by Kumo Kagyu
They were in the dungeon.
The bars and locks were of dwarven make, sturdy yet beautiful. The chains within were equally breathtaking. Perhaps they had been used, at some time long past, to bind agents of chaos, or those evildoers who would have threatened this fortress.
Now, though, this place was under goblin control, and these rooms were the last residence of unfortunate young women. Imagine such a poor soul chained down here, trying to stop her nose against the unmistakable smell of rotting corpses…
“…”
Priestess heard a sound. It was Noble Fencer, who had clenched her teeth and let out a low groan. Her body was stiff in Priestess’s arms.
“ORAGARR.”
The goblin fiddled with the rusty lock, and the door of the cell came open.
The floor was slick with some unidentifiable liquid. The chains were nearly red with rust.
Being underground, the air carried a chill, though it was better than being outside. The stink of rot drifted along with the cold.
There was only a hole in which to do one’s business, and it was already full of waste. As if that weren’t enough, a human arm had been tossed carelessly into the pit as well.
High Elf Archer gave a strangled gurgle that echoed loudly. We need hardly mention elves’ superior senses…
Although human eyes couldn’t see as well as elven ones, the smell and the sense of the place all reached back to Priestess’s formative experiences. She gave a scratchy, whistling intake of breath. She was used to this sort of thing—maybe, probably, so she liked to think—but even so…
“…Eugh…”
Even so, she couldn’t help but think back to that first adventure. The young warrior striding before her, then convulsing with poison before her eyes. The wizard he had helped to kill. And the fighter, swarmed by goblins, violated in the worst possible way.
All instead of her. They had died while she had survived. While she was alive now. But wouldn’t her turn come one day?
It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s… It’s okay.
She recited the name of the Earth Mother under her breath to keep her teeth from chattering. She glanced at him.
Or at least, she tried.
“GAROU!”
“Hh—ahh!”
She felt something grab her head; she screamed. The goblin priest had reached into the cage and pulled on her hair with inhospitable violence.
“ORAGARAO!”
Open the cage and put this girl in the cell!
Whatever deity they were to be sacrificed to, it seemed it would begin with her.
Dwarf Shaman and Goblin Slayer exchanged a look and nodded, then set down the cage.
Lizard Priest said gravely, “That is well and good, then. However, if you mean to…enjoy these offerings, first I must meet the paladin, and—”
“Hrrraaaaahhhhhh!”
As the door of the cage was opened, Noble Fencer did something altogether unexpected: she forced her way out of the cage, reaching out for the goblin who was amusing himself with Priestess and wrapping her hands around his neck.
“OGA…?!”
“Hraah! Haaaaahhhh!” Howling like a wild animal, Noble Fencer took advantage of her larger body size to slam into the monster.
“GORARA…?!”
“Eep!” Priestess yelped. The half-crazed goblin priest had pulled a stone knife from his belt and grazed her with it. A thin red line of blood appeared on her cheek, and she shrank back. Even as she did so, Noble Fencer knocked the knife from the creature’s hand.
“ORAGAGAGA?!?!”
“Goblin… Goblin! Goblin!!”
She straddled him, lashing out with her fists. Each time he hollered and struck out, fresh bruises appeared on Noble Fencer’s pale skin, but she paid them no mind.
“Aaaagh! Die! Die, you piece of filth!”
A nose broke; eye sockets shattered. Teeth bent. A chin was struck.
“GARAO?!”
Even goblins were not apt to miss a disturbance of this magnitude. The other creature in the basement room, who had been waiting in anticipation of having its fun with the prisoners, raised a cry.
Then the goblin guard did a very goblin-like thing: rather than face down the attacker, he dashed up the stairs to summon his comrades.
“Feh.” Goblin Slayer clicked his tongue. His movements were rapid and precise.
Dumping the cage to the ground—and ignoring the indignant objections of High Elf Archer—he drew the sword at his hip and sent it flying.
The blade cut through the air soundlessly before burying itself in the head of the goblin on the stairs.
“ORAG?!”
The creature came rolling back down the staircase, convulsing, not comprehending what had happened to him. Goblin Slayer leaped at him immediately.
“Hmph.” He gave the sword a twist, severing the spinal cord, and when this definitive final blow had been dealt, he wrenched the sword out and kicked the body away. It tumbled the rest of the way down the stairs, landing in the pool of waste and sinking down into it. That would hide the body.
However, Goblin Slayer, never one to let down his guard, kept a close eye on the top of the staircase, their link to the surface.
“GORA?”
Just as he suspected. A patrolling goblin had picked up the ruckus on the stairs and was coming to investigate.
Goblin Slayer quickly adjusted his grip on his sword and called out to his companions, “We’ve been detected. Another one is coming.”
“Aaaaaghhh! Aaahhhhhhhh!”
Noble Fencer was still blindly beating the dead goblin priest. The creature’s hideous, uneven teeth broke the skin on her fists, but she hardly noticed. In only seconds, both her hands were covered in blood.
“St-stop! Please stop!” Priestess begged, approaching the young woman. “This isn’t the time to—ouch!” One of the flailing arms shoved her backward and she landed on her behind.
The slap of cold stone against her frail bottom was rather painful, but she pushed the sensation aside and said, “Er, ah, shall I use Silence…?”
“Nah, lassie, no sound at all would attract as much attention as too much sound,” Dwarf Shaman said. “In which case, ahem…”
He began digging through his bag, muttering as he passed over first one object and then another.
“Looks like there’s no choice,” Goblin Slayer muttered, gripping his sword tighter. When he took care of the goblin that was coming toward them now, it would inevitably make the situation worse. Should he simply take on the goblins now? No… The odds were too much against them.
As he was making these rapid calculations, Lizard Priest, who had been quiet until that moment, spoke up. “Mistress ranger, give a scream!”
“Wha? Er, who, m-me?”
High Elf Archer, who had been trying to stop Noble Fencer, was caught off guard by this sudden summons, her ears bouncing in surprise.
Lizard Priest slapped his tail against the ground in irritation. There was a note of anger in his voice as he said, “Do as I ask and scream! We haven’t any time!”
“Y-yeah, sure, okay. A scream… A scream…”
She took a deep breath through her well-formed lips, opened her mouth, and…
“N-nooooooo! Stop! Stooooooooopppp!”
Her voice was so clear and piercing it could have cut thread.
Elf voices carry very well. Her shout echoed through the basement, up the stairs, and reached the surface, if only just.
“GORARA.”
The goblin near the top of the stairs seemed to grasp what was going on. He stopped, picturing the brutalized woman. He made a vulgar gesture and glanced at Goblin Slayer where he stood on the stairs.
“GORARURU?”
Goblin Slayer shrugged, and the goblin gave an ugly laugh and a dismissive wave of his hand.
“You’ll be by later, is it?”
Goblin Slayer stared at the creature as it walked away, the disgusting smile still on its face.
They had managed to buy back a small measure of the time they had wasted. He wouldn’t squander it again.
The original plan had been to take the “sacrifices” to the master of the fortress for inspection. If there was going to be a chance to take out the goblin paladin—if such a thing existed!—that would most likely be it.
But the plan was in tatters now.
“Well, I expected as much,” Goblin Slayer muttered dispassionately as he closed the door, put in the blocks, and then went back down the stairs.
The guard’s body had floated back up to the top of the waste pool; without hesitation, he kicked it down again.
He looked over to where Noble Fencer was still pummeling the corpse of the goblin priest. “Bring that goblin over here, too. It isn’t much, but we’ll hide him.” The heavy slap of struck flesh had transformed into a watery splorch.
“Come…on… Stop already!” High Elf Archer said, tearing Noble Fencer off the corpse. She grabbed the girl by the shoulders and pulled, throwing her body weight into it. She might have looked delicate, but such was the difference in strength between a Silver and a Porcelain rank that she managed to dislodge the warrior.
“Excuse me, but what do you think you’re doing?” High Elf Archer demanded. “I thought we explained how this was going to go!”
Noble Fencer, now sprawled on the dirty floor, regarded the archer with dark eyes. “……I have to kill the goblins.”
“Aww, man…!”
It was no use trying to convince her otherwise. High Elf Archer pursed her lips, making her displeasure plain. Her ears stood up in annoyance amidst her disheveled hair. That unpredictability was what she liked best about humans. She had to admit she even enjoyed complaining about all of Orcbolg’s strange decisions. At least sometimes. Just a little bit…!
The adventurer who sat before her—both hands covered in blood but nonetheless a serene expression on her face—was different. How she was different, High Elf Archer couldn’t exactly say, but she found it unmistakable.
“That’s why I was against this…!”
“I’m just glad we got away without suddenly having to let off a spell… I guess,” Dwarf Shaman said, sighing and shaking the wine flask at his hip. Hearing a splash from within, he took out the stopper and took a long swig. Then he brushed droplets out of his beard and burped once. The spirits of wine were just right for a danger narrowly averted.
“This isn’t what we planned on, but we’ve got to play the hand we’re dealt.”
“Yes, I suppose there’s nothing for it. It’s better to have her with us than to leave her alone to cause trouble unaccounted for.” Lizard Priest sounded awfully calm.
High Elf Archer raised an eyebrow. “And what if she gets us caught up in something else, something even worse?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at Noble Fencer. Her anger at the young woman, who was standing there with her hands still covered in gore as though none of this concerned her, seemed to be welling up again.
Priestess, sensitive to what was going on, tried to head things off. “C-calm down, just please, stay calm! This isn’t the time to be getting angry…!”
“You should be the angriest of all!”
“Wha?!”
High Elf Archer suddenly stuck out her hand and brushed Priestess’s cheek. The girl winced involuntarily at the stinging pain. Goblin weapons might be crude, but a blade was a blade.
The red line along her cheek was still dribbling blood.
“She decided to launch a surprise attack, and you’re the one who paid for it!”
Priestess’s eyes flickered. She pressed her small hand to her cheek.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. After some consideration, the expression she settled on was a smile, one that said she could deal with a little scratch. Her brave face only seemed to infuriate High Elf Archer further.
“You’re not fine, you’re hurt—!”
At least—yes, at the very least, that adventurer could apologize to Priestess.
High Elf Archer reached out as if to grab Noble Fencer, who stood staring into space—
“Calm down.”
“Orcbolg…!”
—and found a grimy gauntlet stopping her.
The smallest of tears seeped out at the edges of High Elf Archer’s eyes. It was her agitated emotions that were to blame. She couldn’t be calm just because they told her to.
“But—but she said she’d come with us, and now look—!” High Elf Archer said petulantly, pointing at Noble Fencer. She just wanted to make herself understood.
But Goblin Slayer shook his head. “I’m telling you to calm down.”
He grabbed the murdered goblin and dragged him, robes and all, into the pool of waste. With a disgusting sound, that corpse, too, sank into the muck.
Goblin Slayer looked away from High Elf Archer, whose shoulders were heaving with her angry breath.
“Hey.”
“Oh, y-yes!” Priestess said, quickly straightening up.
“Start by attending to yourself, then give her first aid. That hand will rot.”
There was a moment’s silence, followed by a grunt. Goblin Slayer seemed to be weighing whether to go on.
Then: “There will be a scar, as well.”
“…Sure. Should I use a potion…?”
“Start with herbs.”
Priestess nodded with a “Yes, sir,” then pattered over to Noble Fencer. Antiseptic and pain-killing herbs wouldn’t have the dramatic effects of a potion, but they were still tried and true. Goblin Slayer made sure Priestess had applied the ointment to her cheek correctly, then he nodded.
“Sorry for the trouble, but please check whether there are any survivors among the prisoners.”
“On it.” Dwarf Shaman took another swig of his wine as he answered. He was always quick to respond to a call. “Come with me, Scaly. I’m going to need help if I have to drag anyone out of any cells.”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yes, conventional wisdom does hold that spell casters are physically weak, doesn’t it!” Lizard Priest said. Just a little joke: a way of fighting back against the oppressive atmosphere of the prison.
Touching the tip of his nose with his long tongue, Lizard Priest said to Goblin Slayer, “I presume you do not mind if we tend to the injuries of any wounded we find?”
“Save your miracles,” Goblin Slayer replied. “No matter what you do, there won’t be any prisoners in good enough condition to join the battle.”
“Indeed, a point well taken,” the lizard said, making that strange gesture with his hands.
As he departed, he whispered, “I understand your feelings, but perhaps this time emotion should be left for later.”
The elf’s ears picked up on his murmur.
“I don’t think it’s enough to just say we had no other choice and let this slide,” she said after a pause, her face in a pout. Goblin Slayer stood before her silently, his arms crossed.
Goblin Slayer felt that something was off—partly due to the “goblin priest,” a hideous and seemingly contradictory thing if there ever was one—but the prisoners were more concerning. Supposedly, no girls had been kidnapped from the village. Which meant that they had most likely been brought here from some other village the goblins had raided.
“…”
Had the goblins forced their prisoners to walk along that snowy road, then? Was that even possible?
How large an area were the goblins operating in? And was it this “goblin paladin” leading them?
“I don’t like it,” Goblin Slayer said.
He had been talking to himself, but High Elf Archer replied sulkily, “You’re telling me.” Then, making no effort to hide the unhappy twitching of her ears, she stared into his mask and said, “Why did you bring that girl along?”
The helmet left his expression as unreadable as ever, but he answered dispassionately, “Because we need her.”
“Oh we do, do we?” the ranger said, spitting out a little mocking laugh. “Well, maybe y
ou should give her a spanking, then.”
“Whatever the case, if we don’t get out of here we won’t be able to return home. And,” he added, as calmly as always, “there are goblins to slay. We’ve taken on the challenge. We will either succeed, or we won’t.”
“This… This isn’t the time to be talking like that…!”
“…I know.”
But.
“I do…believe me, I know.”
His voice sounded uncharacteristically tired. High Elf Archer suddenly found she couldn’t speak.
“……”
Orcbolg? she mouthed silently to him.
Maybe the word didn’t reach him. He slowly let out a breath. “I’ll stand guard. Once you’re done checking the prisoners and helping anyone you can, get your equipment ready.”
“…Here?”
“That’s right.”
“………”
“I don’t think you’ll manage much fighting dressed that way,” he said to the elf.
Specifically, in a basement prison surrounded by waste and rot and corpses.
High Elf Archer muttered her agreement. She pressed a finger to her brow as if forcing back a headache. “Just to make sure I’m clear on this: here?”
“That’s right.”
“And you want us to change our clothes?”
“That’s right.”
Argh, for crying out loud. Orcbolg hasn’t changed a whit, has he?!
“Excuse me,” the archer said with a sigh, “but elves have this little thing called modesty…”
“If it bothers you, use this as a curtain.”
“Ergah?! …Gah! You!”
He had grabbed a blanket from the cage and tossed it at her; it landed over her head.
High Elf Archer’s expression of anger slipped for just a second; she quickly tried to get it back, but it was too late. Goblin Slayer already had his back turned anyway.
High Elf Archer set about tying the blanket securely around her neck, then changing her clothes underneath it. She couldn’t help feeling pathetic.
She gleefully discarded the dirty rags she had worn in her guise as a captive adventurer, replacing them with her usual hunter’s garb. She put on her armor to keep her safe in battle; slung her bow across her back; and as for her underwear…well, forget it. She didn’t understand why anyone would bother with it anyway.