Disclaimer: I do NOT own Goblin Slayer or any of these characters.

SHOUT-OUT TO YoungsterAustin. I AM GRATEFUL THAT HE TOOK HIS TIME WITH THIS CHAPTER AND RAN THROUGH IT. THANK YOU!

Author's note: So here we have a chapter about Goblin Slayer slaying goblins, just like the old good times. This is a sudden detour from my romance/humor fic, but knowing how much goblin slaying is part of GS's character, I had to give you readers at least one chapter where GS does what he does best.

And thanks for the guesses on who will get which first. Glad so many people joined in, so thank you! And thank you for over 100 followers! Three chapters in and this story have so many fans already! Thanks, guys!

Chapter 4: Back in the saddle

An afternoon with no clouds in the skies shined over the world. And on this afternoon, Goblin Slayer slowly walked through the forest to his next goblin slaying quests. He just left the village, three hours of walking from the farm he stays in. When he arrived to the village, he gathered more information about the quest he took. Also he restocked in the town, before he set out, with equipment such as pepper bombs, throwing knives, torches, oils, stamina potions, poisonous dust bombs, antidotes and more were hidden in his pouches on the belt. And he is certainly glad he prepared like this for his quest.

On the guild board, it seemed like a regular quest that will be done in a day, including the walk to the destination. But upon interrogating the village leader, he knew something didn't add up here.

For one, these goblins attack during the day too. The old village leader even said that goblins attack more in the day than during the night.

That lead to a second suspicious thing. They don't attack in hordes. Six girls were kidnapped from their chores at the wheat fields, or when they were washing clothes in the near stream, which was the same one that they have near the farm, though this part of the stream was much larger and wider. Even during his visit they kidnapped a girl that was doing her chores by the stream. That was seven girls missing as of now.

For some reason, these goblins don't just recklessly attack the whole village but target one person in a group of 4-6, if the tracks Goblin Slayer discovered are viable, and they kidnap the person. They don't even make their presence known by raping the girl first and then kidnapping her, which would be the usual goblin behavior.

Then there was the fact even two males were kidnapped. Not murdered on the spot, kidnapped by goblins. Two sons of an older man disappeared during the day when they were doing their chores on the wheat field. Upon inspecting the wheat field and the place where they disappeared, the only thing left was a sickle, a scythe, small amount of blood and goblin footprints. Kidnapping men, another strange behavior from goblins.

And another thing was that this nest wasn't here a few days ago, and for some reason, this nest is estimated to be around 70 goblins large already. This estimation comes from Goblin Slayer himself, who analyzed the crime scenes and the surroundings of the village throughout the afternoon he stayed in the village. Such rapid growth is surprising even for goblins.

Goblin Slayer doubted that this was doing of a goblin shaman or a hobgoblin. Too dumb for that. They would attack the village immediately even when they don't have the power to overpower the villagers. He thinks not even a goblin champion was behind this. Still too dumb. Though another Goblin Lord is plausible. After all, this is somehow planned and requires a logic thinking that other goblins simply lack. But it still seems rather unlikely, due to the fact these goblins attack during the day. And encountering another Goblin Lord shortly after he and Priestess defeated the former one seems very unlikely. However, he is prepared even for that.

Although he is already trying to figure out what is behind this, ruling out possibilities that seem unlikely, Goblin Slayer is still prepared for everything. It could be just an ordinary nest with a bunch of goblins lead by a shaman, or they can even have a tamed a dragon inside and use it for their purpose. If he told this to someone, they would say he is a madman and a crazy person to think goblins can tame a dragon. But to survive, you have to expect everything. As unlikely as it may seem.

Why? Because imagination is a weapon and those who lack it die first. A saying he lives by, and slays goblins by.

So here he walks, tracking goblins back to their nest by their footprints and small drops of blood from a girl that was captured this afternoon.

He let his mind wander for a bit along the tracking in the forest. Finally some alone time. And a time where he can feel like a man Burglar trained him to be. The merciless killer with no remorse for goblins and no feelings. This should make him again into the man he once was, and let these feelings for his friends numb a bit at least. Especially his feelings for Cow Girl from today's morning.

For whatever reason, he hugged her back. He isn't a hugger. Far from it. He is the type of man who doesn't like physical contact. No phobia or anything, but he rarely touches someone. Excluding touching goblin necks and snapping them shortly after. Seems pointless to touch someone if you don't intend to kill them, or doing some transaction. Sometimes both.

Where was he again? Oh yeah, hugging. For some strange reason, he wanted to hug Cow Girl, in hopes to possibly calm her down? Make her stop crying? It didn't felt like a duty to stop her crying, he genuinely WANTED her to stop crying and smile again. And he felt a little bit of happiness when she stopped. So confusing... These fucking feelings are bothering him. It was much easier when he didn't care. That's another thing, he cares now. Once Cow Girl asked him if he would cry if she died, his possible future flashed in front of him. And judging by her face, she needed to know the whole truth to calm down. So he told her what he saw. And what he saw still bothered him. He trained himself to be calm at all times, not to snap like this.

"Where is the nest? I need to kill some goblins to feel better." Goblin Slayer thought and he sped up the pace to destroy the nest as soon as possible so he could focus on anything else that this plague his kind calls feelings.

Forest was getting thicker and he spotted that the goblin tracks were going uphill, to the mountain's peak. The trees that were broad-leaved were slowly transcending to coniferous trees, and the ground was getting darker and rockier when he looked in front of him and the uphill climb that awaits him.

He knew that goblins don't reside in very high places, because of their small stature and a risk of freezing to death, so he should be at the nest any minute now. And like he predicted, a few minutes and a short climb after a cave appeared in front of him.

And as he expected, goblins had some guards up. At least that's usual... Two goblins guarded the entrance, and from the higher place, they spotted Goblin Slayer immediately when he emerged from the forest. Both goblins jumped down and tried to attack Goblin Slayer, gurgling as they charged. But Goblin Slayer quickly pulled his short bow from back, one small arrow from his pouch and shot one of the goblins, pinning him against the rocky wall of the mountain. The one with a small sword charged at him, but Goblin Slayer quickly dropped the short bow, and with a quick move, he sliced through goblins neck with his short sword he drew from the sheath.

"One."

As usual, he went to the corpse of the goblin before him and finished him off with a stab through the heart. Even though this was kinda useless when he was headless. But a routine is a routine. Then he got up, went to the goblin whose shoulder was pinned against the rocky wall, and he did the same, as the goblin gargled something in his speech.

"Two."

Goblin Slayer went back to the first goblin corpse and picked his short bow near it. He picked the knife of the goblin too since his short sword is useless now and stored it into one his pouches on the belt.

He climbed on the small elevated platform from which goblins jumped off and prepared to go inside the cave. One of his rules is to deal with goblin caves from outside, and not to go inside their nest. Like smoking goblins out, or flooding them out. But thanks to the fact a girl was kidnapped this afternoon, there is at least one person alive in there. At least he thinks so, women lasts around two weeks inside the goblin caves before goblins kill them. Or they die during their torturous sessions. So with that girl in mind, he stepped inside.

In a rocky cave made out of brownstone, he pulled the torch out of his pouch and lit it up with matches. Throwing the burnt match away, he stopped thinking about anything that happened today and focused on his task of killing goblins. Carefully walking through the cave to not trigger any traps, he was looking for clues on what is going on here.

But even when he observed the walls, the floor, and the ceiling of the cave carefully, he didn't find anything suspicious or surprising. That was until he reached the part where the cave parted in three ways. To confirm that only three paths were on this crossroad, he swung the torch in his right hand around the cave to find a place from where goblins could ambush him from behind. And no other way was available.

So we have three paths here. The thing is, there are two blood trails leading into the two different parts of the cave. The third one, the middle path, isn't marked by anything.

Again usual tactic by goblins, nothing suspicious. The two paths with blood trails are traps, and the not marked is leading further into the nest. So he needs to deal with the traps first before continuing further, if he doesn't want to get be ganged up by goblins from the back.

He went into the far right cave and looked for anything suspicious. His ears on high alert whether the goblins from the far left cave already knew about him and tried to surprise him from behind. He stopped not far from the entrance and set up the trap. Well, there isn't any dirt on the floor, so stakes and a rope trip trap will not work.

He pulled small versions of bear traps from his pouch and set them up one after another, leading deeper into the cave. Into the trap furthest from the entrance, he placed a poisonous bomb.

With nine small bear traps in a complete darkness prepared, he went deeper inside the cave. And after a sharp turn to the right, he registered that the walls of the caves were widening and that the torch won't be able to illuminate the walls on his sides. He arrived at the place of an ambush. Or at least, he is very close.

He grabbed another torch from his pouch and lighten it up with the torch he already had in his right hand. Now with two torches, he threw the one in his right hand as far as he could inside the cave. And surely, from the further away, six goblins jumped at the torch, only to find nothing to eat. Goblin Slayer pulled a special oiled pepper bomb and threw it on the burning torch surrounded by goblins with his left hand. Surprised goblins only watched as the bomb exploded. Thanks to the oil and the burning torch, fire shrapnels were thrown all over the place. For the safety measures, Goblin Slayer raised his shield to cover his head from the fire shrapnels that could fly as far as to the place where he stood. The fire explosion threw burning shrapnels over the goblin bodies, greatly damaging, and putting them out of the fight.

Goblin Slayer put the torch in his hand down and prepared his short bow for more goblins to emerge from the cave before him, and as he expected, more of the came. Two more goblins emerged, but now they ran straight to him, one with a wooden spear and the other one with a steel worn out dagger. Being so far away from them, Goblin Slayer easily shot the arrows through their hearts.

"Three and four."

His ears on alert heard a bowstring being stretched in front of him, in the part where not even the thrown burning torch from earlier, lying several meters from him could illuminate. He quickly pulled his strapped shield up with his left hand and successfully blocked three arrow shot at him simultaneously. Another two volleys of three arrows were shot at him in quick succession. Goblin Slayer blocked nearly all of the arrows, only one made it past his shield, hitting him in the shoulder pad. Fortunately, this arrow bounced off his armor.

Observing the shots fired at him, Goblin Slayer went from defense to attack. He dropped the torch, pulled the short bow from his back, quickly pulled an arrow out of his pouch and shot the arrow into the darkness. What responded was a sound of painful gurgling, a music to his ears. The same happened with the arrow he shot shortly after.

Knowing the interval of the goblin shots, he pulled the shield strapped on his left forearm up again, and an arrow hit the shield right when he raised it up. Observing the trajectory of this arrow again, he pulled an arrow from his pouch and shot the remaining arrow into the dark. And again, gurgling sound was heard.

What a pleasant feeling... No confusion, no feelings just a good old goblin slaying.

As he was enjoying the feeling of dying goblins, he heard a lot of goblins coming from behind. So they indeed heard the exploding pepper bomb. He pulled an oil glass flask from his pouch and poured it behind him on the floor. Carefully, because there is the torch he dropped earlier when he drew the short bow, and he didn't want to use another flask just because he is careless. Those things cost money.

He ran further into the cave, still listening if anything is in front of him. He knew the explosion from the pepper bomb would gain attention. And he knew that the path in front of him should be clear since archers are the last line of defense of goblins. But still. You never know.

Imagination is a weapon and those who lack it die first.

With the confirmation that not a single goblin is in the remote part of the cave, he prepared for the next attack. Turning to the place where he came from, he pulled an oiled arrow from his pouch, he drew the string and put the tip of an arrow on the torch he threw here earlier. The arrow quickly caught on fire, and Goblin Slayer waited, still expecting everything, even an attack from behind where the bodies of goblin archers are, and where he thinks it's a dead end.

First, he heard his poison bomb go off. The explosion wasn't anything massive like with pepper bomb, but he caught it up amidst the goblin gurgling. He was tempted to shot the fire arrow on the goblin that was squirming on the ground in front of him, with fire shrapnels burning his body. But the pleasure of that will have to wait.

Finally, a goblin appeared from the place where he once stood, illuminated by the torch he left behind there. Four goblins in total got past the traps. Three of them stood where he poured the oil on the ground. Huh, that's more than he expected to stand there. Before the goblins realized where their prey was, Goblin Slayer shot the fire arrow with a precision High Elf Ranger wouldn't be ashamed of, on the pool of highly flammable oil below the goblins.

The three goblins were caught in flames immediately and the last one watched the other three burn with what looked like a surprised face. And that surprised face was quickly pierced with a regular arrow from Goblin Slayer. Before the last goblin could fall to the ground, another arrow pierced goblin's heart.

"Five."

Goblin Slayer prepared another arrow if some other goblins would show up. Five minutes he stood there, patiently, with his guard up. However, no one showed up. Seeing that the coast is relatively clear, he got into the dirty work.

Picking up the torch in front of him, Goblin Slayer got further into the cave, looking for the bodies of the goblin archers that shot arrows at him. And after a few more steps, he found them. Two with their heads pierced, and one leaving a blood trail further into the cave.

Though he is sure he can't be far because he hears a gurgling in pain of a goblin in front of him. With a torch in his right hand, he grabbed a throwing knife with his left and threw it in the direction the gargling came from.

Goblin Slayer turned to the two headshoted goblin bodies in front of him. He pulled the knife he stole from the goblin before he entered the cave, and he pierced their hearts.

"Six and Seven."

Leaving the knife in the goblin's body, he went to the goblin that tried to ran away. He found him, laying on the ground with an arrow in the leg and a knife in his neck, choking on his own blood. Goblin Slayer pulled out a throwing a knife from his pouch, and stabbed the choking goblin through the heart.

"Eight."

That should be all of them here. Goblin Slayer examined the rest of this cave and where it leads. There was a dead end few steps from the place where he killed the eighth goblin. So this part is now completely cleaned.

He went back to the trap part of the cave, to discover those six goblins that were suffering from burning shrapnel in their bodies, painfully squirming on the cave floor. With no mercy, Goblin Slayer pierced their hearts, one by one, with new throwing knives.

"Fourteen."

With a torch in hand, he slowly made his way back from where he came from. And on the edge of this trap room, he encountered the three goblin burnt bodies and the one goblin that took an arrow to the face. Again, he pulled the knives and stabbed the three hearts that were not pierced.

"Seventeen."

Now to the place with his own trap. Goblin Slayer pulled a piece of white cloth from his pouch. He took off his helmet, wrapped it around his nose and mouth, and quickly put the helmet back on. After it, he walked back to the crossroads in the cave. And along the walk, he saw the result of his study on how goblins behave around traps. All nine of the small bear traps captured goblin's legs, with kneeling goblins gasping for fresh air, in their last attempt to survive the poison. Standing in the middle of the purple poisonous smoke, Goblin Slayer again pierced hearts of every goblin captured inside the traps. Thankfully those goblins had weapons such as swords and knives so he could use those to finish them and sparing his throwing knives from going blunt.

"Twenty-six."

When he was packing the bear traps for future use, he picked the club from one of the dead goblins and went back with that weapon. Clubs are the most effective weapon against goblins after all. No sharp edge to go numb, just an old fashioned head bashing.

Goblin Slayer walked to where the crossroads is, now thinking about what do next. He needs to check the other cave where the blood trails lead, that's without debate. Yes, he is prepared for anything, even now he is prepared for their surprise attack, but it's always better trying to avoid ambushes. It can bring too much misfortune. Upon reaching the crossroads, Goblin Slayer took the cloth around his mouth of again, and stored it in his pouch.

Following the blood trail to the left corridor of the cave, he thought about the situation he is in. The previous blood trail ended in the trap room. With not a woman insights. Or even the two brothers. So, if they have a room with used and dead bodies, this will probably be it.

This particular cave hall is much longer than the previous one. But what he is pleased to see is more blood trails. That means his guess is probably right. Walking deeper on this path, the cave again expanded. He didn't see anything in the darkness where the light from the torch couldn't reach, but he hears a sound of goblins. Eating. Suddenly the sound smacking stopped.

They already spotted him. He isn't too worried though. By the sound of the smacking, it's maximum of three goblins here. That's if some goblins aren't feasting, but hiding from him somewhere further. Unfortunately for them, Goblin Slayer is prepared for this too.

Two goblins emerged from the darkness and jumped at Goblin Slayer's head. Goblin Slayer blocked one goblin with a shield on his left arm from reaching his helmet, and the other one received a hard punch with a hand that holds a torch to the face. The punched goblin fell on the cave floor, and before he could get up, his face was smashed with a torch, burning his face, killing the goblin.

"Twenty-seven."

The angry goblin attached to the shield tried to scratch Goblin Slayer, but to no avail. He held the green creature far from his face.

Goblin Slayer dropped the torch, pulled the club from his sword sheath and smashed the goblin's head against the shield with the club, splattering the blood on his helmet and shield.

"Twenty-eight."

Now was the time to look for the victims in this room. Judging by the stench, he is in the right place. Though before the examination of the room, Goblin Slayer picked his torch and put the club back to the sheath off the sword. It is hard to force the club there, but he is out of space so this will have to do. He walked around the roomy cave and checked for any kind of exits or entrances. And he didn't find anything. Seems like this is the dead end and not a single goblin is here.

Now he can focus on analyzing what is happening here. So far, the encounters with goblins were normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Intelligence fit for goblins, and tactics like in a regular goblin nest. What slightly bothers him, is the fact he didn't encounter any kind of leader. Goblin Shaman, hobgoblin nor goblin champion showed up. Not one. He thinks that his theory about someone much smarter being behind this nest is getting more plausible.

Checking the walls of the cave for entrances, Goblin Slayer went to the center of the cave. His torch slowly lightening the place where he went to, as more and more blood was on the ground. But again, something surprised him. What surprised him was that he didn't find any hands or legs cut off. Dismembering people is one of goblins hobbies too after all so what is happening here? He doubts they started being nice. The only nice goblins are dead goblins. Simple premise he does not intend to change anytime soon.

When he reached the center of the room, he was not surprised to find partly eaten woman bodies stacked on one place atop of each other. With a displeased groan, Goblin Slayer got to the dirty work again. He pulled the bodies from the pile and one by one he lined them up for examination. And to his surprise, all of the bodies were here. All seven girls were here, including the girl that was kidnapped this afternoon. Not only that, the two men were here too.

Partly eaten young women, with half of their faces and bodies missing is not something most people can stomach. But Goblin Slayer isn't normal. Gruesome sight for others, daily sight for Goblin Slayer.

With the dead bodies lined up in a row, he looked for clues on why the goblins behave in such a strange way. So first, every single one of them had signs of goblin torture. Knife slashes, claw marks, bruises, all of them had it. Except for the two men. It did not surprise Goblin Slayer, those disgusting creatures enjoy the screams of the fairer sex and not that of a man.

Goblin Slayer even spotted some white dried liquid around the girl's private areas. So goblins raped them too before they killed them. Or after. Again, this behavior is normal for them. Nothing out of the ordinary so far.

Seems like normal goblin behavior, except for the fact ALL of them were here. They are not the brightest creatures, but when they torture their captives, the victims last few days at least so goblins can replenish their numbers. The girl from the afternoon is already here, not lasting even a few hours.

Add the fact their numbers rise significantly and this thing doesn't make sense whatsoever. He expected all of them alive since someone has to give birth to those goblins. He got a bad vibe from this. This is awfully similar to the Water Town incident with the Magic Mirror. If these girls aren't responsible for such a quick rise in numbers, then something else must be behind this.

Goblin Slayer shifted his attention to the men in the dead group, thinking why goblins would bother dragging them into their nest. It can't be for breeding and since they don't have any wounds, they didn't bring them for torture either.

However, upon closer inspection, there is one wound on those men. Not a wound exactly, but there are four small holes on the sides of their neck. They are formed in a rectangular shape, and there is a little bit of blood seeping out of them. "Hmm..."

When he looked at the other corpses, all of them had those 4 blood seeping holes in their necks. And speaking of blood, the corpses here were flesh, skin, and bones. The parts eaten away by goblins had very little blood on them. In fact, this seems awfully clean. There should be blood all over them, but there isn't. It was like the blood was sucked out of them.

"What a strange thing." Goblin Slayer thought, not knowing what could have caused this.

Author's note: Aaaaand it's a two-parter. Sorry. I hope you will wait for the girls and the romance part of this fic because I want to clearly show why GS is a badass since we don't have much of his POV in the anime and how he thinks and figures everything out. I promise once his fight will be done, I will focus on the girls again.

So, I think now it should be very clear who GS enemy is, even though GS doesn't have a clue. Because, you know, he is an expert on goblins and doesn't think or knows about other creatures.

And someone asked me to shove Noble Fencer into the harem. And I seriously consider it. But be aware, my knowledge of GS is solely from anime. I know some things that happened in the manga and LN, but I am far from an expert. So I will maybe borrow some parts, like a festival thing, GS Spearman and Heavy Swordsman team-up and the Noble fencer part with my own spin on it. I know what happened to Noble Fencer, and the idea of GS's party saving her just in the nick of time seems like a very pleasant idea. So we will see.

And I decided that Hero will be in the harem. It will take some time before she appears, but she will be in it. Now, LN readers, or even just casual fans who googled who Noble Fencer is, let me know if you want her in the harem or not. That's all from me!

Leave the review, and see ya!