Try as he may, Goblin Slayer couldn't shake the memory of seeing the five teenagers and two children from his mind. No matter how much he tried brushing the surreal experience off as nothing more than a hallucination caused by— as BB has said it— "a glitch in the Moon-Cell", Goblin Slayer could only reflect the fact that the vision felt personal, as if though it was a memory belonging to him. 'Nothing about that scene correlating to my life makes any sense… How did I know that those two kids were my siblings, and why did that basement and those teens seem so, so familiar…? But yet… Yet, it shouldn't; it has no right being nostalgic to me… This is all so worrisome, ' Goblin Slayer thought to himself; his dusty-rose colored eyes half paying attention to the holographic map he had opened up in front of his chest, as his mind continued to reflect more on what felt to him to be an oddly comforting memory.
Kept warm by the fur-collared jacket that BB had cleaned for him, along with the additional pieces of sub-zero clothing that were bought for him and High Elf Archer by Noble Fencer herself. In exchange for her financing a solution to an overlooked problem of staying warm— a problem that neither he nor High Elf Archer took into account for, prior to being recruited by Noble Fencer— Goblin Slayer convinced Fairy Knight to speed up the expedition by pulling the sleigh full of them and the precious supplies needed for the trip up the path; an agreement that took extra convincing on the boy's part, as the white-haired servant wasn't too fond of the idea in the first place.
Before returning to "Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna" to pick up the sleigh that the servant would be pulling, Fairy Knight was treated to her own grandiose nine-course meal that cost Noble Fencer upward of nearly six silver pieces. Despite her small stature and petite appearance, Fairy Knight had the appetite of a dragon, and succeeded everyone's expectations by asking for several different cakes for her dessert aftward; running the tab even higher, which the extremely wealthy teenager didn't mind one bit, and actually found the whole ordeal entertaining.
With the path carved ahead of them through the jagged rocky terrain and winter wonderland that surrounded them with evergreen trees and snow, night was beginning to set as they drew closer to their destination. Time was of the essence, as Noble Fencer shared goblins facts with High Elf Archer; both females coming to an agreement that the goblins would feel braver under the cover of night, as the probability of her party getting blitzed by a cave full of opportunistic goblins was extremely high.
The lives of Noble Fencer's party were at stake, and with Fairy Knight's speed being limited to what the sleigh itself could handle under her powerful control, there was uncertainty within the cold-night air about whether or not they would even make it in time. Yet, despite all of this Goblin Slayer was finding himself mildly detached from everything that was going on; shaken within, while having to adjust his focus away from his inner thoughts of doubt. The brown-wooden trunks of the towering Evergreen trees, with all their majestic pine needle-leaves covered in thick blankets of beautiful white snow, were all passing by him like a blur, and just as the purple hues of twilight were beginning to settle down over the chilly forest, the sleigh came to a stop at the dying embers of the shivering group's campfire.
Hearing Noble Fencer quietly whisper underneath her breath "We're here", Goblin Slayer's dusty-rose colored eyes darted over to the fourteen year-old girl, watching her curiously, while his growing existential dread lingering back into the recesses of his mind. ' There's seven men, and nine women here… Was she truly that persuasive? Perhaps she's a natural born leader? Yes… That must be the case… How else would a fourteen year-old convince so many adults to follow her toward just a treacherous path? ' Goblin Slayer wondered to himself, before being gently elbowed in the rib by High Elf Archer, who stared at him with an inquisitive look on her face, while slowly gesturing at the boy toward the supplies they had in the back.
While Goblin Slayer and High Elf Archer quietly spoke to one another as they began to unload some food and firewood from the back of the sleigh, Noble Fencer did her best to come off as lackadaisical as possible; smiling with false confidence and vigor written all over her beautiful face, as she approached the tired, hungry and cold adventurers who were shivering in their seats, on top of various pieces of deadwood. "I've returned with reinforcements and an ample supply of food, water, and camping provisions meant to tackle high-altitude mountaineering! Come, come! Let's get ourselves together, and prepare for a decisive victory against these green-skinned bastards!" Noble Fencer rallied with a strong voice and rallying aura that managed to convince all of her party members to get up off of their logs, so that they could begin lining up near the sleigh to get their much-needed resupply from Goblin Slayer and High Elf Archer.
Stepping aside to supervisor her party members, many of which were a little too fascinated with High Elf Archer's petite and beautiful body, or with Goblin Slayer's youthfulness, Noble Fencer ended up losing her focus the moment she was pulled to the side by her second in command: a black-haired half-elf who wore her long hair in a ponytail, and who had a light-set of armor thr revealed her slender legs. "Excuse me, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but why did you think bringing back a child would benefit any of us…?" Half-Elf Warrior asked quietly, as she and Noble Fencer had their backs towards their most feminine party member, who was battering his lashes and smiling widely at the slightly confused boy that was offering the nineteen year-old a glass container of food.
Putting her loosely-closed fists down on her hips, Noble Fencer gave Half-Elf Warrior a smug-cock grin with the top of her eyelids half-way closed. " Heh… Don't let him hear you saying that, Cassandra… That " child" there happens to be the most extraordinary person I've ever seen. See that white-haired girl in the skimpy armor?" Noble Fencer asked, as she wrapped her arm around the back of Half-Elf Warrior, turning the confused woman toward the direction of where Fairy Knight was standing, with her back and one-foot resting against the trunk of an Evergreen tree. "What you're looking at is the embodiment of the phrase " big things come in small packages"! I haven't seen her fight herself yet, but apparently she's quicker than a flash of light, stronger than a dragon, and as ferocious enough to make the Chaos God frightened… She calls herself that " child's" servant, and can endow him with otherworldly powers… Trust me, that kid's our key towards completing this quest within less than a day or so; zero casualties or set-backs, guaranteed!"
Unlike most of the other hired adventurers who joined the upbeat and smug teenager, Half-Elf Warrior was the only one with enough foresight to look past the promised glory and reward to question her leader's mannerisms. Arching an eyebrow as she looked away from their extremely pink and girly femboy party member making chit-cut with Goblin Slayer, Half-Elf Warrior let out an elongated sigh as she crossed her arms over her own breasts. "That's… Quite the promise you're making; although seeing how you've made good on your word thus far, I suppose I'm obligated to give you the benefit of the doubt," the half-elf said with a soft, begrudging smile spreading across her thin lips; prompting Noble Fencer to brighten up.
While Noble Fencer and Half-Elf Warrior were rallying the rest of their party members up to discuss the game plan that the honey-blond teenager had already constructed with her new comrades, the feminine young man who had taken a liking to Goblin Slayer stayed behind to begin chatting with him. "Thank you very much for coming along to help us, cutie…! I don't want the others to hear this, but… I had my doubts that we were going to get out of this mess with our lives," the femboy with short-straightened blond hair admitted quietly, as he sat his supplies down before beginning to cover his skimpy blue two-piece bikini vestiges with the puffy-white fur coat that Goblin Slayer had handed to him. "Mmmm, uwaah~…! Much better…!" The femboy purred with an admittedly cute, blushing smile forming over his cold and pale face; prompting Goblin Slayer to tilt his head slightly toward his shoulder, as he stared back at the feminine, older male.
' It's hard to distinguish what this person's gender is… They certainly look like a girl, and sound like one too… Certainly are acting like one, that's for sure,' Goblin Slayer thought to himself, as he looked down past the bottom edges of the femboy's fur coat, to eye the curvy-hairless legs that were visible above the knee-high white boots that the blond boy had on. "Yeah, I'm sure it is… What did you say your name was again?" Goblin Slayer asked with a distracted voice; needing a moment to look away from the femboy's soft, plump thighs, so as to focus his attention onto the blondie's large, beautiful eyes.
Blinking his lashes a few times at the curious ten year-old, the blond femboy let out a flirtatious, throaty laugh before crossing his arms downward, and across his covered groin. "Hmhm~!I haven't said my name yet, cutie; but if you're asking, then allow me to satiate any sort of… " Curiosity" that you may be feeling right now, hehe~!" The femboy said with an alluring and submissive expression forming on his blushing face, as he nibbled down slightly on his lush-bottom lip. "My name is " Jesse Fairchild", or just " Light Priest", if you're wondering about what my adventurer-tag says…! I have a younger sister who's about your age; maybe just four years younger than you, actually… And what about you, hmm~? Dare I be as bold as to ask for your name in return for giving you mine~?"
"Yeah, uh… Sure. My name is "Ren Ashta", or just " Goblin Slayer"… At least, that's who I " think" I am," Goblin Slayer murmured, after introducing himself to the very friendly and flirtatious femboy who was nine years older than he was.
Perplexed and wanting to show interest in what the boy had to say to him, Light Priest raised an eyebrow while still trying to smile gently at Goblin Slayer, before parting his smooth, shiny lips to speak. "That's who you "think" you are? Forgive me for trespassing any boundaries between us— as I'm sure you're not quite ready to share with someone who you just met five minutes ago— but… What do you mean by that, Goblin Slayer?" Light Priest asked politely.
Not wanting to drag someone who he just met into his growing existential dilemma and identity crisis, Goblin Slayer needed a moment to think of a way to articulate his feelings before saying them to Light Priest. Thankfully, High Elf Archer— who had been watching the two interact with one another, since the moment she was done handing out supplies— felt the need to inject on their conversation; saving Goblin Slayer the disgrace of looking like a liar, while trying to conjure up a vague and prompt-to explanation.
"Hey buddy, just in case you missed it, Noble Fencer is calling you over right now, and she's giving you the stink-eye; if I were you, I wouldn't keep her waiting for much longer," High Elf Archer pointed out politely, while subtly gesturing toward the honeycomb-blond teenager, who was standing about twenty meters back with her arm waving for Light Priest to come toward her huddled group.
Turning to look back at the confused and impatient stare he was getting from Noble Fencer, Light Priest's already blushed cheeks became an even darker shade of pink, as embarrassment began flooding into the femboy's mind. "O-Oh my gosh, you're right…! Uwuah…! I-I hope they haven't been waiting too long for my arrival, hehe~…!" Light Priest laughed nervously to himself, before looking back at Goblin Slayer with an apologetic smile that came off as sweet, and endearing. "My most sincere apologies if I took more of your precious time than I needed to, Goblin Slayer; I must have got caught a little too much in your company~…! I'll see the two of you when we regroup; until then, I'll take my leave," Light Priest said with a forma bow, before turning around to begin quickly jogging back with his hips swaying from left-to-right as he picked up his heeled boots high behind him with each brisk step he took.
Unable to help but grin bemused at the way Light Priest was running with both his hands held out with his elbows tucked into his slender love handles, High Elf Archer gave Goblin Slayer a playful nudge as the two of them watched him meet up with his party members. "Heh…!Oh wow, he even runs like a girl…! By the way, I think he's got a little bit of a crush on you, haha, heh~!" She half-jokingly commented, while hopping off the sleigh with her bow in one hand. "Come on, we should meet them at the entrance of the cave; whatever they're talking about in their little group doesn't concern us, as far as I'm concerned," High Elf Archer said with a bit of sass in her throat, as she beckoned for Goblin Slayer to walk alongside her with Fairy Knight trailing behind him.
While the idea of homosexuality certainly didn't disgust him, it made Goblin Slayer wonder whether or not it would be considered gay if he would have admitted to finding Light Priest attractive, since to him there was hardly anything masculine about the soft-spoken femboy to begin with. One thing was for certain though, the way that Light Priest's surprisingly juicy ass cheeks were swallowing up the thin-layer of blue fabric that was a part of his bikini thong was quite arousing in its own right; with the tail-end of the thick, hourglass-framed femboy's fur coat flowing up in the wind behind him, which gave Goblin Slayer an amazing view to Light Priest's plump bottom, and luscious thighs.
Motivated by the need to mask his inner dread with the sheer amount of lust that his overactive libido was endowing his hormones with, Goblin Slayer stood at the entrance of the cave with his holographic interface raised up in front of his face, and in "augmented-reality" mode; allowing him to see the entirety of the goblin infested cave through a blue-print grid overlay that showed him every inch of the underground tunnels. Armed with his short-sword and his powerful servant who was itching to draw blood onto her forearm-blades, the ten year-old had High Elf Archer behind him with her bow drawn, and Noble Fencer beside him with her entire party gathered behind her.
Knowing that only he, High Elf Archer, BB and Fairy Knight were the only ones who had the means to see in the pitch-black cave— with the minty-green haired woman still having her small golden amulet on, that allowed her to see in the dark— Goblin Slayer switched over to "builder mode" on his augmented-reality overlay. Hearing an cacophony of audible sighs behind him as he began decorating the insides of the rocky tunnels with lit torches that he spawned mounted onto the cavern's inner walls, it wasn't long after until Goblin Slayer and the rest of his party heard the ungodly-collective shrieks of goblins coming from deeper into the cave.
Judging by how his torches deeper into the belly of the cavern were being hastily destroyed, Goblin Slayer quickly made the deduction that the goblins' sensitive and nocturnal vision meant that they were previous to any and all bright sources of light. Wanting to contain the goblins within the cave to prevent any from escaping, Goblin Slayer had Noble Fencer order her party members to move deeper into the cave and away from the mouth of the cave; giving the ten year-old space to have his managerial AI teacher construct an electromagnetic-activated metal door built into a heavy-frame at the mouth of the cave.
Reassuring the panic adventurers that they would be safe, Goblin Slayer used more of his own stored resources to transform the inside entrance to the cave into a heavily-fortified area that came with two-meter thick steel walls, a ceiling with protected filtered air vents that poked out from the the top of the snow-covered hill they were inside, and a solid-metal barrier that offered protection to those who Noble Fencer would have stationed at the newly-built front entrance. Using his own mana to energize the ceiling lights and floodlights— both inventions being new to him, and available only because BB kept recommending new blue-prints to him— Goblin Slayer finished the vault-esque design of his "safe-area" with some decorations and retro-styled furnishings to provide comfort to those who would have to guard the secured entrance.
Commanding Light Priest with most of her other party members to stay behind to finish off any goblins that would try to flee from the cave, Noble Fencer had Half-Elf Warrior come with her, as she followed sightly behind Goblin Slayer as they began making their descent deeper into the cave system. And to say that the goblins had trapped laid out would have been a massive understatement, as most of the first part of their journey into the heart of the cave system was spent disarming all the traps that both Fairy Knight and BB were able to point out, before Goblin Slayer even noticed them through his augmented-vision.
Compared to what he was capable of constructing, the rusty spring-traps and trip-wires pulley systems that the goblins had prepared for them were pathetic at best, and downright embarrassing at worst. At some point, Fairy Knight began growing impatient and just chose to walk straight through each trap; activating them all, without a single one of them being able to even tickle her, as they all failed and shattered after being sprung on her. Once they managed to get through the mundane task of getting past the goblins' traps, the group of adventurers were met with a fork in the cave system that split off into three separate tunnels; a normally treacherous situation that would have been a death sentence to most adventurers.
Circumventing the need to choose a path or to split off down into the three separate tunnels, Goblin Slayer created two more electromagnetic-activated doors to block both the left and the right tunnels; ensuring that the goblins who weren't in the central tunnel wouldn't be able to leave their created tomb, until the group was ready to slay them at their own pace. Stepping past the snuffed torches that laid at their feet, and through the tight walls of the central tunnel, Fairy Knight led the way to ensure that the goblins who had been waiting for the adventurers on the other side with their spears would be met with a grizzly end.
The moment the first goblin tried to stab Fairy Knight through the crevice she was squeezing herself through, she immediately reversed the attack by effortlessly grabbed the weapon's wooden shaft; pulling hard on it to force the confused goblin close to the small opening of the tight-corridor, before immediately dragging it in violently by its neck. Allowing the goblin to scream in agony as it lost its limbs from the way they got snagged on the outside of the tight-corridor before Fairy Knight aggressively pulled it inside, the servant shut the panicked vermin up for hood by sinking her fangs into the limbless creature's frontal lobe; tearing a chunk of its brain and cranium out, before chewing and swallowing it like a piece of bread.
Instilling fear and confusion into the rest of the goblins who had witnessed their kin's gruesome demise, Fairy Knight could hear the rest of the green-skinned creatures crying out as they scrambled away from the entrance of the tight-opening; each of the goblins fearing that they would be next, which ended up becoming true the moment Goblin Slayer made his way deep enough to allow Fairy Knight to rip the rest of the goblins, limb-by-limb. Once Goblin Slayer and the rest of his party had managed to squeeze through the tight-opening, all of them proceeded to storm through the darkness; High Elf Archer firing multiple arrows that landed into the foreheads of each goblin that had tried shooting them from their hiding spot, while Noble Fencer used her own magic to produce volatile lighting bolts that arched from one goblin to the next.
The deeper they advanced into the central tunnel, the heavily infested it became with shrieking goblins. With Fairy Knight slaughtering goblins left and right, Goblin Slayer fought alongside Half-Elf Warrior and Noble Fencer; the trio using their swordsmanship to help the white-haired servant mow down the hundreds of goblins that were failing to retreat into the dead-end of the tunnel, all while High Elf Archer stood vigilant while shooting the few goblins who had managed to slip on by the massacre. And at the very end of the middle tunnel, there stood several hobgoblins who were severely outmatched by the group and their servant; leaving behind their army's gathered fortunes, as well as their chained up sex-slaves who had the misfortune of being captured.
Although the piles and piles of coins, enchanted weapons and artifacts were certainly appealing to Half-Elf Warrior, she was told that she would have to wait until the end of their extermination to receive her share of the prize-pool by Noble Fencer. Although it was a little bothersome to see Goblin Slayer making the hundreds of tons of valuable loot disappear into his inventory, Half-Elf Archer was too occupied with doing her part to free the surviving sex-slaves from their shackles to actually give her greed more than a moment's thought.
Escorting the survivors toward the safe area, the party of adventurers handed the traumatized women over to Light Priest, who in turn handled the situation very well as he began healing each and every one of them; curing them of unwanted pregnancies, and of all illnesses that they acquired in such horrible conditions. Not wanting the survivors to be more uncomfortable than they already were, Goblin Slayer had BB create a fortified room that was connected to the side of the safe-area; allowing her to create a much-needed fast-travel point that would be accessible for when they were done securing the rest of the cavern.
Even though the rest of the ordeal was rather predictable and uneventful as far as how easy it was to clear the rest of the goblins out, Goblin Slayer felt an inspiring sense of accomplishment and happiness filling his heart up by the end of it; with the whole operation ending as as he threw his short-sword into the back of the last retreating-goblin's head. With even more survivors and loot rounded up from the last two tunnels, things were more or less bittersweet for them within their shared victory; making their last trek back to the safe-area respectfully quiet, so as to not flaunt their triumph in the faces of those who were catatonic and broken.
Everything was returning to normal for Goblin Slayer, and any thoughts of self-doubt would have been forgotten soon enough through the passage of time, had it not been for the fact that the augmented-vision that the boy's eyes were absorbed into began to distort the world around him into glitching geometric shapes and highlighter-like colors; inferring with not only his sight, but the rest of Goblin Slayer's senses as well. Confused and slowing his steady pace down to a halt, Goblin Slayer could feel a dull pain awakening from the back of his head as the maddened bright-colors and shifting lines in his augmented vision began to intensify more by the second, causing him to seethe in pain.
Tightening his jaw shut while reaching his hands up in a futile attempt to nurse his head-splitting migraine, just as the ringing that appeared within his eardrums was beginning to deaden him, the acute agony and distortion that had quickly overwhelmed him suddenly vanished; leaving him with mental whiplash, as he opened his eyes to find himself looking through the vision of someone else. From what he could tell, he was back in the same basement hangout area that he had seen before in his last vision, with the exception that whoever he was seeing through had their pale hands grasped at the ends of an electronic tablet that had a haunting scene playing out on its monitor; a grotesque scene that depicted Noble Fencer and Half-Elf Warrior getting restrained and stripped of their clothing, by a horde of goblins who looked as though they had just finished butchering the rest of their party in the snow.