Goblin Slayer - Volume SS1.02 - Chapter 3.1

Interlude – Of The Things That Worry A Receptionist

“…Erghh.” 

She was well aware she couldn’t outright say this was boring, but she couldn’t stop herself from letting out a sigh. 

The Adventurers Guild, just after noon. It was full of the flaccid indolence of the hour when lunch break had just ended. 

Guild Girl’s sharp-eared colleague was quick to interrogate the receptionist where she lay stretched out on the front desk. 

“What is it? What’s going on?” 

“Nothing’s going on.” 

The other woman’s eyes seemed awfully eager, for a follower of the Supreme God. 

Guild Girl didn’t want to be part of these games. She turned pointedly away. 

“Ah-ha.” Her colleague laughed. “This is about your favorite novice!” 

“Ergh…” 

Bingo. 

She was so on target that Guild Girl seriously wondered whether she might have used the Inspiration miracle. She was fairly sure that gift came from the God of Knowledge, but still… 

“Hasn’t he been in touch recently?” 

“…What’s that supposed to mean?” Guild Girl grimaced at her colleague, who was smirking like a cat toying with a mouse. What was she implying—that Guild Girl was waiting with bated breath for him to come back? 

“Well, it’s all good, right? Adventurers have their own lives.” Her colleague laughed. Where they fought, where they died. They were the ones who got to choose. 

“I know that,” Guild Girl replied, her expression growing more sour by the word. “He’s completed all his assignments flawlessly, as usual. I guess he’s been busy helping that wizard lately.” 

“Ahh, so that’s what this is about.” 

Oops. Fumble. 

Her friend’s grin got a little wider, and Guild Girl mentally jumped to take back what she had said. 

Surely this shouldn’t have been so worrisome. Adventurers took all kinds of jobs and had their preferred quest givers. That was something to celebrate, wasn’t it? 

But it was just, you know… How could she put it? 

It makes me…depressed. 

Arc Mage—she was the spell caster who lived in the wheelhouse on the edge of town. A mad wizard, or perhaps a sage. 

Guild Girl was aware Arc Mage had taken him on as a research assistant, and that he frequently went to her house. 

In fact, it was Guild Girl who had given him the quest in the first place. She herself. Yes, but… 

Hey, they look like a good match. 

When she started hearing things like that around, she felt herself growing depressed for some reason. 

These were adventurers, people who didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. Idle chatter—romantic gossip, or simple dirty stories—was one of their pleasures. Of course they would talk thoughtlessly about such things, and it would do her no good to prickle at every one of them. Especially considering she had introduced the two of them. 

She hated the feeling of selfishness it produced in her. After all, she was in no special relationship with him. 

That’s right: he was an adventurer, and she was a receptionist at the Adventurers Guild, and that was all. How self-absorbed of her to see it as anything to fret and worry and get envious over. 

I mean… 

Goblin Slayer. The adventurer who had come to be called by that name was obsessed, talking of nothing but goblins. 

There had to be something wrong with him. The nickname came about all too naturally, Guild Girl reflected. She was probably in the minority, having talked to this character a bit, having come to have some acquaintance with him. 

So who was this Arc Mage—this person who seemed to have gotten so close to him in such a short time? 

Guild Girl had heard Arc Mage had been requested to help with the revision of the Monster Manual. She’d heard she was the disciple of a fairly famous mage. 

She was certainly researching something, pursuing something. Most wizards were. But the rumors that she was fixated on the Scales of the Twelve Knights that had ended the Summer of the Dead… Those couldn’t be true. 

Scales as such were perfectly ordinary items. It was only the knights who found those scales who were truly distinguished. Even the story that she was searching for the Ancestral Bird of Paradise had more credence. 

Whatever the truth, Guild Girl knew little about him and less about her. That was probably the simplest way to explain the gloom in her heart… 

“Eh, feel better,” her colleague said when she saw her, chuckling and giving her a gentle pat on the back. “You and I are good for more than just saying, ‘Welcome to the Adventurers Guild! How can I help you?’” 

“But isn’t that our job?” 

“We work to live, right?” 

“Well, sure, I guess.” 

“Then enjoy yourself! Worry, love, live!” 

“Love…” 

Guild Girl found herself smiling bitterly. This colleague of hers—this friend—was a bit too eager. 

Too eager? 

She felt her own cheeks flush. She hadn’t yet been able to put that name to the feeling in her heart. 

“’Scuse me.” 

It was at that moment when the door clattered open, and somebody sidled up toward the counter at a walking pace. 

Guild Girl blinked. 

A grimy robe was hiding the person’s face, and they gave off a strange aura, as if somehow removed from the scene around them. 

“There’s a little something I’d like to ask for. Something I might need soon.” 

When Arc Mage said this to her, Guild Girl discovered she could only nod and reply “Yes?”