"They'll have to catch us first."
- Viper
"Someone should give that Warrior a hand."
- Higurashi_Akane
"It's okay. You'll be okay now."
Those words drove the Monk to stay vigilant in a place like this. When she was alone in the darkness with nothing but her five basic senses to guide her, all she ever heard was the Priestess's sweet and nurturing voice echoing in the back of her head. It was a gentle memory that helped her block out all the bad ones.
There were at least a dozen goblin corpses scattered at the Monk's feet. Her silver gauntlets and ankle guards were baptized with goblin blood. And this handful of hideous green rabble had just been the lookout at the cave entrance. More were waiting for her in the den several miles down.
She knelt to the ground and brushed a handful of cavern dust into her black ponytail. Monks were trained in the skill of becoming one with their environment, and a good Monk could make herself invisible to goblins by masking herself with the scent of their den. As luck would have it, something about her past also left her imbued with a faint but perpetual goblin scent. It made her tactics even more effective.
She continued deeper into the dark, deeper into the heart of depravity, with no torch and no blessed light to help her see the way. Her left ankle guard felt slightly tighter than the right as she walked. She always wrapped an extra layer of bandages around her left foot in morning to support a tiny limp she had from an old injury.
Vitality Detect was the only skill was all she needed to see where she was going. It showed her where a healing spell was needed, or where a goblin was waiting to meet his demise. In ninety second intervals, she could see the auras of living things through the cavern walls without giving her own presence away. The shorter glowing auras hopping in excitement and waving their arms about were her enemies. The longer figures lying on the ground were victims who still had life signs and needed to be rescued.
Off in the distance, the Monk could see one of the shorter auras crouching on top of a longer aura. Her thoughts briefly ran into the past against her will, an she could suddenly feel her face being violently pressed into the dirt while a pair of grubby hands dug into her hips and… nevermind. She shook her head and shuddered in the cold cavern air.
Recovering from that point in her life hadn't been a fast or easy process. As an adept of both the physical and medicinal artes, she understood more than anyone else how healing always took patience. She had started off as a Fighter what felt like ages ago, but her time being cared for at the temple inspired her to become a Monk, combining combat technique with spiritual enlightenment. But before her training could even begin, she had to recover from her nightmarish experiences and turn them into experience she could actually use. She couldn't remember how many countless days she spent sitting on the edge of her bed at the temple staring blankly in the space in front of her, shivering in terror underneath a frayed white cloak, surrounded by quiet nuns trying to encourage her, and drinking bowls of soup that tasted like sour grass. It was a remedy for preventing any unnecessary goblings for young women in her predicament.
The Monk heard several pairs of feet suddenly running through the tunnel. She held her gauntlet talismans together in a cross formation and crouched into combat position.
"Defensive Form: Sacred Aegis!" she announced in a whisper, keeping her voice below what the goblins could hear.
The Monk waited for the mob to come rushing forward. They were probably on their way up after the guards at the cave door never reported back. With her scent masked and her entire body frozen in perfect meditation, they would have no idea she was standing in their way.
The moment one of the atrocious green devils was in leg's reach, the Monk's invisible protective field flashed around her and filled the width of the tunnel like a bubble made out of bricks. The goblins shattered their arms and split their heads open with their own speed as they ran straight into the barrier.
The Monk sensed something bigger approaching her from behind. She quickly uncrossed her wrists and delivered a magically-charged uppercut to a Hobgoblin carrying a horse's femur as a club. In addition to protecting her from stampeding hordes in narrow caverns, the Sacred Aegis was also useful for cool laser punches that one-shotted bigger and slower foes when timed correctly.
Two waves down, and the Monk was still at full health. She cast Vitality Detect on her vision again to make sure none of this second group was going to get back up, and she promptly stomped the metal sole of her boot through the skull of anything that dared still have a heartbeat. With the tunnel clear, she continued deeper toward the den by herself.
She stopped and silently flattened herself to the wall when she found the doorway to goblin Hell. She was just outside the main den, where she could hear countless of the foul little demons dancing and mumbling and beating their clubs in the dirt and performing their atrocious means of propagation. She was close enough to smell their rancid breath, but she held her own and remained as still as the rocks around her. None of them noticed her just outside their dreary abode.
"Offensive Form: Sentinel Power!" she whispered in concentration. Her hands and feet illuminated with sacred magic.
The Monk charged into the chamber a full sprint before the goblins had a chance to react. She only had thirty seconds of increased agility, speed, and strength, and she fought knowing any moment could be her last. She downed the first four goblins with running punches. She wrenched her gauntlets around a fifth goblin and snapped his neck with a quick turn of her wrists. She spun his flailing body above her head and went goblin bowling by hurtling him at the next mob that rushed her.
She fought in near pitch darkness, but it didn't matter. She always meditated with her eyes closed and learned to rely on her four other senses. Despite the foulness and inhospitably this deep in the cave, it also felt familiar to her in ways that were equally good and bad. Surprise and confusion were a Monk's greatest weapons, while serenity with her environment was her greatest protection.
She was finishing off the rest of the common goblin riffraff by second 20. At second 27, she ended her quest with a tornado kick that sent the tribe's shaman sailing across the cave and instantly shattered seven sections of his vertebrae when he crashed against the wall.
The Monk stood with her fists still clenched at her sides as she came down from her combat high and regained her breath. Even as her boosted powers wore off, she kept her ears open and her body cautiously poised, ready to attack the moment something moved in the darkness.
The only thing she heard was a frail voice making a sound akin to whimpering or weeping. The Monk dropped her intimidating soldier-like demeanor and peered to the floor with concerned eyes.
Sprawled in the dirt in front of her was a female adventurer paralyzed with shock and shaking in terror. A pair of broken dagger hilts and scraps of leather britches lying nearby suggested she was a Thief who had been subjected to an unfavorable cavity search after failing her own quest.
The Monk knelt as gently as possible so she wouldn't make any startling noises. She helped the adventurer sit up, drawing her temple mantle around both of them neither of them would have to be cold. She held this poor girl shivering and sobbing in her arms, whispering the only words that could comfort her.
"Don't worry. It's okay. You'll be okay now."
Author's note: That was more like a tech demo than a story but whatever. It's cool.
Author's note 2: So in a matter of HOURS after I posted this story up, there was a thread that appeared on GameFAQs saying Vol. 8 of the Goblin Slayer LNs had just came out in Japan a few days previous. The new volume retroactively establishes the Priestess was keeping tabs on the Fighter, and the Fighter tragically killed herself only one week after being rescued because she found out she was pregnant with a goblin baby while she was at the temple. And there was absolutely noooo cross-referencing here because I didn't base this fanfic on an LN chapter I didn't even know about, only available in a language I can't read. Huh. That was kinda weird.