Goblin Slayer

Even goblins, though—even puppet goblins—weren’t going to be hit by attacks like that. They simply jumped out of the way,
sproing, sproing
, the girl’s face getting grimmer and grimmer. Starting to get frustrated, she swung harder, the blade smacking into the rock with a
shiing
; she could feel the vibrations in her hands.

“You little…!!”
Properly angry now, she charged at them, thrusting with her sword. It was a poor stab. Yet, even so, the girl’s long legs and arms, combined with the long sword, managed to bridge the gap between her and the enemy. The goblin was planning to hop backward again, but instead, the blade tore into his neck.

“Oh…!” The girl’s previously flat look turned into one of happiness. She was sure that the squelching feel of goop collapsing under her blade meant the end of that enemy.

In that instant, she was focused only on the goblin in front of her. Naturally, she wasn’t preparing for another attack.

“Wah—hrpf?!”

She found her vision going dark. Her mind went blank. Nothingness. She stopped moving, of course. She couldn’t do anything at all.

She felt a weight on her back,
thump
, and was driven to the ground. She landed on her chest, a shout escaping her lips. She couldn’t breathe. So heavy. Suffocating.

“GOROOOGOBB!!”

A goblin…?!

She realized belatedly that one of them had jumped on her from behind, pulling down her leather cap. She felt the damp floor. The goop that had once been a goblin sprayed up, spattering her face, making her clothing filthy. She hated that—even though she’d already fallen and dirtied herself once.

“Oh, ohh… Hrrr… Ohhh…!!”

The sounds the girl made were hardly real screams; they were something more like a sobbing child. She shook her head hard and flailed her body, trying desperately to throw off the weight on her back.

It hadn’t been her plan to slam into the wall—just sheer luck.

“GROBG?!”

“Ah…!”

She heard the monster yell and felt his grip loosen; she immediately scrambled away. She didn’t have one second to think about it. She was struggling for breath, but fighting was more important than breathing right now.

She straightened her cap, but her vision was still dim. Her lantern must have gone out. She reached out blindly, and by good fortune, her scrabbling fingers found the sword she’d dropped when she fell.

“Yah…! You little…! Stinking!!”

Holding the sword in a reverse grip, the girl lashed out with all the subtlety of a hammer. One stab didn’t do it; the creature didn’t go down, so she stabbed twice, then three times, and finally let the sword drop.

“Phew… Hoo… Hrnn… Hngh!”

It would take time for it to disappear, and anyway, it wasn’t likely to move again after the thrashing she’d given it. The girl tried to steady her breathing, her small chest heaving up and down, and then she pulled the stopper out of her waterskin. She drank noisily (must mind her supply!) and finally let out a breath.

Then she had a chance to relight the lantern, extinguished during the fighting. Thank goodness it wasn’t broken.

“Huh?!”

Blinking in the renewed illumination, the girl realized there was something wrong with the small bag at her hip.

The mouth is open…!

She felt cold all over, as if the blood had drained from every part of her body at once. She grabbed the bag and turned it upside down over her palm. Nothing came out.

“No way…! But how?!” She scrambled around on all fours, scratching in the dirt, almost in tears. She’d worked so hard to collect those stones, and now they were all simply gone. It wasn’t sadness that brought the tears to her eyes but agony and anger at how pathetic she was.

And yet, the fighting had taken place over a relatively small area. It was simple enough to spot the sparkling gems among the dull rocks of the ruins.

“Let’s see… The sapphire, the emerald…” One, two. She collected them in her hand and counted them, then put them carefully away. She rubbed her face with her sleeve, wiping off tears and sweat and goop and gore, and got her breathing under control again. “Just one more…I think.”

Where is it?
Had it rolled away into some dark corner? As the girl looked around, scanning the area, she noticed a narrow space near the wall. Just the kind of place a stray gem might have ended up.

“Maybe it’s here…”
Hrrm, huh.
Using every ounce of strength in her small body, the girl reached into the crevice…“Yikes!”…and then tumbled clear into it.

What she’d taken to be a crack or a seam in the wall had, apparently, been a door.

Dumped unceremoniously into a dark hallway, the girl vehemently threw her cap on the ground.
It’s this heavy thing that makes me keep falling
, she thought. She snorted, disentangling herself from her backpack, then brought her lantern to bear. She saw something glimmer in the wavering light. “There it is!”

A tiny shard of diamond glittered near the wall. She trotted over and picked it up, then put it carefully in her bag. This time she closed it extra tightly so the stones wouldn’t escape again. Now she was okay. She had them all back. She hadn’t dropped anything else, nor had she forgotten anything.

“Oh, uh, my sword…!” She quickly gathered up the sword she’d tossed on the ground in her rush to get the diamond and awkwardly slid it back into its scabbard.

That’s everything. Now I’m
really
ready.

“Okay… Let’s go!” She clenched her fist, checked to make sure the scabbard was secure at her side, and tugged the bag full of gemstones shut one more time. When she set off down the hallway, it was with careful steps—but courageous ones. Wherever she’d been meaning to go, she was all turned around now.

Behind her, the door in the wall closed without a sound.

§

“Ahhhhh…?!”

A group of young people were beating feet, all but throwing aside their swords, shields, and other possessions. From behind them came the clacking footsteps of a walking, armed skeleton warrior.

The young people had managed to make it past the goblins, but here their courage seemed to have finally failed them. Demonstrating what it meant to run headlong, they sprinted down the hallways, running, running. They, of course, didn’t notice Guild Girl watching them from one end of the hall, smiling to herself…

“Heek?!” A young woman who looked like a servant of the Valkyrie gave a cry that made her sound much younger than she was when she saw the living suit of armor standing beside Guild Girl. The young woman went scrambling in what could only be called an unladylike manner, almost stumbling over herself in her haste to escape.

“You can polish it to a shine, but you do still startle people.” Guild Girl watched the shouting girl, the armor padding around her butt clearly evident, flee the scene, and sighed wistfully. “At least I think you looked rather heroic in the sunlight outside.”

“Nothing we can do about it,” Goblin Slayer said, unbothered. “I can’t wear perfume like you.”

“Goodness…” Guild Girl’s eyes widened. Then she realized that of course he would notice such a thing, and her face softened into a smile.
You have to be sensitive to smells in a cave
, she thought. She was grateful that the ruins were dark and that the orange light of the torch hid the flush in her cheeks.

Guided by Goblin Slayer, with his shield secured to his left arm and a torch in his hand, Guild Girl went deeper into the maze. At the head of their group clacked the Dragontooth Warrior, returning to its original position. The way it looked somehow downhearted despite having fulfilled its job—was that because of the small spark of spirit still left in it, or was it the work of the spell user?

“You said you wanted something other than goblins, so I had this Dragontooth Warrior made up…”

“I guess maybe it is a little much.”

“Yes: Goblins are living things, but skeleton warriors are not.” Surprise and then fear would be the first things people would experience; convinced they could never defeat the thing, they would flee.

It would be easy to ridicule such behavior as foolish or cowardly, even if it was genuinely the right thing to do. It would also be all too simple to praise such actions as evidence of intelligent thinking or maturity. One who lived could always fight another day—but an adventurer who never took any risks would never learn or grow.

This fact seemed self-evident. What was more, goblins were the weakest monsters in the Four-Cornered World. Any warrior should be able to kill them. A scout could sneak past them, and a spell user could use their intellect to prevail. In other words, simply besting some goblins left something to be desired as an adventurer. Even for the man who walked beside her, who had made his Silver rank on hunting these creatures.

Or perhaps that was exactly what made him the adventurer he was. Anyway, if these kids were going to turn tail and run just because they’d seen a skeleton or a suit of armor…

“Well, this is our very first time doing this,” came a voice. “Whatever the truth be, we wouldn’t want people thinking we were too harsh.” A long head emerged from one of the inner chambers—what would those young adventurer hopefuls think if they saw Lizard Priest? Guild Girl smiled at the thought and bowed to him.

“Nice work on that skeleton. How are you doing?”

“Tolerably.” Lizard Priest rolled his eyes in his head, then looked up at the ceiling as if in thought. “Some of them judge that they have, say, a one-in-six chance of victory and do take the challenge, so I am hardly disappointed.”

“If this leaves them thinking they don’t have the chops, though, that would be a problem in itself…”

“Some sifting is necessary. If this is enough to break their nerve, then better they run from us than from something worse.”

What a very lizardman-like perspective. They prized survival above all else, and while they didn’t hesitate to retreat, it was never a sign of cowardice. Withdrawal in hopes that you might conserve your life for some higher purpose was a very different thing from simply running with your tail between your legs.

But still…
Guild Girl was human, and most humans had never met a lizardman. She couldn’t follow everything he thought, and anyway, she couldn’t help thinking what a problem it would be if they never got another novice.

“Having said that, youth needs more than fear and trembling to cultivate it.”

Thus, she wasn’t surprised by the next words to emerge from those great jaws. Guild Girl certainly agreed with him—but Goblin Slayer said, “Is that so?” and shook his helmeted head.

“‘There are diamonds among the dirt,’ they say,” Guild Girl replied, nodding. Sometimes the severe noble upbringing she’d had from her mother and father when she was young turned out to be useful. She’d completely ignored that proverb when she was first told about it, but now… “If you whittle down their number too much, the number of diamonds will go down, too. Although strangely, a lot of people seem to think the number of diamonds can only go up…”

“Yes, even so. Crack an egg too early and all you get is a yolk. The shell should only be broken at birth.” Each may be best for a different kind of military service, after all. After adding this in a whisper, Lizard Priest went on: “The elves, I am told, say that those who trim the buds of the tree to help it grow are fools.”

“That makes sense.” Goblin Slayer nodded. It was a very elf-ish thing to say, given how they regarded each branch as being as precious as a bone of their own bodies. “Perhaps I should think about this as well?” He grunted softly, then crossed his arms in thought. Not that they could see his expression behind his visor. “I think my teacher might have been considered somewhat severe by society’s standards.”

“Ah, each has their own way of doing things. Milord Goblin Slayer, you seem to be doing quite well. There is no need for you to change.”

“Is that so?”

“I should say.” Lizard Priest stretched out his neck pointedly, then looked into the chamber.

Oh, for goodness’ sake…
Guild Girl sighed hopelessly. There was no question she had a few things to say about Goblin Slayer’s teaching methods, but still…

“Um, I’m done tending to these people. Who is next…?”

“Hmm. That one over there, I believe. It seems he’s hit his head…”

“Stay still, please. There you go; it’ll be all right.”

When Guild Girl saw Priestess zipping around at the instructions of a bald-pated monk, all her complaints vanished. They were at a sort of first-aid station for those who had been hurt or had become unable to move during the competition. They were laid out on fur blankets or seated carefully, Priestess moving among them, helping where she could. She was well trained. She worked hard—whatever she herself might think. She was like a different person from that day when she’d stood nervously in front of the reception desk.

Guild Girl kept those feelings in her heart as she called out, “Excellent work!” sounding bright as ever. “How’s it going over here?”

“Good—nobody seems in any danger of dying, so I think we’re okay!” All right, so maybe it wasn’t
great
that she could say something like that with a big smile on her face. Without quite meaning to, Guild Girl stole a glance at the helmeted head beside her.

“Um, this person, they bumped their head on the ceiling trying to squeeze in somewhere a little too tight…”

“And this one couldn’t see his feet because of the helmet he was wearing!” The monk chuckled. “He slipped and hurt his back.” He firmly applied a bandage to a young man lying nearby. The boy thrashed and opened his mouth in a voiceless scream, but even so, it was clear that his injuries weren’t that severe. The monk laughed again: “Ha-ha—this here, it hardly counts as a wound. Not even any internal injuries.”

“That’s good,” Guild Girl said with a smile. She hoped the boy wouldn’t be so traumatized by this experience that he didn’t try adventuring again. But still—had there been any spaces tight enough for someone to bump their head…?

“…Hrm.” Goblin Slayer, meanwhile, gave a low grunt. He fired off a volley of questions at Lizard Priest, then turned toward those recuperating at the first-aid station.

“Are you looking for someone?” Priestess asked, trotting up and looking like a little bird.

“No,” Goblin Slayer said and shook his head. “Things seem to be in good hands here.”

“Hee-hee,” Guild Girl chuckled, smiling to herself. Priestess didn’t quite seem to catch the import of Goblin Slayer’s words, but Guild Girl thought she did.

This was a good thing.

People who had messed up, people who had been injured, people with good prospects. There were so many of them here. She hoped things went well. Everything. All of it. For him, too. Yes, all of it…

“Huh?”
Suddenly, there came a very displeased voice. Guild Girl looked over to see an ax-wielding warrior scratching his head beside a thoroughly exasperated warlock. She recognized him as the leader of one of the parties that was helping out behind the scenes. “I’m sorry, Miss Receptionist,” the axman said, “but I think we might have a problem on our hands.”

“…Again?”

“‘Again’?”

“I’m sorry—it’s nothing.” Guild Girl waved the comment away and fixed the smile on her face, wishing she could wave away those unpleasant memories of the past as easily.

She couldn’t simply forget all the trouble at the harvest festival.
Not that it was their fault, of course…
But it had been a problem, all right. No question.

She gave the warrior a serious look and asked, “What’s happened?”

“Our scout found something unusual.”

“Unusual?”

“Yeah.” The man nodded; his next words escaped him in a sort of groan: “A goblin corpse.”

An almost mechanical voice demanded: “Where?”

§

“Here.”

The hurried scraping of metal equipment through the halls was greeted by an elf woman standing in a corner of the maze. She melded with the darkness, virtually invisible even in the flickering torchlight. Goblin Slayer, walking at the head of the column of adventurers, was silent for a moment, then nodded. “You?” he asked.

Hoh. The elf scout, redolent with the odors of face powder and perfume, widened her eyes, but then her lips softened toward a smile. “Better believe it.” A red tongue formed the words in the darkness of her mouth. “I was the one who found it.”

Just as she’d said, there was a goblin corpse resting in a pool of blood at her feet. Goblin Slayer squatted beside it without a word; Priestess quickly held up a torch for him. Goblin Slayer searched through his bag, produced a dagger that looked like a cat’s claw, and began an impromptu dissection.

“It looks like it’s been stabbed, repeatedly…,” Priestess said hesitantly.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead,” Goblin Slayer replied, shaking his head. “Rookies do that sometimes. Miss the vital points.”

In other words, one of the participants in the competition fought with the goblin…

That didn’t specifically seem like so much of a problem, but Priestess put a finger to her lips and pondered. Something was off. Something didn’t feel right; the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up.

“…So there’s a dead goblin; so what? Nothing unusual about that.” The axman was trying hard not to look at the ongoing autopsy; he appeared a bit queasy. “We summoned them to be enemies in here, after all.”

How thoroughly uncomprehending. The warlock woman sighed as if she wished for nothing more than to go straight home. “They aren’t summoned. I’m
making
them.”

“Same difference.”

“It’s
completely
different!”

It really was different. Warlock added angrily that she’d explained this already, but it seemed to go clear over Axman’s head.

He had at least this much in common with Goblin Slayer: Neither of them was deeply interested in the mechanics of spells. Goblin Slayer stood up, his dissection finished, and promptly asked the warlock what he felt to be the most important question: “Do they leave corpses?”

“In a sense, yeah.” She held out her hand; Goblin Slayer passed her the cat’s claw. Warlock took the surgical knife with an experienced air and plunged it into a spreading pool of goo on the floor near them. She stirred the bubbling stuff for a moment, then, finally finding what she was looking for, withdrew the blade. Impaled on the end was a small, grimy, mostly dissolved tooth.

“This is the corpse. The goblin tooth I used for a catalyst—not enough left to do anything with it now.”

“So you’re saying…”

Ah, that’s right. The feeling that something was off wasn’t so trivial after all.

They
did
leave corpses. This goblin’s body, and this one alone. Meaning it had been real…

“Goblins,” Goblin Slayer grunted quietly. The softness of his voice, and the visor between it and the world, made it hard to hear what he said next. But those who had been with him a long time, who had spoken with him often, knew. He spat venomously: “The little bastards.”

Priestess and Guild Girl looked at each other, agape. He so rarely cursed.

Guild Girl decided to try putting business first, although her voice squeaked as she spoke. “Does that mean goblins got in here somehow?” She glanced in the direction of the polished helmet, trying to grasp the situation.

“Wouldn’t say so,” the elf woman interjected, her lips forming a smile. She stretched in a way that made her resemble a great cat, then tapped on the walls of the ruins. “Not somehow.
This
is how.”

There was a
clack
, and a hidden door opened. There was only darkness beyond, stretching into the distance; they were hit with a gust of cold wind. Subterranean air that had been trapped there for centuries, even millennia, came to them. The odor was absolutely, completely new to Guild Girl.

“Can’t believe you actually found that,” Warlock said.

“Ha, that’s a scout at work,” the elf said, smirking. “Dwarves aren’t the only ones who can find things underground.”

“…Yeah, great.” Guild Girl sympathized with the annoyance in Warlock’s tone—in fact, it was more than that. It was like the floor was falling out from underneath her—so this was what it meant to feel your blood run cold.

This is very, very bad.

They were looking into an uncharted part of the ruins. This meant failure to sufficiently investigate prior to the event. Dereliction of duty resulting in risk. Responsibility. What if someone had gotten hurt already? Her head started to spin, but Guild Girl slapped her cheeks and shook her head, knowing it would do no good to get swept away.

Now wasn’t the time.

What should they do? That was what she had to think about. They had to deal with the most important things, the most critical things, first, and they had to do it quickly. Questions of responsibility could come later. They could investigate later. Do whatever they wanted to her later.

But right now, I have to deal with this!

The dungeon exploration contest had been, it was said, first proposed by a villainous governor, with death an assumption. It wasn’t simply the cruel whim of a nobleman. It had been a genuine competition, staged yearly and enjoyed by both the adventurers and the people. But this was different. This was just a game. People might get hurt, but no one was supposed to die. As long as there were no real monsters involved…

Goblins were the weakest monsters. Yes, they were the weakest
monsters
. Anyone who was too wary of them, anyone who recoiled at the sight of them, was hardly cut out to be an adventurer. Adventurers had to deal with gigantic slimes, demons, trolls, and sometimes even dragons.

But weak or not, goblins were still monsters. For someone who was not an adventurer, not a soldier, to suddenly be told, “Okay, go kill a goblin!” was asking quite a lot. If it were that easy, one would have to wonder why adventurers existed, why the Adventurers Guild existed.

Maybe…we have to stop the event…

She would rush a message to Inspector, who was overseeing the entrance at that moment. Tell her to hold the participants who hadn’t yet entered the dungeon. Then the adventurers in here would be sent to find the remaining participants and escort them safely out. Then, of course, they would have to sweep the ruins again and hunt down the goblins…

That would be the best solution. Guild Girl started doing some calculations in her mind. They had a whole troop of experienced adventurers on hand, from Axman to Heavy Warrior and his party. Whatever waited for them beyond this door, they would be able to handle it. But the first thing to do—the first thing was…

“No.” Guild Girl’s thoughts were interrupted by a single, sharp word. “We will continue the dungeon exploration contest.” The speaker was brusque, decisive, and so brief as to be almost cold.

“Wha…?” Guild Girl looked up suddenly, causing her braid to bob. In front of her, she saw Goblin Slayer gazing straight down the dark hallway.

“We can’t let the participants know. But we do need to ensure things end safely.” He grunted softly, then said as if it were no big deal, “We can’t spare anyone to explore. I’ll go myself.”

“Are you quite certain that’s a good idea?” Lizard Priest asked, almost sounding pleased.

“Of course,” Goblin Slayer replied. “It’s an excellent idea.”

Well!
It was the first time Priestess had ever heard him speak this way, or even Guild Girl, who had known him longer than Priestess had. Maybe even Cow Girl, his old friend, had never heard him quite like this.

It was absurd. Illogical, dangerous, utterly uncertain, a choice this man ought never to have made. A Silver-ranked adventurer like him should have understood that perfectly well.

Which meant, in other words, that at this moment…

“You think I’m going to let those goblins do what they want?”

…he was being selfish.

“
…” Guild Girl took a deep breath of the dusty air and slowly let it out.
Guess there’s nothing to do about it, then
, she thought.

Mixing professional and personal lives. Dereliction of duty resulting in risk. Questions of responsibility. The words danced through her head, but she swept them all away.

They would do something about it.

She
would do something about it.

If this person was willing to go so far for her, then she knew what she had to do. “All right, let’s go with that, then!” She smiled and spoke before any of the other adventurers could say anything. She said it with a clap of her hands, light but decisive, as if suggesting they should all break for tea.

The person in charge had made a decision. She was acting. She was giving instructions. That was all it took to dispel the spreading unease among the adventurers.

“The first thing is obviously that we have to get word to the people outside as well as the other facilitators to let them know what’s going on.”

Lizard Priest was quick to speak up: “I suggest we may wish to prepare to do more first aid.” Thankfully, he seemed quick to grasp Guild Girl’s thinking. It was charming, the way he sometimes looked at the ceiling as if lost in thought. And she was nothing but thankful for the accompaniment of the Dragontooth Warrior.

“It’d be bad news if there turned out to be any other hidden doors that went deeper into the maze,” Axman said, tapping on various places in the wall.

“Let’s put up a rope to indicate the correct path,” Guild Girl added.

“If they go off the path, that’s their own fault,” Warlock said as her companion continued checking the wall. “They have no one to blame but themselves.”

“Unfortunately, civil servants can’t fall back on that kind of excuse,” Guild Girl commented with a slight smile.

“What a pain,” Warlock grumbled under her breath. Nonetheless, when the elf scout and the rest pulled out some rope and started marking off the hallway, Warlock helped them, for which Guild Girl was grateful.

The point is, we have to do what we can, and we have to do it quickly.
That was best. Great ideas that came too late were no help at all. Which meant next came…

“The quest,” Guild Girl said; she nodded, coughed, and then stood in front of one of the adventurers. He was staring fixedly down the hidden hallway; his helmet turned slowly to look at her. Of course she couldn’t see his eyes, concealed behind his visor. But Guild Girl looked straight into them anyway. “All right, Goblin Slayer, sir. I’m asking you, as a formal quest, to investigate this hallway and slay any goblins.”

“Yes.”

“Further, if there are any participants lost in there, I want you to rescue them!”

“Understood.”

Each time, he answered almost as soon as she had spoken.

She’d had many conversations like this with him since he’d registered with the Adventurers Guild. Somehow it made her happy, and despite the circumstances, she found herself starting to smile.

No, no—control yourself.

“Let’s see, that just leaves…the reward, right? We’ll calculate the exact amount later, but, um…”

Payment in advance. Payment in advance. I’ll have to pay in advance. Support for necessary expenses. Let’s go with that.

Guild Girl searched in a pouch tied at her hip containing various items she’d thought might be necessary. Her fingers brushed perfume, potion bottles, and her ribbon, and she began blushing as she struggled to find what she was looking for.
Oh, for…!
Finally, she pulled the pouch clean off her hip and simply handed the entire thing to Goblin Slayer. “Take this, please! Think of it as a down payment!”

“…” Goblin Slayer didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know how much help it’ll be to you, but…!” Guild Girl added, trying to cover for herself. It was a bit like when a princess offers a knight some personal effect of hers to keep him safe as he sets off on a journey—well, okay, it was nothing as elegant as that. Besides, Guild Girl certainly didn’t intend it that way. The moment the idea flitted through her head, though…

She couldn’t have him misunderstanding. She couldn’t have him getting any weird ideas. This was a purely professional matter. But she
did
want him to come back safely. And she wanted him to trust her to handle things here. He had the good grace to count on her, and she wanted him to see that she could be counted on.

She choked back those feelings, though, buried them deep in her heart, and with a sort of
splish
, they disappeared.

When he said, “All right,” her heart skipped a beat, and she let out a breath of relief. “That will help.” He took the belt and the pouch, tried it on a couple of times, then finally simply slung it over his shoulder. Relieved by his businesslike demeanor, Guild Girl reached out and helped make sure the belt was secure.

“Um…” This single small sound came from Priestess as the other adventurers started getting into high gear. “Are you going to be all right alone…?” She understood the logic behind his decision—no, the feeling. Maybe it was precisely that understanding that compelled her to ask.

She was used to working separately. She could make it on her own. She’d been promoted exactly because she’d demonstrated as much. But being used to it, being capable of it, didn’t mean it wasn’t nerve-racking.

She’s lucky
, Guild Girl thought, noticing a prickle in her heart. She was envious of how this girl could ask that so directly. It wasn’t something she herself could do.

“I once…,” he started, but then he shook his head and said, “No… Never mind. I never told you, did I?”

“
?” Priestess was perplexed.

He offered a brief word of thanks to Guild Girl, refastening the belt around his shoulder. Then he made sure the sword of a strange length was ready at his hip and his little round shield cinched on his arm. Once he was satisfied with the state of his equipment, he nodded, then plunged a hand into the innards of the torn-up goblin. Without a moment’s hesitation, he smeared the dark gore all over his cheap-looking helmet and leather armor.

“Doesn’t matter if there are a hundred of them. In a cave, I will be victorious.” The slayer of goblins sounded downright nonchalant, his voice rasping like a rusty door from deep in his throat. “I will kill all the goblins.”