Five minutes. All Goblin Slayer had to do was survive for five more minutes, before his mana would be fully restored; allowing for him to re-establish his connection to the Moon-Cell, in order to have access to his servant and AI assistant once more. Step-by-step, the sheer amount of paranoia the boy felt underneath the darkness of the heavily wooded area was astounding; unable to discern whether the incoherent whispers and muttering voices he heard coming from the large bushes along the dirt road were real or an illusion, Goblin Slayer proceeded blindly down the unoccupied road with his fingers wrapped firmly around the leather handle of his sword.
'This is the longest five minutes I've ever spent waiting in my life… Wait, what the hell was that?!' Goblin Slayer thought dreadfully to himself, as he stood still to extend his torch outward toward the heavy flora that covered the bottom trunks of all the oak trees, just left of the path. Using only a dying flame to guide him, the dim light of the embers he had at the end of his makeshift-torch allowed the boy to see dark writhing masses that looked to be within the shapes of ovals; all of which were separated from one another by an arms length, as the haunting whispers grew louder and more intense by the second.
With how hard he had been focusing, Goblin Slayer almost found himself getting distracted with trying to get a better look at all the shapes within the bushes that seemed to just refuse to fully emerge from their hiding spot. However, the paranoid and alert boy was able to bring himself to turn his head from the odd sight, and what he found approaching him from behind caused a chill to run down his spine. Spinning around and stumbling backward, Goblin Slayer saw what looked like the green-haired elf from earlier; smiling unnaturally wide with her lips stretching out from ear-to-ear, as her bloodshot eyes seemed far smaller than he remembered them being.
Letting out a shaking breath of relief, Goblin Slayer took a moment to shine his torch back at the bushes where he heard the whispering come from; not only were the black-writhing masses gone entirely, but so were the incoherent and ghastly murmurs as well. ' It's quiet… The animals and bugs aren't making noises anymore… And the way she's looking at me… Wasn't she shorter? ' Goblin Slayer thought to himself, while slowly looking back toward where the elf woman had been standing; flinching and letting out a gasp, as he stepped away from the seven-foot tall being, after realizing how much closer it had gotten to him.
"You, uh… Hehe, heh…! Y-You really startled me; these woods are already creepy enough, you really shouldn't be sneaking up on me like that," Goblin Slayer said with a nervous laughter, as he felt his skin crawl upon looking up into the elf's small-beady eyes, before his eyes began to water the moment he caught a whiff of the foul-rotting stench emanating from the pale-woman's disheveled body; her exposed skin caked in dirt, as were her oddly textured pieces of armor and clothes that consisted of an outfit that looked similar to one she had on earlier.
Seeing rows of reddened teeth within the elf's mouth as she slowly opened her jaw to speak, Goblin Slayer anxiously averted his watery-gaze from her bleeding gums as he checked the status of his mana, from the menu he still had up near the front of his hip. "… W-What's…? What's a human-child….? D-Doing out here…? By t-themselves…?" The uncanny woman asked in a voice that sounded slightly off, compared to the voice that the already paranoid and terrified boy could recall from not too long ago.
"W… Why are you asking me that again? I… I already told you where I was going," Goblin Slayer pointed out with his once sinking suspicion now flourishing into full-scale dread, as he no longer could excuse the white-skinned elf— with all of her uncanny resemblance to he remembered her looking— as anything less than another monster that was dwelling within the forest with him.
Just as he was about to raise his short-sword to take a swing at the uncanny monster, he was caught off guard the moment it used its nearly five-foot long arm to aggressively smack his weapon out of his hand; disarming him, before using the same movement-speed to grab him by his shoulder tightly with its other hand. Still holding the torch, Goblin Slayer's widened eyes saw the unnaturally long fingers the mimicking creature had; with its digits being as long as his forearm.
Immediately thinking back to the white-faced ghostly monster who he had encountered less than seven minutes ago, Goblin Slayer's insides were writhing in dread as he did everything in his power to avoid making eye-contact with the monster, as it extended its rubbery neck down to get within inches of his face. "You… Understand… That I can't let you… Go any further…" The monster spoke again; sounding as though it was trying less to mimic the way the actual elf sounded, as its deep-guttural voice was more prevalent that time around.
Cringing as he heard its scratchy voice echoing out of its elongated throat, while hearing its bones pop and skin stretch as the creature's jaw began to stretch downward large enough to fit his entire head, Goblin Slayer's knees were shaking as he finally to the opportunity to dispose of his dying torch. Just as the creature pulled him closer to its gaping maw to bite his head clean off, Goblin Slayer thrusted the burning torch into the back of its throat; the flammable gel reacting to the monster's saliva, as its low flames were reignited into an inferno that filled the shrieking monster's insides with cleaning flames.
Completely not expecting to have its insides filled with an organic napalm concoction, the skin-walker began to violently flail and convulse; throwing Goblin Slayer several meters away down the dirt path, as it tried desperately to douse its internal flames by shedding its skin. Although the landing did hurt— as his knees and hands were scrapped against the pebbles along the path— Goblin Slayer was able to brush off his minor injuries to scramble up onto his feet; watching with adrenaline pumping through his veins, as the seven-foot tall monster without its skin began flailing its arms in jittery movements.
Going against his body's self-preservation instincts, Goblin Slayer picked up the short-sword from the ground before forcing himself to come closer to the skin-walker. Leaping forward with his blade cocked-back, Goblin Slayer attempted to stab the burning mass of writhing flesh in its chest, but was sent flying backwards after the creature accidentally swung its melting arm outward in his direction; the wind getting knocked out of him, as he tumbled backward where he had landed just moments ago.
Laying on his chest, Goblin Slayer lifted himself up by his forearms and watched while gasping painfully for breath as the burning skin-walker began clusimily sprinting at him; its gelatinous flesh melting off in clumps that felt onto the ground, leaving it only as a burning skeletal frame by the time that it got close enough to lift the terrified child up from the ground. Seething in pain from the bow hot the flames were that came out from its remaining insides, Goblin Slayer stared down at the empty eye sockets of the burning skull that was staring up at him; the skin-walker's jaw falling off of its scorched tendons, as he let out one final blood-curdling shriek, before collapsing into a pile of bone-fragments and ash.
Having been lifted above the shoulders of the seven-foot tall monstrosity, Goblin Slayer's fall was far more painful than the last two had been; the sides of his body covered in red-skin, after the burning skin-walker's skeletal hands had grabbed him. Using his elbows and heels, the breathless child crawled backwards away from the flames that crackled from the pile of remains before him; Goblin Slayer's eyes staring past the blackened smoke, to where the dim orange-light of the dying fire revealed more white-faced and uncanny monsters emerging from the bushes.
Cursing while still struggling to fill his burning lungs with air, Goblin Slayer was filled with despair after seeing that he was still a minute away from being able to have enough mana to summon Fairy Knight to save him. With time not on his side; and his sword too far away for him to reach, Goblin Slayer fought against his fatigued body to get up off the dirt road; once again going against his better judgment, as he stumbled toward the pale-faced monsters that were using their unnaturally long black-legs to come lumbering out of the bushes toward him.
Stumbling forward as he ducked underneath a nearly twelve-foot long arm that had multiple joints underneath its writhing black skin, Goblin Slayer's fingers almost dropped the handle of his sword, after he managed to pick it up while beginning to run back toward the way he came. Getting out of reach from the fading light of the dying fire, Goblin Slayer began to weigh his options as he noticed through the darkness a disturbing sight. Sprinting on all four of its grotesque limbs was another skin-walker, who was smiling widely at him with its bloodied teeth and pale face, as it rushed toward him like a twitching spider.
'Twenty seconds… Twenty seconds isn't enough, ' Goblin Slayer concluded to himself, after briefly taking his eyes off the monster up ahead, in order to check how much longer he needed to regain enough mana to reconnect his soul back to the Moon-Cell. Remembering how easily the last skin-walker was able to disarm him with how unnaturally long its arm was, Goblin Slayer had a feeling that the monster that was now less than a meter away from him was anticipating that he would desperately try swinging his sword at it.
Playing into the skin-walker's anticipation, Goblin Slayer raised his sword over his shoulder, pretending that he was going to be foolish enough to swing his sword at it. Timing the movement of its hard-to-see arms accordingly, Goblin Slayer instead kicked his feet down in order to slide underneath the monster's out-stretched arms, flaying its torso open, as his body slid underneath it along the dirt path. Much like its fallen kin, the skin-walker began flailing and screaming as its pitch-black insides gushed out of its butterflied body; unintentionally kicking Goblin Slayer in the back, and sending him fall face-first down on the ground, after he had attempted to roll back up on his feet.
Hearing multiple heavy footsteps rushing toward him from the rustling bushes while he was laying flat on his stomach, Goblin Slayer's blood froze as his mind immediately began imagining how gruesome his end would be; his terror surpassing the feeling of helplessness he felt during the goblin raid. Just when he heard the whimpering moans of the hungry skin-walkers sounding as though they were crawling above his head, Goblin Slayer recoiled as their perverse groans were all replaced with blood-curdling shrieks of pain; all of which quickly came to an end, within less than a few seconds.
Holding his breath, Goblin Slayer listened to the sound of heavy masses of flesh splattering on the ground, and the deafening silence that came after it. All at once, the terrified and traumatized felt relief the moment tranquility and peacefulness returned to the woods; the birds and insects striking up their mating calls, as the evil presence that had been lingering since his first monster encounter disappeared soon after he heard a familiar and comforting voice clearing its throat.
"… On your feet, Master. You're safe now, for I am with you now; you have nothing to fear," Fairy Knight spoke in a gentle and reassuring voice, before slowly getting down on one knee to rest one hand on the back of Goblin Slayer's shoulder.
Feeling his remaining terror and panic melting away underneath his servant's comforting touch, Goblin Slayer finally began breathing regularly again, as he continued to lay on the dirt path until finally gathering his composure enough to be helped up by Fairy Knight. "I… I shouldn't have been so careless… That was… A living nightmare," Goblin Slayer uttered out with his nerves still shaking, as he stood up on his feet while looking over his left shoulder to be greeted with Fairy Knight's stoic expression; her pale face illuminated by only the cyan-light gently glowing from the marking along her armor and mask.
"Although I couldn't intervene any sooner, I was still able to see you in action, from within your soul… I… I am impressed with what I saw, Master; for a child your age, you survived far longer than any other human would have in that scenario," Fairy Knight complimented with a barely noticeable tone of pride in her voice, as she gave the boy a small pat on the back before lowering her slender arm back down to her side. "With that being said… Refrain from ever experimenting with spells while on the field again— such practices should be exclusive to appropriate training areas that I approve of beforehand."
Nodding his head with an ashamed expression on his face, Goblin Slayer felt disappointed with himself as his eyes lowered away from the gentle-glow of Fairy Knight's armored mask. "… I'm sorry," he apologized with a disturbed feeling course through him— his body shivered while he kept going over in his head about how close he had gotten to being mutilated to death.
Although Fairy Knight wasn't usually one to excuse the behavior or mistakes of others, the white-haired loli could tell that scolding her master wasn't necessary. So instead she raised her hand back up to reassuringly pat him on the back of the shoulder, before beginning to speak after sighing softly. "… These things happen, Master. What's important is that we move on stronger, and more knowledgeable about how to proceed from here-on-forth," Fairy Knight stated factually, before lowering her hand back down from Goblin Slayer's shoulder.
Allowing her master to continue to process his emotions and to do some further self-reflecting, Fairy Knight used the extended blades weapons fastened around her slender forearms to proceed chopping down the surrounding trees; scaring away the woodland creatures who stuck had been sticking around, all for the sake of giving Goblin Slayer the light of the sun, so as to further comfort him and to make him feel that much more safer.
Standing still with cascading rays of solar light warming up the cold-sweat that he had worked up from fighting to stay alive in the darkness, Goblin Slayer was brought out of his deep thoughts by the sound of light-hearted music being played to him by the apologetic AI that was looking back up at him from his menu-panel; bowing down on the ground, so as to surrender herself to his mercy. The pop-up notification that appeared in the center of the holographic screen read "Forgive me, Ashta-Kun. I shouldn't have shown that magecraft spell, knowing that your mana would have fallen into the negative numbers; especially when I knew that there were possible hostiles still within these woods."
'… She and BB-Sensai must be more similar than they want to admit; both of them so far have done things that end up not going their way, just because of their more human-side,' Goblin Slayer mused to himself, as he slowly reached his hand down toward the screen to gentle pet the top of BBB's head; watching as she raised her chin from the non-existent floor, before smiling back at him with a relieved look in her cartoon-eyes. 'They're both more intelligent and resourceful than I could have ever imagined someone being, and do operate on some sort of math-logic… But they've still got hearts or souls of some kind; that might be the reason why I forget a lot of the times that they aren't even really people.'
Finally able to raise the corner of his slightly-trembling lips into a relaxed smile, Goblin Slayer looked away from the sentient AI character before beginning to watch as Fairy Knight stood beside him; feeling joy returning to him, after seeing the usually stoic servant softly beginning to grin back at him. Before he could thank her again for saving his life and for making an effort to comfort him afterward, Goblin Slayer heard a bing coming from his menu-panel. Looking back down at the floating holographic screen, it was then that the boy saw the elf's green-marker pop back onto the GPS-map that BBB had placed on the upper-right corner of his user-interface; signaling to him that she was within a thirty-meter range of his vicinity.
Peering through the darkness underneath the nearby-remaining treetops where the light of the sun was leaking under, Goblin Slayer was far less on edge than he had been previously when he was alone, as he waited for the cautious figure in the near-distance to come out from the shadows. Approaching him with an arrow pulled back while her large wooden bow was aimed away from him, the petite elf with mint-green hair from before had a shaken expression on her face as she cautiously emerged out of the darkness and further into the light.
"You're… Y-You're that kid from earlier, r-right? Like… Like ACTUALLY him, this time?!" The elf asked with a pleading tone in her voice; her flat chest repeatedly rising-and-falling, as she tried her best to hide just how scared she was.
With Fairy Knight back at his side, and with BBB silently reassuring him with a nod that the woman who was getting closer to him really was the same girl who he met outside of the Oakshire Forest, Goblin Slayer was calm as he smiled gently at the shaken elf girl. "Yeah… Yeah, it's me… Don't worry, I'm not one of those… "Things" that have those weird black bodies and white-pale faces," Goblin Slayer said to describe them, as he never heard of anything capable of shapeshifting that matched the terrifying image of what the skin-walkers looked like.
Holding on their well-valid skepticism, the elf continued to get closer ever so slowly toward Goblin Slayer; her emerald-green eyes focusing themselves on the barely-armored fairy that was staring back at her with a stern-stoic expression hidden behind her sleek-mask. "… I thought you told me that you were traveling alone earlier. Is she… Is she with you?" The elf asked cautiously, and nearly recoiled the moment she saw Fairy Knight take a step between her and the boy who she had been addressing the question to.
"He is my master, and he is under my protective eye; do not ask questions that you are not prepared to hear the answers to, high-elf," Fairy Knight answered on behalf of Goblin Slayer; unsurprisingly to the boy, she knew the specific variation of elf that the girl with minty-green hair belonged to. "I advise you to act accordingly when you're around him… I'll be watching you, even when you can't see me from within him," Fairy Knight warned, which made the already on-edge woman immediately relax the string of her bow.
Giving Fairy Knight a dirty look and being too prideful to say anything about it, the green-haired elf turned her attention over to Goblin Slayer while still keeping her long-bow in hand. "Okay, hear me out: I say that you and I travel together for the remainder of our journey through these damn woods. We'll be safer having each other's backs that way, since there's still twelve more hours worth of walking we have to get through before even reaching the outskirts of Matterhorn," she reasoned with a serious expression on her face, as the last thing she wanted was to spend another minute alone within the cytoid-infested woods by her lonesome.
Thinking back to how Fairy Knight informed him about how important it was for him to have the means to attack outside of her six-meter range around him. Goblin Slayer eyed the elf's beautifully hand-crafted bow before quickly making up his mind. "I… I think that would be a great idea. Oh, by the way, my name's Ren Ashta, but you can just call me "Goblin Slayer" if you're not into the whole name-thing. And what can I call you while we're traveling together?" Goblin Slayer asked as politely as he could; sticking out his hand to offer it to the green haired elf, who simply stared at it before realizing what he was trying to do.
"… Oh! You're doing that thing humans do, huh? "Shaking hands" I think is what it's called…!" The elf girl chuckled with an amused look on her beautiful face, as she stuck her leather-gloved hand out beside Goblin Slayer's before confidently getting the gesture wrong by shaking her appendage awkwardly near his opened palm. "I am Arthemis Maiven; I go by "High Elf Archer" by those who are with the Adventurers' Guild," High Elf Archer revealed, as she retracted her hand away from the astounded boy who gazed back at her with a look of wonderment within his dusty-rose colored eyes.
The impact of finally coming across an actual adventurer who was a member of the supposed guild he had heard so much about was significant to Goblin Slayer, as the feeling it elicited reminded him— despite the changes he had gone through— he was still him; that same happy and adventurous boy who got lost within the pages of his sister's books, and always had a sense of adventure within him.