Exploring the Nest

“Welcome.”

I barely registered the convenience store clerk’s greeting as I took a quick look around the store.

Wasn’t escaping the goblin nest safely the end of it? Maybe, for an ordinary person.

But what if someone I hadn’t managed to rescue was still inside that foul-smelling, dark cave?

What if I’d headed straight for the exit and failed to find someone hidden from view down one of the side passages?

What if there’d been an unconscious survivor and I’d passed right by without noticing?

Could I really turn my back on any survivors who might still be there?

I’d cleared out a few goblin nests before. I knew their habits, what to watch out for, and how to deal with them.

If I lived a life where I turned my back on people in danger just to make things easier for myself, I never could have saved the world.

So…

“Ah, this’ll do. But why is this here?”

I was going back into that goblin nest.

After looking for things that might come in handy while exploring the nest, I bought a few items and left the convenience store.

Then, just as I was about to go back through the Gate…

“Hmm… There are police here.”

Several police officers were keeping people away from the Gate.

Well, people had suddenly been swept away by some strange thing that had appeared out of nowhere. It’d be weird if the police didn’t show up.

Hmm. From the looks of it, even the police aren’t going inside… What should I do?

Force my way through? No way. This body belongs to an out-of-shape high school girl. I don’t have the physical ability to pull that off.

Sure, I could break through if I reinforced myself with mana, but then I’d have to worry about what came afterward.

What about sneaking into the Gate without the police noticing? Hmm. That might not work either. I might be able to avoid the eyes of a few officers, but not all the people standing around watching.

Someone would definitely spot me, and then there’d be a commotion… Hmm. That won’t work either.

Just leave it to the police and go home? That’d be the easiest option… but if I could do that, I wouldn’t have bought all this stuff at the convenience store.

Then… Hmm… Oh. I’ve got it.

I took the tiny mana stone from my pocket and held it in my hand.

For a very short time, I could use the mana inside this mana stone to cast… a concealment spell.

Unlike an invisibility spell, which consumes a lot of mana, it wouldn’t make me disappear. It would just briefly slip me from other people’s awareness.

It didn’t last long, and anyone who could wield mana could dispel it in no time. It was a spell with little practical use… but in a situation like this, it would come in handy.

If I used my own mana to enhance my physical abilities and the mana stone’s to cast the concealment spell, I should be able to jump into the Gate without anyone noticing me.

After that… Well, I could either bring out any survivors I found or clear out all the goblins in the nest and slip away quietly.

And so, I used the mana stone to cast the concealment spell while drawing on the mana I’d accumulated to enhance my physical abilities, then leaped into the Gate.

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As soon as I stepped inside the Gate, the damp, musty stench unique to goblin nests stung my nose.

I took a mask out of the plastic bag of things I’d bought at the convenience store and put it on.

Hmm. The mask cuts down on that musty smell, so I can breathe a little easier. All right. Time to start exploring the goblin nest.

First, I needed a light to illuminate the cave, so I took out the mini flashlight I’d bought at the convenience store. I couldn’t rely on my smartphone’s flashlight forever. The battery wouldn’t last, either.

I gripped the plastic umbrella I’d bought at the convenience store in my right hand as a weapon, then started walking with the plastic bag of other items and the mini flashlight in my left.

The cave was narrow and dark, but having a bright light made things a lot easier. I’d cleared away some of the traps on my way out, too, which helped.

Ah, a three-way fork in the passage. When I’d escaped the first time, I’d relied on my instincts to find the exit and hadn’t paid any attention to the other passages… But this time was different.

I took a glow stick out of the plastic bag, snapped it to make it light up, and tossed it toward the passage leading to the exit. If I marked the way out like this, any other survivors could find their way out easily.

But why did the convenience store have glow sticks like these? I thought people usually used them for fishing or something… but when I asked the clerk, they said they were meant to be worn as bracelets. As bracelets? Hmm. I don’t get it.

After marking the way to the exit, I used my mana to sharpen my senses—especially my hearing—and scan the area.

I heard a small, faint sound of breathing. I hadn’t noticed it before because it was drowned out by the others, but now that I was alone, I could hear it faintly.

I headed in the direction of the breathing and called out.

“Are you all right?”

The person breathing must have been startled, because their breathing grew quicker.

“P-please help me! Somebody, please!!!”

A young woman was shouting frantically. Maybe she was panicking in the dark, or maybe she couldn’t think straight.

I kept going, heading toward where the survivor was.

“Th-there was a monster! A small, hideous monster!”

Ah, she must’ve run into a goblin.

“I was so scared… I dropped my phone… I couldn’t see anything… I thought I was going to die here…”

“You’re safe now. I marked the exit with a glow stick, so if you make your way out, you’ll be back at the terminal. There aren’t any monsters nearby.”

I couldn’t hear the goblin’s characteristic wheezy breathing. At least, there shouldn’t be any goblins between here and the exit.

“C-could you come with me…?”

“There may be other survivors, so I need to keep looking.”

I couldn’t be sure she was the only survivor. I needed to search more.

Unless, of course, she was so badly injured she couldn’t move.

“O-okay…”

“The cave is dark, but I’ve cleared away all the traps that could hurt you. You should be fine as long as you don’t slip. Keep going this way until you reach the glow stick.”

“Th-thank you…”

After sending the survivor toward the exit, I got down to properly clearing out the nest.

I drew a map of the twisting passages in my head, snapping glow sticks and tossing them toward the exit at every fork so the survivors could find their way out safely.

I used the tip of the plastic umbrella to move aside crude traps that might hurt someone, and lightly pierced the foreheads of goblins lying in ambush in the dark with the mana-reinforced tip.

Of course, I didn’t forget to collect every blue mana stone from where the goblins’ bodies had turned to black ash. It was so convenient to get mana stones without having to butcher the corpses. A little disappointing that there weren’t any other parts to salvage, though.

Still, I’d had more than enough of the awful experience of rummaging through monster corpses with a dagger. Never again.

After searching every inch of the goblin nest, I was able to send a total of eight survivors safely toward the exit.

I’d probably rescued all the survivors who were still alive. As for the ones who weren’t… I did find a human skull, nothing but bone left.

I checked just in case, but it seemed to be a skull that had been there for several years, so I was relieved it probably wasn’t the remains of someone who’d been caught up at the bus terminal.

Well, it’s not as if finding a human corpse was anything to be relieved about. It meant the goblins in this nest might be numerous enough to threaten people, or include a particularly strong or cunning one, or one that used primitive shamanism—or that I had to consider any number of other factors.

Judging by the goblins I’d seen so far and the state of their traps… the nest didn’t seem particularly large, and none of them seemed especially cunning… So maybe there was a goblin strong enough to harm people. Perhaps one had evolved into a hobgoblin.

After exploring the entire goblin nest, I…

“Is this the last one?”

I arrived at the deepest part of the goblin nest, where a dense gray mist blocked the way like a wall.

“There seems to be… a pretty large space beyond it.”

Sound seemed to spread out widely beyond the thick mist, and I could feel it taking quite a while to return to me.

And from inside that space, I could hear the goblins’ distinctive wheezy breathing.

There were probably several goblins gathered inside.

But this thick mist… it looked just like something out of a game. Especially the entrance to a boss room in one of those action RPGs that put players through the wringer until they got better at controlling their characters…

Hmm. No, it had to be a coincidence. There’s no way a game could become reality, right? Besides, the monsters in those games weren’t all that different from the goblins I knew.

With that silly thought in mind, I put my hand against the gray mist.

The gray mist slowly parted to the sides, opening up enough space for me to pass through.

It really does look like a boss room from a game.

And so I stepped through the gray mist and entered what looked like a boss room.