Chapter 4

The goblin itched its butt, waiting. Always waiting. Always for nothing. It was just hanging around a tree along with one of its brethren, and its job was to warn the nest of incoming threats or greet their friendlies.

They would build their nests hidden deep in the forest, then send hunters who would camp somewhere near the roads, far enough away from the light of civilization so their victims couldn't find help.

It was a crude but clever enough plan that it could work—if this were hundreds of years ago. No, mankind had long since grown wise to their methods. Even the most elementary traveler knew at least a thing or two to defend themselves against goblins.

The evil goblins would lose more than they would gain, killed in droves long before they could touch a grown adult. Children could hold their own long enough to get help, or, blessed by the Divine Glass, win the fight themselves.

If they just waited, spawned more of their own kind, and hid in their holes until the time was right, they might overwhelm the good people of Rosarium. But there were mainly two reasons this never happened.

First, goblins did not have the patience for it. For all their ability to organize and concoct schemes, it would all fall apart to their own short-term greed.

Which was why, even though it was supposed to keep watch, it abandoned its post just to take a leak. Took its sweet time, too, and not a thought was spared for the eeriness of the quiet nor the shadows that moved along the bushes.

When the goblin returned, it found its brethren slumped against the tree.

The goblin rolled its eyes, thinking it took a nap. It stepped back into its spot and then—

"Gaaaaaah!"

—a rock punctured its shoulder.

It spun, tripped on its own two feet, and hit the tree, almost landing on the injury. With deep, sniveling gasps, it ran harder than it ever had in its life.

Through tall grass. Past the marked trees. Into the bushes barricaded with sticks.

It needed to escape. It needed to rally the others. It needed to—

It stopped.

In the solitary camp, surrounding a smothered pit of fire were the stiff bodies of all eight of its brethren. Parts of their heads were missing.

The second reason: they were routinely exterminated en masse, like weeds in the yard. Search teams would find and mark their nests on a map, then the extermination teams would cull their numbers in one fell swoop. It was quick, efficient, ensured no survivors, and left no time for the goblins to repopulate.

Normally, a single party wouldn't be enough to kill all the goblins so quickly, so quietly...

But a Gold-ranked adventurer?

The goblin took a step back...

"Wrong way, pal."

There was a flash of steel.

The goblin never had the chance to scream.

Markus stood over the corpse. He swung his sword arm, and the blood removed itself from the blade, joining the bleeding bodies in the dirt. He clicked his tongue.

"Gotten rusty... Guess it's back to the basics for me," he muttered.

Only three years in retirement, settling down with his wife, and oh, how the mighty had fallen. His old drinking buddies would laugh if they saw him now.

The rest of the party emerged from the bushes: Willow, then Nikolas, and then Magni—who had to pause just to tug the reins on her Humblewing, Sven. That such a big bird could remain hidden somehow was one of the many mysteries of its kind.

"Guess all that drinking this morning slowed you down, old man," Magni said. "Are you a lightweight?"

"Brat, I'll have you know that my 31 constitution stat can still drink you under the table! Anyway, ya see what I mean, Nikolas? You got the bigger arms, so use 'em. Even a few stones could do the job."

The girls didn't seem bothered by the grisly sight. They had probably seen much worse than this, so that was good.

Nikolas, though...

The Shielder covered his nose, struggling to keep his composure. "U-ugh, that smell... Are they always...?"

"Yeah..." Magni was trying her very best to keep Sven from just wandering off. "I heard goblins use the stench of their dead to track down weakened prey or run away from danger. You'd have to be a huge freak to let yourself get covered in their guts."

Oh? Did the Nose Fixer just flinch?

"Believe me, it could get much worse," Markus said, deciding to rag on her later. "We better get ready. By now, the camps nearby should know we're here. Nose Fixer, how many are there?"

The White Mage closed her eyes with her brittle staff pressed to the ground. Markus was amazed the dingy thing was even working, what with the dents along the crystal receptacle and the broken bit extended with a metal shard at the end.

For the entire way, she had been periodically sending pulses of mana through the ground. Said she was sensing the monsters through the "echoes" that come back. Sounded like something certain beastkin and elves would do. It was not even a Skill. A form of [Mana Manipulation], then?

She opened her eyes.

"Twelve incoming. No unusual signs, just regular goblins."

Very useful, this one. Maybe a bit of overkill against goblins, but he could respect her for being thorough. Every party with a pair of eyes would beg to have her in their team. With how the Halos Alliance's ordinance and the conscription to the Support Corps worked, she could join her favorite pick to avoid these unflattering goblin hunting jobs, then hang around until the rules loosened up.

So why hadn't she?

Well, it was none of his business.

Markus patted Nikolas on the back. "Ya heard the Nose Fixer. This will be simple and easy. Lure them into this camp, then just do what I've shown ya. You'll be fine."

Nikolas tore his eyes away from the dead goblins and nodded. "I understand."

"Heh. Then get goin', we don't have all day."

"Right!"

And so, with his shield in hand, the boy who had never harmed a warm-blooded thing in his life began marching off to become a bona fide Goblin Slayer. He looked strangely mature, more sure of himself, with his determined eyes and straightened back.

Markus smirked to himself, a certain conversation back in the wagon coming to mind.

"Don't think I forgot about you, Merchant. You and the bird are welcome to join him," he said.

Magni beamed, her tail wagging.

He knew a lot of boys with that same look: excited as a puppy, eager to prove herself.

"Well, don't mind if we do!" Then the blue-haired wolf girl just did the darnedest thing. She skipped to the Humblewing's side and hopped right on its back like a common burden beast, as if the murderous bird wouldn't tear her to shreds until next week for the transgression. She pointed, like a Hero on her noble steed, and shouted, "Let's go, Sven! Onward!"

And Sven...

...just sat down.

"Sveeeen!"

He didn't bother holding it back; he guffawed like a wheezing chicken.

Nose Fixer, though, looked less than impressed. Watching Magni struggle and seeing Nikolas go into the forest alone, she scoffed.

"I may as well make sure he doesn't lose an eye or something."

Markus still had a hand on his knees, wiping the tears out of his eyes. "A-Awfully morbid, aren't ya? The boy had crushed a slime before, so this should be nothin'."

"...Just doing my job. Consider it a part of Risadel's hospitality."

Girl's got a good head on her shoulders. Now if only she got rid of that stick up her ass...

The following fight couldn't even be called that. The goblins just charged in with their sticks and stones and threw themselves at the Shielder. His form was sloppy, too much wasted movement, but he did exactly as he was taught, using his larger stature to bash their heads against his shield before they could lay a finger on him. Nikolas won the battle without the White Mage ever needing to do a thing.

"I... did it!" Nikolas was cheering. "I actually did it—urp!"

Then the stench hit. Poor kid was on his knees, retching out his breakfast.

Willow sighed. Even Markus started to understand.

This was going to be a looong day...

The sun had since gone past its zenith.

They settled into a kind of rhythm after a while. Markus would find their tracks, Willow would count their numbers and gauge the danger, while Magni would always try, but fail, to get her Humblewing to join in the fight. What few injuries the Shielder sustained, the White Mage would heal.

Markus would coach Nikolas, letting him fight on his own, and only intervene if he went too deep and got swarmed. And as for Magni?

"Ugh. This sucks. The absolute worst..." Magni was whining as they finished the stragglers, crouching down with a knife in her hand to cut off the goblin ears, before shoving them into a sack. "I'm going to feel the stink for days..."

"Hah!" he barked. "Welcome to the real world, Merchant!"

He relegated her into looting and porter duty. The murder bird refused to listen to her, and a potential liability like that was left to guard the wagon instead, much to the Merchant's dismay.

When they were done with eliminating all the nearby nests, they would come back to the wagon to ride down the road to find the next ones.

In the meantime, Markus learned some important things about his party members. Besides all the jokes and byplay, it was only proper to get a read on those he was working with.

Nikolas was Nikolas. Too green, too timid, too driven. Needed to slow down and take the proper steps. He thinks the world of his family. This quest just might be the push he needed to do great things with that ridiculous luck stat of his. Still working on him.

Magni was a weakling and a screw-up; he already lost count of the number of stray goblins that escaped his senses and almost got the drop on her. Was her luck in the negatives, or something? Thankfully, the White Mage was around to watch her back. The wolf girl, at least, wasn't afraid to get involved in the messy stuff.

Though the less said about that murderous bird of hers, the better.

Willow, the White Mage... It was hard to pin her personality down. She keeps sending mixed signals, distant one minute and then a motherhen in the next. Breaks formation too often. Maybe a bad habit? Hard to tell.

One thing was certain: she was wary. Too wary. Like she was always expecting something to go wrong. There were times she seemed tempted to leap into the fray whenever Nikolas got even a little overwhelmed. Hell, even when they confirmed the kills, she was still pulsing mana into the ground, always on the lookout.

Girl should learn to relax.

Then again, Markus thought, it could be the boy's luck at work.

Don't think he didn't notice the intense looks toward Nikolas. The adults back at the village always joked about how all the ladies used to fawn over him. Kid had the sort of vibe that made women feel protective of him.

Oh, they'll be fun to tease. Maybe after a few more adventures, they'd bond over how they used to kill goblins together, and it would bloom into something more. Wouldn't that be a riot? It sounded crazy, but he had seen adventurers hook up over less.

The entire party made for a decent extermination team, annihilating every goblin nest that was marked on their map and then some.

But that there was the problem...

"That makes twelve... thirteen nests?" Markus wiped the sweat from his brow, looking at the dead bodies scattered all over. This one had eighteen goblins, then the ones nearby came along and made it thirty-two. "We're not even halfway done with the ones marked on the map, and we're still findin' unmarked goblin nests. What's goin' on?"

There shouldn't be this many if the guild was doing its job keeping the roads clean. These were goblins, not lake monsters. Unless...

The White Mage noticed his expression. "Demontide?"

Markus nodded grimly. "Demontide. We might have ourselves a monster spawner out here."

The enemies of mankind come not only from the Evil Lake. Every so often, escaping the eyes of the Dragon Tale guild, patches of Demontide would emerge throughout the continent. It would corrupt everything it touched, turning its surroundings into malignant dens of ichor. And from the corruption, monsters would spawn.

He held up his old sword, which was slick with blood, and scowled. Admittedly, he never properly cared for it after he retired, and so the edges had gotten rusty and brittle. Looked more like a serrated edge with so many bits missing. The enchantment that usually kept it whole and healthy had long since faded.

"Ah, shit... Had I been scammed?" he muttered. "Guy said it would last at least another few decades."

Could've been the family heirloom; maybe serve as a decoration on the wall, a story to tell, but it wouldn't live past this adventure, huh?

Willow eyed the sword. "Need a [Reinforcement]?"

"...Nah. Save it. Bet ya wasted enough mana bein' our lookout. I can just throw rocks and use my bare hands if I have to."

"That's..."

"Rule number one: worry about yourself first." Markus put a bit more force into his words. He had seen too many healers just like her get themselves killed trying too much. The Support Corps may be a recent thing, but with the way it was set up, he knew enough to know that it was a meat grinder. This was something she needed to take to heart if she wanted to survive. "I may have been retired, but don't look down on a Gold rank. Just help me watch over Nikolas and Magni like always, yeah?"