Goblin Slayer

The air was damp and heavy, the hallways confusing, the stones slick with moss and moisture, and the smell fetid.

Terrible though it was to say, he was more accustomed to this than to any other situation; in this environment, he knew what to do, and he did it. At this moment, he crouched low and moved through the ruins without a sound, without hesitation, and without stopping even when he sensed a presence ahead.

Instead of taking his sword into his hand, he produced a single length of string from a chink in his armor.

“GOOROGGBB…B, B?!”

He came up from behind the goblin—who never noticed him, though no one would pity the creature for it—and strangled him in one swift move. He pulled the string tight, twisting it, pulling the goblin’s body upward as if heaving it onto his shoulder. With a human target, such a move was just for show, but with a goblin, the target’s own body weight made strangulation more efficient. Moreover, his goal wasn’t suffocation, but to crush the creature’s windpipe, robbing it of consciousness. That was even quicker.

When it came to physical size and strength, the average human was as far from the average goblin as the sky was from the earth. Resistance would be futile.

After a moment, he felt the goblin go limp; he continued to hold it for several more seconds, making sure it was no longer breathing.

Goblin Slayer knew many ways to kill goblins without making a sound.

“…Hrmph.”

Thus, the real problem for him was information. Goblin heads tended to contain very little of it. Goblin stomachs, on the other hand…

He laid the goblin down in the dim maze and began to dissect the corpse. This was why he’d crushed the creature’s windpipe: It would be easier to examine what came out when the corpse voided itself. He grabbed the dagger from the goblin’s loincloth and used it to stir through the stuff.

There was plenty of it. This creature had been well fed. But he didn’t see any hair or teeth.

A goblin getting proper nutrition?
He thought back, briefly, to the mage who had taught him about these things. About how the size of the horde related to the size of the goblin. This goblin, however, didn’t look so unusual. There was need for caution but not for worry.

“All right.” Goblin Slayer propped the creature’s corpse up against the wall as if it were merely sitting there. He would look like he’d fallen asleep on the job. It was an idea his elf companion had come up with at some point, and it was certainly an excellent ploy when one didn’t want to be noticed.

That’s right: Don’t be noticed and avoid wasteful spending of equipment.

Then, with one goblin disposed of, Goblin Slayer let out a breath. He didn’t know how many goblins there were and couldn’t guess the size of the nest, and he was alone. Just like always.

It was only after the thought crossed his mind that he realized it had been quite some time since that
always
had applied. As for whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he couldn’t begin to guess.

It was only when he told himself
I have to remain calm
that he realized he was agitated, and that was why he murmured it aloud: “I have to remain calm.” There was no one to hear him at the moment. Of course there wasn’t: He had decided to act alone.

Goblin Slayer blinked several times. No human could see in the dark without a torch—normally. But right now was different.

He dug through the bag over his shoulder, the one he was borrowing from Guild Girl. It wasn’t his bag, and he wasn’t exactly sure what was in it, but…

“Belladonna eye drops.”

He recognized the small bottle and what it was for.

He opened the visor of his helmet and, without removing the padded balaclava that left only his eyes exposed, put several droplets into each eye. After a moment, his vision began to get fuzzy, but the outlines of objects in the dark became more prominent. He suspected that if he were exposed to light in this state, it would be as crippling as being shut in the dark normally was.

The same mage had told him that goblin vision was different from that of humans. The way he was seeing now might not be exactly what the world looked like to a goblin, but it was a good thing to experience it.

“Now, then…” He replaced the eye drops in the bag (carefully, for he was only borrowing it) and set off once more down the hall. He saw what he thought were fresh footprints, but it was difficult to be sure with the stones soaked as they were.

Time was ever his enemy. So it was on every goblin hunt.

“GOORGB!”

“GGBG…! GOROGB!”

“GROGBBGB!!”

He stood still once more when he heard goblins jabbering faintly ahead of him. With his fuzzy vision, he could just make out a chamber in the dark beyond. And within, goblins. Yammering about some pointless thing or other, no doubt.

That’s fine.

It didn’t matter to him what exactly they were saying. Goblins had a language; they even had a culture of humor. But that didn’t help him. What mattered was that he didn’t hear any excitement among their yammering. He didn’t hear any people’s voices, any women.

He stilled his breathing. Hold your breath, and you gained a measure of control over your body’s most minuscule movements. He worked hard to be as silent as possible. Then he listened—and began breathing again once he had acquired enough information. The situation was simple.

Goblin Slayer promptly picked up a pebble at his feet and flung it straight ahead.

“GROGB…?”

“GOROOOBBG!”

The pebble went sailing over the group’s heads, attracting their attention when it landed.

Goblins were stupid. They could be dangerous in a group. If you could distract the group, though, you could control them.

In any event, they were interested in nothing except personal gain, making their own lives easier, and being more important than anybody else.

“………!”

Not waiting another instant, Goblin Slayer charged in. His dagger was already in his hand, making him faster than the goblins who scrambled to ready their weapons.

Two with swords, one archer!

“First…one!”

“GOROGB?!”

The goblin unfortunate enough to be closest to the entrance found himself torn open from shoulder to throat—and promptly expired. There was a whistling sound and a spray of blood as the creature collapsed. Goblin Slayer put a hand to the stone floor as he went past. Before a pool of blood could even form, he was making his next move.

“GORGB!!”

“GOG! GORGBB?!”

He rolled forward, passing under an arrow that hummed listlessly overhead. Goblins considered all enemies, except maybe rheas and dwarves, to be giants. They would naturally aim high.

The goblin in front berated the one behind for having missed his shot. How foolish of him.

“That’s—two!!”

“GOOROGGBB?!”

In a single fluid motion, Goblin Slayer came out of his roll and thrust his leg forward, kicking the goblin’s small body. As he stood up, he crushed its cervical vertebrae, at which point his dagger was already coming down.

“Three…!”

“GBBGRG?!”

The other goblin, fumbling for a second arrow, stumbled back with a sword in his forehead. Then he pitched backward, the bow and arrow tumbling out of his hands.

“
……” Goblin Slayer let out a long breath and quickly looked around. He had only one pair of eyes to see here now, only one pair of ears to hear. What he could take in, the precision he could have, was limited.

There were so many things to take care of, so many things to do, and he had few cards to play. Normally, he wouldn’t even have had to rely on Priestess’s Holy Light at a moment like this; he could have simply counted on High Elf Archer for backup as he forged ahead. Lizard Priest and himself together would have been unstoppable here. Dwarf Shaman and Priestess would have kept watch.

The battle was over, yes, but he was letting himself relax too much. No need to worry unduly about equipment. If push came to shove… No, no.

“My problem is thinking in terms of what’s normal,” Goblin Slayer muttered, reproaching himself, and then he searched the corpses at his feet for any useful possessions. All he found, though, was a sorry-looking dagger in one of their belts. He was used to using such things; it might not be much for a warrior, but he had no objections to it. And yet…

“……Hrm.”

It felt…off, somehow. He seemed to recall seeing an identical item not long before.

He stretched his fingers inside his leather gloves, then carefully inspected the dagger’s blade.

It’s the same?

It looked awfully like the weapon the first goblin he’d killed here had been using. The decorations and the condition of the blade didn’t matter that much. It was only natural with a mass-produced item—or was it? Could several items so completely identical really be produced? Items that matched each other down to the chips on the blade and the wearing on the leather-wrapped hilt?

“………I simply don’t know,” Goblin Slayer said softly, then put the dagger in the sheath at his own hip. It was strange, but he spent no more time worrying about it. Time was something he had too little of, like physical strength, like even the capacity to think. And unquestionably, there were many things to do, and the dungeon felt so large as to beggar the imagination.

“…Let’s go,” he said to no one in particular, and then Goblin Slayer, alone, set off into the dark.

§

“What? Goblin Slayer went solo?” Heavy Warrior asked, his voice concerned amid the chattering of the festive crowd.

People were swapping stories—those who had come crawling back from the dungeon, those who had somehow made it through. This was an auspicious day. A day of joy before the start of winter. Anyone would jump at a pleasant topic of conversation.

Among the bustling street stalls, though, Heavy Warrior, wearing civilian clothes with his sword at his side, was frowning.

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Inspector, the symbol of the Supreme God hanging around her neck.

“That’s what I was told anyway.” Standing beside her and nodding was Half-Elf Light Warrior, who’d been helping out inside the dungeon until a few minutes before. He’d agreed to come bring the message because Heavy Warrior was his party leader. He was wearing leather armor and carrying a rapier.

Adventurers might keep something on them in case of an emergency, but
that
weirdo was the only one who constantly walked around town in full armor.

Think I remember something about a “weird” nodding elf, though…
Heavy Warrior recalled an old adventuring tale he’d heard and fell silent.

“Anyway, we’ve got things covered inside. Maybe we could ask you to handle stuff out here?” Inspector said.

“Knowing
him
, I doubt things will get out of control too quickly,” the half-elf added.

“True enough.” Heavy Warrior nodded but continued frowning. He had no idea how far ahead that eccentric adventurer was actually thinking, but it wasn’t a bad choice that he’d made. If they got the helpers all excited, it would torpedo one of the most important objectives of this dungeon exploration contest. And all for goblins—nothing more than goblins.

An adventurer who couldn’t beat some goblins was no adventurer; and if some goblins sent them into a total panic, they were helpless anyway. The chattering masses, though, weren’t likely to be so understanding. The molehill would become a mountain; there would be criticisms, recriminations, arrogance.

And it’d all be a huge headache.

Back when he’d had his heart set on becoming king, he’d never even imagined such things.

“Ten or twenty goblins?” asked the woman beside him. “Not even a sideshow.” It was Female Knight, wearing a skirt (very unusual for her, given how uncomfortable she looked) and a smirk (less unusual).

Heavy Warrior glanced at his party member in her unfamiliar outfit and said only, “There might be a hundred.”

“Hr… Hrmm…” Female Knight’s fists clenched and unclenched rhythmically, as if she was eager at this moment to charge into the ruins and produce the proverbial mountain of corpses and rivers of blood. As if at any moment she might draw the sword that hung at her waist (and that looked deeply at odds with her dress).

With Heavy Warrior and Female Knight were a couple of young kids, a boy and a girl, clutching lunches procured from one of the stalls. They were evidently enjoying the festival and hadn’t yet entirely comprehended the changed situation.

Can’t blame ’em—I get that I’m overprotective.

Female Knight advocated being substantially harsher with the kids on the grounds that they never took responsibility for anything, but Heavy Warrior disagreed. When he thought back to his own younger days—well, what did he remember? His parents had never praised him, had hardly ever made him feel safe. So fine, he thought. Give the kids compliments, let their imaginations roam, let them move at their own pace. It was impossible to call childhood an overindulgence, no matter how long it lasted.

“I’ll take one of those,” Heavy Warrior said, plucking a skewer of cat meat from Druid Girl’s hand, provoking an “Oh!” of protest. He took a bite, then flipped a coin to an alcohol vendor walking by, grabbed a beer, and downed it in one gulp.

“I’ll make it up to you later. What I need now is some food in my belly and my gear. Keep your eyes open, kids.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it. This glutton bought plenty,” Scout Boy teased.

“I’m
not
a glutton!” Druid Girl exclaimed, her face going red. For a rhea, all the skewers she was holding amounted to little more than a snack. Looking at them from a purely human perspective was probably not quite fair.

Heavy Warrior spotted an opportunity in the kids’ bickering to snatch another skewer. He handed it to Female Knight, who complained, “The grease will get all over my dress,” but took it regardless, holding it in both hands and munching away. Next, he looked at Half-Elf Light Warrior, who shook his head and said, “I’m all right.”

“This isn’t the time to economize.”

“I tend not to eat much.”

“Explains why you’re such a beanpole,” Female Knight remarked. She licked the fat off her fingers, finished with the skewer almost as soon as she had begun. It was tough, laboring under a voracious appetite. But being able to take in nutrition quickly yet efficiently could be considered a skill for a warrior.

That’s what Heavy Warrior was thinking as he took a couple more bites of cat meat, but then he looked up. In the distance, on the far side of the crowd, he saw a flash of golden hair that he recognized.

“Huh? Hey!”

It was weird that she wasn’t in the dungeon—didn’t she usually follow that other guy around all the time? But the young woman wearing the vestments of a priestess of the Earth Mother didn’t so much as glance in his direction. She was chatting and laughing with some other adventurers, and in the blink of an eye, she had vanished once more into the crowd.

Did I get the wrong person?
She was normally more alert to her surroundings than that and certainly wouldn’t have completely ignored him. Besides, the woman’s body, her facial expressions—they were very similar to Priestess’s but not quite the same. Just simple mistaken identity. Probably.

“So what are we going to do?” the party’s accountant asked.

Heavy Warrior stroked his chin and continued to chew thoughtfully on the meat. “Mm, good question.” There were many things to weigh in the scales: duty, compassion, trust, the reward, and their lives. One had to look at the entire situation and think it through.

Well, if
he
of all people is going charging in after a bunch of goblins…

“Our place is here,” Heavy Warrior announced. “Our job is to protect the people out here.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“What, you think we should all go piling in there shouting and fighting in the same place?”

Admittedly, there was a certain logic to it. After all, the main battlefield got all the attention. And if you didn’t get the attention, then, well, no one would pay attention to you, and you would never earn a reputation. Standing out was how adventurers sold themselves. And yet…

“We’re not kids playing war, here.”

“Fair enough,” Half-Elf Light Warrior said with a shrug and a half smile. He seemed to have expected this answer.

You couldn’t have everyone in your party simply nodding and agreeing with everything you said. Even when making the simplest decisions, objections were crucial. Heavy Warrior had a high opinion not only of the Adventurers Guild in this town but of the nation that stood above it. He understood that here in the Four-Cornered World, the places you couldn’t see always seemed vaster than the ones you could. There were surprisingly few problems that could be solved simply by swinging a sword around.

On this occasion, no one had yet asked them to spring into action or even to come in as reinforcements, so their job was to hold the rear. He glanced at Inspector to see her nodding and looking somehow relieved.

This was the work the Adventurers Guild had given him. If he didn’t do it and do it well, it would reflect poorly on him as a Silver.

“The issue is the number of participants who may or may not have gone missing,” Female Knight said curtly. Even as she pulled the quarreling children apart with one hand, she was scanning the crowd. “If there’s very many of them, searching for them could be a chore—but if word gets out, there could be panic, and that would only make things harder.”

“…Agreed. How many is it?” Heavy Warrior asked, finishing off the last mouthful of meat and tossing the bones into a nearby bush. The dogs who had been brought along to clean up any leftovers would show up soon enough to get rid of them.

“What
is
the current count?” Half-Elf Light Warrior asked.

“Right now, it’s… Well, anyway, the number we’ve confirmed is…” Inspector leafed through a notebook. “One person. A girl with black hair.”

§

Of course, needless to say, for all that, not much had changed inside the dungeon.

“Eeeek! What’s going on here?!”

“Arrrgh! St-stop! Stop…please?!”

A beautiful elvish youngster—a lordling or a ladylet? (it was hard to say)—was being squeezed by some supple thing, a snake or a tongue or who knew what. Meanwhile, a young man had grabbed hold of a flying ax that, moving on its own, was now spinning him around by the handle. He felt like he might get his arms cut off, but, well, this was the dungeon exploration contest. Even if it struck his arms, he was unlikely to lose them—unlike that hero who had gone, enchanted sword in hand, to hunt the dead spirits. And the elf would be released before all their bones were broken, so there wouldn’t be any great tragedy.

In other words, the only ones who thought this situation was really and truly desperate were the victims themselves.

And so it went, the participants in the contest running around shouting and shrieking.

The facilitator watching over all of this, though, seemed less than pleased. “You there, you’re doing it wrong!”

“Heek!” The cry escaped a black-clothed adventurer who was suddenly collared by a slim arm that emerged from the darkness. They must have been a scout or the like. They were dressed all in black as if they thought they were a ninja or something—a ridiculous display. They had been creeping through the dungeon, sneaking up on a shadowed figure, and were just about to fling a bladed weapon concealed on the back of their hand.

She (judging by the pitch of the shout) was dragged bodily off the wrong path like a squalling cat.

“Listen, you, that’s another participant, isn’t it? Take a good look.”

“Oh…”

“And another thing—I know you were too busy aiming to think about anything else, but that’s no excuse for being off the marked path.”

“Er, uh, oh… I-it’s hard to make out what something is when it’s standing still…” The eyes that peered out from under the black cloth indeed glinted gold like a cat’s.

High Elf Archer looked at the girl, whose shoulders slumped dejectedly, and said, “Ah, fine,” with a laugh. “Here. Try not to lose it again, eh?” Then
shoop
, she tossed the girl a sliver of diamond, proof of advancement in the competition. The young woman must have dropped it in her excitement.

The ninja girl scrambled to catch it; High Elf Archer said, “Good,” and nodded. “You’ve got a long road ahead still. Try not to mistake any people for monsters and attack them, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am…” The girl looked even more despondent than before, but the high elf slapped her smartly on the back. The girl in black stiffened, and she took a few unsteady steps forward but then stopped and checked her items. A wooden tube that served as a canteen. Provisions wrapped in dried leaves. A bottle filled with ointment. The sliver of diamond.

She slumped, holding her belly pathetically—maybe she was hungry—but it lasted for only a second. Then the girl took a decisive step forward.

This was no more than a minor issue; they had run into quite a few others like it.

Shows they were right not to send a bunch of people to help with the search.
It was the only possible conclusion Priestess could draw based on the dribble of reports she heard as she scuttled about the aid station. They were having enough trouble just running the competition as it had been planned. If people knew there were goblins around, she could only imagine what would happen. It would be a tremendous job to get everyone out safely and calm them all down…

Even if they did, no doubt somebody would have the bright idea to go try to kill the goblins to make a name for themselves. Or someone would have some twisted impulse to spread some weird rumor to scare everyone else. The resulting commotion might even draw the goblins right to them.

Solo, though…

She wasn’t sure about that. Had he thought this through? Priestess just didn’t know. It was harder than one might think to separate logic and emotion. And while this was hardly her first time being in such a situation, she still wasn’t entirely used to it.

How many times was this since she’d met him? Maybe ten, at the very most—that was what she thought anyway. It was only a guess. Maybe it was more than that; she couldn’t be sure. The number of times that he, Goblin Slayer, had left her behind to hunt goblins alone was few indeed.

No, Priestess thought, shaking her head; she was being impossibly childish. It was she who had entered
his
life late. He had earned the nickname Goblin Slayer by confronting goblins on his own.

So—yes. What she found uncomfortable wasn’t that he was out there by himself.

It was being left alone. Waiting.

“…Mn.” When she thought about it that way, it certainly seemed like her own problem. Having reached this conclusion, Priestess stopped administering first aid for a moment to wipe the sweat off her brow. It would have been easier if she’d used miracles, but there was no reason to do so. Miracles were the work of the gods; you could beg for one, but it was no guarantee you would receive it.

Miracles were not granted as recompense for faith. They weren’t to be used simply to make your life easier. There would be no point to them that way.

Thus, Priestess wrapped bandages around bruises and considered that enough.

“Try not to move it too much. This is just first aid, after all.”

The whispered “Okay” she got in return came from a young man—maybe he’d left his hometown hoping to become an adventurer. He hadn’t fallen prey to the goblins or been caught in one of the traps. No, he’d simply slipped on a patch of damp moss.

Priestess, though, felt no impulse to laugh at him or consider him foolish or stupid. She’d fallen before, herself. If he’d been a little luckier with the dice, he might not have slipped.

She made sure the young man was lying quietly, then stood up. Who was next?

“I see you’re working hard,” a voice said, surprising her.

“Oh, I—” Priestess looked over quickly, but her mild alarm turned to a smile when she saw that it was Guild Girl. “I’m all right, thank you. I used to give help like this at the temple, ever since I was small.”

“Then you know exactly when it’s time to take a break.” Guild Girl had been rushing this way and that, but you wouldn’t have known it to look at her. Though her outfit was for fieldwork and not for the office, she looked impeccable: She stood up straight; her hair was lovely; and she was even wearing perfume. Priestess saw Guild Girl as clearly different from herself: sweating, huffing and puffing, and running from one thing to the next like a chicken with its head cut off.

Somewhat reluctantly, Priestess nodded. It was a small, quiet answer, the same way the boy had answered her a moment before.

What does she do with herself?
Priestess wondered. She normally only saw Guild Girl at the reception desk at the Guild. Saw her when they left on an adventure. Saw her when they came back. Priestess knew next to nothing about what Guild Girl was like between those times. She couldn’t restrain a desire to ask about it.

“When all you can do is wait…it’s hard, isn’t it?” Priestess said.

The response she received was nothing she had imagined: “What are you talking about? I can’t believe you!”

Priestess looked at Guild Girl wide-eyed, but Guild Girl simply smiled and motioned her toward a corner of the room where they’d be out of the way. She sat down with her back against the wall and offered Priestess a waterskin that smelled faintly sweet. Priestess took it and eventually brought herself to drink some—she was pleased to discover it was water flavored with lemon and honey.

“Okay,” Guild Girl said, sensing that Priestess had relaxed a little and seizing upon the moment. “What
is
it that you think we’re doing right now?”

“Um…” Priestess let her gaze wander. It wasn’t that she didn’t know. It was obvious. But sometimes being asked the obvious can throw you. You start to wonder if it’s a trick question.

If it was a trick question, though, Priestess wasn’t coming up with the answer. She looked around as if she might find it in the thin air in front of her.

The first-aid station was full of participants and adventurers (serving as facilitators) rushing this way that. Priestess watched a warlock follow an elf woman by, then nodded. “We’re…running a dungeon exploration contest…right?”

“That’s right.” Guild Girl giggled, holding up a finger like a teacher making a point and adopting her most didactic tone. “We have to keep an eye on the participants while also knowing how much progress they’ve made. We have to be prepared for any unexpected situations and communicate clearly about them…”

Even at the stalls outside, there must have been some arguments with customers. For that matter, there must have been arguments between spectators. Even that group of rogues whom they’d learned about through those unusual circumstances might be on the move. Theft, pickpocketing—Priestess couldn’t ignore such things, but they were simply part of being a person in this world as well.

“It’s tough, huh?” she said.

“Yes, tough indeed,” Guild Girl responded with a smile. In a single striking motion, she got to her feet and brushed the dirt off her outfit. There were still many things they had to do—needed to do. No matter how worried you were or what you were worried about, the things you had to do didn’t disappear.

“Even simply waiting is a major job in its own right. Never call it
all you can do
.”

Priestess looked up at Guild Girl, backlit by the torches that illuminated the dungeon gloom. Then she took a swig of the contents of the waterskin—much the way Dwarf Shaman might have—and jumped to her feet. “I’ll…I’ll make sure I work even harder!” She handed the waterskin back to Guild Girl with her profound thanks. Guild Girl took it from her.

Priestess bowed her head again, then hurried back to the first-aid station. Protect, heal, save. Those were the very bones of her faith.

§

The goblin found all things, everything, unpleasant. Day after day living in a dank hole; day after day eating the same meat. Seeing the same faces. Couldn’t remember when it started to be like this, couldn’t imagine how long it might go on for. That was his everything, his world, and he was wild with rage at all of it.

None of them understood anything.

That thing earlier (for goblins, every nasty or envy-inducing thing was “earlier”) had been just the same. They’d finally found a nice little spawn-bearer, wandering around lost where she shouldn’t have been—but they had spent her right then and there.

Apparently,
they
were dead now, but then, what else would they be? Foolish idiots like them were always going to die, and anyway, it served them right for trying to keep her all to themselves.

This goblin was firmly convinced he was not like the others. Take a simple example: the people scurrying around over his head at that moment. They were eating delicious foods, enjoying themselves, and had all sorts of wonderful, pretty possessions. All while he was languishing in this filthy hole!

It was unforgivable. It was all their fault. Those people were terrible!

It rankled this goblin to continually have to follow the orders of that jackass who was forever waving his stick around like he owned the world, but he did agree with what the guy said. They should drag those surface dwellers down into this pit, steal everything they had, trample them underfoot, and make playthings of them.

It was only natural—it was their
right
—given how it was the goblins who had suffered everything to this point.
Rights
, of course, were a difficult concept for goblins, but it seemed like something that applied here.

This goblin, though, was not like his friends (a word he himself would never have used). While the others were chasing those intruders all over, he would bide his time and wait. Not because he was so serious-minded. A serious goblin is not something that exists in the Four-Cornered World.

He believed he wasn’t stupid. Not like those others. He wouldn’t do anything so foolish as chase around a bunch of crying, screaming idiots. He simply had to let the others chase them, let them tire out the prey. Then he would sneak up and finish the victim off. The other goblins would gibber and jabber about it, no doubt, but so what? He was the one with the brains and strength.

As for the self-important idiot with the stick, he’d drag him down when the time was right. First, though, he would enjoy himself to his heart’s content with the prey he captured. If it was a man, well, he would eat him. If a woman—well, he would eat her, too, in the long run, but there were other ways to enjoy a woman before that.

How many would his companions be able to corner? They were incompetent, so the answer was probably not many. If the prey was especially spunky, it could be fun to break her spirit, but if she was
too
lively, it defeated the point.

The goblin sat down on a nearby rock, holding his crude spear and muttering to himself. In his mind, he kept seeing his comrades’ failures and him having to clean up after them. That made him annoyed and then angry. An illogical, incoherent, self-serving rage.

The goblin, convinced that this was righteous and justified anger, concluded that it was reason enough that he should have the prey. He let his imagination run even wilder, his appetites expanding as he salivated at the prospect of success and glory on that day to come.

He never noticed the knife that slipped in among his fantasies; the next thing he knew, his consciousness sank into darkness, never to return.

§

“These aren’t ruins anymore. This is a cave.” Goblin Slayer didn’t even spare a glance in the direction of the goblin whose skull had been split by his knife, the body tumbling into a pit. The space around him no longer looked like a dungeon proper but was studded with rocky outcroppings. They were too large and complex to be anthills but covered too much space to look like they had formed naturally.

Goblin Slayer was suddenly reminded of an old story about some giant monster that lived underground. It had been years before when there had been a great commotion about the thing, which had been inadvertently and most unpleasantly discovered by some miners.

Or had that been some kind of slime or something? At the time, he hadn’t been very interested in the stories of others.

Regardless, what I’m dealing with now is goblins
, he thought, casting aside the hazy old memory. He seriously doubted goblins could coexist with a monster that bored through rock. Nor did the goblins show enough coordination to suggest they were working with some other agent of Chaos. No, this cave belonged to the goblins, which meant it belonged to Goblin Slayer.

“—…” How long had it been since he’d begun working his way down the hidden tunnel? He figured out a rough estimate based on the numbers he’d been counting in his mind and decided it hadn’t been that long. It wasn’t clear how many participants were lost down here, but he suspected they were still safe for the time being. In any event, man or woman, the wait had been brief enough that they would still be alive, assuming they hadn’t been killed in battle.

He had to hurry, but he mustn’t panic. So he worked his way along carefully, hiding among the stalagmites, studying what was ahead of him. The ability to see in the dark granted by the eye drops wasn’t dramatic, but it unquestionably helped. It wasn’t quite like the night vision possessed by elves or dwarves—or as helpful as using light to overpower his foes…

No
, he thought,
not as helpful as having
her
use it.

That’s right, it wasn’t he himself, but Priestess—so long as he had her help, he wouldn’t be able to use the drops regularly.

In any case, it was enough to see a pair of bluffs where the ground fell away, a narrow path stretching between them. The “path” was nothing so convenient as a bridge. It was simply a large stalagmite that had somehow been knocked over and set across the rift. It looked sturdy enough to support a lizardman, let alone a human—or, of course, a goblin.

Goblins
, he thought. Not only the one he had just dealt with. It was more than one. That one had simply imagined he could set an ambush on his own.

Ten, twenty, maybe more. Not likely to be a hundred, but Goblin Slayer was undoubtedly outnumbered. The question was whether they had noticed their companion plummeting down a moment ago. Goblins always believed, after all, that they alone would not fall.

He saw figures moving in the shadows, evidently convinced they were hiding. He wasn’t able to make out exactly how many there were, but he could tell that if he was too impetuous, they would make mincemeat of him.

He understood that perfectly well. The question was what he should do. Goblin Slayer didn’t agonize over it.

It simply means I need to make my move decisively.

“GOROGGBB?!?!”

The invader moved like the wind, although High Elf Archer would have laughed to hear him described as
like an arrow from a bow
. The goblins, who found themselves ambushed just as they had been intending to spring their own trap, stupidly threw away their advantage by setting up a cacophonous yammering.

That made things easier.

“Two!”

“GGB?!?!” The bottle, thrown like a stone, shattered both itself and the goblin’s head, spilling the contents of both everywhere. Blood and brains, bones and glass scattered, along with a sweet smell that seemed out of place among the gore.

Goblin Slayer jumped into the cloud of perfume, charged straight through it, and kept running.

“GOROGB?!”

“GOROGBBGB?!?!”

Yes, he ran
straight through it
.

His prey knew only that something that smelled like a woman had leaped out in front of them. Excitement, confusion, and rage created a critical opening, for none of them moved to stop Goblin Slayer.

“GOOGB!! GOROGGBB!!!!”

“GGB!”

“GOOOOBBGBB!!!!”

The goblins, shouting, threw aside everything else to give chase. Each wanted to reach him first and drag him down, lest the others take him from them. Each of them believed he deserved everything. So each clutched his weapon, swung, and chased. The little bit of rational thought, if it could be called that, they’d possessed until a moment before had abandoned them completely. The goblins were now like wild beasts, focused on one thought and one thought alone: take for themselves the quarry before them.

I’ll have to reimburse her.

The thought came to Goblin Slayer as he studied the terrain with his fuzzy vision—but it did not have to do with goblins, and in an instant, he had chased it from his helmeted head. He ran.

Human bodies are different from those of goblins. They’re faster and have greater stamina. That’s not accounting for equipment, of course. Thus, the goblin didn’t particularly question it when he suddenly found himself gaining on his prey. He thought he was simply that fast, faster than his foolish companions. And the idiot in front of him was about to collapse from fatigue.

“GOROGBB!!”

“Three…!!”

The fantasy persisted in the goblin’s mind even as his head was separated from his body. The goblin pitched forward, choking on a spray of blood, trampled by his companions behind him. Even if the throat hadn’t happened to be a vital point, the stomping would have broken his bones and burst his organs, more than enough to finish him off.

“Four, five…!”

“GOROOG!!”

“Six!”

“GBBGROOGB?!”

Goblin Slayer never slowed down as he dealt one blow after another to the enemies who had followed him. Blood flew, screams echoed, bodies tumbled, and that slowed down the pursuing goblins.

Meanwhile, Goblin Slayer dove in among the disorderly rocks, steadying his breath. The goblins’ advantage lay in the element of surprise, combined with their numbers. Those were the two things one must keep in mind when hunting them.

Surprise them instead. Undermine the difference in strength. That was all.

Cover was always his ally. And grenades were a human’s friend.

Goblin Slayer pulled a tear gas grenade out of his item bag and flung it out from behind the stones without much caring exactly where it went.

“GOROOGB?!”

“GRGB?! GGOBOOBBBRU?!”

I ought to teach her about those eventually
, he thought, an image of Priestess flashing through his mind even as he savored the screams of the writhing goblins. Then he filled his lungs with oxygen, and as the air reached his brain, his thoughts sped up, the image vanishing.

“GBBG!!”

“Seven!”

“GOROGB?!”

When one of the monsters poked his head around the stalagmite, his eyes full of tears and his nose running with snot, he found himself grabbed and his chin slammed into a rock shelf. His jaw was driven, tongue and all, up into his brain; he wouldn’t be opening his mouth again. This was a glory kill, Goblin Slayer–style.

He didn’t give another glance to the head where it sat, as if on display, but picked up the club that had fallen at his feet. The enemy would always bring weapons to him. He didn’t have to worry.

“Eight…!”

“GOOROGB?!”

His sword had already dealt with several of the enemy and was slick with blood and fat; now he calmly threw it at the back of another foe and then set off running.

As for what happened after that—well, we probably don’t need to spell out every detail. Goblin Slayer ran, and a trail of goblin corpses emerged in his wake. The situation was similar to the one on the snowy mountain or the remote village where he had gone with his childhood friend.

Only similar, though. In those instances, he had been the pursued. The one making a fighting withdrawal. The hunted. Now, it was he who was killing the goblins. Those who thoughtlessly got too close to him he finished off with a single stroke, while those who tried to keep their distance he murdered with projectiles.

He had an endless supply of weapons. He took them from the dead goblins, or broke off pieces of stalagmite, or slammed his enemies against the walls or the ground. This wasn’t like the battle in the little village (it seemed so long ago): This was a cave. And there were so many fewer goblins here than there had been in the dark tower.

But…

It’s getting complicated.

Specifically, he meant the way he had to fight. There was only himself alone to pay attention to what was happening in every direction. He had no arrows, spells, or slingshots to back him up. He was also the only one thinking about where he had been and where to go. Everything came down to what he could process, what he could mentally keep track of. If he missed even a single thing, it could be fatal.

Hence, the fact that he noticed it at that moment could only be considered a lucky roll of the dice. It was just as he ducked behind the cover of the rocks, hoping for a chance to catch his breath. The instant he heard the rush of air, he was already moving, twisting his body. “Hrgh…!”

There was an unpleasant
riiip
as his item bag was torn open, scattering the contents everywhere. Goblin Slayer leaped to the nearest rocky plateau, not caring that his possessions were tumbling into the void.

The projectile that had nearly struck him was a crude arrow, and as for where it had come from…

“I see. Archers…”

On the other side of the chasm. Several goblin archers lined up at the far end of the giant, fallen rock. One of them was being beaten by another goblin with a staff—the archer must have gotten excited and fired too soon. Trying to get goblins to do what you wanted was difficult, even for another goblin.

“GOOROGBB! GOOROGGBBB!!!!”

“Hrk…!” The moment Goblin Slayer tried to peek out from behind the rocks, the darkness was rent by a blinding flash of light. Thanks to the eye drops, it left him unable to see, but the sound that came next made clear what had happened. There was a roar and the noise of something cracking, then a clatter of crumbling stone.

Aha. He destroyed the bridge.

Maybe the enemy realized Goblin Slayer didn’t have any ranged weapons—it was impossible to be sure what a goblin might be thinking. Most likely, though, it was that they had bows and arrows—and he did not. Goblin Slayer enjoyed the fact that the flash of light had, paradoxically, made his vision dark; he didn’t think it would be quite the same as what the goblins were seeing, but it bought him some leeway.

The arrows came whistling in but only rarely struck the rock he was hiding behind. Though, given how many of them hit the rocks and earth around him and bounced past, it was clear he couldn’t afford to underestimate the archers, either.

Now, what to do?
Goblin Slayer called to mind the terrain he’d observed while running around. He realized the cleft in the earth was quite a ways across. It would be difficult if not impossible to leap the gap or even to fling a weapon across to take them out. Destroying the bridge and using arrows was a dirty trick but the right one.

They probably haven’t thought far enough ahead to know what they’ll do once they’ve finished me off.
As he waited for his vision to acclimate to the dark again, Goblin Slayer plunged his hand into the item bag at his hip. He found that, indeed, there was very little left in the torn pouch and sighed. He wasn’t disappointed per se. Equipment was there to be used. Sometimes, it was there to be lost.

The next thing he reached for was the belt he’d been entrusted with by Guild Girl, the one slung across his shoulder. There were items in several pouches hanging from it.

“GOOROGB!! GOOROGGBB!!!!”

“GOBBGRGB!!”

He’d used the perfume already. There were no more eye drops—just a decorative sash, a notebook and metal stylus, candies, and a few other things.

He’d hoped there might at least be a coil of rope in there, but there wasn’t. The stylus was good. He tucked it into the strap of his shield. Then he lifted the visor of his helmet and tossed in one of the candies. Wincing as the flavor of the fragrant herbs filled his mouth and nostrils, he put his visor back down.

What he had to do was clear. He would spring into action. The goblin would launch another spell at him.

Still, he thought…

I’m going to miss that throwing knife.

§

“
Sniff… Sniff…
Augh…”

She’d failed. The girl sniffled and frowned as she slid down the slope. She knew it was too late for regrets now, yet the path seemed to go on so far behind and above her, but as for what was below—well, she was very high up. Crawling back would be a challenge, yet she was scared to work her way down, too.

Go back to the surface? No, she couldn’t. This was a competition—you had to keep moving forward.

I’ll just have to…do my best…!

Supporting herself, barely, with her arms and legs, the black-haired girl worked her way ever so slowly down the slope. Her hands were scraped by sand and rocks, until they began to throb terribly. Maybe she should buy some gloves.

She’d never imagined there might be a cave like this hidden within the dungeon. It didn’t seem like there was anyone else down here—maybe she’d taken a wrong turn?

No, I’m on the right path…I think…

After all, if she wasn’t, then why was there stuff dropped all over as if to mark out a route? The bag on the girl’s back was practically bursting with the various items she’d picked up.

But if she was right…it would have to mean she was dead last. She was certain—well, almost certain—
mostly
certain—that was what was happening. For a second, she could hear the village boy chortling. The thought hurt so bad she briefly stopped right where she was, but then she shook her head. This wasn’t the time.

The girl tried desperately (what did it mean to be scared to death? This must be what it felt like) to focus. She listened hard and squinted into the darkness, but she couldn’t hear or see anything. Somewhere along the line, she’d run out of oil for the lantern at her hip, and as the darkness had pressed in around her, she’d become ever more anxious.

It was cowardice that kept her from crying out as loud as she could, shouting for somebody—cowardice and anxiety and embarrassment. She didn’t think people trying to become adventurers did such things…

She didn’t want to be laughed at again.

“O-okay…
Hup…!
” When she finally reached the bottom, the girl gazed up at the rock face that now towered across from her. Her eyes were used to the dark by this point, but even so, she couldn’t see the top.

She blinked when she realized pebbles were occasionally falling from up above. She couldn’t shake the sense that the cleft was collapsing from both sides. Tears in her eyes, she cleared away the collection of little stones that had become lodged in her palm, trying to ignore the stinging pain. Then she rubbed her eyes with her sleeve and started lurching along the path through the ravine.

She was comically fearful and pitifully serious.

Whether by skill or sheer luck, it ultimately saved her life.

Shhp, shhp.
She froze when she thought she heard a noise up ahead.
What could that be?
she wondered. She peered into the darkness, not just gazing but genuinely
looking
.

Whatever it was, it was almost eight feet long, moving slowly but irregularly. It appeared to have noticed her; although, it didn’t seem concerned about her. It had sharp fangs and moved by first coiling up, then springing forward.

“JJJJ…”

That must be a serpent!

The girl swallowed heavily. It was an earth-colored snake.

She quietly took a step forward. The snake slithered toward her. She took a step back. The snake slithered farther forward. She tried a hesitant step to the right. The monster curled over itself, moving with her. Then left. The snake slid in the same direction.

The girl stopped. The snake stopped, too, though it watched her with bright eyes.

What should I do?
She didn’t even know how to begin answering that question.

Only at this point did the young girl finally remember the weight of the sword at her hip, and she hesitantly drew it. She didn’t exactly have a plan for it yet, but it was a relief to have it in her hands.

I wonder…
She let her eyes drop briefly to her hands, then followed the blade before looking once more at the serpent.
I wonder if I can even beat that thing…

She suspected she could get in at least one hit. She also suspected that wasn’t going to be enough. That meant she was going to get bitten or else squeezed in the snake’s coils. If its bite was poisonous, there would be physical pain involved, agony. Then again, the same would come of being squeezed to death.

And then it’ll just swallow me.
She seemed to remember that snakes swallowed their prey whole, so they had to break the bones first. The girl was very sorry she’d remembered that and quaked with fear at the end it portended for her. The terror brought her to her knees, and then she sat down in the dirt, feeling a chill run through her, feeling her face crumple.

She was on the verge of tears, but she didn’t cry, because she knew. She knew that even if she sat and wept, no one would come to save her. She would have to do something about this herself.

Think… I have to think.
This was part of the contest; probably, it was a test, and there had to be some way to pass it… Again, probably.

Still watching the serpent warily, the girl pulled off her backpack and went through its contents. The disorganized mess of equipment made it look more like a bag of random junk than an adventurer’s faithful partner. There was a club, a dagger, strange red powder that made her fingers tingle when she touched it, a bottle of some kind of medicine, and a scroll.

Maybe I should use the scroll
, she ventured, but then she thought better of it. It wasn’t so much that it seemed like a waste—more that it just didn’t feel like quite the thing. She set the scroll to one side, nodding to herself as she went through the rest of the items. She kept stealing glances in the snake’s direction, but it only watched her. She was sure one of the facilitators must be holding it back, so she quickly looked to her bag again.

She couldn’t think of anything to do with any of the items she recognized. Maybe she should use one of the items she didn’t recognize, then. At the same time, she was scared to drink a potion she didn’t know anything about. Not the potion, then. Try something else. That left…

“This, maybe…?”

The girl picked up one of the other items—she didn’t know quite what it was, but it was twisted hideously; she thought maybe it was some kind of weapon. She held her sword in her right hand—it was so heavy—and took the weapon in her left, then moved forward.

“JJJJJ…!”

The snake twitched its sickle-shaped head, and its tongue slid in and out with a hiss. The girl found herself thoroughly intimidated. Her knees went weak; she could feel them shaking. She was seriously questioning whether this was the right thing to do. Maybe it was wrong—maybe she would fail—maybe she was no good. They would yell at her, laugh at her.

The girl stopped, though, when she felt the slight weight of the bag hanging at her hip. She shifted the collection of gem shards that she’d painstakingly collected, by hook or by crook, in front of her.

“Hi…yah!”

Compared to the speed of the attacking serpent, the girl’s own entry was agonizingly, pitifully slow. Although it hadn’t been her intention, this left her confronted with the monster’s wide-open jaws. As its mouth filled her vision, the girl struck out with the weapon in her left hand.

“JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ!!!!!!”

“Heek…?!”

It didn’t hurt.

There was a
shing!
and numbness ran up her arm, and the girl was thrown backward onto her behind. In front of her, the serpent was twisting its neck, not knowing what to do with the bent dagger lodged in its mouth. The strange shape prevented the serpent from either spitting it out or swallowing it; the weapon stayed stuck between its jaws.

A perfect opportunity. An opening.
The girl was having no such elevated thoughts. Instead, she got unsteadily to her feet, then screwed up her courage and started forward at a pattering run. “Yaaahh…!”

She jumped past the serpent as if she were a tiny rabbit.

“JJJJJJ!!!!”

She charged headlong, never looking to either side and certainly never looking back. The hissing from behind terrified her.

I guess I don’t have to actually kill it…maybe?

Possibly. The thoughts ran quickly through her head as she dashed along, trying not to slip and fall. If she’d done something wrong, surely one of the contest facilitators would have shown up and stopped her. Since they didn’t, that meant she hadn’t done anything wrong.

She continued to run, and then she discovered something strange, deep in the darkness of the cleft. At first, it looked like a big stone altar. But as she got closer, as the thing came into better view, she saw that it was a funerary urn… No, wait. In fact, it was a sarcophagus made of stone; even the girl could tell.

She desperately wanted to stop, but she could hear the serpent slithering behind her. Feeling as if she might burst into tears (indeed, she was beginning to sniffle already), the girl neared the sarcophagus, looking pathetic.

Maybe this was the end of the quest. Or maybe there was more. She hoped it was the end. She wanted to leave.

When the girl reached the sarcophagus, though, she noticed something odd. It was a coffin, all right (she couldn’t read the letters carved on it, of course)—but it was empty. The lid was slightly ajar, and there was a single long, thin depression inside. She was just wondering if maybe it had once held a wand or a staff when:

“Hoh! I never imagined, to be quite honest, that anyone would make it this far.”

He appeared from thin air as if in a puff of smoke and flame: a corpulent man who seemed to bubble up out of nowhere. He wore a robe that even the girl could tell was of fine make, and in his hand, he held a terrible whip of woven steel.

“I see this seal was rather too forgiving for your kind.”

Fixed with the glinting light of the man’s glare, the girl couldn’t speak but only shuffled backward. To her, he looked like nothing so much as a terrifying flame demon or some such.

I guess I really was wrong to run away from the snake
, she thought, shaking from fear.

§

I suppose he could be called a fire goblin.

“GOOROOGOROGROG!!”

ZAP! ZAP! ZAPPA!!

Each time the goblin waved his staff, the chamber was filled with searing light. Lightning bolts, pillars of flame, and heat rays came flying, scorching the rock where they landed. Goblin Slayer didn’t know much about magic, but he didn’t believe a mere goblin spell caster could use that many spells at a time.

It must be the staff, then.
Goblin Slayer, the stink of melted minerals all around him, decided to abandon his cover.

The goblins must have laughed when they saw the warrior in his pathetic armor come diving out from behind the mass of stone. He looked as overwhelmed as a hunted hare taking flight in fear (not that the goblins had ever seen a hare). They would never let him get out of the cave. The hail of arrows, and the magic, would destroy him first.

The goblin waving the staff—which was to say the “fire goblin”—kicked out to rebuke one of his foolish lackeys…

“GOORGB?!”

But he was blinded by the brains of that very subordinate, which came flying into his face. He kicked away the corpse, which had an unexpected crack in its skull, spitting the filth out of his mouth and dropping to his hands and knees. What had happened? What had been done to him?

No matter what that stupid adventurer tried, he would never be able to attack from across the chasm. It wasn’t fair. It was low-down dirty. A nasty little trick—he’d pulled some low-blow stunt, that was for sure!

“Now… How many was that?”

The goblin was absolutely correct.

In his right hand, Goblin Slayer held Guild Girl’s decorative sash. A goblin could never have imagined the role it had played.

Racing among the arrows that came whooshing in, Goblin Slayer grabbed up a stone in his free hand, tucking it into the sash. His right hand became a soundless blur.

“Let’s call it—two!” The next stone he slung flew with remarkable speed and force, cracking open the skull of another goblin. He didn’t even watch the corpse as it tumbled back among its companions, still twitching. He couldn’t have seen it anyway. The flashes of light burned his eyes, widened as they were by the eye drops.

But it wasn’t a problem for him.

So long as they don’t change targets, I can get a good sense of where the archers are.
In between heat-ray bursts, the goblins kept up the storm of arrows. The shooters’ locations practically revealed themselves. He understood very well why his party member, the high elf girl, was always running around the battlefield while she fired. A sniper who had given away their location had given up half of their threat.

Then again, the whole reason the elf could shoot while running and jumping was probably because she
was
an elf. To even consider comparing her to some goblins was an insult to her.

“Three! …Four!”

“GOOROGBB?!”

“GORG?! GBB?!”

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Every time Goblin Slayer’s sling sang out, another goblin’s head was crushed. There wasn’t much height difference between their positions, and luckily, he already had a good grasp of the distance. The goblins thoughtlessly stood on the very edge of the cleft, leaning out to take aim at him. Even without his sight, it would have been hard for him to miss.

Perhaps because he had just been thinking of her, he found himself remembering something High Elf Archer often said.

“You know, when elves shoot…”

“‘…they don’t do it with the hand but with the heart.’” He seemed to recall her adding that those who relied on mere physical skill to shoot had forgotten the faces of their ancestors.
And she’s right.

The goblins who lived down in this dungeon or these ruins or this cave or whatever it was—they weren’t fools, but they
were
stupid. Maybe it was because of the magic staff and the arrows. They were clearly not thinking. Even at this moment, he doubted they understood: A grenade is a human’s friend.

Throughout recorded history, no race had been so obsessed with throwing farther, faster, and harder than humans had. In all the Four-Cornered World, only humans threw things as an offensive tactic. Thus, humans knew. As his father had. As his sister had. As she had taught him.

If you have a single sling, you can cross this distance as if it were not there.

He would show those goblins just how much of a threat one human with a sling could be.

“GOOROGB?!”

“GBBOB!”

Only now did it seem to be dawning on the goblins that they would be killed if things went on this way. They scattered left and right, desperate to flee or else to use their companions as shields.

“GROGBB! GOOROOGBB!!” The fire goblin, irate, used one turn to calm his troops, then waved his staff and ran. The ensuing flash of light burned Goblin Slayer’s eyes, but he wasn’t about to complain. He trusted his instincts, honed to find the height of a goblin’s head, and let a stone fly.

“GOROOGBB!!” There was a scream but also another flash of light. At the same moment, Goblin Slayer leaped forward and rolled. He heard the sound of something singeing and caught an unpleasant odor. There was no pain. He continued forward, picking up a stone.

As if I care.

Let the enemy fling every spell they had at him—if they didn’t hit him, it didn’t matter. The same was true of him, of course, but in that case, he would simply fling as many hundreds, as many thousands of stones as it took.

Goblin Slayer ran along the cleft side, parallel to the fire goblin, picking up his next stone.

I have all the ammunition I need.

The air was filled with wild bursts of heat, arrows, and flying stones, as Goblin Slayer was silhouetted against the flashing dark.

§

The whip cracked, and she felt a burning heat. Her skin felt like it was on fire.

The girl couldn’t budge an inch, of course, couldn’t even open her mouth, let alone try to run. Her legs were trembling violently, and her heart was pounding in her chest; she found it hard to breathe, and her sword felt impossibly heavy.

Seeing that it was all the girl could do to remain standing, the flame demon said mockingly, “All right, girl. Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me your name?”

“Ahh, umm…” She offered him her name in a whisper. She knew that a wizard who learned your name might be able to curse you.

The corpulent man narrowed his eyes with interest, studying the girl’s face. “Hoh. A name like a tempest. A brave name that could course through the primordial soup.”

That wasn’t true. The girl shook her head, hardly understanding what she was denying.

“And what brings you here, I wonder? What are you seeking? Treasure? Glory? A legend of your own?”

This has to be the final test.
The girl tried to think desperately of the right thing to say, but she had no idea what it might be. The demon’s piercing gaze as she stood there silently, fidgeting and thinking, though, was almost unbearable.

“An a-ad—,” the girl whispered. “Adventurer… I w-want to be…an adventurer.”

She could hardly believe she had gotten the words out. The girl looked at the ground, disconsolate: They seemed so banal.

Once she had spoken, though, the words started coming in fits and starts. How her mercenary father was only ever drinking or angry or asleep. How she hardly knew her own mother’s face. She had no friends. No connections with the professional guilds that might have gotten her a job. How if she didn’t make a change, nothing would change.

She spoke of her filthy house. Being alone with her father. The cold stares the villagers turned on them. How that was the full extent of her world.

She said she simply couldn’t take it, that it was unbearable. And there was only one thing to do about it. Become an adventurer—there was nothing else, was there?

“Hoh. I see, I see.” The man, who had been listening silently, rested against the stone sarcophagus, his chin in his hands. “Your life is so grand it took you all that time to get it all out. My life, by comparison, hardly warrants a few words.”

“…?” The girl was perplexed.

“I did that which should not be done. As a result, my flesh was stolen from me, and I am as you see me now, only a spirit. But I have in my hand proof of my power.”

“Um…” The girl thought as hard and as fast as she could and said, “Is it…a gemstone…by any chance?”

“Indeed it is!” The man’s eyes glittered, and the girl swallowed heavily.
I knew this must be the final test.

“It is the very evidence of my strength. Even the gods cannot take it from me. Those pitiful beings envy my power…”

Smirking, the man chattered on as if he and the girl were quite friendly with each other, but most of what he said went over her head. How could she understand magic and gods, spirits and flesh? She wasn’t listening to the man so much as she was desperately trying to think of what she should do.

She had to get the gem. She’d come this far. There had to be a way. Somehow.

I wonder if there’s a hint in the stuff he’s saying?

Maybe she should have been paying attention after all. And yet…she had a sneaking suspicion none of his chatter meant very much.

“…And there you have it. That’s just the summary version, but at least it’s nice to know I haven’t lost my knack for a good monologue after all that sleep.”

Could it be—? Did the girl realize that
was
the right answer?

“Thank you for listening. You may die now.”

“
…?!”

It allowed her to react immediately when the man raised the whip in his hand. It wasn’t precisely graceful enough to be called a purposeful dive out of the way. It was more like a panicked stumble to one side, followed by a fall.

“JJJJJ…!”

At the same moment, the giant snake, which had slithered up from behind, shook its tail and bared its fangs at the man. Even the girl hadn’t been thinking about the snake anymore—to the flame demon, it came as a total surprise.

“Grrr…?! What are you doing, you overgrown worm…?!” The man’s deathly glare, which had been fixed on the girl, was now turned on this unthinking, brutish reptile. The snake, already angered that someone was trying to snatch its prey from it, only grew more enraged.

The man’s whip lashed out and struck the snake, which was enveloped in flame even as it flew through the air. This had to be related to the spell the man had mumbled to himself.

“JJJJJJJJJ…?!”

So this was what it meant to be burned to a crisp. The girl huddled down, watching as the great serpent turned to a mere shadow in the air and then simply disappeared. There was no smoke, not even so much as a stench.

The man looked down at the girl, laughing. “You said you wanted my gemstone,
child
. Did you think I was just a fool who let his staff be stolen by a goblin, hmm?”

The girl couldn’t talk. Only the occasional
heek
or
ohh
escaped her. That seemed to put the man in a good mood, for he covered the distance between them in a couple of loping strides. “An
army
would not be enough to defeat me! What can a single small girl like you do?”

He was right. She’d never thought she could beat him. She didn’t even know what she should be doing at that moment. Thus, when the flame demon leered down at her triumphantly, there was nothing she could say to him.

“A pointless life, yours. But at least you can gratify me with your howls of shame!”

…

The girl, though, felt something cold enter her heart. True, she was scared, terrified. She wanted to leave. Participating in the contest might have been a mistake. And yet…

I’m also kind of…mad.

She understood that she was helpless and pitiful. She knew that already. No one had to tell her. That’s why she was trying so hard. Or at least
trying
to try. And even after all that trying, this was how she had ended up. She got it.

But to have someone point and laugh about it? That, she couldn’t accept. People told her she was nothing. If she made one simple mistake, everyone laughed at her. They thought she should stay helpless and pitiful her entire life, that she shouldn’t even try to change anything.

She understood that the contest facilitator playing the demon was only acting a part. But there were limits to what she could take. Where did this guy get off talking so big? He was just as scared of the snake as she had been. They weren’t so different.

In fact, hadn’t he said his staff had been stolen? By a goblin? By a
goblin
!

Even
I
was able to beat those goblins.

The cold thing worked its way down into her stomach, at which point it began to boil instead.

Those goblins hadn’t been easy, but she’d won. What right did he have to make fun of her?

“……” Silently, uncertainly, she set down her bag, opened it, and reached in.

“Hmm? What’s this—going to beg for your life? Ha-ha-ha! Think you’re going to offer me a fur-lined boot?” The demon’s expression was full of the certainty of victory. The victory of one who enjoyed crushing someone else’s futile but entertaining resistance under his thumb.

His face merged with others in her mind, ugly faces, and without a word, the girl whipped her arm forward.

“Hngh…?!” the man cried as the air around him filled with a red powder, getting into his face, causing him to stumble backward.

The snake had scared him, which made her think all that talk of being a spirit or whatever was just that, talk—and that maybe this would startle him as well. Ignoring the tingling in her fingers, the girl dove for the shadows of the rocks near the cleft wall.

“Grr, I tried to take it easy on you, and you let it go to your head! …Well, I’ll show you how puny you really are!”

The sky (which wasn’t really a sky) above began to crackle and flash, perhaps because of the man’s anger. The girl started trembling involuntarily, but she forced herself to peek past the stones at him. He appeared to have lost track of her; he was holding his face with one hand and flinging his whip around with the other.

What should I do?
The girl thought as hard as she could. Should she cut him down?
Could
she defeat him with her sword? She highly doubted it.

She pulled out the unfamiliar potion. Still too afraid to drink it, she threw it instead.

“Arrgh, tricksy little…!”

It was no good. She heard the bottle shatter, but that was all. Meaning…

I guess…this is my only chance.

It was all she had. If this didn’t work, she would just have to surrender and ask him to show her the way back outside.

She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and lunged out from behind her cover.

“Hrm! So that’s where you were, you little vixen! Prepare to di—”

The flame demon’s eyes widened when he saw the scroll the girl was grasping in both hands. Did she know what she was holding? Was she trying to threaten him? No. No, it couldn’t be.

His mind was flooded with all the knowledge of great spells he’d acquired throughout his life. He remembered particularly those his mentor had warned him sternly against but at which he had laughed, thinking that with
his
genius, he could surely master them.

There were many taboos, many forbidden arts in the Four-Cornered World, but only three of them could bend dimensions. Gate, which could open an ultimate door across time and space through sheer power of will. Fusion Blast, which drew on the power of the Demon Core. And this, the last of them…

“Yah!” cried the ignorant girl, her voice almost comically high-pitched, as she undid the seal on the scroll.

“Stop! That’s the Star of Muala—!!”

He said nothing more, for he could not speak. The girl had no idea what had happened. She knew only that there was a burst of light, so bright it pierced her eyeballs even with her eyes shut tight, along with a deafening roar and a great shaking. She curled up and pressed her hands to her ears as stones rained down on her.

It was so bright it was as if the sun had risen inside the cave. The shaking was as though a giant had given the cave his hardest smack. But the light and the sound, and even the wind that came rushing through after, lasted only an instant. The girl, though, had to fall to her hands and knees against the shock wave, and she stayed that way for a long time.

Only when it was all over did she realize she’d tossed the scroll away. She slowly opened her eyes to see—nothing.

There was nothing there.

The flame demon was gone, and there was no trace of the stone sarcophagus. Only a crater in the earth as if something massive had fallen on them.

“Was…was that…the right thing to do…?” Still not remotely sure, the girl put her bag on her back and peered around the cleft. From a broken place in the wall, she spotted something glittering and rushed toward it. She almost stumbled, scraping her hand again as she caught herself against the ground, but she kept making a beeline for the sparkle.

Despite the scrapes, there was a smile on her face, for she soon realized what she had discovered. It was a chunk of black onyx, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen.

§

At that moment, utterly unexpectedly, the dice of Fate and Chance intervened.

“Hngh…!”

“GOROOGB…?!”

The sudden shaking was quite familiar to Goblin Slayer, but the goblin had never experienced such a thing. It was the impact of two points in space being pressed together like dots on a folded piece of paper. But even Goblin Slayer was seeing the effects up close for the first time.

A rent formed in thin air in the cave, and a great, burning chunk of heavy metal came falling down with a roar. A fireball—a firestone from heaven—no, somehow, it was a shooting star…!

The decisive action took place at that moment. Goblin Slayer saw the beam of light. Sought its true form, thought about how to react. Or perhaps he was simply transfixed by its beauty. Even he wasn’t sure.

But not the goblin. The bright, burning thing was scary, no more and no less. What’s more, he knew that he, too, had bright, burning, scary things. So he was not afraid. In fact, it gave him a baseless confidence that he could do that, too.

When Goblin Slayer froze in place, the fire goblin waved his staff gleefully. He wasn’t aiming at anything in particular. He was like a child waving a toy. Nonetheless, the fate of one who faces down a shooting star is effectively sealed.

Magical power swirled around the goblin’s staff; Goblin Slayer gave a click of his tongue and prepared to dive out of the way. Everything came down to that instant, to the pips on the dice of Fate and Chance rolled by the gods…

“GOROGB…?!”

No—

The staff slipped from the goblin’s fingers. It was the kind of mistake only a stupid goblin could make, but it was awfully convenient.

The goblin’s eyes went wide as if he couldn’t believe what had happened, but Goblin Slayer didn’t hesitate for a second. He jumped back, rolled forward, stood, and prepared to strike all in a single fluid motion.

There was no stone in his hand, but the fire goblin no longer had his staff, either. The two opponents stared each other down, focused only on their foe, the light and explosion of the shooting star distant to them.

“GOROGG…”

“
”

They stood face-to-face, neither saying a word. Which of them was faster? That was the question that would settle this fight. That and nothing else. There was nothing else.

The fire goblin looked from his staff to the enemy on the far side of the cliff and back again. The accursed adventurer had only a silly, small shield; one hand was hidden, and he watched the goblin from down on one knee. All his armor, his helmet, his shield, and everything else would be meaningless before the light of the goblin’s magic.

The goblin didn’t understand exactly who or what his enemy was, but he was playing some little trick with his sling and some stones. The goblin wouldn’t give him the time. He had to find a stone, put it in his sling, take aim, and fire. It took forever. The goblin would leap for his staff and wave it around. That would be enough to kill his opponent. The adventurer would surely die. The goblin would be victorious.

A hideous smile began to spread over the goblin’s face. In his mind, his victory was already assured; he saw only his own triumph. He would make spawn with many women, kick them, make them cry and scream, and then he would eat them. All the other goblins, and then all the humans and everyone else, would bow to him, would offer everything to him. It was his natural right after all that he had suffered, the goblin believed. And it was only fitting that he, who had emerged brilliant and strong despite his trials, should claim that right.

Let his enemy hide behind his shield and mutter to himself—the goblin saw through him, saw that it was just a ruse.

The fire goblin didn’t hesitate. He kicked powerfully off the ground, lunging for his staff. He grabbed it, held it fast, waved it, and pointed it at his enemy.

What he saw, at the end of this surprising display of agility, was indeed an adventurer on one knee. The adventurer saw the goblin through his visor, then his right hand shot out toward the creature.

“GOROGBB?”

There was a gentle thump, and the goblin’s head snapped back, his eyes drawn by a colorful ribbon. For some reason he didn’t understand, his strength left him, his arms and legs twitching helplessly as the world seemed to turn upside down. The staff slipped from his fingers again, rolling toward the edge of the cliff.

The fire goblin—no, now he was just a goblin—sought desperately for his
precious
. Perhaps it was his good luck that he didn’t see it swallowed up by the heat of the burning stone. Or perhaps his fate was less fortunate than that of the rhea who was destroyed along with his own precious possession.

“Fifteen.”

Whatever the case, the goblin died without ever knowing that it was a metal stylus lodged between his eyebrows. Only a human would ever have imagined that the projectile, with a fluttering tail attached, could fly so far. And only Goblin Slayer would have known that a lone stylus could silently kill a goblin.

He still had many other ways to kill goblins without making a sound, as well.

“…Hrm.” He stood up, letting out a breath. This whole commotion was no one’s fault in particular. It was the doing of goblins and his own failure. It appeared, though, that he had at least managed to clean up the mess. Well, not quite: He hadn’t yet found the missing adventurer. So the battle wasn’t over, and the only way to go was forward.

He glanced around the area, taking note of the puddles of protein-laced water and the ruined teeth that floated therein.

Still, I had a great many helpers.

“All right,” he said with a dismissive snort. “The first question is how to get down…”

§

“So the debt’s repaid.”

“Listen…”

In a corner of the dungeon, Warlock heaved a sigh and rubbed her brow. The commotion that had engulfed the end of the dungeon exploration contest was far away, but still it seemed to pound in her head. Her fingers and toes were slightly numb, as if something was holding them fast, and her eyes were tingly and dry. Her clothes, meanwhile, were slick with sweat, sticking unpleasantly to her; there was something cold in her stomach that felt like it was trying to work its way back up her throat. She’d had to make eyes in her brain and control two bodies at once, after all. There was nothing quite like it.

“…right at this moment, I couldn’t feel worse. It’s like I chugged three beers without stopping.” She felt downright nauseated.

“Like you just lay down for a nap at the inn and woke to find yourself strung up on the gallows.”

“I hate how accurate that analogy is.” Warlock frowned at the elf beside her, who smelled like face-whitening powder.

“You know, it can be a pretty bad way to go if you get someone incompetent doing the job.”

“Huh,” Warlock replied morosely. She was glad she’d finally gotten a rise out of the calm, cool woman, but she didn’t have the energy to be pleased.

“You want to find out what it’s like if you get someone competent?”

“I’d rather eat an ant-meat bun.” Warlock brushed the face powder away and closed her eyes, leaning against the wall. It wasn’t like it had been such a big deal. Not a big deal at all. Just one simple Fumble spell.

Equivalent exchange was assuredly
not
the principle on which the world worked, but as much as she hated to admit it, she’d owed that person a lot, hadn’t she? And when she’d been asked to help in interest of repaying the debt, the idea of saying no had felt, well…
bad
, hadn’t it? Besides, she’d never seen them bow their head in supplication to anyone before, and she’d accepted before she knew what she was doing.

It didn’t mean anything more than that. It was that simple.

“Man… Sure am tired, though…”

She wanted to fall asleep right where she was, but she couldn’t. They still had to clean up, wind things down, change, and then finally go home. Why were there so many things to do just to get a little rest? It wasn’t fair. When it came to her party, after all, the others—their leader, the monk, and the scout—all had their problems. Warlock was stuck doing all the thinking.

Yeesh. Unreal.
They could stand to give her a little more respect. And maybe a little more money to buy spell books. Honestly.

She wanted to know who the idiot was. The idiot who had used Meteor Strike in the middle of a building like this.

Mumble, mumble; complain, complain. The elf woman smiled affably as Warlock grumbled. Maybe, Warlock thought, she really would strip her down in bed or the bath sometime. It was probably the fatigue talking.

Whatever, I don’t care. I just want to get home and have something to eat and then go to sleep.

She forgot everything else, letting a little yawn escape her.

§

It turned out to be easier than Goblin Slayer had expected to descend the cleft face. He had stripped the goblins of their clothes, tied the rags together, and found he had enough to improvise a rope. He secured it firmly to a particularly sturdy-looking stalagmite, then let himself down the cliff, where he discovered drifting white fog.

He scanned the area carefully; the effects of the eye drops had worn off by now. He was in a bowl-shaped crater; for some reason, there was glass on the ground at his feet. Thankfully, he’d chosen the material for his boot soles carefully, so he wasn’t worried about his footing. He was surprised, though; he hadn’t realized there had been something like this here…

“Mm.”

The girl was there, too. Standing flummoxed at the bottom of the cleft face, trying to decide how to get up. After a moment, she appeared to steel herself, then grabbed onto the stone wall, reaching out, scrambling for hand- and footholds.

“The exit is this way.”

“Eep…?!” The girl slipped off the wall and landed smack on her bottom. Goblin Slayer had called out to her because what she was doing had looked dangerous, but it probably would have ended the same way even if he hadn’t spoken.

The girl huddled there for a moment, unable to move, then got unsteadily to her feet. She seemed to be managing the pain. She wiped her face with her sleeve, then worked her way over to where Goblin Slayer waited silently.

“U-um…”

First things first: She appeared unharmed. No injuries, and her clothes weren’t torn. Her face and equipment were filthy, obviously put through their paces, and her hair was everywhere—she looked pathetic. But safe.

“I—I found this. Here…!”

In her face and in her hands, there was a spark. A tiny shard of stone that she clutched as if it were treasure she’d earned fighting a dragon. To Goblin Slayer, it looked like no more than a black pebble, but it did have a luster.

The girl was obviously nervous, but she was looking straight at him. She’d been through the trials of the contest. It was clear in her eyes that she believed firmly and without doubt that she’d completed the adventure.

Goblin Slayer grunted softly, then fell silent. Then, he said the only appropriate thing: “Well done.”

“…Thank you!” The girl’s formerly closed face opened into a smile, and he heard her murmur, “I did it!”

Goblin Slayer glanced at her and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Climbing the rope, the girl looked much the same as she had trying to climb the wall itself. She always looked like she was in real danger—but she also displayed genuine strength and did indeed make the top of the cleft.

As for Goblin Slayer, he ascended quickly, with a skill born of years of experience. When he reached the top, he said, “You’re good at that.”

“I was always good at climbing trees,” the girl replied shyly.

“I see,” he replied with a nod. Then they proceeded through the cave, Goblin Slayer trying to find the path that would be easiest for the girl to follow.

Eventually, the effect of the eye drops wore off entirely—and then it occurred to him that the girl couldn’t see in the dark. He dug in his item pouch, remembered that he’d lost most of what had been in it, including his torch, and grunted quietly. He tried Guild Girl’s bag instead but found only the bottle of perfume oil.

After a moment’s thought, he said to the girl, “Do you still have your lantern?”

“…Y-yes,” she answered, her voice small. “But…I ran out of oil.”

“Let me have it.”

The girl obediently set down her bag, took off the lantern hanging to the side of it, and handed it to him. Goblin Slayer carefully poured the perfume oil into it, then lit the fire with a practiced hand. The girl watched with interest, her face bathed in orange light. She couldn’t help smiling at the faint sweet aroma that drifted from the lantern. “Smells nice,” she said quietly.

“It’s not suited for adventuring.” Goblin Slayer stood slowly. The girl quickly followed suit, pulling her bag onto her back. “But it does have a calming effect,” he added, his lips turning up ever so slightly inside his helmet. He told the girl to turn around, then hung the lantern from her pack.

“Oh,” she said, shyly at first, but then continued with, “Th-thank…you.”

Then the two of them set out once more on the way, at once long and short, to the exit. Among the stretching shadows, they talked—well, mostly the girl talked.

“I think that last facilitator was a little…mean.”

“Is that so?”

“…He said some really unkind things.”

“Did he?”

“He did!”

The girl chatted energetically, even though she must’ve been dead tired. She talked about how many traps there had been. About her fight with the goblins. About how the goblin had grabbed her cap. How she’d somehow managed to succeed. She flitted from subject to subject, sometimes speaking of her father back in her village, sometimes of the adventurers she’d met in the armor shop.

There were a great many things Goblin Slayer should have said to her. All she’d done was go off the intended route, get lost in a goblin nest, and wander around for a while. She didn’t realize anything had been going on besides what she told him.

But those were the facts. She hadn’t actually succeeded in the dungeon exploration contest at all. It would have been easy to tell her so. To tell her the truth and leave all her so-called success a waste would have been the work of a moment.

But that would be bullshit.

He knew that compared to the girl’s adventure, the facts he possessed were of no value. Nor did he wish to become the kind of person who would find value in them. Let those around him do so. As for him, he only hunted goblins.

The fact that they had escaped was because of their strength as adventurers—not just his but hers, too.