Goblin Slayer, Vol. 15

My shoulders always get so damn stiff
, the man thought as he exited the casino. He began rubbing aimlessly at his shoulder blades.

It wasn’t the unsuitable clothing that got him—it was the ridiculous sword he had to carry around all the time. It was so heavy. If only he could have used a silver-painted wooden sword.

But the padfoots’d sniff that out in a second.

The smell of paint would be obvious to them, and his cover would be blown. So the sword was what you might call a necessary expense.

Other than that, that lot’re stupid enough to make excellent product.

Thanks to that, he felt a warmth in his chest; the casino was a place of good memories for him. He was even grateful to it.

The alcoholic spirits coursing through his body left him pleasantly tired. He walked along, his feet feeling light and fluttery. It was nice. He took a swig from the bottle of alcohol he’d “borrowed” from the big, stupid, self-important padfoots.

The man had actually been an actor in another life. And also (if we want to be precise) a washed-out adventurer. It was the height of dumbassery, in his opinion, to put one’s life on the line to earn some coin, the way you did when you were adventuring. Much better to make money
pretending
to be an adventurer. And if you were going to do that, then it was easier with some stupid padfoots than with anyone who knew what the hell they were looking at.

Eventually, he had realized that the padfoots—especially the centaurs—were far more valuable themselves than the admission fee they were paying.

It was a dark profession, one he’d had nothing to do with during his time as either a villager or an adventurer, but his connections from his days as an actor were proving very handy. Males and females both sold well—to men and women alike—and what was it to him if they were being carted off to be racers or to be taken to the pillow?

Not like they’re being hunted for sport, after all.
Well, maybe that was what some customers wanted to do with them—but if they did, so what? It was no concern of his.
Adventurers are all about taking responsibility for themselves, right?

He went from tribe to tribe, telling tales of adventure with every bit of verve he could muster, pulling the wool over stupid young eyes and then carting off the fools. He would convince the ignorant kids to sign contracts that made them slaves, then sell them—that was his business now. A perfectly respectable trade, about which there could be no complaints. Or anyway, so the man believed.

His products typically couldn’t read or write, but if he could get them to sign their name to a contract, they were his.

Speaking of which…

His purse was starting to feel a little light. He’d celebrated a bit too much over his recent successful business negotiation.

Well, so be it. He wasn’t the saving type. If he earned it, he spent it; if he spent it, he had less of it; and when he didn’t have enough, he earned again.

“Got to say, you don’t see one as good as that very often…”

The kind of centaur you could be smitten with at first sight. A young woman who seemed to spend all her time in the field staring into the distance. She was so lovely that even this man, who had seen a fair few padfoots in his time, thought he might never see her like again.

Excellent bones, which meant excellent muscles. This centaur had been like a perfectly tuned musical instrument.

His first thought had been to sell her to one of the procurers, the people who sold young ladies to the brothels. Typically, the procurers
sent centaurs on to houses of ill repute on the outskirts of town, places hardly better than stables—but this girl, she was different.

This is a chance to make some real money
, the man had thought. He needed a place that dealt with the aristocracy. They would pay the girl’s weight in gold to have her.

So why hadn’t he done it? What had stopped him?

“I just love running!”
That was what the girl had said, he remembered, as she went with him to the water town, all unaware of her fate.
“I don’t mean running to fight or even to survive—just running.”

Well, all right. The man had decided to sell her instead to one of the
ludi
that trained racers. It didn’t really matter to him, so long as he got a decent price. As for the girl, she could run herself to death for all he cared.

It had made his purse bulge, and the Four-Cornered World was none the poorer for it.

Now what do we do next?

The man wandered along with no particular place to go, looking for somewhere new to work, a din sounding distantly in his ears.

He thought about the minor commotion he seemed to have caused and considered the importance of not targeting too many centaurs in a row. Maybe a harefolk girl would be good next. Like the one who’d been hopping around the casino. He could sell her as a pretty little companion for someone. She’d had white fur…

Or wait, was it red? Were her ears pointy? Can’t remember…
He couldn’t quite get his drunken mind to work.
Well, doesn’t matter.

“Boy, stupid adventurers are the best thing in the world!”

“Yeah, we oughtta be grateful!”

The man stopped in his tracks. He suddenly realized there was no one around. He was in some gloomy back alley. He didn’t even know how he’d gotten here. He’d felt as if he was following a thread.

The voices came from behind him. He didn’t recognize them. He took a deep breath in, then let it out.

“The Adventurers Guild dances to the government’s tune, after all. You went too far.”

No sooner had he heard the whisper than the man found himself
flying to the right. There was a
thump
. A beat. Then something tore through his cloak—and his left arm, which lit up with a fiery pain.

“Gygax!”
the man swore.

He was already reaching into the folds of his clothes with his other hand. It was a little trick he’d learned during his time as an adventurer—not a very impressive one, but…

…It’s enough to save my life!

“Whaddaya want?! Money?!” he demanded.

“Wizball,” replied the assassin—the runner. The man didn’t know what it meant. His assailant was wearing a military-style cap that hid his face.

The man flung the dagger he’d pulled out without even looking at it, but it was batted away by some kind of small cylinder his attacker produced. By that point, however, the man was already running. He needed to get some distance. He turned the corner—anywhere, so long as he didn’t go in a straight line.

“Hnnngh?!” he exclaimed as his ankle became entangled in a shadow. He tumbled forward unceremoniously, his eyes wide.

…That’s not
my
shadow!
he realized.

It looked like the jaws of some beast poking out from the darkness, clamped around his ankle. He tried to pull loose, but it was futile—you can’t grab on to a shadow.

Then as he struggled, the man heard footsteps. He looked up to see the eyes of a bat shining in the night.

“Besmirching the name of good adventurers was going too far. They’re like parents to us,” a voice whispered lightly. It sounded younger than he’d expected. “This isn’t like just counterfeiting a rank tag or something.”

“Like hell!” the man yelped, glaring into the runner’s bizarre eyes. “For your information, I haven’t killed anybody! Me, I just—”

“Sold lives for profit. That’s what it’s called.”

Give it up already.
Those words took the form of the butt of the cylinder connecting with the man’s head. The sound was heavy, dull, hard—more like a walnut cracking than his skull.

The sound signaled the end. The man gave one great twitch and went limp. The spy nudged his body into a corner of the alley with his
foot, then let out a breath. “Sorry. Didn’t expect his reactions to be so good.”

“Hey, covering you is my job.”

The voice definitely came from one or two corners past the alley. A red-haired elf appeared almost silently, except for a couple of clicks of her tongue. At the sound, the shadow rose from the dead man’s—the coachman’s—feet and came over to her in the shape of a wild animal. She patted it on the head and then allowed her own shadow to overlap with it, the two of them merging together.

“Besides, I don’t want to leave the likes of him alive,” she said, her voice cold and sharp enough to stab a person through. To the spy, it sounded like she was saying she wished she could have done the deed herself.

He knew her situation, more or less. He could guess. He was involved, sort of. That was exactly why…

“This is my position. Doing this stuff,” he said evenly. Then he added, “Let’s get back,” and started walking.

The girl blinked in confusion before she said, “Yeah, right,” and hurried after him.

They didn’t talk.

Through the gloomy back alleys and shadows of the great city they went. There was a distant din. Footsteps of all kinds. The lights of the city didn’t reach them.

Soon they would arrive at their carriage; their friends would be waiting for them. The spy pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and the girl took out a lighter without so much as a question. He leaned over, and she got up on her tiptoes a bit. There was a quiet
fwsh
, and some light illuminated.

“How’d it go again?
‘There’s no mastering a world upturned’
?”

“And you can’t run away from your destiny.”

The faint sweet smell of goji-berry smoke mingled with the scent of fire powder and drying blood, then wafted away. The red-haired girl looked in the eyes of the young man who was a spy. The bat-like light was gone.

He grinned, the edges of his mouth curling up, and said, “You do look pretty tempting…”

“Aw, stoppit!” The girl pulled her cloak over her uniform—but the rabbit ears still bobbed over her head.