Goblin Slayer, Vol. 2

by Kumo Kagyu

“Oh, so…that means there aren’t any goblins!” From the back of the line, Priestess tried to encourage the disappointed-sounding warrior.

  “Not necessarily.”

  The answer was almost mechanical, but it didn’t appear to bother her. She had the air of a baby chick as she trotted behind him.

  “I don’t believe they would let such a ready-made nest go to waste.”

  “You don’t have to imagine they’re here if they’re not,” High Elf Archer said, then muttered to herself, “Goblins, goblins. Honestly.”

  The warrior ignored her and said, “Or they may have only recently dug a tunnel from the nest to here.”

  “Hey… Do you smell something?” High Elf Archer frowned. She hadn’t meant it as a response to the warrior.

  Lizard Priest gave a slow shake of his head. “Sadly, my nose is of scant use in this forest. What kind of odor is it?”

  “It’s kind of…huh. Like…rotten eggs?”

  “…So they are here,” the warrior murmured shortly. At that, the adventurers each readied their weapons. High Elf Archer brought up her bow, a great yew branch strung with spider’s silk, along with an arrow that had a bud for a tip.

  With a prayer to his ancestors, Lizard Priest turned a fang into a polished sword.

  Dwarf Shaman reached into a small bag of catalysts, while Priestess held her sounding staff in both hands.

  They set out quickly, spreading out to surround the entrance.

  “What should we do? Do you want to go in? Or should I use my Protection miracle—?”

  “No.” The warrior shook his head, cutting off Priestess’s anxious question. “Is there another entrance to these ruins—this shrine? What does the map say?”

  “Not so far as I’ve seen,” replied Lizard Priest, who knew the map like the back of his hand. “Though, these being most ancient ruins, we cannot be sure collapse has not created one.”

  “We’ll smoke them out, then.” With his shield-bearing left hand, the warrior dug in his bag.

  What he drew out was yellowish and about the size of his palm; it looked like a hardened chunk of something. He used rope to tie the thing to a bit of waste kindling, until he had tightened them into a ball.

  Priestess wore a slightly strained expression. Perhaps she remembered this thing.

  “That’s—um…that’s pine resin, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And…sulfur.”

  “It will make a good, thick smoke.” Even as he spoke, the warrior easily struck a flint, setting fire to the smoke bomb. Being careful not to breathe the fumes that immediately began rising from the device, he tossed it into the hole. “And it will poison the air. It’s unlikely to kill them, but…” With that, the warrior drew a smallish sword from its scabbard. “Now, we wait.”

  The smog from the smoke bomb rolled deep into the ruins.

  The adventurers sighed to one another with a mixture of annoyance and trepidation.

  “You do know the most vile tricks,” said Dwarf Shaman.

  “Do I?”

  “You don’t see it?”

  But there was no arguing with the immediate results. Small silhouettes came running through the wall of smoke, clamoring in shrill voices.

  They were cruel-faced monsters about the size of children: goblins.

  “Hmph.”

  When he saw the goblins were wearing leather cuirasses, he hacked at them with his sword like an ax through firewood.

  Impact. Scream. A spray of blood.

  He casually stepped on a goblin who lay faceup, a sword buried in its skull, and took its weapon for his own.

  A short sickle. The warrior gave the bloodstained weapon a light twirl, then nodded. Not bad. The weapon had been made for a goblin to wield in a cave, but it felt natural in his hand.

  “Our quarry have excellent equipment. Be careful.”

  “This isn’t like any adventure I’ve ever been on.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No!” High Elf Archer let off an arrow with a frown.

  It was made of a branch naturally suitable for a bolt, and it flew as though the shrine itself were drawing it in.

  Three screams went up.

  “Don’t you usually go inside ruins to fight goblins?”

  “I suppose that is the conventional method.”

  Lizard Priest danced from one writhing goblin to the next, finishing each with his sword.

  “If one would join milord Goblin Slayer on his hunt, preparations must be made for what is least expected.”

  “If you say so…”

  Priestess cast a doubtful glance toward the warrior.

  He was burying the sickle, held in a reverse grip, in a goblin’s throat. He tore the monster’s windpipe as he ripped out his borrowed weapon; then he immediately hurled it through the air. The blade spun into the cloud of smoke, and a goblin scream could be heard. His movements were brutally workmanlike.

  “Won’t be needin’ spells at this rate, I suppose,” Dwarf Shaman said, readying gems for his sling.

  It was just a provision in case the front line broke; he was in fact quite at his leisure.

  “No.”

  Now the warrior took up the dagger of the goblin whose throat he had torn apart, shaking his head as he tested the edge.

  A dark poison of some description was slathered along the blade. The warrior wiped the poison off on the goblin’s tunic, ignoring Priestess’s shiver.

  “Save your magic for once we’re inside,” the warrior said to Dwarf Shaman, putting the dagger at his belt.

  He appraised the entrance to the shrine. Goblin corpses littered the ground, but there was no sense that more were coming from inside.

  Had they killed them all? Or had some escaped?

  “They’re tough…”

  He pulled the sword from the body of the first goblin he had slain, wiping the viscera off the blade to refresh it. This would do.

  He unhesitatingly slipped the sword back into its scabbard, then nodded. “Once the bad air clears up, we move.”

  “Once again, not the kind of adventure I’m used to,” grumbled High Elf Archer.

  “No?”

  “Because it’s not an adventure! This one doesn’t count, okay?”

  “All right.”

  That was all the warrior said as he headed into the shrine. The party followed him.

  A human warrior and cleric, a high elf archer, a dwarf shaman, and a lizard priest.

  The planets and stars had completed nearly half of their revolution since this unusual group came together.

  It had not been long since yet another fight in the endless struggle with chaos and disorder had come to an end. They went to ruins and caves around the cities of the frontier, searching each in turn. Many were the fortresses, shrines, ruins, and caverns that had gone forgotten in the long struggle. Allies of chaos might find respite in these places and wait for their time to come. One must always be on guard—but not only for monsters.

  The rulers of the land, who had bought enough time to resume their petty rivalries, left such business to those who lived in the wilderness.

  It was nothing: Adventurers would finish their fights and return to their daily lives.

  People became adventurers out of a curiosity about unknown lands. Their dream was to make their way in the world by slaying monsters and finding treasure. And if they could earn a reward on their way to doing so, so much the better.

  The warrior here cared little where the goblins dwelt, be it a cave or an ancient ruin.

  Orcbolg, Beard-cutter, Goblin Slayer—he went by many names. But even as he strode boldly into the cavern, he was not yet an adventurer.

  “Find all the goblins. Kill them.”

  He was Goblin Slayer.

  Evening. The sun was well past its zenith and would soon begin to sink.

  The first one to notice his homecoming was the owner of the farm.

  A little road ran to town beside the fields, now colored with suns
et.

  He walked slowly along it with his bold, nonchalant stride. As ever, he wore his grimy helmet and leather armor, his sword of a strange length, and his small round shield.

  The owner had been out repairing a fence when he caught a whiff of rust and stood.

  “…You’re back,” he said shortly.

  He nodded, walking up to the owner. “Yes. I finished my work.”

  “I see…”

  The owner shook his head at the other man’s guileless manner and looked away from the helmet, which hid whatever the mysterious figure was thinking.

  The owner had nothing to say to this person he had known—or thought he had known—since the man’s youth.

  In fact, the owner found it hard to deal with this man. He could understand the man, didn’t want to dismiss him out of hand, but this was also not someone the owner wanted around.

  “You know how many years it’s been?” he murmured without knowing it.

  When goblins attack your village, it is like a force of nature, like an act of the gods.

  Then, the man had had only one choice: to run. But he had not only saved himself; he was now fighting back.

  Was that not enough?

  “Yes.” He nodded as if he understood.

  “Then don’t overdo it… I pity that girl.”

  “…I will be careful,” he answered, with a touch of hesitation.

  This was what made him so difficult, the owner thought.

  If he was a man who cared about nothing, the owner would not have needed to care about him.

  Perhaps he sensed what was on the owner’s mind, for he continued in his brusque voice. “I’m sorry. I would like to rent the stable.”

  “…It’s the usual. Don’t fret the details, just do what you want.”

  He seemed to bear this curt response without concern and merely went on past the owner.

  Now on the farm proper, he went around behind the cattle barn. Past a mound of dry grass—just beyond. There was a stable so old it had been abandoned long ago.

  Boards had been pounded into the walls and ceiling to patch the holes in them. It was a rough thing certainly, but it was the work of his hands, which he had done without complaint.

  Cow Girl, the owner’s adopted daughter and his friend since boyhood, had insisted she would do it, but he felt that as the tenant, it only made sense that he should do the work.

  “Oh!” Just as he went to open the door, a voice had sounded behind him with childish excitement. He turned and saw a young woman pointing at him—Cow Girl. She ran toward him, chest bouncing, waving her arms.

  “Welcome home! Geez, you could at least tell me when you get back!”

  “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “It’s not disturbing me to say hello.”

  “Isn’t it?” He nodded calmly; Cow Girl poked an index finger at him.

  “No! So greet me properly!”

  He said nothing for a moment, then nodded slowly. “…I’m home.”

  “That’s better. Welcome home.” Cow Girl smiled, and her face was radiant as the sun.

  “I heard you the first time.”

  He opened the ill-fitting door with a creak and went into the stable.

  Cow Girl followed him, squeezing through the door.

  He stopped and turned his head, looking at the face of his old friend. “How is work…?”

  “I’m kind of on break.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah!”

  He didn’t seem especially interested. He tossed his bag on the floor; then he took a flint and set light to an old lantern hanging from a beam.

  The stable floated into view, looking rather like a cave itself.

  A mat was stretched on the ground, and the room was home to some narrow shelves and an assortment of mysterious loose change. Bottles, herbs, a strange weapon shaped like a broken cross, old books written in indecipherable letters, the head of some beast…and many more things whose nature Cow Girl couldn’t begin to guess at.

  She suspected even most adventurers would not be able to fathom what he did with many of those items.

  “Be careful.”

  “Sure, right…”

  He offered the words to her as she poked around the collection, then sat down heavily right in the middle of the floor. He took the sword from his hip and put it aside, sheath and all, then began noisily disassembling his armor.

  Cow Girl knelt next to him, looking over his shoulders at his hands.

  “Hey, whatcha doing?”

  “Repairing the dings in my helmet, changing the hinges in my armor, mending my chain mail, sharpening my blade, and polishing the rim of my shield.”

  “The rest I get, but…the rim of your shield? What difference does that make?”

  “At the right moment, it can help.”

  “Huh…”

  His movements were diligent, dutiful. With a hammer, he worked off and replaced metal fittings, formed chain links of bent wire, and honed his sword and shield with a whetstone.

  A weapon could be replaced with something taken from a goblin, but armor was a different matter. It was exceedingly unusual to see a goblin in a metal helm that might actually protect its life. And even if he did find one, he wouldn’t have the time to remove his own helmet and put on another.

  An unlucky hit on armor that was on its last legs had a very good chance of being fatal. That made this work his most important, his most lifesaving.

  Cow Girl watched his every move with a squint and a smile that suggested she was enjoying herself.

  “…You find this interesting?”

  “I guess. I always like to see what you’re up to.” She giggled and thrust out her chest in a bit of theatrics. “And? How’d your adventure go?”

  She drew up to him, eyes shining. There was a sweet smell of milk on her.

  In a supremely indifferent tone, he replied:

  “There were goblins.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes,” he replied briefly, still working. Then, he added, “Quite a few.”

  Cow Girl stared intently at his back, then…

  “Yah!”

  He let out a breath as he suddenly felt something heavy and soft on his back.

  Cow Girl pressed up against him and mussed his hair.

  His hands stilled; he turned to her with a suspicious look. “What is it?”

  “Nothin’! Just want to congratulate you on a job well done,” she said good-naturedly.

  “I’d be careful if I were you.”

  “Aww, it’s fine!”

  “It is not fine.”

  “Anything interesting happen? What kind of place was it?”

  He fell silent. Perhaps he felt nothing he could say would be of any use.

  He mounted his newly polished shield on the wall, then went to ransack the shelves. He pulled out several bottles, a bag, and a mortar that came rolling down, then unsealed one bottle with gloved hands. Inside were the remains of a snake.

  Ignoring Cow Girl as she muttered “ugh” from behind him, he put the snake in the mortar.

  “Don’t touch it. You’ll get a rash.”

  “Sure… So, um…”

  “It was ruins in a forest.”

  “Ruins… So, you went to slay goblins?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “…I was invited by others.”

  She nodded with a noise of interest, as he added the contents of one bottle after another to the mortar.

  The snake, then a red powder—some sort of spice. Dried herbs. All irritants. He didn’t even make exact measurements; the process was just that familiar to him. He crushed everything in the mortar until it was all mixed together.

  “…It seems it was once a city of some kind.”

  “You don’t know its name?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t care.”

  “Well, I guess there’s plenty of them around here. This being the frontier and all.”

  Once he was satisfied that the snake was
completely ground up, he began rooting through a nearby shelf.

  He came up with an egg—the shell of one that came from the farm. They had chickens, but they didn’t lay eggs every day.

  He carefully poured the powdered contents of the mortar into the egg through a hole in its top. As he did, he murmured, “Come to think of it, there was a big…”

  “Uh-huh?” Cowgirl said with a nod.

  “A big tree root sticking out.”

  “How big is big?”

  “About as tall as you. It was hard work to climb over.”

  “Huh. That’s really something.”

  It was a childlike appraisal and, in its way, childlike wonder. She had lived most of her life on the farm, never going farther than the town; she had never seen such a thing. Now it was he who knew more of the world than her.

  That left her a little sad but happy, too.

  “And there were goblins,” he added as he wrapped the filled egg in oil paper and sealed it. His tone was disinterested yet gravely serious. “…It was strange. They were unusually well-equipped.”

  Cow Girl tapped her chin thoughtfully before saying, “Hmm… Do you think they fled the battle here?”

  “If so, they would have at least posted a guard.”

  “Hmm… Well, if you don’t understand, I’m sure not going to figure it out.”

  She gave a groan, then stretched out both arms with an “ahhh” and rolled onto her back on the floor.

  Near the dim ceiling, the lantern burned and crackled.

  “You’ll get dirty.”

  “I don’t care,” Cow Girl answered with a hearty laugh.

  Then… “Hey,” she said, rolling onto her other side to face him. “What if you took a break tomorrow?”

  “No.” He shook his head quietly as he tucked the egg into his bag. “Guild Girl called me in.”

  “Oh yeah? That’s too bad.”

  He nodded. “It may be goblin slaying.”

  “No, it isn’t goblin slayi—Wait, please don’t leave!”

  Goblin Slayer turned around in annoyance, his hand on the door of the meeting room.

  There were luxurious chairs, a shaggy carpet. One wall was covered with the heads of monsters and magical beasts, along with old weapons.

  Surrounded by the trophies of adventurers through the ages, the man replied: