Goblin Slayer - Volume 12 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Of What Problem There Could Possibly Be With A Male Human Fighter

“Urgh… It’s so…slimy…”

“You just won’t shut up about that. Put on some shoes, if it bothers you so much!”

“I’m a rhea, you know that’s the one thing I can’t do! Why, if my dear, departed grandfather found out, he’d spank me silly!”

Shlip, shlip. Tok, tak. One pair of bare feet, one shod, echoed through the sewers.

It felt as if they might be the only living things down there in the gloom. The red-haired boy held his staff aloft, the end shimmering with magical light; he was aware of his own nerves fraying.

I wonder if this is what a city looks like after it starts to go to dust…

It reeked. The water that flowed past them was murky with pollutants. The rats, and even the bugs, were nowhere to be found anymore.

The boy didn’t know how long it had been since the city had fallen. Less than a month, he supposed. And the decay had already reached the sewers underground. The wizard boy shivered, praying that the girl beside him wouldn’t notice. He didn’t have the courage to look and see whether the thing he’d just stepped on was a corpse or not.

“Yeek?! I just stepped on something squooshy! Squooshy and…soft…!”

“Shut up! Be quiet…!”

Despite the boy’s scolding, the rhea girl with him—a warrior with a sword strapped across her back—continued to squeak and squeal. She was quick to fear but not to take offense; you could say that she had thin courage but thick skin.

Her cheerfulness, though out of place, was something of a saving grace in this abandoned city. But Wizard Boy was both too embarrassed and not honest enough with himself to admit it.

Just imagine what would have become of him if he’d been thrown into this situation all alone. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

“I can think of some other people who would be a lot more suited to this sort of place than we are.”

Wizard Boy’s offhanded grumble brought an expression of genuine weariness from Rhea Fighter. “Yeah, those rats and those bugs were so big… And then there were those slimes. Ugh, I don’t like them.”

There were many opponents in this world who couldn’t be handled simply by swinging a sword around. The fact that some of those opponents were just sewer-dwellers was beyond pathetic…

“…All right, pipe down. I’m gonna give the signal.”

“Yeah, I know.” By the time she whispered this to him she had already slid her sword smoothly from its scabbard. “Any old time.”

The two of them had reached the far end of the sewer, where the brackish water slipped out of sight. The sewers had been created by humans or dwarves or somebody else, but what lay ahead was different. The water flowed under the rocks, off to become the tributary of a great river somewhere. The boy studied the water, dark as ink—in fact, he practically glowered at it—and lifted his shining staff.

He waved the staff twice, then three times—big, sweeping motions as if it were a brush and the light were paint, and he was drawing in the air. After making this portentous movement a couple of times, stirring the empty air, he waited a moment, then repeated the process. An onlooker might not have known what he was communicating, but it would have been clear that he was communicating something.

One thing, however, would have puzzled any observer. Namely, who could there be to receive a signal from the far edge of a polluted stream in a dead city?

“………”

“………”

“…Nothing happened.”

“No shit!” Wizard Boy groaned, wishing he could run away from this moment. He couldn’t, however, so he didn’t. Instead, he bit his lip and repeated the movements with his staff a fourth time, and then a fifth, desperately sending the signal.

There was no response—not that he even really knew what he was hoping for.

“…Um. I don’t guess maybe you’ve got the order wrong or something?”

“No way,” Wizard Boy snapped. “Even if I did, they’d still notice it.”

“Yeah, but…” Rhea Fighter started to say something, then stopped, offering only a “Pfah” and a click of the tongue. She could complain all she wanted, but even the lackadaisical rhea understood that if nothing happened, then you had to do something about it yourself. But she didn’t feel like there was the slightest thing she could do about it.

Every last stupid little thing here is all Ol’ Teach’s fault! Looking to vent some of her anger, she gave something by her foot a good, hard kick. She didn’t even know how it had managed to ride the stream all the way down here: It was an old, rusty metal helmet. Released from otherwise being destined to sit there until it turned to dust, the helmet smacked off some nearby rubble with a great clang. It rolled into the water (ploosh), leaving behind it only the echo of the impact.

“Oops… Ha-ha…”

“Listen, you…” Wizard Boy eyeballed the girl, who flinched a little, perhaps expecting a storm of rage. But before he could say anything, everything else was drowned out by a heavy, wet shlop.

The two of them froze, and then, as if on cue, they looked in the same direction.

It was a hand.

It stuck up out of the stream, sending ripples across the dark water, grabbing firmly onto the shore. Next (shoop), up came a heavy body. The thick, sticky water went flying almost like mud.

There was a cheap-looking metal helmet. Grimy leather armor. You could almost mistake it for Living Armor or an undead monster. But it was an adventurer, and he worked his way onto dry ground.

“It’s just as our information indicated. At least it appears to have been correct.” The man didn’t even glance at the boy and girl, but shook himself like a wet dog coming in from the rain. Then he turned his back to them and stuck his hand back under the water, his arm tensing with exertion.

What he pulled up was a muscular body covered in armor—a hulking man with a greatsword across his back.

“Wouldn’t have occurred to me to think they didn’t trust us. That info came from the quest giver, didn’t it?”

“Even if the quest giver is telling the truth, there’s always a possibility that unexpected circumstances could have caused the path to collapse.”

“There was a possibility, but it didn’t happen, did it? So, no problem.”

“Indeed,” the first man said, his metal helmet nodding up and down. “No problem.”

“It’s nothing but problems…!” This came from the third and final form to emerge from the water. This person jumped out of the river as smartly as a salmon, even the ripples he made looking neat and attractive. He was a handsome man who had somehow managed to sling a spear across his back, and the moment he was on land, he held up his sopping hair. “It’s great that you have rings that let us breathe underwater and all, but I never want to wade through a river of sewage again!”

“Did the rings not do their job?”

“Not the point.”

“I see.” The man in the middle helmet, Goblin Slayer, nodded, sounding somehow slightly disappointed. “We will have to find ourselves another way home, then.”

“Not the point, either. I’m not just sayin’ this for my own amusement—Ahh, forget it. Oh…”

“Hey there. Sorry about all the noise.” While Spearman tried to sort out his hair, Heavy Warrior managed to spare a glance at the boy and girl as he checked his equipment. The two kids, watching in some amazement, found themselves pinned to the spot by his look. Then again, you wouldn’t have to have been a born coward to feel the same, seeing this group emerge from the water.

It only lasted a second, though. Heavy Warrior came over to them like a lumbering bear, then squatted down so he could look them in the eyes. “So, we’ve linked up, just like we planned. And you guys got your stuff done safely? Nice work.” His voice was rough, but his tone was kindly. He patted them each on the shoulder with his powerful hand. It was almost painful, but also exhilarating.

“Well, y’know.” Wizard Boy sniffed as if quite pleased with himself, and even Rhea Fighter puffed out her generous chest proudly. These rookie adventurers had earned praise from a Silver. It didn’t happen often. Which meant…

“Maybe this adventure was just a little bit over our heads?”

The rhea girl’s whisper cut to the heart of the matter, but the boy greeted it with a snort. He couldn’t admit that he had been thinking the same thing—it would simply be too embarrassing.

§

Another city destroyed.

It was not, of course, at the hands of goblins. Any adventurer who said it was would be a laughingstock. Only the thoughtless or the ignorant believed goblins were as threatening as all that.

Anyway, you didn’t need goblins to destroy a city. There was an endless array of monsters in the Four-Cornered World who could do that. A dragon attack would do the trick, or a rampaging giant, or a dark elf’s plotting, or a demon’s domination, or, at specific times and in certain cases, all of these things at once.

Such occurrences were common enough in the never-ending battle between Order and Chaos. But there wasn’t a god, ruler, or adventurer who wouldn’t try to do something about it. Adventurers, for example, would find out exactly what monster had destroyed the city, and then go try to pay it back in kind.

So, we find ourselves with not one, not two, but three such devil-may-care adventurers.

And what were these three doughty daredevils? MHF, MHF, MHF: Male Human Fighters all. The kind of party that would make an onlooker grin, or put their hand to their forehead, or look up at the ceiling—but here they were to try themselves against this ghost town.

They had been told that another party had gone ahead to do some investigating. As such, they ought to link up with that party and see what they had found out. Via a familiar, they agreed to set a meeting place, but where should it be? For that matter, how were they supposed to get in? This was different from doing reconnaissance, or even from going in to topple the leader of the place.

In theory, they could simply kill the guards and everyone else they encountered; then they would certainly not be “spotted” in a practical sense. More realistically, though, they would need to conserve their resources as they infiltrated the area.

Heavy Warrior had accepted the quest, and Spearman had agreed to go with him with hardly a second thought; Goblin Slayer had required some dragging, but came along. Three heads together were said to be as good as having the God of Knowledge by your side, but the conclusion they came to was…

“So, we will traverse the sewers to gain access, yes?”

“Seems like it’s got the best chance of success. Just have to be careful our gear doesn’t get washed away.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”

…like so.

They dove into a river, walking along the bottom, until they were finally able to pull themselves up onto dry ground again. It was the sort of thing adventurers with countless quests under their belts were perfectly used to; and they immediately set about checking over their equipment. They would hate to fumble things at some critical moment because their gear was fouled up with gunky water.

One could do nothing to influence the gods of Fate and Chance, but that was no reason not to be prepared.

“You really had breathing rings…”

“I got my first from someone I knew long ago. It was a gift.”

Quite some time past, there had been on the western frontier a wizard very knowledgeable about magic and the Gate spell and so on. When Goblin Slayer mentioned it, Spearman realized that he, too, vaguely remembered such a person. From his first year or so, perhaps, back when he was a newly minted adventurer…

“Huh, izzat right,” he said.

“I haven’t had many chances to use it in this way.”

Spearman decided not to think about what other ways there might be to use a breathing ring. He was sure he didn’t want to know. Instead, he started wiping off his armor and getting his hair in order.

“So, what’s the situation?” Heavy Warrior asked, trying to move things along.

“We did our best to get a read on it,” the red-haired wizard boy said. He still had the lankiness of youth, and he possessed a certain fiery forcefulness, but that was all. As he unrolled his map, Heavy Warrior observed how well the boy communicated the information they needed.

Wonder if he studied a bit under a certain scout, Spearman thought with a smirk.

To learn. To grow. To take your first step away from being a complete novice. It could hurt to realize how inexperienced you were, but it could be invigorating, too. He’d gone through that phase, as he well remembered, and this headstrong young man touched his heart for that reason. But it rubbed him the wrong way how the boy gestured Sit down to the rhea girl with a wave of his hand, without even looking at her.

Got a ways to go still. Spearman smiled to himself, and tossed his waterskin, wrapped in oil paper, to her without a word.

“Oh, um…” She blinked her big eyes and ducked her head as if embarrassed. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Just remember to breathe—if you can give a good swing of that sword when you need to, that’ll see you through.” He gave her an affable wave and went back to checking his stuff. He quietly kept her in his peripheral vision, though.

After a moment’s hesitation, and with a touch of embarrassment, she took a couple audible gulps from the canteen. He wasn’t very good with rhea ages, but he figured she was still a kid. Give her a little time to grow up, though, and she might turn out to be quite a woman.

Can’t be draggin’ your feet, boy, he thought. He saw the way Wizard Boy’s eyes went from Heavy Warrior to the girl and then to him, and he grinned. Wizard Boy promptly dropped his gaze and tried to focus on his explanation—just went to show that the guy had a lot left to learn.

“Okay, executive summary time,” Spearman said.

“Don’t make me do all the work. Pay a little attention sometimes…,” Heavy Warrior replied, annoyed, but Spearman brushed him off with a quick apology and, with his spear in his hands, inserted himself into the conversation. Neither of them actually thought the other wasn’t listening. Of course not. Spearman just wanted to make sure he was clear on the details.

“It seems there are hostages.” Goblin Slayer’s explanation was concise and to the point, if never anything else. His gloved fingers flexed, working over the papyrus map. Some of the cartography left something to be desired, but for a Porcelain or Obsidian, it was pretty good work.

“Two locations appear to be confirmed,” Goblin Slayer continued. “We cannot leave them here. We cannot allow them to have hostages.”

“Occult ritual, it sounds like,” Heavy Warrior added, and Wizard Boy put in, “They’re gonna sacrifice them,” his expression grim.

“Huh.” Spearman didn’t sound unduly concerned. Yeah, he seemed to say, that’s pretty much what you’d expect from the forces of Chaos. “Hey, we let them get away with this and the world is done for, right?”

“Maybe.” Heavy Warrior shrugged. Goblin Slayer’s metal helmet nodded. “At the very least, this town was destroyed.”

“Meaning failure’s not an option on this adventure. Tough spot.”

Captives, sacrifices, hostages—the point was, there were two places with people who had been captured. Spearman tapped a point on the map with the butt of his spear, asking if this was where they currently were, and Goblin Slayer nodded. Well, then.

“How about we just follow the road? Start with what’s closest?” offered Spearman.

“No dice. We can’t bust into the leader’s place hauling all the captives with us.” Heavy Warrior, for the time being the party’s de facto leader, stroked his chin thoughtfully. “This isn’t some anecdote about slaying a dragon, either. I want to hear our scout’s opinion about where they’re likely to be hidden.”

“Hmm,” Goblin Slayer grunted. “There are several possibilities… However, we won’t know until we check.”

“Start with the closest spot, then. Stay flexible after that…”

“Play it by ear, huh?” Spearman said, shrugging. “In other words, just what we always do.”

“Hey, that’s how adventuring goes.” Heavy Warrior clapped his huge hand down on Spearman’s shoulder, ignoring the other man’s aggrieved “Hey, that hurts.”

The young boy and girl could only watch in amazement as the adventurers fell into formation as if they were completely used to it. The two of them looked at each other, and then Wizard Boy gave voice to the question in both their minds.

“…You guys decided awful fast… To rescue the hostages, I mean.”

“Thought we were gonna just leave ’em here?” Spearman grinned.

Wizard Boy shook his head quickly. “No, no, I don’t mean—”

Well, it was understandable. Helping hostages or would-be sacrifices was a good deal of trouble.

“I don’t understand the point of not helping them,” Goblin Slayer said quietly, to which Heavy Warrior made a sound of wholehearted agreement. Spearman nodded, too. “We’re adventurers ’cause we want to be,” he said. “We ain’t just mercenaries.”

If it was just a job, it was just about efficiency; if all they wanted was enough food to keep them alive until they died, then they each could have just stayed home. They could have been farmers, or slaves, or prostitutes—all regular folks who lived out their days without incident.

But they were looking for something else—that was what had led them all to become adventurers. Of course they wanted to avoid danger if they could. They weren’t eager to die. And yet…

“When all you think about is efficiency or profit or advantage or whatever, when that’s the only thing in your head—you’re done for, kiddo,” Heavy Warrior explained, in a tone that suggested that (as party leader) he was talking in some measure to himself as well. “You start to look at everyone—your comrades, your friends, your enemies and allies and everyone—in terms of nothing but how strong they are.”

It was unlikely that the young man and woman quite understood what he was saying. But they grasped, certainly, that it was something important.

Hmm. Rhea Fighter tilted her head slightly with a sound like she was puzzling over something difficult. “…In that case, they wouldn’t really be your friends or comrades anymore, would they?”

“And that’s why it’ll get you killed.” Heavy Warrior smiled like a shark. “You’ll be all by yourself.”

That’s why such people were called munchkins—in a word, idiots. Yes, there were those who mistakenly believed a real pro knew that the most efficient thing to do was simply to kill all the hostages. But any such person would undoubtedly invite destruction upon themselves before long. It would be impossibly selfish to think you could heedlessly abandon others and not expect to be abandoned yourself.

“You want to focus only on what’s most advantageous or not, if that’s all you’re interested in, join the army. Don’t come adventuring,” Heavy Warrior said.

“Look, there are those who can go it alone, sure, but we’re not talking about the exceptions, here,” Spearman added, picking up on Heavy Warrior’s theme and adding a little twist of his own. Almost to himself, he continued, “You fight in the coolest possible way, you die, and they make a song out of you. That’s what I became an adventurer for, anyway.”

That was reason enough to help any hostages. This was the truth for them. For these adventurers.

Goblin Slayer didn’t say anything. He simply grunted, and then let out a “True enough.” Perhaps the only person who could have guessed at his expression hidden under that helmet was the girl from the farm.

“Listen up,” Spearman said in an achingly light tone, pounding the grimy leather armor with his fist. “You oughtta be thankful to me and that elf girl of yours, eh? For teachin’ you what a real adventure is.”

“…I see.”

“Damn right you do. Am I wrong?”

“No,” Goblin Slayer replied, shaking his head almost with resignation. “You are absolutely right.”

“All right, enough with the sermons,” Heavy Warrior cut in, trying to cover for himself. And that was where the conversation ended. The adventurers resumed wiping down their sodden equipment, unwrapping waterproofed bundles of gear, putting everything on, and getting into formation. They lit the lanterns hanging at their hips, and their soft glow began to suffuse the gloom of the abandoned sewers.

Now they would proceed, they would kill, and they would get the loot. Hack and slash was the beauty of adventuring.

“You kids okay getting home?” Heavy Warrior asked, easily lifting his broadsword as the younger adventurers prepared to head off into the dark.

Maybe we should go with them. Maybe I want to go with them. Wizard Boy fretted about it for a moment. The very fact that he was fretting was a fretful thing to him. Not long before, he would have nodded without a second thought. Back when he had just become an adventurer. But what about now? No, I can’t.

There was the issue of how many spells he had left. How tired the girl beside him was. Enemy strength. Enemy skill. He’d just been told not to look at things purely in terms of power, or points, or advantage and disadvantage. But from that perspective…well, if they went along, at least they might make helpful meat shields.

That wasn’t what he wanted. Even less did he want his partner, the girl, to die that way. In any event, he should focus on getting home, not on putting up a show of strength.

And so, the boy answered, “We’re fine,” in a very sharp voice. “That old fart gave me some magical paints. We just need to draw a tunnel or something and we’ll be out of here.”

“You suck at it, though, so we might not have a real tunnel for a while yet!” Rhea Fighter laughed out loud, earning herself a “Shut up!” and a jab in the side from Wizard Boy. Even this only made the mage more annoyed, though, because he hurt his elbow bumping it against something far more muscular than he had expected.

“But you guys better listen up!” he shouted at the others as they turned to leave. He seemed to be letting out everything he had held in. “We’ll be taking on the next one, so leave some for us!”

There was no answer. Spearman just grinned and started walking; Heavy Warrior raised a hand without even looking back. Only Goblin Slayer stopped and spoke. “Do you think you can do it—slay a dragon?” The question was so quiet.

The boy shook his head reluctantly. “…Probably not yet.”

“I see.” Goblin Slayer nodded, too. Then he thought for a moment, as if he felt he should say something. “Me, neither.”

“…Heh.”

“Do what you can.”

“…Sure.”

The three adventurers vanished into the sewers. The last thing Wizard Boy and Rhea Fighter saw of them was the light from their lanterns, and even that was swallowed up by the darkness before long. Left by themselves, the boy and girl were silent for a moment, straining their eyes against the blackness, unable to see anything.

After a moment, the rhea girl whispered something. With her waterskin still in her hand she said, “…Y’know, they really are cool.”

“…Yeah.”

He hated it—it nearly killed him—but he had to admit it was true.

§

“And they say nobody knows where the servant went.”

“Huh.” Heavy Warrior’s response to Spearman didn’t sound terribly interested. “I was sure it was going to turn out that he’d become a monster and was eating people, and you were there to kill him.”

“That’s because you’re a muscle-brain who thinks with his broadsword. C’mon, Goblin Slayer, your turn next.”

Even though the party was trekking through the sewers of a town that had been destroyed by monsters, they didn’t feel unduly nervous. They didn’t know what they were really dealing with, or where the enemy might be located, or how many of them there were, or whether there were traps, or even, really, what their opponents were after.

But that was all in a day’s work.

An adventurer knew how to remain vigilant without becoming twitchy about every little thing. That was Spearman’s personal philosophy anyway, and it seemed Heavy Warrior and even Goblin Slayer shared it.

“Very well.” There was a grunt from beneath the metal helmet. “In that case, eight ways to kill goblins without making a sound…”

At that moment, however, Goblin Slayer broke off. The grimy sewer pathway had stopped, intersecting a rapidly flowing waterway that was like a huge river. Ordinarily, a scout like him wouldn’t have stopped walking or talking if that was all he was faced with. The issue was the small but prominent boat floating there.

It didn’t look unusual at first glance. It would allow them to ride the river and continue their journey. The map Wizard Boy had produced didn’t extend beyond this channel. Based on the size of the blank space, though, it was clear that the current led to a room with one of the living sacrifices. It was a highly convenient coincidence. And that led to only one conclusion.

“Suspicious,” Goblin Slayer intoned.

“Got that right.”

“Mm.”

Goblin Slayer nodded solemnly and then approached the vessel, checking it over quickly. There were no holes, and no stoppers. It didn’t appear to be booby-trapped—just a normal boat.

“I cannot speak to possible magical traps, however.”

“This is why I keep tellin’ you to get better equipment.” Spearman smirked, then had them wait a moment and began rifling through his items. He was able to reach remarkably far into his bag for its small size. It was clearly magical in some way, as was the small wand he pulled out of it. “A Silver oughtta at least have something like this along. Watch and learn.”

“I’ll try,” Goblin Slayer said from inside his helmet. “I haven’t given much thought to using enchanted items against goblins.”

“Listen, we ain’t talkin’ about goblins, all right?”

“Besides, items like that always have a limited number of charges. Can’t expect it to be powerful and last forever,” Heavy Warrior teased. Spearman only gave a little cluck and waved the wand gently.

“Lumen.” To their surprise, the wand began emitting a faint glow. Spearman drew something in the air with the tip of the wand. It appeared to be the outline of a butterfly or some such; the particles of light scattered, drifting onto the boat.

“Nothin’…”

“In other words, it’s enchantment-free.”

The boat continued to rock in the water in front of them, looking exactly the same as it had before. A wand of Detect Magic wasn’t infallible, as Spearman well knew. He tossed the item back in his bag, then with one easy motion, jumped onto the boat. That it didn’t even wobble under his weight was a testament to his nimbleness.

“Guess that’s really all that’s left, huh?” Heavy Warrior was the next to board, and this time the boat listed noticeably. Between the broadsword on his back, the armor all over him, and his own not insubstantial physique, it was inevitable. That Heavy Warrior himself didn’t so much as sway, let alone lose his footing, was likewise thanks to his well-trained muscles. Most physical obstacles could be dealt with through sheer brute strength.

“Hmm.” Goblin Slayer was the last to step onto the gunwale. The boat pitched under his weight, but not much. Easy to control. He picked up the oar that lay at his feet, and then tilted his helmet. “Who will row?”

“Not sure we need to. We’re going with the current—when we undo the rope, it’ll just carry us along, right?”

“Besides, having someone row would mean one less hand if we need help. Somebody was nice enough to leave this boat here for us, we might as well use it.” Heavy Warrior shrugged as he worked to undo the diligently secured rope. “If we wind up in a trap, we’ll just bust our way out. More fun that way.”

“I see,” Goblin Slayer said, and then nodded. “Yes. You’re right.”

§

And indeed, it was a trap.

“Dammit!”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!”

Spearman cursed, Heavy Warrior chortled, and Goblin Slayer was silent as they all leaped from the boat.

The moment they had arrived at the terminus of the rapids and the room of the living sacrifice, a net had come plummeting down over their heads.

No, something like a net, Spearman thought, reevaluating the situation as he hit the ground and saw the white, sticky thing flying through the air. Whatever it was that caught the oar (flung by Goblin Slayer as he rolled away), it wasn’t a normal net. It was webbing.

The space, which appeared to have once been a cistern designed to prevent rainwater from overflowing, was no longer serving its original purpose. At the center stood a cross of crucifixion, with an array of blasphemous words and symbols carved into it. And then there was the gooey white stuff everywhere in the room.

“If nothing else, it doesn’t appear to be goblins,” Goblin Slayer said, rising unsteadily to one knee.

“Yeah, no shit,” Spearman growled.

“When you’re right, you’re right. This looks like a spider’s nest.” Heavy Warrior kicked at the sticky stuff with his boots, his face contorting into an animal-like snarl. He didn’t have to look back to know that the little boat they’d arrived in was completely covered in the stuff. It had fallen on them from above—or been fired. They would have to work their way through the goop in order to get out of here, but the enemy wasn’t going to give them the time.

Yes—the enemy.

They saw a pudgy man bound upon the cross: a sacrifice to be. He lacked even the strength to whimper—but there was something else there, too. Something in the subterranean gloom, in the corners of the ceiling, along the edges of the room, hiding with bated breath. Spearman didn’t know whether there was really anything as ambiguous as an “aura” that one could detect. But his intuition as a warrior who had faced death and lived to tell the tale, time after time—in other words, his experience points—said…

It’s there.

No question, no doubt: It was there. And the other adventurers knew it as well as he did.

“My teacher… My master, told me a story of encountering spiders in the dark, but it was in the way of a boast,” Goblin Slayer said softly, as he sank into a deep, cautious squat. “What do you think?”

Spearman gave a snorting laugh, thrusting his famous spear out in front of him. “If I kill him in one hit, he’s a shrimp. If not, he’s tough stuff.”

“Easier to fight than to plan,” Heavy Warrior agreed, hefting his broadsword. “Let’s give it a shot and see what happens.”

Even as he spoke, he slashed through some of the webbing, cutting it down with an audible shoop. It couldn’t precisely be said to sound like a sword racing through the air; it was too heavy a sound for that. But the gummy response from the blade was abundant proof that the webbing was stuck on it.

“Well, this sucks…!” Heavy Warrior spat, but he wasn’t actually that upset about it. Why? Because he had a different role to play.

“………!”

The man in grimy armor ran through the dim chamber, flinging a knife that he held in his hand. The silver streak would have pierced the throat of any goblin it was aimed at, but instead it bounced off the stone floor with a dull clatter. Just before this moment, though, Goblin Slayer, looking around quickly, had called out: “It’s going to jump!”

“Yeah, I hear ya!”

The dark shape sprang upward—and Spearman took aim at the air, where there was no escape.

A spider—knew it. A terrible, eerie spider like something that had been torn from a nightmare, then twisted and pulled into some bizarre shape. “Spider” was the closest word they had for it, but if this thing was a spider, then all the other spiders of the world would cower before it.

Spearman let these thoughts run through his mind as he took one step, then two, then three, getting just the right distance to throw his spear, and then—

“Bah!”

—clucking angrily as his vision filled with gooey webbing, just as he was about to launch the weapon. He placed one hand near the butt of the spear and gave it one good spin like a giant windmill. By the time the web went flying off into a corner of the room, the spider had hidden itself once more in the dark.

“It seems,” Goblin Slayer said sharply, “that this one is tough stuff.”

“Dammit,” Spearman growled, looking in the direction where the spider had disappeared. He might have been cursing the gods, or the enemy, or himself. Presumably not his companions.

He stared as hard as he could into the corner of the chamber, but saw nothing in the darkness, and heard no sound. But the aura, or the miasma, or the feeling of the uncanny—if such things existed, Spearman was overwhelmed by them right now.

Even if he hadn’t been, it would have been too much to think that the monster would conveniently run away. Goblin Slayer, his sword out and his round shield up in front of him, seemed to feel exactly the same way.

The three warriors spoke quickly, never ceasing to watch for the slightest hint of their enemy.

“What should we do?” he asked, his voice sharp and brief. “Shall we use fire?”

“Not out of the question, I guess…” Heavy Warrior was picking the last strands of webbing off his sword, groaning to himself. He stole the occasional glance at the man on the cross. “But we might torch our hostage, too, and nobody wants that.”

“Think it’s a good moment for a little magic?” Spearman suggested, but Heavy Warrior promptly replied, “No.” None of them were eager to resort to magic too quickly in this den of a servant of Chaos.

“I need a little time,” Heavy Warrior said. “Can you make some for me?”

“You’re the leader,” Goblin Slayer replied with a nod. “We’ll try it.”

“Yeah, follow the you-know-what,” Spearman said, but despite his tone, he didn’t object—and that meant all that was left was action.

A human warrior can’t be expected to see into dark corners or discover hidden enemies. He can only go forward, attack, keep the enemy’s hands full, and kill; these are a warrior’s bread and butter.

Spearman and Goblin Slayer, without so much as a word to each other, jumped into action at exactly the same moment. They flew like arrows from a bow—well, such a description might have made High Elf Archer laugh, but they were fast and true.

“…!”

Once again it was Goblin Slayer who took the initiative. He reached into his item bag, pulling out an object and throwing it wildly. In the gloom in one corner of the chamber, the massive spider-like creature once again burst into a leap, launching upward with its eight knees and eight legs. “ ?!?!?!?!”

A wordless screech came from its mouth. This was immediately after Goblin Slayer’s projectile burst with a dry sound, scattering some kind of reddish-black powder everywhere. It was a bug repellent made of pepper and mint, not that the spider had any way of knowing that.

But that was hardly enough to subdue this creature of Chaos; the spider flew into the air—

“Take—this!!”

—where Spearman let his spear do the talking. It pierced clean through the webbing the spider spat out in self-defense, and then clean through the spider as well. It was Spear Fighting 101: Let centrifugal force and gravity do the work.

This simple physical blow was enough to slam the spider’s soft body into the stone floor. Though of course, even this didn’t deal a critical amount of damage. The creature bounced along like a ball, curling up as it came to rest on the ground. It bit through its own webbing with its poisonous fangs and hissed at them. None of them knew if monsters communicated anything with their cries, but if so, the meaning was clear enough: I’ll kill you or You’re never leaving here alive, something of that nature.

“Hey, that’s our line.”

Kerack. With a sound like a huge tree breaking in half, Heavy Warrior rose, his own fangs bared in a wild grin. The gloves on his hands glowed with magical power—and in his hands was the boat, freed from the webbing.

“Try this on for size…!!”

The spider could spit webbing; it could try to jump; but there was no longer any way to protect itself from this simple act of violence. A second later, the monster disappeared under the boat like a bug crushed with a rock. There was a sickening squishing sound, and green goo splattered everywhere. Eight twitching legs were the only evidence that this monster, the giant spider, had ever existed.

“Order up!” Heavy Warrior cried triumphantly, removing the ogre gloves that had bestowed his monstrous strength. For a Silver-ranked adventurer, to have a magic item like this was just par for the course.

Spearman, though, scowled in Heavy Warrior’s direction, his annoyance evident on his face. “That was reckless. What would we have done if you’d put a hole in our boat—how would we have gotten back?”

“Bail and row, buddy,” Heavy Warrior said evenly. “Or we could have just done the underwater thing again.”

“Spare me…” Spearman groaned; Goblin Slayer, meanwhile, was approaching the cross at a bold stride. The man bound to it was slumped listlessly; his entire body appeared swollen. He was breathing in shallow gasps, though, so he wasn’t dead. That meant they could free him and find out what was going on.

Goblin Slayer crouched behind the cross, using a small item of his own devising to try and pick the lock on the cuff restraining the man. Heavy Warrior watched from over his shoulder. “How’s it look—think you can open it?” He wasn’t asking so much as confirming.

“No problem.”

“Everyone in this room’s been to a lot of trouble. Better see if we can get the story.” Spearman jogged up to the cross so that he was in front of the man. He peered into the captive’s face, observing his cloudy eyes and half-open mouth. He was alive. But that was only to say he wasn’t dead. Would he be able to talk to them?

“Think this guy might need some healing before he’s gonna be in any shape for an interview. Maybe that stamina potion I bought from the receptionist—”

—would be a good idea, he was about to say, but he was interrupted by the man, who spontaneously inflated like a balloon.

“Huh?”

Then he exploded.

Bits of the captive went every which way, while dark fluids spattered all around. Blood, brains, chunks of internal organs—well, if only spattering was the only thing they had done. The hunks of meat that had gone flying now began to twitch and quiver. They squirmed, crawled forward, writhed with an unmistakable will of their own—and began to slither toward the adventurers.

“Shit—slimes?!” Spearman, who had taken the full brunt of the explosion, tore a monster off his face and slammed it to the ground, then stepped on it as hard as he could. If that thing had made it down his throat, it would’ve suffocated him, an awful way to go.

The man they had found was either only what was left of a living sacrifice; or else a sick trap. Or perhaps both.

“They got us good. Ugh, the guy who thought this stuff up is either a genius or a complete moron.”

Heavy Warrior, watching Spearman try to keep both the slimes and his frustration at bay, cackled aloud. One silver lining: Virtually no slimes had ended up behind the cross. Spearman was the only one who had suffered any of the impact, and he was the only one now surrounded by slimes. “Well, hang in there. I’ve gotta get this boat back on the water before the slimes melt a hole in it.”

“And you think that’s funny?!”

“Hrm…”

Spearman continued to wield his weapon even as he argued with Heavy Warrior; he was perfectly used to fending off slimes. Goblin Slayer had one eye on the fight, but tilted his head in curiosity. “Why didn’t you use that wand when you approached the cross?”

“I told you, the thing ain’t all-powerful! For example, it can’t help a guy if he forgets to use it…”

“Dumbass!”

§

The boat was safely back on the water, having avoided any holes being either punched or melted in it, and now it was skimming along nicely. The spray in their faces as they zipped along felt pleasant, defying the fetid air of the devastated town. Heavy Warrior himself was leaning easily on the gunwale; he kicked his legs out and let his body relax. How he kept his broadsword always in his hand, though, so that he could use it at a moment’s notice, was suitably impressive—or perhaps we should say only natural.

Yes, it was the natural thing for a seasoned adventurer to do, and as such, Goblin Slayer was no different. He sat down and let the current carry the boat. With his helmet on, though, it was impossible to discern the look on his face.

Only one person looked really annoyed—it was Spearman, of course, drying his hair with a cloth. “Geez, that really sucked…,” he grumbled.

“Hmm,” Goblin Slayer replied seriously. “It didn’t seem like that much of a problem to me.”

“We have different standards, you and I.”

“I see.”

Goblin Slayer might have felt he was being quite serious, but to Spearman his answers always sounded diffident, and he clucked his tongue.

“I see.” “Is that so?” “Yes.” “Yes?”

No wonder he drives that elf girl insane, he thought. He felt like his own vocabulary was shrinking the more time he spent in Goblin Slayer’s company.

“Not that I really care, but somebody needs to make sure the boat keeps going the right direction.” Spearman gave a defeated sigh and sat down on the floor of the boat, clutching his spear. Truly was it said that a boat left only a thin plank between a man and a watery grave, but at least they would probably have a few minutes before they drowned. Six seconds was enough to get in a move in combat. Even in two seconds, there were things you could do.

“I don’t want to turn into one of those cautionary tales about a boat capsizing while the captain and the crew are all mesmerized by candlelight or something.”

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Don’t say that.” Spearman scowled at Heavy Warrior’s idea of banter, then gazed ahead at the waterway, which seemed to go on forever. “Okay, so where’s the next sacrifice chamber supposed to be?”

“It shouldn’t take long,” Goblin Slayer said succinctly. Not just anyone can be a good mapper. Some adventurers are suited to it and others aren’t. Goblin Slayer seemed to have a compass in his head; even Spearman had to grudgingly admit it. “If there are no problems,” Goblin Slayer added.

“Hey, solving problems is our business,” Spearman said, sounding a bit crabby. I don’t like all this extra trouble, though, he thought. He noticed how the words emerged as white mist from his mouth, and added, “I thought it was getting cold—guess it’ll be winter soon. Feels awful early.”

“Some wine, some firewood, a nice dinner. I’d love to be celebrating a nice, normal Yule,” Heavy Warrior said.

“But we’re crawling around in the sewers,” Goblin Slayer observed. Maybe it was time to get back at him a little.

“You need to think of a gift, man,” Spearman said with a nasty little grin at Goblin Slayer (whose expression he couldn’t see). “I heard, you know. You really give her a bag full of money that one time?”

“No,” Goblin Slayer said, the helmet moving slowly back and forth. “Not long ago, I gave her a dragon scale.”

So it had come to dragons. Spearman snickered in spite of himself. This guy had goblins on the brain, and what did he claim to run into?

“It was fake, right? I mean, how much did you pay?”

“I found it,” he replied. “And it was real.” His declaration had a frustrating directness.

Strange things happen, I guess. There were many mysteries in the world—and as such, Spearman decided to cut Goblin Slayer some slack and change targets. “What about you?”

“What, you mean am I gonna get something for the kids?” Heavy Warrior shrugged in annoyance, but the gesture was itself annoying to Spearman.

“Not the kids. The woman.”

“A drink’ll be plenty.”

This was getting ridiculous. Heavy Warrior’s impassive face made it impossible to tell when he was being serious. Spearman shook his head dramatically—or perhaps theatrically. “Ugh, now here’s a man with no pride. Is this another one of those ‘After I’m finally king’ things?”

“Surely I need to at least be a knight before I could hope to have a princess by my side…”

“Think she counts as a princess?”

“As far as I’m concerned.” Heavy Warrior let out a breath, then eyed Spearman. “If you’re so smart, what about you?”

“I’d give something to that receptionist, no question,” Spearman said, his best adventurer’s smile on his face. But then it changed to something tinged with longing. “But I’d hate for anyone to think I was trying to bribe somebody.”

A daughter of the nobility and an adventurer would be one thing; but this was a Guild employee and an adventurer. Too much treasure, too many nice meals, and suddenly you might find you were inadvertently causing trouble for the object of your affection. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to give a gift to show one’s appreciation, of course; that was no bribe. But Spearman always struggled to navigate the subtleties of bureaucracy, noble society, and nobles who were also bureaucrats.

“Not what I meant,” Heavy Warrior said with a frown. “I was talking about your party member. You owe her a lot, right?”

“Er, yeah. Good point…” Spearman scratched his head. Of course, it wasn’t that he hadn’t given it any thought, but he’d had other things to worry about.

“Better give her gold or silver or jewels—you know, something awesome. Something befitting ‘The Frontier’s Strongest.’”

“Shaddup.” Spearman laughed. “I’m happy to spend the big bucks on her, but price isn’t the only factor, you know.” When you found something you thought would make a good gift for someone, money was one way to get it. But you needed more than good intentions, and sometimes it wasn’t enough to give a woman an expensive accessory. “Besides, we get more jewels than we know what to do with from treasure chests. You really think she needs another one?”

“Fair enough…”

It was bad enough as a novice—but when you reached the upper ranks of adventurer-dom, the worries only got worse. After all, experienced adventurers were so used to seeing gold and silver and jewels that they were practically inured to them. Take care of a couple of monster hunts and you could come home with enough loot to fill a large chest.

Ordinary people might assume that meant you had “made it,” but many adventurers didn’t feel that way. You might find a flood of treasure, but you equally found that it flowed through your hands like water as you paid for gear for the next adventure; and anything you had left over just sat around. Because no one became an adventurer merely to make money and live a cushy life.

“Hmm…”

Spearman turned toward the soft grunt to find Goblin Slayer looking at him. “I wonder if I should get something for the others,” he said from within his helmet.

“Yeah, just to show you appreciate them,” Heavy Warrior said. Then, not a question, just confirmation: “You do appreciate them, right?”

“Yes.” Goblin Slayer nodded immediately. Then he slowly got to his feet. “But first, we must make it through the next chamber.”

With an enthusiastic shout, Heavy Warrior grabbed the oar—it was a ten-foot pole—and pulled the boat up against the passageway. It rocked with a dull bump, which Spearman took as his cue to hop out onto dry land. “So,” he said, “what’s next?”

§

“So it wasn’t goblins.”

A pack of ordinary monsters was practically beneath the notice of such richly experienced adventurers. They had approached the great white hulk thinking it might be a snowy mountain, but it had turned out to be a giant slime—a ridiculous story if there ever was one, but it was over almost quicker than it could be told. Of course, Spearman was still scowling throughout the entire thing.

“Eh, it’d be kinda dumb if goblins showed up in the middle of this evil plot or adventure or whatever this is,” Heavy Warrior said, crushing the remains of some unidentifiable creature under his foot. If they’d had a proper wizard or cleric with them, they might have been able to find out what it was, but…

Hey, if we can kill it, doesn’t really matter, Spearman thought. Though a sage might be scandalized to hear Spearman say it really didn’t matter to him. Anyway, a dead monster was a good monster. No reason to think any more about it.

“We need to prioritize any survivors,” Heavy Warrior said.

“Mm. I’ll investigate,” Goblin Slayer responded, approaching the cross at a bold stride. Spearman grabbed something out of his bag—a wand—and waved it quickly. “Lumen.”

The command word activated the item, surrounding it in a gentle haze of light. Suddenly, the cross began to glow as if lit by innumerable candles, shining through the entire room.

“…Hell of a magical reaction, geez!”

“That’s because they were doing a magical ritual. Of course the sacrifice would exude magical power.”

“I see. So it’s not all-powerful indeed.”

“Well excuse me!” Spearman snapped at Goblin Slayer.

“Can it,” Heavy Warrior said. In the end, there was no way to be sure if the cross was booby-trapped except to check it up close, so he set about undoing the binds. The would-be sacrifice was wounded, badly beaten, and absolutely out of strength—but alive.

As such, Goblin Slayer lost no time, checking her over with quick, firm probes of his fingers. Her skin was bluish and dark like a shadow. Her hair was like flowing silver. Her chest was ample. And her ears were long. Not every female dark elf was well-endowed, but many people had the impression that they were. It might just be a bit of mistaken lore left over from the ancient ballads; Goblin Slayer didn’t know the truth of the matter.

But if nothing else, even he could tell that yes, she was a dark elf.

“Heyo, miss—still breathing, huh? If you can talk, that’d be great, but if not, that’s okay, too—just glad you’re still with us.” Spearman, who had left guard duty to Heavy Warrior, was likewise not hesitant to approach the woman. He knelt and undid the last of her restraints, then hefted her up, the very picture of gallantry. “And if you could not explode on us, that would be even better.”

“Explode…?” the woman said, her breath ragged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Hey, I hardly do, either. It’s all good.” Spearman gave the dark elf an overcoat. While he made her comfortable, Goblin Slayer surveyed the area. Heavy Warrior casually tossed over a stamina potion, which Spearman gently and graciously helped the woman to drink. Potions were an important resource, but the party didn’t regard this as a waste. The woman took one mouthful of the stuff, then two, then coughed gently. Her eyes fluttered open a little wider. “A human warrior, a human warrior, and…another human warrior? What are you even doing here?”

“We’re on an adventure,” Goblin Slayer replied. Well, at least he kept to the point.

The dark elf woman blinked, surprised, but then her lips turned up in a sarcastic smile. “And now adventurers, huh? I just can’t win…”

“Wondered if there was anything you’d like to talk to us about, young lady,” Spearman prompted, which the woman seemed to find amusing. Maybe the stamina potion had given her a boost, or maybe she was just trying to put on a strong front. Whatever the case, she spoke with the air of someone reproving a naughty child. “I’m probably at least ten times older than you, punk—maybe a hundred times.”

“And yet, all women are beautiful, and all ‘young ladies’ in my eyes,” Spearman replied with a completely straight face. He could have been speaking to someone who had been hideously burned, and this young warrior would still have made the same pronouncement with the same conviction.

“Gods.” The dark elf let out an expansive sigh, but a smile tugged at her cheeks. “It’s really nothing to write home about. Surely you all have an inkling by now?”

“Sure—I figure someone wants to summon a demon or revive a Dark God or something,” Heavy Warrior said with a nod.

“Yeah, an apocalyptic crisis, the end of the world. The usual.” Spearman shrugged.

“I have at least confirmed that it’s not goblins,” Goblin Slayer remarked.

The dark elf let out a breath, not quite the sigh she’d sighed a moment before. She eyed the men suspiciously, then shook her head. “I think you’ve got the idea. They said they didn’t want me to die in one fell swoop—they wanted me to suffer.”

And suffer it appeared she had. They could see the wounds on her skin even in the gloom.

“I was supposed to be the offering. They said it would, you know, reach the gods, or summon the gods, or whatever.”

“Hmm,” Spearman mumbled, not sounding particularly concerned. Then he looked at the others: “You heard the lady. Dark summoning ritual. What do you think?”

Heavy Warrior waved his hand as if to say the backstory didn’t really interest him. “We charge in there, we kill whatever needs killing, and we go home. Simple.” The three of them at least seemed to agree on this.

“What’s really of concern is the enemy strength,” Goblin Slayer said from under his helmet. He turned to look at the woman. “Do you know anything about it? Any information you could offer would help.”

“There’s some alter-planar monster that runs the show around here. A demon or something, a nasty piece of work. He has some kind of special trick up his sleeve, too. But…” The dark elf woman fell silent for a moment, and when she went on, it was with a self-deprecating tone, almost apologetic. “Well, you can see it—he doesn’t have a lot of other security. Even this room… Even me… I’m just a diversion.”

The three adventurers exchanged glances.

“Oh! Is that all?”

This time the dark elf woman looked genuinely confused. But there was nothing surprising about any of this to the warriors. It was, in fact, the most predictable thing in the world.

“I guess he thought we were the main event,” Heavy Warrior said, his face hard.

“Gee, I’m honored.” Spearman shrugged, but he did seem pleased.

Goblin Slayer didn’t say anything, presumably because he thought there was no need. It was the reaction of men who had long ago accepted the fact that they were no heroes, and weren’t bothered by it in the slightest. Nothing said you had to be a hero. Nothing said life was pointless if you weren’t.

In fact, some people went the opposite way and tried to claim that heroes themselves were meaningless. But it was those who stood at the very forefront of all the nameless warriors—which included these three—who were the heroes. That was what made heroes so admirable. To act as a diversion for such a person—how could anyone be dissatisfied with that?

“…Chaos wants to slop everything over with one single color. Order paints with all the colors of the rainbow,” the dark elf woman said melodically, looking up at the stars. The tune was elegant, but not in quite the same way as that of a high elf. It was a beautiful melody that seemed born of nature itself. “So perhaps we should switch their names around.”

“That is mere wordplay,” Goblin Slayer said, dismissing the woman’s idea. “Changing their names wouldn’t change what they are, nor what I…” He closed his mouth and swallowed the words he had been about to say. After a moment, he resumed slowly, “…What we have to do.”

“There’s lots of people who don’t understand that… And I’m sick of going along with them,” the dark elf woman murmured, then narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to live my own life, my own way,” she said softly. Although she added, “That’s if you’re going to let me out of here alive, of course.”

“Hey, we already gave you a stamina potion—why would we kill you?” Heavy Warrior said with a shrug.

“And someone so lovely, no less!” Spearman added. Goblin Slayer was silent.

That was enough for the dark elf. She didn’t know if she ought to sympathize with having one’s plans upended by adventurers who thoughtlessly charged straight in, or if she found it laughable. She got to her feet, stumbling slightly—and then cast the overcoat around her into the air.

“Best of luck, adventurers! Surely you’ll accept such good wishes even from me?”

The voice was a whisper in Spearman’s ear. Then, naked, the woman receded into the dark, until it seemed she had never been there. Once the coat had settled to the floor, there wasn’t so much as a silhouette left in the subterranean darkness of the sewers.

“So it’s a monster behind all this. One with something up his sleeve,” Heavy Warrior said as he picked up the coat—he noticed there was no body heat in it—and tossed it to Spearman. “…Wonder how far we can trust her info.”

“Everything a beautiful woman says is true,” Spearman quipped, catching the coat, folding it neatly, and putting it back in that seemingly magical bag of his. It was stained with the dark elf’s blood and traces of whatever had defiled her, but he paid it no mind. This coat had a purpose, a purpose it served when it was of help to a good woman.

“And even if it isn’t true, we have no way of finding out,” Goblin Slayer added.

Spearman heard what he thought was a quiet groan from the man. “What, you got a problem?”

“No.” The metal helmet shook slowly back and forth. “My plans for how and where to evacuate the captives have come to naught.”

At that, Spearman burst out laughing, clutching his belly mirthfully.

§

To every dungeon, and every adventure, there is an end. Whether that’s the master mage who waits in the deepest depths of the fortress, or the great warrior who rules from the highest heights of the tower. There’s always a climax.

“““““We’re impressed you made it this far, mortals.”””””

In the case of this adventure, the climax was this creature—this thing. It was like something out of a nightmare, freakish enough to make one doubt one’s own sanity.

It was, in a word, an eyeball. In fact, many eyeballs, countless eyes in a wild array, squirming and writhing over one another, all attached to one single lump of meat. But collectively they had a will of their own, reaching out pedipalps like optic nerves, the eyeball buried at their terminus rolling and leering. The single giant eye twitched constantly in every direction, a hideous grinning mouth open beneath it. Its voice seemed to echo itself; the sound had to be more than physical. The thing must have been insinuating its disgusting thoughts directly into their minds.

“What would you say on the threat scale—fourteen?”

“Maybe if you were right in its damn house. Around here, thirteen.”

“I have killed one before, but it was not easy.”

“Hey, it ain’t a goblin, right?”

“Maybe.”

Somehow, faced with this creature whose name one would tremble even to speak, the three adventurers were unfazed. The thing presided over the chamber with its high ceiling, floating above a magic circle inscribed in dark blood…

…but a monster was a monster.

If it had a body—a body that could bleed—then it could die. There was nothing that couldn’t be killed. This was a truth Heavy Warrior wholeheartedly embraced, and it had never failed him before. He grabbed his broadsword with both hands, planted his feet solidly on the stone floor, and let the strength flow into his muscles.

Beside him, Spearman gave a spin of his beloved spear, then thrust the pointed end directly at the monster. Goblin Slayer drew his sword with its strange length, raised his small, round shield, and settled into a deep fighting stance. It was just what he had done since the first time he had battled goblins on his very first adventure.

“““““Ignorant fools. Do you not even have words?”””””

“Might’ve used more of ’em if I ever planned on begging for my life.” Heavy Warrior grinned like a shark, and the battle began.

The trio rushed forward, fanning out to attack the enemy from three different directions. This was just the right thing to do when your enemy could use magic. A frontal assault might be thinkable if you had a big, solid shield, but the last thing you wanted was for the entire party to be wiped out by a well-placed fireball.

This, though, was certainly not an enemy who was going to be undone by such basic tactics.

““““BEEEEHHHOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!””””

The eyeballs that squirmed on the ends of the pedipalps blinked one after another, unleashing blinding rays of light. They lanced through the room like streaks of white paint flung from a brush. The stone floor exploded where they struck, or else began to melt and bubble.

Disintegrate, Death Ray, and then Disintegrate again. The adventurers didn’t so much as cry out as they faced down the deadly beams. One of them let his armor do the talking; another trusted to his physical agility; and a third rolled along the ground. No sooner had their weapons come to bear than they scattered again.

“Is this thing trying to kill us?!”

“I think it is trying to kill us…”

“I agree. Not that I care.”

Spearman began the banter, Heavy Warrior continued it, and Goblin Slayer brought an end to the conversation. Whose weapon struck the blow doesn’t really matter here. The important part is that several of the bug-eyed monster’s pedipalps went flying, severed from the writhing mass, and landed on the ground.

Needless to say, the actual damage was minimal. This monster had nearly as many pedipalps and eyeballs as an ordinary person had hairs on their head—an almost limitless number. But almost limitless isn’t the same thing as limitless.

“Thing’s gotta die eventually,” Heavy Warrior said, and it was true—but it was true of the adventurers as well. All those beams of light—get caught by one of those, and that would be the end of you. No one could survive that.

For this otherworldly servant of Chaos, though, they were only a patience-trying distraction, a waste of time. Imagine if you’re trying to get down to work, but you notice your desk is dirty, and then when you go to wipe it off, you find it doesn’t clean up as easily as you expected. You don’t want to put off work in order to clean it, but leaving it dirty nags at you, too.

“““Let’s give you a little playmate, then.”””

Thus, the servant of Chaos didn’t hesitate to sacrifice one of its pieces to gain the advantage.

Shhmm. From deep in the darkness came an earth-shaking rumble—no, it was the sound of hoofbeats. Two, three, four. They sounded at regular intervals, and then their source was revealed.

“A dullahan?”

“No, not quite, I don’t think…”

Admittedly, it looked like a dullahan at first glance. For one thing, it didn’t have any head. It was wearing armor. And it carried a sword—much like a knight. But it was substantially larger than even Heavy Warrior; the equipment it wore was of a size no human could have supported. All of it, though, was covered in dark reddish splotches that might have been rust or might have been blood—the equipment was in such disrepair, it was hard to be sure.

Only the dark bluish color visible at the seams of the armor bespoke the owner’s former glory. The tattered cloth, bearing the symbol omega, that passed for a flag likewise gave no hint as to the knight’s former identity.

And yet—look at him. He was nothing like a run-of-the-mill dullahan. He was what remained of a once-proud warrior, one who had fought for his glory in the ancient days of the Age of the Gods. How many dozens, how many hundreds of the forces of Chaos must he have buried with the blade in his hand? How brightly must he have made his name to shine among the stars? Yet now, all that was only legend, myth—here blasphemed and defiled.

Now he was nothing more than a Chaos Marine.

“Is that the little trick the lady warned us about?” Heavy Warrior said, sounding downright pleased. This was getting interesting.

“The BEM is our real goal,” Goblin Slayer replied. “Other than those beams, it should be manageable somehow.”

“Man, pain in the neck…” Spearman growled, then he took off one of his gloves and slipped a ring on his finger. It glimmered like a shooting star. It chiefly granted him two things: immense agility, and incredible strength. Spearman didn’t normally wear the ring because most of the time he used his other magic items. When he didn’t need to make hair’s-breadth escapes, they were often better.

“I agree completely,” Goblin Slayer said with a nod, and pulled a potion bottle from his pack. It was a secret draught that would increase his agility. It was expensive as potions went, but he had never been a man to begrudge his consumables. He pulled the stopper, then tossed it through the slats of his visor, swallowing it down in a couple of quick gulps before tossing the bottle aside, breaking it. He’d heard the effect lasted only a minimal amount of time, and he had brought it along as an experiment. There was one thing about it he liked: that if goblins stole it, they could be relied on to immediately drink it, and with its brief period of effect, it wouldn’t cause any serious problems for him.

“What are you going to do?” Goblin Slayer asked.

Heavy Warrior looked down almost disdainfully at his smoking armor and said, “Couple of hits won’t kill me. So I’m just gonna bull through!”

He’d actually taken a direct hit from one of the beams earlier, but evidently he had shrugged it off. Some considered the human warrior to be the epitome of someone with no special talents, but that was just because they didn’t know any better. Killing off a warrior who had trained and trained to toughen himself was no mean feat. Thus, this one who couldn’t be beaten down and hardly knew the meaning of the word fatigue, went on the attack.

That in itself made him a major threat on the battlefield.

“““Just because one is immortal is no reason to waste time. Now your lives will burn.”””

At his master’s command, the Chaos Marine raised the uncanny blade in his hand. It seemed to be both a hatchet and a sword at once, and it rang out with an unearthly roar. The weapon spun. It moaned. It was none other than an enchanted blade, forged by one of the great smiths of antiquity. It hungered for the flesh of its enemies, a weapon to be feared.

Faced with this blade that had made its name in the Dungeon of the Dead, Spearman…laughed. “That’s supposed to be my line, sucker.”

He charged in again. The adventurers didn’t need to say a single word between them to coordinate their actions. The Chaos Marine met them head-on, and the battlefield was filled with flashes of light. In the middle of it all, Spearman found time to touch his fingertips lightly to the stud in his ear. He was perfectly well aware, of course, that the eyeball monster’s eye could suppress magic spells. Thus, this was the spell he used:

“Arma…manga…offero. Gift magic to weapons!”

He ran like lightning between the clouds of steam and smoke rising from the flagstones, his enchanted spear biting into armor. The amber-coated cutting tip glowed with a strange light; its sharpness increased. But even this weapon wasn’t quite enough to overcome the Chaos Marine’s armor class.

“Damn, that’s hard stuff!”

“Don’t worry about it, just beat the hell out of him!”

Heavy Warrior, for his part, must have attracted the monster’s gaze (or was that multiple gazes?) and taken the heat rays, for he emerged from a cloud of smoke, unscathed and closing the distance. His broadsword came down with all the force of a sledgehammer. But even that wasn’t enough to shake the Chaos Marine, who stood as if made of steel. The floor was slightly scuffed where his feet had slid with the impact, but now he brought his sword howling upward.

“Well, now!” Heavy Warrior just managed to dodge the cleaving blow. Let it be said that he “just managed” precisely because he was Heavy Warrior. Any ordinary person would have been cut clean in half.

Spearman wove through the sparks from the strike, hopping backward to trade places with Heavy Warrior.

“Hold your position,” Goblin Slayer said.

“You’ve gotta be nuts…!” Heavy Warrior cried, but he nonetheless threw himself into another exchange with the headless knight with all his strength. His sword met the spinning enchanted blade with an earsplitting screech, but it never wavered and certainly didn’t threaten to break. “We’re on…different…levels!”

“Indeed.” Goblin Slayer was able to take all the time he needed to find his aim. He slipped through the chamber like a shadow, then he dropped his sword to the ground and flung something with his now free hand: a fearsome throwing knife, itself twisted into a terrible shape. He released it with an underhand fling and it went whining through the air, describing a great arc. An instant later, it had found a chink in the knight’s armor, biting into his wrist.

This was on a different level from the sword Goblin Slayer normally used.

“ !!!!”

Was that a scream? It was hard to tell. There was a sound like metal cutting metal, and the hand came flying off, sword and all.

“Now you’re mine!!” Spearman said, not about to miss his opening. He moved his grip on the shaft of his spear, shortening the length, then drove home a brutal blow from point-blank range. His target: the arm of the Chaos Marine, now exposed by the loss of its hand.

It felt like he was stabbing a pile of gravel, but the weapon tore through the wound—and Spearman wasn’t finished.

“Sagitta…quelta…raedius! Strike home, arrow!!” The tip of the spear released Magic Missiles one after another, a deluge of blows from that most basic of offensive spells. These arrows ignored armor class and always hit home; now they ran roughshod inside the armor, battering the body of the servant of Chaos.

“ ?!?!”

Three times the Chaos Marine jerked like a broken puppet, and then he was still. When Spearman pulled his weapon back, it was followed by a mass of wirework and green stones with runes carved on them.

So this must be one of those, whaddayacallit, golems, Spearman thought. If nothing else, it couldn’t hold a candle to the warrior of old who must have once worn this armor…

““““Seems you can’t rely on antiques.”””” Maybe it was just the humans’ poverty of comprehension that made it seem there was a hint of annoyance in the supernatural voice. The death rays lashed out again, filling the air with their light, and Spearman avoided them by the skin of his teeth.

It was thanks to his ring. Otherwise, he would have been in a world of hurt. He clucked his tongue and dove for cover behind the closest available thing—the Chaos Marine’s hulking corpse.

Goblin Slayer, the effect of his potion apparently having worn off, followed, and then Heavy Warrior slid in behind him. The metal of the armor, forged by the ancients, would resist both the deadly magical eye and the petrifying gaze.

For the first time since the battle had begun, the adventurers were able to take deep breaths.

“What do you think?” Goblin Slayer asked.

Heavy Warrior, whose body was covered in scorch marks, replied seriously, “I think it freaking hurts.”

“I have painkillers if you want them.”

“Nah, it’d blunt my strength. What I need is to keep kicking. Give me a stamina potion.”

“Mm.” Goblin Slayer produced a bottle from his pack; Heavy Warrior opened it and drank it down, then flung the empty vessel into the air. The instant it emerged from the safety of the armor, a bright beam of light vaporized it.

“““You may hide and you may plot, but you cannot run from my all-seeing eye!”””

“You heard the…thing. Guess we can’t hide,” Spearman said. He grimaced; the voice made his ears bleed. “And we can’t take it out in one go.”

Naturally, they knew they couldn’t hide forever. If nothing else, the BEM would eventually move to flank them. And if they simply chased one another in circles around the armor, not only would it be ridiculous, it would become a matter of who got tired first.

Goblin Slayer grunted quietly. This didn’t seem like such a difficult problem to him.

“So, we destroy it.”

“Sounds good.”

“Works for me.”

With the strategy set, the adventurers leaped into action. Heavy Warrior had on his Ogre Gloves, while Goblin Slayer had wrapped cloth around his armor to prevent him from sliding. Spearman touched his jewelry again, speaking the words of the last spell it could muster.

“Oleum…mare…facio! Birth a sea of oil!”

The anomaly occurred above the stones. Did the BEM understand what it was? And even if it did, did it have time to understand why the adventurers had done it? So long as it was floating in the air, the Grease spell would be completely meaningless against it.

Meaningless—until a vast silhouette overwhelmed the supernatural sight an instant later.

“Hrrragghh…!!” Heavy Warrior bellowed, shoving the Chaos Marine’s body at the monster at incredible speed.

Fools. The rift that passed for the BEM’s mouth opened in a hideous smirk. It need simply dodge the oncoming object. The ceiling was too low to float over it, but there was plenty of room to the left and right. Get around behind them, and that lump of metal would be a ball and chain that would slow down the adventurers. This time the BEM would flood the humans with death rays.

The monster began to float, confident it had its enemy cornered.

“Bug-eyed idiot.”

Suddenly, the BEM discovered it was being driven toward the wall; its huge eye widened in surprise.

There was a dull impact. The creature never figured out that it was one of the adventurers striking a hammer blow.

“Get in close with the first move. Hand-to-hand, we’ve got the advantage,” Spearman said as if it should have been obvious. Heavy Warrior laughed. Goblin Slayer was silent.

No better time to attack than when the enemy was about to stumble right into your range. And if it was obvious where he was going to go, then you didn’t even have to work for it. It was as simple as that.

The BEM was stunned, but only for a second; it soon regained its bearings. The damage was minimal. But this was without question a critical moment in the fight.

“BEEHOOOOOLLLLLL?!?!?!”

An otherworldly cry escaped the creature’s mouth. The hulking armor that had smashed into it had crushed half the BEM’s eye, splattering a horrifying fluid everywhere.

The creature wouldn’t die yet. It wasn’t dead. But that was the best that could be said of it. No longer able to float, it settled to the ground, where it tried to crawl along—did it want to run? To fight back? Perhaps it didn’t even know, twitching and thrashing, howling and screaming as loudly as its alter-planar voice was able.

“““You damnable barbarians…!!!”””

“You’re not wrong, but you’re not quite there, either.” Heavy Warrior grabbed the ancient sword, the Cusinart, that lay at his feet. The weapon howled for joy to be hefted by a new master, quivering to complete its mission. “It’s damnable great barbarians!”

And then the monster whose name one hesitated even to speak was reduced to a simple lump of meat.

Then it was over. The fell air—the miasma—whatever you wished to call it that had settled over the deserted city thinned and dissipated. The circle carved into the floor, which had glowed with magical power, faded; parts of it were gouged away now, and it no longer functioned.

That was the end of the adventure. Heavy Warrior cleaned off the blade and returned it to the former warrior of the gods. He wanted to see the Marine with his glory complete, be he alive or dead.

Maybe Spearman understood what Heavy Warrior was thinking, or maybe not—in any event, he snorted softly. “You like that nickname?”

“Yeah.” Heavy Warrior stood with his chest out, unabashedly proud.

Spearman seemed less than impressed, but Goblin Slayer nodded and said, “I also like that legend.”

§

“Huh! Gold coins, silver coins, more ancient currency than you can count… This thing was rolling in loot.”

“Monsters like him like to hoard.”

“Hrm.”

After the battle came the looting.

It fell to Goblin Slayer to unlock the treasure chest, while Spearman set to examining their haul with glee.

Wouldn’t it usually be the scout who gets excited about this sort of thing? Heavy Warrior thought, taking in the odd moment, but then he smiled and shook his head. The three of them were all warriors, so it shouldn’t have surprised him, no matter who got excited about what.

“If that thing happened to be hoarding any books about how to pump up your muscles, I want ’em. Any luck?” Spearman asked.

“Here’s a tome bound in human skin,” said Heavy Warrior. “I’m not sure, but that seems like a bad sign. Still want it?”

“Nah, pass.”

“I’m not interested,” added Goblin Slayer.

“Cool, we’ll hawk it when we get back.”

The book was one of only a handful of such ancient texts in the world, but to the adventurers it was just another source of income. It was much the same with the enchanted swords they found: A rookie adventurer might have been thrilled, but for these old hands?

“I’ve already got a few at least as strong as that thing…”

Unless it possessed some extraordinary hidden power, to a Silver, such things were hardly worth keeping as spares.

“Can’t be really sure until we get it all identified, but it looks that way. Damn, no spears…”

The most commonly enchanted weapon is a sword, though axes can be found sometimes, and occasionally a hammer. Those seeking spears or clubs are more likely to be disappointed than not. Sighing deeply, Spearman grabbed a random longsword and tossed it to Goblin Slayer. “How about you carry at least one enchanted sword with you? It’s totally lame for a Silver not to have any magical weapons.”

“I don’t need it,” Goblin Slayer said simply. “I would be in trouble if goblins stole it from me.”

“Argh, you’re hopeless…”

“How about you take that staff? Make a nice gift…”

“Nah,” Spearman said, shaking his head in Heavy Warrior’s direction. “She says she doesn’t need a staff.”

“Hmm…”

Well, that happened sometimes. Every adventurer had their own loadout. Everyone had things they wanted; that was why they went on adventures. If someone was interested in weighing the potential and merit of various weapons, then let them. As for everyone else, as long as they liked their gear, that was enough.

“You remember back when you started, and the smallest magical sword or spear was enough to send you over the moon?” Heavy Warrior asked.

Maybe it went to show how fortunate they were these days, or maybe they’d become inured. Heavy Warrior felt a twinge at the memory of his first one, when he’d stolen the weapon from a hobgoblin he was fighting. A goblin with an enchanted sword—he didn’t know whether to find the incongruity draining, shocking, amusing, or delightful.

He’d put off that first broadsword for a while, relying on his trusty longsword instead. He wondered what had happened to the enchanted blade. He was pretty sure he’d tossed it in his chest at the inn…

“Geez, all this treasure, and nothing we really need.”

Heavy Warrior wasn’t always sure how to feel about the place at which they had arrived. They’d climbed a long way, that much was certain. But when he looked up, there seemed to be an endless way yet to go.

Sheesh. Knighthood, kingship—still a dream within a dream.

“…But does it really matter?” The remark caught him by surprise—it was Goblin Slayer, who delivered his comment in his usual nonchalant tone.

Did it really matter if they didn’t bring home a bunch of treasure? It wasn’t like they had cleared out every last chamber. And just because the ringleader was gone, it didn’t mean the other monsters and traps would instantaneously disappear. And it wasn’t just here underground—the undead walked the earth above as well. This former city was well on its way to becoming a dungeon.

And what was more…

“We were told to leave it.”

Heavy Warrior exchanged a look with Spearman. Spearman grinned. Heavy Warrior knew he himself was grinning, too.

Shortly thereafter, the adventurers set out for the surface. It felt good, rowing the boat upstream against the current of the polluted water, knowing in their bones that they had been victorious. Then they had to go under the water again, following the underground stream until they got back to land, and yes, it was a pain in the neck. But Heavy Warrior took the time to organize his thoughts as they went. He knew the boy and the girl had to be camped out, waiting for them to show up again. So, when he saw them, he would put on his proudest, coolest face, and as nonchalantly as anything, he would say:

“You called it, kiddo!”

Just like the hero in the old story.