Chapter 6. Goblins, Demons, Children (2)
It was still too early to get excited. Kadim carefully looked around the inside of the cabin. First, he needed to check whether any other monsters were still lurking.
The stale air, and the dusk seeping in through the cracks in the walls, laid bare the thick dust. Cracked pottery and dried fruits were scattered messily across the floor. There were no cries to be heard, and no smell other than the cabin's characteristic mustiness. Fortunately, there were no signs of another monster lying in wait.
But it wasn't completely devoid of human presence.
'Mmph... mmph, mmph....'
Under the table was a girl of about six or seven years old. Her arms and legs were bound, and her mouth was gagged tightly with cloth.
Deep furrows formed between the barbarian's brows.
'They tied up a child like this and ran away, huh....'
It was absurd. Unless they had offered the child as a sacrifice to goblins, the scene made no sense at all.
There was clearly some complicated circumstance he had no desire to understand. Kadim decided to free the child and hear her story.
They had tied her so tightly that her arms were chafed raw by the rope. The cloth gag was soaked through with saliva and snot. Kadim crouched down, matched her eye level, and asked gently.
"I have something to ask. Where did your parents go?"
"Sniff, sob... hiiiing, mo-mom, hiiiing...."
Instead of answering, the child burst into tears and crawled into the corner. Kadim slowly straightened and approached again.
"Hey, if you just answer me, I won't hurt you, so stop crying and—"
"Hiiiing, mo-mom, mooom, hic, hih, hiiiing...."
Freeing her bonds and saving her had meant nothing. To the child, the sight of a vicious-looking barbarian was nothing but terrifying. Kadim clicked his tongue and muttered a crude curse under his breath.
"...damn it."
The problem was only resolved after the peddler arrived.
Duncan entered the cabin late, glancing around warily. He looked utterly terrified, as if expecting a monster or a demon to jump out at any moment. He flinched when he saw the goblin with its head split open, but quickly comforted himself that it was better than facing a living goblin.
Kadim ordered him to try calming the child. Duncan nodded solemnly.
He took out a licorice root, placed it in the child's mouth, and vigorously shook a little metal rattle.
"Uruuu, oh my, young lady! If you keep crying like that, the stream by the village will overflow! Look at this and stop crying! There, jingle-jingle!"
"Huhk, sniff, huuuh...."
She still looked anxious, but thanks to the sweetness spreading in her mouth and the peddler's smooth talk, the child somehow stopped crying. Kadim glanced sideways.
"You're skilled. Were you a wet nurse before becoming a peddler?"
Duncan froze at the prejudice-free question.
"Ah, ahaha... no, milord. My own son back home is about her age, so...."
Kadim nodded indifferently, as if he couldn't care less. Now it was time to hear the child's story.
"Hey, kid. What happened? Where did your parents go, and who tied you up and left you there?"
"Mom and dad. Sob... mom and dad abandoned me...."
"...."
"Wh-what did you say?"
Hearing the unexpected answer, Duncan's eyes went wide like a rabbit's. Kadim narrowed his eyes as well—just as the cabin door burst open.
Standing there were several people. A bearded man holding a hand axe, a woman in shabby clothes, and a group of children who looked to be their offspring.
The woman shouted in an agitated voice.
"Lenny! My baby! My baby!!"
"Damn it! Be quiet! There could still be goblins inside—!"
The man tried to stop her, but it was useless. She shook off his grip and rushed toward the child.
"Lenny! Are you okay, Lenny? Oh my, my baby...."
"M-mom...."
The woman hugged the child tightly. Yet even in her mother's arms, the child showed no sign of relief. As the woman wept openly and murmured prayers of gratitude, the child trembled, her small shoulders shaking, her eyes full of confusion.
Meanwhile, the man with the hand axe flinched at the sight of the savage-looking barbarian. Then he flinched again when he noticed the goblin with its head split in half.
Struggling to suppress his tension, the man asked,
"D-did you… do this?"
"No. My sword did."
The man stared blankly, his gaze unfocused. Kadim walked over to the table, then drove his sword into the plank floor with a thud and perched himself atop a relatively small chair.
"I'd like to hear what happened. Did you perhaps get possessed by a demon and offer your child as a sacrifice?"
Kiiiiiik—
The wooden chair let out an aged scream, and everyone inside and outside the cabin swallowed hard at the same time.
*
The woman took all the children and went outside. Inside the man's cabin, all the heads of the slash-and-burn settlement gathered.
Under the flickering candlelight were bowls of pea stew and hard bread. After serving the modest meal, they began recounting their story to the barbarian and the peddler.
"This place used to be a forest crawling with goblins. The land we lived on before had lost its vitality, so we burned it down and moved our settlement here. When they saw the flames, most of the nearby goblins ran off with their tails between their legs."
"...But then something strange happened. Starting some time ago, the goblins left in the forest began attacking us. They were so vicious that the injured kept piling up. This lad here got clubbed and broke his bones, and that one had his scalp torn off and nearly ended up bald."
The man pointed to a young man with his arm in a splint and a middle-aged man wrapped in tattered cloth. Neither could hide their gloomy expressions.
"Of course, we didn't just sit by. We gathered the village's able-bodied men and set out to exterminate the goblins. But then... we saw *that* among them."
Bulging eyes and saw-like teeth, ears jutting out sharper than a goblin's. Its skin was entirely dark red. Its arms were scrawny, yet its hands and claws were grotesquely oversized.
It radiated an eerie atmosphere, as if it were not a creature of this world.
Most shocking of all was the fact that it could speak human language.
—Humans... are you?
A chilling, hollow voice that drained one's will to fight just by hearing it. As they recalled that voice, the villagers' faces twisted in unison. Kadim, who had already guessed the culprit's identity, remained impassive.
"How many horns did it have on its head?"
"...Pardon?"
"I'm asking how many horns were on its head."
"Uh... none. There were none at all."
"...."
The most straightforward way to gauge a demon's strength was by counting the horns on its head.
According to the classifications Kadim remembered, a demon with no horns was lower-grade. With each fully formed horn, the rank rose from mid-grade to upper-grade.
Kadim then asked whether it had shown any strange abilities or distinctive traits. The man replied that whenever the goblins were near that demon, they became especially more ferocious.
That wasn't particularly strange. Monsters that stayed close to a demon, or fed on a demon's flesh, naturally became more aggressive and stronger. Under the influence of demonic energy, monsters turned into demonic beasts.
Based on the testimonies, Kadim assessed the demon's level.
'Lower-grade. No distinguishing traits compared to other demons, so it's probably a "primitive type." ...It won't be hard to deal with.'
All the while, the man hesitated, watching Kadim's expression. When he glanced at the other villagers, they nodded grimly. Only then did the man force himself to continue.
"We... didn't have the strength to deal with that demon and the goblins. We barely held off the goblin assaults, and in the end, in utter despair, we surrendered to the demon."
"...."
"Surprisingly, the demon spared our lives. Instead, it made an offer. It said that next week it would come to the village, and that each household must offer one most useless child as a sacrifice. So we... tied up our children inside our homes and left."
Because the goblins came to the man's house the latest, his youngest daughter survived. But in the other homes, the goblins had already kidnapped the children. Deep sorrow clouded the faces of the parents who had lost their sons and daughters.
At that moment, Duncan, who had been silently listening, sprang to his feet in outrage.
"What? Have all of you lost your minds? Even so, how could you offer your own children to a demon? And you still dare call yourselves parents?"
The eyes of the man and the villagers twitched and trembled.
If those words had come from the savage-looking barbarian, the slash-and-burn settlers would have silently lowered their heads. But since it was the relatively more approachable-looking peddler, they snapped back in voices thick with anger.
"...Then what exactly were we supposed to do? We're free folk outside the lord's reach. We can't expect a lord's protection, nor the help of holy knights. Are you saying we should've just fought a demon and gotten slaughtered like dogs?"
"Hah, do you really need to fight? You're slash-and-burn folk, aren't you? Then couldn't you just abandon the cabins and run somewhere else?"
"That's not possible! Finding a settlement like this isn't easy, and we've already finished sowing the seeds! Last year's harvest was poor, and now you're telling us to give up this year's farming too—that's no different from telling us all to starve to death!"
"No, even so, how could you do that to a girl not even ten years old...."
"Damn it, do you think we *wanted* to do that? The demon said so! It told us to offer the most useless child!!"
"Then damn it, who would *you* have offered? A son who's grown enough to pull his weight? A daughter who's already betrothed and just waiting to be married off? Who exactly were we supposed to offer? Tell me! Say it!!"
People shouted, veins bulging in their necks. The atmosphere grew so hostile it seemed a brawl might break out at any moment.
Only now grasping the situation, Duncan panicked and floundered helplessly. The shouting swallowed the cabin, and the distorted shadows cast by the candlelight writhed violently.
**Bang—!**
The uproar ended with a heavy crash.
The table shattered to pieces the moment it was struck by a fist. The food and candles atop it spilled messily across the floor. The barbarian cast a dry glance at the overturned candlesticks, then calmly ground the flames out under his foot before they could spread to the planks.
A suffocating silence followed. Terror-stricken gazes wandered aimlessly through the darkness. Someone worried their pounding heartbeat might be heard, while another squeezed their eyes shut and swallowed dry saliva to suppress a sneeze.
Kadim quietly surveyed the frightened faces. He had no desire to judge right and wrong. Nor was he in any position to morally condemn them.
He didn't want chaos. There was only one thing he wanted right now.
"Where is the demon now?"
One of the villagers barely managed to answer.
"...In a cave deep inside the forest. The goblins have all made their nest there as well."
"Guide me. We'll resume the meal after we return."
The villagers' eyes widened all at once—confusion swirling with hope and fear.
"R-right now? Going to face a demon on such a dark night is far too dangerous, isn't it? Wouldn't it be better to wait until dawn—"
Kadim tilted his head, as if hearing the strangest nonsense.
"If you want the corpse to still be fresh, it'd be better to go as soon as possible, wouldn't it?"
The subject was omitted, but the meaning was perfectly clear. The villagers hurriedly lit torches and prepared to guide Kadim.
However, the owner of this cabin alone remained oddly hesitant.
The man was worried about an entirely different problem. He kept glancing between the shattered table and the barbarian, then finally shuffled over, chewing on his words before forcing them out.
"S-sorry to bring this up, but we don't really have anything to give you as compensation. As you can see, the whole village barely scrapes by. We can't offer money, and even meals beyond dinner would be difficult..."
"I'd accept it if you offered, but there's no need for compensation. I'm doing this because I need to."
"O-oh, is that so? Ha, haha! Thank you truly! You'll be blessed, um... mercenary sir!"
Demonic remains could be sold, even if not openly. For that reason, there were often mercenaries who hunted only demons, much like holy knights. Stroking his beard, the man smiled inwardly with a petty sense of relief.
The shattered table had already left a sour taste in his mouth. Besides, his own daughter hadn't been taken. If the man had demanded payment, it would've meant unnecessary communal expense. How fortunate it was that the job could be done for free.
But Kadim wasn't finished speaking.
"Instead, I'd like you to give me this. I only have one weapon right now."
Kadim lifted the small hand axe the man had been using. A faint crease formed between the man's brows.
"Ah, that's just something made for chopping brush... isn't it unsuitable for killing a demon? If you go to another house, there's a larger, heavier axe. Wouldn't it be better to take that instead—"
**Thunk—!**
The hand axe, hurled like lightning, cut off the man's words.
"...H-huhk!"
The man glanced sideways at the axe blade embedded right beside his temple. The throw had been so powerful that it had pierced halfway through the wooden wall. Just imagining his skull ending up like that sent chills racing down his spine.
Of course, there was no chance the aim had slipped. Over countless previous playthroughs, he had hacked and killed with an axe thousands of times at the very least. The barbarian warrior's throwing skill had reached a level where he could skewer an ant a hundred paces away with his eyes closed.
Even if his strength was gone, his instinct had not faded. Pulling the axe free and retrieving it, Kadim spoke quietly.
"No. This is just right."
The man's legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor with a thud.