Chapter 9
#9화 Newbie Adventurer Bern (7) - Goblin Lord
Riding is the exclusive preserve of the wealthy.
Horses are creatures that burn through money at an absurd rate, both to buy and to maintain, so unless you have considerable wealth, you can't afford to keep one.
Even for a successful adventurer, it's not completely impossible financially, but honestly, almost no adventurer owns a horse of their own.
Long-distance travel might make them useful, but in combat they often just get in the way, and adventurers are basically a party-based profession anyway, so if you want mobility, not just you but your whole party would need horses.
If you have enough money for that, why would you spend it on a horse instead of precious gear, potions, grimoires, and the like?
In other words.
Blanca had never ridden a horse once in her life.
No, she had never experienced anything that moved 'faster' than a person could run.
“Kyaa! Kyaaaaaah!”
“If you keep your mouth open like that, you'll bite your tongue.”
“If you know that, then stop already, you idiot!!”
Blanca wanted to yell that, but she didn't have even a speck of spare energy.
The dizzying scenery flashing past her and the uneasy sensation of floating in midair were gnawing at her nerves in real time.
All she could do was cling to Bern with everything she had so she wouldn't fall off.
Thanks to that, Bern's back was being treated to all kinds of soft sensations for various reasons, but Blanca, terrified out of her mind, was in no position to care about that.
-Kwek?
Since she had been screaming her head off while running, it would be downright shameless to hope no one around noticed.
The goblins, having realized something was wrong, spotted Bern and Blanca and took a battle stance, but Bern neither drew his sword nor even put Blanca down to get ready; he just charged straight at the goblin horde.
And then he kicked one of the little green bodies away.
Thwack!
The ribs around the kicked-in chest caved in instantly, piercing the organs and turning everything to mush.
The goblin died instantly without even managing a scream, let alone resistance.
The other goblins nearby froze without even understanding what had happened, and Bern said without hesitation:
“Fire.”
Instead of asking 'where' or 'what,' Blanca clenched her teeth and wordlessly stretched out her right arm.
The 『Wood-Burning Magic』 shot from her hand and struck the dazed goblin horde.
-Greeeek!?
Since it was a low-level spell and not even a direct hit, none of the goblins went down in a single blow.
But the searing heat exploding before their eyes was enough to fluster them, and Bern cleaned them up with a swing of his free right hand.
“Keep doing it like this. However, we may need to use intermediate magic later too, so if it looks like you're running low on mana, tell me in advance.”
“I said I know, so could you slow down a little—mmph!”
Blanca's grumbling suddenly cut off.
Without even turning around, Bern guessed what had happened and quietly shook his head.
‘So I did warn her that if she kept her mouth open, she'd bite her tongue.’
There was no need to worry that Blanca might have heard him and strangled him on the spot.
Whether Bern knew what she was thinking or not, it didn't matter, because at this very moment Blanca was already squeezing Bern's neck without mercy.
She probably thought she was clinging on desperately so she wouldn't fall, but if a normal person did this, they'd usually be unable to breathe. Bern's body was extraordinary to begin with, so he was perfectly fine.
After that, it was almost just a matter of repetition.
Bern ran without stopping for even a moment, and whenever goblins blocked the way, he either kicked them aside without slowing down or asked Blanca to shoot them with magic.
“Fire.”
Boom!
“Fire.”
Boom!
“One more.”
Boom!
Blanca's spell accuracy wasn't all that high.
She missed more often than she hit.
Bern didn't particularly chide her.
With an unstable posture piled on top of a dizzying field of view, he figured that was more than understandable.
But Blanca was different.
She had a purpose: to defeat the lich, and this request was the first step toward achieving it.
Bern was out there showing off his abilities and making a name for himself, while she was clinging to his back and making mistake after mistake?
Blanca wasn't stubborn enough to just dismiss that with a simple 'can't be helped.'
Bern realized that too.
Blanca's reaction speed and spell precision were both growing faster and sharper.
Thinking she was indeed a good talent—no, a good companion, Bern turned his gaze forward.
The end of the first fork.
A mountain of various foodstuffs and supplies came into view.
It looked like this path was the goblins' storeroom.
In front of the storeroom stood a goblin about a head taller than the others, and something about its atmosphere was off.
Good-quality leather armor and a helmet. A steel sword gleaming in the light. Eyes fixed straight on Bern.
Bern didn't know it, but this goblin was the second-in-command of the horde.
The Goblin Lord's favor toward him was rock-solid; he had even ordered human slaves to make him custom armor, and since they still lacked the ability to produce their own, he had been granted one of only three steel swords the horde possessed.
Even now, he was as strong as a typical human warrior, and if a true goblin kingdom were ever established, he had the makings of a knight under the Lord.
Unlike the rest of his kin, who rarely got past elementary-school-level intelligence, he had the wit of a second-year middle school student and roared at the approaching Bern.
If his goblin speech were translated into human terms, it would have been something like this.
-Come at me, human! By order of our great lord, this treasure vault can never be handed over to anyone!!
And Bern replied to that roar with a simple answer.
“Thwack! Slash!”
There was no exchange of proper words, no eye contact, no fierce cross-racial sword duel.
Bern kicked a pebble up with the toe of his foot, striking the goblin in the face, and while it flinched, he took its head off with his sword.
The demon, the only one here who could understand the second-in-command's words, shook its head in the shadows.
If he'd run into a proper newbie adventurer, he could have played the role of a mid-boss or rival. What bad luck, ending up against this guy.
“It looks like this path ends here. Let's turn back.”
“Wait, let me down for a second.”
Bern almost said, 'Wouldn't it be better to collect the reward later?' before closing his mouth.
He thought that would be too dismissive toward the other party.
Blanca had shown plenty of competence so far, and she was a veteran with far more years of adventuring under her belt.
If that was what Blanca said after obediently following Bern's plan until now, then he figured there had to be a reason.
Blanca looked over the warehouse from side to side, then nodded.
“As expected, they've set the oil aside separately.”
In a corner of the warehouse stood a large barrel, and inside it a liquid with a peculiar smell had pooled.
It looked like they had gathered oil from hunted game and tree nuts in one place.
Bern was intrigued as well.
“Are you planning to use it for fire attacks? Still, burning it here doesn't seem all that meaningful, and carrying the barrel away as it is would be difficult.”
“Just watch for now.”
Blanca took something the size of a fist out of her bag, and to Bern it looked like a tan clump of cotton.
When Blanca dipped the cotton into the oil, it quickly absorbed the liquid and grew in size.
What was strange was that even after more than half the oil in the huge barrel had disappeared, the cotton wad had only grown to about twice its size at most. Even after being fully dipped into the oil, its surface still remained fluffy.
“Is that magic too?”
“It's not magic, but it is made from a plant that contains mana. An alchemist developed it as a waterskin; it can absorb more liquid than its own volume. And unless you physically damage the surface, the contents won't leak out.”
“That sounds incredibly groundbreaking.”
“But nobody uses it. Even if it can reduce the volume, it doesn't reduce the weight, and once you open it with a knife or something, it keeps shrinking until all the contents are gone. If you want to use it as a waterskin, you'd need to be able to drink as much as you want whenever you want and store the rest, but it can't do that at all, and you can't even reuse it. It wasn't cheap either, so the shop just sat there empty until it went under.”
“Why do you have something like that?”
“That alchemist hired me as a bodyguard, saying this was a groundbreaking item and that some weirdo might try to forcefully take it. Then he said he couldn't pay me because the shop had gone bankrupt, so I looted it instead.”
…….
At last, the cotton wad had absorbed all the oil in the huge barrel and transformed into something about the size of a volleyball, and Blanca said as if it were only natural:
“Take it out.”
“Huh?”
“I told you, its volume is small, but the weight is the same. I can't carry it, so you carry it instead. And when you need a big blast, throw it at the enemies. It'll burn them to ashes.”
Bern tilted his head for a moment, thinking this didn't seem quite right, but in the end he obediently picked up the cotton wad.
For all its fluffy surface, it wasn't difficult to hold in one hand.
When the two returned to the original fork, they saw the goblin group milling around near the area.
Judging by the atmosphere, they still seemed to be wandering around not knowing what was what.
Bern and Blanca crushed them with kicks and low-level spells, then charged down the second path.
Up to the middle, it was similar to the first fork that led to the warehouse, but the depths were completely different.
It was a factory.
More precisely, a factory full of humans, not goblins.
…….
The humans were mechanically making weapons, armor, and the like for goblin use, their faces full of resignation and despair.
Some of them couldn't even properly wear clothes anymore, because even those had been stripped away by the goblins as “resources.”
The goblins, armed with clubs and short whips, were keeping watch over them, and when they saw Bern and Blanca, they panicked and tried to shout something.
Slash!
Of course, the two didn't just stand there and watch.
Bern and Blanca, without even bothering over who moved first, cut down or burned the goblins, and the workshop was instantly filled with blood and the smell of roasting meat.
Bern asked the humans:
“Are all the survivors here?”
“Huh? Yes?”
“W-what's going on...?”
The humans who had been captured were all too stunned to answer Bern's question properly.
The goblins that had been their nightmare had died like insects without even managing a token resistance, so their brains couldn't keep up with the situation.
Just then, Bern frowned.
“No! There are about ten more inside!”
A corner of the factory.
A man who had been scratching something into wood with a sharp stone suddenly sprang out and answered Bern clearly.
Bern asked again:
“Are there goblins inside as well?”
“There were, but they were called away somewhere just now, so there aren't any now!”
“Then can you gather everyone here and stand by so you can get out at any time? Not right now. There'll still be goblins near the entrance.”
“I can!”
“I'm going to smash their boss, so if I go left at the fork, is that the way?”
“If you go left, there'll be another fork, and you need to go right there! He's the big goblin with the golden eyes!”
That was a truly brisk response.
The sight of the others around him, still blankly staring, wasn't ideal, but being able to speak so smoothly was suspicious in its own way.
Bern's eyes quickly swept over the man's figure.
“…A quick-witted human.”
He was the sort who worked on something like paperwork all by himself, and his eyes looked far more alive than the others'; he seemed to have cooperated with the goblins and, as a result, been treated relatively better.
Even now, as goblins died at Bern and Blanca's hands, hadn't he immediately changed sides?
There was a good chance he'd betray them without hesitation if Bern and Blanca were ever put at a disadvantage again, but Bern didn't care.
Compared to those who were frozen solid without even understanding the situation, this type was actually more convenient to use. The point was just not to look weak, wasn't it?
“Then I'll leave it to you.”
“Yes, sir! Leave it to me! Hey, you lot! This is our chance to escape! Move, move, move!!”
Blanca shot an incredulous sidelong glance at the man who had immediately started issuing orders as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Can we trust him?”
“Isn't he better than being dead weight?”
The two returned to the fork once more, then headed down the left path they had saved for last.
As the man had said, another fork appeared, so this time they took the right.
Advancing was easy.
For the simple reason that not a single goblin was standing in their way.
The two guessed the reason, but stayed silent and didn't slow down.
They reached the depths of the cave.
A huge cavern so large it looked like it could fit an entire mansion inside.
Countless goblin squads stood there, fully arrayed for battle, unlike the chaotic scenes up until now.
“So you're the ones. The ones who trampled my territory and stirred up all this trouble.”
The Goblin Lord, seated on a leather-upholstered chair as though imitating a human, received them.