Those Damn Monsters (3)
A story from a past I can never go back to — a memory I now hold dear.
It was from the days when I had only just become a member of the Order. I was still an apprentice then.
I had been living at the church for about a month, maybe. An orc raid had left me at death's door, and though the church had treated me quickly enough to save my life, the arm the beasts had eaten was gone for good. Even the simplest parts of living had become nearly impossible. I couldn't feed myself properly. Changing clothes required someone else's hands.
It was to that version of me that the Mother Superior held out a gift box. I remember it being fairly heavy. A present, out of nowhere — I was suspicious at first, wondering what she was plotting. That suspicion did not last. It turned, almost at once, into joy and a flutter of excitement.
"What's this?"
"A gift for our new sister."
"Wow..."
An arm that shone silver. It was cold metal, without a trace of living warmth — and yet receiving it had made my heart so very warm.
Fitting the joint to my shoulder had hurt considerably, but if I could just endure that, a prosthetic of solid steel would be mine. A magnificent arm. Sturdy. Practical, even.
That arm was why I had been able to live this long. And the Mother Superior, who had looked after me like a mother, was why I had been able to crawl out of a garbage life.
"...Ah."
And even now, I was still alive.
Consciousness came back, and with it, my vision. I didn't need to piece together what had happened. I had sprung the goblins' trap, they had started pouring in as a mob, and I had thrown grenades to seal the passage — buying myself, just barely, a little more time to live.
"Nngh..."
The first thing I did was check on the nun I had pulled from the goblins' hands. The blast had brought part of the cave down, and I had wrapped myself around her to shield her from the debris.
"...Just unconscious, then."
She was alive. Exhaustion and the wound in her leg had knocked her out, but even that injury looked considerably better than before. Which meant coming here had not been meaningless. It meant this was not going to be a dog's death.
I let out a breath and pushed myself up. I could not afford to stop here. I had stalled the goblins flooding in from both passages, but the cave was far sturdier than I had imagined, and it had not collapsed outright. The danger was still here. Then again, the passages were still open — which meant the chance of getting out alive was still here, too.
I worked the action. The gun was not broken. Neither was I. That meant I could still move. That meant I could still fight.
A growl rolled out of the dark. I had only been out for a few seconds, and the stigma still burning through me had not faded.
A goblin lunged from behind. I caught the blade it swung on my arm. This prosthetic had been forged from the volcanic metals of the sixth floor; a crude scrap of a sword was not going to break it. It was a luxury piece. It earned every coin spent on it.
I put a hole through its chest. Goblins were used to the dark, but not the way I was. They needed torches. I had nothing but my own eyes, and that was enough to move through this blackness.
Raise the gun. And pray.
To Purify these goddamn monsters I needed the power of God, repulsive as that was — so hand over that blessing.
"You fucking goblin...!"
If I couldn't shoot, I would kill them with my hands. If I couldn't use my hands, then my feet. If not my feet, I would tear them apart with my teeth.
"Y-you damn human!"
Of course they wanted me dead. More than half their own had already fallen to the likes of me. Goblins cherished their kin. In their society they held rites to honor the dead and festivals to bless newborns. They sired those young on females of other races, true — but once a child carried their blood, they treated it as one of their own.
"Shut up. Mindless monsters, the lot of you..."
Bone crunched. Before I knew it, only one goblin was left. After the one that had cursed me through tears of blood, all that remained was a single small figure watching me from a distance — a juvenile, by the look of it. Two grenades had been more than enough of a killing stroke. Plenty of them had been caught in the blast; the rest had been crushed under the collapsed rubble until there was nothing left to recognize.
"Now it's just you."
The little thing was smaller than the others, and it didn't seem to be holding a weapon. Finishing it would be simple. It wouldn't even take any effort.
I worked the action twice. Empty.
"Tch."
Of all the times to run dry. At least no more of them were coming — though that was no guarantee there weren't others waiting outside.
"What a pain."
I couldn't afford to burn mana just to fire the gun. I would have to walk over there and kill it myself. I needed to keep what mana I had. I barely had any to begin with, and my body was wrecked; one wrong move and I would collapse on the spot. Pass out now and I might not wake up at all. If I went under, it would be half a day before I could stand. Even if I dealt with this one, any goblins still out there would come back with the rest of the pack and that would be the end of me.
Killing the goblin in front of me would not keep me alive. I had to save whatever strength I had left—
A gunshot cracked through the dark.
...Huh?
That sound just now was definitely—
The ground came up to meet me. No — my legs had given out, and I had gone down.
"Ah—"
There was no strength in my body. What had just happened? I remembered the gunshot. If there was a gunshot, it should have been from my side. No. That report hadn't come from anything I was carrying. It had sounded like a pistol — the same sharp crack as the sidearms the nuns carried for self-defense.
"Nngh, ah...!"
It hurt. My side hurt like hell, as if someone had taken a spear heated white and gouged it through my flank. I dragged my head up and tried to see what had been done to me.
There were no other nuns here. The only one present was still unconscious, and a sister wouldn't shoot another sister in the first place. Which meant the one who had fired—
Blood was leaking from my side. The goblin blood on my habit had already dried; now the cloth was soaking through with my own.
The muzzle flash had come from the goblin's direction. So the goblin had shot me. But how did a monster get its hands on a gun? There was no way a creature like that could—
...There was, actually. The captured nun's belongings. When I had found her, she had been stripped naked, wrists and ankles bound, laid out on the ground. Which meant they had taken everything she had — and among those things, there would certainly have been her pistol.
You've got to be kidding me. In all my years, I had never thought I'd meet a goblin that could shoot a gun. What world was this, where goblins fired pistols? If you're going to shoot something, use a bow. Why a gun?
The goblin came toward me. I needed to move, but looking at the red pooling out of me across the floor, I didn't think I could. It clambered onto my fallen body, drool hanging from its mouth as it looked down at me.
Of course. I really couldn't do it, could I? I had been prepared to die — the one thing anyone can do — and I still couldn't even save the sisters those goblins had dragged away.
Then it started choking me. I couldn't breathe. My vision began to go. In size it was no bigger than the children at the church, but the strength in those hands was greater than a grown man's. I had once shaken off the hands that had closed around my throat in my sleep and tried to defile me. I could not get this goblin off me.
"Die! Just die already!"
The thing's voice was thick with hate. It was angry enough that it could have simply pulled the trigger, and had chosen instead to kill me with its own hands. Or maybe it got some kind of pleasure out of doing it that way.
Goddamn it. I couldn't get any strength into my body. Had the stigma burned itself out, or was it that every time I moved, more blood pushed out of the hole in my side?
Its claws sank into my throat. The world turned over. Holding on any longer was beyond me. My arms fell away, and my legs — already soaked in goblin blood — went limp.
This was it. I was dying. There was nothing more I could do, and the fate that had been closing around my throat had finally succeeded in killing me.
"Ah..."
I didn't have any particular attachment to living. I had written a will a long time ago; when I died, everything I owned would go to the church. Maybe then the kids could eat a little better, or get some decent toys that weren't just donated castoffs.
My head dropped. And there she was — the unconscious nun. I hadn't managed to save her after all. Sorry about that. I hadn't had long left to live anyway. I had wanted to spend this life on keeping someone else alive. Turns out I couldn't even do that.
...Well. What was I supposed to do about it? It had been a trash life, lived in a dump. I should be grateful I'd had about ten years of warmth. Thinking of it that way, maybe God was merciful after all.
For the first time, I felt like thanking the god of this world.
...Thanking God?
I was clearly losing my mind. Just die already. If I died, I wouldn't feel a thing when that goblin raped me or chewed me up. Yeah. That would have been enough.
That would have been enough—
Footsteps.
"N-no..."
The goblin made a startled sound.
Why. Why are you there. Why are you coming out of there...?
There was a child.
I had no idea how the kid had made it this far, but the child I had gambled my life to save was here. And that child charged in barehanded — straight at the goblin that was killing me.