Goblin Subjugation (6)
“Who’s that?”
The figure that stepped into the firelight was a girl in a filthy Academy uniform.
“Haa… I’m alive… Thank God.”
She looked ready to cry.
“Come sit.”
I took her hand and guided her down beside the campfire. It was spring, yet the nights still bit with cold.
Brown hair, damp grey eyes, and skin so white and flawless it was hard to believe she had spent a lifetime training with a sword. She was no peerless beauty, yet she was lovely all the same. My heart gave a strange little flutter.
“Water.”
I asked Crane. She took the canteen and gulped it down, then let out a long, shuddering breath.
“Hoo… I might actually live now. Thank you. I’m Lena Wietnfeld.”
She murmured it pitifully. Without a word I wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.
“I’m Crane Brunner, and this is May Blair… We’re all first-years, so please speak freely.”
Crane introduced me a little shyly.
“Lena, do you know where Professor Anton is?”
“We got separated when we were attacked. I haven’t seen him since.”
“I figured…”
Crane sat a little apart, looking uneasy as he fed more wood into the fire.
“I know both of you. Miss Blair from the Literature Department and Mr. Brunner.”
“You did? Well, there aren’t even ten girls taking sword classes, so…”
I still wasn’t used to the world of women, so I mostly stuck with Crane. How that looked to the other girls, I had no idea.
“Ahem. You… didn’t run into any goblins, did you?”
Crane cleared his throat, trying to break the awkward silence. Lena, who had been glancing around, answered at once.
“No, not a single one. But… is that goblin blood?”
She stared at the stains on our clothes and her eyes went wide.
“Yeah. The two of us took down seven of them.”
I shrugged.
“Wow, that’s amazing! I was so scared—they say if goblins catch a woman they drag her off and force her to bear their young. How did you manage it?”
Whether she meant it or not, she reacted with genuine-sounding awe.
“Well… I got two, Crane got five.”
I left out the part about being thoroughly raped and kept the story neat. The whole conversation was starting to make me sweat.
“No, Miss Blair took five and I only managed two.”
Crane said it with a tight face, then quietly swallowed.
“Here—please, eat while we talk.”
Lena pulled jerky from her pack and held it out to us.
“Food!”
We had been starving all day; we tore into it like animals.
“So… what do we do now?”
“Once morning comes we head south.”
Crane heard Lena’s question and quietly swallowed again. I answered around a mouthful of jerky.
I woke at first light, the same hour I always did. Back in the dorms I would have washed and headed out for morning drills—running and sword work. A body that isn’t trained every day fails when you need it. Most students practiced from dawn for that reason. Today, unfortunately, practice was out of the question. After everything that had happened, every muscle screamed; even walking felt like a chore.
“Let’s go to the stream I found yesterday. Without water we can’t go anywhere.”
We followed Crane’s suggestion, banked the fire, and set out. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself into that stream and scrub clean. Every time I felt the mud and dried fluids still clinging to my skin, yesterday’s nightmare rose up again. What would have happened if Crane hadn’t come? The thought alone drained what little spirit I had left. All I wanted now was to go home and recover in peace. I had volunteered for the goblin subjugation hoping for some shining achievement; instead I had ended up like this. The only consolation was that the skills I had honed let me kill a few of them. Before the Academy I probably couldn’t have handled even one.
“Here.”
Crane led us to a narrow stream ringed by cork oaks like a natural screen. The water looked crystal clear.
“You go upstream and fill the canteens. I need to wash.”
“Here? You’re bathing here?”
“Why? Want to join me?”
“N-no… no…”
I shooed Crane away, folded my uniform neatly on the grass, and started peeling off my underthings. Lena’s face burned scarlet; she forced her gaze elsewhere.
“Aren’t you going to wash, Lena?”
“Just… give me a moment.”
Splash, splash.
I sank my body—still streaked with goblin fluids, mud, and blood—into the icy stream.
“God, that’s cold…”
The quiet forest filled with the sound of water. The stream wasn’t wide. If Lena came in with me, there would be nowhere to hide. My eyes caught her upper body half-submerged to the waist: modest yet soft and springy breasts, collarbones drawn in a clean straight line, the elegant curve of her neck revealed by her upswept hair.
“Don’t crouch over there looking so uncomfortable. Come closer.”
Lena spoke gently to me as I huddled in a corner.
“Should I?”
“We’re both girls. What’s there to be shy about?”
I moved over beside her. Smooth skin brushed smooth skin. The water was deeper here; it rose to our chests.
“You’re a little unusual, Miss Blair.”
“Hmm? How so?”
“The way you hang around Brunner—Crane, I mean. He’s basically an outcast in the sword department.”
“I know. I’m Literature myself, so mixing with the others feels awkward… and once you get to know him he’s not so bad.”
“But you’re popular. Especially with the boys—they’re all watching you. They just don’t dare approach because of Professor Anton.”
“Because of Professor Anton?”
“No student has ever received private lessons from him before, and you’re from another department. People started whispering that you must be his girlfriend…”
“Ah. So that’s why Crane asked me about it…”
What a strange rumor. As if a man of Professor Anton’s character would ever…
I squeezed my eyes shut and scrubbed every inch of myself, erasing last night’s traces.
“I’ll wash your back.”
“Huh?”
Lena cupped water in her hands and rinsed my back, then carefully washed my hair as well.
“Your hair and back are caked with mud.”
“Yesterday was pure chaos—I was rolling around on the ground fighting.”
There were things I would take to my grave rather than speak of. Still, I told myself it didn’t matter. In a world this brutal, a trial like this was nothing.
“You’re really incredible, though. The sword students talked about it a lot—how a Literature girl who’d never held a sword in her life suddenly joined their classes… and now you’re already performing like this.”
Lena’s face had gone red all the way to her ears. Maybe it was her translucent skin.
“Yeah… I can imagine.”
I slapped water onto my cheeks and washed my face. Suddenly a commotion rose in the distance. I turned. Academy students were coming down the hill toward the stream.
“That’s—hurry, get dressed! Lena!”
“May!”
Professor Anton sprinted the last stretch, then launched himself and swept me into his arms. I found myself crushed against his broad chest. A startled cry escaped me; I couldn’t breathe.
“I thought you were dead. Thank God you’re alive. Do you know how frantic I’ve been?”
Only then did he realize how the embrace must look to the other students. He stepped back abruptly and glanced around.
“Ahem… Still, every student accounted for and no fatalities. That’s a relief.”
“Any injuries?”
“No, Professor. But we did run into goblins…”
The group moved to the place where we had killed them. The thick stench of blood hit our noses. The ground was soaked with it. Goblin corpses lay everywhere—seven in all. Heads crushed, throats cut… every death had been an ambush. Three had been stabbed from behind with a dagger and then beheaded. A veteran swordsman like Anton could reconstruct the entire fight in his mind. The knowledge that May’s life had hung by a thread sent a chill down his spine.
“And this one?”
His gaze stopped on the large goblin’s back. He hurriedly checked the tattoo carved there, then looked straight at me.
“This… is the goblin chieftain—the one we were supposed to subjugate.”
“What? You’re serious?”
Every eye turned to me. Anton spoke again.
“If the chieftain’s body is here, their den can’t be far. Paul and I will handle it. The rest of you stay put—it’s too dangerous.”
“Paul, get ready!”
“Yes, Professor!”
My eyes found the black-haired young man who answered so vigorously. He was smaller than Crane, yet his golden eyes were striking. To my surprise, the youth called Paul was looking straight back at me.