“Damn it!”
Watching the two vanish through the gap, Beligan struck the cliff in fury.
Stone dust scattered in every direction each time his fist slammed into the rock face.
“Huff, huff.”
After huffing and swinging his fists, Beligan took a deep breath and looked around.
Of the six priests he had brought with him, only one remained on the cliff.
Three appeared to be dead, while the other two were badly injured and treating their wounds below the cliff.
‘I brought only the elite, yet we were beaten badly. They’re no ordinary brats. Then again, those bastards killed Kobei, who possessed the Beast King’s Heart. They’re no ordinary fighters…….’
As he thought, Beligan remembered that the Beast King’s Heart had turned black.
‘Damn it. It discharged, and they took it!’
To charge the Beast King’s Heart, one had to kill intermediate-grade monsters or stronger. With Kobei’s pathetic fighting ability, he would have struggled to charge the Beast King’s Heart.
Kobei must have stolen the Sacred Relic and fled without properly charging it.
‘That worthless bastard stole the Sacred Relic when it was beyond his ability to handle, and now he’s gone and caused this mess!’
Beligan was researching a sorcery that turned human bodies into golems. Kobei had stolen the Sacred Relic and run off during the brief time Beligan had set it aside to experiment with the sorcery on himself.
Thinking about it made him furious all over again—furious enough to want to kill that dead bastard a second time.
“We must recover the Sacred Relic before that bastard learns how to charge it. The monsters must have dug more holes while coming and going. Find them.”
“Yes, High Priest Beligan!”
After commanding the remaining priest, Beligan shouted toward the base of the cliff.
“Bring me a priest thin enough to fit through that gap! Mercenaries will do, too. Pick out the skinny ones!”
The priests treating their wounds immediately ran toward the city.
***
“Healing…….”
As he followed the goblins, Ernolf poured Healing Magic into his arm. A mage’s healing magic really was not very effective. It barely stopped the poison from spreading further, and the nails on his blackened fingers popped off and pattered to the ground.
“Urgh…….”
Kazar caught Ernolf from behind as dizziness overcame him and he pitched forward.
“Hey!”
“I’m fine. I won’t die.”
Kazar had a habit of getting angry whenever he was worried. After calming him down, Ernolf looked in the direction the goblins were heading.
“Kazar, scrape off that moss wedged into the wall over there.”
He had thrown his dagger at Beligan and lost it, leaving him with only a small knife at his waist, no longer than a handspan.
As Kazar pressed against the wall and began scraping off the moss, the goblins that had gone ahead returned, surrounded him, and chattered away.
“Ah, fuck! You’re noisy! You talk way too damn much. Then do it yourselves!”
When Kazar lost his temper, the goblins seemed to understand him. Each of them drew a weapon and began scraping at the wall.
“It’s remarkable. You can’t communicate with me, but you can communicate with goblins.”
“Shut up.”
In the eighteenth century, when Ernolf had lived, a field of study dedicated to the languages of intelligent monsters existed.
Thanks to it, goblins and humans could form symbiotic relationships through communication. However, no such field of study existed yet in this ancient era, sixteen hundred years earlier.
Either an unusual bond had formed between Kazar and the goblins, or…….
“Are you on the same level?”
“I said shut up!”
“Kiaro, gu gek dik! Gu gek dik! (Hero, look here! Look here!)”
“Gurek! (Amazing!)”
The goblins suddenly grew even noisier, apparently having found something on the wall. Ernolf stepped closer and carefully examined the pattern on it.
Meanwhile, the goblins sang Kazar’s praises, saying that although they had passed through here all this time, they had never known there was an enormous design on the wall.
“You two really get along.”
“I killed the mongrel that ate those bastards, and I think they got the wrong idea.”
“Ah, what a touching story…….”
At the time, Kazar had thought his older brother might be in danger, so he had left without catching the young goblins. As a result, the goblins alone had benefited.
“So you became friends thanks to me?”
“We’re not friends. And how is that thanks to you? I killed the mongrel!”
“If I hadn’t made a contract with the Lord, we wouldn’t have gone to the goblin cave.”
As he replied, Ernolf continued feeling along the wall and injecting mana into it here and there.
“In the first place, the Lord intended to commission the hunt from me, not you.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s say your contribution was nine-tenths and mine was one-tenth.”
Ernolf, who had been running his hands over the wall and pouring mana into it, suddenly snickered.
“I unlocked it.”
“You unlocked wha—”
CLICK, CLATTER.
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG.
Strange sounds came one after another from behind the wall. Kazar fell silent and felt along the wall. The goblins also pressed themselves against it, just like Kazar.
“This way,” Ernolf said as he opened the door. A large door that had not been there before appeared in the moss-covered rock wall.
“Was it hidden by magic?”
“Yes.”
When Kazar tried to enter first, Ernolf grabbed his wrist.
“From now on, don’t set foot anywhere or touch anything without my permission.”
“There are traps, right?”
“Yes.”
“I can sense nearby traps, too, using Aura.”
“I see. Then…….”
The two turned to look at the goblin group.
The goblins waited for the two to go inside, their eyes sparkling.
“The problem is these guys.”
Once they went inside, there was no chance the goblins would sit still. If they carelessly moved about and triggered some terrifying trap, they would all be doomed.
Unaware of what the two were thinking, the goblins looked up at them with hopeful eyes like children on the night before a picnic. Their eyes were far too bright for evil monsters.
“Hey, Kazar. Tell them in Goblin not to follow us.”
“How would I know how?”
“Then should we take them?”
“Ah, I don’t know. Let’s take them. If I get hungry, I’ll eat them.”
“They don’t taste good.”
Ernolf said it with a straight face. Kazar got goosebumps.
“You say that like you’ve actually tasted them…….”
“Just so you know, once I vow not to eat something, I never eat it.”
“Who told you to eat them?”
There was a limit to the amount of baggage one could carry into a dungeon.
Sometimes an accident left one stranded alone, or one lost one’s baggage midway through. When that happened, there was no choice but to find ingredients on the spot. For various reasons, Ernolf had tasted many kinds of monsters.
Goblin meat was tough and had such a strong gamey stench that no spice could get rid of it.
Its terrible taste was only the second problem. Eating it undercooked naturally infected one with horrible parasites, and even when it was cooked thoroughly, it invariably caused a high fever and abdominal pain.
“Eating intelligent monsters makes me feel like a cannibal. It makes my stomach turn.”
When it came to cuisine, he had an uncompromising side that would not yield even an inch.
“Who the hell pushed you to eat them?! Fine. I’ll deal with these bastards, so don’t worry about them.”
Kazar chose to step in because he thought Ernolf might freeze the goblins solid with Ice-Attribute Magic.
It was not that he had grown attached to them, much less become their friend, but Kazar could not let those who liked him die a dog’s death.
The goblins, apparently dying of curiosity over what lay inside, shoved their heads into the gap between the two blocking the door and sniffed eagerly.
“If you follow us, you’re dead.”
Kazar twisted his face into a terrifying scowl and mimed cutting his throat with his hand. The goblins’ eyes flew open wide, and they copied what Kazar had done.
“Goo! Goo! Goo! (Kill! Kill! Kill!)”
“Let’s get inside.”
While the goblins were in a frenzy, Ernolf grabbed Kazar’s arm and hurried inside.
The door vanished in an instant, and the place where it had been became a moss-covered wall.
The goblins rushed to the wall and felt along it to make sure the door had really disappeared before returning to their spots. Then they stomped their feet and waved their clenched fists.
“Goo da gusta! (Die, monster!)”
“Goo! Goo! Goo! (Die! Die! Die!)”
In fact, the goblins had been looking for a suitable place to move their habitat in preparation for another intrusion.
They had found a place here that was higher and more concealed than the cave where they currently lived, and they had been gradually preparing to move.
But thanks to the hero who had just defeated the cannibal, they learned that their new home had a serious flaw.
There seemed to be a terrifying monster beyond the rock wall, one they could not even dream of defeating.
“It’s all right. The hero said he’d kill it.”
“Savior! Long live the hero!”
“Long live!”
The goblins stood where Ernolf and Kazar had disappeared and sang a rallying song for them for quite some time.
***
After passing through the door, Kazar stood as still as a statue, just as Ernolf had instructed.
“Hey, Tiri. What kind of place was this?”
“Who knows? What kind of place does it look like to you?”
As he spoke, Ernolf floated a globe of light in the air. Kazar swept his gaze around the area before answering.
“A slaughterhouse.”
Perhaps because it had been sealed by magic, the corpses scattered across the floor were preserved remarkably fresh in pools of blood.
“They fought each other and died together.”
“Yes, that seems to be the case.”
Ernolf looked at the pillars, ceiling, and corridor smeared with blood as he answered.
‘It seems this was not a rebel fortress, but a fortress of the Sarapi Imperial Army.’
Judging by the situation, the knights and soldiers of the Sarapi Empire appeared to have died while holding back the rebels.
Ernolf placed a hand on the floor and spread mana through it, carefully examining beneath the floor, inside the ceiling and pillars, and behind the walls.
“Kazar, the equipment of that Imperial Army knight…….”
Ernolf stopped mid-sentence and looked to the side. He had been about to suggest gathering useful equipment and clothes, but Kazar was already diligently looting the corpses, lifting and setting them down as he went.
After thoroughly stripping not only the ordinary soldiers but also the rebel troops of anything useful, Kazar took a set of protective gear for his wrists and shins and a dagger slightly longer than his forearm from the knight Ernolf had mentioned.
“You’re not taking a longsword?”
Ernolf asked when he saw that Kazar was leaving it behind despite there being one.
“My body hasn’t finished growing yet, so this length is just right. It’s also good for swinging in tight spaces.”
Until he obtained the sword he had used in his previous life, Kazar strongly wanted to avoid wielding another blade, so he had no desire for weapons.
After gathering everything useful, the two stripped clothes from soldiers who had died with pierced throats or crushed skulls and put them on.
“I finally get to wear pants!”
Ernolf shouted as he threaded his legs into the trousers. They were relics that had to be at least a century old, but because they had been sealed by magic, the clothes were in good condition.
“I’m glad I won’t have to see your ass anymore.”
“If you miss it, just say so. I’ll show you whenever you want.”
“Gross.”
As Ernolf scrunched up his whole face, Kazar calmly took a coat from a dead man and put it on.
This was the first time he had worn proper clothes since escaping the mine. He had picked up everything, from shoes onward, from the dead, but once he was decently dressed, he finally felt like a person.
“Should we go farther inside?”
“Those bastards will follow us in. What are you going to do about that?”
Ernolf looked up at the ceiling, pretending to think for a moment, then spoke decisively.
“We’ll think about it when that happens.”
Though their personalities seemed completely different, Tirad was exactly like Kazar in one respect: he was fearless to the point of recklessness. Seeing his old self in the older brother who had lost his memories, Kazar smiled faintly.
“This is fun.”
Outside, a bloodthirsty Dark Mage waited, while unknown dangers lurked within. No matter which side they chose, it was equally dangerous.