by Kumo Kagyu
As Goblin Slayer added to his count, Priestess peered into the tunnel and asked timidly, “Can you see in the dark, too?”
“Hardly.”
Goblin Slayer didn’t bother retrieving the fat-dulled blade from the body. Instead, he took up the sword Warrior had carried, clicking his tongue as he saw it was too long for the narrow tunnels.
Next he picked up a spear from the goblin he had just killed. It was roughly hewn from animal bone, but a spear for a goblin is only a bit longer than a knife for a full-grown man.
“It’s just practice. I know exactly where their necks are.”
“Practice? How much practice…?”
“A lot.”
“A lot?”
“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”
Priestess was silent. She hung her head in embarrassment.
“What can you use?”
“I’m sorry?” She hurriedly raised her head again, not understanding what he meant.
Goblin Slayer never let his attention waver from the tunnel as he spoke. “Which miracles?”
“I have Minor Heal and Holy Light, sir.”
“How many uses?”
“Three in all. I…I have two left.” It was nothing extraordinary, but Priestess was one of the more accomplished beginners. It was an achievement simply to be able to pray to the goddess, make a petition, and be granted a miracle in the first place. And then, not many people could bear to join their soul with the goddess repeatedly. That took experience.
“That’s considerably more than I expected,” he said. This was praise, she supposed, but she had trouble feeling like it. His tone was dutiful and cool, hardly revealing any emotion.
“Holy Light, then. Minor Heal won’t do us any good here. Don’t waste your miracles on it.”
“Y-yes, sir…”
“That was a scout we killed. We’ve got the right tunnel.”
With the tip of the spear, he pointed deeper into the hole from which the goblin had come. “But their scout won’t return. Neither will the ones who killed your party. I finished them off.”
Priestess was silent.
“What would you do?”
“What?”
“If you were a goblin. What would you do?”
At the unexpected question, Priestess tapped a slender finger against her chin, thinking furiously. What would she do if she were a goblin?
Her hand, which had once assisted with services at the Temple, seemed too white to be an adventurer’s.
“…Set an ambush?”
“Exactly,” Goblin Slayer said in his calm voice. “And we’re going to walk right into it. Get ready.”
Priestess paled but nodded.
Goblin Slayer took out a coil of rope and some wooden stakes and laid them at his feet.
“I have a mantra for you,” he said, not taking his eyes off his work. “Remember it. The words are tunnel entrance. You forget them, you die.”
“Y-yes, sir!” Priestess clasped her sounding staff with both hands.
Tunnel entrance, tunnel entrance, she repeated desperately to herself.
The only thing she could rely on was this mysterious man who called himself Goblin Slayer. If he abandoned her, then she and Fighter and the kidnapped village girls were all lost.
A moment later, Goblin Slayer finished his preparations. “Let’s go.”
Priestess followed him as quickly as she could, past the rope and into the tunnel.
The tunnel was remarkably sturdy, not something that seemed to have been built just for mounting surprise attacks. With every step, dirt fell from tree roots that had pushed through the ceiling, but there didn’t seem to be any danger of collapse. The gradual downward slope made Priestess uneasy, however. Humans didn’t belong here.
She should have seen it from the start, and now that she had realized, it was too late: Goblins spend their whole lives underground. True, they were nothing like dwarves, but why had she and the others underestimated the goblins so badly just because they weren’t physically strong?
Well, it’s too late for regrets…
Priestess stepped carefully by the faint light of the torch. She glanced up at Goblin Slayer’s back. His movements betrayed neither hesitation nor fear. Did he know what lay ahead?
“We’re almost there.” He stopped so suddenly, Priestess nearly ran into him. She straightened up quicker than he could turn to look back with his mechanical movements.
“Now, Holy Light.”
“Y-yes, sir. I’m ready…when you are.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. Then she held her staff firmly in place. Goblin Slayer likewise adjusted his grip on his torch and spear.
“Do it.”
“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, grant your sacred light to we who are lost in darkness…”
Goblin Slayer leaped forward as Priestess raised her staff toward the blackness. Its tip began shining with an illumination that became as brilliant as the sun. A miracle of the Earth Mother.
With the light at his back, Goblin Slayer flew headlong into the monsters’ hall.
Perhaps they had simply appropriated the largest cavern in the cave complex. The goblins waiting in the shoddily constructed room came into view.
“GAUI?”
“GORRR?”
There were six goblins there, as well as one big one and one seated on a chair wearing a skull on his head. The monsters squinted against the sudden, pure light and howled in confusion.
Also there, lying motionless, were several young women.
Some bleak thing had no doubt been happening in that room.
“Six goblins, one hob, one shaman, eight total.” Goblin Slayer counted his opponents without so much as a tremor in his voice.
Of course, not all the goblins were clenching their eyes shut and keening.
“OGAGO, GAROA…” The shaman seated on the throne waved his staff and recited an unintelligible spell.
“GUAI?” He was interrupted by Goblin Slayer’s spear skewering him through the torso. He gave a death rattle and tumbled backward off his chair.
The goblins stood transfixed by this tragedy, and Goblin Slayer seized the moment. Warrior’s sword rang as Goblin Slayer freed it from its scabbard.
“All right, let’s get out of here.”
“What?! Y-yes, sir!”
Even as he spoke, Goblin Slayer was already turning and dashing off. Shocked at his speed and at a loss about what to do, Priestess followed him. The goblins recovered their wits as the light receded and soon gave chase.
In the space of a breath, Goblin Slayer was far ahead of Priestess as she ran up the slope. Was he used to taking the role of vanguard and rear guard, or was this the result of sheer training and experience? Whatever the case, it was incredible to her that he could be so nimble while clad in leather armor and mail, his vision limited by his helmet.
It was when she saw him jump lightly at the mouth of the tunnel that the words of his mantra came rushing back to her. “Oh no—!” She barely missed the trip wire on the ground. Goblin Slayer was already pressed up against the wall, and Priestess hurried to do the same against the opposite side.
“GUIII!!”
“GYAA!!”
They could hear the enraged voices and pounding footfalls of the goblins coming up the slope. Priestess took a furtive peek and saw a hulking shape at the front of the pack—the hobgoblin.
“Now! Do it again!” Goblin Slayer flung the words at her.
Priestess gave a nod and thrust her staff with its symbols of her priesthood toward the tunnel. She spoke the words of the prayer without a stutter.
“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, grant your sacred light to we who are lost in darkness…”
Merciful the Earth Mother’s light was to them, but not to the eyes of the goblins, which burned at its brilliance.
“GAAU?!”
The blinded hobgoblin stumbled on the trip wire and took an ungainly fall.
“Eleven.” Goblin Sl
ayer vaulted in and ruthlessly thrust his sword into the creature’s brain. It gurgled once, twice, then spasmed and died.
“H-here come the others!” Priestess called. She was out of miracles, and the repeated soul-effacing ritual had left her enervated, her face bloodless from exertion.
“I know.” Goblin Slayer whipped a bottle from his bag and threw it against the hobgoblin’s body. It shattered, releasing a thick black substance from inside. The cloying smell made Priestess think perhaps it was some unfamiliar poison.
“See you in hell.”
Goblin Slayer kicked the drenched body into the tunnel. The oncoming goblins, caught off guard by the hunk of meat rolling toward them, slammed their swords into it.
It was an instinctive reaction. When they realized it was their guardian they had stabbed, they panicked. The goblins struggled to extract the weapons, buried deep in the hobgoblin’s flesh and now covered in the black substance…
“Twelve, thirteen.”
They were too late.
Without a hint of remorse, Goblin Slayer threw the torch into the tunnel with them. There was a whoosh as the hobgoblin’s corpse went up in flames, taking their two pursuers with it.
“GYUIAAAAAA!!” The screeching goblins flailed on the ground, burning as they rolled all the way back to the bottom of the slope. Priestess choked on the smell of roasting meat that floated up to her.
“Wh-what was that?”
“Some call it Medea’s Oil. Others, petroleum. It’s gasoline.” He had gotten it from an alchemist, he said nonchalantly, adding, “Awfully expensive for such a simple effect.”
“B-but inside—in there, the kidnapped girls—”
“The fire won’t spread far with just a few bodies to feed on. If those girls are still alive, this isn’t going to kill them.” He muttered, “And we’re not out of goblins yet,” causing Priestess to bite her lip again.
“A-are you going back in, then?”
“No. When they can’t breathe anymore, they’ll come out on their own.”
Goblin Slayer’s sword was lost now, stuck in a burning hobgoblin corpse at the bottom of a tunnel. He probably wasn’t eager to fight with a brain-soaked blade, anyway.
He picked up the weapon the hobgoblin had dropped, a stone ax. It was just a rock tied to a stick—rough in every sense of the word. But then, that made it easy to use, too.
Goblin Slayer swung the ax rapidly through the air, testing it, and found he could wield it easily with one hand.
Satisfied, he reached into his bag and pulled out another torch.
“Here,” Priestess said, offering a flint, but Goblin Slayer hardly looked at her.
“These beasts never think somebody might set an ambush for them,” he said.
She was silent.
“Don’t worry.” He swung the ax in carefully coordinated strokes, landing each blow on the flint. “It’ll be over soon.”
He was right.
He dealt with each of the goblins as they emerged from the flames and smoke. One tripped on the rope and found his head split open. The second hopped over the rope but was laid low by the waiting ax. The third was the same. The ax wouldn’t come out of the cheekbone of the fourth creature, so Goblin Slayer took the monster’s club instead.
“That’s seventeen. We’re going in.”
“Y-yes, sir!” Priestess rushed to keep up with Goblin Slayer as he dove into the roiling smoke.
The hall was a terrible sight. The hobgoblin was burned beyond recognition, its companions little better. The shaman lay with the spear still through its body. And the girls were lying in filth on the floor.
As Goblin Slayer had predicted, the smoke floated above them.
But to survive is not always a blessing—something Priestess realized when she picked out Fighter’s body among them.
“Uggh…euhrrrgh…”
Nothing was left in Priestess’s stomach. She brought up only bile, bitter and burning in her throat, and she felt tears welling in her eyes again.
“Well, then.”
While Priestess was vomiting, Goblin Slayer had stamped out the flames running along the gasoline on the floor.
He strode over to the speared shaman. The goblin looked surprised by its own death. It lay completely still. The image of Goblin Slayer standing over him was reflected in his glassy eyes.
“I thought so,” Goblin Slayer said, immediately raising his club.
“GUI?!” As the startled shaman jumped up, the club came down, and then he was dead for good.
Shaking the spattered brains off the club, Goblin Slayer muttered, “Eighteen. The high-level ones are tough.”
Goblin Slayer began to kick violently at the throne, now vacant in every sense. Priestess heaved again as she saw it was made of human bones.
“Typical goblin trick. Look.”
“Wh…what?” Priestess wiped her eyes and mouth as she raised her head. Behind the throne hung one of the rotten wooden boards the goblins used in place of doors.
A hidden store—or was that all it was? Priestess gripped her staff at a clattering sound from within.
“You were lucky.”
As Goblin Slayer pulled the board aside, there were several high-pitched screams. Along with a stash of plunder, four terrified goblin children crouched inside.
“These creatures multiply quickly. If your party had come any later, there would’ve been fifty of them, and they would have attacked en masse.”
At the thought of it—of what would have happened to her and everyone—Priestess shivered. She imagined dozens of goblins taking her, bearing half-breed goblin children…
Looking down at the cowering forms, Goblin Slayer adjusted his grip on the club.
“You’ll…kill the children, too?” she asked, but she already knew the answer. She quailed as she heard the flat tone of her own voice. Had her heart, her emotions, been numbed by the onslaught of reality? She wanted it to be true. Just this once.
“Of course I will,” he said with a calm nod.
He must have seen this before many, many times.
She knew he called himself “Goblin Slayer” for a reason.
“We’ve destroyed their nest. They’ll never forget that, let alone forgive it. And the survivors of a nest learn, become smarter.” As he spoke, he casually raised the club, still covered in the shaman’s brains. “There is no reason to let them live.”
“Even if there was…a good goblin?”
“A good goblin?” He exhaled in a way that suggested he was truly mystified by the idea.
“There might be…if we looked, but…”
He said nothing for a long moment. Then he spoke.
“The only good goblins are the ones that never come out of their holes.”
He took a step.
“This will make twenty-two.”
It’s a common story, one heard all the time.
A village is attacked by goblins. Some maidens are kidnapped.
Some rookies decide they’re going to get rid of these goblins for their first quest.
But the goblins are too much, and the whole party is slaughtered.
Or maybe just one makes it out and saves the girls, too.
During their captivity, the girls had been forced to serve as the goblins’ playthings.
In despair, they take shelter at the Temple.
The lone survivor slowly slips away from the world and never leaves home again.
In this world, these sorts of things are an everyday occurrence, as common as the sunrise.
Or are they? Priestess wasn’t sure. Do these life-shattering events really happen all the time?
And if they do, could she, knowing them firsthand, go on believing in the Earth Mother?
In the end, there were only two things of which she was certain.
That she would continue as an adventurer.
And that Goblin Slayer had exterminated every goblin in that nest.
But then, that, too, is no more than another
often-told tale.
Somewhere not here. In a place immensely far away yet incredibly close.
Rattle, rattle, a certain deity is rolling dice.
She looks like a sweet little girl, and her name is Illusion.
Again and again she rolls. She’s had a pretty good day, and a smile plays on her lips.
But dice pay no heed to the will of the gods.
With a cute little gasp, Illusion hides her face.
Oh! What a terrible roll. She can’t even look at it.
But however pretty or sweet she may be, not even Illusion can change numbers on dice.
No equipment and no strategy will help.
Call it chance or fate, these things will happen.
Illusion slumps in disappointment, and one god points and laughs at her.
His name is Truth. I told you, he says, so transported with mirth that he claps his hands.
Truth, after all, is without restraint. Cruel.
He tells her she was a fool to gamble on a quest so rich with risks.
Illusion grumbles to herself, but there is nothing she can do.
She herself does not hold back when she takes on fate-guided adventurers.
So how can she complain when her own adventurers happen to die?
It is simply how things work.
Hearing this, some would object to what seems like gods using humans as playthings.
Yet what path is not influenced by chance or fate?
When all your adventurers are dead, though, there is nothing left to do.
It is unfortunate, but this adventure is over.
Ready some new adventurers and try again.
It’ll be fine this time. Surely these new ones will—
At that moment, the two deities notice a new adventurer has appeared upon the board.
Truth gives a disgusted grunt.
Illusion gives a delicate start.
He has come.
She had a familiar dream.
She dreamed of a summer day when she was still small. Eight years old maybe. She had come by herself to her uncle’s farm to help deliver a calf. At her tender age, she didn’t realize it was just an excuse to let her play.
She was going to help with a birth. That was an important job.
And even better, she was going to get out of the village and go to the city—all by herself!
