by Kumo Kagyu
Maybe it’s…all right now.
Her consciousness wavered, just for an instant. But that was all it took for Protection to disappear completely.
With vision grown dangerously dark, she saw High Elf Archer on her knees, and beyond her, someone’s back. The goblins who had been kept at bay by the spell now poured in, trying to drag him down.
“Ah…”
High Elf Archer was pulled to the ground. Her clothes were torn. She waved an arm languidly.
A club came down on Dwarf Shaman’s shoulder. His grip slackened and he dropped his ax, which clattered to the floor.
A goblin jumped on Lizard Priest’s neck. The dagger in its hand worked between the scales.
“…Urg…”
Goblin Slayer’s shoulder— A sword—
Blood.
“Goblin Slayer, sir…”
Her voice was so quiet. But it was enough.
“…! Guh…”
She took a breath. That was the first thing. Fill that small chest with air then let it out.
“HHHHRAAAAAHHHHHHHH…!!”
She’d had no idea she was capable of such a monumental shout until it sprang forth from her throat.
“Everyone…! Goblin…Slayer…sir…!”
There was no answer.
She shook her sounding staff.
“Goblin Slayer, sir!!”
No answer.
“…!!”
Priestess gritted her teeth and struggled to maintain consciousness; she could see a goblin shifting and shuffling in the far reaches of her vision. She could see him holding his staff, laughing maniacally despite the blood dribbling from his shoulder.
The blood ran down his arm, splattering against the ground in time with the shaman’s footsteps.
Impure.
It was nothing more than an intuition. There was no prompting from the Earth Mother in heaven. No, it was simply the answer she arrived at out of her own experience, her experience as a weak sixteen-year-old girl adventuring with the man called Goblin Slayer.
Her answer to what she could do. What she should do.
“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, please, by your revered hand, cleanse us of our corruption!!”
And then a miracle happened.
“GORB?!”
By the time he noticed the change, it was too late. The goblin shaman’s blood had been turned to pure water.
“GOBOGGBOGOBOOGOGOBOGOOG?!?!?!”
The goblin shaman howled as if his insides were being shredded. Priestess thought she felt her very soul rocked by the awful bellow, but it brought her back to herself.
“Er—ah—ahh…?!”
Her connection to the world above vanished like a cut string, and the world of sound came rushing back into her ears.
This divine act, Purify, must never be used in this way again.
“Ah, ahh…?!”
Something seemed to impact upon her very soul, rattling every fiber of her being.
She had done something awful.
The honored Earth Mother, the fount of all compassion and mercy, had accepted this connection with her soul, and she—
“Aaaaarrrrghhh…!”
Priestess let out an agonized scream at what she had done.
Her sounding staff made a hollow sound as it rolled along the roof where she had dropped it.
The bloodlust vanished as if it had dropped off into the abyss. Priestess was left with a hand pressed vacantly to her chest, only now realizing that tears were pouring from her eyes.
“Agh—ahhhhhhhh…!”
But two words reached her ears as she stood weeping like a child.
“Well done.”
Two words.
“Ah…”
Just the two.
That was all it took to put strength back into legs she had been sure were going to collapse.
“…Y-yes, sir…!”
“All right.”
Goblin Slayer was, in a word, a mess. A dagger had been jammed into a chink in his armor, tearing the chain mail beneath. He was scuffed from being hit.
He pulled the dagger from his shoulder; when he saw the sticky liquid slathered on its blade, he gave a cluck of his tongue. Pulling a bottle with a string tied around it from his item pouch, he drank its contents. Then a second bottle.
An elixir. An antidote.
Once he was done, he pitched the empty bottles at the nearest goblin.
“GOOBOG?!”
Then he turned around, using the shield on his left arm to slaughter the goblin crouching by High Elf Archer.
“GROBO?!”
“Twenty-one. Get up!”
“Hrgh, ah… Or… Orcbolg…?”
She got unsteadily to her feet. She was in a terrible state. Drenched in blood, wounded, covered in goblin brains, and her clothes shredded.
But she was alive.
That was enough.
“Drink,” Goblin Slayer instructed, handing her a potion with his left hand. “And use this!” he shouted to Dwarf Shaman, tossing him the sword in his right.
“I sh-shall!” He caught the hilt in a backhand grip, raised it, and then brought it down, splitting open a goblin’s stomach with it.
“GOBOGOOBOG?!”
“Now I see why you like these things, Beard-cutter!”
He kicked away the gutted creature and swung at the next enemy. His right arm hung limply at his side, but he was capable enough of fighting. The sword in his left hand slashed another goblin.
When Lizard Priest regained his consciousness, his strength was unparalleled. “Hrraghh…!”
He grabbed the goblin attempting to sink a dagger into his neck and flung the creature to the floor.
“GOBORO?!”
The monster’s spine adopted an unnatural angle; the goblin twitched once and then lay still.
Before the creature had expired, Lizard Priest was already lashing out with claws and claws and fangs and tail. He screeched and slashed, almost literally blowing the goblins away.
“They nearly pulled one over on us there…!” He wiped the goblin blood from his chin with his sleeve and let out a great whooshing breath. “Milord Goblin Slayer, I shall resume the attack!”
“Please do,” Goblin Slayer said as he took Priestess’s arm where she was slumped down.
“Oh… Goblin Slayer…sir…”
She took him in dimly. A crack ran along his helmet, there were gouges in his leather armor, and the stench of blood was stronger than usual. But that shining red eye looked straight at her from between the slats of the visor.
“You did well.”
“…Oh, y-yes, sir…!” She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and collected the cap and staff she had dropped in the melee.
This wasn’t over yet. There were still so many goblins. The battle had to go on.
“Gorgosaurus, beautiful though wounded, may I partake in the healing in your body!”
Lizard Priest’s prayer surrounded the party with warm light, restoring their energy. It was the Refresh miracle. Ah, how great is the blessing of the nagas!
As he checked the state of his injuries, Goblin Slayer drove his sword into the throat of a nearby goblin.
“GOROBORO?!”
“Twenty and two. Press ahead, run… Can you run?”
“Yeah, I’m good… Geez, this thing is bitter,” High Elf Archer complained as Goblin Slayer kicked aside his latest writhing, blood-spurting victim.
She clucked as she tried to pull the remains of her shirt over her chest, then she tossed away the empty bottle and gave Priestess a wink. “C’mon, let’s go!”
“Right! I can… I can move, too… I will move!” She forced herself to speak as forcefully as she could. She gave a flourish of her staff to keep the goblins behind them at bay.
“Master spell caster, are you quite ready?”
“Never been readier. I worked hard to save these spells for this!”
And with these shouts from Lizard Priest and Dwarf S
haman, the party moved forward… No.
“GOROB!!”
“GRO! GRB!”
Rather, that is to say, they found themselves cornered at the tower’s edge. Just a few steps ahead, they could see a sheer drop down into a veritable ocean of trees. The goblins had recovered from the confusion of Purify and now cackled as they came closer.
They would get that elf on her knees again and make her theirs. They would tear that little girl with her little ploys into little pieces.
Kill the men. Rape and kill the women. It had been stupid of their compatriots to get themselves murdered, but still, the goblins wanted revenge. For the goblins, the death of their fellows was nothing more than a reason to affirm their own greed.
The monsters advanced, weapons clutched in hand, crotches bulging, lust glinting in their eyes.
Goblin Slayer was calm in the face of the encroaching horde.
“Jump!!”
One after another, the adventurers flung themselves into space. The air that rushed upward at them cleansed itself of humidity, cooling their battle-heated bodies.
The first signs of dawn were tracing their way along the horizon, casting light upon the sky, the trees.
Eventually, though, gravity would have its way with the party, crushing them against the ground.
“GBBRB!”
“GROGGB! GORRBGROB!!”
As the goblins yammered and mocked, Dwarf Shaman gave an incongruous grin. His fat, stubby fingers flashed in the air, tracing complicated sigils, and then he shouted: “Come out, you gnomes, and let it go! Here it comes, look out below! Turn those buckets upside-down—empty all upon the ground!”
The speed of their descent immediately slowed. It had been worth it to save up this Falling Control spell.
The party floated gently in the sky as if resting on a giant, invisible hand. Now they had nothing to fear from the ground.
“Eep, eep, eep…!” Priestess pressed a hand to the hem of her dress as the wind threatened to blow it up. High Elf Archer smiled in relief. The grim, drawn expression Priestess had been wearing until moments earlier didn’t suit that girl. High Elf Archer didn’t want that for her.
I knew goblin slaying was nasty.
She reached out a hand, and Priestess took it.
“Oh…”
“You okay?”
“I-I’m very sorry…!”
“Ahh, don’t mention it. Hey, dwarf, you actually did it!”
“Was there ever any doubt?” Dwarf Shaman chortled. He smiled with his eyes, pleased to see High Elf Archer so happy with his work, then pulled the wine jug from his belt and took a swig.
The rising sun, the first rays of dawn, the morning light, the wind, the forest, the whole world. Was there anything that could make wine taste better than this?
“I would say this went rather well,” Lizard Priest remarked, relaxing his whole body until he was spread-eagled. He looked so relaxed—but his eyes still focused up at the goblins. He could see them clearly, pointing and gibbering to one another. “Though I admit, I wondered, for a moment.”
“Yes,” Goblin Slayer said, also looking up. “This is the best way to get rid of goblins.”
§
“G… B…”
The goblin shaman’s consciousness chose that moment to return to him.
The sound of the river seemed so loud. His head was spinning; it was like there was a ringing in his ears. It was hard to breathe, and his vision was constricted. Wheezing and rasping, he managed to use his staff to drag himself to his feet.
He didn’t understand why some of his blood had become water, why his breath no longer seemed to transit through his body quite right. He looked around and saw the other goblins clustered at the edge of the roof, chattering excitedly.
“GOBOOGB…!”
What a lot of jackasses. Had they no impulse to help the one who guided them, or at least show him proper reverence? The goblin shaman was incensed, conveniently forgetting that a moment earlier, he had been using these same creatures as shields.
And on top of that, it looked like the adventurers had escaped. Useless louts.
“GORB! GROBOOGOBOGR!!” The shaman exclaimed, waving his staff.
Several goblins looked over. “GBBGROB?!”
The shaman was not so much pleased that some had responded as enraged that some hadn’t.
Good help was impossible to find.
If he could get his hands on that elf, or that human girl, or perhaps the princess from the forest, he could use her to rebuild his horde. As the most important creature around, he would take the choicest females and make them bear his own young. Didn’t he have the right?
“GROROB…?”
What, though, was the sound of water he was hearing?
“GROROBOROGBORO?!?!?!”
A second later, the goblin shaman’s body was hefted into the air by the torrent of water that poured from the open gates of the elevator. Launched into the sky by the flash flood, he spent the last seconds of his life in total confusion. He went to his grave never knowing that Tunnel had been used to punch a hole in the breakwater. Nor that water pressure had caused the geyser to rise up from the lowest to the highest level of the tower.
Goblins, it must be assumed, would never have imagined that water might go up as well as down.
If the builders of the fortress could have witnessed the scene, they would have rejoiced at the doom of the Non-Prayer Characters.
It was precisely the way the goblins had dammed up the water that had caused it to build up until it could explode.
The shaman went up, up with the water then came down, down and splattered his brains on the ground. And even that trace, the last evidence he had ever existed, was instantly washed away by the deluge.
A fitting end.
§
Droplets showered from the geyser as if a sudden squall had come through, the water sparkling in the sunlight. A few goblins also came tumbling down, pushed over the edge of the tower, but the fall was more than long enough to finish them off.
“Are… Are you sure about this?” High Elf Archer asked dubiously, shaking her head and sending water flying from her soaked hair.
Goblin Slayer let out a long breath. “The tunnel will shortly shrink and then close. I don’t believe the building will collapse.”
“Not what I was asking,” High Elf Archer said, her ears slicking in annoyance. “I meant all the water left inside.”
“As far as that goes,” Goblin Slayer said calmly, “all we can do is ask the elves to come deal with it later.”
High Elf Archer harrumphed and fell silent, earning a laugh from Dwarf Shaman. “So there’ll be a wedding when we get back?” He was drifting gently through the air, sipping his wine and enjoying the sunrise. Indeed, it was he who held them in this spot. If he let his concentration lapse for even a second, they would all fall to their deaths.
High Elf Archer looked at him incredulously, but he ignored her. “Planning to get married yourself yet?” he asked.
“Not for at least another millennium.”
“Think anyone’s going to want a three-thousand-year-old bride?”
“What did you just say to me?!” High Elf Archer growled.
They might have been floating in midair, but the tone of their argument was familiar, and Lizard Priest rolled his eyes in amusement. “Upon that dawn when I become a naga, might I welcome you as a naga’s bride?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” High Elf Archer’s long ears didn’t miss Lizard Priest’s joking remark. She was smiling like a cat who’d discovered a new toy. “What’s this—a confession of love? For real?”
“Mmm. I suppose we won’t know for at least a thousand years.”
Priestess watched the three friends banter, not paying too much attention. High Elf Archer had let go of her hand, and no one else took it instead. It was just her, floating in the sky, holding her cap down with one hand and her skirt with the other.
Sh
e let out a soft but audible breath, and Goblin Slayer’s helmet turned in her direction. “Are you tired?”
“Oh, uh, no!” she said quickly, waving her hand. “Not at all…”
But then— But still—
The hand she was waving drooped limply. Not quite sure what to say, she said, quietly, the first thing that came to mind. “…Well, maybe a little.”
“I see.”
In the end, could she really live with…with the way she’d used Purify?
It wasn’t right. There’s no question…
Purify was intended to make water clean. It was wrong to use it to take the life of another living being, even a goblin.
Yet, the Earth Mother had answered her prayer because it was a plea to save other living beings.
That was why the goddess, in all her compassion, had granted her imprimatur for what Priestess had done.
Just this one time.
What a thing to do.
But…
Even so, I prayed, and she caused a miracle for me.
How was Priestess to interpret that, how to understand it?
A year before, when she was attempting her first adventure, it had been all things she didn’t understand.
And now? She still understood just two things.
That she was and would be still an adventurer.
And that Goblin Slayer always had and always would kill all the goblins.
And I…
Could she go on believing in the Earth Mother?
Did she deserve to have miracles bestowed upon her by the goddess?
She didn’t know. There was no way to know.
Had she grown and matured at all over the past year? Maybe just a little…?
“Look,” came a murmured command.
“Huh…?” Priestess quickly looked up, taken by surprise.
The sun was blindingly bright; she found herself blinking away tears.
The lightening sky stretched out over an infinity of green. And hanging there, as if to bind the two together…
“It’s a rainbow.”
“Rrrraagghhhh!!” the girl cried, leaping up into the air, and the deep dark of the underworld was illuminated as by the radiance of the sun.
The place truly was as unto hell itself. A third of the place was scorched, blackened land, and the other two-thirds was packed solid with demons. Towering above her head, ready to tear the board of this world apart, were Rock Eaters, giant bug monsters easily mistaken for massive centipedes.