Pounding on the cave's thin walls, a leading goblin from the attack group waited eagerly on the other side, pickaxe over his shoulder. His brethren, including the dumb one with drool dripping from his jowls, questioned their actions
Half-annoyed, he explained what lay beyond the wall the destruction crew was breaking down. He pointed out that a smaller group had lured this group of adventurers into a closed-off room with no escape. Their pack's job? Surprise the retarded greenhorns through the walls, kill the men—a steel man, a lizard, a bushy midget, and some helmet kid—and take the women.
A tall…slender elf.
A busty woman they lost half an hour ago.
A blonde healer, surely a virgin.
Not to mention all the loot they were about to snag…?
His friend and he exchanged crooked grins. So did their other blood brothers, listening in.
Driving and splitting the rocks any way they saw fit, they worked faster now more than ever. Blood flowing through their veins, their heartbeats through their heads, and other vulgar places to get their prize.
Finally, the rocks tumbled out, and the wall caved in.
Out they came. The leading goblin and his dumb friend ran the charge, clawing the ground beneath them into the room.
There on the other end of the cell stood the foolish adventurers, but on their guard. Ready for a fight. Good! That wouldn't matter, the leader thought. He had the numbers to lose. They didn't.
The steelman in front of the group raised his outstretched hand. Holding out something. A flimsy piece of paper.
"Pff!" Again, didn't matter. What was he gonna do besides make him and his brothers laugh? He pressed on. Slaughter on the horizon.
The man said, almost cracking a laugh, "You poor stupid fools."
The paper unfolded, dangling off his fingers. A bright beam like the star in the sky flashed. Swirling sounds of rushing water blasted out, engulfing the goblin attack force in a mighty tempest.
A squirrel darted among tree roots, senses alert as he searched for rustling leaves. Suddenly, a vibration rippled through the ground, thrilling him. Whirling around, he saw it.
A geyser blasting water narrowly missed him. Scampering away, he watched as the ground erupted with a deafening roar, launching goblins and adventurers into the sky before crashing back down.
"Oh….!...myyyyy….fucckkkinngg….Goddddd!" High Elf shrieked, flailing her arms and legs in a desperate attempt to fly. Not that it did her, or, to a lesser degree, Priestess, who was not partaking in the shouting and cussing, but taking a part in the screaming and falling any good.
Lizard Priest laughed "This is quite fun! Isn't it?" while holding onto the prisoner.
"How can you be laughing at this!?" shouted the crying elf.
Stosstruppler, flying downwards between both girls, cupped a hand over his mouth. Acid shooting up his throat. I'm going to be sick!
He could make out the trees, their branches swaying gently in the breeze. "Oh, no!" The ground rushed up to meet them. "No, no, no, no, no!" High Elf's voice quivered with fear. "W-W-W-We're gonna—!"
Amidst the chaos, Dwarf Shaman's voice cut through the panic with a firm chant. He held his feet together, his timing precise as he cast the spell. "Control Float!"
As Stosstruppler braced for impact, expecting excruciating pain…It didn't come. Instead, his speed decreased. Moving him slower actually. Opening his eyes, he saw his body encased in a giant bubble, slowing down his descent along with everyone else.
Except for the goblins. Those little pricks kept screaming down. Several scared a couple of years out of him from their loud shrills suddenly ceasing like the crack of a whip when they finally plummeted to the ground, leaving bursts of red mists in their wake. "H-Heh." Steadying himself, Stoss floated inside the oversized shield like everyone else, too.
"I-Is this better?" Priestess asked High Elf as she held down the skirt part of her dress, preventing it from blowing upwards again.
"No! Not better! Not better at all!" Still kicking and throwing her arms everywhere, face red, eyes snapped shut, High Elf cried back, "I can't do this! I'm not opening my eyes until we're back on solid ground!"
Stosstruppler paused, watching the blades of grass swaying in the breeze. Should I tease her to take a peek this time? He entertained the mischievous thought before dismissing the idea. It felt too cruel, even by his standards.
Instead, he was taken aback by his leader's sharp mind, and his own failure to see it this time. Dwarf Shaman, within earshot, commented in a daze, "Open a path to the surface with Tunnel, use your gate scroll to flood the nest, and then ride the current out the hole? Unbelievable. How did you do it before you met us?"
"I would secure myself to something and walk out once it flooded." Goblin Slayer gently touched the plain field first, then Shaman, then Stosstruppler, and finally, everyone else—their bubble shields popping when they landed.
"Of course you did." Shaman flicked his white and red Orient-style robes. Water dripped from the oversized sleeves and skirt.
Steadying himself off the nearest tree, Stoss emptied his lungs after removing his steel cap off his throbbing head to recollect his thoughts. "Gott," he said out loud. "Is this what I ran away for?" he asked no one. Not that anyone could hear him. The geyser hole that shot them into the moons was still behind them, still spraying hundreds of metric tonnes of water—and goblins—to the sky. Stoss rubbed his forehead, his wet sleeve squishing against his cheeks, the material scratching against smooth skin. "To fail like this already." he couldn't fathom it. "Already. And there's still nine more goblin nests, and I start this badly? On the first day, no less? Damn!" a rising pain in his neck's left side started to sting, "...How am I supposed to impress Wizard's brother if he shows up?"
"Tst!" He lunged forward, his neck on fire all of a sudden. Except, now it burnt like acid. What the hell was wrong with him?
Oh, right. He felt silly. The wound.
He pressed his hand against the bandage. It felt sodden and gaping. Fantastic. Completely soaked. With a resigned sigh, he tended to it, propping his crossbow against a nearby tree. Remarkably, it remained in his grasp throughout the entire ordeal. Gently, he unwound the old dressing and applied a fresh one.
As he worked, Priestess appeared in his peripheral a few meters away. Her temple garments were now drenched, resembling Shaman's attire. "Oh, for…" she sighed, too, except clearly frustrated. "I knew I should've brought a change of clothes." With a deft motion, she wrung out a stream of water from her beret before setting it on a nearby boulder.
Whether she noticed Stoss or not, perhaps too preoccupied with her soaked attire, she proceeded to shed her overcoat robes, then her tailored uniform, revealing a black undershirt (underdress?) beneath, concealed by chainmail.
She held the skirt end with her forefinger and thumb to lift it. Droplets came down. "Oh, no…" Priestess fretted. "My chainmail is going rust…"
Stosstruppler averted his gaze in the opposite direction.
"Oh!" Priestess finally noticed him. "P-Please don't look this way!"
"I try not to." Despite the various styles he had witnessed among the ladies and women at the Adventurers' Guild, particularly the new recruits that had arrived earlier, Stoss had no trouble distinguishing Priestess's modest attire from them. Even Wizard's, though to a lesser extent.
He removed the wrapping, then yanked out an emergency one from his back pouch, watching out for the leather bag filled with tiny arrowheads next to it. A pop, pop, pop, sound came from where Tunnel shot them out. The water finally started to spray less and less. The hole it made released the remains of wherever Goblin Slayer's gate scroll shot it from, closing swiftly. "With that, all the goblins in the nest should be destroyed," Goblin Slayer announced, his metal boots splashing on the remains. Mossy bodies floated everywhere you turned.
At the root of the hole, a goblin crouched, its left arm bent at the wrist and elbow, legs positioned back to front as it whimpered. Using its free hand to crawl away, the goblin attempted to escape. Goblin Slayer's boots squelched as he approached it.
With a swift motion, he stabbed the goblin in the back of the head with a broken spear. The whimpering ceased abruptly.
"Oh-ho? One's still alive?" Stosstruppler heard Lizard Priest say.
Goblin Slayer twisted the spear for good measure. "Lucky roll of the dice," he yanked the stick out. Blood sprayed the already wet grass. "But it won't save him." His huff released whatever hot mist he held inside his helm like a hound. "Gear up," he told everyone. "When she comes around, dry off her gear and we'll move on to the next mission."
High Elf lay sprawled out in a pool of the scroll's remains. Arms and legs bent out of shape in a comical pose. Unlike the green fairy Goblin Slayer had just murdered, she was stiff and unresponsive—but a friend. So Dwarf Shaman knew better.
He popped open his fire alcohol flask and took a swig, nodding and swirling the bottle as if savoring wine from a glass and mixing its contents. After another satisfied nod, he carefully dripped the fiery liquid into High Elf's mouth. Her face immediately flushed, her complexion shifting from fair to a blazing Rot in an instant. "Hot! Hot! Hot!" she exclaimed, shooting up and clutching her throat.
"Hmph!" Shaman scoffed. "Elves are so ungrateful!"
He flashed Stosstruppler a wry grin and started to pace away quicker. High Elf trailed him, rubbering her knuckles. "Some things never seem to change," Priestess said, ambling over to join Stoss and in observing the two silvers fight.
Stoss hastily tightened the white wrapping around his neck, leaving one end dangling as he reached for his crossbow, responding with a quick "Uh-huh." Goblin Slayer had already begun to probe the bodies alone, while Priestess watched him intently, noticing his hasty actions.
"Stoss, stop," she said, her voice sounding like a mother. "Your bandage is going to come off if you don't tie it properly."
"Priest," Stoss wasn't in the mood, "I told you. It's not a big deal. I have had worse."
Priestess pouted up at him. Even if he was only a few centimeters shorter than Goblin Slayer, he was certain he hadn't grown much taller in the past two months. She wagged a finger at him. "Don't you see you're soaking the bandage? Look at your hair and neck."
Sure enough, beads of water dripped from his messy, once close-crop, short black hair down on the dilapidated dressing. He clearly couldn't spin around to see his neck, but he felt how wet it was.
Stosstruppler put down his weapon and started to use his sleeve to clean. Except it was wet too. Priestess's face softened. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to patronize you. I just want you and everyone else to be safe. Okay? Now, sit." She placed her small hands on his shoulders, applying some pressure. "I'll rebandage it for you. But first"—she took out her medical bag, again—"let's dry off your neck. Can you take off your tunic, too, please?"
"Ja…" Stoss really didn't want to but what the Grün Team's Sanitäter instructed he should do, he did.
Despite numerous scrapes, bruises, and near-death experiences, Priestess's skill as a servant of the Earth Mother shone through. Her actions spoke louder than any miracle she performed, exemplifying her dedication. Blocking an ogre's Fireball attack during their porcelain days was just one example.
Patting his neck dry and grabbing an alcohol bottle and white pad, Priestess asked, soaking it, "Are you okay?"
Stoss nodded. "I am," he said. "The wound wasn't too bad when I first got it, but I doubt it held enough poison to kill me." Priestess had disinfected the previous pad after all.
As she pressed the new one against the wound, Stoss reacted instinctively, his eye closing involuntarily from the searing sensation rippling below his ear. He heard her whisper, "I'm glad to hear it."
He gave her a dirty look.
"But that wasn't what I was asking." She held the pad in place, reaching for something else in the bag he couldn't see, only hear. "I meant…h-how are you? You seem…stressed."
"Stressed?" His lips thinned. "Oh. Right..." Now he understood. And the more he thought about it, the more he wished he didn't.
He leaned forward, fists under his chin.
"To tell you the truth," Stoss sucked in his lips, gently grinding them between his teeth, "I don't know what I'm doing over here anymore, Priestess."
Priestess's hand remained on the pad, but she didn't move. Once again, he noticed from his peripheral that her long blonde hair covered some of her face. Her blue eyes, not as big as they were when he met her—in fact, the healer looked a little taller and older since then—blinked in a daze. "But," she began, "you are an adventurer, aren't you? Goblin Slayer and everyone in town knows it!"
"I might have this tag to prove it"—he drooped around the steel-made Adventurers' Tag around his neck—"but I don't feel like I earned it. When we freed Noble Fencer, I felt…stronger. More confident. Now? Nein…" He remembered that quest to save the noble girl (now a merchant, according to her latest letter) and kill the Goblin Paladin in the mountains a few months ago during the winter.
After the skirmish that briefly threatened to divide the team had ended, and harmony was restored between him and Warrior, who had pursued different goals, he felt on top of the world.
Now he was thinking that throwing down his old weapons in that valley that day was a mistake. A big one. Even if he no longer had any bullets for them.
"Oh!" Priestess's naturally pink complexion flushed. "You were talking about your guns, weren't you?"
"Yes. Them," he said. Without them, Stoss counted his first day back to adventuring, back to goblin slaying, his first day to being an official adventurer. He knew there would be a massive learning curve between how he normally fought and had thought that his old training and what he learned the past year would win the day. So he was confident he could handle a hard quest like this one first. Hence why he'd been practicing with his crossbow all winter for today.
Yet, it seems like all that "training" behind the Farm's stables wasn't enough. What was he missing? "I…see." Priestess sped up the dressing, finally wrapping it.
Funnily, Stoss expected her to comment on it some more. He knew it wasn't her usual style. She wasn't nosy like Warrior was, or aloof like Wizard tended to be, but she was respectful like Fighter was, if not more so.
Instead, she held out his arm so he could look at her—cheekbones raised, smile brighter. "I think you're too hard on yourself, you know that?" she said.
"Hm?" Stoss cocked a thin eyebrow up. "Priest, I'm not depressed or—" She went on like he hadn't spoken.
"You are a proper adventurer. You made it this far with us all and pushed as hard as Goblin Slayer always does. If not more! I knew that when we first met. When you led us on our first quest together. When Goblin Slayer arrived to save us in that goblin cave. Even if you were as nervous as me..."
"…Thank you?" Stoss felt unnerved by the comment. Was it praise? Pity? Both? He wasn't sure, but, again, Priestess wasn't like the others in the former full team.
She began playing with a lock of her hair, averting her eyes to the grass swaying against their legs. "I…I know it's rough. Given everything. With Fighter and Warrior leaving since the new year. But at least you're still here. With us. Willing to fight on the frontlines…Besides, all I did for the past thirty minutes was hold the group's torch and then bandage you up. I'm fine with that. Aren't you?"
Stoss blinked, feeling a surge of gratitude mixed with guilt. The warmth of Priestess's support contrasted sharply with the throbbing ache beneath his ear, a reminder of the dangers they faced. "You mean to stay like this?" Stoss asked, unsure. Priestess nodded, her determination unwavering. Stosstruppler sat up a little straighter now.
He scrutinized his hands and knees, taking in the mud, cuts, and blood with a stern gaze. Was I overreacting? He pondered, a hint of amusement tugging at his lips. It wouldn't have been the first time. Steel and anxiety went hand in hand.
"Wizard did mention she was going to check in the nearby town for her brother," he changed the subject. "Me and Goblin Slayer saw her wagon a few hours ago at the Farm. She looked pretty excited. I hope we do see them after all this."
Priestess nodded, her expression thoughtful. "She was eager to leave the hotel. I barely had a chance to wave bye, so I believe it," she mused. "Also, I kind of thought it had to do with her asking for a promotion exam today."
Stoss chuckled, acknowledging her observation. "Well, I won't call you a liar," he admitted, sharing a knowing smile with Priestess. He remembered Wizard's tearful confession about her strained relationship with her brother once upon a time but decided to keep it to himself. Why curb Priestess's enthusiasm?
Priestess then asked an entirely unrelated question. "Do you think Warrior and Fighter are okay?"
"I like to think so. They managed to beat us in achieving the next rank a month before our examinations tomorrow. Lucky them."
Priestess rubbed the back of her head, nervously. "Do you think it's because they're…you know..."
"On, most certainly," Stoss said. "Ever since the Lord battle, they've been stuck together like glue. Wizard always says so when she sees them."
Priestess smiled. "I always had a feeling about those two. Good for them!"
"Yup. Good for them." Stoss noticed the others picking their stuff up. When Goblin Slayer signaled for them, Stoss stood up abruptly. "We should get going. Your uniform should be dry by now."
"Huh? Oh! R-R-Right!" Priestess scrambled back up. "You're right! Let me go grab my stuff. Please wait for me!" Throwing his uniform around him, Stoss watched Priestess run and throw on the hauberk she left atop the boulder, then began eagerly shoving her robes over her head—backward. He chuckled for the first time today. Until his gaze marched eastward, then he stopped.
His hand caressed the leather scabbard that once served as a holster on his belt. The faint skull and crossbones on the handle of his sword caught his eye, along with that Totenkopf motto etched onto it: Meine Ehre heisst Treue—"My Honor is Loyalty," it read.
Stoss frowned at it, thinking. I wonder what he's doing now?
"Hey." Goblin Slayer jolted him out of his thoughts. "Are you ready? We're moving out."
Stoss shifted nervously, his mind racing. "Uh, yes, sir! I was just, uh, waiting for Priestess."
Sir. He winced internally, realizing his slip-up.
Goblin Slayer crossed his arms, his helmet unreadable. Stoss gulped. "Good," Goblin Slayer replied simply, before turning away. As he walked off, he added, "Keep moving forward, then."
The teen felt a tingle go up his spine that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "Keep moving forward, then"…? he thought.
"Okay!" Priestess came running up, her white clothes less dirt splattered than before, reflecting the sunlight peeking through the clouds. "Ready?"
Stosstruppler pondered his leader's words a moment longer, the weight of Goblin Slayer's wisdom lingering in his mind, as well. Their mission at hand made him set that aside for now. "Yes." He picked up his crossbow and hefted it up like his old Needle Rifle. "Come on, then. Goblin Slayer is waiting for us," he said, starting to walk. Thinking about what his leader said some more. Priestess walked with him, a foot or two slower.
As they made their way across through the grass, and the hole Tunnel had made, the others further out, Priestess trailed a few more steps behind, her gaze fixed intently on Stosstruppler's figure moving ahead. Shoulders back. Chest out. He looks so determined. The blonde girl smiled, her staff clinging to her body, lost in her thoughts.
Her foot caught on the hidden dip in the ground, and she stumbled forward with a sharp gasp. "Eek!" she cried out.
Stosstruppler called back, turning to check on her, "Are you okay, Priest?"
"F-F-Fine! Just didn't watch my step is all!" she said, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
He stood to wait for her when she started to catch up. When she did, he asked her, "You're all right?"
"M-Mmhm!" Priestess's face was still burning. Stoss, not thinking much of it, shrugged, and they started to catch up with the rest of the party.
All the while, Priestess had her hand placed above her heart; the beats moving in rhyme.
She wondered, a curious flutter stirring within her, Why am I feeling this way?
The day continued without another incident.