Having made no money the previous day, they decided to take on a quest as soon as Fumiko was feeling better. As always, Mahiro took it upon himself to decide which quest was best for them. Once Fumiko confirmed that she was better, the party of three set off at dawn.

  Yesterday evening, Keisuke and Mahiro had left Fumiko to rest while they had dinner at the tavern. There, Keisuke had noticed Mahiro seemed a bit upset. Fairly so, though. Their work with the spiders was basically for nothing because they had used most of the money to heal Fumiko. He was reasonably dejected and so was Keisuke.

  “We need to work harder,” Mahiro had said to him. “Tomorrow we’ll take on something that pays quite a bit.”

  Remaining silent, Keisuke simply nodded.

  The next day had dawned, and they were out in the woods. “Do you see them?” Mahiro asked.

  Keisuke peeked from behind the tree and indeed he did see them.

  They were there.

  What exactly were they? Keisuke did not entirely know himself. But they were short creatures with green skin. There were three of them gathered around a worn-out campfire, and two were asleep on a patch of foliage.

  Goblins.

  That’s what the quest called them. According to Mahiro, a merchant was attacked by a trio of these creatures on the way to Fortuna. They stole his wagon of wares and retreated into the nearby woods. Luckily, the merchant had survived the encounter to file a request.

  The request was simple: find the goblins and return the merchant’s wares. Whether they were all used or missing, Lucy said it did not matter. Their job was to simply recover whatever remained and kill the goblins in the process. Apparently, this specific trio had been terrorising travellers for a while and a lot of complaints were filed. Dealing with them for good provided an extra reward on top of returning the merchant’s wares.

  They found the goblins camped near the main road. The guild had provided them with the information on where they could be found because they camped there so often, so it was only a matter of finding the exact location. After a few minutes wandering the woods, the party of three stumbled upon a small clearing where the goblins had camped.

  “Three, but one’s awake,” whispered Mahiro. “I think we should deal with that one first.”

  Keisuke nodded. He was trying his best to hide his nerves, but he couldn’t help himself. The goblins were armed and looked humanoid. In fact, you could even say they had the physique of little kids.

  This was the first creature they would fight that was armed with weapons and resembled a human. They fought a wolf and spiders, but obviously this was different. It was a completely new experience for them.

  “I’ll go deal with the one that’s awake. You two stay here and wait. If the other two wake up, I want you to come in. Fumiko, prepare a spell so you can hit one of them, okay?”

  Fumiko nodded. She felt quite bad about what happened yesterday, but Keisuke didn’t really blame her for it. She apologised profusely the morning she felt better when they told her what happened.

  “Okay. Hush.” Mahiro put a finger to his lips. He then drew his shortsword and carefully made his way to the goblin that was awake.

  The goblin had gotten up to pee, it seemed. It waddled off to a corner in the clearing to relieve itself. Keisuke watched Mahiro slowly circle around toward it, using the trees and shrubs as cover.

  The goblin was completely oblivious to what was happening. It peed and let out a little groan of a yawn, whilst Mahiro crept up, shortsword in hand. And then Mahiro pounced. Fumiko let out a little weep when he brought the goblin down. The two wrestled on the ground. It looked like Mahiro had covered its mouth so it couldn’t scream.

  Keisuke looked over at the other two goblins. They were still asleep. Their cover wasn’t blown yet. They just had to wait for Mahiro to confirm the kill on the goblin he had in his arms.

  Mahiro wrapped his arms and legs around the goblin. The small creature looked to be struggling for its life, but was quite a bit bigger than it and it didn’t look like it could shake him off. Mahiro then raised his short sword and plunged it into the goblin’s gut.

  Fumiko closed her eyes and even Keisuke winced. Blood spewed from the wound, and the goblin seemed to struggle even more frantically.

  Mahiro raised the sword again, and plunged it into the goblin’s abdomen once more. Fearing for its life, the goblin tossed and turned wildly, but Mahiro refused to let go. Perhaps it was because his grip came loose or the goblin had struggled enough, it looked like Mahiro’s hand came off the creature’s mouth.

  “Ow!” Mahiro cried.

  Was he bit? It looked like the goblin managed to bite him right then. Wait, that’s not good…

  Using the opportunity, the goblin screamed. The cry was loud and jarring. Keisuke didn’t know what it said, but it sounded like a cry for help and a warning to its comrades.

  The other two goblins heard it loud and clear and their eyes shot open.

  “Gyahhgah…?!” One of them sprung up immediately to inspect what was going on. When they noticed Mahiro in the corner with one of the goblins, they began to shout and rush up.

  “Keisuke! Fumiko!” Mahiro shouted.

  That was their cue.

  Keisuke emerged from the woods with his sword in hand and rushed into the clearing. With a yell, he swung his sword at one of the goblins. The short, green creature avoided Keisuke’s attack by stepping to the side and pushing him away. Keisuke stumbled and fell to the ground.

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  The goblin would’ve collapsed on Keisuke, but it was Fumiko who helped. The goblin got caught in a blaze, fire engulfing its body.

  The goblin fell to the ground, struggling and fighting to get the flames out. Keisuke didn’t even want to imagine the amount of pain it was in. Using the opportunity, Keisuke decided to plunge his sword into the goblin’s torso while it was writhing in pain.

  There was a sick squelch of iron intruding through skin and bone, and Keisuke would never forget that feeling. He held the sword there until the goblin stopped moving.

  The feeling was sickening. It was all he could do to try not to vomit.

  When that goblin was done for, there was only one remaining. It looked at its comrade’s lifeless bodies in the foliage and the fact that it was surrounded, and Keisuke could see the panic rising in its eyes.

  Its first instinct was to flee. It tried to run through the forest as fast as it could.

  “No…!” Keisuke quickly reacted and tackled the goblin to the ground. It struggled in his clutches, screaming out something in its tongue that Keisuke could not comprehend but he could tell the words were frantic desperation.

  “Stop!” he shouted at the goblin. “Stop! Please!” Keisuke wrapped his legs around it, but it would not stop. It carried on struggling, defiant.

  “Good job, Keisuke!” Mahiro said and he plunged his sword into the goblin, killing it in the spot.

  Keisuke was left grabbing onto the body of a lifeless creature. One moment ago it was writing desperately and then it wasn’t.

  Keisuke let go of the goblin and rolled over to his side. When the adrenaline died and the realisation hit, he could feel the bile rising from his stomach and out his mouth.

  They’d slew three goblins that day.

  When it was done, Mahiro ransacked the camp and found a number of items, including the merchant’s stolen wagon.

  There were two old swords and a shoddy bow, which they deemed unusable. On one of the corpses of the goblin’s, Mahiro found a leather pouch filled with coins.

  “There’s about ten silver here,” he said.

  They gathered what remained of the merchant’s wares and returned to Fortuna where they successfully handed in the quest and later sat down for food at the Seven Outpost inn with some of the money they’d earned.

  Keisuke took a sip of his mead and listened.

  “Paladins are trained in the ways of a cleric, to some extent,” Mahiro went on to explain. “I know a few spells and I can learn more. Right now, I only know two. Lay on Hands and Divine Sense.”

  Mahiro was explaining his abilities as a paladin. His reasoning being that in order for them to fight together better, they had to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

  From what Mahiro said, Lay on Hands was a simple spell that paladins learned as part of their initiation training. It functioned as a healing spell, like Fumiko’s Cure Wounds, but less potent. It was good for shallow scars and bruises, but not extreme wounds. And Mahiro expressed it was only for dire emergencies because he could only use it once a day.

  His other spell, Divine Sense, functioned as more of a sixth sense. Mahiro could detect the presence of certain entities when they were around, but he explained no more than that.

  Fumiko, being a caster, had a lot more spells that they had to familiarise themselves with. “They taught me three cantrips and two spells,” she explained.

  Her cantrips were Sacred Flame, Guidance, and Mending. They’d already seen Sacred Flame in action: it was like a sudden burst of fire that erupted and engulfed its target. They hadn’t seen Guidance yet, but apparently once Fumiko cast it and applied it on someone, that person would get help with whatever it was they were doing.

  At first, Keisuke was sure that he hadn’t seen Bless in action, but once Fumiko explained it, he immediately remembered their second encounter with the wolf.

  “It’s like a buff,” Keisuke blurted.

  Fumiko blinked, clueless. “A buff…? Like, muscular…?”

  “No, not like that.” Keisuke shook his head, but when he tried to explain it, he couldn’t exactly recall or put into words what he was thinking when he blurted the word out. It just came out of his mouth unbidden.

  “Somehow, I understand what Keisuke means,” Mahiro intervened. “If you place the spell on one of us, it will make us stronger and faster, right?”

  Fumiko nodded. “That’s what they told me, yes.”

  “Then it could be very useful in a fight. We should keep it in mind going forward.”

  They were all already familiar with Fumiko’s final spell, Cure Wounds. They’d seen it in action and they understood its purpose.

  “I don’t have any spells or special abilities…” Keisuke admitted abashedly. Koto-sensei had only trained him in the way of the sword and other military tactics. His class didn’t have spells and cantrips. “But my teacher said that I can learn some things eventually,” he went on to explain.

  “I see.” Mahiro placed a hand on his chin and thought. He was staring down at the table intently. “So, ideally, Keisuke and I should be in the frontlines. I’m the safest with my armour and shield, so if I can lure enemies towards me, then Keisuke can use that to capitalise.”

  Keisuke nodded slowly. He thought about it, too. Realistically, yes, maybe that was their best tactic to use. But taking Fumiko into consideration….

  “I think,” Keisuke began, “we need to prioritise Fumiko’s safety.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, realistically, if we’re both up front then Fumiko is left behind us with no help. Isn’t that a bad thing…? I think it is…”

  “Hmm…”

  Fumiko shook her head. “N-no, you don’t have to worry about me!”

  “You say that, but you weren’t taught to defend yourself, were you?” Keisuke retorted, and Fumiko backed down. “If the enemy targets you and me and Mahiro aren’t near to help, I fear the worst could happen. It’s already happened. Besides, I think Fumiko has strong spells and would benefit from being given space to cast them…”

  Mahiro was debating Keisuke’s suggestion deeply.

  “I-it was just a thought!” Keisuke said.

  Mahiro raised his head. “It makes perfect sense. I think it would work best if I stay close to Fumiko during battle to keep her safe. That means you’ll be solely responsible for the vanguard, Keisuke. Are you sure that’s something you can handle?”

  Was it?

  Keisuke had blurted out what he was thinking, and Mahiro raised a good point. If he was guarding Fumiko, then that meant Keisuke would have to be battling alone in the frontlines. That meant taking on enemies head-on. According to Koto-sensei, that was his job in a party, to an extent. So, it wasn’t like he wasn’t trained for it.

  But could he, Keisuke himself, do it?

  “I’m willing to give it a try…,” Keisuke said, though he wasn’t convinced with himself.

  Mahiro nodded. “Then we’ll try tomorrow.”

  Their formation was decided. If they encountered enemies, Keisuke would rush to meet them while Mahiro remained to protect Fumiko. Meanwhile, Fumiko would do her best to assist Keisuke with her spells from a distance.

  Simply saying it, it sounded simple enough. But would it really be that simple? Keisuke wondered.