Somehow they didn’t encounter any goblins on the short trek to the tunnel. They did, however, find awful chunks of meat scattered about. Perhaps it had once been human. There was no way to know. There was enough blood in the small cavern to choke on, and its smell mixed with the thick odor of scattered viscera.

“Err, eurrggh…”

Priestess spotted the body of Warrior and reflexively fell to her knees and vomited.

It seemed like her last meal of bread and wine had happened years ago. For that matter, it might have been an eon since Warrior had invited her on this adventure.

“Nine…” Goblin Slayer nodded. He had been counting the goblin corpses, unperturbed by the scene around them.

“Judging from the scale of the nest, there’s probably less than half left.”

He took a sword and dagger from Warrior’s body and hung them from his own belt. He checked the goblins’ other victims as well but apparently found nothing that satisfied him.

Priestess, wiping her mouth, gave him a reproving look, but he didn’t pause.

“How many of you were there?”

“What?”

“Guild Girl only said some amateurs had gone goblin hunting.”

“There were four of—Oh!” she accidentally shouted, wiping furiously at her mouth with both hands. “M-my other party member…!” How could she have forgotten?

She didn’t see Fighter’s body. Fighter, who had sacrificed herself, suffering unspeakable things to save the others, was nowhere to be found.

“A girl?”

“Yes…”

Goblin Slayer held the torch close and carefully searched the floor of the cave. There were fresh footprints, blood, a dirty liquid, and a track like something had been dragged along the ground.

“It looks like they took her deeper in. I can’t say if she’s alive or not,” he said, fingering several long strands of hair to which scraps of skin still clung.

Priestess nearly jumped up. “Then we have to save her—”

But Goblin Slayer didn’t answer. He lit a new torch, then tossed the old one into a side tunnel. “Goblins have excellent night vision. Keep it lit. The dark is our enemy… Listen.”

She obeyed, straining her ears for any sound.

From the blackness beyond the flame of the torch, there were footsteps, slap-slap-slap.

A goblin! Probably coming to investigate the light from the torch.

Goblin Slayer took one of the daggers from his belt and flung it into the darkness.

There was a harsh sound as it pierced something. The body of a goblin rolled into the dim torchlight. The moment he saw it, Goblin Slayer leaped forward and drove his sword through the creature’s heart. The goblin died without a sound, for the dagger had run through its throat. The whole thing happened almost too quickly to track.

“Ten.”

As Goblin Slayer added to his count, Priestess peered into the tunnel and asked timidly, “Can you see in the dark, too?”

“Hardly.”

Goblin Slayer didn’t bother retrieving the fat-dulled blade from the body. Instead, he took up the sword Warrior had carried, clicking his tongue as he saw it was too long for the narrow tunnels.

Next he picked up a spear from the goblin he had just killed. It was roughly hewn from animal bone, but a spear for a goblin is only a bit longer than a knife for a full-grown man.

“It’s just practice. I know exactly where their necks are.”

“Practice? How much practice…?”

“A lot.”

“A lot?”

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”

Priestess was silent. She hung her head in embarrassment.

“What can you use?”

“I’m sorry?” She hurriedly raised her head again, not understanding what he meant.

Goblin Slayer never let his attention waver from the tunnel as he spoke. “Which miracles?”

“I have Minor Heal and Holy Light, sir.”

“How many uses?”

“Three in all. I…I have two left.” It was nothing extraordinary, but Priestess was one of the more accomplished beginners. It was an achievement simply to be able to pray to the goddess, make a petition, and be granted a miracle in the first place. And then, not many people could bear to join their soul with the goddess repeatedly. That took experience.

“That’s considerably more than I expected,” he said. This was praise, she supposed, but she had trouble feeling like it. His tone was dutiful and cool, hardly revealing any emotion.

“Holy Light, then. Minor Heal won’t do us any good here. Don’t waste your miracles on it.”

“Y-yes, sir…”

“That was a scout we killed. We’ve got the right tunnel.”

With the tip of the spear, he pointed deeper into the hole from which the goblin had come. “But their scout won’t return. Neither will the ones who killed your party. I finished them off.”

Priestess was silent.

“What would you do?”

“What?”

“If you were a goblin. What would you do?”

At the unexpected question, Priestess tapped a slender finger against her chin, thinking furiously. What would she do if she were a goblin?

Her hand, which had once assisted with services at the Temple, seemed too white to be an adventurer’s.

“…Set an ambush?”

“Exactly,” Goblin Slayer said in his calm voice. “And we’re going to walk right into it. Get ready.”

Priestess paled but nodded.

Goblin Slayer took out a coil of rope and some wooden stakes and laid them at his feet.

“I have a mantra for you,” he said, not taking his eyes off his work. “Remember it. The words are tunnel entrance. You forget them, you die.”

“Y-yes, sir!” Priestess clasped her sounding staff with both hands.

Tunnel entrance, tunnel entrance, she repeated desperately to herself.

The only thing she could rely on was this mysterious man who called himself Goblin Slayer. If he abandoned her, then she and Fighter and the kidnapped village girls were all lost.

A moment later, Goblin Slayer finished his preparations. “Let’s go.”

Priestess followed him as quickly as she could, past the rope and into the tunnel.

The tunnel was remarkably sturdy, not something that seemed to have been built just for mounting surprise attacks. With every step, dirt fell from tree roots that had pushed through the ceiling, but there didn’t seem to be any danger of collapse. The gradual downward slope made Priestess uneasy, however. Humans didn’t belong here.

She should have seen it from the start, and now that she had realized, it was too late: Goblins spend their whole lives underground. True, they were nothing like dwarves, but why had she and the others underestimated the goblins so badly just because they weren’t physically strong?

Well, it’s too late for regrets…

Priestess stepped carefully by the faint light of the torch. She glanced up at Goblin Slayer’s back. His movements betrayed neither hesitation nor fear. Did he know what lay ahead?

“We’re almost there.” He stopped so suddenly, Priestess nearly ran into him. She straightened up quicker than he could turn to look back with his mechanical movements.

“Now, Holy Light.”

“Y-yes, sir. I’m ready…when you are.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. Then she held her staff firmly in place. Goblin Slayer likewise adjusted his grip on his torch and spear.

“Do it.”

“O Earth Mother, abounding in mercy, grant your sacred light to we who are lost in darkness…”

Goblin Slayer leaped forward as Priestess raised her staff toward the blackness. Its tip began shining with an illumination that became as brilliant as the sun. A miracle of the Earth Mother.

With the light at his back, Goblin Slayer flew headlong into the monsters’ hall.

Perhaps they had simply appropriated the largest cavern in the cave complex. The goblins waiting in the shoddily constructed room came into view.

“GAUI?”

“GORRR?”

There were six goblins there, as well as one big one and one seated on a chair wearing a skull on his head. The monsters squinted against the sudden, pure light and howled in confusion.

Also there, lying motionless, were several young women.

Some bleak thing had no doubt been happening in that room.

“Six goblins, one hob, one shaman, eight total.” Goblin Slayer counted his opponents without so much as a tremor in his voice.

Of course, not all the goblins were clenching their eyes shut and keening.

“OGAGO, GAROA…” The shaman seated on the throne waved his staff and recited an unintelligible spell.

“GUAI?” He was interrupted by Goblin Slayer’s spear skewering him through the torso. He gave a death rattle and tumbled backward off his chair.

The goblins stood transfixed by this tragedy, and Goblin Slayer seized the moment. Warrior’s sword rang as Goblin Slayer freed it from its scabbard.

“All right, let’s get out of here.”

“What?! Y-yes, sir!”

Even as he spoke, Goblin Slayer was already turning and dashing off. Shocked at his speed and at a loss about what to do, Priestess followed him. The goblins recovered their wits as the light receded and soon gave chase.