Goblin Slayer - Volume 9 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – Rings In The Pocket

“Your emotions ain’t worth a damn!” 

Such was what his master spat at him on a rare day when he had taken him beyond the mountain. 

“Yes, sir,” he said, nodding calmly as if to demonstrate his understanding. There was nothing else he could say. He was too busy trying to take in the sight before him. 

“Will anger make your sword sharper? Will sadness make you light on your feet? Unlikely!” 

“This is what happens to bums who think a just cause is all you need to win.” His teacher spat, literally this time. 

It was a mountain of corpses. Still bodies piled on still bodies, as far as the eye could see. 

Perhaps it had been some village once. Burned-out husks of buildings dotted the landscape. 

All of the corpses were humanoid. A few dwarves and elves were among them, and several of the bodies had weapons. But most of them appeared to be villagers in ratty clothing. He tugged at his own shirt. “Goblins…?” 

“What are you, stupid?” his master demanded, spit flying in his face. “Because goblins attacked one village, you think they’re the end of the world? Damn fool. Can you see what’s in front of your eyes?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Oh, you can, eh?” His master didn’t sound like he believed him for an instant. “This is the work of bandits. Then some adventurers showed up. A righteous battle. And they lost.” 

Luckier than your village. His master laughed broadly, in the way rheas did, and he found himself casting his eyes at the ground. 

“Goddamn idiot!” 

The next instant, he felt a tremendous blow to his head. He went tumbling into a pile of coal and coughed as he inhaled a mouthful of human ashes. 

“Didn’t I just tell you? Your feelings aren’t good for anything. Get that?” 

“…Yes, sir,” he said, and managed to haul himself to his feet. He wanted to brush the soot off his hands and legs, but he didn’t expect his master would allow it. 

“A dead baby is just taking the path we all take. When it dies, a candle is lit in heaven. You understand?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Hrmph, idiot. It rides on the back of a goose, all the way up to the sky.” 

His master, cruel smile never flinching, gave the nearest corpse a powerful kick. It rolled over onto its back: it was an elf woman, with several arrows sticking through her flat chest. Strips of leather armor remained, but her clothes had been torn; only the status tag around her neck identified her as an adventurer. Her eyes, open wide in hatred, looked like clouded glass. Perhaps she had been burned. 

The boy understood all too well what had happened to her in those moments before she died. He had seen it himself. 

“Hmph, what a waste.” His master ran his hand roughly down the elf’s chest, breaking off the arrows, then sat down on her breasts. “No one reuses anything these days… Say, d’you know how to make use of this?” He fondled the chest as if it were all a game to him. 

The boy thought for a moment. “…As a chair?” 

“Another way. And cushion doesn’t count, either. Not soft enough for that.” His master leaned back and took his pipe out of his pouch. He used the elf’s long fingers to tamp down the tobacco, then struck a spark off her ring to light it. 

“…The scraps of her clothing could be used for rags. If she has any equipment left, it could be put to use,” the boy answered. 

“‘If’ is right. What else?” 

“Her hair is long… Perhaps it could be braided into a rope.” 

“Perfect for a garrote. And in high demand at market. You probably didn’t know about that, so consider that a free tip. All because elf hair’s oh so pretty,” his master murmured disinterestedly. The boy nodded. He thought so, too. “What else?” 

He hesitated. His master took a long drag on his pipe and blew the smoke out with irritation. The boy spoke. “You could eat her.” 

His master cackled. Then he spread his arms wide as if supplicating to the heavens. “Eat her?! This poor, woebegone elf-girl?! You could tear her apart and put her in your mouth?!” 

You sound like a damn goblin. 

He forced himself to answer with composure, or at least what he thought was composure. “If you had nothing else to eat.” 

His master laughed again, puffed some smoke, and waved a hand. “Go on.” 

“Her blood, you could drink it. If you strained it through a cloth first. Or you could mix it with charcoal to make ink. And also…her fat, it could be burned for fuel.” 

“Another thing. Women…especially elf women…their blood and piss make for excellent goblin bait.” The boy’s master blew a ring of smoke in his face. The boy tried to simply ignore it, but he ended up coughing, blinking, and in the next instant came the expected blow. He tumbled, still hacking, among the corpses. “Well, good enough. Listen to me: you’re the one who decides what is and isn’t useful.” His master jumped down off the elf and gave him a kick. His breath left him, and he scrambled in among the bodies, struggling to get away. The smell of rotting flesh filled his nose and eyes and mouth, choking him. 

“If people say something is great, but it ain’t, get rid of it. And if they say you can’t use it, but it’s got a purpose, then use it.” 

When at last he crawled out, his teacher was already invisible. The awful cackling echoed around the ruined village, and he groped desperately for any sense of where his master was. 

Of course, he wasn’t seeking something so vague as a “sense.” He was concentrating, trying to catch the sound of his master taking a step, feel a passing breeze, or notice a disturbed pebble. 

“To call something useless is to call yourself useless. You can get something out of everything.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Imagination was the greatest weapon; those lacking it died first. His master had told him that many times, and his master was never wrong. And if he ever was, it would be because the boy himself had not done well enough. As his master said, he had no brains. He was just a worthless, incompetent piece of trash. 

And if he wanted to prove otherwise, the only way was through action. 

“I think your words are useful, Master.” 

At that, his master stopped talking. 

Then the boy’s head was grabbed with great violence, shaken back and forth and side to side. For some reason, it made him very happy. Even if, the next instant, he found himself hitting the ground. 

So that was always exactly what he did. He always had, and he always would. Choosing to not act once was more than enough for a lifetime. 

§ 

Cow Girl drifted out of her restless sleep when she heard a drumbeat that rumbled through her bones. 

What’s that? 

The question only lasted an instant. She sat up with a gasp, bubbles exploding out of her mouth. When she realized she was practically mounted on him, a series of thoughts raced through her head. 

No, no time for that! 

“Hey, wake up… Wake up!” 

“Hrm,” he grunted, and his head moved. He muttered something, causing bubbles to slip from his visor, and then he looked up. They could see a round slice of the hazy sky, the moon above them wavering as if reflected in a pond. 

The muffled sound of the drums seemed to come down to them through the water. 

Out there—needless to say, there were goblins. 

“I’ll take a look.” 

“…Is that safe?” she asked, tugging on his sleeve. 

“It’ll be fine,” he said, taking a spike from his item pouch. “I’ve climbed to higher places.” 

Then he kicked at the water, rising up, feeling his way along the side of the well. When one had handholds and no trouble breathing, climbing was surprisingly easy. 

When he arrived at the water’s surface, Goblin Slayer peeked his head out like the white alligator he had once encountered. This was where the trouble started. If he made a sound and they noticed him, it would all be for naught. 

There was still some distance to the mouth of the well. He shoved the spike into the stone side and began to climb. It was nothing like the tower he had scaled once, and it didn’t take long. 

“…” 

He slid the cover of the well just slightly aside so he could get a view outside. That view turned out to be every bit as ugly as he expected. 

“GOBOR…” 

“GG… BG.” 

There were goblins in formation, yawning and rubbing their eyes. Luckily, they didn’t have good “night” vision. They weren’t likely to spot him. 

That meant the goblins were not the thing he should be most focused on. 

“Ah…” 

“…Hr…gh…” 

Banners. Two of them. Held high by the goblins, they were human in shape. Their clothes had been torn off, their equipment stolen, their muscular bodies exposed, their tendons shredded to the point of uselessness. And then there were the rusty nails driven into the wood through their hands and feet. They dribbled blood. 

Crucified adventurers. 

The way they trembled, the paleness of their skin—that had to be the effects of the cold. The panting came from how hard it was to breathe. Goblin Slayer had seen this more than once in the past. He understood in principle how it worked. In that position, one’s own weight prevented one from taking full breaths. 

He saw one young woman, her lips moving soundlessly. She was slight of frame; probably back-row. He could make out the syllables her lips were forming. They were the name of her god. 

He also saw immediately why she had no voice. The most crucial instrument for it was missing from her mouth. The frail hands with the nails driven into them could never make the holy signs she wanted them to. 

Goblin Slayer grunted softly. He whispered someone’s name. He didn’t even realize it. 

“Adventurer!!” A voice like lightning thundered down. For the first time, Goblin Slayer noticed the massive giant moving at the head of the goblin column. It was not a goblin. It was— What was it called? He had fought such a monster before. “If you value these girls’ lives, then stop hiding in your little hole and come out and show yourselves to me!!” 

First, he focused on observation. Weapon: a war hammer. Body shape: bigger than a hob, bigger than a champion. Gait: shambling. The way he instructed the goblins: angry. Then he noted the goblin numbers, their equipment. 

He didn’t have to guess what his opponent was planning. What he needed to think of was what he would do when it happened. 

“I’ll wait until the sun is at its apex! If you aren’t here by then, they’ll suffer a fate that will make them curse their gods!!” 

The girl looked down, and Goblin Slayer noticed that she was weeping openly. 

The monster saw it, too, bared his fangs and sneered as if to frighten her. He was laughing. “You will know my wrath for murdering my brother!!” 

Goblin Slayer frowned behind his visor. “Brother.” He thought back. He remembered no such thing. 

“All right, let’s go! Move out!!” the monster bellowed, and the goblins rushed after him, all but stumbling over themselves. 

They must be going all over the village, hoping to goad him into revealing himself. “Fine,” Goblin Slayer whispered. Well and good. He slipped back into the well without so much as a splash. 

“H-how’s it look…?” Cow Girl bubbled, holding her knees. Her anxiousness manifested itself in the way the bubbles wavered. 

The monster had been shouting at the top of his lungs. Even through the water, she must have heard him. 

“They have hostages. Bait. Shields… Nothing that poses an immediate threat.” Goblin Slayer chose his words carefully. “I don’t believe the idea came from the goblins. But they’ve done something very similar before.” 

Cow Girl shivered. She knew the goblins who had attacked her farm had used the same type of “shields.” 

Goblin Slayer began checking his equipment. They had been underwater so long, everything was thoroughly soaked. Once they were above, it would have to be dried out before it could be used. If anything froze while he was trying to do something, he could imagine what would happen. 

The same went for her. Goblin Slayer said dispassionately, “Once we’re up there, you’ll have to wipe your body down and dry your clothes or squeeze them out. Otherwise, you’ll get frostbite.” 

“R-right…” She nodded, but she didn’t sound sure. The way she looked uneasily from one side to the other spoke far more to her fear than did her words. 

“Don’t worry,” Goblin Slayer said. There was no hesitation. “I won’t let them escape alive.” 

Cow Girl nodded with an exhausted smile.