Goblin Slayer, Vol. 2

by Kumo Kagyu

“Stay calm! Keep your concentra— Grk?!”

  Thus, High Elf Archer became the first catch of the day.

  She had been firing her arrows without pause, and no goblin had been able to get near her.

  But when her pace slackened for an instant, just the blink of an eye, a goblin took advantage of it to jump toward her.

  Elves are inherently elegant, slim creatures. Their agility is immense, but they lack brute strength. She struggled to shake the goblin off her back, but it was a futile gesture in the face of the encroaching horde.

  “Lemme go! Get off—huh? Ahh! Ahhhh!”

  She was dragged to the ground, and with a scream, she vanished under a black mountain of goblins.

  For a second, one thin leg stuck out from under the mound, kicking at the air.

  “Long-ears!”

  Dwarf Shaman was the first to notice what was happening, and the only one able to respond. He tossed aside his sling and, with a yell, took a hand ax from his belt.

  “You little beasts! By the gods, get off her!”

  His judgment was beyond question; there hadn’t been time to use a spell. If Dwarf Shaman hadn’t leaped in immediately, High Elf Archer might well have been carried off to who knew what fate.

  But without any ranged attacks to support the lone close combat fighter, there was nothing to hold back the goblin onslaught.

  This was critical.

  Now…

  “Oh…ahh…”

  Now there was nothing between Priestess and the goblin champion.

  “No… Oh… Oh no…”

  Her teeth chattering and her entire body quaking with fear, she could barely stand. There was a soft thump as she slid to the ground; then she felt something warm and wet spread across her legs.

  “GROB! GROORB! GORRRB!”

  The smell of it caused the goblin champion to grin mockingly at her. It would be so much easier if she could just lose consciousness. Ironically, it was all the experience she had gained that refused to let her do that.

  The champion’s meaty arms stretched out and grabbed her waist.

  “Hrr…?! Ahh…!” She groaned as the creature crushed her internal organs.

  She was terrified. What if he simply squeezed until her bones broke?

  “Hrr…?! Wh-whaa…? Whaaat…?”

  But that wasn’t what happened.

  The champion pushed his face close to her. His breath reeked of rotting flesh.

  “Erryaaaaaaargh!”

  And then he took a great bite out of her shoulder, vestments and chain mail and all. Blood gushed out, running red across her white skin.

  “Agggh! Ahhh!!”

  She had never known such pain. She was at the limits of her endurance. The color drained from her vision. She couldn’t speak, but only wept like a child. She was in an awful state, her eyes running with tears, her nose with snot, spittle hanging from her lips.

  “Stop—! —mmit, let…me…go…! Ahh!”

  High Elf Archer added her own shouts from beneath the pile of goblins.

  There was the sound of tearing clothing. Beating. Screams. Groans.

  “This will not do! Master spell caster, I fear that if we do not gather these three and withdraw, we will all be lost!”

  “Whaddaya think I’m—? Hey! Gerroff, ya monsters! Off!”

  Lizard Priest and Dwarf Shaman continued to fight valiantly, but they couldn’t go on forever.

  “GOROROB!”

  “GORRB! GORB! GOB!”

  The champion and his goblins pointed at them and chortled loudly enough to rouse the dead. This was the fate of anything brought low by goblins, be it an adventurer or a village.

  Its fate, its destiny. Due to chance. A roll of the dice.

  Horseshit.

  “”

  All of it resonated with something deep inside him.

  When he put one hand on the ground to push himself up, he discovered a staircase leading even deeper underground.

  One could have called it a stroke of good luck that the stone casket had been hollow to conceal a hidden staircase. That it hadn’t contained a body or funerary relics like the others.

  If it had, it wouldn’t have been able to soften the shock, and he would have died.

  But for the moment, he ignored all of this. What mattered was that he was alive. And if he was alive, then he would fight.

  He reached into his item bag and pulled out a cracked potion bottle. He struggled to pull out the stopper with a wrist that bent at a strange angle, then gulped down the contents. The healing effects of the medicine were subtle. It was not like a divine miracle that closed wounds instantaneously.

  But if the pain would ease, he could move. And if he could move, he could fight.

  There was nothing in his way.

  With his right hand he groped around the area, seeking anything that might serve as a weapon. His hand gripped what he found, and then he willed his injured hips to raise him up.

  Several goblins that had noticed he was still alive and moving came toward him. Each had a weapon in his hand and a cruel laugh in his throat; no doubt they came with thoughts of finishing him off.

  But so what?

  “………!”

  He swung the shield in his left hand with all his might and beat the goblins to death.

  “GORARO?!”

  The polished edge of the round shield was weapon enough.

  He cracked their skulls, blood and brains flying everywhere. Forward. Forward. He wouldn’t shout until the last moment. He couldn’t. Just like before. He must not be noticed.

  The goblin champion was focused on tormenting his new catch. He seemed oblivious to the fact that the interloper he had thrashed earlier was standing behind him. Priestess had gone limp in the demon’s embrace, only twitching now and again. Her lips, turned even redder by the blood that flowed down from her white neck, moved two or three times.

  No voice came out.

  Was it, Save me?

  Or Oh God?

  Or Mother? Or Father?

  Not Run away. That would have given him away.

  Him… Him…

  Goblin Slayer…

  “Y-yaaaah!”

  Goblin Slayer leaped on the champion from behind.

  At first, the champion surely had no idea what was happening.

  Something wrapped around his neck—the spinal column and skin of the woman, which had tumbled to the ground during the fighting.

  The creature reached up in annoyance to brush away what had been, for him, only bait…

  “…!”

  But in the next instant, the thing was pulled tight against his throat.

  “GO-ORRRRBBBB?!?!?!?!”

  He could not quite get the scream out of his throat.

  The champion scrabbled at the bones, unable to breathe. A few hairs broke, but it didn’t change anything. He could no longer see the priestess he had been about to have his way with. She had rolled onto the ground like an abandoned toy.

  “Ahh…”

  The thinnest voice. She was still alive.

  And that was all Goblin Slayer needed to know.

  “Haa—haaaaa!”

  He had the bones in his right hand and the woman’s hair wrapped around his left. He pulled as hard as he could; the hair bit through his leather gloves and into his flesh.

  But the same thing was happening to the goblin champion.

  Assassins were said to make wire out of human hair and use it to kill; this was the same principle. It was not easy to untangle oneself from.

  The champion twisted his own body, struggling. He rammed backward against a wall.

  “Hrk…!”

  Blood flowed from Goblin Slayer’s helmet again. He gave a cry as his insides were crushed. Even so, his grip did not loosen.

  “GOROROB?! GROORB?!”

  The champion had grown terrified.

  Naturally, the other goblins were not simply standing by and watching their leader get throttled. Several of them had raised
their weapons and begun to advance to kill this resurrected enemy.

  Until suddenly, their heads went flying off, replaced by spouts of blood.

  They had been killed by the champion’s club as he swung it about in his desperate struggle. The headless goblin corpses slumped to the ground.

  This was too much, even for them.

  Goblins showed no fear of death when they believed they could win. If loot and debauchery awaited them on the other side of victory, so much the better.

  But here—could they win?

  “Yaaaaaaahhhhh!”

  A great roar.

  A moment’s indecision, an instant’s hesitation, spelled the goblins’ defeat.

  With a bellow to honor his ancestors, Lizard Priest, now free once more, set upon the monsters. His fang-sword, drenched in goblin blood, whirled like a storm in his scaly hands.

  “GRRB?!”

  “GORORB?!”

  With each flash of the blade, a hand or a foot or a head went flying. With his tail, he knocked down those who tried to flee, and with his fang, he finished them.

  Thrown into confusion, the goblins rushed to surround Lizard Priest—only to meet a rain of wooden arrows.

  “Go!”

  A familiar voice rang out.

  She was covering her exposed chest and drenched in goblin blood, but she was there. As she shot her bow while kneeling, High Elf Archer shouted, “I’ll handle these guys!”

  “My thanks!” Lizard Priest shouted and began to weave his way through the attackers.

  He was trying to get to where Priestess lay on the ground. He still had some spells left.

  That meant the girl was going to be okay, High Elf Archer thought with a relieved sigh.

  “…Thanks.”

  “What’s this all of a sudden?”

  It was Dwarf Shaman beside her who answered her murmur.

  Covered in blood splatters, breathing heavily, and still holding his ax, he handily dispatched any goblins who came hoping to kill the enemy archer.

  “I can’t believe I owe my life to a dwarf. I’ll never live it down.” She turned away, struggling to hide her small chest. Her ears twitched. “For an elf, the only thing more shameful than that would be not to say thank you.”

  “Leave it to an elf to go from weeping for help to being up on her high horse,” Dwarf Shaman said with a barely suppressed chuckle.

  She winked at him. “Better than your low horse, right?”

  As she tried to affect nonchalance, she loosed an arrow at the goblin champion and let out a shout.

  “Get him, Orcbolg!”

  “Hrrr!”

  Goblin Slayer held the bundle of hair like the reins of a horse. He clung to the back of the champion, who flung him left and right like a bucking stallion. At first, each jolt had hurt him so badly he thought his body might fly apart. But now he felt no pain, nothing. All that was left was a strange lightness, like floating in the water.

  Some objective part of his mind was sounding a warning. Pain was proof you were alive. And now he felt no pain. Perhaps his nerves had been overwhelmed.

  Had he made the wrong choice?

  He almost fancied he heard a whisper:

  Go forward unto death. Pound the nail into your own coffin.

  But the lack of pain also happened to be convenient for him.

  Whatever foolish or silly thing it takes to win—I will do it.

  “Hey…!”

  His voice squeezed out from between his lips.

  Could the words that echoed in his mind have reached the mind of the goblin champion?

  The creature struggled to turn his head and see the enemy that clung to his back. A grimy, blood-caked metal helm reflected in his filthy yellow eyes.

  “Take a good look, goblin.”

  Goblin Slayer raised his broken right arm and jammed it into the eye. He grasped something disturbingly soft, scratched and clawed at it.

  “GRORARARAB?! GROOROROROB?!?!”

  The champion howled incoherently in agony, bending backward.

  Goblin Slayer went with him, rolling to the stone floor. He barely avoided being crushed by the giant body as it collapsed to the ground with a resounding thump.

  Breathing raggedly, Goblin Slayer used nearby bones to push himself up. The warrior was covered in blood and wounds, near death, but the goblins simply watched him from afar.

  There was no good reason for them to do so. It would have been easy to finish him off at that moment.

  And yet they were unmistakably afraid of him.

  “Who’s next…?” The voice was dispassionate, toneless, and cold as the wind blowing through a valley. “Is it you…?”

  Goblin Slayer flung the lump of flesh in his right hand. The champion’s eyeball hit the ground and burst with a wet noise.

  “GORB…! GARARARAB!!”

  The champion staggered to his feet and began to babble. Blood and pus streamed like a waterfall down his face from his missing left eye.

  “GOB…”

  The goblins stood frozen. One of them dropped his spear. His eyes flitted back and forth between the goblin champion and Goblin Slayer, both of them wreathed in blood.

  That did it.

  “GORROROROB!!”

  The goblin champion gave a roar that could only be an order to retreat.

  “GORARAB! GORAB!”

  “GROOB! GROB!”

  Screaming, the goblins forgot everything else and fled.

  In this, as in all things, the goblin champion led them. A champion he was, but still a goblin.

  Each goblin was most interested in his own survival; all they wanted was to escape this place. Thus, the idea of holding their ground against impossible odds never so much as occurred to them, and the rout gained momentum quickly. First two, then four, then eight fled…

  One after another, goblins dove for the exit, weeping and shouting. At last, only the piles of goblin corpses and the gasping adventurers were left.

  No one suggested they should pursue the enemy. All of them were wounded and exhausted; they could barely think of moving.

  “……”

  Only Goblin Slayer was different.

  He dug unsteadily through the bones and used the hand spear he found as an improvised walking stick to hobble around the room. Dragging his feet pitifully as he moved, he began to check each of the bodies.

  As he went, he dripped a trail of blood, as if he were a brush running along a canvas.

  “………hrr…”

  One step. Two. A violent shake, then Goblin Slayer’s body lurched at a strange angle.

  “Orcbolg…!”

  High Elf Archer worked her way over to him and supported him from the side. She didn’t begrudge him the blood that ran onto her torn clothes and exposed skin.

  In a terribly thin voice, Goblin Slayer asked, “Are you…okay…?”

  “Somehow… But…” High Elf Archer’s voice was strained, too. “I’m not so sure about you…”

  To her, he felt like a bag full of spare parts.

  Even so, he managed to mutter, “Perhaps,” and nod. “What about the girl…?”

  “…This way. Can you walk?”

  “I’ll try.”

  High Elf Archer struggled to support Goblin Slayer, who seemed like he might collapse at any moment. She felt a warmth on her cheeks and suddenly realized tears were beading up in her eyes.

  She bit her lip.

  “Try to have some…dignity, you two.”

  As they veritably crawled along, they found Dwarf Shaman’s arms supporting them.

  He was in no better shape than they were. Blood soaked him from the top of his head to the tip of his beloved beard, and his bag of catalysts, as well as his belt, had been badly torn.

  Even so, the dwarf managed to hold Goblin Slayer up with his great hands.

  “After all, we still…have to get home…”

  “…Right.”

  Then, together, they walked the vast-seeming but terribly sho
rt distance. Soon they were in the center of the room, beside the shattered coffin. A broken fang-sword rested there, Lizard Priest sitting beside it.

  “Well, now. It was a close call, but I think she will come through.”

  Priestess lay at his feet, swaddled in his tail.

  The flames of the broken lantern were the only illumination, the light playing across her form.

  Her bloodstained vestments and chain mail had been pulled away; bandages were wrapped around her pale shoulders and chest. Her hair was stuck to her sweating cheeks, and her eyes were still closed. The barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest was the only sign that she was alive.

  “How is she?”

  Lizard Priest narrowed his eyes and gently raised Priestess’s head with his tail.

  “Mm. Her life is not in danger. Though if the wound had been any deeper, it would have been beyond my abilities.”

  “I see.”

  “Here, hang on. I’ll help you sit. That’ll be easiest, right?” High Elf Archer said, almost whispering, as Goblin Slayer struggled for breath. “Dwarf, you take that side.”

  “’Course.”

  Together, they lowered him down by the stone coffin, at Priestess’s side.

  It felt like he might topple over the moment they took their hands away. Even the way he sat looked more like he had fallen on his behind.

  “I…I’m…s-s…orr…”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Goblin Slayer held out his hand, gloved in leather that was tattered, dirty, in altogether terrible shape. He rested it on the ground next to her. Priestess took it weakly with her own small hand.

  “Gob…S…ayer…sir…”

  At long last, he murmured:

  “These things happen.”

  “Let’s head back up,” High Elf Archer said. “We don’t want to be here when they come back. Orcbolg, can you stand?”

  “Ahh, go find yourself a coat or somethin’, lass. I can help Beard-cutter.”

  “It seems I will have to bear him on my shoulders,” said Lizard Priest. “Gather yourselves. We shall be safe soon…”

  Someone was saying something.

  But Goblin Slayer felt consciousness slipping away, and then everything was dark.

  “Just how long do you plan to sleep, dunderhead?”

  The voice that thundered through his brain conspired with the piercing pain to wake him.

  He leaped up, took a stance, looked around. Freezing cold bit into his skin.