Goblin Slayer, Vol. 7

by Kumo Kagyu

  “Oh yeah, that makes sense.” Cow Girl nodded vigorously, droplets of water flying from her short hair. “Sometimes people stop by the farm asking for something to eat, but I’m always kind of scared of random travelers.”

  And lodging? No way. She waved a hand emphatically.

  “Porcelains can be a little scary, too. Er, not so much young traveling priestesses.”

  “I’m Steel already, anyway,” Priestess replied. The slight hint of pride in her voice made Guild Girl smile even more.

  The still-young (despite being sixteen) girl put a hand to her modest chest, as if the steel level tag were hanging there even now.

  It hadn’t been long since she’d passed the promotion interview and risen to the eighth rank.

  “Adventurers… Man, adventurers,” Cow Girl said, looking at Priestess, too. “I remember how often I thought about adventurers when I was a kid.”

  “You were pretty keen on them, were you?” Guild Girl asked, cocking her head. A droplet of water tumbled from a stalactite, making tiny waves ripple across the lake’s surface.

  “Er, who, me? N-not the adventurers as such, no,” Cow Girl said, shaking her hand in a way that made more ripples.

  “Ahh,” Guild Girl said with a nod. “The princesses, then?”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Or maybe the heroes’ brides?”

  “Don’t make me say it!”

  Cow Girl sunk into the water up to her cheeks as if trying to hide the flush in her face. She sat there silently, blowing bubbles up to the surface, like a little girl.

  For a moment, the only sound in the cavern was the rush of the underground river.

  Think about it—was it really so unusual?

  Boys always wanted to be heroes, or knights, or dragon slayers, or adventurers. Girls, too, had their dreams.

  Princesses or shrine maidens, beautiful brides. Perhaps, they hoped, some faerie might one day come to take them home with him.

  Though in the end, infatuation was merely infatuation, dreams only dreams…

  “But…” Priestess’s single word was like a drop of water, and it, too, rippled through the room. “I think being a bride would be nice.”

  §

  “I’m going to get things set up,” Goblin Slayer said, hardly bothering to let out a breath. The luggage had all been deposited in their respective rooms.

  “Huh?” High Elf Archer exclaimed. She was slumped among a collection of cloth, looking quite at her leisure. Some of the pieces were inverted triangles, others like large bowls; she observed them with a medley of oohs and ahhs.

  “Sorry, I haven’t cleaned up yet,” she said.

  “I was told not to touch them.”

  High Elf Archer’s remark was without malice; Goblin Slayer’s, in turn, sounded cold.

  He obediently neither touched nor looked at the girls’ clothes and underwear. Instead, he brought in the rest of the baggage with his usual silence.

  At first High Elf Archer, lounging on a chair, had declared that she would help—and this had been the result.

  “Clean it up before everyone gets back.”

  “…Yeah, sure. I know.”

  Goblin Slayer didn’t even bother to look at her as he spoke, causing High Elf Archer to pout a little. She was the one who had made the mess, and she knew it, so she slowly but steadily collected the underwear.

  “Man, look at this one. It’s huge. I could get my whole head in here.”

  “Don’t show that to me. And don’t spread everything all over.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m working on it!” High Elf Archer insisted, but then she rose lightly to her feet.

  “What is it?”

  “Work is making me thirsty. I thought maybe we could both use a drink.”

  “I see.”

  He was only remarking out of courtesy, but she took it as agreement and headed for the kitchen.

  She hmmed and reviewed the contents of the shelves (also hollows of the tree).

  “Hey, Orcbolg,” she said, her ears flicking back, “think I should make some tea for you, too? Just to try.”

  “If you give it to me, I will have it.” He didn’t seem to read anything into the offer.

  Hmm, High Elf Archer said again, sounding displeased. Soon, she was getting ready to make the tea.

  First, she took some herbs and spices, which she had grabbed almost at random, and began mincing them with a large, obsidian knife. Eyeballing the measurements, she put them into cups made from hollowed-out acorns and poured water over the top of them.

  The carafe was made of mithril, a unique piece that would keep the water cold almost indefinitely.

  Dwarves considered steel to be their servant and mithril their friend, but it would be wrong to imagine the elves didn’t know something of metallurgy themselves. After all, that which comes from the folds of the earth is also part of nature. The elf with the shining helmet might have said, “They kindly alter their own forms for us.”

  Normally, it takes quite some time to make cold-brew tea, but in this land, it took less time than most. Any elf, even if they were not a spell caster, could simply make a polite request, and nature would bend itself to their will.

  By the time High Elf Archer had made a couple of lazy circles in the air with her pointer finger, the water in the cups was already tinged with color.

  She offered one of the cups to Goblin Slayer, who had settled himself on the floor and was unpacking his own luggage.

  “No promises about the taste, mind you.”

  “Okay,” Goblin Slayer said, taking the cup. In the same motion, he gulped it down through the slats in his visor. “As long as it’s not poison, I don’t mind.”

  “Gee, I’m flattered.”

  “I meant only what I said,” Goblin Slayer said nonchalantly. “I didn’t intend to flatter you.”

  With another snort, High Elf Archer sat down on the chair, letting her legs dangle. She sipped her tea, ignoring the way the cushion of mushrooms shifted under her.

  “Hey, that’s pretty good,” she said, blinking. Then she grinned a catlike smile. “So what’re you up to, Orcbolg?”

  Goblin Slayer was sitting firmly on the floor, doing some kind of work.

  He had pulled out three strips of cow leather and put them together in a bunch, almost like he was making a rope. High Elf Archer climbed off her chair and looked over his shoulder, watching the complicated motions of his fingers. The restless flitting about was characteristic for her.

  “Do you remember the goblin champion?”

  “…Yeah.”

  To Goblin Slayer, the question was unremarkable, but it caused High Elf Archer to frown deeply.

  That wasn’t a battle she wanted to remember. Their painful defeat in the labyrinth beneath the water town remained an unpleasant memory.

  “That was hardly a year ago. How could I forget? Getting that out of my mind is going to take at least a couple of centuries.”

  “This is a little something I’ve prepared against encounters like that, or the goblin paladin we faced.”

  “Hmm…”

  Goblin Slayer worked mechanically, weaving the strips together. The three strips in unison looked like they would be difficult to break.

  “I might call it a very little something. It’s just a rope.”

  “I will attach a heavy rock to one end.”

  The rope was unusually long. It might be a full ten feet when it was completed.

  To High Elf Archer, though, sitting and quietly weaving leather straps together didn’t seem very adventurer-ish.

  “…I’m impressed you would think to make something so bulky.”

  “They don’t sell it in any store.”

  “Not really what I meant.” High Elf Archer sighed, her words part serious and part sarcastic. Then a second sigh. “If it were me doing it—” She grabbed one of the straps Goblin Slayer had on hand, along with a couple of the slinging gems from Dwarf Shaman’s luggage. “I think I’d
do it like this!”

  “…What do you have there?”

  Instead of answering, High Elf Archer put her finger in the middle of the strap and began to spin it. The stone on the end swung in a wide arc, whooshing through the air.

  “Hear that noise it makes?”

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “It’s fun!”

  “…Hrm.”

  Goblin Slayer turned his metal helmet, tying a heavy stone securely to the end of his leather braid.

  He slid his finger just off the knot, grasping the rope; he gave it a swing to check the heft.

  He must have liked the feel, because he set about wrapping the stone up, putting the finishing touches on the device.

  “I’m thinking of making several. I’ve heard of this sort of thing before.”

  “Neato. I’ll take one, then!”

  “How about this one I just made?”

  “No! A different one!”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Maybe it was because High Elf Archer was absorbed in all the fun she was having at that moment. Or maybe, having returned to her own home after so long, she had let down her guard.

  Whatever the reason, something happened that would normally have been unthinkable for her.

  Ahem.

  She completely missed the person standing in the doorway until she heard the cough.

  “May I ask what is going on here…?”

  The voice sounded musical even when annoyed. Needless to say, its owner had leaf-sharp ears.

  It was a woman with golden eyes and hair like the star-scattered heavens. A single look at her made her nobility clear. Her pale body, draped in a dress of silver thread, was graceful and tall.

  The bust that pushed out against that clothing, though, gave an impression of abundance.

  Sometimes a person was beyond description not because of a failure of words, but because she surpassed the imagination.

  The forest princess, her head bedecked in a crown of flowers, wore a willowy expression. High Elf Archer all but jumped to her feet.

  “Wh-wh-wh-wh-whaaa?! B-Big Sis?! Why are you here?!”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? I heard you had come to celebrate with me, so I thought I would say hello…”

  “Err, ha-ha… Th-this, I mean, it’s not really what it looks like…”

  “What a great supply of lewd underwear you’ve brought.”

  “Oh, Sis, you know about underwear?” High Elf Archer muttered, her words not lost on the sharp ears of her elf sister.

  “And what about it?” Sister asked, eliciting a choked sound from High Elf Archer.

  “Er, uh, that stuff’s not mine—it belongs to my friends, okay?”

  “Even worse, then. Going through other people’s belongings.”

  “Awww…”

  “For that matter, you—” And once the words had started, they came in a torrent, like an epic poem.

  “Your skin is in terrible shape. Your hair is disheveled. Have you forgotten all moderation? Are you looking after yourself properly?

  “I know how dangerous adventuring is, and I know how reckless you can be, and are you really okay?

  “I asked if you’re avoiding weird quests, and then you tell me it’s a mistake when you do take up a quest.

  “After all, they say in all the world, even demons are second to humans in hatching insidious plans.

  “How many times have I told you that you have to listen carefully to people and then think even more carefully before acting?”

  At last, the elf with the flower crown, who had conducted even her lecture to her little sister with utmost eloquence and poise, collected herself once more.

  “I’ve been terribly rude.”

  “…”

  Goblin Slayer didn’t speak immediately. He turned his steel helmet to the elf, stayed silent a moment more, then finally shook his head and said, “It’s all right.”

  The elf with the flower crown, noticing that her sister had once again begun assiduously organizing the underwear, gave a little sigh.

  “And…you,” she said, her eyes narrowing and a smile growing on her cheeks and lips, “must be Orcbolg.”

  “That girl calls me such.”

  Ah, so it is you. The elf clapped her hands.

  “I knew that in person you would not be as you are in any song.”

  “Songs are songs,” Goblin Slayer said, shaking his head. “And I am me.”

  “Well…” Tee-hee. Her laughter was like a tinkling bell. It sounded much like High Elf Archer’s. “Thank you for always looking after my sister. I hope she isn’t causing you too much trouble?”

  “Hmm,” Goblin Slayer grunted, his gaze moving behind his visor.

  High Elf Archer’s ears drooped.

  “No,” he said finally, with a slow shake of his head. “She is often of help.”

  This caused the ranger’s ears to spring up.

  “If you should ever meet another capable ranger or tracker, or a scout or some such, please don’t hesitate to cast my sister aside.”

  “Capability is not the only—”

  But Goblin Slayer stopped partway through his sentence.

  “Hmm?” High Elf Archer cocked her head. Such behavior was unusual for him. “What’s wrong, Orcbolg?”

  “Hmm. Nothing.”

  Hmmm? High Elf Archer inquired, following his gaze.

  She found a serving girl—needless to say, another elf—kneeling and waiting.

  She was half in shadow, and her hair was grown long on just one side of her head.

  “Ah, she’s…” The flower-crowned elf princess trailed off as if unable to speak.

  “I know.”

  The casual remark caused the serving girl’s shoulders to tremble with surprise.

  Goblin Slayer got to his feet and strode boldly over to her.

  “Hey, uh, Orcbolg?”

  He ignored High Elf Archer’s attempt to stop him, only coming to a halt in front of the attendant. Then, without hesitation, he knelt in place so that they were eye to eye.

  “I killed them.”

  The attendant looked at him, her gaze wavering. Goblin Slayer nodded then continued:

  “I killed all of them.”

  Hearing that, a single tear rolled out of the woman’s left eye and down her cheek.

  A shake of her hair revealed the right side of her face. The grape-like swelling was gone by now.

  She had once been an adventurer herself.

  §

  “Right. He was the one who helped her. As I thought.”

  A gentle breeze came blowing through, catching High Elf Archer’s hair. The breath of the forest. The breath of her home.

  She inhaled deeply, filling her small chest with as much of that air as she could. Then she replied, “Orcbolg wasn’t alone, you know.”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  One of the doors in the guest room led to a balcony. It was formed by huge branches, connected by vines that wove together to make a place to stand.

  Such architecture could only be found among the elves, but what really warranted remark was the scenery.

  The elf village was located in an open space amid the sea of trees, like a giant atrium.

  From here, everything could be seen at once—here, one could feel the wind that blew through it all.

  Her very status as an elf princess had prevented High Elf Archer from knowing they even had these guest rooms until this very moment.

  They had left the serving girl with Goblin Slayer; this seemed the best place to pass the time until she stopped crying.

  The elf with the flower crown held back hair blown by the wind and turned slowly toward High Elf Archer.

  “You saved her. You and your friends.”

  “I had to do something to show off my good side.”

  She had left the forest at her own insistence, after all. She gave a triumphant, nasal chuckle.

  In response, the elf with the flower crown squinted at
her little sister. She rested an elbow on the ivy that served as a railing, leaning against it.

  “And now you have,” she said. “Is that enough, then?”

  “Enough what?”

  “Kuchukahatari. Adventuring.”

  High Elf Archer’s long ears trembled slightly.

  “You undertake great danger for only a modicum of reward, do you not?”

  “Er, yeah…”

  There was nothing else to say. Adventurers’ status as such might be guaranteed by the human king, but it was still a mercenary enterprise. One delved the depths with weapon in hand, hacking and slashing and getting covered in blood and mud.

  Youth and death went hand in hand in this profession.

  Since leaving her home, High Elf Archer had thrown herself into all this.

  “Then there’s the matter of your companions. A lizardman is one thing, but I can’t approve of you being around a dwarf day and night.

  “Are you not the daughter of an elven chief, even if you don’t always act like it?”

  High Elf Archer frowned at this little addendum.

  She was indeed an elf princess, but here she was doing humans’ dirty work. With, as her sister had been at pains to point out, a dwarf in tow.

  High Elf Archer knew how a little sister was supposed to act in this situation. She had at least acquired enough restraint in two thousand years not to simply give in to her emotions and whine and complain.

  “Surely, there is no—”

  “No! There definitely isn’t.”

  Despite her attempts to remain cool, she couldn’t help laughing at this.

  Yes, ancient love songs contained a few ballads that spoke of love between elves and dwarves, but it was fair to say that such lyrics didn’t describe her.

  Even as her little sister cackled and waved her hand dismissively, the elf with the flower crown let out a sad sigh.

  “…And then there’s him.”

  “Orcbolg?”

  “Yes.”

  The other elf nodded, her gaze settling on the horizon. The forest appeared to spread out forever beyond the village. These trees had been growing since the Age of the Gods. This wood.

  The leaves shook softly with each gust of wind, and birds could be heard flapping.

  There was a flock of pale-pink flamingos. The curtain of night was starting to fall over the forest.