Goblin Slayer - Volume SS1.01 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – Life Path Bloodline, Experience, and Encounters

It had been three days since his older sister had ceased to exist. That was why he decided to move. 

His sister had told him absolutely not to move from where he was, but she was no longer his sister, any more than a hunk of steak was a living cow. No more than sausage was a pig, or an egg was a chick, or a chick a full-grown chicken. A chicken was neither its meat nor its egg. 

The boy, only just turned ten, crawled carefully out from between the floorboards where he had been hiding. His pants were wet with his own excrement and unpleasantly itchy, but it was nothing he couldn’t endure. 

More pressing was the pain of his stiff joints, and the agonizing effort of trying to keep the floorboards from squeaking. The clamor of the invaders was more distant now, thankfully, but still, there was no substitute for caution. 

His sister had told him that he was always hungry, yet strangely, he didn’t notice the emptiness of his stomach now. Perhaps it was the mud he had stuffed into his mouth to prevent his stomach from growling at the charred aroma of those he had once loved. She had taught him that the soil here was edible, and that in times of famine, people sometimes ate it. 

His throat was as prickly and dry as the days in high summer when he had played until noon; his head thundered with pain, his temples throbbing to the beat of his heart with a great, deep ache as if they were being struck repeatedly. 

He didn’t bother to glance around the room as he scuttled over the floor toward the kitchen. A soup pot had been overturned, and a kitchen knife was missing. The water jug was shattered, but the bottom of it was still intact. 

He leaned over it like a dog, slurping down all he could before he had to come up for breath. If he had known that simple water could be so delicious, he would never have begged his sister to add sugar to his drinks. 

Then, finally, he sat down on the floor, not even taking the time to wipe his mouth as he looked around the inside of the house. 

The dresser was in splinters, a violent mess, his sister’s clothes pulled out and scattered everywhere. Among the debris, he spotted the ribbon he had given her for her birthday. There were marks from little bare feet trampling all over it. 

Their father’s bow, which had hung on the wall, was broken; their mother’s medicine bag had been torn apart and then thrown aside. 

When was it that our parents disappeared? 

He tried to remember what their mother and father had looked like, but as usual, he could summon only hazy images. His father, a ranger, and his mother, a medicine woman, had (so he was told) died in an epidemic before he was old enough to really remember them. His mother, insistent on caring for others, had caught the disease herself; and his father, who had been in the wilderness looking for something savory, had likewise fallen ill. 

After that, it was his older sister who raised him. 

And he had watched until the very end what had happened to her. 

He braced himself against a ruined bedframe and slowly rose. 

The room was a shambles, covered in mud and blood and something sticky. 

Somehow, it just didn’t feel right. But why? He cocked his head, mystified, but it came to him immediately: 

This was no longer his house. This house was no longer his home. 

He sought out the treasure chest hidden beneath the bed. The lid was smashed and someone had rifled through the contents. It had contained the pretty stones he’d found while playing with the girl next door, some pressed dry flowers, and a stick that was the perfect size to be a sword. 

Now all of it was destroyed, stolen, lost. 

Fishing through the box, he thought he had grabbed hold of his father’s dagger. It was a memento of his, with a hawk’s-head hilt, entrusted to the boy by his sister. 

But all he could find was the dagger’s scabbard, and he tossed it back into the box. 

When he went to leave the house, he felt something through the bottom of his shoe. 

It was his sister’s purse. It was just a plain leather pouch, but it was sewn with a flower pattern. He took it in hand and heard the faint jangling of coins inside. 

He tugged on the string and then hung the purse around his neck, tucking it inside his shirt. He made sure to close the purse tightly so that it would make no sound. 

Slowly, he peeked out the door, making certain that they weren’t around, and then went outside. 

The sky was a gruesome reddish black. Was it morning or evening? He couldn’t tell. 

His shadow stretched out, and he stuck close to the wall of the house to conceal it, as if he were playing a game of shadow stepping. Eventually, he made it far enough along the wall to get a glimpse of the house next door. Not that he needed to look. 

Hanging from the branch of a tree in their yard, where there had once been a swing he liked to swing on, were the bodies of the husband and wife who had lived there. 

Other than his sister, it was the one thing he had been able to see in the past three days. 

He hardly felt anything about it, though, as they no longer looked human to him. 

What about her, I wonder? 

He struggled with whether to look for her but soon realized it was a question he didn’t need to answer. If she had come back, it would have been by carriage, and the wreck should be around somewhere. If there was no carriage, it meant none had arrived. 

It meant everyone knew this village had been attacked by goblins. Everyone knew, and no one had come. 

He could hear excited voices in the distance. The crackling of a campfire. The sounds of cooking. 

He clenched his fist and bit his lip, but no matter how hard he dug his nails into his hands, no matter how hard he bit down, he couldn’t make them bleed; it was so terribly frustrating. 

If they had known he was standing here now, thinking these thoughts, they would only have laughed at him. That was all there was to it. By the time they attacked the next village, they would already have forgotten about him. 

I should get out on the town road. 

He had never been to town. He had no idea how far it might be or whether it was even possible to walk there. 

But it felt like his only choice. 

Then, suddenly, his knees buckled, and he stumbled. It seemed he didn’t have the strength to stand. 

But I must…go forward… 

He began to crawl along the ground, forcing his body to move toward the road. His elbows and knees got scraped raw, but he ignored them and kept moving. 

He crawled single-mindedly down pathways, through bushes, past places he had been running happily around until just days earlier. He ignored the useless thoughts that bubbled unbidden into his mind; he focused on keeping his arms and legs moving. 

A long time passed. 

His surroundings gradually grew dark, which meant that perhaps the red sky earlier had been twilight. He didn’t bother to look up from the mud, even as stars came out overhead and the twin moons began to shine above him. 

Soon, he would be at the fence that marked the border of the village. The one he and that girl had once snuck up to, only to be roundly scolded by his sister. If he could get past that fence, he would be outside. 

It would be the first time he had ever left his village, and it would be because his village had been destroyed by goblins. 

“GROBB…!” 

“GOOBRRB! GRO!” 

But it seemed things would not be so simple. 

There they were. 

They weren’t that much taller than he was, as if they were just some brats from a neighboring village. But they were far, far more terrible. 

He knew because he had seen every minute of what they’d done. 

He knew why these creatures, normally reputed to dress in rags, had fresh, new outfits this evening. 

They were standing listlessly around the fence, spears in hand. Even the boy could tell they were guards. He had seen the adults in his village trading off the watch at the village gate, so he knew what a guard was. 

Were there other paths that led out of the village? He tried to think, but his mind was hazy, and it was difficult. There were a few side streets he had discovered while playing, but he couldn’t imagine the goblins hadn’t found them as well. 

He breathed as quietly as possible, trying to stay hidden, but suddenly, a pair of the little burning pupils turned in his direction. 

He sees me. 

The boy learned then that goblins could see in the dark, although the knowledge came too late to help him. 

He grabbed a stone in his right hand and stood. He threw the stone. It might have been nighttime, but he had the light of the moons and the stars. The rock whistled through the air in an arc. 

“GOBORR?!” 

The goblin screamed, accompanied by a wet crunching sound. He tumbled to the ground, writhing, blood streaming from his nose. He clutched his hands to his face and made a sort of panicked whine. 

Forcing his shaking legs to move, the boy picked up another rock and started running. 

“GOOBRBRRB!” 

The remaining goblin had been laughing at his companion’s misfortune, gesturing at him with his spear. 

The boy knew he wouldn’t make it in time, but he didn’t care. 

Now the other goblin, gibbering with rage, picked up his spear. 

Die, you filthy monster, the boy thought. He gripped the stone as hard as he could. 

The rusty spear tip rushed at him. It was clear to him that this would be the end. The only real question was whether the end would come here, immediately, or over the next several days… 

“I see now.” 

At that moment, there was a gust of cold wind from the west, such as the kind that blows at night. 

He didn’t understand what had happened; he only registered a whistling, like a flute. Then the heads of the goblins in front of him went flying, and the sound changed to spurting blood. 

He used his sleeve to wipe away the dark blood that splattered on his face. His older sister was no longer there to scold him for bad manners. 

“The boy’s got nerve, if nothin’ else.” 

At that moment, he thought he saw a hideous, wrinkled old rhea. 

But no sooner had he registered the sight than a dull, heavy pain lanced through his head, and his darkness overcame his consciousness. 

It was not until he came to that he realized he must have been knocked out. 

And the end hasn’t come yet. 

§ 

Another village destroyed by goblins. 

It would never be anything more than another number in another report furnished to the king, who would never so much as know the village’s name. 

Perhaps not even the gods knew what the village was called…