Priestess saw it happen as if in oil-slow motion: the net, the snare, the goblins piling on. The champion raised a stolen greatsword for a killing stroke.
Priestess collapsed against a pillar, her heart a wild drum. Goblin Slayer stood over the champion’s corpse, breathing hard. He looked at his own hands—red to the wrists—then at her.
He looked at her through the shimmering light. Nodded once. Then he pulled a small vial from his belt—the one he had shown her once, saying “never use this indoors” —and threw it at the champion’s feet. Goblin Slayer 01-12
He did not introduce himself. He did not ask if she was hurt. He simply asked, “Are those all of them?”
She wanted to say something brave. Instead, she started crying. Not from fear. From a sudden, terrible understanding: he had never expected anyone to protect him. He had fought alone for so long that the idea of a hand reaching for him, not past him, was foreign as a song in a dead language. Priestess saw it happen as if in oil-slow
“Tomorrow,” he said, “there will be more goblins.”
That was his mercy. Measured in bruises and survival. The weeks turned to months. Priestess learned to check ceilings for drop holes. She learned to listen for the wet breathing of a sleeping goblin. She learned that Protection was best cast at the mouth of a tunnel, to split the horde. She learned to carry a second dagger—not for glory, but for the moment her first one got stuck in a rib. Goblin Slayer stood over the champion’s corpse, breathing
“I know.”