Goblin Slayer - Volume SS1.02 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – The Electric Magus

“Mn… Ergh… Ooh?” 

Cow Girl opened her eyes at what seemed to be a soft sound and the sensation of something moving. 

Her body was stiff and hot; her throat burned, and her head hurt. 

Did I fall asleep? 

She was lying on the table, and when she sat up, she felt a blanket flutter to the floor. Her uncle must have put it on her. 

The sky was already bright outside, but the air had a chill that tickled her skin. 

Cow Girl rubbed her eyes, looking around a room illuminated by the pale light of dawn. 

“—?!” 

She jerked upright when she saw a shadow huddling in the corner. She let out a squeak, but she quickly relaxed again when she realized what it was. 

“Oh, it’s just you…” 

“So you are awake.” There was a clunk as he placed what seemed to be a leather pouch on the table. 

The looming shape of the armored form, covered in gruesome stains, was just visible in the dimness. That was bad for the heart. 

Cow Girl let out a relieved sigh, putting a hand to her chest to calm her racing pulse. 

“Hey… How about you take that stuff off when you come home?” Her tone was confused, troubled. 

“I can’t let down my guard,” he replied—softly, shortly. Cow Girl didn’t really understand what he meant. 

“Well, okay,” she said, setting aside her confusion and starting to get to her feet. “How about I make some breakf—?” 

“Don’t need it,” he said before she could finish. Cow Girl was speechless. 

“I’ll be out again soon,” he continued. “Goblin hunting.” 

“Uh, but…” 

Confused again, Cow Girl didn’t quite know what to do with her eyes. They wandered around, taking in a kitchen that she knew very well. And in it, something resembling a person. 

She swallowed. Her voice trembled the slightest bit as she asked, “But you…you just got home, didn’t you…?” 

“I was taking care of something else today.” His voice was terribly quiet, nonchalant. She suspected that was how he talked to everyone, not just her. Somehow, it reminded her of the breeze blowing through a field on a dark night. “But now, I’m going to work.” 

Then he walked past her, barging through, and put his hand to the doorknob. 

“But— Your room— I cleaned your room and washed the sheets…” 

“I see.” 

That was all he said. Then he opened the door and closed it behind him, and then she was alone. 

She hadn’t even been able to tell him that maybe he ought to sleep, or at least eat. 

Hargh. She sighed and slumped down in the chair again. She found herself flopping toward the ground. 

“I just don’t get it…” 

She had decided to do her best. Decided not to mope or whine. So what should she do now? 

Cow Girl had no idea what the answer to that question was. She leaned her forehead against the table, still warm with her own body heat. 

There he goes again… Talk about single-minded! 

He had work to do, so maybe it was inevitable, but she felt like he spent more time away from home than at it. 

Could it be…like that? 

But her thoughts were hazy, and no matter how she tried, nothing quite came together for her. 

Until five years before, her father and mother had always been at home with her. And then after that, her uncle had always been here. But how would it be for a child whose parents had been tradespeople? She realized that such a person might not remember their names—maybe not even their faces. 

“Agh…” Cow Girl sighed again, deep and long. Suddenly, she heard a creaking sound. 

“Sighing so deep so early in the morning?” 

“Uncle…” Cow Girl heaved herself upright and said “Good morning” in a voice that sounded pitiful even to her. 

Her uncle, just woken up, stretched his stiff body and muttered in something that sounded like annoyance. “You’ll catch cold, sleeping there.” 

“I know. You’re right, but…” 

She found she couldn’t say I was waiting for him. Instead, she slowly got to her feet. 

“Breakfast… I’ll take care of it. It’ll just be last night’s soup, though.” 

“Much obliged.” 

Now it was her uncle who sat in a chair in the dining room, while Cow Girl shuffled off to the kitchen. She tossed on an apron and peered into the stove. The stove had gone completely cold, nothing but a pile of chill ashes and a small, lidded clay pot inside. 

Cow Girl began by scraping the ashes together, carefully putting them into a jar, making sure none fell on the floor. Ash was precious, good for cleaning the stewpot or doing the laundry. It would be a waste to let any get away. 

Once the inside of the stove was clean, she piled in some kindling and grasses to get the fire started. Then she pulled the pot out and used a pair of bellows to blow on yesterday’s embers. 

Happily, the fire caught, and the stove soon began burning. 

“That’ll do,” Cow Girl said, clapping her hands gently to dust them off as she stood up. 

“…Hmm?” Meanwhile, her uncle seemed to have noticed the leather pouch on the table. 

Cow Girl peeked in from the other room. “Oh, he left that here, I think.” 

“Hrm, he’s back?” 

“And gone again.” 

Heh-heh, she chuckled shyly, or perhaps bitterly. Cow Girl went back to her work, feeling uncomfortable. 

She thumped the stewpot down, then decided to skewer some bread and cook it. 

“…Rent, eh?” There was a metallic jangling. Her uncle had opened the pouch and found money inside. 

Cow Girl glanced into the other room again. Only bronze and silver coins filled the pouch, but there were quite a few of them. 

“Wow,” she breathed, causing her uncle to look in her direction and sigh. 

“Awfully conscientious of him, considering he hardly even sleeps here.” 

“I guess maybe he’s busy?” Cow Girl aimlessly—well, there was an aim, but still—stirred the pot. “Although, I have to admit…that isn’t really how I pictured adventurers.” 

“Maybe so. I don’t have a lot of experience with their kind, myself.” 

“Huh” was the only response Cow Girl gave to this. 

Perhaps they would gain a bit of experience, then, as they went along. Then one day they might figure it out. 

They might find out, for example, what an adventurer’s life was like, how they could help. That sort of thing… 

As Cow Girl knelt down to check the fire, she heard her uncle muse, “Or perhaps he has a lover somewhere.” 

“?!” 

For reasons even she couldn’t begin to comprehend, Cow Girl felt a shock jolt through her body and jumped to her feet. 

Her eyes met those of her startled uncle, who had glanced over. “A-are you all right…?” 

“I’m f-fine, it’s nothing…” 

But then, but still, it couldn’t be. Her head felt like a whirlpool, spinning round and round. 

“A lover… Y-you don’t really mean that…do you?” 

What was going on? Why was her voice scratching like that? 

“I suppose not,” her uncle said. “You’d think a man in love would pay more attention to how he looked.” 

“Y-yeah, exactly!” 

Cow Girl breathed a sigh of deep relief. 

“A man of his age, though. He’s got a bit of money now. I suppose finding companionship among the whores wouldn’t be out of the—” 

“You’re disgusting, Uncle!!” 

His continued ruminations brought something welling up from deep within her heart, flushing her face bright red and spilling out her mouth. She tore off her apron and stormed out of the house. 

Her uncle caught the apron and was left sitting there, holding it in his hand and looking astonished. Taken aback, he looked from the apron to the wide-open door. 

“…” 

He fiddled with the apron for a moment, unsure what to do with it; then he looked up at the ceiling and muttered in despair, “…I just can’t understand it.” 

It just didn’t make any sense. A girl her age—Ah, that’s it. She’s at that age, too. 

“…I suppose prostitutes weren’t the wisest topic to bring up.” 

His bones creaked almost as much as the chair as he rose to his feet and went to the kitchen his niece had just vacated. He checked the fire, then the stew she had been stirring. It was the meal from last night. 

“Still…” 

That young man belonged on the list of things he didn’t understand, too. 

He wasn’t exactly an unknown. The older man did have a vague memory of having seen him when the boy was young. 

And the boy had lived. Become an adventurer. And the old man’s niece had some kind of feelings for the boy. All that was well and good. 

The problem was… 

“…‘Goblin Slayer’…?” 

The one who killed goblins. The slayer of goblins. 

Her uncle had gathered that this was what people were calling the young man now, that he even sometimes used the name himself. He was aware that adventurers frequently gave themselves colorful sobriquets like this in order to promote themselves and their services, but at the same time… 

“I hope nothing…odd happens to her…” 

The words were out of his mouth before he realized he had spoken. They sounded to him like a father who was afraid his daughter was being seduced by some questionable man, and he frowned. The thought seemed disrespectful to his younger sister and her husband. 

§ 

Goblin Slayer paid for apple cider at the tavern in the Guild building, then hurried down the path, the morning sun shining on him. 

“It’s already late today,” Arc Mage had said. “Come back tomorrow morning.” 

He regretted that he hadn’t asked for a specific time. When exactly was “morning”? 

After some thought, he decided to go first thing. If he was too early, he could simply wait there. 

He was aided by the happy fact that the tavern, which had to serve even the earliest rising of adventurers, was already up and running by that time. The rhea chef was more than pleased to sell him the cider, which now dangled at his hip. 

Walking along silently, Goblin Slayer soon arrived at the riverbank. There was the hovel, in the same place it had been the day before. 

Despite the ample sunlight, the place felt oddly the same as it had yesterday. The creaking waterwheel was still turning; smoke was still drifting from the chimney. Just a little house. Almost as if it, and it alone, had been clipped out of a bigger picture. 

He considered to himself for a second, then walked up to the door and gave several loud, nonchalant raps with the brass knocker. 

A voice came from within: “Oh, it’s open. Just come in.” 

Goblin Slayer opened the door and entered to find the place still dim inside. He weaved his way among the piles of junk and the towers of books that blocked the windows. 

And there she was: Arc Mage, deep inside, playing with her cards. 

“I try not to pile them like that. The humidity from those windows is so bad for the books, you see.” Her words had the ring of an excuse. Then she chuckled and turned her chair around. “Does it look like I’m just playing around?” Now facing Goblin Slayer, she fanned the cards out with a flourish. “Such a fine line between sages and idlers! But this is part of my research—I’m compiling a magical treatise.” 

Arc Mage piled the cards back together, forming a deck. “Now, then.” She smiled, cutting the cards. “You’re here about your reward. I know I said morning, but I didn’t expect you quite so early.” 

“Should I wait?” Goblin Slayer asked, to which she replied, “Nah,” with a shake of her head. “Time never stops flowing, after all. For moving things along, early is best.” 

But—information on goblins? She couldn’t restrain more chortles, tears forming in her eyes. “For a newly minted male adventurer all by himself, I might say seventy percent of them say body…” 

Goblin Slayer watched as her shoulders began to shake and waited for another one of her fits of laughter to start. She had soon wiped away the tears with her pale fingers, but even so, her lip quivered with amusement. 

She gave a great stretch, as if to show herself off, straining against her clothes, making the shape of her body abundantly clear. It was less that she paid no heed to her appearance and more that she didn’t need to. 

“Speaking of that, that was the one thing I had confidence in as a woman.” 

“I see.” 

“As far as the remainder, twenty percent say magical items. And the rest say my knowledge.” 

“I see.” 

“…You’re an odd one, aren’t you?” 

“I see.” 

Goblin Slayer, unsure what to say, simply repeated the same thing each time. Frankly discussing the relations that occurred between men and women no longer flustered him by now, but it did leave him at a loss for how to respond. 

Finally, he gave a soft grunt and remained silent. In other words, he decided to do what he always did. 

Arc Mage put her chin in her hands, letting out a troubled breath as she shifted her weight. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I mean, talking about bodies like this?” 

“Do you want to be asked?” 

“Oh, just ask the question.” She opened her arms wide as if looking for a hug. 

“Hmm,” Goblin Slayer murmured. “What do you mean, talking about bodies like that?” 

“I mean I could cast an illusion on you and have all the fun I want, then weave a little spell of forgetfulness and send you home hardly knowing what had happened.” 

“I see,” Goblin Slayer replied, but then a thought took him, and his helmet tilted questioningly. “Isn’t that a scam?” 

“Value isn’t absolute, see—it’s relative.” Arc Mage’s eyes narrowed behind her spectacles; she sounded almost like she was making this up as she went along. 

Goblin Slayer thought for a moment, then came to the conclusion that this was pointless. 

It reminded him of the riddle games his master had so often played with him. The words themselves had no meaning, no worth. What mattered was figuring out what lay behind those words. 

I understand. That is relative indeed. 

“In that case,” he said, knowing the answer now, setting the jar at his hip on the desk with a plunk, “does this have value? To you, that is.” 

“I did just get some yesterday, but I could be had. Nothing wrong with keeping a little on hand.” 

On her desk, the otherwise brand-new bottle was already half empty. Yet, all he smelled was the sweet aroma of apples, not a trace of alcohol in the air. Arc Mage fell into laughter again, not seeming the faintest bit drunk. 

“Goblins, goblins… That’s what you wanted to learn, isn’t it?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Goodness gracious, then you’ve come at exactly the right time.” 

Arc Mage swept up the bottle of cider, gave it a little kiss, and then resettled it at the edge of the desk. Then she grabbed a sheaf of sheepskin documents, pointedly clearing away the accumulated dust. 

“This slipped my mind for a bit,” she said—though he wasn’t sure he believed her, and the odor of apples came drifting on her breath—“but as it happens, I’ve agreed to help revise the Monster Manual.” 

“…” Goblin Slayer gave this a moment’s thought, then asked, “At the Guild’s request?” 

“Errata and revisions are produced regularly—it’s no small job.” 

Even Goblin Slayer was aware that monsters’ ecology sometimes shifted and morphed. It was not possible for humans to record and capture everything there truly was to know about the world. Any sense of understanding was a sort of vanity—though people realized this all too rarely. 

“An old master of mine asked for my help. Apparently, they’d been told to get me involved. Me! What a kerfuffle.” 

“And so what if I write whatever I want? That’s what I want to know. Eh? Complain to me, will they?!” 

He remembered the aged rhea muttering such things to himself as he scribbled in a notebook. 

Goblin Slayer had asked him once what he was writing. 

“Poems,” came the answer. Then a little needling: “Do you know how to read a poem, let alone write one?” 

The memories came back unbidden when he heard the word master; he chased them away again. Putting together the information he had, Goblin Slayer came to something like a conclusion and quickly voiced it. 

“Is it about goblins?” 

“Precisely. Goblins, indeed.” She gave an exaggerated nod, then leaned over toward Goblin Slayer. She was so close, she could have put her lips on that steel helmet. 

Goblin Slayer looked through his visor, into her eyes. 

“I want to dissect some goblins, maybe observe them in their natural habitat. And everything I learn, I’ll share it immediately with you. That’s what I’ve been thinking.” Arc Mage’s eyes seemed to glitter behind her spectacles, like the deeps of a rapid river. Her lips formed apple-scented words. “You happen to be something of a specialist in goblin slaying, yes?” 

§ 

It was every bit of it a perfectly ordinary quest. 

Goblins, it was said, had appeared outside a small farming village on the frontier. If that had been all, it might have ended there. It had been five years since the great battle. It was hardly unusual to see roving bands of goblins. 

But the goblins started ravaging crop fields, then stealing livestock. And when the young men of the village heard that one of their young women had been attacked while doing her chores, they got angry. 

There was a man among them who had served in the military and others who had heard from their fathers and grandfathers about combat. They had tools in their sheds; they might have even found some battered old armor if they looked. And they had plenty of hands. 

More than enough to chase off the next goblin who came sneaking into the village. 

The problems came after that. 

The young men, passions inflamed, were eager to mount an assault on the goblin nest. But the village chieftain put a stop to that. There was no need for the youth of his village to do anything dangerous, he said. Hire an adventurer instead… 

“You’re saying this is typical, then… Practically a template?” 

“Yes,” Goblin Slayer said. “Although no girls have been kidnapped… But yes.” 

They were in a forest that was dark even in daytime, talking as they worked their way through the trackless woods. 

Goblin Slayer pushed his way through the undergrowth, following the signs the young men had left in their rush a few days before. Arc Mage was holding up the hem of her long robe, though strangely, leaves didn’t seem to stick to it. She looked like she was out for a pleasant stroll, apparently having an easier time than Goblin Slayer himself. 

I think it’s a difference in level, not skill, Goblin Slayer decided as he glanced back at the humming wizard. 

Now that he thought about it—did she even have a specific level? And if she did, what was it? 

He didn’t actually care much, though, so he promptly forgot the question. 

Instead, he became aware of continued chattering behind him. 

“That would suggest that goblin hordes have a hierarchy of their own.” 

Arc Mage didn’t seem to be speaking to him but rather talking to herself. 

“They’ve only just settled here, right? Wanderers, trying to kidnap a woman. They’re looking to expand.” As the nest got bigger, the attacks on the village would become more audacious: step two. She counted on her fingers. “And then they would arrive at step three…” 

“Destroying the village.” 

“Yes, that’s right.” She nodded like an approving instructor. “Demons and evil cultists and dark elves—with every kind of Non-Prayer, you find their path ends up there.” As she recited this, Arc Mage brought the jar of alcohol from her hip to her lips. She drank lustily, gave a satisfied ahhh, and pulled the bottle away from her mouth with saliva hanging like a silver thread. She licked the last drops from her lips as she said, “Right, then. Is there a stage four?” 

“…” 

“That’s the sort of question I would expect you to ask, but I’ve never heard of a nest getting big enough to reach that level.” 

A goblin kingdom. She practically sang the words, but he kept silent and focused on trampling through the brush. 

“They’re opportunistic, violent little devils. Even if they had a king, I’m sure his kingdom would fracture immediately… Or he’d be assassinated.” 

“There are adventurers, too,” Goblin Slayer said brusquely. He spoke even more quietly than when talking to himself. Then he added, “Most of the time.” 

“Well, history hasn’t seen a perfect government yet. Pray-ers or not.” Then Arc Mage chortled happily again. 

Shortly thereafter, they arrived at a small hillock nestled in the forest. 

No, it wasn’t exactly a hillock. It was a grave, covered in earth and ground cover and grown mossy. 

A funerary mound—perhaps that would be the right expression. 

Maybe it belonged to some ancient king or general, name unknown, tomb now hardly visible. 

One lone goblin stood outside the entrance, nominally on patrol, giving a great yawn as he held a spear flecked with red rust… 

“Argh, these little beasts don’t know the value of what they have,” Arc Mage said, her tone considerably lighter than her words. Then she winked at Goblin Slayer. “So what do you think?” 

“Hrm.” He grunted. 

He crouched in the bushes with her, surveying the situation. The goblin was still yawning. 

His conclusion was simple. 

“We kill him.” 

“If we wait long enough, someone might replace him, or he might just wander off, right?” Arc Mage glanced up at the canopy of trees, in the general direction of the sun. “Anyway, he looks tired. Maybe they’re nocturnal?” 

“Possibly.” Goblin Slayer took careful note of her words as he checked his weapon over. He reviewed his plan in his mind, confirmed the steps involved, including what he would do in case of failure. No problems anywhere. “But we are going to kill him.” 

“Why?” Arc Mage almost sounded amused, like she was teasing him. 

Goblin Slayer answered without hesitation, “Because eventually, we will kill all the goblins.” 

“Well, that makes sense.” 

Show me what you’ve got, then. By the time the whisper left Arc Mage’s lips, Goblin Slayer was already in motion. He steadied his breath, then lunged out of the underbrush and flung his knife. 

“GOROGO?!” 

Before the goblin could shout anything, he had it screaming with pain from the knife in its shoulder. Goblin Slayer sucked his teeth. He had been aiming for the throat. 

He drew his sword and let his momentum carry him forward to drive the blade into the monster’s neck. 

“GBRROB?! GOB?!” 

The goblin choked and frothed blood; and in its flailing, it managed to whack Goblin Slayer’s shoulder with the haft of its spear. But he gave a violent twist of his sword, and the goblin’s body had one great jerk and stopped moving. 

“One.” 

“Splendid.” Arc Mage walked over to him, clapping. He stood beside the body, breathing hard and spattered with blood. “I see the throat is a killing blow. Maybe they aren’t so different from people after all. I get the feeling they may be close to rheas.” 

“I don’t know.” Goblin Slayer pulled the knife out of the goblin’s shoulder and cleaned it off on its loincloth. He also shook the blood from the sword he had used to run through the creature’s throat and put it back in its scabbard. Then, finally, he picked up the goblin’s spear, checking its quality. 

The tip was too rusted to be of any use, but it could serve as a pole. He stuck it into his belt behind his back. 

“Sometimes a strike to the throat fails to finish them off.” 

“Huh. When it’s not a critical hit, eh? Very interesting.” Arc Mage prodded at the body with her staff, then peeked under the goblin’s loincloth and laughed aloud. A moment later, she said, “Right, then,” and looked at him cheerfully. “Let’s save the dissection for later—time to head into the nest!” 

“Right,” Goblin Slayer said, but he didn’t immediately move. From behind his visor, he fixed Arc Mage with a serious gaze. 

“What is it?” she asked with a tilt of her head, smiling alluringly. 

“…They may notice a woman’s scent.” 

“Ooh,” she said, her eyes shining, evidently unbothered by the possibility that she herself might be a target. “Good smellers, are they? And to think—such filthy creatures, living in these stinky holes.” 

“There have been times when I’m sure I have not been seen or heard…,” Goblin Slayer said, thinking back to the lesson of his first battle. “…But they notice me anyway.” 

“Well, now.” Arc Mage nodded, then suddenly shrugged off her robe. Beneath was a short jacket that revealed a soft line running down to her belly button and a pair of short pants. “Wait just a moment, please.” 

She tossed the robe to Goblin Slayer, then took a knife full of strange curves from its place at her hip. She drove it into the goblin corpse, slicing open the hideous, protruding belly, and pulled out the innards. 

She doused her hands in the dark gore that came pouring forth, covering herself in it as if she were playing in the bath. 

“I happen to like that robe, but as for these clothes… Eh.” She spun in a circle like a village girl flaunting a bit of tepid fashion. “What do you think?” 

“Fine,” Goblin Slayer said. Then he added, “I assume.” 

“Noses are built to filter out the smell of your companions and the other things you encounter routinely.” She took the robe back from him, and then, after letting the muck drain off her as much as possible, she put it back on. “For example, you don’t notice the smell of fresh leather or new metal, right?” 

“No,” Goblin Slayer said with a shake of his head. Then he looked at the entrance to the tomb. “But goblins do.” 

“Precisely!” Arc Mage said as if her point had been made, then she gestured with her staff and a broad grin. “So let’s hurry up and get in there!” 

Goblin Slayer’s only answer was to start walking. Arc Mage followed behind him. 

For an instant, it seemed there was a whiff of apples. 

No—an olfactory illusion, surely. 

It was inconceivable that a goblin nest would smell like anything but goblins. 

§ 

Goblin Slayer peered into the gloom and let out a sigh. He retrieved a torch from his item pouch, striking a flint to light it, then holding it in his left hand, the same side to which his shield was affixed. 

“Wouldn’t it be better to avoid any light?” 

“They have good night vision,” he replied to Arc Mage. “I do not.” 

There was no reason to throw himself headlong into a disadvantageous situation. 

“Huh,” Arc Mage said, apparently very interested by this, and pursed her lips in thought. “Maybe it’s not about night vision. It could be that humans and goblins simply see completely different worlds.” 

She was muttering to herself again. Goblin Slayer listened to her, but he didn’t understand. 

“Ahh,” Arc Mage said when she noticed, laughing. “I guess what matters to you is the point that they can see in the dark. Night or not.” 

“Is that so?” He took care to remember this. Not night, but dark. It was a major difference. 

“Hey, do goblins ever use traps?” Arc Mage asked, looking at the drawings on the walls revealed by the light of the torch. “The previous Monster Manual said a little something about it…” 

“Sometimes they’ve tunneled through to a section of wall behind me,” Goblin Slayer answered, scanning the area carefully. 

“The sound of frying bacon, huh?” 

“…What?” 

“Please, carry on.” 

“…” 

He considered how large the tomb had looked to be from the outside, along with where they stood now, the width of the passage, the thickness of the walls. Would goblins be able to break through? He thought about it, but he wasn’t yet able to guess. Vigilance would be needed. 

“They use pits as well, and sometimes ambushes.” 

“Simple stuff all around. I guess when you live in a hole, you break down walls and floors… Maybe they could learn to use the traps in ruins, too, through experience…” 

“Some assume they couldn’t do such a thing… I never have.” 

“I guess it depends on the living environment. And whether you can learn how those things work from experience. Snowy places, deserts… Different geography means different traps…” Arc Mage was lost in thought again, but then she gave a great laugh. “Not that any of that’s going to make it into the book. They use primitive traps. There, done.” 

Still grinning, she indicated the corpse of some living thing that had been hung up conspicuously. A symbol, put there by the goblins to exemplify the fruits of their killing, eating, and raping. 

“You know what wasn’t in the book? The stench. How hard it is to walk around here. The claustrophobia, the malice. All the little details.” 

Goblin Slayer mulled over this for a moment, then said, “I don’t think goblins are the only ones like that.” 

“You’re right—I just described the whole book!” she said, then laughed aloud. 

Arc Mage’s speech had the lyrical flow of music and seemed never to cease. That made Goblin Slayer intensely uneasy. He looked around constantly, straining his ears, trying desperately to catch the slightest sound. 

He heard noises and voices belonging to something other than himself and the goblins, felt the presence of it. Something was moving. 

Am I getting distracted? 

No, no. It just meant there were one or two more things he had to pay attention to. 

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fetid, dank air, then slowly released it. Some kind of sticky filth clung to his boots and seemed likely to make noise when he walked. He would have to be careful. 

Come to think of it, it seemed he could hardly hear the footsteps of the woman with him… 

“Hmm?” Suddenly, cut off by a sound of surprise from Arc Mage, the torrent of words stopped, and Goblin Slayer stopped with them. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Look at this,” she said, gesturing at the muck at their feet with her staff. “It’s animal dung.” 

Goblin Slayer knelt down, unhesitatingly reaching into the stuff with his glove-clad hand. 

He remembered this shape. His older sister had taught him about it long ago, when he was small. 

“It doesn’t appear to belong to a goblin…” 

“No, definitely not. It’s probably…” She trailed off, looking down the passageway, into the tomb. Belatedly, Goblin Slayer brought up the torch. 

The walls and floor, but not the ceiling, glittered in the light, almost as if they had a wire frame on them. 

And then from far away came an echo, a faint sound. It sounded like… 

“It’s from a wolf,” Arc Mage said. 

The sound was the howl of an animal. 

“Do you know any spells?” Goblin Slayer asked quietly. 

“Can’t have you underestimating me,” Arc Mage replied. “I would hate for you to think wizards can’t do anything but fling fireballs and call down thunderbolts. But then again…” The electric magus started shuffling the deck of cards she’d taken out of her item pouch and laughed as if the whole thing were a giant joke to her. “…I’m the quest giver today. It’s your job to do something about this, not mine.” 

“I see…!” 

The light now revealed two wolves, yowling as they came closer, splattering through the filth. There had been no fork in the path to this point. They would have to meet the creatures head-on. Hiding was impossible. 

Letting these thoughts continue to run in a corner of his mind, Goblin Slayer immediately brought up the torch in his left hand. There was a clang as he swept aside the first wolf, which had leaped at him, slamming it into the wall. 

Goblin Slayer used the torch he had as a club, meanwhile drawing his sword with his other hand. 

“Hrgh…?!” 

But the wolf won out in speed and body mass. He slashed the creature from shoulder to chest, but its thick pelt kept the wound from being fatal. The momentum of the monster’s charge sent Goblin Slayer sprawling backward. His sword fell from his hand, clattering to the stone floor, and grime splashed up under his steel helmet. 

Fangs ripe with the stench of flesh gnashed inches away from his throat. 

If it reaches my neck, I’m done for…! 

Without hesitation, Goblin Slayer let go of the torch, bringing his shield around to deflect the fangs. 

The animal who had been slammed into the wall had regained its footing and was coming his way as well. There was no time. 

He gave up any thought of retrieving his sword, instead reaching for the spear at his back. 

“Take…this…!” 

He worked the rotten haft like a lever, splitting it in two, and then he grabbed it in a reverse grip, shoving the butt end into the wolf’s eye. 

A howl. The creature’s feet were scrambling to back away, but he grabbed them, mashing the eyeball further with the spear. Digging into the brain. 

“……Next!” 

He shoved aside the frothing, twitching wolf and stood up. The other animal jumped at him, saliva running from its mouth. 

Goblin Slayer ducked low and rolled forward, passing under the creature. He grabbed the torch off the ground with his left hand as he went. 

“Hrr—ahh…!” 

He turned around again, jamming the torch into the wolf’s belly. The creature yelled, and there was the rancid smell of burning flesh and fur. 

A torch was not, of course, intended to serve as a weapon. The flame promptly went out. 

Goblin Slayer, though, shoved the still-glowing stick into the wolf’s mouth, dealing the final blow despite the extinguished flame. 

“Very nice. A well-judged fight.” 

“The real mission is still to come.” Steadying his breathing, Goblin Slayer picked up his sword. From his item pouch, he produced another torch, which went into his left hand, same as before. 

“Arma…inflammarae…offero. Gift a spark to weapons.” Unexpectedly, there was a sound of fingers snapping, and then a spit of flame. 

The glowing fire darted through the air and connected with the torch, setting it alight. 

Arc Mage tapped the floor of the disgusting goblin nest with the heel of her long boot, then smiled. “In the name of red magic. Now go ahead and keep protecting your quest giver, my little Goblin Slayer.” 

“Very good,” Goblin Slayer said briefly, then he settled into a fighting posture, preparing for the army whose steps he could hear thundering down the hallway. 

The cheap-looking steel helmet, the grimy leather armor, the torch and the sword of a strange length in his hands, the small round shield on his arm. 

“The goblins—I’m going to kill them all.” 

The battle began. 

§ 

“GOROB! GOROBG!” 

“GOOROGGB!!” 

It’s an adventurer. A pitiful, weak-looking adventurer. And a woman, too. Kill! Rape! 

The goblins rushed forward, a panoply of crude weapons in their hands, filthy saliva dangling from their mouths. 

Goblin Slayer met them in the narrow corridor. 

“Two… Three!” 

“GGB?!” 

“GOROG! GBBGB?!” 

Keeping Arc Mage behind him, he deflected a rusty dagger against his shield, then struck back with his sword. He kicked aside the first still-twitching corpse, into the path of the second oncoming goblin. Then in the same motion, he threw his weapon at a third lollygagging monster. 

“GBGB?!” 

“Four—five!” 

He pulled out the dagger that had lodged in his shield, slamming it into the skull of the third goblin, who was just clearing the corpse with evident annoyance. This enemy fell over, limbs flailing; Goblin Slayer swept up his club and used it in like manner against the fourth charging monster. 

“GOROGORB?!” 

Including the first guard, that made five. 

A little swinging of weaponry and bashing with a shield, though, wasn’t going to slow down the goblins. 

“Boy, what a show of force! I’m afraid I might fall in love, here.” Arc Mage, who had come up to get a look at the fighting, said something unthinkable, and then cackled loudly. “Relying on numbers, though? Very goblin-esque but not very sophisticated— Whoops!” 

She sounded like a theatergoer surprised by a twist in the plot. 

“GOROGB!” 

“GBB! GROGOB!” 

Goblin Slayer gave a click of his tongue. Those goblin voices were coming from behind. So the brood had circled around, flanking them through the entrance! 

“Makes sense. They couldn’t tunnel through the walls here, but they achieve the same thing this way. Wonder if they had a back door.” 

“Stand with your back to the wall!” he shouted. 

“Oh sure,” Arc Mage replied and dutifully turned. Goblin Slayer stood in front of her. 

In his right hand, he held a club, in his left, a torch. He held out his arms, menacing the goblins on either side. If there was no attack from behind, this would allow him to protect her—at least as long as he survived. 

“Six!” 

“GOBOGOR?!” 

Holding the goblin to his right at bay with the club, he clubbed the goblin to his left with the torch. The magical flame crackled and engulfed the goblin’s head, burning it to a crisp. 

“GGGOB?!” 

“Like it? I told you there was more to us than simply flinging fireballs.” 

Enchant Fire. 

Goblin Slayer had no special interest in the names of the spells she could incant. Kicking aside the screaming, writhing goblin, he immediately transferred the flame of the torch to his club. 

Now with two burning weapons, Goblin Slayer began lashing out at monsters left and right. 

“Seven… Eight! Nine! …Ten!” 

Right, left. Each time he swung one of the burning brands, a trail of sparks followed, a glowing arc hovering in the air. 

Magical weapons were not necessary for killing goblins—but arcane fire, that was more than enough to give them pause. The monsters didn’t know what to do in the face of the roaring, flaming weapons but continued to lash out mercilessly. 

“GGGBGOR?!” 

“GOB?! GGOBOGOG?!” 

There was the smell of frying goblin flesh, the stink of boiling blood, and brains and bits of skull flying everywhere. 

“It’s an awfully excessive spell to cast on a club, though…” 

Goblin Slayer heard Arc Mage’s murmur at the same time as the flame on his club disappeared. 

He had killed well more than ten goblins already, and the tide of monsters was beginning to ebb. 

Goblin Slayer let out a deep breath. His shoulders heaved, and he wiped sweat from his eyes: He was alive. She was safe. 

He could see, though, that his torch and club had reached their limits; he nonchalantly tossed them down at his feet. In their place, he trod on the fingers of one of the corpses, taking the sturdiest-looking sword available. 

He worked hard to control his breathing as he asked, “…How many more?” 

Endurance, physical strength, was not a problem to be solved in one fell swoop—but now more than ever, he felt keenly the need to continue to train. 

“Good question,” Arc Mage replied cheerfully. “Considering the villagers’ accounts and the number of footprints we saw by the entrance, I’d have to guess we’re about through.” She sat down on a piece of rock wall that had come loose, and she chuckled. “You’re quite the fighter, though. I’m afraid I really might fall in love with you.” 

“I see.” 

“You’re hard to get a rise out of.” 

“I would not want to take you seriously if you were joking.” 

“If I couldn’t throw someone into a tizzy with just a few words, well, I wouldn’t be quite sure what to do with myself… Oops, here they come.” 

Of course, Goblin Slayer didn’t need her to tell him that; he heard it, too. Heavy, dull footsteps, bum, bum. They were coming closer through the ruins, and they sounded like something he had heard just the other day. 

A massive form filled the passageway—but that wasn’t all. At the form’s feet hid a slithering shadow. 

“A hob, and…” 

“…Ah-ha, one of those shamans. This nest was on its way to reaching stage two, I see.” 

The giant goblin looked absolutely idiotic. The one by his feet held a staff and looked considerably more intelligent. 

He didn’t know which of them was the leader. But he was sure that he was at last facing the chieftain of the horde. 

“I guess that means the decoration earlier was a totem of some kind,” Arc Mage murmured, realization dawning. 

Goblin Slayer didn’t really understand. He was paying attention to something else. 

The hobgoblin had a “shield” in his hand. 

The shield was in the form of a person. Like a doll with its hands and legs bent in obscene directions. 

“Ah… Ee…” 

There hadn’t been any reports of captured village women. She must be a wanderer, then, or perhaps a traveler. The hobgoblin thrust his shield about as if showing the woman off. She cried out as her breasts were smashed into the wall. 

The goblins cackled. This wasn’t about their dead companions; they were making fun of the pathetic condition of the shield, and these adventurers who were surely no threat to them. 

“……” 

“Well, isn’t that awful,” Arc Mage said as if it hardly concerned her. “I wonder if she’s pregnant. Gosh, I sure wouldn’t mind getting a look at that baby.” 

Goblin Slayer ignored her, steadying his breathing. He slowly rotated his sword in his hand. 

The world wavered. He held his breath. Fixed his aim. Lowered his arm. Just the slightest bit. 

He had learned something from the fight earlier. 

They don’t know how to use shields. 

“GOROGOBOGOR?!?!” 

The goblin—the hobgoblin—gave an earsplitting screech. The monster didn’t understand what had happened to him, but no doubt he wouldn’t have believed it had he known. He never would have believed that a sword had been stabbed into his exposed thigh, which he couldn’t hide behind his shield… 

“Hrrr—ahh!” Goblin Slayer reached behind himself with his right hand, pulled out the broken spear, and jumped in. The goblin shaman, aware of the hobgoblin’s shameful mistake, jabbered and waved his staff. 

“GOBOOGOB…!” 

“Spell incoming!” Arc Mage shouted. It was all right. He knew. 

“GOROOOGOB?!” 

“Heeek…?!” 

The hobgoblin sent his captive spinning through the air; Goblin Slayer caught her. She was light. This wouldn’t stop his momentum. He jumped in, deep, wielding the spear in one hand. 

“Ten—and one!!” 

“GOBOOROG?! GOBOG?!” 

He closed the distance, not worried what he hit so long as it would stop the spell. The mouth and tongue. Crush the throat. The rusty spear tip all but shattered as it lodged in the shaman’s windpipe. The monster howled. 

Goblin Slayer kicked aside the creature choking on its own blood and turned toward the hobgoblin. 

“GORGGBBBB…!” 

“This is twelve…!” 

He held nothing in his hands. But there was a weapon right in front of him. 

Zigging and zagging, Goblin Slayer ducked in and kicked the flailing hobgoblin in the crotch. 

“GOOBBGBGRGBG?!” 

And there was the sword, too, of course. 

It buried itself up to the hilt; he could feel the soft sensation of internal organs giving way. 

But I know that’s not enough to kill you. 

“GOROGBB?!?!” 

He laid the prisoner on the ground and set upon the writhing hobgoblin. The shield on his left arm came around. It might have been easier if he’d honed it more. He felt some regret at that. 

The metal edge smashed deep into the hobgoblin’s skull. Then another blow. Brains came flying out. 

A few twitches followed and nothing more. The tremor of the death rattle set the thick limbs stiff. 

And that was the end. 

§ 

The fire crackled and sparked, smoke drifting along with the awful smell in the air. The stench in the dim ruins was even more stomach-turning than before. 

“Here’s the stomach, and here’s the small intestine… But I guess you knew that, didn’t you?” 

“Yes.” 

“This is where food is digested. Here’s the bladder and the testicles. A man’s…you know. That’s a vital point.” 

Arc Mage had a cloth over her mouth and was using a blade curved like a cat’s claw to perform an autopsy. 

“Don’t know if this one’s big or small.” She sounded like she was making a joke, but Goblin Slayer listened intently. 

Lying in front of them was a goblin, his abdomen torn cruelly open and his guts spilled out. He wasn’t the only one; several of the other goblin corpses had been likewise disemboweled. 

“Now that’s enough to make a woman cry.” Arc Mage chuckled, plucking at the goblin’s member with her fingers. “It looks like it’s true they don’t have any females, though. Nobody in this whole crowd has a womb or eggs.” 

The battle had ended, and the sun had gone down, bringing on the night, which was the goblins’ time. Should he really have let the woman wearing the apron covered with congealed goblin blood do such a leisurely dissection? Goblin Slayer was still wondering that even as both of them sat surrounded by viscera. 

“If there are any left, they might come back,” Arc Mage had said, but strangely enough, she was the one who suggested they pitch camp there for the night. 

Goblin Slayer still found her reasoning difficult to fathom. Did she want to hurry up and do the dissections before any remaining goblins came back, or was her plan to do the work while waiting to ambush any returnees…? 

“We sure don’t want her to get attacked by goblins again, do we?” A chuckle. She indicated the girl, who had been given first aid, wrapped in a blanket, and then magically put to sleep. 

Whatever the case, this was preferable to being attacked while moving, trying to carry both goblin corpses and an unconscious former captive. All Goblin Slayer could do was nod, and after that, there was only one course of action. 

“Help me with the dissection, please.” Arc Mage’s movements were preternaturally smooth and graceful. Her eyes reflected a catlike glint as she performed the operation, her pale fingertips becoming stained with dark cruor. 

“The position of the liver and kidneys isn’t so different from in a human,” she said. “Can’t speak to the internal structure of other races, though.” 

“I see.” 

“You know how rarely you get a chance to dissect an elf or a dwarf? And rhea thieves never seem to hang themselves, either.” She rooted through the goblin’s guts with a kind of compassionate artlessness, pulling out the liver. “Land a hit here, and it really hurts; give it a good stab, and it bleeds all over. You’d need a miracle to save you.” 

“…In the past, goblins have sometimes kept on going even though I stabbed them in the stomach,” Goblin Slayer said, voicing a question he’d had for a long time. “Why is that?” 

“Toughness… Or maybe I should say, hit points.” 

Arc Mage diligently pointed out that she couldn’t be sure without seeing it for herself, before she started speaking. They hadn’t known each other very long, but she seemed to be someone who willingly admitted when she didn’t understand things and wouldn’t spout off about things she didn’t know. That was a quality for which Goblin Slayer was immensely grateful. There was little more frustrating than trusting ill-founded advice and then feeling like a fool. 

If you’re going to dine with long-lost relatives, do your research on them first, his master had told him. 

“Sometimes you hit a vital point, but they don’t die instantly,” Arc Mage said. “Or perhaps it’s that the blade is stopped by muscle or fat and never reaches the spot necessary to deal a killing blow.” 

“That makes sense.” Goblin Slayer touched the sword that served him so faithfully (though he didn’t think of it in those terms). It was disposable, of a strange length. Too short to use on the battlefield proper, too long to cart around everywhere simply for personal protection. Exactly the right size for killing goblins in enclosed spaces—but perhaps he should try to avoid stabbing the big ones with it…? 

But stabbing was a much more certain kill than slashing. He would be foolish to ignore what was proven to work. 

“Where should I aim?” 

“Hmm. Just a moment, please.” Arc Mage sounded like he had placed an order at a restaurant. She began digging through the goblin corpse again. 

Watching her, he realized how rough and unrefined his own earlier dissections had been. The presence of specialist knowledge and techniques made itself known in the little details. Goblin Slayer fixed his eyes on her and listened attentively so that none of those experienced movements or words would escape him. 

“……Okay, there are major arteries in the thigh, under the armpit, and in the neck. The respiratory tract is approximately the same as in people, too. Those are your targets.” 

“The neck… Throat?” Goblin Slayer nodded and thought about this. Destroy the throat. It had worked before. The effect was obvious. But he also remembered how the knife he’d thrown at the guard had missed. It was clear what he had to do. 

“I will need to practice.” 

“Heh-heh. Speaking of being similar to people, and practicing…” 

Arc Mage gave him a pointed glance, then walked into the gloom of the ruins. Her come-hither look led him to a pile of junk. Perhaps they were funerary offerings of some kind; among them were many rust-eaten weapons that looked like they would shatter if they were used to stab anything. Among them, though, was something of patchy, unsightly leather, something discovered deep within the nest. 

“A saddle,” Arc Mage breathed. “Who would have expected?” 

Goblin Slayer received these words expressionlessly. 

Goblin riders. 

The goblins had been keeping those wolves as mounts. 

“…Does this, too, go back to that battle five years ago?” 

“Nobody knows whether they saw other races doing it, or if someone taught them. But somehow, goblins learned the art of riding.” Arc Mage pulled the cloth away from her mouth, carefully wiping her hands and cleaning them with alcohol. Then she rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands and narrowed her eyes as she looked at Goblin Slayer. “All living things respond to the environment in which they live.” 

Her gaze was profoundly strange, as if she were watching a bug. She seemed both intrigued and not the least interested in what would become of the subject of her observation… 

“Did you know? Humans who live in cold places come to have bigger bodies. Like the barbarian of the north.” 

“…I’ve heard stories.” Goblin Slayer thought back to the bedtime tales his older sister used to tell him. 

The barbarian of the north. A man of bravery. A warrior and a pirate. All the many adventures he had, all the treasures he pillaged and thrones he overthrew. How with nothing but his sword in his hand, he rose from slave to mercenary to general, and finally to king, a great man in a great tale. 

To Goblin Slayer, this story was history, and myth, and legend, and also a bedtime story. It meant nothing to him whether it had happened or not. It meant nothing to him who might mock him for it. 

For to him, this heroic tale was the truth. 

“They were the ones who offered steel.” 

“Exactly.” Arc Mage nodded, removing her apron with a casual motion and letting it fall to the ground. She plopped herself down beside the bonfire, patting the ground beside her, inviting him over. 

“You know it?” Goblin Slayer said softly, as if he couldn’t believe what he had heard. 

“The desolate darkness and the country of night. The way he cursed the people who mocked him for simple machismo, never knowing his true splendor.” 

Yes, that’s right. Goblin Slayer nodded. Then after a moment’s thought, he seated himself next to the still-sleeping captive, across from Arc Mage. 

She watched him. “That’s all well and good,” she said with a thin smile, and then she looked into the flames. “But there’s something my master told me… Something the lizardmen say. That long, long ago, there was an age of tremendous cold.” 

That’s the legend. She didn’t really speak the words, just formed them with her lips. 

“And they claim goblins have existed from at least that time—so these hobgoblins, as you call them, might just be creatures who went back to their roots.” 

Goblin Slayer looked over at the corpse lying at a distance from the fire. It was the massive goblin he had slain after such struggle—the hobgoblin. It hardly even looked like a goblin, and he had given it little further thought, but… 

“You’re suggesting the muscles are so large simply due to a change in body shape…?” 

“It’s possible. It might mean the goblins’ ancestors roamed freely across the plains, rather than living in caves.” Arc Mage brought the bottle of cider to her lips and suckled at it, then took a loud swig. “Goblins do come out into the field to attack villages when they’re strong enough…don’t they?” 

“…” Goblin Slayer grunted softly, then nodded. “Sometimes.” 

“That might imply the state of their nutrition has an impact. Who knows what might happen if they got regular, decent food?” 

Goblin Slayer was silent. He couldn’t imagine. 

Filthy goblins eating like humans, leading lives like humans. It was a terrible thought. 

Even in regions controlled by the forces of Chaos, goblins were but the lowliest of foot soldiers. That fact wouldn’t change until the day goblins overthrew every one of those who had words in the four corners of the world. 

Goblins made nothing for themselves—they pilfered and stole everything. 

“Oh, say, do you know about that research into fish bodies and schools?” Arc Mage never stopped talking. Goblin Slayer was forced to think about the next thing. 

“I don’t.” He replied to the unexpected question with detachment. There was no reason to be flustered. It was better than having rocks thrown at you while you tried to answer a riddle. “I’ve never heard of it.” 

“I don’t blame you.” Arc Mage nodded and continued, “I heard about it from my master. They say if you compare fish who travel in schools with fish who live alone, the ones on their own get bigger.” 

“…That sounds like common sense to me.” 

“Scholarship is all about investigating ‘common sense.’ Otherwise, you’ll never get past the common.” Arc Mage sounded rather pleased with herself. She puffed out her ample chest and smiled. “In overcrowded schools, growth is retarded, and the water becomes polluted with excrement. The fish become incensed and readily resort to cannibalism…” 

“…” 

“Basically, they become goblins. See what I’m saying?” 

Goblin Slayer, still not speaking, watched the wood as it cracked on the fire. He could feel Arc Mage’s smile on him, as if she could see straight through his helmet. 

But so what? Goblin Slayer said, “…The way you speak sounds strange to me.” 

“I told you, my master was a lizardman. And I was his student. A top-flight heretic of a pupil, in other words.” Arc Mage peered at the fire through her bottle, then licked a few drops off the lip. “Lizardmen hate to leave any written records, though. So I’ve had to remember everything. 

“Rheas write however they like, dwarves don’t fancy talk, and elves stop short at ‘It’s only natural.’ 

“Immortal wizards merely write themselves some notes—their brains are rotting away.” 

So she went on, smiling and talking what seemed to be nonsense, but he only interjected the occasional “I see.” 

“Dragons, you know, they can remember everything without writing it down. And they never die, so they never forget.” 

Goblin Slayer stirred the fire with a nearby stick and replied, “I see.” 

“I’ll bet you do,” Arc Mage said, chuckling deep in her throat. “Dragons love to hoard. Knowledge is a lot like treasure for them. They don’t share it with anyone without a price.” Arc Mage began humming to herself. Some sparks flew, adding their crackles to the music. 

Knowledge is a treasure. 

Look, behold the sage here in this cave. Look how much knowledge is demanded of this wizard-sage to inscribe just one page of a book. 

“But at the same time, if you kill them, the knowledge vanishes. The sneakiest burglar in all of existence can’t possibly get inside a dragon’s head.” 

Goblin Slayer suddenly found himself thinking about his own master, the old rhea. 

“Why should I go out of my way to teach some cast-off piece of filth who’s only going to be killed by goblins?!” 

Thus, his master had exclaimed, and then beaten him harshly about his worthless head. 

He had no treasure to offer a fool with no learning, an idiot whose only possession was a simple confidence that he would be victorious. 

Perhaps, he thought, Arc Mage’s master, the lizardman, had himself been a dragon, a naga. But his interest went no further than that; it didn’t even occur to him to ask her about it. 

“But if you could get a dragon to share his knowledge with you…” Her cheeks looked slightly red, but he couldn’t tell whether it was from the cider or just the glow of the flames. Her gaze seemed soft, though, as it rested on his helmet. “…If you had that chance, and you told him you wanted to know about goblins? That would make you a weird guy, indeed.” 

“I see,” Goblin Slayer said. The conversation lapsed again. 

The fire sparked as another log broke. Goblin Slayer strained his ears, but he didn’t hear any goblin footsteps. All he heard was his own muffled breathing and the quiet inhale-exhale of his companion. The even breaths of the sleeping woman. 

The only thing he sensed was the sweet smell of apples mixed in among the stench of filth and blood and viscera. 

Eventually, Arc Mage broke the silence. “Anyway, I guess the things to study are biology, behavior, origins, subspecies, habitat, knowledge, intelligence, and culture, and that about covers it.” She sounded impossibly cheerful. “Not that I’m eager to study any more than that on my own. Like…language, say. Goblinese… 

“Think there’s such a thing?” It was a teasing question, one she’d voiced several times over the past several days. 

“There is,” Goblin Slayer said flatly. There was no room for argument in his mind. 

“You sure about that? They might just be animalistic cries. I know the gob-gob stuff sounds like they’re talking, but you never know.” 

But he didn’t have to hear them to know. He had known it for five years now. 

“I saw them pointing at captives, laughing and mocking them.” 

“So goblin culture includes humor, is what you’re saying.” Arc Mage nodded happily, once again adopting the tone of a professor praising a distinguished student. 

Goblin Slayer, unable to parse exactly what she meant, fell into a sullen silence. 

Through his visor, he could see that Arc Mage seemed unconcerned; she just kept talking. “Aw, what’s the matter? That’s a new discovery! One of those hard-earned nuggets of goblin knowledge you’re so eager for.” 

“…Is that so?” 

“Uh-huh. Research—about anything, not just monsters—is really the slow accumulation of experimental results.” 

The Draconomicon, the Demonicon, or, from an alternative angle, A Guide to Skaven. 

“I’m not interested,” Goblin Slayer said, again without hesitation. 

Why? Arc Mage barely voiced the word. “Finding out where goblins came from might give you a better idea about how to fight them.” 

He calmly gave her the reply he had settled on many years ago. “Because while I was doing that, goblins would be destroying villages.” 

“—” 

It was Arc Mage’s turn to be silent. To Goblin Slayer, it looked as if she had been struck dumb. But his responses were already set. They had been for five years—no, indeed, for much longer than that. 

“Also,” he went on, “I already know where goblins come from. The green moon.” 

He offered nothing further. His older sister had told him this. And his older sister was never wrong about anything. 

“It was her. She taught me.” 

“…” Arc Mage didn’t have an immediate answer. She drank her cider, wiped her lips, and then looked down, away from the bonfire. “Planeswalking, is that it?” 

It was a mysterious word. Wizards’ words always were. 

And she looked so tense—the smile that made its way onto her face seemed somehow forced. 

“That’s just a made-up story, a fairy tale to frighten children. And for adults to chuckle at… Isn’t it?” 

“I have never found it amusing.” 

“…” 

That was the last of the conversation until dawn broke. Arc Mage didn’t breathe another word, nor did Goblin Slayer speak to her. 

At last, the first light of the morning sun cast itself among the stones. When the pale beam had slithered up to his feet like a snake, Goblin Slayer stood up. 

There were no more goblins here. He had killed them all. The only thing left to do was to go back to the village, return the girl to them, and then go home. 

He started walking, the girl supported on his back, and Arc Mage followed silently behind him. They left the ruins to find the sunlight piercing through gaps in the forest canopy, stinging their eyes like needles. Goblin Slayer squinted behind the visor of his helmet and began walking slowly through the woods. 

“Darkness everlasting.” Two short words came unexpectedly from behind him, from Arc Mage. “Past the edge of this table, beyond the void, on the far side of eternity, the unending search.” 

None of the things she was saying made any sense to Goblin Slayer. She sounded oddly sad, lonely almost, but he felt no special interest in this, either. 

“Well, to travel is to have traveling companions… But I guess we aren’t all going to the same place anyway.” 

He wasn’t interested, and so he made no special effort to remember this conversation any more than any of the others.