Goblin Slayer
The labyrinth we entered after teasing the flustered Elly to my heart's content. Was it because my gear had completely changed overnight, or because my senses had sharpened thanks to the new skill? The Great Forest had always had good air, but today it felt especially refreshing.
“Sniff sniff.”
“…I don't smell like you do, Yona.”
“Saying that just makes me look dirty. Besides, I wasn't even sniffing Rydia!”
I had only been smelling the forest. In Pan Grave, a city that had been one since its founding, that was a scent you didn't get to enjoy very often.
Rydia gave a half-hearted nod and asked,
“By the way, are you sure you don't need to visit the temple? You said you received a blessing. Even if you have no intention of becoming a priest, I heard that those who receive blessings get a small stipend from the temple.”
“But that stipend depends on what kind of blessing you received, right? Mine only makes my body smell nicer, so it's not exactly a high-ranking one. I don't want to get tangled up with the temple over a tiny stipend like that…”
“Why do you avoid the temple so much, Yona… No, never mind.”
Rydia started to say something, then shook her head vigorously. Only after patting her own cheeks did she continue.
“So? How far are we going today? The Iron Wolf again?”
“Nope. This time, the Giant Mantis. If possible, I'd like to try the Hop Goblin too.”
“…Isn't that dangerous? I know you got new equipment, but your actual skill level hasn't changed much.”
“I don't know about that. I'm confident, though.”
I shrugged once and grinned.
“I told you, didn't I? I had a realization. I'll show you what it was today.”
“…Fine. Either way, I'm here, so it won't be dangerous. Just make sure you don't stray out of my line of sight, no matter what you do.”
“Got it!”
I laughed and pulled out the map from my pocket. After I'd shown her a few times that I wouldn't get lost even without her help, she'd simply handed me the first-floor map. Unlike before, when I'd just trailed after Rydia, this time I took the lead, cutting through the complicated paths of the Great Forest—when suddenly, a strange sense of dissonance made me stop. I focused my mind.
A faint, sour stench tickled my nose. Turning my head toward it, I spotted a clumsily hidden goblin trap. The goblin was probably hiding behind the tree next to it.
…Now that I think about it, my improved eyesight is really noticeable. Even at this distance, everything looked crystal clear, like it was right in front of me.
What I'd gained along with Sound-Eating Steps wasn't raw strength, agile reflexes, or even a shred of mana. It was senses. Not just the basic five—sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing—but also balance, intuition, and even the sense for manipulating mana. Almost everything that could be called a sense had grown to a groundbreaking degree. Just as muscles grow through training to build strength, I'd instantly obtained senses that would normally have taken a long time to develop.
Still, I hadn't expected it to be this impressive.
Grinning, I drew the Unicorn Dagger. Then, suppressing my presence with everything I had, I slowly circled around toward the hidden goblin. Rydia let out a sharp breath behind me, but it wasn't important right now. I needed to focus, so I brushed it off.
One step. Another step. Calculating the angle of my foot against the ground, how much force to apply, how to control my breathing, where the blind spots in the goblin's vision were—my mind was a whirlwind of calculations as I moved.
After devoting every sense to minimizing the traces I left in the world, I suddenly realized I was standing right behind the goblin. The creature hadn't noticed a thing, even though I'd walked across grass that should have rustled loudly. It glanced toward Rydia, still visible beyond the trees, then began to laugh silently, its face full of anticipation.
For a moment, I flinched at its shockingly ugly mug. Then I drove the dagger I'd already drawn straight into its back. The target was its lung.
Shunk.
“…Huh?”
“Gob?”
The dagger sliced through the goblin's flesh as easily as cutting cake. Goblins weren't exactly a sturdy race, so stabbing them would normally work, but they still had muscle and fat. I hadn't expected it to sink in with zero resistance.
The goblin itself seemed startled by the sudden appearance of a pure-white blade in its chest, freezing in place. Well, whatever. The stealth effect was definitely living up to its 4-star rating. Now to finish it off…
Thud.
“?”
I pulled the dagger free, intending to stab its nape next, but the goblin's head drooped forward faster than I could move, and it collapsed. A closer look confirmed it was already dead—its face darkened and discolored.
“…Poison?”
Obviously, I hadn't coated the blade with anything. Besides, I'd stabbed the lung, not the heart protected by bone, so even if it died, it shouldn't have been this fast. That left only one possibility.
“You really are a demonic sword, huh?”
The dagger, despite having been driven in deep, didn't have a single drop of blood on it. It vibrated faintly.
Vwoom—!
Whether it was reacting to the blood of a non-virgin or denying my words because it had an ego, I couldn't tell.
“No, wait. It reacts to evil beings too, not just non-virgins. Of course, labyrinth monsters are reborn over and over in random spacetime labyrinths even after they die. But that doesn't mean they're reborn in a completely new body. It's more like reconstruction. In other words, the default state is when they were first trapped in the labyrinth. They age, grow, and live normally inside the labyrinth, but when they die and are reborn, they reset to the state they were in when first trapped. Memories included. Naturally, that includes whether or not they're virgins. In that sense, a wandering goblin is a pitiful beta female who's gone mad from being unable to find a mate. No strength, no partner, and relatively low intelligence. Unless they're lucky enough to capture some dim-witted adventurer, they'll live their entire lives as virgins. …Not that I particularly wanted to know about their hymen status, but that's how the setting works. In summary, the Unicorn Dagger reacted not because it was a non-virgin, but because it was evil… Though monsters aren't exactly 'evil' so much as a general term for races driven by madness. Undead or demons are obviously evil, but goblins…”
“Ah.”
Thinking of goblins as evil beings brought something to mind. It was a discarded setting, but there used to be lore that goblins called themselves the Lesser Demon Race before becoming monsters. The name "goblin" itself was given by other races because of their distinctive "gob gob" speech and vocal organs. Among themselves, they supposedly called each other "lesser demons" with shrill cries… It was a pointless setting with no reason to appear in the novel, so I'd just buried it in my head.
“Don't tell me that setting was actually implemented?”
I couldn't think of any other explanation. I'd need to run experiments on other races with hidden backstories to know for sure, so there was no point dwelling on it now. What mattered was that the Unicorn Dagger's special attack worked on goblins. That was enough.
I sliced open the chest, retrieved the magic stone, and returned to Rydia.
“Rydia! Rydia! How was my stealth? Was there anything lacking? Goblins are pretty stupid, so they fall for it easily, but other races might not.”
“…There wasn't.”
“Huh?”
Rydia wore the same baffled expression she might have if someone told her a grizzly bear wasn't a moon bear, a kiwi wasn't a fruit, or a platypus wasn't actually a platypus.
“If I hadn't been watching the whole time, I wouldn't have noticed at all. It'd be different if I had my aura fully raised, but no one walks around leaking aura all the time.”
“Oh? You said I smelled really good earlier. What if the smell gave me away? I was even thinking of praying to the Goddess for a recall if it came to that.”
“Setting aside how you treat the Goddess like the neighborhood apple cart lady, the scent wasn't a problem either. The moment you decided to hide, even your smell completely vanished.”
“Incredible.”
Well, if it was possible to cover up your natural scent with a pleasant fragrance, then the reverse—erasing your scent entirely—should also be possible. At least I didn't have to worry about a 1-star authority rendering my hard-earned 4-star skill useless.
While I was breathing a sigh of relief inwardly, Rydia asked in an unusually stiff voice,
“Just what kind of state did Elly catch you in that made you realize such a desperate stealth technique? It's called a realization, but growing this fast isn't normal.”
“What kind of state? Well… I can tell you, but you can't go around telling anyone else, okay?”
“Yeah. I'll keep it a secret.”
Rydia mimed zipping her lips. Her eyes were strangely serious—she wasn't curious about what incident had happened, but about what kind of realization I'd had.
…I felt a little bad. What I was about to show her wasn't the kind of thing she was expecting.
I ran over and stood in front of her. Facing her serious expression, I raised both hands in V signs.
“Huh?”
Then I rolled my eyes upward, parted my lips slightly, and stuck out my tongue.
“Ahe—”
It was a perfect ahegao double peace.