurers gladly thrust their blades into the bellies of the beasts.
There was a howl and cry, a piercing scream.
“Errraggghh!”
One adventurer had been worsted by a charging rider and found a wolf at their throat. Many of the animals, though, succumbed to the adventurers’ attacks, throwing the goblins from their backs.
“Chaaaaaarge!” The lizardman led with a great bellow and flew to finish off the toppled riders. Warrior priest that he was, from time to time, he cried out shrilly in what might have been a prayer of the lizardmen.
All in all, the adventurers were winning quite handily.
In general, in a straight contest between an adventurer and a goblin, the adventurer will normally come out on top, so long as ill luck does not intervene. And what was more…
Goblin Slayer said: “Set ambushes. They specialize in surprise attacks but never expect to be ambushed themselves.”
He said: “Take a low stance. Aim for the legs. They’re small, but they can’t fly.”
He said: “They will certainly have meat shields. Cast sleep spells, then use that moment to rescue the hostages.”
He said: “Even if you think you can kill them while rescuing the shields, don’t. If they wake up, it will only be trouble.”
He said: “Don’t use attack magic. Save your spells for other things.”
He said: “Swords, spears, arrows, axes, any kind of weapon can be used to kill them. What you can’t do with a weapon, do with magic.”
He said: “Take out their spell casters first.”
He said: “Don’t let them get behind you. Always keep moving. Small movements with your weapon. Conserve your strength.”
He said…
The other adventurers were frankly astonished at the amount of knowledge Goblin Slayer imparted to them.
Adventurers were not soldiers, but they were no strangers to strategy. Yet they were not used to taking such care against goblins. Experienced and fledgling adventurers alike saw goblins as insignificant foes.