Chapter 13: The Bear Slays Goblins

Chapter 13:
The Bear Slays Goblins

 

OFF TO SLAY a group of goblins, Rulina and I left the guild together.

“I’m going to at least ask, but are you going out looking like that, Yuna?” she asked, looking at my bear outfit.

“I am.”

I had already given up.

“I see.”

Rulina sighed at my outfit. It wasn’t like I was wearing it because I wanted to…

“So, where are the goblins?”

“They’re in the mountains near a village about three hours east of the gate.”

“Three hours!”

“Yes, that’s why I’d like to leave early and reach the village today.”

Who asks a shut-in to walk three whole hours? I thought. If I didn’t have my bear shoes, I would have noped out at this point.

“I’ve brought water and food, so we should be fine.”

That wasn’t what I was worried about. I should have asked where we were going before I accepted, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. I sighed at the thought of the hike ahead of us as we began our walk to the village with a goblin problem.

“Umm, could I ask you something?” said Rulina.

“If I can answer it, sure.”

“Why are you wearing that? I don’t know how strong you are, but I think it would be better if you wore something more fitting as an adventurer.”

It was a question I’d seen coming for a while.

Q: Why are you dressed like that?

A1: Because I like it. (I didn’t intend to lie like that.)

A2: I’d answer honestly that this equipment made me stronger. (No idiot would reveal their greatest secrets.)

A3: I could say I couldn’t use magic without the bears. (No idiot would reveal their weaknesses.)

A4: I could say it was a memento from my mother. (That wouldn’t explain why I was always wearing it.)

A5: It functions as equipment in its own way. (Maybe this one was the safest answer?)

“It’s stronger than normal gear.”

“Really?”

“I’m not sure what material it’s made out of, but the bear clothes have some physical and magic resistance, and this white bear is a bottomless bag too.”

She found out about the bear storage when I sold the wolves, so I didn’t need to hide that. I’d just let her think that the bear clothes were more effective than other normal equipment.

“Then what about the black bear?”

“I guess it amplifies my strength.” I threw a bear punch, aiming at a rock a little ways off the path. The rock crumbled.

“So, you punched Deboranay with that? That explains why his face swelled up so much.”

I was pleased by how quickly she’d accepted the little I shared.

“So, do the shoes do something too?”

“The shoes?” I said. I looked at the bear shoes and bear gloves “Right. I’ve thought of something.”

I grinned.

“What… Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you want to get to the village a little faster?”

“What’re you saying?” She drew away from me slightly, like she’d sensed that something was off.

“It’s such a pain walking three whole hours, so I’ll do this!”

I quickly moved around to Rulina’s back and swept her feet out from under her, then grabbed her the moment she fell. This was a girl’s dream. I was carrying her in my arms like a princess. Granted, I thought, I don’t think I’d want anyone ever doing this to me.

“Make sure you hold on tight. If you try talking, you’ll bite your tongue, so be careful.”

I started running.

“Wait—”

I pushed faster—faster than I’d gone before.

“Yuna, please stop—”

I ignored her and kept running. Because of the bear gloves, she was super, super light. Because of the bear shoes, I was super, super fast, and no matter how much I ran, I’d never get tired.

We reached the vicinity of the village. When I lowered Rulina to the ground, she glared at me with tears in her eyes. “Yuna, that was terrible. I kept telling you to stop, and that was my first time—I was so scared!”

“But didn’t we get here a lot faster that way?” We had gotten there in thirty minutes instead of having to hoof it for three hours. “Did you wet your pants or something?”

“No! I just never thought we’d get here so quick. I was planning to gather info on the goblin problem today, and then spend the night before doing the job tomorrow!”

“Then how about we go to get the goblins now?”

“If you’re not tired… Sure, let’s ask the village chief about the goblins.”

We greeted the gate guards at the village entrance.

“What’s with that outfit? Are you an adventurer?” After giving me a once-over, the lead guard looked Rulina over next.

I guessed that the outfit comment was meant for me, which meant that the other question must have been Rulina’s to answer.

“We are adventurers. We came to deal with your goblins,” Rulina explained.

“Just you two?”

He looked anxious. Of course he would be. Even though there were tons of goblins and they’d put out a quest, only two girls had shown up—one of them in costume. Everything about this was worrying.

“Yes. We’d like to hear more about it, so can we meet with the village chief?”

The guard led us to a building in the middle of the village that was slightly larger than the rest. “Is the chief in?” he called.

“What is it, Roy?” A man who looked like he was in his fifties emerged.

“Some adventurers came for us.”

“Oh, they came. Now we have some relief…” His face dropped the moment he looked at me. “Um, excuse me, but is it just you two?”

“Yes, it’s the two of us,” said Rulina, “but we’ll get the job done, so please don’t worry.”

“I see.”

He looked at us with the same unease the guard had. Appearances really are important, I thought. I’d be leery too if some little girl in a onesie turned up saying, “I’ve come to deal your goblin problem.”

“We would like you to tell us as much as you can about where you saw the goblins.” Rulina ignored the village chief’s attitude and continued the conversation.

“You’ll encounter the goblins in the mountain pass,” said the chief, pointing out a nearby massif. “The hunters have seen them multiple times.”

“The reports said you were dealing with about fifty. Is that just an estimate?”

“We sent several of our own into the mountain. One died to ensure the rest returned. They saw as many as you say.”

“I see. Then we’ll head over. If we don’t come back by tomorrow, please tell the guild.”

“Understood. We’re in your hands.”

We left the village, following the path to the mountain.

“Yuna, can you really do this alone?”

“It’ll be fine. I just have one thing to ask you to do. Please remove the mana gems.”

“I’m fine doing that.”

My skin crawled hearing her confirm my suspicion: bringing back proof-of-slaying meant cutting it out of a pile of goblin corpses. Yup, I thought, no way! Blessedly, goblins couldn’t be used for materials, so we had absolutely no reason to transport the whole bodies home.

“Then let’s go,” I said. “I’ll walk ahead, so you follow behind.”

I pulled my hood down, engaging bear detection. There was a dense cluster of something in one direction. It was inconvenient that I couldn’t use a map, but it was useful to know our bearing. Pressing forward, I detected something hazardous. I resolved to press on right through them.

“Uhh, you seem to be doing okay walking blind,” Rulina said, “but I think you should be a little more aware of your surroundings.”

“It’s okay. I’m using detection magic, so I know there aren’t any monsters nearby.”

“There’s magic like that?!”

“But there are a lot more than I expected.”

“More than expected?”

“I think there might be around a hundred?”

“Wait, a hundred! Really? We definitely can’t defeat that many.”

“Why not? That’s just a hundred Deboranays.”

“Are you serious about that?”

“I’m saying it, aren’t I?”

Rulina sighed. “I’ll tell you this now: if things get rough, I’m going to leave you and run, Yuna.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” I could outrun her anyway.

“Ahh, are things really going to be okay?” she said. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

 

One hour later, we’d killed about twenty goblins as we walked through the wooded foothills of the mountain. All we had left to do was wipe out their nest.

“You called that trick detection magic, right?” said Rulina. “It’s pretty useful to know where the goblins are. It almost feels like cheating. You could pair that with a long-range spell and wipe them out all at once.”

“Make sure you take the mana gems.”

“I know.”

She cut into the goblins collapsed in front of her, pulled out their mana gems, and finished things off by burning the bodies to make sure they wouldn’t attract scavengers—monster or otherwise.

“Looks like the goblin nest is up ahead,” I told her.

I’d learned from WFO that surprise attacks were most effective on groups. You’d slip in under their aggro, attack with the strongest magic you could in one blow, then keep the pressure on with faster, lower-level spells while they were too surprised to do anything.

I figured I needed to keep going forward until I reached a place where I could confirm them by sight, at least.

“Looks like it’s that cave.”

“You’re not telling me we’re going in there, right?”

Even I didn’t want to go into a cave containing a goblin horde. There were about five goblins around the cave entrance—probably the guards.

“I’m going to check on something, so wait here.”

I incanted a wind spell, aimed at the cave mouth, and released. The spell coaxed the wind into every nook and cranny of the cave.

“Confirmed it. That’s the only entrance. I’m going to go over, so wait here.”

“Wait, are you really going?”

Before they could react, I decapitated the guards with an air cutter. After that, I imagined a burning red bear.

“Bear Fire.”

I threw bear-shaped fire into the cave and incanted the next spell.

“Bear Wall.”

A bear-shaped boulder blocked off the cave entrance. Now it was done. All we had to do was wait.

“Yuna, what did you do?”

“I threw a thermobaric blast into the cave and closed off the exit. All the oxygen in there should be burning off, so the goblins that don’t vaporize will probably suffocate.”

“Oxygen? Suffocate?”

Do they not know what oxygen is in this world? I thought.

“To put it simply, there isn’t any air in that cave.”

“Really?”

“When you put a fire in a sealed-up place, the air disappears. So the goblins probably aren’t doing so great without anything to breathe around now. This is easy, right? Or did you want to fight them in the cave?”

Rulina shook her head energetically.

“We’re going to have some time to kill, so after you handle the goblin guards, how about we have lunch?”

“We’re eating here?” she said, seeming unhappy about it.

She probably didn’t want to have a meal in a place where she wouldn’t be able to tell when a goblin could come to attack us, but I was fine as long as I had detection magic.

“We could go back to the village, but it’d be kind of a pain.”

“It would be, but how long do we have to wait?”

“Normally a few minutes, I think? Anyway, I’m planning on using detection magic and waiting until they’re all gone.”

For the time being, I had Rulina take care of the goblin corpses in front of the entrance. Afterwards she sat down with me and pulled out lunch from the bag that was hanging on her hip. So that’s a bottomless bag, I thought.

“How much can fit in that bag?”

“In this? It won’t fit as much as your bear, Yuna. I think it could fit about five wolves.”

If that was the standard, this bear was a deeply OP item. I ate the meal she had prepared, but it wasn’t that great, just dried jerky and lukewarm water. It seemed that time progressed like usual in normal bottomless bags. I should have prepared my own lunch.

After lunch, I pulled my hood back down.

“Huh?” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“One of them is still alive.”

“One of them…it couldn’t be.”

“What is it?”

“Yuna, you said there were about a hundred goblins in total, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That might be a goblin king.”

“The goblin king…”

A goblin king…the leader of the goblins, and no doubt stronger and smarter. They were early-game bosses in WFO, too.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like it’s going die, so I guess we have to fight it.”

“You can’t! A goblin king is C-class; you’d need an entire C-class party.”

I got where she was coming from, but I figured we could handle a boss with strictly physical attacks. It was dangerous if we got hit, but I didn’t intend to let that happen.

“We should go back to the guild and get reinforcements.”

“Hmm, I think it’ll probably be fine.”

“Yuna, please. Please listen to me on this.”

“In that case, I’ll go into the cave to fight alone. If I don’t come out, get reinforcements from the guild.”

“Are you telling me to let you go to your death?”

“Like I said, it’ll be fine. Okay, I’m moving the rock.”

“Yuna!”

I ignored her shout and made the boulder in the entrance disappear. Hot wind blew out of the cave. I cycled out the air inside the cave with a wind spell, but the entrance was still hot.

“I can’t go in when it’s like this.”

“Then let’s go home!”

“Hm? It looks like the king is coming out himself.”

“You’ve got to be joking…”

“You hide behind me, Rulina.”

A goblin several sizes larger than usual came out from the cave. He held an ominous sword in its hand. When it saw me, he howled loud enough to make the ground rumble.

So, I thought, this is the goblin king. I loosed an air cutter, but the king brought down his sword and cut it aside. Then he fixed his gaze on me and charged, bellowing. I pulled my sword out of my bear storage, blocking the goblin king’s sword as it came down on me. The blow forced me back, and the goblin king swung his free arm.

I was still sent flying, even when I defended against it with my white bear, but I circulated some mana to my shoes and closed the distance again.

Maybe my level wasn’t high enough? I thought. If normal magic didn’t work on him, then how about bear magic?

“Bear cutter.”

I imagined a bear’s sharp claws as I aimed at the goblin king and brought my bear glove down. Three wind blades slashed at the goblin king. He swung his sword in the same way he had earlier, trying to destroy what I conjured, but this time the bear cutter kept up its assault.

“Huh?”

It didn’t bring him down. Though the goblin king was bloodied by my bear cutter, it didn’t cut through him.

“He’s tough.”

Still, now I knew I could damage him. Perhaps frustrated that he was hurt, the goblin king cried out and glared at me again. He started running.

I guessed we’d decide the match soon, now. I loosed an earth spell, and a deep hole opened in front of the goblin king. His anger had made all his blood rush to his head. Too busy looking at me to watch his feet, he tumbled right in.

I was afraid that if I dropped bear fire on him I’d melt him, mana gem and all, so I aimed several bear cutters into the hole.

“Bear cutter, bear cutter, bear cutter, bear cutter, bear cutter.”

He was a lot more tenacious than I thought. I could hear his bellows from the bottom of the hole. He might have been trying to climb out, but my bear cutters were probably keeping him down.

After a while of throwing bear cutters, I stopped hearing his shouts. When I looked through my hood, the goblin king’s signal had disappeared. I stopped casting, and Rulina came out from the shadows of the trees.

“Is it over?”

“He’s dead.”

“I can’t believe you could actually beat a goblin king.”

“I was a little surprised—he was stronger than I thought. I’m going to make sure he’s dead, so move away from the hole.”

I used earth magic to raise the ground at the bottom of the hole. The goblin king that came into view was dead, his body frozen in a silent scream. His face still struck fear in me.

“He really is dead, right?”

“Yeah.” Just to dispel Rulina’s fears, I hit the goblin king’s motionless body with an air cutter. “So, what should we do with this?”

“Yuna, he’ll fit in your bottomless bag, right?”

“He would.”

“Then, could you do that? His mana gem would be proof enough, but if we can, I’d like to bring home the corpse.”

I put the goblin king in the bear storage, taking care to pick up his sword separately, then cooled the cave with a couple wind and water spells. “The cave should be fine to go in now, I think. Could you do the rest?”

“Uhh, I’m going to just confirm, but is the cave safe?”

“It’s fine. But there are a lot of dead goblins, so I think hacking them up is going to be a lot of work.”

“Yuna, what would you think of helping—”

“Nope.” I was absolutely not going to cut open goblin corpses to harvest their mana gems. Having turned Rulina down flat, I then conjured up a bear-shaped light. “It’s dark in there, so here’s a present. You can take it with you.”

“Thanks? I don’t really get why it’s bear-shaped, but I’m grateful.”

Rulina went into the cave alone. The work of getting a mana gem out of a goblin took a minute per goblin at the fastest, and there were probably about eighty in the cave. Factoring in how long it would take for her to move around the cave, I was probably looking at a two-hour wait.

I erected a small house with earth magic and gave it a little window for ventilation. Once I was in, I sealed the entrance behind me to keep out any monsters that might happen by. Finally, I made a pallet of earth and laid down. It was hard, but not impossible to sleep on. I’d have to buy myself a blanket.

I was worn out, so sleep came to me quickly.