#010 Instigation
#010 Instigation
The green goblin, 'Amutar Akshkil', was stricken with fear.
Attacking humans with no tactics, no plan at all?
It was impossible.
His kin could only see one step ahead.
Those humans had magic staffs that could blow a hole through a goblin's forehead with just a twitch of a finger.
Because Amutar's parents had died that way, Amutar knew the terror of those hard, rigid staffs better than anyone.
"Hey, what's a goblin doing with a helmet?"
"Krrk, shut up."
"You coward."
"Shut your mouth."
Whatever his fellow raiders said, Amutar pulled the orc skull down over his head.
He didn't think the skull would stop an enemy attack, and he had even less faith that his tribe could raid humans properly.
And with good reason....
Jingle-jangle-jangle!!
"Kiiit! We're caught!!"
One goblin had stepped on a line strung between the trees.
The iron scraps tied to the line began clattering against one another.
"Why'd you step on that and cause a scene!"
"Krrk, how was I supposed to know it was there? Krrk."
"Keep your eyes open when you walk!"
"What do you want me to do about something I couldn't see?! Krrk."
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang.
The alarm signaling an enemy attack began to ring.
The humans hurriedly grabbed torches and began to move.
"Elder!!"
"...Now that we've been spotted, we can't give them time to respond."
The elder slowly stretched a hand forward.
"For times like this, I have something we got from human adventurers. Heh-heh-heh."
The elder took out a round object.
The steel-looking object gave off a foul smell from inside as the elder swung the head-sized black sphere behind his back.
"Screeech!!"
With the elder's scream, the black sphere soared high into the sky.
Like a massive boulder launched from a catapult, it flew straight toward the wooden palisade of the human village.
A moment later.
KABOOOOM!!
A massive explosion erupted, as if an Explosion spell had been cast.
"Applaud me!!"
The elder goblin threw both hands up triumphantly, and the goblins cheered at the palisade that had been blown apart in an instant.
"That's our elder!"
"Amazing! He wrecked the palisade in an instant!"
"Heh-heh-heh, goblins have to use their heads too. Heh-heh-heh."
"...He could've just thrown it where the humans were gathered and killed them all."
Amutar's muttering reached no one.
Much to Amutar's regret, there was no one in the tribe—not even the elder—capable of holding a conversation at anything close to his own, human-like level of intelligence.
"Goblins, all of you, chaaaarge!"
"Screeeech!!"
"Tch...."
Standing behind the goblins, who had decided to charge simply because the palisade was down and without any plan at all, Amutar quietly gripped a wooden stick tipped with a poisoned needle.
"...Sorry, and good luck."
Crunch.
"I'll take the Demonfolk for myself. Krrk."
After coating the slender needle thickly with paralyzing venom, Amutar began cautiously following behind his comrades.
Waaaaah!
Amid the battle between humans and goblins, Amutar merely hid in the darkness, watching for an opening.
* * *
"Goblins! Damn it, they wrecked the palisade!!"
"How did goblins get their hands on a mana bomb...?"
"That's not what matters right now! Bring bows! Crossbows, anything! And bring shields so we can block their shots!!"
Pandemonium.
The people of the Hero Village gathered in one place around the Holy Sword.
Among them were Lucius and I, bound with rope.
Why were we here?
Because the village chief's son had held Lucius at gunpoint, threatened us both, and dragged us before the Holy Sword's altar.
To negotiate.
"Goblins, calm yourselves! This is Hero Village, with centuries of history behind it! You must know what will happen if you attack this place recklessly!!"
"Nothing will happen. Krrk."
The village chief clutched his shoulder and attempted to negotiate, and an elder who appeared to be the goblins' leader stepped forward and sneered at him.
"This place stayed safe because there was nothing to gain from attacking it. We could make far more coin raiding mercenaries passing through the area than raiding you lot."
"Then why?!"
"Because the scent of delicious prey started wafting out. Krrk."
The goblin elder's eyes turned toward me.
The humans' gazes fixed squarely on me as well.
"As I thought...!"
"They came for the Witch of Calamity...!"
"I told you, it's ‘Crimson Mage.’"
They really didn't listen to a word anyone said.
I was lying, but not one of them could tell truth from falsehood.
"I-if we hand this woman over, will you withdraw?"
"That's right, krrk. Hand over the woman and we'll spare your lives."
"For mere goblins...."
"What? Mere? Want a taste of the black bomb?!"
"N-no, that's not...."
Whether human or goblin, all bow their heads before a power that can harm them.
Facing goblins who had blown apart the palisade with a mana bomb, the humans could only stand their ground on edge.
In case there was another one.
"They said we can live if we just hand over the woman. What are you waiting for...?"
"The red-haired witch! Offer the red-haired witch's blood!!"
The village chief's wife screamed at the top of her lungs.
"To avoid the coming death, we must offer the red-haired witch's blood! Screeech!!"
The chief's wife, who made sounds stranger than the goblins despite being human, was out of her mind.
She seemed unusually sensitive to the Demonfolk aura leaking from me. Already under severe mental strain, sensing it had likely worn her down even further.
"Let's cut off the red-haired witch's head!"
"No, let's hand her over to the goblins!"
The problem was that the "red-haired witch" she kept shouting about had somehow become me.
And the real problem was....
"N-no, you can't! Everyone, my master isn't just some witch! She's a Hero who defeated a Demon King and sealed herself away!!"
Lucius shouted at the top of his lungs, looking ready to cry as blood streamed from his shoulder.
"Handing my master over to them now is the same as offering a hero to the Demon King Army! Please, calm down!!"
"A Hero? We don't even know if that woman is who she claims to be!"
"In all my life, I've never heard of a Crimson Mage!!"
"Who cares! They said that bitch called out the name of a Demon King that must never be spoken! Then tell her to go die!!"
To think humans who lived alongside all kinds of Demonfolk in the Middle Realm would panic over something like this.
It showed me just how complacently the villagers had been living.
'Back in my day, humans would form raiding parties and attack before the Demonfolk even got close.'
It was a fresh reminder.
Five hundred years ago, whenever I attacked a human village, the humans would lie in wait in the forest and strike the Demon King Army first so the fighting would never reach the village.
—They're not even elves! What the hell are these humans doing?!
—We learned from the elves, you bastards!
Memories of having to fight guerrillas in the forest before I could even reach their villages came flooding back.
In particular, a ranger unit entrenched in a fortress had once nearly wiped out one of my legions.
That was how it had been.
And now, against a tribe of not even a hundred goblins—a small-to-mid-sized tribe at that—nearly a hundred humans were this terrified?
I couldn't understand how they had grown so weak over five hundred years.
'I'll have to look after Lucius even more.'
Perhaps humans across the entire continent were like this, and Lucius might truly be exceptional among them.
Perhaps Lucius might be the most outstanding pushover among all the humans I would ever meet.
So I couldn't let him die here.
Nor could I die here.
"My master is absolutely not that kind of witch! Everyone, please...!"
"Enough. You'll bleed out from your shoulder, Lucius."
I stopped Lucius, who was trying to persuade the villagers.
"If words won't resolve this, then I have no choice but to prove it through action."
"Shut up! According to the legend passed down in our village, you are a calamity that will destroy not only our village but all of humanity!"
I needed a convincing argument to turn the situation around.
I recalled something that had happened to me five hundred years ago and quietly spoke.
"Ah, I see. So that was the curse left behind by the Demon King."
"What... did you say?"
"When I awoke from the seal and came to retrieve the Holy Sword, it was a trap set by the Demon King to kill me."
I would fight incitement with incitement.
"A long-standing tradition? A legend? Heh, it must be a scheme passed down over hundreds of years, devised by the Demon King's underlings to prevent the Holy Sword's seal from being broken. Foolish humans. You've guarded it as a secret for generations without even knowing you'd been deceived."
"N-no! That can't be!! Our ancestors clearly said so!!"
"Offer the red-haired witch's blood!! Screeech!!"
"......?"
Was it true?
I had thrown that out just to buy time, assuming the village chief had invented the story to manipulate Lucius into dealing with me. But apparently the legend that "the red-haired witch will bring this village to ruin" was real after all.
'It's not wrong, at least.'
Because the Hero Village would come to an end as of today.
"Then I shall prove it. The purpose for which I came here. And... the birth of a new Hero, for the sake of humanity."
Rustle.
I casually slipped free of the ropes.
Using the mana I had left, I lightly singed one side of the rope with fire, and it came undone on its own.
"Rise, Lucius. My chosen hero."
"M-me...?"
"Yes."
I extended my hand toward Lucius.
"The Holy Sword belongs to you."
"That mage is trying to awaken a Hero right now! Kill her!!"
With the goblin elder's fierce bellow, the goblins charged at us all at once.