Goblin Slayer - Volume 7 - Chapter 7.1

Interlude – Of Smacking Hell Down Into The Abyss

“Rrrraagghhhh!!” the girl cried, leaping up into the air, and the deep dark of the underworld was illuminated as by the radiance of the sun.

The place truly was as unto hell itself. A third of the place was scorched, blackened land, and the other two-thirds was packed solid with demons. Towering above her head, ready to tear the board of this world apart, were Rock Eaters, giant bug monsters easily mistaken for massive centipedes.

But the girl, high in the air, only curled up the corners of her lips in a cute but unexpected smile.

“Daaaawn STRIKE!!” Sun explosion!

The sacred blade in her hand released a flash of emerald light, ruthlessly scything down the monsters all around. The horde of Rock Eaters, leaning eagerly forward for a bite of the young woman, was torn apart in the blink of an eye. Blood and fluids that might have stained the girl’s black hair were burned away by the heat of the emerald flash.

The girl had refused to so much as flinch in the face of all hell’s demons, and indeed, she stood unscathed.

The hero spun in the air, landing lightly on a rocky outcropping with fist upraised, as she shouted, “It’s your doom, hellions, your doom!” Then she leveled her holy sword at the monsters, weaving a complex sigil with her left hand. “Carbunculus…Crescunt…Iacta!!”

A sphere of flame formed with a roar and went flying, followed by a second, then a third. As charred demon corpses soared through the air, the hero exclaimed, “I’m happy to keep dishing it out—how much longer do you need?!”

“Just…a little longer, I think!”

The answering voice came from within the mass of demons.

The hero gripped her sacred blade with both hands, striking a fighting pose as if to say that any who dared come near would be cut down.

And in fact, that was exactly what happened to any who dared.

The demons shifted, trying to find an advantageous position, but an instant later, their heads went flying. No true, experienced warrior would let a good attack of opportunity go to waste. She ducked away from her enemies’ assaults so fast that you would miss it if you blinked, then she thrust her sword through an oncoming opponent. Her fighting was brutal, utilitarian— but that demonstrated exactly how skilled she was.

She was protecting a mage—a woman carrying a large staff and concentrating hard. The woman, Sage, now opened one of her eyes, looking at the rocks high above them.

“…The flow of the water above us has changed. It seems our opponent’s magic circle has been broken.”

“Huh. I wonder if there are some other adventurers up there.” The hero fried a few of the smaller monsters with another spell then jumped in among them.

The gates of hell are nearly open.

Such had been the warning left to them, carved into a clay tablet by mages who had lived nearly in the Age of the Gods.

These wizards had been researching the Gate spell, but they had made a terrible mistake. They had opened a Gate to a place that should have been left closed forever: hell itself. They had immediately sealed it shut, but it was only a matter of time until it opened again. They had predicted the very year and day when it would do so…

And it happened to be right when I was around. Is that good luck or bad for me?

The hero ran straight ahead, never looking back.

She had tried studying, but she was under no illusions that she could ever really grasp the deep logic of the world. She had sat reading thick books of principles and rules, but they only made her head hurt.

Hence, it would be up to Sage to seal the Gate shut. She herself complained that she had not yet reached the apogee, yet she was so stalwart…

“Maybe the elves…?”

“I wonder. They do drag their feet—maybe that’s why their hands are so fast.”

“…Elves can wind up striking a fatal blow at a time and place you never expect.”

“For all my learning, I’ll never understand them,” Sage murmured, and the hero knew Sage had learned more than any of them.

As for herself, she just swung her sword and let the weapon do the spell- weaving.

The hero was taken once more by the absolute conviction that every corner of this world was amazing. And not because she was strong or because she was a hero. Absolutely not. Could a simple fact like that change the value of the world?

She had friends, a hometown, favorite things. The sky was stunning, and she could even see a rainbow.

“Hah, it’s all good! There’s one way to solve this problem—slice these guys up!”

All the more reason she couldn’t let these monsters have it.

She booted aside a lesser demon and found herself face-to-face with a bizarre spider creature. The gigantic monster was obviously a leader among the demons.

It was a fearsome beast; its metal legs could easily run her through.

The cynical observer might say that it was her job to fight opponents like that because she was the hero.

Pfft. Hardly.

She donned a wild smile, showing all her teeth. She looked like a shark after its prey.

Sage would have the Gate shut in a moment. Until then, she would fight to keep the world from these monsters; she wouldn’t cede it to them even for an instant.

If she and her friends were the only ones who knew why she fought for the world, that was enough.

“Here—we—goooooo!!”

The hero leaped in, bellowing and landing what was (if she might say so) a critical hit.