Goblin Slayer, Vol. 6

The season had arrived when a pleasant wind blew from the east.

The cold had been driven out, leaving only a refreshing chill in the air, and the sunshine was gentle and warm.

The field of daisies about a half-day’s walk from the frontier town was equally pleasurable.

It was a rolling plain, full of rich grass dotted with shrubs—nothing else. The road stretched on past it, and given the distance from village to village, town to town, it was nice to know there was a decent camping site available.

Just one thing—or rather, one person—moved through that field.

It was a strange adventurer. He wore grimy leather armor and a cheap-looking helmet; at his hip was a sword of a strange length, and a small, round shield was tied to his left arm. Even a novice would have better equipment than what he carried.

He walked the road in silence; when he came to the field, his bold, nonchalant stride carried him violently through the shrubbery. His steps were as sure, as determined, as if he was following a sign. Right, left, through the grass—it could not have taken him more than five minutes, if that.

Then he stopped.

There still didn’t seem to be anything there.

But in the bushes, he heard a crinkling under the heel of his boot.

He knelt down and picked up the source of the noise. Ashes, of something utterly consumed by fire. He squeezed them between his fingers until they were nothing more than sooty marks on his gloves.

Something had burned here. Was it a tree? Human bones? That much remained unclear.

Impossible.

He shook his head as if sternly dismissing the possibility.

It’s been ten years already.

No human bones, no human ashes would still be recognizable after a decade lying exposed to the elements. And even if anything had lasted this long—whose remains would they be?

“…”

The wind gusted over the field. It was a warm and gentle wind announcing the changing of the seasons, the arrival of spring.

The grass rustled, tiny ripples running through it all along the hill. He heard the faint sound of running water. When he turned his head, he could see the lake, right where he remembered it.

Seized by a whim, he glanced up. The sky was staggeringly clear and blue; it seemed to spread out across the entire world. The faintly visible clouds were so thin it seemed like the colors had run.

“…And so what?”

He clapped his hands together brusquely, wiping off the soot.

He knew these were not the remains of his older sister.

He knew what had become of her and what had become of her blood and flesh and bones.

He knew, too, that there used to be a village here.

And finally, he knew that plans had been made to build a training ground for adventurers on this spot.

“…Guess I’ll head back.”

There were only three other people who knew that he had lived in the village that once stood here.

It never occurred to Goblin Slayer to ask how the two people on the farm felt about this.

§

“Hee-hee-hee!”

Priestess smiled, in high spirits. The Adventurers Guild was busy all year round, but that liveliness redoubled in spring. Monsters awakened from hibernation and began to threaten villages, while adventurers who had been living off their savings during winter came out to work again. Nor was there any shortage of young men and women inspired by the fine weather to go forth and seek their fortunes.

“Next! Customer number fifteen, please come to reception window three!”

“Quest! I got a quest here! Cess-eaters in the sewers! Anyone have a few minutes to come and help?”

“Got your weapons and gear? Potions? Memorized all your spells? Got your five-foot pole? Great, let’s go!”

“Scuse me very much, but a bear done gone and wandered into our village. Yeah, a grizzly.”

Staff members rushed back and forth, adventurers shouted to one another, and quest givers explained what they needed. It wasn’t exactly a festive atmosphere, but there was no denying the buzz in the air.

Surrounded by this swirl of activity, Priestess couldn’t keep herself from beaming happily, her smile like a flower in bloom. She was seated squarely on the long bench that had become their de facto waiting area, holding her sounding staff and not remotely trying to hide how happy she felt.

Beside her, High Elf Archer was resting her chin in her hands and idly watching the crowd go by. She turned her gaze to Priestess.

“Someone’s in a good mood.”

“It’s because I’m starting my second year of adventuring now. I think it wouldn’t be strange for some of them to start calling me their senior!”

“Ahh, has it been that long already?”

“It sure has! Plus, I think I’ll be promoted from ninth rank to eighth any time now.” She puffed out her small chest triumphantly. Priestess was the youngest member of their party. High Elf Archer knew what that was like, being the youngest, and so her ears twitched sympathetically.

I guess I could get away with acting a bit like an older sister here.

“Maybe so, but don’t let it distract you. The back row has a crucial role to play, all right?” High Elf Archer shook her index finger gracefully as she chided Priestess.

“Yes, ma’am. I know.” Priestess nodded obediently.

High Elf Archer ran a hand through Priestess’s golden hair, working out the tangles. The younger girl giggled, and her eyes lit up happily. She really was like a sweet younger sister—although High Elf Archer had the sense that if she said such a thing aloud, Dwarf Shaman would never let her hear the end of it. Instead, she deliberately let her eyes wander around the bustling Guild Hall.

“It sure is busy, isn’t it?”

The place was full of people dying to be adventurers. Although…

Maybe dying isn’t quite the best word.

That didn’t sound very auspicious to High Elf Archer. How about people hoping to be adventurers? Yes, that was better. Hope was a good word.

Those hoping to become adventurers were lined up at the reception desk, a huge queue of them. There were wizards and warriors, monks and scouts, as well as people of every imaginable race, gender, and age. The two things they all shared were the passion burning in their eyes—and the equipment they wore.

From gear so new and unblemished it looked like there might still be a price tag attached, to old armor practically rusting through, the quality might have been low, but each and every piece was polished to a sparkle.

“Hmm,” High Elf Archer muttered, flicking her long ears. “I think they could learn a thing or two from Orcbolg.”

“Mr. Goblin Slayer isn’t fond of shiny things, is he?”

He can be rather difficult.

With that murmur, Priestess’s cheeks suddenly turned red, and she shifted uncomfortably.

“Something wrong?” High Elf Archer asked, but Priestess squeaked out, “No,” and looked away.

The elf cocked her head in befuddlement, but it didn’t take her long to put the pieces together. Perhaps it only made sense.

An advanced adventurer, accompanied by two unmistakably beautiful women. One of them a high elf, no less.

The periodic glances of the waiting candidates hadn’t been lost on her.

“Whoa… What a couple of cuties…”

“Man, when I’m an adventurer, I’m definitely gonna be able to meet some girls like them, too.”

“An elf! Man, I wish I knew one…”

High Elf Archer gave a little snort. Did they think they could have a conversation that an elf wouldn’t hear? She wished they would be less interested in her race and show a little more admiration for the fact that she was a Silver-ranked adventurer.

“Last year, I was in that line…”

Unlike High Elf Archer, who had puffed out her flat chest in hopes of emphasizing the level tag hanging around her neck, Priestess had put a hand to her heart. She had a level tag, too—one that showed she had advanced from Porcelain to Obsidian, the tenth to the ninth rank.

“There weren’t so many people then.”

She had been just like them, listening in amazement to the conversations around her.

A training ground that had been long in the works was finally to be unveiled. It was nominally in response to the attack by the goblin lord, but planning had gone slowly, and now that battle was a year distant.

The two girls standing there knew why things had suddenly started to move so quickly.

“Did you read the letter?” Priestess asked.

“You better believe I did!” High Elf Archer pulled the folded sheet out of a pocket. The crease was crisp; she must have read it many times.

“You carry it around with you?”

“Don’t you? It’s a letter from a friend.”

“Mine’s in my room. I’ve entrusted it to the Earth Mother.”

Precisely because it’s from a friend, Priestess added internally, smiling shyly.

A friend. Namely Noble Fencer, a female adventurer with whom they had assaulted a goblin fortress in the north some months prior. The memory of her was still fresh in Priestess’s mind: Noble Fencer had lost her friends and been grossly abused herself, yet she had refused to break. And during that experience of coming face to face with death, something had apparently changed within her. After their adventure, Noble Fighter went back to the home she had effectively fled and told them everything.

Since that time, they had exchanged several letters.

“She said she’s starting a fund to support new adventurers,” said High Elf Archer. “That girl certainly wastes no time.”

“Yes indeed,” responded Priestess.

Noble Fighter’s letters informed them that she would be part of the fight not as an adventurer herself but as a supporter.

The neat, precise handwriting in the letters they received was so like her, it was impossible not to appreciate it. She wrote that she had been able to reconcile with her family and that she wanted to see Priestess, High Elf Archer, and the others again sometime.

“Still just as pigheaded as ever, isn’t she?”

“Ha-ha…”

Despite High Elf Archer’s teasing remark, the care with which she folded the letter revealed how she really felt. She didn’t need to say it, for Priestess felt the same way.

Priestess and Noble Fencer had both experienced the brutality of goblins firsthand. For each of them, barely a roll of the dice separated perfectly timed salvation from destruction. And thus, Noble Fencer’s obstinacy was the greatest possible encouragement for Priestess.

It meant she wasn’t broken yet. That neither of them was.

“…A few lessons before you start out really makes such a difference,” Priestess mused.

“I dunno, I just think it wouldn’t matter all that much.”

Not that I’m trying to deny her tenacity. Priestess frowned in response, and High Elf Archer gave her a placating little wave before adding, “I mean, some people are gonna do stupid things no matter how many lessons you give them, y’know?”

“But without instruction, how will they know what they’re doing wrong?”

For instance… there really were so many instances in which novices could go wrong.

They could become so absorbed in chatting that they forgot to keep space between the front and back rows.

Or they might assume that they didn’t have to watch their rear just because they were in a tunnel.

And above all, they might take goblins too lightly.

On reflection, she could see how many lessons she had learned on that first adventure.

“Sure, I won’t argue with that,” High Elf Archer said. “It’s just…” She waved her hand again, perhaps not certain how to take Priestess’s gloomy expression. “Some people just don’t care to listen. Like…dwarves, for example.”

“Oh, I’m listening all right, Long-Ears,” grumbled a voice from behind the bench.

High Elf Archer gave a smile and a triumphant little snort. “I was hoping you were. It wouldn’t have been any fun otherwise.” She looked back over her shoulder at the bald-pated dwarven shaman grasping the back of the bench and glaring down at her. The slight flush in his cheeks suggested he had started in on the wine even though it was still morning—although that was perfectly normal for a dwarf.

At the smell of his breath, High Elf Archer made a show of coughing daintily.

“Anyway, you’re one to talk,” Dwarf Shaman said. “There’s no one in the world who listens less than an elf.”

“I’m sorry? Which of us has the bigger ears?”

“Heh! Sarcasm doesn’t get through to an anvil, I see.”

“Who’s an anvil…?”

“Put a hand on your chest and answer your own question.”

“Why, you—!”

It was the usual noisy banter. Priestess used to get flustered by this, but now she took it in stride; lately, she even found it comforting to listen to. She wasn’t sure if arguing really brought people closer together, but she did know that she was in a good party.

On top of that, many faces in the Adventurers Guild had become familiar to her. Each time she saw one of the people she had come to know in the previous year, she gave them a little bow.

“Heh-heh-heh. It’s quite, lively, isn’t it?”

“Don’t act too interested. We wanna look good for the newbies.”

There was Witch with her alluring smile, accompanied by Spearman, who spoke to her as he made a face. Heavy Warrior was walking down the hallway, engaged in a verbal spat with Female Knight…

“Didn’t I tell you? I said a little friendly exchange would bring us together…”

“That’s some poor excuse for a drunken brawl. You’re supposed to be lawful good!”

…while Scout Boy, Rhea Druid Girl, and Half-Elf Light Warrior followed behind them, patently refusing to get involved.

“Hullo!”

“Good morning, everyone.”

“Good luck on your quests today!”

Then came a casual greeting from Rookie Warrior, who was quickly chided by Apprentice Cleric.

“Hey, it’s the Gobber’s bunch!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! You could stand to be a little more polite! How am I supposed to show my face with you talking to people like that?”

It was all just the same as ever.

“Ah, good. Friendly as usual, I see.” A massive form loomed over them. It was Lizard Priest. His body was covered in scales and he wore an unusual outfit. Seeing the jabbering elf and dwarf, he rolled his eyes happily. He seemed content to put off his customary intervention and let them argue.

Lizard Priest turned to Priestess and pressed his hands together in his usual eccentric greeting.

“The warm weather seems to have brought out everyone’s energy. Something with which I fully sympathize.”

“Winter was hard for you, wasn’t it?” Priestess gave a small deep-throated chuckle, even as Lizard Priest nodded and responded somberly.

“Indeed. Even the fearsome nagas cannot prevail over an ice age. Nature, the very way of this world, can be a terrible thing.”

As his appearance suggested, Lizard Priest was vulnerable to cold. This might have been because he came from the jungles to the south or perhaps because so much of his reptilian ancestry remained in him. Whatever the case, their earlier adventure to the snowy mountain had been quite an ordeal for him.

“But I’ve heard there are ice dragons who have blizzard breath,” Priestess said. “What about them?”

“They are no relations of mine, you understand,” Lizard Priest replied. Was he serious or joking? There was a subtle lightness to his solemn tone.

Then Lizard Priest craned his long neck, looking around a Guild Hall awash in novice adventurers.

“What of milord Goblin Slayer? Where is he?”

“Oh, um, he said he would be a little late today. Apparently, he went out somewhere yesterday.”

“Oh-ho. Well, that is most unusual.”

“It certainly is.”

Priestess added quietly that she thought he would come soon, however.

Goblin Slayer.

It was impossible to imagine that weird adventurer going anywhere on vacation. The girl who looked after the farm he lived at reported that even on his days off, he busied himself with maintaining his weapons and gear. Recently, Guild Girl and Cow Girl had both invited him to a festival, yet he managed to spend most of it patrolling the town. Left to his own devices, he would silently disappear to kill goblins. They couldn’t take their eyes off him.

Goodness gracious. An affectionate sigh escaped Priestess’s lips. “He’s really hopeless, isn’t he?”

At that moment, a murmur began to run through the hall. An adventurer had pushed open the swinging door.

He walked with a bold, nonchalant, yet almost violent stride. He wore a cheap-looking steel helmet and grimy leather armor. A sword of a strange length hung at his waist, and tied to his left arm was a small, round shield. Even a novice, it seemed, would have better equipment.

But the little tag that hung around his neck was silver. The third rank.

“Goblin Slayer, sir!” Priestess called out, provoking a chorus of chuckles among the newcomers. Someone who slays goblins? The weakest of all monsters?

There were a few among them, of course, who didn’t laugh. Over the course of five years, Goblin Slayer had been the salvation of a great number of villages. And some of those who had set out to become adventurers today were from those villages. They knew very well about the adventurer who single-handedly faced goblins. Some others had perhaps heard of him in song. Bards tended to mangle the facts, but his reputation still came through.

Even so, the laughter could be forgiven. Most of the would-be adventurers in the Guild Hall had yet to experience goblin slaying; those with experience had usually just driven off one or two that had wandered too close to their village. Perhaps a few of them had even been down in a cave someplace, but one thing never changed: the fact that goblins were the weakest monster.

Goblin Slayer ignored all of them, the quiet and the chortling alike. “Yes,” he responded to Priestess, nodding. The helmet moved slowly, taking in High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman, Lizard Priest, and then Priestess, one by one.

“You’re all here already.”

“You’re late, Orcbolg!” High Elf Archer said in her clear and dignified voice. She broke off the argument she had been having with Dwarf Shaman, pointing one elegant finger directly at the newcomer. Her eyebrows arched, and her long ears pressed back; they gave a great twitch. Everything about her conspired to communicate how intently she had been waiting.

She gave a little snort and crossed her arms importantly. “So. What’re we doing today?”

“Goblin slaying.”

“Well! Isn’t that a surprise,” Dwarf Shaman said, chuckling and stroking his long white beard. “When you leave it to Beard-cutter, you know what kind of adventure you’re gonna get.”

“Hrm…”

“If you have some preference, I’ll listen.”

Priestess went slightly red at Goblin Slayer’s remark. She had the distinct impression that some of his roughest edges had been polished over the last year. And what about her? Had she changed? Had she grown? It wasn’t such an easy thing to judge.

“Personally, anything that contributes to the greater good is acceptable,” Lizard Priest said, his tail sweeping noisily across the floor. “I should think goblin slaying meets that criterion quite nicely. No doubt there will be many of the little devils abroad as the season turns.”

High Elf Archer made a long, low groaning sound then threw up her hands in resignation. “Fine. I get it. Great. Goblins it is. Count me in, for your sake!”

“Thanks,” Goblin Slayer murmured, and then he turned smartly on his heel and strode directly over to the reception desk where all the adventurers were waiting. The collective gawk of the novices did not seem to bother him one bit.

Those adventurers who knew him had quite the opposite reaction, calling out jovially, “Yo, Goblin Slayer! Gonna slay some more goblins?”

“Yes,” he said with a nod.

“You never get tired of that, do ya?”

“Us guys are takin’ a bit of a trip. Checkin’ out some old ruins.”

“Is that so?”

“You just be careful, okay?”

“Yes.”

This would all be quite difficult to grasp for the newcomers, who didn’t understand the dynamic at play. The novices looked at one another and whispered as quietly as they could.

High Elf Archer, waiting back by the bench for Goblin Slayer, frowned. Priestess leaned in to speak into the elf’s long ear.

“What are they saying?” she whispered.

“You don’t wanna know.”

Fair enough. Priestess didn’t have to be able to hear them to take a good guess at their conversations. She puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and pursed her lips, but it didn’t do any particular good. The fact that Lizard Priest and Dwarf Shaman didn’t seem bothered by it somehow rankled her as well.

§

“Next, please!”

As Goblin Slayer’s companions waited, the adventurers in line were attended one by one. Finally, Guild Girl looked up from dutifully calling the next person in line to see a grimy steel helmet.

The pasted-on smile she had been wearing until that moment blossomed into a genuinely happy face.

“Goblin Slayer!”

“Goblin quests. Do you have any?”

“We certainly do! I’ve got them right here for you…er, by which I mean there were too many to fit on the board.” She hid her mouth behind a sheaf of paper as she teasingly stuck out her tongue, then Guild Girl pulled some quest papers from a shelf. Her practiced motion and the neatly organized paperwork spoke to what a fine and experienced employee she was. She pulled out several pieces of paper with her slim, neatly manicured hands and set them down in front of Goblin Slayer.

Five pages altogether.

“None of these incidents seem to be on a very large scale, but—”

“But there are a lot of them.”

“Exactly. I guess that’s how you know spring has come. The goblins become more active just like everybody else.”

“It happens every year.”

“We have all these quests, and this is after several of the novices took some.”

“Did they look capable?”

Guild Girl responded to Goblin Slayer’s blunt question with an arch of one well-formed eyebrow and complete silence. Maybe it meant she just didn’t know.

For all but the most careful parties, coming home alive was down to a roll of the dice. The dice rolled by the gods in heaven determined fate and chance, and sometimes even the gods were disappointed by the outcome.

Guild Girl glanced over Goblin Slayer’s shoulder at the line of newly minted adventurers behind him. Should she entrust some of these quests to them?

She thought for a moment then looked up beseechingly at Goblin Slayer.

“Could I ask you to do something for me?”

“I don’t mind,” Goblin Slayer replied immediately. “Show me the quests the others accepted.”

“Thank you so much. I’m sorry to always bother you with these things.”

Adventuring required candidates to take responsibility for themselves, and the Adventurers Guild was no charity. Unlike other professional organizations, it had no mentoring system; but neither did it have the authority to force adventurers to do anything. It simply verified the identity of adventurers who joined it, helped connect them with work, and would disavow them if they caused too much trouble.

Working in this organization was by no means an easy job.

For one thing, it wasn’t possible to look out for each and every newcomer who came through their doors. What were they supposed to do about seemingly piddling work like goblin slaying? The look of distress that came over Guild Girl’s face was entirely understandable.

“Once the training facility is completed, maybe you won’t have to do this so often.”

Goblin Slayer didn’t say anything but flipped silently through the quests.

Their content was all too familiar to him. There’s a goblin nest near our village. Get rid of it, please.

In some places, livestock and crops were being destroyed. In others, they weren’t. People had already been kidnapped in some cases but not in others.

Goblin Slayer moved the quests involving abducted women to the top of the pile. Those to which adventurers had already been dispatched went to the bottom. Cases with only slight damage were in the middle.

About ten quests in total. But Goblin Slayer said coolly, “I’ll tackle them in this order.”

“Right, understood. Be careful! Oh—any potions, or…?”

“Yes, please.” He glanced back briefly at his companions. He would need five—no, six, to be safe.

“Healing potions, antidotes, and Stamina potions. Six each.”

“Sure thing!”

He pulled eighteen gold coins from his item pouch and set them on the counter while Guild Girl brought out the items.

Eighteen potions for a little goblin slaying! The news rippled through the onlooking novices, their whispers rising like a wave. Was this caution, or was it cowardice? Either way, it quickly became the subject of ridicule. Some people were laughing openly—but a few might have been jealous. After all, once they had purchased the necessary equipment, many of them had scant luxury to indulge in the likes of potions. Perhaps if the entire party pooled their resources, they might manage to buy a single vial.

And here, this man was buying eighteen potions! One of each for every member of his party, plus extras to be safe! He was so calm about it. Was he trying to show off? It was enough to raise their hackles.

“Ahh, here. That should be eighteen. Please count them to be sure.”

“I will.”

“Be careful, now!”

Goblin Slayer, for his part, ignored the chatter and the stares.

§

The first thing Goblin Slayer did when he left the smiling Guild Girl and got back to his party was to take out some twine. He sat down heavily on the bench and then lined up all eighteen potions. Six each of three different colors. First, he tied some string to the healing potions.

Next came the antidotes. Here, he added an extra knot to the string. For the Stamina potions, he added two extra knots, a total of three.

Now it was possible to differentiate the type of potion by the number of knots.

I’ve never seen anyone do that before, High Elf Archer reflected. She leaned in to watch with her ears bouncing and her eyes shining.

“Uh, Orcbolg? What are you doing?”

“Recently we have needed to access our potions quickly,” he said. His hands kept moving mechanically; the motion was as natural as the gentle scent of an evergreen forest. “I’m ensuring that we can tell which is which by feel.”

“Oh, let me help!” Priestess said eagerly.

“Please do.” Goblin Slayer scooted over to make room for her.

Priestess sat down on her tiny behind and began the delicate work of tying the strings. As soon as a set of three bottles was ready, High Elf Archer grabbed them with a “Gotcha.”

“Listen here, Long-Ears,” Dwarf Shaman said gruffly. “You could stand to show a little more restraint.”

“Oh, you think so?” She shook her ears, her face innocent. “This from a dwarf—the embodiment of greed.”

In a single fluid motion, she reached into her money pouch and withdrew three gold coins, setting them on the bench and tapping them with her finger.

“Hrm,” the dwarf said, belatedly taking out three coins of his own and setting them down.

“I don’t particularly need those,” Goblin Slayer said without lifting his eyes (or more precisely, his helmet) from his work.

“Now, that won’t do,” Dwarf Shaman said with a shake of his head. “Never let money or gear come between friends.”

“I see.”

“Putting that aside, you do have some intriguing ideas, don’t you?” Dwarf Shaman said.

“This is simple but effective.”

“Ah—I’ll pay you when I’m done,” Priestess added.

“…Okay.”

“Let us see here…,” Lizard Priest said, taking out some money. But at the same moment he set it on the bench, something rather odd happened.

“Uh… Excuse me,” a hesitant voice addressed the party.

Lizard Priest looked over to see a warrior—clearly a novice, judging by her brand-new equipment. She was a young woman of distinctly small stature. The way her ears came to a gentle point marked her out as one of the grass people, a rhea.

Her equipment looked like she had just bought it. She wore leggings over her slim legs, but from the ankles down she was barefoot, as was the way of her people.