Chapter 5 – Advance To The Next Level Experience and Growth
“What d’you think?” the ugly rhea demanded. “That you’re already Little Mister Perfect?” The dim ice cave was deadly cold. “Oh, but you’re not. I know: you think you can do anything and everything with exactly what you already have.”
The old creature, clad in a mithril shirt, mockingly swung his glinting dagger and spread his arms wide. “I hate to fail! I never want to lose! And I don’t need any special training!”
His mocking voice echoed, a painful whining sound bouncing off the walls of the cave.
An icicle dangling from the ceiling shattered and then broke away, falling down.
The old man dodged it almost carelessly as it landed at his feet, then picked it up.
“Maybe you’ve got some astonishing idea in here that no one has ever thought of before?”
He brandished the icicle and swung it, breaking it against his forehead with a dull crack. Blood welled up, the terrible cold in the room causing it to steam white.
“Don’t you get all high and mighty, talking down about others. The lowliest street thug is smarter than you.”
The old rhea tossed the icicle aside as if it no longer interested him, then crouched down in a rather unbecoming way.
“Listen up. I’m gonna teach you that none of that is true.”
The boy, now lying on the ground, was unable to answer. He couldn’t even sit up.
The reason was that his hands were cruelly bound, and the cold had caused his skin to stick to the ice.
The old man, however, was unbothered by this. He grasped the boy by the head and tore him off the ground.
“You’d better be ready. Understand?”
“Yes,” the boy said, finally able to speak. “Master.”
“Excellent!” The old rhea grinned broadly and dragged the boy off.
They came to an underground canal—perhaps more of a river—no, perhaps more of a glacier. Snowmelt from the frozen mountain above came down here in a form that just qualified to be called liquid.
Without a word, the rhea pulled the boy over to the frozen stream and then kicked him into it.
“??!”
His scream never quite took voice. Pain coursed through his body as if every inch of him were being pounded with nails at once. His lungs froze with the cold, his heart felt as if it had been bound and gagged.
He kicked and struggled but only succeeded in sinking. That was when the old man delivered a vicious kick to his head.
“Sink down deep! Then kick!” the rhea yowled, gesturing madly with his dagger.
“Do that, and you’ll be able to float! Then do it again and again! Otherwise, all that awaits you is death!”
The boy sucked in breath desperately, then sank down. His feet touched ice at the bottom of the channel. He kicked off.
His master was right.
§
Thus, failure became the engine that drove his gradual transformation.
He had traded his round shield for something smaller, removed the handle, and made sure it had a metal rim.
He’d given up on the long sword. He now wore a weapon of an unusual length, several strokes shorter than normal.
His bag of items had moved at some point, from his back to his hip.
His once-untarnished armor had grown covered in mud and blood spatters, becoming utterly grimy.
One of the horns had broken off his steel helmet, which went from cheap-looking to pathetic.
No longer did anyone consider inviting him on adventures.
Goblins, goblins, goblins, goblins, goblins, goblins.
It seemed to be all he ever said, and most other adventurers watched him from a distance and muttered quietly among themselves.
Sometimes, in fact, a bit of discreet betting took place as to who or what was under the armor, and novices who saw him tended to gawk.
No one even attempted to associate with him any longer. Nor did he attempt to associate with anyone.
And yet, so long as one is part of the living world, some bonds, however tenuous, are formed, whether one wants them or not.
§
The first thing the farm owner said to him upon opening his mouth was: “You didn’t do anything to that girl, did you?”
It was near dawn, the sun still casting purple streaks into the sky. The farm owner stood in front of the shed in the early-morning chill, brandishing a pitchfork.
He was presumably on his way to the Adventurers Guild. He exited the shed and closed the door behind him. Then he faced the owner and said stiffly, “What do you mean by…‘anything’?”
“Don’t play stupid. You know what I mean.”
Several days had passed since that incident.
The farmer was busy with work, but he also cared deeply for his family. He could tell his niece had been deep in thought ever since she had visited the young man’s shed that one morning.
She was the last of his family, a priceless memento of the younger sister he had lost, and he treated her like his own daughter.
He knew, of course, that one day she would probably fall in love, marry, and leave his home.
But even so.
“If you have, well—I assume you’re ready and willing to take responsibility.” The farmer spoke in a low voice, almost a growl, and stared intently at the young man.
It was impossible to say what he was thinking under that literally expressionless steel face.
If the boy was trying to take advantage of her in any way, the farmer would give him something to think about with the pitchfork in his hand. That much, he felt, was his right as her adoptive parent and guardian.
“No.” The helmet shook back and forth. “I didn’t do anything in particular.”
The voice was low and nonchalant, and so frank as to take the wind out of the farmer’s sails. If the words were a lie, then this young man was a reprobate quite accustomed to the act.
The farmer stared at the steel helmet a moment longer, then finally looked away as if suddenly unsure where to put his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
A rooster crowed in the distance. The sun would be fully risen soon, and the day would start. The farmer squinted against the brightness and heaved a sigh.
“You have no intention of taking up an honorable occupation?”
He meant to imply that he would never give his niece to some goon of an adventurer.
But then, too, if she could live decently with a survivor from her village, that would be ideal.
At the very least—yes, at the very least, the farmer finally realized, blinking. He discovered he had admitted how serious the young man was—so much so that he had been prepared to forgive him with just a bit of a pitchfork thrashing.
But then, the young man said, “No,” and shook his head firmly. “Because there are goblins.”
“…”
And then this. The farmer didn’t speak. He quickly began to regret his overeager resolution. He’d thought his niece had begun to recover over these last five years; no wonder she was upset now.
“Well, you’d better get going, then. Got to get to work.”
This man is completely gone already…
That much was obvious, not least because he appeared to have just crawled through a pool of mud.
As the farm owner started to walk away, pitchfork in his hand and his mind swirling with bitter thoughts, he heard the young man say, “Yes,” from behind him.
Then came a question: “…Where is she?”
This caused the farmer to stop and raise an eyebrow.
Here he had thought the young man was completely uninterested in her.
He turned around to find the young man standing almost as if bored.
“She’s gone out. Don’t think she’ll be back till late today.”
“Is that so,” murmured the young man, and then he set off toward town at a shuffle. There was something doubt-filled in his gait; to the farmer, he somehow looked like a child who had been left all alone.
§
“Ah…!”
When Guild Girl finally looked up from the desk she had stretched herself out on, the morning rush had already begun.
She heard the door open, and then a bold, almost violent, but casual set of footsteps made its way over to her.
“Goblins.”
No one looked up any longer when that word sounded from the reception desk. When the looming adventurer with his grimy equipment showed up, everyone pretended they had something else that demanded their attention.
And who could blame them? Everyone knew that he was not quite all there.
Whether it was fate or destiny that controlled the world, adventurers were a superstitious lot. Avoiding any involvement with “strange types” was a form of self-preservation.
But none of that mattered to Guild Girl. She got a bright smile on her face and held out some paperwork she had already prepared.
They were, of course, goblin-slaying quests.
I don’t like the feeling that I’m sort of foisting these on him, but…
She ignored the prickle in her heart. Somebody had to do this work. Mid-level adventurers flatly refused, and even beginners wouldn’t always take these jobs. Who was left to help the people in need?
Not that the work everyone else does isn’t important, too.
Hence, she gave him the leftovers. Adventurers who came in early in the morning picked over the quests that had been put out, and this was what was left.
This way, she could assign goblin slaying without causing anyone any trouble (trouble?).
“Ahem, we have five cases today. Everyone else just now is off dealing with a commotion at the mines…”
Guild Girl flipped through one page and then another, careful to remain polite as she went through the explanation. She used to stutter and hesitate, but not anymore—at least, not often. And that, too, was thanks to him.
It wasn’t that she considered her interactions with him to be practice, or that she thought of him as someone to practice upon, but…
“…?”
Guild Girl paused, looking at him in perplexity. He neither responded, nor questioned her about anything.
There in front of her was the cheap-looking helmet she had grown so accustomed to. It leaned slightly to one side—maybe because the horn on the other side was broken off—but that was one of the things she found endearing about him.
She thought, just maybe, she saw the helmet shake listlessly from side to side.
“Er… Are you feeling poorly?”
“…” He was silent for a second but then said, “No,” with an awkward shake of his head. “I’m fine,” he added.
Hmm, Guild Girl muttered to herself. It wasn’t at all clear to her what was “fine.”
I wish I could at least see his face.
As the thought crossed her mind, she realized that the only time she had gotten a clear look at him was back when he had first registered. Now she wished she had looked closer at the time, but it was too late for that now.
“…”
Silence.
Guild Girl gave a delicate cough.
“Pardon me,” she said, tapping a finger on the counter. The smile remained pasted on her face. Staring down the unreadable steel helmet, she found herself growing unaccountably angry. “Do you think I can entrust work like this to someone in such bad shape that he can barely stand up?”
“I’m fine.”
The repeated response provoked a slam of Guild Girl’s fist upon the desk. Her colleague shot her a piercing glance, but Guild Girl ignored her. The words were out of her mouth now, and she was on the warpath.
“Do you really think that?” Still smiling, she leaned over until her face was inches from his.
She thought she heard a mumble from inside the helmet, and finally the word no emerged clearly.
“Proper rest is essential for safe adventuring!” No rest, no quests, she told him, and was pleased to see him nod slightly in return.
“Very well.”
Ha! How about that? Guild Girl sat up a little straighter, feeling the flush of triumph.
Maybe I’ll cut him a break now, she thought and softened her voice as she said, “Okay, then. Just this once… I’ll give you this.”
She reached behind the counter and picked out one of the pieces of merchandise the Guild kept there. It was a faintly colored liquid in a bottle. A stamina potion.
It was not, of course, permitted to give such things away to adventurers. That would cut into the Guild’s all-important profits. But the solution was simple enough: Guild Girl would pay for it later out of her own salary. That would make things even, she figured.
“Our little secret, okay?” She winked at him.
From deep in the helmet, there was an erk sound, and then he said, “…Sorry.”
“The expression is thank you,” she replied. “If you really want those brownie points.” She giggled. “On that note. There are five cases here, but…all the other adventurers are out…”
“Out?” he asked, his voice especially low.
“Hmm?” Guild Girl said, cocking her head before nodding. “Yes.”
Now, that’s a little odd…
If she wasn’t just imagining it, his voice sounded…genuinely angry.
“Yes. To the mines. There was a fairly serious incident there. Would you rather join them?”
“No.” He shook his head, then took one of the quest papers. “I will slay goblins.”
“That one is—”
Guild Girl skimmed the paper afresh. It was a quest from a pioneer village on the frontier. Goblin trouble. Please get rid of them. A perfectly ordinary quest.
The numbers are unusually high, though…
The number of goblins people claimed to have seen bothered her.
“You’re…sure you’ll be all right?”
Guild Girl tried to ask a lot in a few words. His health. The fact that he was working solo.
An ugly premonition that this might be the one he didn’t come back from whispered through her mind. She suddenly discovered a deep ache in her chest, and without really meaning to, she leaned closer to him.
“I’m… I’m sure if you wait awhile, some other adventurers will show up…”
“These goblins,” he said in a clipped tone. “I will face them alone.”
§
“You again, huh?” The workshop boss looked up and frowned, his foot pausing on his treadle grindstone.
Keeping a sword sharp required this sort of thing be done constantly. The blade was placed against a spinning grindstone, sending sparks flying. Sharpening a sword involved literally shaving away part of the blade. Eventually it would reach its limit.
Some enchanted blades and magical items might be exceptions, but otherwise, the item’s ultimate destruction was inevitable. Even elves, proverbially ageless, could not escape the perpetual flow of time.
But even so…
The boss’s eyes went wide when he picked up the sword that the strange-looking man had brought him. The man had placed it on the boss’s countertop, and it was not in good shape.
It wasn’t so much that the sword had been shorn down to a strange length. There was a more fundamental problem.
It was badly chipped, covered in fat and blood. It could practically have passed for a saw, and he had seen meat cleavers in a cleaner state than this.
As if that weren’t enough, the hilt was bent as if it had been used to strike something, while the pommel was nearly shattered.
“Feh. Those who don’t look after their equipment are never long for this world.”
“I don’t believe I’m not looking after my equipment.”
The quiet voice drew an exasperated “Is that what y’really think?” from the boss.
Common wisdom holds that a single sword can cut down five enemies. An amateur eager to show how smart he is might argue that this is untrue, just a bit of folk wisdom. But needless to say, it is the former who is correct and the latter who is mistaken.
You might think this makes a certain sense: a master swordsman can judge the condition of his blade, keep it from getting damaged, and prevent gore from sticking to it.
And yet, when is a sword used but in the heat of battle? There is armor and skin. Sometimes, a weapon may strike bone or be used recklessly. If one of those wayward blows lands on enemy armor, a sword may be damaged. As it cuts through blood vessels, a sword may become covered in viscera.
Further, the hilt and pommel make excellent impromptu war hammers.
A single sword can cut down five enemies.
For most people. But this guy…?
The boss ran a finger along the blade, giving a disappointed shake of his head.
“This thing’s beyond a little polishing. I’ll take it off you. Buy a new one instead.”
“Understood.”
The boss tossed the sword into a basket of pig iron, then told the young man how much it would be to exchange.
Without hesitation, the adventurer took his purse from his item bag and slapped a coin on the countertop. To all appearances, the purse looked quite heavy.
“Well, well, making quite a living. What is it you’re doing?”
“Slaying goblins.”
“Hrm?” The boss squeezed one eye shut and gave him a suspicious look. “So you and your party have a common fund for equipment, then?”
“I’m solo.”
This provoked a deep groan from the workshop boss.
In other words, this man had to cut down far more than five enemies with a single sword. It wouldn’t hurt him to use something of a slightly higher quality…
“Have you finished what I asked for?”
“Sure have.”
Nah. He would keep that thought to himself.
The boss passed the young man a new sword, scabbard and all, and the adventurer secured it at his hip. The boss gave a shake of his head. He reached behind the counter and took out a package covered in oil paper, unwrapping it with his thick fingers.
There was a soft clinking sound as an overshirt of fine mail spilled out on the counter. But he had oiled it carefully; compared to the cacophony of plate metal, this was hardly a whisper. It could be worn under the young man’s leather armor and still allow him to sneak about while providing adequate defense.
The eyes of the links, though, were on the large side; a thin enough sword could stab through them. This was no mithril shirt, just finely worked wire.
Nonetheless, it was a big step up from having nothing. It was more than enough to save a life.
“It ain’t the best stuff around,” the boss said.
But it should be enough to meet his requirements. The boss gazed at the visor of the steel helmet.
The voice that replied was, as always, diffident and quiet. “I know,” he said. “It’s not a problem.”
“What’s not a problem?”
“It won’t be a big deal if a goblin uses it.”
In other words, if a goblin steals it, eh?
Adventurers possessed thin swords. Thin enough that they could stab a goblin wearing this shirt.
The boss saw that this was the basis on which the adventurer was choosing his equipment: what might happen if it was taken by goblins. And it wasn’t lost on him what that meant.
§
“I need provisions.”
“Sure thing! How many days’ worth?”
“One week.”
“Coming right up!”
Padfoot Waitress bounded off. He ignored her and looked around.
He was in the Adventurers Guild tavern. He hardly ever came here, except when buying provisions. He was such a rare visitor, in fact, that he had only just now discovered that the place had a padfoot server.
One thing he did notice was that in the middle of the day like this, the tavern had a lethargic air about it. The adventurers who were seated here and there around the room were either on a day off or had gotten back early from some excursion. Some nursed drinks, while others listlessly munched snack foods, but none of them looked inspired by their activities.
One person among them stood out to him.
“…Damn it all… What the hell…? Argh…!”
He recognized the adventurer who leaned over one of the tables, muttering to himself. It was the young man he had encountered on that goblin-slaying quest, the one who had registered the same day he had.
There was no sign of his party around, and the adventurer himself appeared thoroughly drunk. No one else in the bar looked at him; everyone seemed to be consciously avoiding contact.
He thought for a moment, then kept silent and waited for his provisions to come. Even he realized there were times when people just wanted to be left alone.
But knowing was one thing…
“Hey there. What’s up? Heading off on an adventure?”
…and being left alone was another. Somebody sat down heavily across from him as he waited.
He looked up and saw a tall, handsome, muscular man. He wore leather armor and carried a spear across his back. The grin this person leveled at him was less friendly than it was vaguely triumphant.
“What’s on the menu for you? Giant centipedes? Ghouls?”
A little dungeon-dive wouldn’t go amiss, either.
He, however, only stared at the jabbering spear wielder, before finally replying, “Goblins.”
“Guh! Goblins?!” Spearman said with exaggerated drama. His eyes went wide, and he tossed his shoulders back, his mouth open as if aghast. “Me, I was in the mines the other day clearing out Blobs!”
“Is that so?”
“Damn right it is! Pretty impressive, huh!”
He, however, had no idea what a Blob was. A moment’s reflection led him to the conclusion that it was not a goblin.
“Is that impressive?”
“Damn right!”
“I see.” He nodded. “I’m impressed.”
“What’re you, makin’ fun of me?!” This time, Spearman leaned forward as if to grab him, his face contorted in anger.
He was silent in thought for a moment, then tilted his steel helmet gently. “Then is it not impressive?”
“Aw, fer—! Dammit, what is it with this guy?!”
Spearman was very outgoing and very loud. He shouted in frustration, then slumped back in his chair as if to say, I give up. The back of the chair creaked under his enthusiastic display of distress.
Spearman pursed his lips in dissatisfaction, then picked up his beloved spear and started spinning it around playfully. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, and he pointed to the bag at his hip.
“Hey, what’s that?”
As a matter of fact, there was a bottle poking out from the mouth of the young man’s item pouch. He must have forgotten to close it. Nothing more than simple carelessness. He gave a click of his tongue.
“It’s a stamina potion.” He took out the bottle, rearranged the contents of his item pouch, and stuffed the bottle back in. Now there was no danger of dropping it. “I received it at the reception desk.”
“Whaaaat?!” Spearman threw himself forward again. His shouting reverberated inside the steel helmet. “Damn! I need to put my best foot forward with Guild Girl… Blob slaying!”
“Blobs.”
“Yeah, they’re hunks of living liquid. You can’t tell where to stab ’em! So I took my spear and—”
“Right, then… That’s, enough…already.”
Spearman’s tale of martial valor was interrupted by a beautiful, buxom woman, whose hips swayed as she came over to the table and sat down. Her clothes accented the lines of her body, and she wore a distinctive hat: she was clearly a witch.
“You oughta get in on this. Those blobs weren’t nice to you, neith— Owwww!”
Looking entirely disinterested, the woman brought her staff down on Spearman’s head. She checked to see that he was safely unconscious, then gave a small sigh.
“Sorry, about, him.” She gave a flirtatious glance.
He shook his head. “It was no problem.”
“One of these days…I’ll use Spider Web or, something, to shut him…up.”
“I see.” He nodded. Then, as if the thought had just crossed his mind, he directed his gaze toward the drunken adventurer he had seen earlier. “What happened to him?”
“Ah…” Witch let her eyes with their long eyelashes drift shut slightly, running her tongue along her luscious lips wistfully. “One, was, eaten. Another, went to deliver, her effects. The third, his arm…well.”
He left the party after that. Witch didn’t sound especially interested in any of this. She produced a pipe from somewhere mysterious, using a flint to light it—click—with an experienced hand.
She drew in a long, lazy breath, sweet-smelling smoke wafting into the air around her.
“There’s just one left. All common, enough… Don’t you think?”
“…I see.”
“And that’s, the story. See you…”
Witch gave a quick wave and grabbed Spearman by the collar. Spearman mumbled something about the unfairness of it all, but he didn’t resist as Witch dragged him away.
She was either quite strong for someone who stood on the back row, or perhaps she and Spearman were somehow involved with each other.
After a moment, he decided he didn’t care either way and chased the thought from his head.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!”
Padfoot Waitress came bounding back out of the kitchen with impeccable timing. She took the seven packs of rations clutched to her chest and dumped them on the table.
He checked them over and then shoved them into his item pouch, setting down several silver coins from his purse in return.
“Thank you! A pleasure doing business with you!”
His bag was starting to bulge. He adjusted some items to make room for the provisions, then strode away.
He had one hand on the door when he stopped and looked back. The adventurer he had noticed earlier gave him a vacant stare.
He looked at the other man for a moment, then he pushed open the door and went outside.
The door opened and shut with a creaking sound that stayed in his ears for an unusually long time.
§
Wssh. Wssh wssh. The wind blew gently through the underbrush, making a sound like waves on the shore.
There was nothing there. Just a path, completely unremarkable, like any of a thousand other paths anywhere.
Cow Girl held back her hair against the wind, squinting her eyes. She could see the scorched timbers poking up out of the emerald sea.
“Here we go. Right where the quest specified, Miss.” The speaker was an adventurer with a spear at his side, sitting in the driver’s seat of the carriage they had rented.
“Mm. Thank you…”
She bowed her head from her perch on the luggage rack, eliciting a smile from the spearman’s witch companion. Witch didn’t look to be that much older than Cow Girl, but she gave off a very womanly air.
“Well, then. We’ll, be right…here, waiting for you.”
“Okay.”
She thanked them again and then jumped down from the carriage. The grass underfoot when she landed nearly cost her her footing, but she quickly caught herself.
“You okay there?” Spearman asked.
“Fine, thanks,” Cow Girl said.
You’d think I would remember this place.
In another carriage, on another day, she had seen this same spot growing smaller in the distance.
She was in the same place, looking the same direction.
There’s nothing here.
Only the wind rustling in the grass. Cow Girl started walking slowly.
She always used to play on this road. Until five years ago, she had used it every day.
The look of the place, still fresh in her memory, clashed with what she saw before her. It made her feel almost dizzy, and she found her footsteps light and uncertain.
“…Hmm.”
Pushing through the crackling underbrush, Cow Girl headed for her destination. It was very subtle, but close attention revealed a spot where the grass cover was just a little thinner than elsewhere. That showed where the road used to be.
Finally, she arrived at a spreading, grassy plain. As expected, there was nothing there. Just a few carbonized pillars, buried in the vegetation.
Cow Girl stepped reverently into the grassy square. The crunch under her boots came, perhaps, from the last remnants of old flagstones.
What happened to all of this?
Her father. Her mother.
Her favorite outfit. The doll she had loved. The bed she had slept in every night. Her special eating utensils.
All of it, gone.
Cow Girl stood gazing at nothing before she was finally able to look around.
Hardly anyone must have remembered that there was once a village here.
Just her, and her uncle, and him.
All of it was in the past now.
To think, this was what had happened in just five years. In ten or twenty—every trace would surely vanish.
Nobody likes where they are…
The muscles of her face twitched, almost a grimace; she flopped down on her back to distract herself. She felt the grass against her back and neck, oddly ticklish.
In the distance, Spearman called out in alarm, followed by Witch hushing him in a quieter voice.
The sky above her was almost absurdly blue, and the white of the clouds filled her eyes.
“…That’s it, isn’t it?”
Cow Girl couldn’t spend every minute mourning. She had to eat her food and do her work. She wanted to laugh and enjoy herself.
That was perfectly normal—who could begrudge her that or mock her for it?
Similar things had happened all over the world.
She blinked her eyes, too full of light, and then put her arm over her face to block out the sun.
It would be so simple, feel so good, just to throw everything away and lose herself in grief.
But I absolutely can’t do that.
Without the sunlight to fill her vision, the image of him in the corner of that shed floated into her mind.
I really can’t, can I?
Then, what could she do?
What could she do for him?
What action should she take?
“…Okay!”
Cow Girl gave a great kick, using the momentum to pull herself to her feet. She patted her backside to brush off the dust and grass, then gave herself an invigorating smack on both cheeks. She would just have to summon all her energy and throw herself into it.
She headed back to the carriage at a quick clip. Witch saw her coming and put a hand to the brim of her hat.
“Done, al…ready?”
“Yep!” Cow Girl nodded energetically, bouncing up onto the carriage. The wood protested faintly. She bowed to both of the adventurers. “Sorry for dragging you out here…”
“Heck, work is work,” the spear-wielding adventurer said with a friendly laugh. “We do whatever we’re asked, as long as we get paid. So no worries.”
“Work…”
I wonder if he thinks of what he does as work. And if so…first, he has to finish it.
Cow Girl clenched her fist. Witch chuckled as if this amused her.
“Perhaps, you…should cut your, hair.”
“Huh?”
She hadn’t expected this. Her eyes widened. Witch brushed a pale finger over Cow Girl’s bangs.
“Cut, it. To show your, eyes. Don’t you think, you’d be…cute that, way?”
I wonder…
Cow Girl took a lock of her own hair in her hands, considering the idea.
Spearman gave a shout, and the carriage clattered off.
§
Should I have taken a carriage?
It was an uncharacteristic thought for him. He stopped walking.
The sun was past its peak already and was beginning to work its way down through the sky. A good deal of light still fell on the path, but soon enough, all would be covered in darkness.
If he was going to consider camping for the night, he would have to make preparations soon.
“…”
I was late setting out.
If he had left first thing in the morning, he would surely have been at the village by now.
Roadways often had inns or other accommodations along them—but only if you were going somewhere anybody cared about.
A near–ghost town on the frontier was not such a place.
If he walked through the night, he could presumably reach the village, but when he thought about having to fight goblins immediately after that…
The thought, though, was not what counted in this case. He could stand still, but the sun would not; he had to act.
He looked this way and that around the reedy fields nearby, until he found what he was looking for. He waded into the grasses, causing them to whish.
He had discovered the remains of some town or city. Had this area been a battlefield back in the Age of the Gods? Or was this simply a ruined village?
The rotted-out shells of houses dotted the landscape, almost as if sleeping among the weeds. He located a stone wall that had retained roughly its original shape, but when he gave it a firm kick, it came tumbling down. So did several other walls, but finally, he found one that survived his abuse.
This is a good spot.
Several blows showed no sign of knocking the barrier down, so he settled in front of it, spreading a waterproof cloth on the ground. There was no need to let the night dew chill him, inhibiting his ability to regain his stamina. That would serve no purpose.
He unhitched his sword from his hip, using it in lieu of a hatchet to cut some of the brush, making a space for a fire. If he were to start a fire that then spread to the grass around him, causing him to die of smoke inhalation—well, there could be no stupider way to go.
Next, procure fuel. This wasn’t especially difficult. He just needed to collect some dry grass. If only living wood was available, it would be simple enough to dry out as he went along.
He took stones from the shattered buildings to build a little pit that would keep the wind at bay and the fire contained, and he put the fuel in it.
Finally, he only had to light a bit of grass as a fire starter and toss it down inside. Then he was done.
“…”
He was silent, and he didn’t light the fire just yet.
The sky above him was blue. No dark clouds on the horizon, and the air was dry: it wasn’t likely to rain. No need for a roof, then, he figured; he simply put his back to the wall and sat down.
Everything around him was as silent as the grave. The clouds passed overhead without a sound; the only noise was the susurrus of the grass that came up with every breath of wind.
He took a waterskin from his pouch, unstoppering it and taking one, then two big mouthfuls. He was surprised at the wave of fatigue that assaulted him when he sat down. His eyelids were terribly heavy.
He couldn’t rest now, though. If he didn’t have a fire going at night, he might wake to find some wild animal gnawing on him.
He set the waterskin to one side, then took out a hunk of dried meat from his pouch and inserted it through the visor of his helmet. Each time he chewed the tough stuff, a burst of salt filled his mouth. He had been hoping that working his jaws would be enough to ward off the sleepiness, but he was also pleased to find the food did not taste as bad as he had expected.
“…”
When he looked at the wrapper around the meat, he saw a familiar symbol. It had come from the farm.
He chewed the meat silently, interspersed with an occasional sip of water, sitting still there in the shade. The light of summer seemed to fill his whole helmet, leaving him with a dull ache in his head. It was because of the heat.
Ever aware of the possibility of a goblin sneak attack, he pushed away the impulse to take off his headgear.
Thus, he waited as the sun gradually went down.
At length, the field on the distant horizon turned crimson with twilight, the stars and the twin moons rising to replace the sun in the sky. One of the moons was red, as if aflame, while the green moon seemed chill, cold. He stared at them up in the sky.
It was his older sister, so far as he recalled, who had taught him to connect the stars into pictures of heroes.
Now’s about the right time.
He struck a flint, the sparks cascading into the fire pit and summoning forth little licking tongues of flame. A thin plume of white smoke rose directly up into the sky.
“…”
This would probably be enough to keep away the animals. But as for goblins? He wasn’t sure. Would they come? Perhaps so.
They did not fear fire. Maybe they didn’t even realize that most living beings did.
They had, in fact, come, once. That, he must not forget. A voice echoed around in his head. Someone’s voice.
His throat was agonizingly dry. He tried licking his lips, but it wasn’t enough to take his mind off it. Well, he would arrive at the village the next day. He picked up his waterskin and drank greedily, the liquid sloshing over the sides of his helmet.
What was in the pouch, in fact, was a thin grape wine. Not that he was particularly interested in either the flavor or the alcoholic content.
At last, he closed one eye, leaving the other open to peer into the night. In his right hand, he grasped his sword, his knees up against his chest so he could get to his feet at any time.
With his one open eye, he thought he saw something at the edges of the flickering shadows of the fire.
“…!”
He brought up his sword, slicing through the air. With another breath, he sheathed the sword, then drew it again.
Goblin skulls he would smash, their throats he would pierce. Pierce and smash. Stop their breath. Permanently.
And thus, he waited until dawn for goblins to appear.
But none ever did.
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