Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash vol. 1

8. Stubborn

Yume was crouched down, leaning against a thick tree. Haruhiro crept up and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. She turned around, covering her mouth with her hand as she caught herself starting to talk.

"How did it go?" Haruhiro asked quietly. Yume nodded in response, making hand and finger gestures. Maybe she was trying to communicate something, but he couldn't make sense of it at all. Since deciphering it seemed too difficult for him, Haruhiro leaned out from the shadow of the tree to look.

It was there.

This was the afternoon of what was, effectively, their second day as volunteer soldier trainees.

Haruhiro and the others had come back to the same woods as yesterday, and they had finally found a spring. And that was where it was.

It was about the size of a human child and scrawny. Its skin was yellowish, wrinkly, and caked with mud. The little tufts of hair growing on it looked like seaweed, and it had pointy ears. It was facing away from them at the moment, so he couldn't see its face. It didn't seem to be wearing any sort of clothes, though there was a string around its neck.

It was a mud goblin.

It was crouched over, drinking from the spring. They could hear the unpleasant slurping sounds it was making.

Haruhiro took a deep breath and looked behind him, trying his best not to make any noise. The other four, Manato, Ranta, Shihoru, and Moguzo, had their heads poking out from some trees not far away, and they were looking to him. When Haruhiro gave a big nod, they all nodded back.

We finally found some prey. Let's do it. We're doing this. We have to. What's the signal? We never did decide on one. How am I supposed to let everyone know?

Haruhiro decided to try raising his right hand.

This is bad. I'm getting tense. Or, rather, I've been pretty tense all along. Listen. Just do it. Yeah. Let's kill this thing.

When Haruhiro made a downward swinging motion with his hand, Ranta charged headlong forwards with a battle cry. Haruhiro couldn't help but think he was an idiot. When he looked back to the mud goblin, it had jumped up surprised and just finished looking their way.

"I-It's running away...?!" Haruhiro yelped.

"There!" Yume loosed an arrow. It missed. The mud goblin had tried to flee off to their right, but the arrow stabbed into the ground in front of it. It let out a cry of surprise and faltered.

"Nice one, Yume!" Haruhiro unsheathed his dagger and rushed in. What the hell? I'm here first. This doesn't feel very thiefy, but I'll have to do it. Don't want to let it escape.

Mud goblins. Mud gobs. They have nice, round eyes. But they're ugly. It has a face like an old lady who hasn't bathed once in her entire life. Its teeth are all black, too. And its tongue is purplish. It's not wearing anything other than the string around its neck. Well, it's buck naked. And unsteady on its feet.

The mud gob saw Haruhiro and started shouting noisily.

I don't get why, but it's coming at me. Seriously? It wants to fight? Come on, there are six of us. Well, it doesn't know that. The hands. Its hands. Target its wrists.

Haruhiro took a slash at its left wrist.

"Slap...!"

With a surprised squeak, the gob leapt back diagonally, landing in the spring. Did he miss? No, the mud gob had a thin scratch on its left wrist that was bleeding dark red blood.

Looks like I did scratch him. It's a shallow wound, though.

Kicking up water, the mud gob jumped out of the spring and came out swinging at Haruhiro.