by Kumo Kagyu
Priestess pursed her lips at the girl’s condescending tone. “You don’t like it?”
“Huh? Don’t like what?”
She looked so thoroughly perplexed that Priestess spared her any follow-up. A moment later, the girl jumped up out of the bath. “Anyway, thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Uh, sure…”
Should I say something to her…?
Was it just a grandmotherly busybody-ness that motivated her—or was it a handout from the gods? The moment of anxiety and indecision set off an alarm in her heart: Don’t let her go like that. You have to offer her something. But what?
Even the gods couldn’t say what the dice would do when they fell.
Priestess swallowed heavily; when she spoke, she found her voice shaking unaccountably.
“…Um, if you’re going to become an adventurer, you should prepare… I mean, make sure to do your shopping and such, okay?”
“Wha?” Again, that uncomprehending expression. The girl thought for a moment then nodded. “You’re right, shopping is—it’s important.”
Then the girl set off at a brisk clip, all but kicking up the water from the pool. Priestess trailed her shapely form with her eyes then sank into the bath up to her nose. She blew listless bubbles in the water.
“Phew! Ooh, just got a rush of blood to the head, I think. It’s wild in there.”
At that moment, High Elf Archer came back, slapping her cherry-red cheeks with her hands. Moving the long ears that were a trademark of her people, she looked after the girl Priestess had just been talking to.
“Who was that just now?”
“Er… No idea.” That was all Priestess could say. That was all there was to say.
High Elf Archer looked a bit suspicious but then exclaimed, “Ah well,” and plopped into the water. “So, whatcha wanna do? Want to check out the back there? I’m just gonna hang out here for a few minutes.”
“No…” Priestess thought for a moment then slowly shook her head. “…Let’s head out.”
§
When they got back to the changing room, they were surprised to discover how refreshed they felt despite the warm air. They toweled themselves off, perfumed themselves again, and dabbed off the sweat before heading to change.
“I wish I brought a fresh set of clothes to change into,” Priestess remarked.
“That’s the way it goes,” High Elf Archer said. “We weren’t planning on this. You can change when we get back, right?”
They walked along, their bare feet pattering on the stones, when…
“Huh?” Priestess piped up suddenly, rubbing her eyes. Her basket was gone. She knew where it should be; it had been right next to the one in which High Elf Archer had casually tossed her hunting garb.
“That’s weird,” High Elf Archer said. “Wonder if somebody moved it.”
“But I’m sure it was right here…”
In place of her vestments, she found what seemed to be a soldier’s outfit, dirty and sweaty, stuffed into the basket. Priestess looked around to make sure her possessions hadn’t simply been misplaced somewhere. “What…? What?”
She didn’t see them anywhere.
Her voice grew more and more plaintive, and tears began to brim at the corners of her eyes. It felt like she was on the edge of a precipice.
“Stay calm. You’re sure you put them here?”
“Yes…”
“Those aren’t the kind of clothes anyone would just take by mistake…”
A priestess’s vestments, a sounding staff, a cap, and mail. Not easy to mistake for something else.
What was she going to do, what was she going to do? Priestess, feeling as if she might burst into tears, conducted a nervous but futile search of the other baskets.
“Is there a problem?” a white-clothed employee asked, coming over. Priestess’s distress must have been obvious. She opened her mouth to say something, but somehow she couldn’t quite get the words out.
“Ah, um, m-my, my clothes…!”
“Yes?” the employee responded suspiciously.
“We can’t find her clothes,” High Elf Archer offered. “She’s a priestess of the Earth Mother, see? I don’t think anyone would grab her stuff by accident…”
“…Just a moment, please. I’ll check with the guard,” the staff member said briefly and then left even more quickly than she had arrived.
High Elf Archer held Priestess’s hand as they waited; the girl was pale and restless.
“It’s okay. I’m sure they’ll find your stuff soon.”
“I know. Erm, but… But what if…?”
The employee did soon return. “I’m very sorry,” she said, her face seriousness itself. “…I’m informed that someone wearing vestments of the Earth Mother did indeed leave here earlier. It’s possible that—”
“They were stolen?!” High Elf Archer exclaimed in spite of herself. Priestess felt her mind go blank.
“Ex-excuse me…!” She pushed away High Elf Archer’s hand, flying over to the soldier’s clothes and pawing through them.
The soldier in the changing room. The young woman who had spoken to her. The “shopping.”
Soon she saw more or less what she had expected.
There was the leather pouch she always used as her purse. Sparkling on top of it were several brilliantly polished gems. They were unmistakably fine stones, and their meaning was equally clear.
They were payment for her clothes.
“Oh—urk—m-my—my…!”
The hat she could bear to lose, and the vestments, too. Her rank tag could be reissued. Her sounding staff, as much care as she had given it, could be replaced. And her most important possessions were all back at their rooms, as was a change of clothes. All of that was manageable, as far these things went.
But—her mail was gone.
The item she had saved up for, using the rewards from her first few adventures, the very first armor she had bought for herself, was nowhere to be found.
She had worn it during the battle with the ogre. In the sewers, on the snowy mountain, at her promotion test, and in the rain forest, it had been with her.
It had saved her life. She had repaired it, patched it, taken extensive care of it.
And all for just one reason.
“It was the f-first…thing he ever p-praised me for…!”
The loss of it finally broke Priestess completely. The strength to stand abandoned her, and she all but tumbled to the stone floor.
“M— My— Myyy…! She took it…!”
“…Geez, I… I’m sorry. I wish I’d never thought of coming here,” High Elf Archer mumbled softly from beside her friend, who was weeping and choking like a little girl.
“Oooh,” Priestess said—not words, exactly—and shook her head vigorously from side to side.
High Elf Archer knelt down and gently, oh so gently, rubbed the back of the first friend she had made in two thousand years.
“…We’ll get it back. I promise.”
§
The candle in the stand was the only source of light in the dim room, through which echoed an intermittent sound of scraping metal.
There was a bed beside the window. Sitting on the bed was a man in pitiful equipment; he was the source of the sound.
Goblin Slayer worked the whetstone along the blade in a way that was less sharpening and more scraping away the metal. Maybe that was because the weapon was simply a generic item—but no, this man would have treated a legendary sword in exactly the same way.
The polishing stopped for a moment, and the sword, with its strange length, was held up to the light.
Those who had learned just a tiny bit of adventuring from tales and songs might smirk and say knowingly that a sword is actually an expensive club, but they would be wrong.
A sword is for tearing skin, cutting flesh, and shattering bone. Otherwise, why make swords at all?
Only the massive two-handed blades of knights could cut, pierce, smash, and
club all at once. They were like a sword, spear, hammer, and pickax all in one.
The weapon Goblin Slayer was holding at that moment, though, was nothing of the sort. It was for piercing the throats of goblins, cutting out their hearts, lopping off their heads. Nothing more and nothing less.
“………”
It had been a little less than an hour since Priestess had come home sniffling. High Elf Archer, her ears drooping unhappily, had been desperately trying to comfort her but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
What’s more, Priestess hadn’t been wearing her vestments, but a dirty soldier’s outfit that didn’t quite fit her. When he asked what had happened, High Elf Archer had replied despondently, “Stolen.”
This was neither the frontier town nor the water town. It was the biggest city in the nation. It was full of people, not all of them good-hearted.
Lizard Priest had been transparently furious, as if he might start breathing sulfur and flame at any moment; Dwarf Shaman had merely looked sour.
“Perhaps we can try taking our grievance to the castle t’morrow,” he’d suggested, but Priestess hadn’t answered, just shook her head.
Goblin Slayer had stood up from his seat, gone back to his room, and had been passing the time since then like this.
He didn’t say anything at all.
“………”
Goblin Slayer’s hand stopped again, and he held the sword against the light. He brushed a finger along the edge and nodded.
He put the sword in its scabbard; next, he took out his southern-style bent-cross throwing knife.
“You aren’t going to be with her in this difficult moment?” The unexpected voice was sultry, yet pointed, with something of the sound of a pouting child.
“No.” Goblin Slayer didn’t even turn his helmet in the direction of the woman who had come in without so much as the sound of the door opening.
“I see,” Sword Maiden said, her lips pursed. She slunk toward the bed.
Then she sat down, her soft, fleshy body contorting as if she were about to kneel before the man on the bed.
“A crying girl wants to be comforted, you understand?”
“Is that so?”
“Believe me, I know,” Sword Maiden said. She cast her gaze down at her hands, which brushed along her legs. “………Because I’m just the same.”
“I see.”
There was a noisy scraping as Goblin Slayer began to hone the bent-knife blade. Sword Maiden’s sightless eyes drank him in as he worked at the evil-looking blade. Her cheeks slowly went from puffed in annoyance to soft, turning up at the edges.
The shadow of his helmet on her face slid and danced with each flicker of the candle flame.
“You mustn’t make a girl cry.”
“I know.”
Goblin Slayer’s words were harsh, almost violent in their brevity; for an instant, Sword Maiden was shocked. If she hadn’t had a cover over her eyes, they might have appeared wide—but he ignored her and kept polishing.
“I learned that long ago.”
“I… I see.” Sword Maiden didn’t quite know what to say. “I brought you a book.” So instead she fell back on the nominal reason she was there.
She placed on the table the book she had been holding, a volume about belief in the Dark Gods and its associated symbols.
“I was afraid we wouldn’t have time for me to show you to the library personally anymore…”
“I see.”
The answer was brief—and not elaborated.
Sword Maiden stood there for a long moment, until finally, she gave a little snort. She turned around and was about to leave the room, when—
“All things become lost,” Goblin Slayer said with particular softness. This was a man who rarely spoke loudly to begin with.
“You’re right,” Sword Maiden said just as quietly.
“When I was a boy, my father promised to give me his dagger after I grew up.” The hands stopped working, and Goblin Slayer held the blade up to the light, inspecting it, before running a finger along it. “It was a very good dagger, I believe, with a hawk’s head carved on the grip.”
He tossed the whetstone away. It landed on the floor with a heavy thump.
“I don’t know where it is now.”
Then he shoved the throwing knife back in his item bag and fell silent again.
Sword Maiden used the shadow of his helmet to hide the slight change in her expression, whispering only, “I didn’t know.” She brushed Goblin Slayer’s knee with her pale, shapely fingers. She let them keep going until she was caressing his leg, as if she was touching something very dear to her. “Tomorrow, I’ll be going to the castle. I have a council with His Majesty the king.”
Like I told you at the beginning. Sword Maiden giggled like a child.
“His Majesty and I have a long history together… When I see him, I’ll try to bring it up with him.”
Goblin Slayer’s head turned slowly toward her. It was the first time the helmet had faced her.
“…” He appeared to be struggling to find the words, until finally he said, “I see.” He was silent for another moment before adding simply, “Please do.”
On Sword Maiden’s face, a flower blossomed. “I will—just leave it to me.” A wide smile appeared on her full lips, and she stood excitedly. She struck the floor once with the sword and scales she used in place of a staff, causing the scales dangling from the hilt to jangle. “I’ll put everything I can into it… Tell me, will that be enough for you?”
The sweet, inviting whisper. Goblin Slayer said, “Yes,” and nodded. “Pardon the trouble—but please do.”
“!” Sword Maiden didn’t answer but walked away almost as if she were floating. She opened the door, again silently, went out—but then looked back in briefly. “Er, ahem…”
“……”
“Good night, and…sweet dreams.”
“Yes,” Goblin Slayer said with a nod. “You as well.”
Her face flushed like an adolescent girl’s, and she closed the door.
With the door shut behind her, Sword Maiden put a hand to her face and fell on her bum—not that Goblin Slayer was aware of any of this. He had instead picked up the whetstone he’d cast onto the floor earlier, rolling it around in his hands.
He silently polished the rest of his daggers, checked the state of his equipment, and made sure his item pouch was organized.
Then he opened the book Sword Maiden had brought him, comparing it with the shred of goblin skin, which he had produced from his bag.
It was a very strange symbol. It looked something like a hand drawn in red pigment, but there was no entry for anything like it.
That thief, he thought, was like a goblin. Perhaps it had been a goblin.
One must be prepared at all times.
Such was the conclusion he reached, and he spent the rest of the night readying his equipment, until, as the first rays of dawn came through the window, he napped a little.
This was not his farm. There was no need to patrol. But if goblins appeared, he intended to kill them.
There was nowhere in this world without goblins, as he well knew.
That was simply the way things were.
That worked like a charm.
The girl, now wearing vestments of the Earth Mother—gosh, the chest feels tight—giggled to herself in the darkness of night. Then a cap and sounding staff, with cheap mail under the vestments. That was all it took to make her look every bit a cleric.
When she spotted someone coming the other way, carrying a lantern, she put on a smile and puffed out her generous chest. The passerby first looked surprised then bowed his head in thanks as he went by. The girl smiled again.
She could definitely get used to this.
She saw that what people respected was the priest’s outfit, not the priest. It confirmed to her that she had been right to distract her brother and make off with the uniform of one of his soldiers.
When she looked
like a soldier—even a dirty, disheveled one—nobody paid her any mind. Granted, she had tromped through the sewers in it and had to live with the smell of sweat.
And that dip in the baths was so refreshing—this is perfect.
“…This really is tight, though,” she muttered, tugging at the outfit’s collar.
The vestments themselves weren’t the only problem; the mail didn’t make it any easier to breathe.
Why would that girl even bother wearing something so cheap…? she found herself wondering. Adventuring must really be tough.
“……I’ve done a bad thing, I guess.”
When she looked closely, she could see the mail had been repaired and restored in places. That other girl must have been using it for a long time. She’d grabbed it up so quickly she hadn’t had time to look earlier, but now she realized what an important piece of equipment it must have been.
This girl knew from experience how much it hurt to lose something she had used and loved for a long time. Yes, she had always intended to return the clothes at some point—but now the smile on her face had turned to sorrow.
It wasn’t—it wasn’t that she had wanted to cause trouble for a girl who looked so much like her.
There were plenty of excuses she could make. It had been for adventuring, for the sake of the world, for the sake of humanity, for her own sake. She had wanted to see what adventurers were like with her own eyes, understand it, then tell her brother and surpass his abilities.
But the fact that she had stolen what belonged to that other girl—that one fact was immovable.
“…When this is all over, I’ll have to return these and give her a proper apology.”
The girl nodded firmly to herself. One more reason why she had to pull this off.
And she had left plenty in trade, too—enough to cover her apology, and the possibility that she might fail.
Naturally, she didn’t have the slightest sense or expectation that she might fail (everything in the world was decided by the roll of the dice, after all), but if nothing else, the other girl could at least afford to get herself something that was way better than this.
“Okay… Argh, the gate must be closed by now.”
