Goblin Slayer - Volume SS1.01 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – Climax Phase Night Comes

The red moon rose, and the green one followed it. A morass of black clouds followed belatedly, and the thunder dragon roared. 

A blue-white light rent the air with something like a bellow, and the first drops of rain began to fall upon the ground. 

For the goblins, this was all a blessing from the heavens. A gift from Chaos. 

“GORRB! GOBROGBG!” 

“GOORBGRGO!” 

Although goblins normally cursed rain, it was their way to be glad about anything that suited their needs. The little devils, who had been crouched among the bushes, waiting for their moment, now emerged with vicious smiles on their faces. 

Their numbers were many, and they held a variety of crude weapons in their hands, but on every face was the same expression of overweening greed. 

They understood the customs of humankind, although there was no telling how they had learned them. They knew that humans sang foolish songs as they harvested their crops, and that after that, they stored everything in a single place. And after putting the crops away, the humans would dance like fools, enjoying themselves. 

How stupid humans were, thought the goblins. What was so interesting about all that? They were so easily amused. 

The sight of these happy, satisfied humans raised the goblins’ ire. Here the monsters were, living in the wilderness, lashed by rain and starving for food, and yet those humans were living in perfect comfort with hardly any effort on their part. 

Goblins, by and large, had one way of getting things: they stole them. Thus, no goblin had ever experienced the labor of raising even a single animal as livestock or a single plant as a crop. As far as they were concerned, all these things simply appeared spontaneously, poof. 

And because the things were there, the goblins thought, they naturally belonged to the goblins. If anything, it was blatantly unfair that the humans should keep all those things for themselves. 

The situation was just the same this night. 

“GROB! GORB!” 

“GOROBG!!” 

The goblins’ jealousy burned. The humans had chased them away, and that justified all that the goblins would do. 

Ever loyal to their basest desires, the goblins poured out and headed for the village. 

Food was there. Pleasures. Women. 

It would be the perfect way to pass the time before they had to find somewhere to bed down for the night. 

These goblins had been chased out of their homes. They had spent several days wandering, and although nothing much had happened, to the goblins, it was nearly unbearable. Resentment ran through them like a current. At that moment, they didn’t fear even adventurers. 

“GOROBOG?!” 

They found their way blocked by a fence. It was no more elegant than a ladder lain on its side, and it hadn’t been there yesterday. 

The goblin who had been on patrol tried eagerly to explain this away, but it was obvious that the idiot had either overlooked it or simply neglected his duty. Whichever it was, the other goblins surrounded him and beat him with their clubs until he stopped moving. 

This was customary for goblins, although none of them believed that they would meet the same fate if they themselves should one day fail. 

“GORBG! GOOBOGOR!!” 

They attempted to climb the fence, but the crossbeams were spaced too far apart, and they couldn’t reach from one to the next. Finally, with much muttering and complaining, the goblins began walking around the fence. 

One of them noticed that there was no fence in the river and jumped in, only to find himself impaled on a stake, so the others gave up the notion of fording the stream. They settled for laughing at the moron who had gotten himself skewered; no thought of gratitude to him entered their minds. If anything, they only imagined stabbing the humans who attacked them in just the same way. 

Finally, the enraged monsters had made nearly a full circuit of the village. They were on the verge of attempting to break the fence down when they suddenly stopped. 

“GOROGORB…” 

They had found just one place where the fence was not tied securely. 

The goblins looked at one another, smirking. This just went to prove how stupid humans were. 

There was no need to break down the fence, deliberately announcing themselves. They would sneak into the village, attack the surprised humans, trample them down. 

They pushed their way past the fence, which creaked like an ill-oiled door, and entered the village. 

The rain only made them go quicker. 

§ 

He had done what he could do. 

He believed he had, anyway. 

Really? 

He didn’t know. 

Perhaps there was something else he could have done. Something he forgot. 

It would be good if things went well, but—that if was questionable. 

Everything was his responsibility. The progress, the outcome, were both in his hands. 

What, are you gonna run away? 

Calm down. Breathe deeply. Calm. Breathe again. 

That was all just emotions. 

Not reality. 

The raindrops beat mercilessly on his body, his breath fogging in the air. 

His body was heavy, his fingers stiff as if they were stuck to the hilt of his sword with glue. 

I don’t know whether I can do it. 

He would do it. 

That was reality. 

If not, he would die. 

The reality was exactly that. 

If you killed, you would not die. 

Reality. 

“…” 

He lit his torch, rose up from among the reeds, and attacked the nearest goblin. 

“GOROG?!” 

Before the creature could turn around, he slammed his shield into its back; he drove his sword into the fallen monster’s spine and gave it a violent twist. 

Start with one. 

“GOROOGOROG?!” 

“GOBRG! GOORBG!” 

The goblins finally registered that their companion had collapsed in the mud and began to turn in his direction. 

He threw away his torch. Even in the rain, the flame illuminated the area, the shapes of him and his enemies floating up from the darkness. 

A steel helmet with one broken horn, grimy leather armor, a sword of a strange length in his hand, and on his arm, a small, round shield. 

How many goblins are there? 

Ten, maybe twenty. Certainly not thirty. Five that he could see right at that moment. 

They had come through the fence in a row. This was his opportunity to kill them. 

“GOROG!!” 

“Hmph.” 

He leaped. 

He intercepted the goblin’s club against the shield on his left arm, slicing with his sword from hip level. He felt it bury itself in the creature’s throat; he gave the sword a twist and then kicked the monster off the end of it. 

“GOBORGOGB?!” 

“That’s two.” 

“GOBORG!” 

A goblin jumped at him from the left, wielding a dagger; he blocked it with his shield. The blade bit into the leather with a thump. He left it there, using his now-free sword to cut a diagonal slash through a goblin to his right. 

“GORRROBGOGORG?!” 

“Three. No…” 

The cut was too shallow. He clucked his tongue. He immediately twisted his body, driving his sword into the gut of the goblin trying to extract its dagger from his shield. 

“GOGGROGB?!” 

The creature gave an inarticulate scream and fell to the ground, trying to hold back its overflowing innards. 

It was alive. But the wound was fatal. He could afford to leave that one to die. 

“Three, and this makes four…!” 

“GORORG?!” 

He turned to the goblin to his right, which was wobbling back and forth and bleeding from its chest. He brought his sword down from overhead. 

There was a thock as the sword sank into the monster’s brain; it tumbled backward, its brains splattering everywhere. He gave the body a hurried kick to free his weapon, lest the sword be pulled away from him by the falling corpse. 

The blade was chipped now. He clucked his tongue again. The rain was terribly cold, an ache creaking through his body. 

“Next…!” 

The village was enclosed on all four sides, and he had left them a tiny hole to find. He had known they would come after the festival. He had been sure they would push their way in through the gap. 

It had only been a matter of waiting for them. 

“GORRRG!” 

“GROBRG! GGORG!” 

He saw one set, then two, of ghostly goblin eyes approaching through the dark. 

“Goblins…,” he said in an eerily calm, quiet voice. If anyone had been around to hear it, they might have mistaken it for a wind blowing from the depths of the earth. 

“I’ll kill them all.” 

§ 

“Something’s coming!!” 

The Copper-ranked leader’s instructions had been nothing if not on the nose: if the Rock Eater had chased the Blobs out of their home, then they simply needed to go in the direction where there were no Blobs. 

One of the scouts heard a rumble and stopped, but no sooner had he issued his warning than his head vanished. It was bitten off with a dry sound, like a nut cracking open, by a pair of giant jaws that appeared from the rock face. 

“CEEEEENNTI!!” 

The monster that had dug its way through the depths of the mine stuck its head out in front of the adventurers, its mandibles gnashing. In front of it, the headless scout twitched once and then fell to his knees. It was only a moment later that the blood spewed out. The other adventurers shifted into fighting stances. 

“Y-yikes…” 

“It’s… It’s really here…” 

“Well, obviously!” 

The first to shout and ready his weapon was Spearman. He forced his way through a troupe of adventurers wearing unblemished armor to take up a position in the front. Even he, who had dreamed of doing deeds of valor in battle with notorious monsters, was stiff-faced now. 

It might have been a myth to say this monster dug out mountains by itself, but even so, between its head and its many body segments, the creature must have been more than fifty meters long. They might as well have been facing down a giant. 

“And they thought they would send Porcelains on this mission?! —Hey!” 

Witch stood level with him. “Ahem! Sagitta… Quelta… Raedius! Strike home, arrow!” 

Her cheeks glistened with sweat as her luscious lips formed the words of true power. A Magic Missile flew from her staff directly at the Rock Eater, but— 

“CEENNTTTTTTTII!!” 

The monster shrugged off the bolt against its shell as easily as a person might brush off a drop of rain. 

If it wasn’t damaged, though, it was certainly angered. It opened its huge, noisy jaws and flung itself straight at Witch. 

“Look out!” 

“Eek!” 

It turned out to be good fortune that Spearman had taken no action. Now his reaction was instantaneous; he swept Witch up from the side, pulling her out of the way by a hair’s breadth. 

The Rock Eater slammed into the ground, and then with its countless spindly limbs working, it dug down deeper. 

It would have been perfectly fine had the monster simply run away at that point. But the rumble beneath them let them know that this was merely a moment in which to prepare for the next ambush. 

“Sorry, about, that…” 

“Don’t mention it. But we’ve gotta be careful where we move…!” 

Spearman crouched low, covering Witch, who was all but immobilized from shock. There was no telling where that massive head would appear next. If it came from directly below them, there would be no avoiding a critical hit. 

“Looks like we aren’t going to be keeping this thing down with spells,” the heavy warrior with the broadsword on his back said, looking calmly around. 

There were about ten adventurers in the narrow mineshaft. All were seized with the terror of not knowing where the next attack would come from. 

If we aren’t careful, it could wipe us all out at once. 

“Spell casters, emphasize support and defense. We’ll crush it with physical damage! Anyone in light armor, fall back, and go get in touch with the main group!” 

“R-right!” 

“Anyone with ranged weapons, though, stay here and—” 

“Eeeyaaahh!” 

Heavy Warrior was interrupted by a woman’s scream. 

Everyone looked and discovered an archer writhing in pain, her face covered in goo. Every time the black, tar-like stuff moved, steam would rise up, accompanied by the smell of searing flesh. 

“Aah—aaggh! Gaaahhgh! Helb mee—helllbb meee!” 

The woman clawed at her face and neck, shouting as best she could. She rolled on the ground and struggled. Her party was attempting to dislodge the goo with weapons wrapped in cloth treated with anti-acidic compounds. But her face was being steadily melted away by the Blob. 

She’s beyond help. 

“Blob?!” 

“She’s in a fight with a Blob!” 

Slime-type monsters like these commonly dropped down from above, surprising their prey. 

Frowning, Female Knight raised her sword above her head. It shone brightly with Holy Light. It clearly illuminated a wriggling mass of dark stuff on the ceiling, squeezing out of a narrow side tunnel. 

“I didn’t think there was supposed to be a shaft here…!” she exclaimed. 

“Some idiot must’ve dug it out!” Heavy Warrior shouted. 

It was exactly the sort of narrow, dark side route that could easily become home to goblins or worse. It would be impossible for any of them to go in there themselves—their only options were to plug the hole or clean it up some other way. But they had no time. If they dawdled, the Rock Eater would consume them all. 

Half-Elf Fighter looked queasy. “This might be…the other way around,” he said. 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“I mean, maybe the Blobs weren’t chased out by the Rock Eater.” He looked around as he spoke, never letting his vigilance falter. “We tried to mine in the Rock Eater’s hole. Then the Blobs come here looking for food…” 

“They’re symbiotes…!” Druid Girl said, her face drawn. “So we’re prey to them?!” 

“Bah! We can worry about the academic stuff later!” Female Knight shouted, brandishing her cross-sword, the sign of her faith. “Right now, we have to kill them before we get eaten!” 

“You think you’re ever gonna make paladin with that attitude, muscle-brain?” Heavy Warrior used the flat of his broadsword to crush one of the Blobs, then looked at his companions. “We can’t count on linking up with the main group now. Give me an enchantment!” 

“S-sure!” Druid Girl said. She began to pray, her face tense. 

“I need you on this, too!” 

“Yes, of, course…” Witch, bracing herself with her staff, began to weave a spell. 

An instant later, Heavy Warrior’s broadsword began to glow red, and the light of magic shone from the tip of Spearman’s weapon. 

“O my god of judgment, let not my sword judge that which is good!” 

Female Knight intoned a request for a miracle to the Supreme God, casting Blessing upon her own weapon. 

There was a terrible rumble; the Blobs vibrated, and dirt rained down on them from overhead. 

“The rest of you, deal with these Blobs! Don’t let them get near us!” 

“Got it! You can count on us!” 

In response to Heavy Warrior’s order, the other adventurers quickly formed a perimeter. 

You can come out any time now. I’m gonna kill you…! 

The young warrior stood alone, his sword at the ready, his spirit utterly settled. 

And so he thrust his sword upward almost before it was possible to detect the alarming vibration from overhead. 

“Th-there it is!” 

The ceiling broke open. Rocks came falling down, followed by a pair of massive jaws. The jaws that had swallowed her. 

Her body is still inside that thing! 

The thought was like an explosion of light in the warrior’s mind. He paid no heed to the fact that the monster’s fangs were biting into his own arm as he drove the sword upward with both hands, perfectly happy with this stalemate. 

He forced the blade up and up, burying it up to the hilt in the insect’s throat, warm fluids from the Rock Eater’s body pouring over his head. 

And then, with the abruptness of a snapping thread, the warrior’s consciousness gave way to darkness. 

§ 

As he fell, he realized that the momentary loss of consciousness was because he had taken a stone to the head. 

He tumbled face-first into a muddy puddle, the rainwater working its way through the slats of his visor, threatening to drown him. 

Weak though goblins were, if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet, he might have been in real danger. 

He put his arms out and began to push himself up, only to feel a severe impact against his back, robbing him of his breath: a blow from a club. 

Almost before he could process what had happened, another hit came, and another, and another, and another. There must have been an ax or something among the weapons, because he heard his armor and chain mail shatter, felt the pain of flesh and bone tearing and breaking. 

He cursed with the burning agony of it, and the curse tasted like iron in his mouth. 

“GOROGR!!” 

“GRRB! GOOROGRB!!” 

The goblins were laughing. They taunted the stupid adventurer, reveled in bringing him low. No doubt they would soon push on to the village. 

And then what would happen? 

You mustn’t dare move from this spot. 

He stuck a hand in the mud. His bones creaked. His knees were bent. His breath was strained. He began to drag himself up. 

“GOOBRGBOG!!” 

This time the shock of agony ran through his jaw as a club caught him on the side of the face. He rolled over on the ground, landing on his back. 

Some of the raindrops fell through his visor and onto his face. His whole body was getting soaking wet, and he was cold. So cold. 

Just for a second, he closed his eyes. His sister would scold him for playing in the mud. Then he opened them. He felt his head start to rise; a goblin had grabbed on to the remaining horn on his helmet. 

He was dragged to his knees; his vision filled with the goblins’ ugly, vulgar grins. 

His hand scrabbled, seeking for some way to grab hold of his sword. It had fallen in the mud and, somewhere in the chaos, had been broken. The hilt and pommel were there, but most of the rest of the sword was not. He tossed it aside. 

“……” 

He said nothing. Mud spattered below him. The goblins cackled, their chattering laughter becoming a buzz inside his helmet. 

He saw a club come up; he watched it dimly. 

He knew that in just a matter of instants, that club would come down, his helmet would be cracked open, his skull broken, his brains scattered. 

They might not manage it in one strike, but two or three would do the job. 

He would die. 

He felt as if that night had pursued him, caught him. 

What’s the use of your life flashing before your eyes? his teacher had asked. 

Think about what you’re going to do, right up till your very last moment. 

What was he going to do and how? 

He silently dropped his eyes. 

He knew what had happened to his older sister; he’d watched it happen without making a sound. 

He knew what the goblins would do when they got to the village and then that town. 

Faces floated through his mind: The neighbor girl. The farm owner. The Guild receptionist. The various adventurers. 

What’s it to me? 

He inhaled deeply, then let his breath out. 

It would be the height of arrogance to imagine that the world would fail to go on without him. 

Let one village be destroyed; the world would go on. Let one man die; the world would keep turning. The dice would continue to be cast. 

And so he would focus only on what was in front of him. 

The goblin standing in front of him was holding a club. It was the goblin behind him who was holding the horn on his helmet. 

Both his hands were free. Beneath his helmet, he moved his eyes. The goblin in front of him was holding a club. 

What about the one behind him, then? He couldn’t turn his helmet. Only his eyes. 

At the goblin’s belt, he noticed, was a dagger. 

The hilt was made in the shape of a hawk. He recognized it. It had no sheath. 

What’s it to me? 

His right hand moved like a flash. 

“GBOR?!” 

He caught a finger in the hawk’s beak, pulling the dagger free of the belt; he grabbed it in a reverse grip and brought it down. 

That was all. 

But when that succeeded in piercing through a goblin’s shoulder, severing the spinal column and causing it to die, that was enough. 

“GOROBOGOROBOG?!” 

The goblin, on the cusp of bringing its club down, instead tumbled backward. Blood boiled from the wound, accompanied by an eerie whistling sound. The blood joined the rain in spattering on him. 

The goblin clinging to him from behind was gibbering something. 

What’s it to me? 

He was already tossing aside the dagger, grabbing the club from the newly dead monster. 

He swung it as if he were going to strike his own shoulder with it and heard the enemy’s arm and shoulder being crushed in. 

“GBOGROB?!” 

An earsplitting screech. The goblin fell back, clutching its arm. The horn splintered noisily and fell away. 

What’s it to me? 

As he spun, he brought the club down on the goblin’s skull. The skin of its head was remarkably soft, caving in slightly as if to accommodate the weapon as it came down to split the head open. 

He nonchalantly took a hand ax from the goblin’s corpse, which lay there with one eye lying free of its socket. His back ached terribly, perhaps from being struck by this very ax earlier. 

What’s it to me? 

He spun the ax as hard as he could, and then, without hesitation, he released it. It spun through the air, then buried itself in the head of a goblin who had been quite relaxed up to that point. 

It was the one who had hit him with the rock earlier. This was easier than winning lemonades, the adventurer thought. 

“This makes…ten, and three…!” 

He swallowed something stringy and thick in his mouth, yelling out. 

He plunged his hand into his item bag and pulled out a bottle. A stamina potion. He popped the cork and swallowed the liquid in a single gulp. It was bitter, and it burned as it flowed down his throat, directly into his stomach. 

Immediately, a warmth began to spread through his body. His wounds were not being healed, but his senses were returning. That meant he wasn’t dead. So there was no problem. 

He threw the bottle away where it sank into the mud; it filled with water and was soon lost to sight. 

“How many left…? 

The rain pounded down, and the wind howled. Somewhere through the ink-black night, he could see the ghostly lights of what he assumed was a third division of goblins. 

He kicked each of the goblins’ corpses with his foot, rolling them over until he found a suitable sword, which he took for himself. He tried to stash it in his scabbard but realized it didn’t fit; he would have to carry it in his hand. 

What in the world had he been so worried about before? An armory had practically come marching right to him. 

“Fourteen…!” 

One goblin was trying to squeeze through the fence to get at the village, and he leaped upon the creature. 

“GOORBGRB?!” 

The monster found a sword through its throat; it frothed and died still hanging on the blade. 

He let the body drop away, grabbing a dagger from the creature’s belt as it fell and giving it a great swing. 

“GOOBG?!” 

“Fifteen.” 

The goblin behind him suddenly found a blade growing from its head; it pitched backward and flailed in the mud. 

“GOOROG…!” 

“GRORB!!” 

Goblins were yowling, but what was it to him? He stepped on the body in front of him, pulling the sword violently from its neck. The blade was drenched with blood, but so what? A substitute would come to him soon enough. 

He moved forward, dragging his feet through the mud. 

Goblins were cowards. They had no desire to die, much less sacrifice themselves for their comrades. 

But at the moment, their enemy was only one person. And thanks to him, each of the surviving goblins found their share of booty increased. If they attacked the village now, each of them would have more women and food than they knew what to do with. 

“GOGBRRG!!” 

“GORB! GOOBBGR!!” 

Ultimately, it seemed, greed won out over fear. The goblins set upon him all together, pushing and shoving one another forward. 

“Sixteen… Seventeen!” 

One foe jumped at him with dagger in hand, but he struck the monster a blow with his shield, dropping it into the muck. As it writhed, he brought his sword around and cut the throat of the goblin to his right. 

Rain and mud splattered everywhere, and blood was overflowing. He took his sword in a reverse grip and sliced up the goblin on the ground, from its head to its neck. Break the spine. 

“GORBBGR?!” 

“Two left…” 

He let go of the sword and jumped backward quickly, almost rolling. A club came down and crushed the fresh corpse. 

Another goblin had tried to use its companion’s demise as a distraction in order to kill him. The monster with the club grumbled angrily. 

He sank his hand into the mud, picking up the bottle he had thrown away earlier and flinging it. 

“GBBB?!” 

There was a scream, presumably from the combined pain of the bottle shattering against the creature’s face and the mud getting in its eyes. 

The goblin stumbled backward, pressing its hands to its face. He ignored it and instead jumped forward, slamming his shield into a goblin who was holding a spear. 

“GBRRGBOG?!” 

“One more…!” 

In a contest of bodily size and weight, a human had the advantage over a goblin. Especially a human in full armor. 

The goblin was down in the mud, and he had it by the neck; he felt it break as he pressed the full weight of his body onto his hands. 

He crushed its windpipe as it spasmed and emitted a death rattle, and that was the end of it. He took the spear from its hand and turned to the final goblin, which was just then wiping the mud from its face. 

“GOROOROGBGB?!” 

“Nine—teen…!” 

The spear was nothing more than a rock tied to a sharpened stick, but it was enough to pierce a heart. The goblin died with blood flying everywhere as it clawed at the sky. 

He kept a firm hold on the weapon, driving it deeper, then let out a breath. 

Breathe in, then out. In, out. In, out. In, then out. 

He could taste blood deep in his throat. He wanted nothing more than to lie down right there in the mud. His mind hardly worked, and his eyelids were heavy. 

His brain, or some deep part of him, was trying to force logic upon him: drink an antidote. 

The goblins’ bodily fluids, their polluted blades, the rain and the mud: they would all get into his wounds and sicken him. He knew that. 

He rose unsteadily, like some sort of ghost, and found the bottle in his item pouch. He had done well not to confuse it with the stamina potion earlier. He would need to come up with some way to tell them apart by feel. 

His fingers slipped, making it hard to unstopper the cork, but he managed it and drank down the entire bottle of bitter liquid in a single swallow. 

“Ah… Ahh…” 

It was over. 

It had to be. 

Yet, he had no sense of accomplishment; he could hardly believe himself that it was finished. 

The rain kept falling. There was no hint that dawn was coming. He was alive, and the goblins were dead. 

His torch, which he had modified so as not to go out even in weather like this, continued to puff smoke. 

He would not fight goblins on an open field again. They belonged in caves, and so did he. 

“………! Hrrgh…” 

Suddenly, he felt as if a cold hand were mercilessly squeezing his stomach; he collapsed to his knees. With a wet noise, the guts and the rain and the blood and the mud all splashed up together. 

His lungs couldn’t seem to take in air. He tore the helmet from his head. He pitched forward, supporting himself with his hands, his mouth open. He couldn’t inhale. He couldn’t exhale. 

Scenes flashed through his mind in an instant. His sister. The burning village. Bodies hanging from ropes. Goblins. The west wind. 

Something came up his throat and out of his mouth, burning all the way. He coughed and choked, but what emerged was mostly stomach acid. 

After a bout of copious vomiting, he inhaled, then forced himself to take a sip from his waterskin. 

He rinsed his mouth and spat, then swallowed another mouthful and wiped his lips. 

Then, churning the mud, he finished what was left to do, slowly picking up his helmet and putting it back on. He had the distinct sense that it smelled of blood and sweat and vomit. 

He looked around, his helmet much lighter without its other horn. 

The carnage was absolute. Piles of goblin corpses stretched from the gap he had left in the fence right up to the edge of the village itself. 

One, two, three, four, five, six seven eight nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… 

“Nineteen… Nineteen?” 

He cocked his head. He braced himself against the nineteenth corpse and pulled out the spear. 

Kicking up mud and water, he proceeded at a bold stride back to the village. The fence, the river, the sound of water… The sound of water… 

The goblin who had been attempting somehow to avoid the pikes and ford the river let out a scream and collapsed. 

“…Twenty.” 

That was the last goblin. 

But it wasn’t over. It never was.