Chapter Text

A blade can be sharpened. Armor mended. The soul is forever shattered.

"We need to talk." The girl with the tired eyes spoke insistently, holding Goblin Slayer by the arm. He turned his head down at her, and she flinched away briefly from his gaze behind the heavy helmet. "Is that so?" The girl swallowed her trepidation and nodded, looking at him with determined, narrow eyes. A moment of silence held. "...Please be quick, I have been quite injured. I must seek more robust medical attention soon."

Goblin Slayer pushed through back into the main hall of the Guild and sat himself down at one of the tables to ease the burden on his tired legs, breathing deeply. The girl dressed in a heavy cloak sat across from him and continued to stare. "...A year ago, when I went on my first adventure, you saved me. I was almost done for, but you saved my life." Goblin Slayer considered her for a moment. He wasn't always so good at remembering people, but he could feel himself growing more cognizant of just who she was. Yes, there was no doubt about it. It was the girl from the very same quest he'd met Priestess on. His face twisted imperceptibly beneath his steel cover. A fighter, or a monk, he thought. "...Yes, indeed. I am glad I reached you before it was too late." The fighter looked cross at him for a moment, but deflated just as quickly, shutting her eyes and letting out a sigh.

"She's gone, isn't she? Priestess." Goblin Slayer just nodded. The girl shuddered like a blast of cold went through the room, or she was holding something in. "I knew it would happen. I should have warned her, or... Done something. Anything. There's no... I don't understand. Why do you people keep doing it?" She focused back on Goblin Slayer. "Why keep throwing yourself into hell? Sooner or later... You're all just gonna end up like her. Or... Like me. Look at me..." She cracked up a little bit, stilted and loathing laughter as she regarded her own form. "I'm useless. My whole life, I thought I was going to be a hero, and all I learn is that I can't even hack it once. I can't fight anymore. I won't. All it leads to is more hurt." She bowed her head, going silent again.

Goblin Slayer awkwardly stewed in her words for a while before standing. "I don't believe you." The small girl looked at him with an arched brow, briefly rubbing off her raw face on a sleeve. "You do not believe that you are useless. That is merely... A defensiveness. You failed and were hurt. So you have shut yourself in a delusion of your own uselessness to avoid the possibility of harm again. You have decided that you have already missed your chance. I say that's horse... Hog-wash. The only failure is in giving up. The woman you were is not dead. You have only put her to rest.

You are a hero. You can continue to be a hero. All that matters for a hero is that when they're called to do the right thing, they answer. Nothing else."

The smaller girl's face contorted into a pained smile, for a while, and she laughed again before shaking her head. "I can't do it. I just can't. I thought you'd have the right things to say, but... Ha, ha, that doesn't help at all. I can't be like you. I feel it too much. Every night, I see that same cave. I feel my bones being broken and my flesh being cut. I see it all, over and over. It's like... A dagger in my brain. You're just... A freak. A freak who doesn't care about pain. I should probably be thankful... But I look at you and all I see is that terrible day."

"I see."

The fighter girl stood, turned away, and began to walk. Goblin Slayer waited for a moment and cleared his throat, straining out some more speech. "Wait. Remember... It's not about killing monsters. It's not about saving people. Not always. To be a hero, you just have to... Do the right thing, whenever you can. You can still do anything you choose with your life." She looked at him as he spoke, then went back on her way.

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Goblin Slayer roused on the farm, early as always. The seething pain across his body had settled to a manageable ache, and he limped out for his morning chores. The patrol, taking care of the animals, gathering up some ingredients for breakfast. Cow Girl and her uncle spoke to him less these days. Though she tried to offer her comforts to her old friend, a wall had been built between them. Goblin Slayer didn't mind it so much, but he could tell she was having trouble with it. As they gathered around the dinner table, he felt it would be polite to try and kill off the silence she'd been holding. "I would like to... Thank you for accommodating me. More than before, your support has been invaluable to me in this time. I would struggle to get by without your help." Goblin Slayer wasn't being entirely honest, but one thing he'd learned about people was that they didn't always want the truth. It seemed to have the desired effect, and Cow Girl began to grin and leapt over to wrap Goblin Slayer in a big hug, rubbing on him. "Oh, it's really nothing, it's just the right thing to do! I know you must be hurting, so, anything at all we can do for you, just tell us and it's done, anything at all!" Goblin Slayer nodded. "...I will be sure to do so. For the moment, is there a chain of metal I can borrow?"

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Goblin Slayer stood in the guild's practice room, a length of chain in a large pouch affixed to his hip, a hook affixed to the end he'd improvised from a horse wagon's winch. With his off hand, he could easily reach it and use it as a weapon. It loudly clinked and had only situational applications, but he had ideas brewing. He needed to work harder and think more. No more letting others pick up the slack. The time for emotion was over, he had business. He braced himself, a hatchet in his right hand and his left loosely gripping the end of the chain. He ran and buried his handheld axe firmly in the 'skull' of a training dummy, and in one fluid motion, whipped his chain outwards at another dummy not far behind the first, arcing it sideways. Just as he hoped, it quickly wrapped around the dummy's wooden neck and then locked with the hook - He pulled and it merely tightened. A brutal, painful weapon. Goblin Slayer flared with a bit of energy. For the first time in a long time, he felt inspired.