Goblin Slayer, Vol. 15

Priestess let out a long breath as she watched her go, then spun on her heel and set off at a quick trot. After all, she wanted to get back to the spectator seats just as quickly as she could. She couldn’t miss this.

She was urged along by the cheer that came from the audience somewhere above and behind her, the sound of a crowd welcoming a hero.

§

“Well, that sure sounds like it was a pain in the ass!” Spearman said with a not-particularly-sympathetic chortle.

“Believe me, brother, it was,” Heavy Warrior groaned, resting his chin on his elbow.

They were at the Dear Friend’s Ax, and the tavern was busy and bustling, just like it was every night. Maybe even more than usual. If nothing else, the centaur waitress, one of the stars of the establishment, was wearing a particularly lovely smile this evening. Her hoofbeats sounded light on the floor, and each time she passed Heavy Warrior’s table, she shot him a meaningful look.

Spearman watched Heavy Warrior wave back at her, and his grin got even broader—and a little meaner. “Hey, you
sure
it was a misunderstanding?”

“Shaddup. Who do you think I am,
you
?”

“Oh, it ain’t a misunderstanding with me.”

Heavy Warrior settled his chin back on his fist, wondering why Spearman seemed to think that was something to be proud of.

But I’m afraid if I open that door, a carrion eater might come out.

Adventurers might delve into dragons’ dens, but there was courting danger and then there was courting
danger
. And besides…

A young lady is happy, and what’s better than that?

The uproar that the centaur girl Baturu had caused had been a bit of a headache, but in the end, it had helped this situation get resolved. Because of it, adventure had been born into the Four-Cornered World.

“You know what they say:
‘The gods knoweth adventure, and wot that it is without end. Though the great run of them threaten not the world at large.’”

“Well! Someone’s been hitting the books.”

“I’ve been studying my brains out the last few days. Not even any adventures.”

Heavy Warrior was the picture of a man to whom Female Knight had been putting the screws. Needless to say, Spearman found it quite a gratifying accompaniment to his drink. He had just come back from an adventure himself, and the beer couldn’t have tasted better. Well, maybe it could have if Witch and Guild Girl had been there, but that wasn’t to cast aspersions on a couple of men sharing a good drink together.

There was, however, one thing that might have bothered him.

“Where’s our guy?” Spearman asked, tearing off a bit of smoked meat with his fingers and stuffing it in his mouth. It was cooked perfectly. “I saw the centaur girl around, so he must be back, too, yeah?”

“He’s right where he always is.” Heavy Warrior grabbed some salt with his fingers and sprinkled it over potatoes that had been cooked in oil. Oil and salt always made a delicious combination. “He made his report and scurried on home.”

“Bah. Where’s the camaraderie?”

“You know it’s how he works.” Heavy Warrior chuckled, then held up a hand to summon a server.

“Coming!” came a voice accompanied by nimble hoofbeats.

“The going rate is one drink,” eh? Pfah!
Heavy Warrior thought, privately resolving to grab the guy by his metal lapels and drag him out here someday.

“Ah, well. I can just imagine the kind of stories he’d tell,” Spearman said with a shrug as he ordered another beer. “Goblins.”

“And nothing but!”

§

“There were goblins.”

“Oh, I see.”

“They were riding on dogs.”

“Ah, you mean wargs. And how many were there?”

“An entire tribe, perhaps.”

“Was there anything else? I mean, besides goblins.”

“A good question.”

“…”

“There was a sorcerer.”

Goblin Slayer finished his report, still unsure what was so amusing.

This was Guild Girl he was dealing with. Her pen sped across the lambskin paper even more quickly and easily than usual. She didn’t even seem to notice the way her colleague in the next seat was looking at her with open amazement.

As for Goblin Slayer, he piled on the words relentlessly, calmly, as he always did.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t exactly a complicated situation. Silver Blaze, the centaur princess, had gone to the water town to become a racer. On the edge of town, she had been attacked by goblins. He had simply pursued and slain them, and rescued Silver Blaze in the process.

As far as he was concerned, that was the entirety of the present incident.

“I’m certainly glad it turned out the way it did,” Guild Girl said with a smile.

Yes.
Goblin Slayer nodded very seriously at her. “I’m happy that the girl they kidnapped was safe.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Guild Girl said. No, not that. She neatened her papers pointedly, cleared her throat, and continued. “What I’m pleased about is… Well, I know you’re still hunting goblins all the time…

“…but you seem to be having fun.”

The meaning of the words was somewhat opaque to Goblin Slayer. Even as he left the Adventurers Guild, the door swinging behind him, and walked out into the twilit street, he didn’t really understand.

Fun?

Who? Well, him, of course.

Guild Girl seemed to be smiling especially brightly about something—and that, he felt, was a good thing.

The road back to the farm was always so long and always so short.
Somehow it was never far enough for his dull wits to get his thoughts quite together.

“Oh! Welcome home!”

So it was that, somewhat sooner than he would have liked, he found
her
offering her usual greeting. Maybe she was in the process of getting the cows back in the barn, or maybe she was just finished. The young woman who spent all day at sweat-inducing labor showed no sign of the fatigue, there in the evening, but only smiled at him.

She greeted him with a broad wave, to which Goblin Slayer responded with a nod. “Yes. I’m back.”

She jogged up to the fence, and they walked along on either side of it, as they always did. The evening was rapidly descending, the twilight shadows slipping away into night. But something was different from usual.

“Hup! Oops…” Something inspired Cow Girl to hop up onto the fence. However, she wasn’t a child anymore, and it wobbled unsteadily under her weight. Quicker than he could reach out a hand to steady her, she regained her balance. “Used to be so easy, huh?” she said with a giggle.

She scratched her cheek with some embarrassment. Then she started off, hopping from fence post to fence post as if on stepping stones. He walked beside her, looking up at her, seemingly so far above him.

It’s all things I don’t understand.

Even things he thought had made sense to him as a child, things he had been able to do—now he could not manage them at all. People were supposed to grow and change, but how much growing or changing had he actually done?

“So? Did your adventure go well?”

“Yes.”

“The…princess, was it? The centaur one? Was she all right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m glad.”

“Is that so?”

“Sure is!”

“I see.”

Cow Girl waved her arms and legs like a clown as she worked her way along the fence. Abruptly, Goblin Slayer remembered the weight in his item pouch. Well, he hadn’t exactly forgotten, but he had been having trouble judging when would be the best time to give it to her.

I would know what to do with a goblin: seize the initiative and make the first attack.

Gods, but this was so difficult.

“Huh?” she said as she meandered along. She looked perplexed. “Do you hear something rattling?”

“Hmm…”

He stopped and thought, then riffled through his bag as Cow Girl watched him from overhead. He came up with a plain, simple horseshoe, shining a dull silver. He held it out to her, and Cow Girl took it, blinking, then stared fixedly at it. She flipped it over, and on the back, she found engraved, in flowing, lovely characters, a name she didn’t recognize—Silver Blaze—and a recent date.

There was one thing she definitely did understand about the object: that it was a souvenir he had brought her, and that it conveyed his feelings.

“This is one very fine horseshoe!” she said.

“It’ll keep away bad luck.”

“Well, thank you!”

When they got home, she would have to hang it over the door.

No sooner had she promised herself this than she glanced over—and found he was gone. She looked back to discover him halted once more in the deepening dark. She could sense his eyes were focused on her from under the helmet, watching her reaction.

“Tell me,” he started, almost in a murmur. “Did it sound like it was fun?”

“For who?”

“For me.”

Cow Girl didn’t answer immediately but took a small hop to the next fence post. She wasn’t as good at keeping her balance as she had been when she was a child.

I guess because I’ve grown up
, she thought.

She found the thought a little embarrassing and a little disappointing—but there were traces of happiness in it, too.

She flapped her arms a little, letting her body do what it needed to keep its balance. She answered his question with a question of her own: “Did you have fun?”

“I’m…,” he said, “not entirely sure.”

“Okay, well… Hup!” Just as she was about to lose her balance completely, she somehow managed to jump onto the fence board itself. “Was there anything that made you think,
That’s good
?”

“Hrm…,” Goblin Slayer grunted softly.

When he thought back on it, in fact, there were several.

Encountering the red dragon in the desert, for instance. Or the fact that the dungeon exploration contest had gone so well despite all the commotion. The fact that he had been able to visit the northern seas. And one time he had even rescued a centaur princess.

And too…

“In my party,” he said, his tongue still stumbling over the word, “there’s a cleric of the Earth Mother.”

“Uh-huh! The girl, right?”

“Mm.” The cheap-looking metal helmet nodded, the tattered tassel fluttering in the evening breeze. “She’s done a lot of growing. I think she’s become a fine adventurer.”

He didn’t add aloud:
Not like me.

He was Goblin Slayer, yes—but the girl, the young woman, she was far ahead of him as an adventurer. As she had shown on this recent quest.

“Does that…,” Cow Girl began, hopping across another two or three fence posts, her red hair bouncing and swinging, “make you feel lonely?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Goblin Slayer said with a laugh. Yes: He laughed, a sound like a rusty hinge. “It’s a very good thing.”

And then he took another step forward.