Goblin Slayer

“Left-handed— Oh!” Guild Girl hopped over some debris, nodding. Seeing that he was kind enough to stop and wait for her made her steps lighter. “You mean finding their way along by keeping their left hand on the wall.” She knew about that.

Games involving mazes were popular among the nobility, even if those mazes weren’t as serious as this one—being not real ruins. Hedges might be grown in a garden, manicured by a gardener, and shaped into a maze to be enjoyed at tea parties. Guild Girl had experienced such things on several occasions back when she was still living with her family.

“But I thought that didn’t work if the exit happened to be along a different wall…”

“True, the method fails if there is a cloister or the like. But I don’t believe our participants will be experienced enough to realize that.”

In other words, they would simply put their hands on the wall and trust that they’d eventually reach the center of the maze. That would make them easy to draw in, he observed. “Perhaps we could put the trip for some trap along the left wall. Even a shield might trip it.”

“…I believe I said to take it easy on them.”

“I believe I am.” Goblin Slayer nodded at her. “First, we wear them down with traps. When they’re tired enough that they’re no longer keeping close watch, we draw them toward the center of the maze and launch the attack.”

This wasn’t the first time he had mentioned this plan, and Guild Girl marveled at his capacity for tormenting adventurers. Then again, adventures could indeed be torturous. They didn’t always follow a simple script: fun, easy, guaranteed wins, plenty of loot. Unexpected things happened, difficulties arose, and sometimes after all the struggle, the rewards were minimal. It wasn’t even uncommon for adventurers to risk life and limb in their endeavors.

Nor were there any promises of success; sometimes you failed. Sometimes you failed even if you didn’t do anything wrong. Say, for example, you discovered the entrance to a cave and carelessly exclaimed “Yahoo!” only to be killed in the resulting landslide. It might sound comical, but it was no joke. It had actually happened—it was just a particularly striking case of something perfectly common. Guild employees heard their fill of such stories…

But it’s precisely because there is fun and fulfillment that adventurers keep on doing what they do
, Guild Girl thought.

“There are also no promises that one will constantly be able to get back to town or take breaks whenever they need to,” said Goblin Slayer.

She let her thoughts drift as she followed his armored form. Was this how
he
had learned about adventuring? She was sure that if she asked, he’d respond that he’d been taught goblin hunting. A predictable answer—but such a sad one. He was perhaps the only person who felt that all he knew was goblins.

“Goblin Slayer…”

“Hrm?”

“Is this how you were taught?”

In the end, her question was as quiet as an exhale, fading into the dark.

It was a moment before he answered. He wasn’t ignoring her—just thinking. Guild Girl knew him well enough to understand that much.

“…How did my sister teach me to hunt?” he said at length. “That was one of the questions my teacher asked me in the cave.” Slowly but surely, he continued: “If I didn’t respond fast enough, he’d send a snowball flying at me.”

“Wow… So I guess he wouldn’t have been happy with that pause just now.” Guild Girl giggled at her own naughtiness.

“Hrm,” Goblin Slayer grunted, then said, “Perhaps not.” Guild Girl found that funny somehow, her laughter ringing out like a bell. In her mind’s eye, the young version of him was still wearing armor and a helmet for some reason, and the thought of him engaged in a snowball fight was simply too cute.

“Sounds like your master could be harsh.”

“Yes. He was a harsh person.”

The immediacy of the answer made Guild Girl laugh again.
He
, though, didn’t seem to pay it much mind.

“But he taught me many things. How to swim, for example… Truly, a great deal.” There was a brief whisper: “Even though he had no obligation to do so.”

“I see,” Guild Girl replied gently. She could surmise what his background had been. She wouldn’t say she
knew
; she’d never asked him directly about it. You didn’t have to know everything about a person to have feelings for them. It was precisely his willingness to talk to her like this that made her so happy.

“Did he teach you how to fight?”

In the old stories, the heroes were always taught all kinds of powerful techniques at a young age by some legendary master. Secret sword techniques, killing strokes, powerful blocks, moves that weren’t to be shared with anyone for any reason—there was a wide variety. Some of the stories were patently ridiculous: the ability to jump over sword strokes or cause someone to explode just by touching them, for example.

Then again, I hear the elvish heroes really were capable of jumping over swords.
So maybe it was possible to kill an opponent with one finger, too.

“Not to speak of,” Goblin Slayer replied, laconic as usual. He had crouched down again and was making more chalk marks. This time on the right.

Maybe because otherwise they’d come to anticipate attacks from the left
, Guild Girl thought. She was pretty confident in this guess, so she decided not to ask him about it. Other things were more important.

“Someone else taught me where a goblin’s vital points were.” He didn’t stop working even as he talked.

Guild Girl walked up beside Goblin Slayer, who was still squatting on the ground, and held the lantern up for him. The helmet moved ever so slightly; she could tell that it was nodding up and down. Even that slight gesture of thanks—barely enough to count as appreciation—warmed her heart.

“You knew her, I believe.”

“Oh, her.” Yes, Guild Girl knew her. An eccentric wizard who’d lived on the edge of town. They hadn’t talked often, but the woman had left a deep impression on her. She’d disappeared at some point, though. “I heard in passing that she left on some sort of journey.”

“I doubt she’ll come back.”

“Doesn’t that make you feel…sad or anything?”

“I’m not sure.” Goblin Slayer’s work, of course, still didn’t stop. As soon as he’d finished with the chalk, he stood up. “I don’t think we were close enough for that.”

“…I feel the same way.”

Something small—barely enough. It was how she, too, felt about the image of that wizard. How many people had known her and how many remembered her were trivial questions. What mattered was that he and she shared this memory; they had it in common. Perhaps he had many more such points of commonality with the girl on the farm, but for Guild Girl, this was a precious treasure.

The farm girl probably remembers that woman, too.
Guild Girl was all too aware that she wasn’t unique in this regard. He, after all, was Goblin Slayer. When he wasn’t off hunting goblins, he went home to that farm. He visited the Adventurers Guild only in the moments in between the farm and the hunt.

In other words, this very moment is special.
The thought made her glad that this was her job, even as it left her feeling slightly embarrassed.
Bad girl—I have to focus on my work.
It hadn’t been anything inappropriate. No abuse of power. So it was fine. She was fairly sure.

Preoccupied with remonstrating with herself, she was caught unawares by his next word:

“However…”

Nonetheless, she was able to respond smoothly and fluently. “Yes, what is it?”

“Are you sure I’m enough?”

“More than sure.” Guild Girl smiled. It was a little late for him to be worrying about that.
If the student lacks confidence, maybe they’re only imitating their teacher… Ha.
Amusingly, their weaknesses were as similar as their strengths. Still, though…
I guess this must all be new to him—everything that doesn’t have to do with goblin hunting.
She placed a finger to her lips thoughtfully: So in that respect, he was a novice himself.

Then, too, it wasn’t as if she had any special expertise hosting an event like this. Guild Girl, spotting an appropriately shaped bit of rubble, sat down by his feet. She hoped the flickering lantern light might make her a little bit more attractive. “You’ve certainly shown yourself capable of looking after and helping out newcomers, haven’t you?”

“Hrm.” From the helmet looming in the darkness, there was only a grunt. “If that’s your criterion…,” he began, “…then perhaps that heavy warrior’s party would be better.”

Guild Girl nodded; they were a possibility. She saw where he was coming from. But… “They’re maybe just a bit overprotective,” she said, holding up a finger and waving it pointedly, though careful not to sound like she was tearing them down. Notwithstanding that the kids had lied about their ages, Heavy Warrior’s party members were very successfully bringing up two young adventurers. The two kids in question (the rhea druid was actually the older of the pair, but rheas always looked a bit like children) would certainly become good adventurers.

That wasn’t the real point, though.

“They might be good, but adventures aren’t always full of nice things.”

“I see.”

“Er, not to make it sound like we’re out to traumatize our participants!” Guild Girl was quick to add, trying to make herself look authoritative. She shouldn’t mix personal and professional matters. She kept telling herself that, trying to adopt a suitably businesslike demeanor. This was a special moment for her, true—but she was also on the job. “We can’t be doing that. We absolutely can’t!”

“Is that so?”

“It certainly is.”

“This is difficult,” he murmured, and even his body language was like that of a child given a hard problem to solve by their teacher. He crossed his arms, grunted, and then fell into a sullen silence. Such body language might also have appeared to forestall any further conversation, but Guild Girl knew that he was simply thinking. She was sure that farm girl would have understood, too. As well as the people he adventured with.

And there’s where I’m not so unique…

The thought made her both happy and sad at once. He must lapse into thoughts like this sometimes down in a dungeon or in a cave. Guild Girl, though, never had the opportunity to see him standing like this in the lantern light. Hence, she placed her elbows on her knees, a smile coming over her face. “So adventures aren’t fun, then?”

“I can see that.”

“…I thought so.”

After all, he had been on so many of them by now. He’d slain that ogre in the old ruins, fought the nameless monster in the sewers, and even tried himself against the infamous Dungeon of the Dead. It was only difficult to get the details from him because he couldn’t or wouldn’t explain clearly about anything except goblins. But recently he’d been on a quest that needed no elaborate explication. Because he said he’d—

“When you beat that dragon, how did it feel?” Guild Girl rested her chin on her knees, her question teasing. That’s right: a dragon. A red dragon. A creature every aspiring adventurer dreamed of at least once in their lives. Even the man they called Goblin Slayer must have known about dragons.

“We didn’t ‘beat’ it,” he said brusquely, a response that both annoyed her and yet brought a smile to her face. “We simply put it to sleep and escaped.”

“I know, I know. You just put it to sleep. And?”

“I believe I made a full report.”

“Oh, come on,” Guild Girl said, pouting. “We’re on a little break, here.”

“Hmm…” He sat down where he was, though Guild Girl doubted it was because she had told him to. The fact that he still never let his hands stray too far from his weapons and shield—was that the way adventurers worked or simply the way
he
worked?

It must have been a common sight on adventures, him like this—even sitting down. Guild Girl considered the chance to see him this way to be a perk of this assignment.

“So?” she said with a giggle. She thought she might be able to bring the two conversations together. “What were the hunting methods your older sister taught you?”

“To be precise, they came from our father,” he said. “How to throw a spear, for instance. There’s a trick involving a string that’s surprisingly—”

It was a small conversation. An unimportant exchange. But that was what made her happiest of all.

Now
, she thought,
the next question is…

…how to find an excuse to bring out the packed lunches in her bag.

§

“…And that’s pretty much the gist of what they’re saying.”

“Gods, you and those ears are dangerous.”

“Nothing I can do about it. Not my fault elves have long ears!”

“Yeah, sure…”

Several areas away, Dwarf Shaman was pulling up paving stones and frowning. He wanted to tease the archer about whether she wasn’t too old to be making excuses like that, but unfortunately for him, the high elves considered two thousand years to be still rather young.

“So what kind of trap are you setting?” High Elf Archer asked.

“Oh, just a simple device.” On the underside of the stone, he’d wedged a classic dwarven trap: a small bit of wood wound with string. When he turned the stone right side up again, it sat almost flush with the wall, where there were two holes at the perfect height.

“Say, Scaly. How’s it going on your side?”

“I have the string quite taut!”

Only when the voice came from beyond the wall did High Elf Archer realize Lizard Priest had worked his way around to the other side. It was such fun exploring these ruins—and not just these ones. She would never say so aloud (the dwarf would never let her hear the end of it), but elves didn’t know much about architecture.

So that’s why dwarves try to shave down stones and stand atop them
, she thought. Even if, she recalled, her elders in the forest had told her there was no point to it.

Truth be told, though, even she thought the ability to create a brand-new device like this on short order was genuinely impressive. “What exactly does it do?” she asked.

“Stand here and look in the hole,” Dwarf Shaman instructed, moving over for her. “But not too close.”

“What, here? Wonder if there’s some treasure in it…”

It really looked like there might be something on the other side of the wall—but, well…

High Elf Archer hopped onto the paving stone and crouched down so she was about human height.

…?

She blinked her pretty eyes. All she could see on the other side was the same rotten dungeon, nothing very treasure-y at all. “I don’t see anything.”

“Bah…,” Dwarf Shaman said, annoyed. He let out a sigh. “You’ve gotta step on the floor.
Step
on it.”

With a flick of her ears and a little shout, High Elf Archer gave the floor a good kick. There was a clattering sound, and a wooden stick popped out of the hole. The archer jumped backward out of the way with a grace only a high elf could muster, then frowned. “Geez, that’s underhanded. This is why no one likes dwarves…”

“Get distracted by the chance of treasure and you’re taking a risk.” Dwarf Shaman grinned nastily and stroked his beard as High Elf Archer tapped on the wooden pole. It was blunt and moved slowly enough that it wasn’t too dangerous, but if it were a spike or a sword, it could be a real threat.

“Think we need it to be a mite more responsive,” Dwarf Shaman went on. “Too gentle and they won’t learn their lesson.”

“Yeah, too gentle for a
dwarf
!”

“And it’s that all-mist diet that makes you such an anvil.”

How rude!
The elf put her ears back and offered a few choice (but still remarkably elegant) words. Indeed, to those untutored in the elvish language, it might have sounded like a song, but her sister or brother-in-law would have blushed to hear her.

Dwarf Shaman, though, shrugged off this stream of un-elvish-princess-like language. He replied with a short burst of dwarvish, figuring she wouldn’t understand, but he was rewarded with a howl from the archer.

“It seems it’s working quite well,” Lizard Priest offered, breaking into the characteristic quarrel. He came back from the area on the other side of the wall, where his thick fingers and claws had been helping to set the trap. High Elf Archer was frankly impressed that he’d managed such fine motions with those hands. “Well,” he said, “I’m not so
very
good at it.” He must have noticed her looking at him. He rolled his eyes and bared his fangs in a smile. “War games in my jungle always involve a simple trap or two. This idea, as well, came from Milord Goblin Slayer?”

“Nah. The man’s only interested in traps like goblins might set.” Dwarf Shaman then proclaimed, “
This one was mine
,” gently tapping his belly. “Goblins or no goblins, I admit this feels like the sorta thing a troll in a tunnel might come up with, though.”

High Elf Archer giggled. Just when he thought she was going to make another crack about the underhandedness of it, she said earnestly, “That’s true. It’s more fun leaving tricks all around the dungeon anyway.” She lamented that Orcbolg paid no mind to such things. It was hard to blame him; goblins could use simple traps if they were taught, but otherwise they wouldn’t. That eccentric adventurer had a good deal of knowledge; he just used it in strange ways. Thankfully, he seemed to realize it…

Or does that make it worse?

Any man who relied on that knowledge to insist he was right about everything would have been chased out of his party long ago.

The two men present at the moment watched the giggling elf doubtfully, but she fluttered a hand at them. “It’s nothing. So, uh, is that it?”

“Hardly. There’s some visitor coming from the capital to inspect our work,” Dwarf Shaman said, remembering what Priestess had told him that morning. To an elf, it must have been hardly an eyeblink ago.

No… Come to think of it, she was asleep then, wasn’t she?
He glared at her from under his bushy eyebrows. “…So behave yerself.”

“Look who’s talking. It won’t be a problem for me; I’m not a
dwarf
.”

“You elves were the ones who threw our royal family in prison!”

“Yeah, for being rude
dwarves
.” High Elf Archer ignored an angry retort from Dwarf Shaman, instead sniffing the air like a cat. “Anyway, I wonder what kind of ruins these are,” she added.

“I must say, I can’t imagine,” Lizard Priest said, brushing the wall gently with his scaled hand. A bit of the stone came away, weakened by sheer age. Perhaps something had been painted on the wall once, but whatever it had been was no longer discernible. “I don’t believe this was any kind of fortress…”

“You want my opinion—it wasn’t a temple, neither.” Dwarf Shaman took a swig of wine, then picked up a pinch of the debris from the wall and studied it. Even in the hands of a dwarf, accustomed to handling stone, the debris scattered into dust at his touch. “Looks like it was constructed in a hurry—but, well, old battlefields are rife around these parts.”

“That just means we don’t know
any
thing about it!”

“I think we know it doesn’t date from the Age of the Gods.” Dwarf Shaman’s tone remained serious despite High Elf Archer’s interjection. He hated to say anything untrue in his professional capacity.

“Huh… From the Age of Magic, then?”

“Maybe.”

After the battles of the gods and before the days of the adventurers was an era known as the Age of Magic. It referred to a time when the gods, seeing the pleasure of adventuring, withdrew from the Four-Cornered World and set themselves up at the table of the stars. Terrible spells flew every which way, magic overwrote all worldly logic, and the entire board was thrown asunder.

The land was exhausted with the battles of great wizards who wielded even greater spells. Even the gods themselves couldn’t stop their games of cards. After all, once they had determined to respect people’s free will, they could no longer control that which was done freely.

The Age of Magic came to an end when the wizards eventually left—became planeswalkers and departed the Four-Cornered World one by one. It was the long—yet short—twilight before adventuring began. A winter age when all those who were not wizards struggled to survive.

Perhaps the oldest dragons and the elves who had endured the Age of the Gods remembered…

“But it was way, way before I was born. It’s a mystery… A real enigma.”

“I’ll bet you can remember the day you were born.”

“Oh, hardly.”
Hmph
, High Elf Archer sniffed.

The sound amused Lizard Priest, who bared his fangs. “If I myself had been alive at the time, perhaps I would have been one of those great wizards.”

“Then you would have been trying to leave the board instead of becoming a naga.”

“Oh, by no means. That is merely one more step on the path to becoming a great naga.” To become a planeswalker was, after all, to effectively have an eternity until one’s life wasted away. “And even as a great wizard, I think I would eventually have encountered you, Milady Ranger.”

“A great wizard who loves cheese, right?” High Elf Archer smirked, imagining a wizard playing his cards to produce cheese. Then, however, her long ears twitched.

“S-sorry…!” There came a tapping: footsteps and hard breathing. Two of each.

“You’re finally here,” High Elf Archer said.

“Nice,” Dwarf Shaman said, scowling at her. “Already made your first rude comment.”

“Nothing rude about that.”

When the figures coming from the distant entrance became clear, High Elf Archer blinked. For she saw an outfit she recognized and a face she recognized—but she saw two of each.

Hmm… But maybe one of them walks a little heavier than the other?

Ah, no. That was it: When she remembered, her lips curved up soundlessly, and her cheeks softened into a smile. The girl they’d rescued from the Dungeon of the Dead had become a fine priestess and was here on her own two feet.

“I owe you so much for that!” were the first words out of the girl’s mouth as she bowed to them, smiling brightly. “Please allow me to,
ahem
, observe, uh, everything on this occasion!”

“I think we’re just setting up traps… Uh, right?” Priestess asked, clearly wanting to make sure she had all her ducks in a row.

High Elf Archer’s ears stood up. “That’s right. Maybe our guest could start by inspecting that hole over there.”

“This one here?”