Goblin Slayer, Vol. 5 Read online

  Oh, man… What am I even angry about?

  This wasn’t like her. It wasn’t like her at all. She slowly felt her anger ebbing away.

  Huh?

  High Elf Archer paused, mystified, as she inspected her armor. Orcbolg had given her the cold shoulder, and yet she was hardly even upset about it. Partly it was because she was used to it by now, but…

  If that were all, I wouldn’t care about him ignoring me when it came to her, either.

  “Hrrm…” High Elf Archer’s ears quivered thoughtfully as she considered this riddle.

  So…there’s something different when it comes to her and Orcbolg.

  What could it be? How was it different?

  She turned these thoughts over and over in her mind until they threatened to stir up a whirlpool.

  She still didn’t find an answer—what came to her instead was the one word the two of them seemed to share.

  “Goblins.”

  Goblins, goblins, goblins, goblins, goblins, goblins!

  High Elf Archer found herself trembling; the word resounded in her mind like a curse.

  “Ahhh, sheesh! This just isn’t good…!” She smacked her cheeks with both hands, rubbed the edges of her eyes. She couldn’t seem to center herself.

  She couldn’t get these feelings to go away.

  She couldn’t find an answer.

  Things were at their worst.

  Yes, but.

  “………There really is just one thing to do, isn’t there?” She let out a groan, her ears twitching, then stuck her head out from under the blanket.

  Goblin Slayer was still standing at the top of the stairs, keeping a watchful eye on the door there, his equipment at the ready.

  High Elf Archer spoke softly to his back. “I’m sorry, Orcbolg.” She opened her mouth but found she couldn’t quite go on speaking. She looked for the words, then tried again. “I…lost my head a little.”

  “That happens,” Goblin Slayer said, not turning around. “To you, to that girl, to me.”

  His words were as calm as ever, even a little cold. High Elf Archer found her cheeks nearly relaxing into a smile.

  “Even you, Orcbolg?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It sure is.”

  “I see,” he murmured without much interest, then turned his head.

  It was just an instant. High Elf Archer remembered something Priestess had told her once. How when he was thinking, when he was about to say something—he would go silent.

  “I’ll tell everyone else,” he said quietly. “If you think I should.”

  High Elf Archer poked a hand out from under the blanket and gave a reassuring wave as if to say, It’s okay.

  “Nah. I’ll tell them myself.” She paused, then said, “Thanks.”

  She pulled the blanket aside with a flutter, glad that the motion hid her face at that instant—hid the gentle smile that had crept onto it.

  “You’re surprisingly…considerate, Orcbolg.”

  “…Is that so?” Goblin Slayer murmured. Then he said, “Do it quickly. I want the other girls to change as well.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  She couldn’t see his face—and yet, High Elf Archer thought she knew what his expression was.

  That was enough for her.

  §

  “Nobody there.”

  “All right.”

  When High Elf Archer popped her head back inside the door and delivered her report, the party quickly moved out of the basement prison.

  The nauseating smell of goblin is not a pleasant thing. The stone castle was not a great deal less rank than the underground room, but somewhat, and Priestess took deep, grateful breaths.

  “Is it really…okay to leave those people there?” she whispered.

  “Safer than bringing them to stumble along behind us, I can only think,” Lizard Priest said.

  Fortunately—or perhaps, as it were, unfortunately—they found several captive girls, wasted but alive. They had freed the young women, but as Lizard Priest said, it was impossible to bring them along.

  And as important as he knew time and miracles were to the party, the fact that they had been unable even to heal the young women…

  “We have to get back there and help them as soon as we can,” Priestess said, looking back regretfully.

  “Right now I’m wondering if we can even help ourselves,” Dwarf Shaman muttered, feeling his way along the stone wall.

  He was the one leading the party along. The stone fortress had no chinks or cracks, truly the work of dwarves. When pitted against some attacking bandits, the work of those craftsmen was going to tell.

  The party walked along in formation now, with High Elf Archer scanning for enemies and Dwarf Shaman charting the way forward.

  “Anyway, Beard-cutter, where d’you plan to go? Are we heading for the main keep?”

  “No,” Goblin Slayer said, shaking his head. “It’s still too early to attack the enemy leader.”

  “…”

  Noble Fencer shivered at the calm declaration. To prevent any repeats of her earlier outburst, she was now second from the last; Priestess stood with her.

  Ever since receiving High Elf Archer’s brief but heartfelt apology, Noble Fencer had said very little.

  “Never seen a blade quite like that,” Dwarf Shaman had said to her. “It looks like quite a piece of work—but what’s that metal?”

  Then, and only then, she had murmured in response, “………Aluminum…… The blade was forged from a red gem with a lightning-hammer.”

  “Aluminum, is it? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it. Mind if I have a look?”

  Instead of an answer, she shot him a glare of refusal. Dwarf Shaman only shrugged.

  “Hmm,” Goblin Slayer grunted. “Let us head for their storehouse first.”

  “Armory, or food?”

  “Both. But let’s start with the weapons.”

  “Right this way, then.”

  The party advanced through the stronghold like shadows, without a sound. Nobody in the group had ever carried too much in the way of noisy equipment. Only Priestess and Goblin Slayer were even wearing metal armor, and in Priestess’s case it was only thin mail. Goblin Slayer was wearing mail along with his leather armor.

  The only sounds in the corridor now were the shushing footsteps of fur boots, and each of them breathing.

  The adventurers brought their formation together so that they were walking in a line. They were alert for traps, keeping an eye on the area around them as well as on their companions, but they weren’t nervous, and they never let their guard down.

  After all, of the six adventurers there, four of them were of Silver, the third rank. Navigating labyrinths came as naturally to them as breathing.

  “…Something’s coming,” High Elf Archer said, stopping where she stood with her ears bobbing. She crouched down and pulled out her great bow, readying an arrow and drawing it back. She was aiming at the corner just ahead.

  Without a word, Goblin Slayer reached for the sword at his hip, moving out in front of Dwarf Shaman. From his new position in the order, the spell caster reached into his bag of catalysts, while Priestess gripped her sounding staff. Lizard Priest swished his tail and looked easily back over his shoulder; Noble Fencer ground her teeth.

  At last they heard two sets of defenseless footsteps approaching the corner.

  “…”

  There was only the slightest whisper of air as a bowstring was drawn. High Elf Archer’s arrow flew through space, piercing one goblin through the eye and pinning him to the wall.

  “GROOAB?!” At what must have seemed like the sight of his companion collapsing against the wall, the second goblin gave a cry of confusion.

  Before he ever processed what happened, a sword was growing from his throat. Goblin Slayer had thrown it at him without hesitation.

  “We have to hide th
e bodies,” he said.

  “If we have to go to all that trouble anyway, why didn’t we just hide in the first place?” High Elf Archer asked.

  “This is better than if they had found us and the sounds of battle had alerted anyone else to our presence.”

  He approached the corpses with his bold stride; he pressed a boot against the bodies and pulled out the sword and the arrow, tossing the latter to High Elf Archer.

  “Urgh,” she said as she caught it, as if now it suddenly bothered her; she wiped the blood off quickly. The blood of a wild animal might have been one thing, but goblin blood was not something to be tolerated.

  “How many spells and miracles do you have left?” Goblin Slayer asked, glancing at his companions.

  “Um…” Priestess tapped a pale finger against her lips in thought. “I haven’t used any at all, so I’ve got three left.” She counted on her fingers: Kindle they had used on the road, while Communicate they had needed upon entering the fortress. “The others have both used one each, so they each have three left, so… Nine altogether?”

  “Hey, now,” Dwarf Shaman said jovially. “You’re not counting our new friend there.” He pointed at Noble Fencer.

  She had been standing at a distance, ignoring their conversation as she stared intently at the goblin corpses, but now she muttered, “…Two more.”

  Is that all? Priestess wondered—meaning not her spells, but the words she was going to use.

  Priestess furrowed her brow but said, “Thank you very much,” with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Noble Fencer, however, pointedly continued to look away, not so much as glancing in the party’s direction.

  “Hmmm…” A little mutter escaped from Priestess. The gesture reminded her of the apprentice girls at the Temple—specifically, it reminded her of the most troublesome ones.

  “Anyway, that’s eleven in all, isn’t it.”

  “Hmm. Certainly we aren’t anywhere near exhausting our resources,” Lizard Priest said. “I suppose you won’t mind if we make use of a charm here or there?”

  “No,” Goblin Slayer said. “Consider it nine spells.”

  “What’s this, then?” Lizard Priest said, blinking. “How did you get that number?”

  “We should preserve our two Lightning spells.”

  Noble Fencer shuddered at this. Her eyes, as clear as glass, fixed on Goblin Slayer. Her voice was thin and immensely quiet.

  “………Can I…kill goblins?”

  “If all goes well.”

  His words were so brief. Noble Fencer continued to gaze at the expressionless helmet, until finally, she gave a small nod.

  “We can’t kill any more goblins until we get rid of the ones we’ve already done in, right?” High Elf Archer, seeming to have ignored the discussion of spells and miracles, tapped one of the dead monsters with the arrow she was still holding. Despite the cold, they had only wrapped their hips and feet in fur. Crude spears were their weapons. It looked like they hardly possessed anything in the world.

  “Do you have some idea how to do it?” Goblin Slayer asked, rifling through his item pouch as he spoke.

  “An idea? Hmmm… Well… Oh!” Her ears jumped up eagerly. She beckoned to Dwarf Shaman with a gleam in her eyes like a mischievous child. “Dwarf, hand over your wine. The whole jug.”

  “Oh-ho.” Dwarf Shaman smiled, as if there was a joke afoot. “What’s the story, Long-Ears? Looking for a little liquid inspiration?”

  “Just pass it here, already.”

  “Yeah, all right. There’s some left still. Don’t drink it all.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t drink it.” She pulled out the stopper with a pop and took a good sniff, frowning at the sharp smell of the spirits. “I promise, I won’t drink a drop.” And then she turned the bottle upside down and emptied the contents onto the floor.

  “Oh no!” Dwarf Shaman moaned as if the world were ending. That he didn’t simply scream was testament to his instincts as an adventurer.

  He did, however, look like he was going to bounce right off the ground up to High Elf Archer’s small chest as he grabbed for the jug.

  “Now look what you’ve done, you stupid, anvil-chested—”

  “I asked nicely, didn’t I? Now come on, this was necessary—we have to do what we have to do.”

  “How is it necessary?! How can it be what we have to do?! My—my wine!”

  “No, she’s helped us.” Goblin Slayer was already moving. He had guessed what High Elf Archer had in mind; now he wiped away the dripping blood with a rag and seated the corpses against the wall. He tilted the heads down so their wounds wouldn’t be obvious, and kicked the spear one of the goblins had dropped so that it rolled over to his side.

  “Hrrrrrrgh…!” whined Dwarf Shaman.

  “Heh! See? I helped. Oh, don’t worry. I’ll get you a new bottle later.” Looking quite pleased with herself, High Elf Archer set the wine jug next to the goblins.

  “Oh…!” Priestess said. Her eyes started to shine, and she nodded in understanding. “There isn’t a goblin alive who takes his work seriously, is there?”

  “That’s the idea,” the ranger replied. She winked and made a giggle deep in her throat.

  Now the corpses seemed to be nothing more than two drunk goblins. The strong smell of spirits would help mask the odor of blood.

  A couple of goblins who got to drinking while on guard duty and then fell asleep—surely it would be nothing remarkable.

  “If we can’t keep them secret, we can hide them in plain sight,” High Elf Archer said.

  “But why do we have to use my wine to do it?” Dwarf Shaman moaned, biting his nails with regret as he watched the liquid dribble along the stone floor.

  Lizard Priest gave him a hearty slap on the back. “Be not dismayed, I shall treat you as well. We will need to toast our ranger’s fine turn of mind.”

  Dwarf Shaman looked up at the priest with an unhappy grunt, but Lizard Priest rolled his eyes in his head.

  “Do you not think so, milord Goblin Slayer?”

  “I do.” He nodded. “Drinks will be on me.”

  After this offer, there was really no more room for complaint. Dwarf Shaman groaned and muttered again and finally let out a deep breath.

  “Hrm. Erm. Well… If Scaly and Beard-cutter both feel that way, then…”

  “Indeed,” Lizard Priest said. “But for now, we must hurry. Where is the armory?”

  “Sure, right. Over here.” Dwarf Shaman led the party off with a wave of his hand.

  Immediately beside him was High Elf Archer, chuckling triumphantly.

  “You long-eared, anvil-chested…! When we get back to the bar, you’re gonna treat me ’til your head spins!”

  “Yeah, whatever. I’ll keep you watered for as long as you like, so don’t get so angry.”

  And the argument went on. Priestess smiled to see them trading friendly jabs again.

  Thank goodness.

  In the basement earlier, there had been a real argument. It’s never a good feeling to see your comrades fight with each other. So now…

  I’m really, really glad.

  With that heartfelt thought in her mind, Priestess knelt down right where she was. She held her sounding staff in both hands, as if clinging to it. Lizard Priest looked at her and nodded. We’re going ahead, he seemed to be saying.

  Then Priestess closed her eyes, just as she always did.

  “………What are you doing?”

  The voice, quiet, came unexpectedly from beside her.

  “Oh, uh, I—well…” Priestess felt her heart beat faster, but she nodded without rising. “I’m praying for the repose of their souls… Although I’m doing it quickly, because we don’t have much time.”

  Suddenly, she felt her hand, wrapped around her sounding staff, grasped by that of Noble Fencer. Priestess looked mystified, but Noble Fencer shook her head firmly.

  “……That’s not necessary.”

  “Huh? But…”

&nbs
p; Before she could say that everyone is the same in death, Noble Fencer gave one of the bodies a vicious kick. The goblin, which had been leaning against the wall, slumped over onto the ground.

  “………It’s not necessary. Not…for…bastards…like these…!”

  Noble Fencer seemed to be working herself up to speak even more forcefully when it came:

  “Let’s go.”

  Low and sharp, blunt and dispassionate—just the way he always spoke.

  They looked up and found that the rest of the party had proceeded ahead into the fortress; only Goblin Slayer had remained behind with them. His sword and shield were at the ready, and his helmet turned slowly, scanning the area.

  Was he…waiting for us?

  Priestess did not, of course, ask the question aloud. She didn’t need to.

  He was always waiting for them. She had learned that well in the last year.

  “Okay… We’ll be right there.” Quickly, but with care, Priestess closed her eyes and prayed that the dead goblins would be well in the afterlife. She stood, dusting off her knees, then smiled at Noble Fencer.

  “Come on. Shall we go?”

  “………”

  Noble Fencer said nothing but averted her eyes, and then she headed after the party at a stiff pace.

  Well, now. Her expression changing to a confused smile, Priestess scratched her cheek and shook her head. “Does she…dislike me?”

  “I don’t know.” Goblin Slayer shook his own head firmly, but then the helmet cocked curiously. “Do you wish to be friends with her?”

  “Hmm…” Now that the question came up, Priestess put a finger to her lips and looked at the ground and thought.

  I just…can’t seem to leave these people alone.

  The thought was rather, although not entirely, similar to one she frequently directed at the adventurer in front of her.

  She smiled, her expression like a blooming flower.

  “You know, I think I do.”

  “Is that so?” He nodded. “Then you should do so.”

  That was all Goblin Slayer said before he turned and walked off. Her “I will!” followed after him.