Dancing with the Goblins (5)
"Kerrk, kerrrk."
"Kyack-kyack-kyack-kyack!!"
A goblin pack, moving as one.
And not merely wandering — marching in formation, ranks dressed like a proper column. The sight was so familiar it nearly kicked my PTSD wide awake.
Goblins, of course, were creatures that naturally drifted about in twos and threes. Someone out there might not have found it strange at all. Dozens of them, though, was another story entirely. Goblins could never mass on that scale, not if the sky split in two. Adventurers, or a territory's regulars, would tear them out by the roots long before it came to that — and even sooner, they'd end up as lunch for some other monster. They might not look it, but these things sat at the very bottom of the food chain.
"Oh, Lord."
Raccoon, who had never dropped a single coin in a church plate in his life, murmured it under his breath. Idiot. Call on God only when you need Him and see how thrilled He is to answer. I was half ready to look up a god I didn't even believe in. If I'd known it would come to this, I'd have tithed like a zealot in my spare time. Karma, maybe, for a life lived without a scrap of faith.
Everyone met the mess in their own way.
"...Finally."
That was Eline, muttering something I couldn't begin to parse.
"Can we please just go back, huh? All we have to do is report that there's a goblin colony, right?"
Raccoon, whining.
"Well, now. Trouble's doubled. That many goblins..."
And Mr. Babar, who didn't look as if he were thinking much of anything.
The mood was so scattered I thought my mind might launch itself clean out to Andromeda.
"All right, all right. Eyes over here."
I clapped, light and sharp, and dragged their attention back in.
"We decide before we lose them. Do we keep tailing, or turn around and report it as is?"
Eline argued for pressing on. She couldn't say why, only that there was a reason she absolutely had to go.
Raccoon wanted to turn back. He was a slippery type who hated heavy work and hated responsibility even more; he probably figured he'd already done his share. It wasn't an entirely wrong way to think.
"Doesn't matter to me."
Mr. Babar, as ever, had no opinion at all.
So it came down to me. I wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run. There were simply too many goblins. It hadn't been that long since five of them had nearly killed me, and I was sick to death of their faces.
Even so.
"We follow them."
A hard feeling sat in my gut that we couldn't just slip away from this.
"Why..."
"Well, we've got Eline. Should be fine, right?"
It was a call I could make only because she was here — the same Eline who could carve an orc apart by herself. A few dozen goblins ought to be nothing to her. And if not, oh well.
"Good thinking, Goat."
Eline nodded and set off the way the pack had gone. She'd more or less grown up in the forest; of course her tracking would be excellent.
"This way, everyone."
Mr. Babar and I hauled the grumbling Raccoon along after her.
True to a fairy, she moved through the trees with startling agility. Her steps were so quiet that even at a brisk pace you could barely hear them. Following her, the goblin pack soon slid back into view.
"Kyack— kyack—"
"Kerrk—! Kerrk—!"
Amazingly, they were shouting in time as they marched. The one in front called, and the ones behind answered.
Mr. Babar let out a wondering breath, as if he'd just seen a rare beast.
"Ho. Stranger by the minute. Those little bastards had brains like that in them?"
He wasn't wrong. Goblins were pea-brained. Even among monsters they competed for the title of dumbest, and aside from kobolds, nothing alive was as thick as they were. The ability to dress ranks for a march simply could not exist in them. They could barely stand in a line — call and response was miles past anything they'd understand.
This was plainly the anomaly the guild had spoken of.
"Hmm. How does something get this smart overnight?"
Raccoon seemed just as thrown by their sudden cleverness.
"We keep following for now. We need to know where they're going."
At Elise's suggestion we kept up the pursuit, and an hour slipped by. Just as I was starting to worry we'd gone too deep, Eline — silent at the front all this while — raised a hand and stopped.
"...We've got uninvited guests."
"Uninvited guests?"
The goblins were still kek-kekking their way along. Eline ignored them. She stood where she was and stared blankly off to the right.
Raccoon grumbled.
"What? What is it now?"
Maybe he was sour that we'd chased this far only to lose them and feel the air go out of it. I felt the same. We'd come this far; we ought to get something out of it. The complaint didn't last. Someone burst from the trees on the right.
"Sharp eyes."
Why do bad feelings never turn out wrong?
It was the one-eyed man from earlier, and the Bronze-plate adventurers with him. Five of them in all.
"You lot seemed to be chasing something real hard."
He snickered, delighted, as if he hadn't expected a score this fat.
"Goblins moving in a pack! Report that to the guild and we'll make a killing."
"Cut the bullshit already, you piece of shit."
I'd heard enough. This world had no shortage of people who'd homeschooled their own upbringing, but this crossed the line. Looked like somebody was going to need a lesson.
"All right, kids. Repeat after me. Busi—ness—eth—ics—"
"Busi—ness—"
One of the stealers started to echo it. The one-eyed man smacked him on the head and cut him off.
"You dumb fuck, he tells you to repeat it and you actually do?"
My lesson continued regardless.
"What we found is ours. That's business ethics. You understand now?"
That ought to cover it.
"The hell are you saying, you milk-stinking brat. Let me teach you again. The strong take everything. That's business ethics. Heh heh heh."
That one-eyed bastard was definitely dumber than Mr. Babar. He'd sat through my gentlemanly lecture and still failed to reform. Unacceptable.
"Hmm. And what exactly are you going to do about it? We're standing right here with both eyes wide open."
When Mr. Babar asked, the buck-toothed one in the back answered.
"Don't ask us. Ask those goblins."
This bastard. Don't tell me—
"Hey, you dogshit goblins!!!!! Over here!!!!"
The insolent fuckers pulled the adventurer's great taboo. They cast griefing.
The aggro was magnificent. The cries of the goblins that had been drawing away began to swell.
"Kyack— kerrk, kerrk!!!"
"See you later, then. If you live."
With that, they bolted at a dead run.
Unfortunately, we'd planted ourselves farther ahead than they had. We were the ones who had to fight.
"Too late to run...?"
Raccoon said it in a cowed little voice.
"Unless you're on Eline's level, running's going to be hard."
"Don't worry. I am not running off and leaving you."
And the truth was, Eline probably didn't need to run at all. She could wipe the goblins out by herself.
"Haa. This job's gone and tangled itself proper. Let's get ready to fight."
Mr. Babar heaved a sigh and drew his longsword. Aside from Raccoon, though, nobody looked truly shaken. Maybe Raccoon was only irritated at being dragged into a hassle.
"Whoa now. Look at those shitbirds surrounding us."
Something that should have been impossible. Goblins that ought to have charged in brainless and blind had started encircling human beings. Were these things prodigy goblins? I could feel, more by the moment, that something seriously wrong was unfolding — a sign so bad that even Raccoon, whose instincts were garbage, could read it.
"Everyone, just hold a little. I will beat them all down for you."
Thanks to her, I didn't think we'd die. I still hated it. Why did we have to suffer like this because of those stealer bastards? Scouting the goblins' base had sailed clean out of reach. This was, in every sense, a fucked situation.
"Just you wait, you shitbirds."
"Goat."
"I know."
At Eline's prompting, I cleared my throat.
"Kyahaha—!! Talk about a goddamn windfall."
Valik, the one-eyed party leader, said it with his whole chest.
He'd formed a party with five other Bronze-plate adventurers and was out on a search. All five were people he got along with and ran close to — human garbage, every one of them, and then some.
"If that black-haired bastard had just helped us grab the woman, none of this would've happened."
Kujan, the buck-toothed one trailing behind, picked up the thread.
Not a scrap of guilt could be found on any of them. All that filled them was the look of the lowest kind of human, eyes bloodshot for whatever pay the guild might hand out.
"Wonder how much they'll give. Shit, I need a lot of coin on account of my debts."
"Hey, instead of heading back like this, what if we wait a bit and pick anything useful off their corpses?"
"Ha— this bastard's still alive and kicking. How's your head spin that fast? Pull a fat haul and I'm taking the most satisfying piss of my life."
They stopped where they were and started killing time. They were still laughing, filthy words rolling off their tongues, when someone spoke.
"Hey, shit, hold on. I think I hear goblins."
"Those guys are probably fighting their asses off."
"Ah, you deaf idiot. Listen closer."
Valik stopped talking and glared toward where the goblins had been.
"...Kyaaaaa."
"Oh, shit. For real."
"Everybody run!!"
The sound was still distant, so they judged they could escape. It was a misjudgment.
"Shiiiiit—!!! Why are these bastards so fast!!!!"
"Weapons up, all of you!!!!"
Valik and his crew hadn't gone far before seven goblins, thrashing like mad things, ran them down.
"Don't freeze!! There's only seven — we can take 'em!!"
Were they adventurers who lived by the sword, at least in form? The six of them drew their weapons, radiating a vicious air. That air did not last.
Thuk—
"Kurgh—"
"You piece of— Kujan!!!!"
A goblin was a monster, yes, but it was still a living thing. Stab it and it ought to feel pain and flinch. These didn't. They went past giving bone to take flesh — they gave flesh to take the organs. They looked as if they felt no pain at all, and it was no wonder morale hit the floor.
"Aaaaaagh—!!!"
"Gyaaaaaah— save me!!!"
"Shit... what the hell are these things..."
Valik could not make sense of it. What were these berserker goblins? They'd said an orc had turned up near the outskirts not long ago. Had these insane things been the reason? Regret crashed over him — he should have just run, gear and corpses be damned — but it was already too late. The berserkers did not look inclined to offer a second chance. Stay, and it was a massacre.
Valik decided, fast, to cut his companions loose.
"Krrrgh—!!! I won't forget your sacrifice!!"
He turned his back on the goblin he'd been facing and charged straight at one of his own.
The adventurer who became the target roared, furious, as anyone would.
"Fuck!!! What the hell are you doing!!!"
Valik didn't spare a thought for what became of the companion ringed in goblins. He sprinted for the brief gap — a living path — that opened in that short instant.
"You son of a bitch—!!!!!!!! Take me with you!!!!"
"Fuck off!!!! You want me dead too? The one who can live ought to live!!!!!"
Leaving his companions' screams behind him, Valik ran like a madman. He forgot the wound a goblin had put in him. He forgot the leg throbbing where a club had caught it. He sprinted with everything he had, and before he knew it the world around him had gone quiet.
"Shit, I lived... I lived, you motherfuckers!!!"
He dragged in ragged breaths and headed for Baikal.
"Tsk. Failed again."
The moment I belted the song out with everything I had, the goblins started thrashing like lunatics. It would have been better if they'd fainted, or dropped from exhaustion. Still, it wasn't a serious problem. Eline even looked as if she were having more fun because they were going wild. Seven of the twenty had peeled off after the stealers, which made the fight extremely easy. While Raccoon, Mr. Babar, and I each latched onto two and rolled around the dirt in perfect harmony, Eline killed the rest in a flash.
When it was over, we decided to head back to Baikal.
"Nothing more to gain by hanging around here."
"Will you look at that. Raccoon said something correct for once."
We carefully cut the goblins' ears, pocketed them, and set out. Not long after, we found the stealer bastards — the ones I could have chewed up alive and still not felt satisfied.
"One, two, three, four, five. Looks like one of them got away somehow."
Amazingly, the idiots had died fighting the seven goblins that had split off from the pack.
"Tsk. Waited around to loot our corpses and died for it."
I didn't feel much sympathy. The goblins had beaten them so badly that nothing on the bodies was intact, so we just made sure to collect their adventurer plates. Those were money too. Turn them in at the adventurer's guild and you got a recovery fee.
We walked a long while, and just before sunset we reached Baikal. A familiar building came into view. Damn, was I glad to see it. Before stepping into the guild, I cleared my throat.
Déjà vu? Yeah. I could feel it.
KWA-AAAAANG—
"This time it's a fucking bigger emergency!!!! A super-super-super emergency!!!!!!!"