Goblin Slayer - Volume 16 - Chapter 4.2

High Elf Archer didn’t bother thinking too hard as she poured arrows on the mass of encroaching goblins. She’d already learned long ago (she chuckled at herself for thinking of it that way): This was no adventure.

That didn’t stop her acute elven senses from picking up on even the slightest change, her ears twitching. “Does the air seem different somehow…?” she asked.

“Perhaps.”

She shot the nearest goblin in the head, pulled the arrow out, and put it right back in her bow before shooting another one with it, farther away. Goblin Slayer pressed forward, paying no attention to what a luxury it was to be able to effectively ignore the astonishing archery of a high elf.

The goblins moved up to try stopping him.

“GBRG!”

“GRG! GOOGBGR!!”

They’ve started to become more orderly.

Still, there couldn’t be even a hundred of them. He plunged a sword through the throat of his twenty-fifth goblin, then kicked the corpse away.

“GOBBG?!”

If there’s one way in which humans are quantifiably superior to goblins, it’s reach. Simply having longer arms and legs means being able to maintain a greater distance. Ahead of the goblins, farther away from the goblins. As long as you kept that in mind…

…then we can deal with this number somehow.

He remembered the times he had explored with the boy—in the tower, in a dungeon. This was not as bad as those times.

When goblins were piling in from all sides, there was only one thing to do. Cut a path ahead.

The threat of goblins did not lie in their nastiness but only in their numbers. As long as the party could avoid getting surrounded and maintain their vitality—not their HP, mind you—there would be no problem.

Although he would be loath to have to do the same thing on open ground.

“Arrows!”

“Right.”

As such, the only real issue was which weapons to throw and what to replace them with. Goblin Slayer pulled out a dagger tucked amid his armor and flung it at a goblin hiding by a pillar, killing him. He used the momentum to leap forward, vaulting toward the goblin and grabbing its quiver, which he tossed through the air. Neither did he forget the goblin’s specialty—a rusty sword, which he kicked up into his hand.

“Thanks!” High Elf Archer’s lithe arm stretched out, catching the arcing quiver, and that was a relief. There’s nothing more unnerving than an empty quiver. Even goblin arrows are better than no arrows at all.

“You’re very high maintenance, Long-Ears!”

“I prefer the term civilized!” High Elf Archer shot back, sending a snorting laugh in the direction of Dwarf Shaman, who was busy cracking a goblin’s skull open with his ax. “Unlike certain hole dwellers!”

“Hoh! At least we’re smart enough to stay out of the rain, unlike the elves!”

Goblin Slayer moved ahead, flinging the rusty sword at another goblin and killing him while High Elf Archer and Dwarf Shaman argued nearby. Arrows rained down in every direction, while Dwarf Shaman’s ax did its own talking on his behalf.

With them helping to hold the goblins at bay, Lizard Priest had some breathing room. “A swamp can be quite a nice place as well, you know!” he said as he used his superlative tail to slam a goblin to its death against a wall—a literal rear guard.

Naturally, he hesitated to defile the holy staff with goblin blood. The statue, however, was another matter.

The goblins were never going to stop Lizard Priest with nothing but a little horde. Which meant rather than having him up front, it was better to use him to broaden their vision. After all, they were one cleric short this evening.

“What do you think?” Goblin Slayer asked.

“I think they’ve started to become more orderly,” Lizard Priest replied, echoing the judgment of the man who at that moment was relieving a throatless goblin of its club. “I believe we can presume that whoever is commanding them is cognizant of the situation and has begun taking measures to respond.”

“With this scale, I doubt it’s a goblin lord,” Goblin Slayer said, swinging his club to the right and muttering “Twenty-eight” under his breath. “However, I don’t think goblins would follow a shaman so obediently.”

“GBBG?!”

“Some servant of Chaos, then. A dark elf? A cultist? Perhaps some worshipper of evil spirits? Or…”

“GORG! GGORB?!”

“GBOBGR?!”

Their conversation was punctuated by the screams of dying goblins. Not that they noticed.

High Elf Archer frowned at the spraying blood, but a second later, her ears were twitching. “Up ahead! Something’s coming!”

“Hrm…!”

At that moment, a red light pierced the darkness. No sooner had they registered the beam than it was already passing by, impossible to evade. Without the high elf’s senses to alert him, it would have sliced Goblin Slayer clean in half. Then again, he had never been under the impression that his armor would stop anything but a goblin attack.

Let alone a lord of darkness such as advanced now from the shadows.

“The hell is that thing?!” Dwarf Shaman cried.

“At the very least, it’s not a goblin,” his leader replied, stating the obvious.

No, it was no goblin—it was sheer menace, as if the darkness itself had taken on form. It wasn’t just Goblin Slayer who didn’t recognize it—hardly anyone would. But anyone would know to be afraid.

If Priestess had been there—or perhaps Harefolk Hunter or even Club Fighter or the cleric of the Supreme God. If one of them had been there, they might have recognized it. There was a freezing chill like terror. It was not hatred nor greed but rather the pride and murderous disinterest of a being that viewed living things as nothing more than cattle.

There stood a man with pallid skin. His slick red lips opened, and a bizarre voice issued forth:

“You would speak of me in the same breath as goblins? There are insults one cannot bear…”

It was almost like he was talking to himself, like they shouldn’t have been able to hear him, and yet the voice reached the adventurers.

The man’s skin might have been pale, but his eyes burned in the darkness. At first glance, he appeared young. He wasn’t dressed in anything so silly as evening wear. He was a warrior, and his armor seemed patterned on a skinned animal, a gruesome dark red, as if some creature had been turned inside out to put the innards on display.

A great many words existed for this creature, this being: the clan of darkness. Nosferatu. The walking undead. All words invented to describe these monsters.

As the old poet Byron said:

But first, on earth as vampire sent,

Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:

Then ghastly haunt thy native place,

And suck the blood of all thy race;

There from thy daughter, sister, wife,

At midnight drain the stream of life;

Yet loathe the banquet which perforce

Must feed thy livid living corse:

Thy victims ere they yet expire

Shall know the demon for their sire,

As cursing thee, thou cursing them,

Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

“Vampire!” High Elf Archer screamed.

§

Had the field of combat ever fallen completely quiet until this moment?

The people in the packed grandstands, from every corner of the capital, stared down in mute amazement. The silence was enough to make your ears hurt. Finally, one thing resounded through it: the clopping of hooves.

Surely there had never been in all the Four-Cornered World a donkey who stepped so proudly. If there had been one, perhaps it was Dapple, the beloved mount belonging to the servant of that knight with his mournful countenance.

What was more: Behold the hero who rode astride that animal. Sword by side, shield in hand, lance by elbow, a knight as fine as any in the sagas. Armor of the purest white, like unblemished snow, helmet crowned with wings of white as well.

Peeking out from beneath the helmet’s raised visor was the face of a blushing, sweet, but quite gutsy young woman. Her small body, tucked inside all that armor, was soft and delicate and beautiful—though few knew it.

Yet one only had to look in order to learn.

The entire place waited with bated breath for the moment when she would draw the lovely tempered steel within the elegant white scabbard.

She was a bud, someone said. The bud of a white rose. She was in that one fleeting instant before she bloomed in her pride.

No one recalled the mirth to which she had been subject when she first appeared in the coliseum only a few days before. No one remembered snickering at the rhea girl’s modest size and unimpressive form.

As they all focused upon her now, no one suspected…

He was all upset because he thought I would find out he was practicing his painting!

…that she had completely the wrong idea about what had happened.

Regardless, the rhea girl felt her heart pounding with every step her donkey took—indeed, it had been since the moment she left the greenroom. She felt it jump with each clop of the hooves. Her whole body felt itchy. But she smiled.

It had started the moment the wizard boy had painted her armor with some magic paints. He’d meant to save them for the finals, he said—but he’d decided to use them now.

He waved his brush in the air, and her helmet had become striking, her armor had become wonderful—and somehow, it made her feel as if she had become wonderful, too. If she hadn’t been sitting in the saddle already, she would have jumped up and hugged him.

She no longer felt nervous; instead, she buzzed with excitement. She squinted at the knight across the field, eager to go.

I’ve made it this far. You’ll see what I can do!

“Why, in that armor, she hardly looks like a rhea at all! You’ve made her a display piece. It’s disrespectful to her!” groaned the paladin of the Supreme God, whose voice had, until a moment before, been lost in the thunderous applause of the crowd.

He wasn’t looking at the girl, sitting upon her trusty mount. Well, he was looking at her, but in the same way that one might look at a stone on the side of the road.

“The rules regarding armor will have to be tightened up. This tournament is a disaster. And worst of all…”

For the first time, he seemed to really look at something. His eyes swept upward, toward the royal box. The king was nowhere to be seen, but his sister was sitting there, wearing a gorgeous white dress. She was waving reluctantly, first to the crowds and then to the knights on the battlefield.

Behind her stood two women, dressed in the latest fashions and all but expressionless. One of them looked entirely proud of her attractiveness, while the other was making no effort at all to hide her ample bosom. The knight glared at them as if they were the most despicable kind of evil, then slowly shook his head.

“…I swear, I can’t stop shaking.” He literally spat the words, then lowered his visor and secured the fastener.

It didn’t really matter, though. The rhea was watching her opponent only in order to win. For herself. Not for him.

She touched her own visor, then stopped and looked back with…was that hope?

“…”

She saw the wizard boy standing there.

He was fiddling with his small staff, touching the boomerang at his hip, looking around and grumbling. To any outside observer, he would simply have looked anxious—but Rhea Fighter knew. This was how he acted when he was busy thinking of something to help her. She didn’t understand the more arcane aspects of what he did—but it was all she needed to know.

“…Hey,” he said when he noticed her looking. That was all, a brief sound of affirmation.

So she replied, “Right!” and lowered her visor with a clank.

I’ve come this far. All that’s left is to do it…

Wizard Boy watched her go; as she rode toward the list, she seemed at once like both the smallest and the biggest presence on the field.

“Do—or don’t! There’s no try!” he remembered the nasty old rhea bellowing at him. But yeah—he was right. You couldn’t try killing goblins. You couldn’t try slaying a dragon. That just wasn’t how it worked.

As that faraway paladin had proved, it was the choice to do that enabled one to overcome a dragon.

Even the stupidest burglar wouldn’t just try to filch a gem from a dragon’s treasure hoard.

Screw it, the boy thought as he watched the girl go. He took in a breath, as if he was breathing in everything in the world along with it. Spells? The hell with ’em.

Just look at the great sorcerers. They showed that not using magic put it on an even higher level.

What he needed? He already had it all. The silence. More eloquent than any words. Thus, he drew another breath.

Just watch me, you old shithead. You could never do this. Just hurry up and die. Like my sister.

Imagining that bastard with his crusty laugh was here in this very stadium, the boy yelled:

“Those who are far, listen with your ears! Those who are near, see with your eyes!”

His voice projected. There were no spells. No clever tricks. Magical paints? Oh, please. It was high noon—they had the sun. This battlefield. The spectators were looking from far away. He’d just painted it white, polished it, and stuck on some wings. That was all—no magic involved.

They didn’t need it to do this. Not him—and not her.

You got a problem? You want to make an issue of it? Go ahead, bitch away!

“The younger brother of Ruby Mage, formerly the first sorcerer of the Academy, now speaks!”

That set off a murmur among part of the crowd. At least, he thought so. He couldn’t tell. Maybe he was imagining it.

Doesn’t matter! Like I care!

It wouldn’t mean the end of anything. He knew that. He knew that all too well.

They would probably keep talking about it for a long time. In his own heart, he felt a shadow, one that wouldn’t let go.

But so what, then?

The old rhea had spoken often and eloquently of the greatest of the sorcerers, of what had made him such a fine user of magic. Fools said that it was because he spoke with dragons, because he retrieved treasure, because he had crossed the border between life and death.

But it was none of that. It was because he—he himself was…

“The adventurer—my friend!”

…because he had accepted his own shadow. He had a friend who had offered him that chance—that was what made the great sorcerer great.

If so, then this was Wizard Boy’s first step. He would take it for her sake—she was the one who had caused him to take it. Maybe people would say he lacked courage not to be able to say these things to her face—but what did he care?

It doesn’t matter. I’ll do it!

“The rhea fighter, unparalleled, invincible! Of her brave deeds and her beauty, you have surely all heard by now!”

True, the shadow clung to him and refused to loosen its grip. True, he would travel with the shadow wherever he went, wherever it might be.

He couldn’t overcome it. And he felt a repulsion at the idea of accepting it—only the sages were capable of such things.

So long as he couldn’t, though, he would have to drag himself along, pathetically buffeted this way and that. To despise that patheticness and to seek only the glory of the light would be as absurd as burying himself in darkness.

For going to such extremes was as good as admitting you couldn’t look squarely at the other side.

“And why? Surely you know these words, spoken since before the journey of the nine walkers!”

If they didn’t? Well, it just showed they hadn’t studied enough. Read a book! Learn something! Then go out into the world, go on a journey, have an adventure.

No? They couldn’t? What did he care? There was only do. After all, look: She was here, doing it.

She’d left her rural home, become an adventurer in spite of the mockery, trained hard, and was on a journey now. She was here at this moment. And she’d brought him along with her.

Yeah, that was right. You say this wasn’t the fruits of his own labor? Well, that’s true. He hadn’t done it on his own.

He understood now. He knew very well. Rheas? Rheas were…

“Rheas are the race who looks up!”

And that wasn’t all—no, not in the least. Race didn’t determine everything.

It was the first thing some people noticed, and they thought it made someone good or bad, strong or weak. They would make fun of someone for it!

But race didn’t determine everything about a person. He gestured toward the young woman in white with one arm.

“And she is a great adventurer!”

Not she will be a great adventurer. She already was. She was already fully fledged and more. After all, none of the other rheas from her shire were here. And the other sorcerers from the Academy were in the spectator seating, not on the field.

“One day, this battle shall be one act of her legend! Therefore…”

The young woman, and she alone, had come this far—had brought him this far.

“Therefore, I shall forbear to say any more. Except for one word: her name!”

Then, at the top of his voice, the boy pronounced the rhea girl’s name.

Godspeed!

This last, he wished her only in his heart.

“ !!!!”

Applause like thunder. People cheered her name, making it ring around the stadium.

She looked about, almost as if she was confused—and then she raised her hands high. If the earlier cheering had not been enough to pierce the very tent tops, now it was like the thunder was accompanied by lightning that crashed down to the field of battle.

“Eep!” she yelped, startled, but then she started laughing, a proper guffaw, and thrust her fist into the air once more.

As for the knight who waited across from her…

“……”

He sat dumbfounded upon his horse. No doubt in the world he lived in, rheas were poor little creatures deserving of sympathy—but no more. Perhaps he himself deserved a good word for her arrival in this place.

She was a true, unfettered, unblemished knight.

But what do I care?

“How do you like that?” Wizard Boy was looking his way with a brazen, incongruous smile. “There’s your fairness and equality.”

§

“Darn it! This isn’t fair!”

High Elf Archer’s shout was drowned out by the roar as two monsters charged toward her. The ancient shrine, which should have been the sanctuary of the Earth Mother, was now the site of a desperate battle.

A fearsome descendant of the nagas kicked aside the goblins mobbing him, then went after the man in red-black armor.

“Eeeeeyaahhh!”

“You call that an attack?!”

There was an audible crack as sword met claws. Sparks flew, the hot, red flashes illuminating both combatants.

It was not a contest, this matching of prodigious strengths. Lizard Priest swung his claws, fangs, and tail with everything he had, the claws of his feet scraping as they slid across the floor. He was only keeping his opponent at bay—even he, who had gone toe to toe with a red dragon.

“A descendant of the fearsome nagas has entered my stronghold? Oh, how the mighty have fallen!”

“Is it so? They say my forebears could see in the dark!”

Keeping the opponent at bay was nothing to be ashamed of. Lizard Priest howled again and traded another set of blows with the vampire. A single stroke from the Earth Mother’s staff might have been effective, but having come so far—it wasn’t that he wouldn’t use it but that he couldn’t. If his opponent grabbed hold of it during their exchange, he would have no way to fight back; it would be taken from him. Then they would be back to square one. These experienced, hardened adventurers were not going to make such a foolish mistake.

Which was precisely why…

“There…!”

High Elf Archer didn’t miss a beat; she kicked off the walls of the ruins to get some height and then let her arrows fly. They were pitiful goblin arrows but fired by a sublime archer. Wielded by a high elf, they might as well have been magic missiles.

Which is to say, they were inerrant, finding their mark even when the target was locked in combat, the rusty old arrowheads burying themselves in the vampire.

“That tickles!”

“Oh, for—! You’d think he was some kind of ogre!”

It was bad enough to have your arrows deflected with a flourish of the sword, but to have them simply picked out after they’d hit their target—that was a bit much.

Despite their poor state, the arrows had bitten deep, but the vampire didn’t begrudge a bit of torn flesh as he pulled them out. Dark, rotten blood flowed forth but only for a second. The next moment, the flesh bubbled up and closed the wounds.

High Elf Archer flew through space, watching it happen with almost divine vision; she bit her lip.

Unfortunately, they had more to worry about than just the vampire.

“GGGGG…”

“BB…”

Goblins. No—not quite.

They were something that had once been goblins.

Their skulls had been crushed, their throats torn out, their innards pierced—and yet they stood. Rose. Returned from the dead. As the vampire’s miasma touched them, first one and then another got to its feet.

This—this was the power of the Death, the special privilege of the Dungeon Master. The very same thing that had tormented those heroes of the forces of Order as they faced the Army of Darkness.

“BRAAINN…”

“BBBRRRRRAAAAAIN…”

The moment Lizard Priest moved to attack the vampire, the party’s fighting strength was hampered.

“I’ve got you!”

When even High Elf Archer had to move to reinforce him, it seemed the end was at hand. She perched on a stone pillar, literally raining arrows upon the unholy horde that now defiled the Earth Mother’s sanctuary.

One, two, five, ten. The goblin corpses piled up again in the blink of an eye. It was an important act of reinforcement for the adventurers—if nothing else, it bought them a second to breathe.

But only a second. For an instant later, the creatures creaked and twisted and rose again like broken puppets hauling themselves to their feet.

“Never gonna see the end of ’em at this rate!” Dwarf Shaman said in between strokes of his ax.

“That’s normal,” was Goblin Slayer’s reply. He had never known a battle with goblins to have a proper end. The only limit was how many of them there were in a given place.

But these are not goblins.

He tried stabbing one in the throat with a dagger, as he so often did, only to have it shiver and continue after him. He beat it back with his shield, gaining himself enough time to reposition.

When a creature comes back from the dead, its brain is rotted, so it’s unable to form proper thoughts. Considerable devotion and study are required to become a superior form of this sort of life, like the vampire.

Which is to say, goblins could not become vampires.

All that was left to the shambling corpses was their greed—although in that sense, they weren’t so different from when they had been alive.

Goblin Slayer didn’t know the first thing about the undead—but he was getting the idea, just by comparing these creatures to their living counterparts. There were two major differences. One was that, of the major biological needs, only hunger remained.

The other was that, apparently, stopping them took more work than usual.

“What should we do?” he asked.

“Get it so they can’t move!” Dwarf Shaman yelled. He was busy wielding his weapon, trusting to his people’s natural strength to get the job done. It would have been great to use a spell, if they could—but were there any spells that would work on a vampire? Playing one of your all-too-limited cards in an uncertain situation would show if not a lack of nerve at least a lack of forethought.

Dwarves have their own way of fighting. Dwarf Shaman wasn’t done yet. And so he chopped the spinal cord of one of the corpses like a log.

“Arms and legs!” he called. “Or the spine! That’ll do, too!”

“Understood.”

With the decision made, Goblin Slayer acted quickly. He didn’t know how to destroy a zombie—but he knew many, many ways to destroy goblins.

Moreover…

If only the girl was here.

Then they could have hit the creatures with Holy Light and started carving a path through the stunned monsters or perhaps used Purify to take care of them all in one swoop.

Under his metal helmet, he grunted at the thought, then took out his annoyance on a goblin corpse.

In other words, he kicked it down, he smashed its spinal cord underfoot, and he stole the club from its hands.

“There’s no point counting anymore,” he said. Faced with the dead pressing in from every side, what was the benefit in knowing how many you had destroyed?

Especially when those dead creatures were goblins. Then the goal was simply to survive.

A club. That’s the weapon for moments like these.

Goblin Slayer struck out with the club, right and left, trusting to luck to land his blows. Each time he sent a goblin corpse flying, creating a small space, he would immediately step into it, working his way forward. Bereft of the premise that death meant stillness, he knew he had to get out of this large room.

I will never fight with goblins in an open space again.

He remembered—it had been back in year one for him. How he had struggled to protect a village. Thinking back on it, he knew his performance had been pathetic, but still, he had learned much from it. It had become part of his experience. Confined spaces were his bread and butter—although even that could vary with time and occasion.

“Orcbolg! Wind direction!”

The party members he had gained since then were better than he was at other things besides hunting goblins. The elf, whom he’d known for years now, felt the instantaneous change, her acute sensory receptors catching the movement of the wind sprites.

She pointed. He peered into the darkness from behind his visor—and there, he was sure, was a passage.

“That way!” he said as he split a goblin’s head open afresh, trampling over the toppled corpse as he went. “Let’s go!”

At the same moment as he shouted, indeed almost in the same breath, he flung his club with a casual motion. It wasn’t as fast as the hammer of that famous thunder god nor the flying dagger, but it was the perfect way to kill a goblin.

As the object arced through the air, you would have had to have the vision of a centaur to avoid it. Even with the vampire’s monstrous field of view, if he registered it only just before it struck, it was too late. Or perhaps he didn’t feel it was worth dodging—but if so, he was wrong.

The club struck the vampire square in the back of the head, cracking his skull open. The bones broke audibly, and the brain made a squishing sound. The insides of the vampire’s head came flying out like fireworks.

That single blow gave Lizard Priest ample time to turn—

“Ha! Plain wood!”

Oops. No, it didn’t.

The vampire’s eyes burned bright even as he mopped up brain matter.

Blast! I don’t know what made me think using goblins would be a good idea!

Unbeknownst to the vampire, however, while they had been alive, the goblins had more than fulfilled their role as his shield. If that high elf had had even a single bud-tipped bolt left, it would already have been through his heart.

None here were aware of that fact, however. Not a single one of them.

“I see,” Goblin Slayer muttered. “He is indeed a monster.”

“Now you understand!” the vampire howled and lashed out with claws that grew from his hand. Perhaps this was the price he paid for his regenerative powers—his bestial, inhuman nature, like a bat or a demon, was made manifest in him.

“Hrrnn…ahhh!”

Lizard Priest struck the ground with his tail, kicking off the stones with his great clawed feet and launching himself into the air. His vestments tore with a riiiip, and the dragon fangs he carried as catalysts scattered everywhere.

A hair’s breadth: He’d lost crucial resources, but he still had his life. And the magic bag was still safe, too.

Then, well!

In that case, he had nothing to be ashamed of, this descendant of the fearsome nagas—he had only to live!

For the moment, his only task was to avoid follow-up attacks. It would take everything he had. He ducked low to avoid the inevitable blow—but then he blinked his eyes; twice, in fact, on account of his nictitating membranes.

The attack didn’t come.

For a second, for the barest instant, the vampire stood stock-still.

“Ahh! Mercy upon the misfortune of the crurotarsi!” Lizard Priest cried. He didn’t waste the precious instant in thought but sprung forward with all his terrible force. He cleared the zombies in a single bound, crushing a goblin corpse underfoot as he landed. Even a living goblin couldn’t have resisted him.

Death from above. None could measure the awful force and mass of a flying lizardman.

“Are you okay?!” cried High Elf Archer, going pale.

“Indeed—of course!” Lizard Priest chortled, thrusting his long neck forward. “Ahhh, my, my! Perhaps we could call it right here when I have triumphed in a battle of life and death!” Carefully clutching the bag holding the Earth Mother’s staff, Lizard Priest rolled up his tail and ran.

“Don’t think so,” High Elf Archer said, trying to put on a brave face as she darted past him like the wind. “I mean, he was already dead a long time ago, right?”

“Touché!” Lizard Priest bellowed, and then he was with his companions once more.

Goblin Slayer was swinging an iron sword he’d stolen from a goblin, working with Dwarf Shaman to secure the passageway. Lizard Priest dove past them, followed by High Elf Archer, and Dwarf Shaman after her. Last in came Goblin Slayer with his grimy armor, slipping away.

“…Damnable things!” the vampire cursed—almost literally—as he treaded on the white fangs at his feet. The adventurers didn’t realize that his eyes had been temporarily fixated on the teeth as they flew through the air. The instant it had taken him to count them—that was the instant that had granted the adventurers their lives.

The vampire had to count any scattered objects he encountered. It was an immutable law laid down by the gods. That was simply how vampires worked in the Four-Cornered World. If he rebelled against that stricture, he would no longer be a vampire—he would become nothing but a corpse.

That was how magic functioned. This creature had a monstrous field of vision, and it had only been one instant—but it was enough.

That was the decisive stroke. And what had brought it on? Fate and Chance.

Namely, the adventurers’ unremitting effort and force of will had dragged the outcome into being.

§

“Eek!”

There was a sound like splitting logs, and both lances burst into shards of wood. The rhea girl’s cry was lost in the crash, and it disappeared before anyone had heard it. Under her visor, though, she flushed red. To scream just because the enemy had struck her!

The brutal shock ran down the left side of her body, nearly throwing her from her saddle. She braced herself in the stirrups and clutched the reins, managing to hold fast. She didn’t fall out—excellent. Wait… Was it excellent?

Do you have to ask?!

If she didn’t win, there was no point. Her eyes glinted with fighting spirit, and she wheeled her donkey around. There, on the other side of the tilt—there he was. The knight was still on his horse.

The girl shouted, “Points?!”

“One point!” said Wizard Boy, who came scrambling up, clutching a fresh lance. He held it out to her. Within the confines of her visor, she could barely see the flags raised to indicate the number of points. “But thanks to my little oration, the crowd is on our side!”

“So what?!”

“So subjectively, we’re even!” Wizard Boy said with a bitter smile. “His lance broke, too, after all.”

Rhea Fighter made an angry “hrm” under her helmet.

For a second, the boy thought she was hurt, but then he realized the reaction was emotional.

“What, you upset?” he asked.

“Not upset. I’m sure he’ll have some kind of excuse.”

“Ahhh…”

Like maybe that he’d been going easy on her because she was a rhea. That would be hard to stomach—that much, Wizard Boy could understand.

“I want to win this. On merit. And no questions!”

“Then you’d better really thrash him,” the boy said, handing her the lance. He patted her helmet, plonk, just once.

“Right!” she said with an energetic nod, and then she leaned forward in the stirrups. She couldn’t forget to give her trusty mount a pat on the neck and congratulate him on a job well done. He was working just as hard as she was—he was a mere donkey, and he’d brought her this far against trained warhorses.

We’re not gonna lose now!

Filled with fresh determination, the rhea girl readied her lance.

As for the knight, he looked as calm as anything. (Well, not that you could actually tell with his visor down.) He lazily raised his lance toward her, like he didn’t care whether he won or not.

I don’t like it.

Yeah—the rhea girl didn’t like it at all. He’d traded lances, but she didn’t feel anything from him.

I know I’m not my grandfather, but still.

Her dear departed grandfather, who had gone to the great dungeon under the mountain—he might have sensed the knight’s killing impulse or at least his warrior spirit or something. The modest rhea girl, however, hadn’t yet reached such a point. But nonetheless…

He thinks I can’t do this.

She knew that was what was on her opponent’s mind. He thought rheas were poor, small, weak creatures in need of protection. He thought, therefore, that the fact she had come this far was thanks to his own intercession, her victories only an exception to the rule. The hit she’d scored just now would not enter into his consideration—in other words, she wasn’t worthy of even thinking about.

Somewhere in there was something almost like compassion. Almost, but not quite.

To be regarded as someone who wasn’t even there—now, that made the rhea girl very, very angry.

It was the same way the people of the shire had kept their distance from her as she went around waving her stick, working at being a fighter.

I’m gonna send his ass flying!

It just didn’t feel nice.

“Eeeyaaaahh!”

Almost before the judge had waved the flag, she gave a great cry and spurred her mount, launching forward. The jabbering of the spectators disappeared, as did the shouts of the boy wizard behind. Inside the confines of her visor, her vision narrowed to a single point, closing around her opponent.

She gritted her teeth, hefting the weight in her right arm. Her body lurched up. She rose in the saddle.

She braced herself against the stirrups, gripped the reins as hard as she could, made her small self even smaller, and thrust the lance forward.

This was one of the forms she’d used time and time again since the tournament had started.

In any other contest, the result would have been down to her opponent’s study of his opponent. It was unlikely, however, that the knight was thinking about such things. He was simply too confident: A casual thrust from above, he believed, was the way to deal with small enemies.

As they crossed lances, the girl’s eyes went wide. Her lance worked. Her opponent’s weapon came closer.

It would be disrespectful to call it the fruit of much training on the knight’s part, and it was certainly no mistake by the rhea girl.

It was simply the pips on the dice of Fate and Chance.

“Heeek?!”

There was a metallic crash, and the girl felt herself go flying.

No—she was thrown backward in the saddle like a discarded puppet, but she was still safe. Her feet in the stirrups just held her in place.

The rest of her, however, was in poor shape. The shock was like she’d been hit by a wild animal or a battering ram; the instrument may have been a competition lance, but the blow was still very powerful. Her white-painted armor was battered; the lance had pierced her visor, rendering it useless. If she hadn’t had it, she would have been in a fearful state indeed. Then again, even with the visor, there was always that king who had been killed by an errant piece of wood.

With a little less luck—with a critical failure, say—that could have been her fate.

The crowd watched with bated breath for any sign of life from the girl, who sat motionless on her donkey.

Even if she survived, this was a costly outcome. For her breastplate had slipped, revealing her underarmor clinging to her chest for all to see. The curves, intact, moved up and down in time with her breathing, even though she was flat on her back atop her donkey.

She couldn’t seem to get a breath. Huff, huff. It was just air, moaning in and out through her lips.

The sky… It never looked so blue…

Her head was spinning, her thoughts felt half-formed. Her vision was fuzzy. Past her ruined visor, she saw the boy upside down. He was clenching his fist, trying to keep her from jumping up, shouting something.

“Don’t fall off”?

“……!!!”

Then the girl’s eyes went wide, as if she’d been struck by lightning, and she clenched her scrupulously built abdominal muscles and sat up in the saddle.

“Hn… Haaah!”

She found a shout at her lips. That was a close one. She shook her head hard. It felt so, so heavy.

Argh!

She tore away the armor that hung limply from her shoulder girdle, then reached for her helmet. The visor was warped; she could lift it but barely. She mustered her strength and tore the helmet off her head.

“Hoo!” she exclaimed. She felt like she had been trapped in there for hours, though it had only been a matter of minutes. She shoved aside her hair, stuck to her by the copious sweat on her cheeks and forehead, and sucked in a breath.

A thunderous cheer greeted her safety, and the judge raised a flag in the paladin’s corner.

None of that mattered to the girl. She simply waved her fist toward her partner, the boy. He saw her and nodded; she replied with a nod of her own, and then she slapped her cheeks as hard as she could.

Damn! That was a pathetic showing!

If her grandpa or her mentor had seen that, she would never have lived it down. She gritted her teeth from shame, then glared fixedly at her opponent.

The paladin shook his head and muttered, “I knew this very tournament was inherently barbaric…” Did anyone hear him? “It only serves to make rheas and other such peoples the objects of gawkers and to get them hurt as well! It ought to be done away with immediately.”

Neither the knight’s words nor his opinions would have mattered to most of the people in the stands—and certainly not to the rhea girl.

It started quietly, like a ripple. The yelling and cheering stopped, replaced by mutters of confusion and dismay that slowly built.

It wasn’t clear who saw it first—but Rhea Fighter noticed only after Wizard Boy had.

“…Huh?”

She’d turned her mount around for a change of armor—well, not that she had one, but maybe he could swing something—and a fresh lance, to find Wizard Boy pointing upward. At the spectator seating? No, higher than that. The other side of the coliseum?

“The sky…?”

Her gaze rose to the sky she had contemplated a moment earlier. White sunlight pierced the blue. She saw gathering clouds, white and gray, dark and light—and among them, a collection of black smears. As she watched, they grew bigger, until she could see the wings, the claws, the fangs, and the glowing eyes…

“Monsters…?”

The coliseum erupted in screams.

§

“Yah! I flee—for shame!” Lizard Priest howled with uncharacteristic vitriol as he slipped his huge form into the shadow of a pillar. “If the nosferatu are the kings of horror, then the fearsome nagas are the kings of the monsters!”

In spite of his self-censure, he had sustained more than passing injuries. He could endure them because of his great strength and his scales, which gave him an unparalleled ability to carry on in combat.

Satisfied that Lizard Priest’s injuries were not going to be a problem, Goblin Slayer said quietly, “It seemed to stop earlier. What did you do?”

“I did nothing. One hears that vampires have a number of weaknesses, however…”

“Don’t know much about that,” said High Elf Archer as she tied a bandage around Lizard Priest’s injuries, knotting it with an elegant motion and speaking as fast as she wrapped. “They’re supposed to be weak to sunlight, but you don’t get much of that in human temples.”

“Why?”

“Because then even the stupidest amateurs would come charging in, thinking they could take care of things, and get themselves bit!” Dwarf Shaman took a swig of his fire wine, shooting a dirty look out past the pillar as he spoke.

Even as zombies—perhaps especially then—the goblins’ main menace was in their numbers. However, they moved more slowly, more heavily, with less agility than in life. The vampire didn’t seem inclined to send the zombies flying at them. Perhaps it was something to do with his sense of aesthetics.

“You humans have the worst habits,” High Elf Archer said, patting the bandaged scales gently and chuckling as she flicked her ears. “You learn one little thing, you think you’ve got the truth of the whole world figured out.”

“I know that all too well,” Goblin Slayer said very seriously.

There they were, having a break and a little chat despite the looming army of the dead.

It’s often said that adventurers’ rest periods can be broken into two kinds, long rests and short ones. Depending on the moment and the situation, a rest might be as little as five minutes—and this was such a time.

This was a party that had always relied minimally on Minor Heal. To revive themselves, they drank stamina potions or snacked on the elven baked goods supplied by their archer.

“Gah. This elvish bread is edible as far as it goes, but it’s a little…light,” Dwarf Shaman griped. Somewhat lacking as an accompaniment for wine.” He picked a few crumbs out of his beard. “I could wish for a roast chicken!”

“Don’t like it? Then don’t eat it!” High Elf Archer said, licking the crumbs off her fingers and somehow still looking elegant at the same time. “I can’t help wishing the girl was here. She’s dealt with a vampire before.”

“Yes.” Goblin Slayer poured the contents of a small bottle through the slats of his visor, then nodded. “She told me the same. Although she wouldn’t speak much of it.” Next, he whispered, “She is a far more accomplished adventurer than me.” This was tinged with gladness as each person there could hear.

If Priestess had been with them at that moment…

“Our cleric is not given to bragging nor accustomed to effusive praise.” She would certainly have been pleased. Lizard Priest’s eyes spun merrily in his head. Then he stretched, twisting his neck to check how he was feeling after the first aid. “I do believe this occasion will become valuable experience.”

“That vampire’s the blamed problem!” said Dwarf Shaman, who was seated in a lotus posture as if meditating. He rested his chin on his fist and looked very perturbed. “Don’t think you are I are made to take out the likes of that shitkicker, Beard-cutter.” He took another long gulp of wine, then fixed Goblin Slayer’s helmet with a stare. “You can’t be tellin’ me you don’t know about vampires now. I won’t believe it!”

“I know of them,” Goblin Slayer replied with a nod. “But not much.”

“Well, that’s a relief!” High Elf Archer said, half in exasperation, half in amusement. “I was afraid you were just going to say”—and here she pitched her voice low—“I know it’s not a goblin.”

“Well, it isn’t,” came the very serious reply. High Elf Archer hid a snicker but not very well. One could only imagine how the vampire himself would have felt to hear it.

The impish imitation of his own voice was lost on Goblin Slayer but not the change in the party’s mood. He could tell that even as everyone remained vigilant, they were also relaxed and loose.

I’m grateful for that.

Normally—yes, it was becoming normal, he discovered—normally, it would not have been like this. The one who was sensitive to how everyone was feeling, who passed out food and water, who performed first aid, thought things through, and kept the conversation flowing was the cleric.

Each of them made up a bit of the slack, so the party was able to function as normal.

I couldn’t have done this.

If, in her absence, the unity of the party had declined, he would not have known what to do.

Rather than ponder the imponderable, Goblin Slayer turned his attention to the problem at hand—and a vampire was a substantial problem indeed.

“How many spells do you have left?”

“One or two, I’d say,” Dwarf Shaman answered.

Lizard Priest volunteered that it was the same for him, his long head shaking from side to side. “I dropped my fangs. I might be able to conjure a single Dragontooth Warrior at best.”

“What we need is some numbers,” High Elf Archer murmured. She patted her quiver, stocked with ragged arrows, and shrugged. “If we could have scattered some more, he might have stopped again.”

“But we don’t know why. And if we did, we couldn’t trust it,” Goblin Slayer said.

“That’s true,” High Elf Archer said honestly. She hadn’t been that serious about the remark. Arrows were her domain, and her role was as a ranger. She didn’t have much to contribute to strategy meetings like this one.

Goblin Slayer had an intuition that she must, then, have had some reason for speaking up now. Before he could say anything, though, she waved it away. “It’s okay. I’m doing all right. They’re goblin arrows, but at least I can shoot with them.”

“Good enough. Perhaps some fire powder,” Goblin Slayer mused. “You said it was weak to sunlight, after all.”

“You’re thinkin’ of bustin’ through the ceiling,” said Dwarf Shaman, catching on quickly. He ignored High Elf Archer’s scowl and looked up. The ceiling of the passageway was right above them, but that of the large room was much higher, so far above their heads that it was cloaked in darkness. He had, indeed, spent much time and gone a great distance digging with Tunnel.

Speaking with the experience of a dwarf, the intuition of a people as comfortable under the ground as above it, he said, “I couldn’t guarantee there’s open sky above this temple—and I’m not sure I could get there with what I’ve got left.”

“I see,” intoned Goblin Slayer. Perhaps only a dark elf could have challenged a dwarf when it came to opinions about matters subterranean. Goblin Slayer, for his part, trusted Dwarf Shaman’s judgment and didn’t ask any questions.

Instead, he said, “Perhaps we could burn the creature.”

“Burn him,” High Elf Archer repeated.

“The undead oughtta catch just fine,” said Dwarf Shaman. “They are dead, after all.”

“Meaning…that thing is a corpse?” Goblin Slayer asked. There was a flicker of inspiration, the light of the God of Knowledge, in his mind. “So it has no life.”

“S’pose yeh could say that, sure,” said Dwarf Shaman, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Yes, it was reasonable. No one would claim that thing was alive. “In fact, there was a Vampire Lord appeared in the capital ten-odd years ago, and they actually called it the No-Life King.”

In that case.

From behind his visor, Goblin Slayer looked around at his friends. His friends. He still wasn’t used to thinking of them like that.

It was a little bit disappointing that their priestess wasn’t here. But at the same time, it was a good thing. She was adventuring in the capital at that moment. A wonderful adventurer, far more than he could ever hope to be. He had dragged everyone else off on his own adventure, a fact Goblin Slayer found disquieting.

But if that’s the case…

“I have a plan,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

…then I have to win.

§

“Please, stand back!”

Priestess reacted immediately; she moved with precision. A brilliant display if there ever was one.

She worked her sounding staff, which jangled with every move; she leaned out from the royal box and thrust it forward.

“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, by the power of the land grant safety to we who are weak!”

At that instant, the winged monster that had come diving at her was pushed backward by an invisible force field and tumbled through space.

“GAAAARGO?!”

“GARGOO!!?”

One, then two of them. Priestess could feel the shock each time they slammed into Protection’s field, but she held firm.

She didn’t have to feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up to know that the black dots filling the blue sky were monsters, because the experience still lived within her—the experience of the battle that had engulfed her at the fortress.

Bodies like stone. Claws, fangs, and wings. Those are…

“M-monsters…?!” Cow Girl said, terrified. “Are those demons?!”

“No!” Priestess called back. “They’re gargoyles!”

It was the first time she’d seen them outside of the Monster Manual. However, even she, who had barely been on any proper adventures, was able to remain calmer than Cow Girl.

Fortunate were those who had never experienced monsters invading their home!

“GGOOYYYYLEE?!?!”

Another of the creatures smashed against the Protection barrier, and Priestess felt her hands tingle.

It’s all right.

She could take it. She could still hold. There was no problem for her, she figured. But…

Chaos was already spreading among the spectators, the screams of the crowd mingling with the roars of the monsters. She saw how alert her bodyguards were and assumed the security around the audience was hopping to it as well. After all, monsters didn’t just come from the sky. What if they were among you? Behind you? What would you do?

“Wh—?” came Guild Girl’s tight voice. “What do we do?!”

Hers was not the cry of someone in a panic but the emphatic question of someone resolved to do something.

Priestess started calculating in her head, thinking fast. The breath came in through her delicate lips, then went out again.

“A plan—I have a plan!” she shouted so that they could hear behind her; for she had no time to turn around as another gargoyle threw itself against her barrier. “Get to the door! Hold it shut!”

“Y-yeah, okay…!” Cow Girl said, brought back to her right mind by Priestess’s orders.

The royal box was, well, literally a sort of box—and it had a door for getting in and out. Rather than rushing out into the hallway in an attempt to escape, it might be better to stay in here and wait for rescue. Not, of course, that Cow Girl had thought that far ahead. It was simply that Priestess had given her instructions, and Cow Girl wasn’t the kind to dawdle.

“Um, uh… A chair! We need a chair over here!” she said. “Grab that one!”

“I’m on it! Let’s push together!” Guild Girl replied.

“One, two—!”

Cow Girl, like Priestess, had no time to look back, but still she and Guild Girl were able to build a crude line of defense.

King’s Sister had used a miracle to put up some kind of wall, and her ladies-in-waiting were working to set up defenses—that was how it looked from the outside.

The soldiers, who had felt the entire scene growing more unreal by the second since the moment the gargoyles attacked, finally jumped into action.

“Sorry we’re late! Let us help!”

“Thanks, we could use it!” Guild Girl said.

Whether you were trained or not, responding immediately was a difficult thing to do. Even adventurers, whose daily lives involved putting themselves in danger of life and limb, could sometimes be taken by surprise.

“We’ve got this side held down!” one of the soldiers cried.

“Thank you!”

Priestess exhaled as another gargoyle slammed downward.

Cow Girl had been in the middle of a goblin assault before—and prior to that, there had been the attack on the farm. Above all, she knew that Priestess was a strong young woman. So it would be all right. It had to be. She took comfort in that…

I don’t have any plan! Priestess thought, trying to think as fast as she was able. A single bead of sweat traced a line down her forehead, then veered onto her cheek.

“Your Highness, this is dangerous! Please, you must get to safety!” a soldier yelled.

“No—”

No?

Priestess was quick to shake her head at the soldier, but suddenly she stopped. She almost put her finger to her lips, her characteristic habit, but instead she gripped the staff even harder to subdue the impulse.

If he was here, what would he do? At a moment like this? Was there anything in her pocket?

That’s it… I see it.

Her hand was not in her pocket. It couldn’t be. Both of her delicate, unreliable hands were desperately gripping her staff—she had no others.

There was a sharp sound of inhalation as Priestess took in as much air as her petite chest would hold and focused all her spirit and attention on the heavens above.

“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, grant your sacred light to we who are lost in darkness!” she cried.

“GGAAAAAAARRG?!?!!!!?!?”

A brilliant and holy light, blinding, filled the royal box and spilled over into the coliseum. The closest gargoyle hid its face and screamed, tumbling as it returned to a lump of stone.

It dropped, well, like a rock, slamming into the seats below and shattering—but there was a silver lining to that.

The sudden burst of holy light had pierced the chaos below, drawing every eye in the crowd. The gazes of those in the spectator seating were pulled away from their running and their disorderly flight and toward the royal box.

Who was that? Was that the princess? No one had heard of her being granted any miracles…

The murmuring started quietly; after a beat, it was swallowed up.

“As a priestess of the Earth Mother, I have a request!” Priestess said—loudly, clearly, confidently to the people below. “Any and all adventurers who are here now, lend me your aid!”

That was all she said—but the effect was dramatic. The adventurers, who had each been facing the gargoyles on their own, isolated, looked at one another.

They’d only come here to see the show. If some sparks were going to land on them, they would brush them away—it was no more than that. But this was different. They had been asked personally. By the princess of the entire nation. She had requested them to help deal with the monsters. And in that case, then this…

This is an adventure and nothing but!

“All right! Let’s start with the big one!”

“Front rowers, over here! Protect the spell casters and clerics!”

“I’ve got magic! And miracles—well, just Trade God ones, but still!”

“If you’ve got Reverse, it’d sure come in handy!”

Parties started calling to one another, individual adventurers began teaming up, and people who had never met each other before began working together.

“Yes!” said Priestess, who had seen them all when she was casting Holy Light. She smiled. Then she said, “Everyone else, stay calm and evacuate in an orderly fashion! The guards will help you!”

Orders were given, instructions flew. People started trusting themselves to the soldiers, who guided them out of confusion and into safety. The guards, who had fallen into panic when the monsters attacked, began to regain their composure and coherence. Yes, the situation was dangerous—but it wasn’t fatal.

“Fantastic, fantastic work…,” said Guild Girl with a sigh of relief and a voice full of admiration.

Cow Girl goggled; she could only find one word to describe what she had seen: “Amazing…!”

“Hee-hee…” Priestess smiled with just a hint of shyness, but then she tensed her cheeks again, forcing the smile away. “It’s only because Goblin Slayer—and everyone else—has taught me so much!”

That’s right… If you have no hands left, you just have to borrow some!