Chapter 8: Goblin Subjugation
Our destination was a small forest, located off the main road.
We were looking for a large, solitary cedar tree at its heart.
As for how we found that specific cedar, that was the work of Fina, the forest fairy.
She gathers information about the area by placing her hands on the nearby plants and flowers.
“Are there any large trees around here?”
Even the flowers, fawning over her, told her,
“In that case, the solitary cedar at the heart of the forest over there is a good one.”
Fina thanked them and then pointed out the location to me. Simple as that.
It was about a half-day’s walk from the main road, which increased the chance of encountering monsters, but as the strongest couple around, we had no reason to fear any kind of beast.
In fact, we made short work of a One-Horned Rabbit that attacked us along the way.
I deftly dodged the charging rabbit, grabbed it firmly by the scruff of its neck, and snapped it clean.
“If you kill it this way, the meat stays tender when you preserve it.”
Incidentally, the One-Horned Rabbit was the runaway winner of the most popular monster rankings from 100 years ago.
That’s because it was a monster that had the perfect trifecta of:
Weak!
Common!
Delicious!
It was widely reputed to be the best because, despite its ferocity, it was a herbivore, so its meat wasn’t gamey.
Though it was, of course, less popular among vegetarian adventurers, starting with the elves.
Basically, they look cute, so many people dislike hunting them.
My wife, for the record, loves cute things, but she understands the laws of nature. The strong preying on the weak is the way of the world, and she doesn’t deny the culture of eating meat. However, she won’t kiss me after I’ve eaten meat unless I brush my teeth thoroughly.
After smoking and preserving the meat of the rabbit whose neck I’d snapped, we continued on our way.
Now then, while our journey was only supposed to take half a day, there were figures watching us from the shadows.
I noticed their presence right away, but I chose to ignore them.
The ones watching us were, by the way, the carpenters from the crowd back at the bridge.
They probably assumed we were going to take their job.
They might even be planning to interfere.
I get it.
A bridge construction project involves a huge amount of money, and they must be frustrated that some upstart like me is taking it from them.
Maybe their pride was wounded, too.
I understood their feelings all too well, so I didn’t retaliate at this point.
In any case, we kept an eye on things as we headed into the forest.
We entered the woods.
The forest beside the main road was deeper than I expected.
Just a short way in, the trees were so dense they blocked out the sun.
“Huh, there are surprisingly a lot of trees left.”
“Yes. It’s not very developed, despite being so close to the road.”
“Yeah. You’d think there’d be a ton of woodcutters this close to a village.”
I strained my ears, but there was no sound of woodcutters chopping trees at all.
Fina’s pointed ears twitched, but apparently, only the cry of a cuckoo echoed through the woods.
“It’s strange that there are no people.”
“Perhaps the forest is full of monsters.”
“True.”
Just as we came to that conclusion, we heard a voice from behind us.
“U-Uwaaah!”
When we turned around, we saw small demons attacking the carpenters.
The carpenters were being cut down by obsidian blades and rusted swords, their faces pale with terror.
“—Renas, these are…”
“Yeah, the classic cannon fodder monster. Looks like they’ve survived just fine after 100 years.”
What we saw there was the staple monster, the goblin.
They’re the lowest rank among the Demon King’s kin, but also the most troublesome. They boast an incredibly high reproductive rate and can sometimes even overwhelm human armies with sheer numbers.
Individually, they aren’t very strong, but they are extremely cunning and greedy.
They are also known for appearing near human settlements to snatch livestock and children.
The small green demons bared their fangs at us with a “Kishaa!”
Their fangs, which had probably never been cleaned since birth, were filthy and hideous.
They had turned the tables on the carpenters who had been surrounding us and were now attacking them all at once.
“I see. Looks like we’ve walked right into a goblin nest.”
“The carpenters got caught up in it, I see.”
“Yeah. But they don’t deserve any sympathy.”
The fact that they were surrounding us meant they were probably planning to attack us. This was the natural end for carpenters who tried to solve their problems with violence.
However, my wife Fina’s compassion is on the level of a saint. She shows mercy even to those who tried to harm them.
“Renas, please. Please save the carpenters.”
“I thought you’d say that. But you know some of them were having lecherous thoughts about you, right?”
Looking closely, one of them even had his pants half-falling down. It seemed some of them had planned to dispose of me, the man, and then trample on a woman’s dignity.
“It was only an attempt. Besides, I will protect my chastity no matter the circumstances. Only you, Renas, are allowed to hold me.”
In fact, she had a track record of taking down every man who had ever attacked her with lecherous intent.
If her anger reached its peak, she could even summon various Spirit Kings and destroy an entire town.
In terms of her ability to cause widespread damage, my spirit-user wife was actually superior to me in some ways.
I adore my wife, so I followed her suggestion.
“You only get my mercy this one time,” I told the carpenters as I drew my sword.
Shing. I drew my sword, but it was just a mass-produced longsword.
I had equipped a Holy Sword during the Demon King subjugation, but it had gone missing. According to Fina, its whereabouts became unknown at some point.
Well, it was a sword I got just before the battle with the Demon King, so I’m not that attached to it anyway.
With that thought, I unleashed a single slash.
A flash of my blade flew at blinding speed.
My single stroke cut a goblin clean in half vertically.
“Gi-Gii!”
The goblins’ faces turned from green to a pale blue at the sheer speed of the attack. The sight was exhilarating, but there were still many goblins. Their morale didn’t waver.
“Alright. It’s been 100 years and a few months since I last fought goblins. Let’s see if you’ve evolved at all in the last century.”
As I provoked them, I cut down the attacking goblins one by one, or sometimes several with a single stroke.
After I had sliced through about fifteen of them, the goblins started to flee.
Once one ran, the rest scattered like spiders.
And so, I achieved a complete victory in my first goblin battle in a long time.
