The Crown Prince Who Raises a Side Character

Episode #9 Novice Adventurer Bern (7) – Goblin Lord

Episode #9 Novice Adventurer Bern (7) – Goblin Lord

Riding is the exclusive domain of those who have.

Horses. Buying them, maintaining them – both bled money like nothing else. Unless one possessed significant wealth, they simply couldn’t bear the expense.

A successful adventurer might not find it entirely impossible financially, but frankly, almost no adventurers kept horses as personal property.

They might be useful for long-distance travel, but they often became hindrances in battle. And, fundamentally, adventuring was built around party play. If you wanted to leverage speed, the entire party needed their own mounts.

If you had that kind of coin, wouldn’t you spend it on rare equipment, potions, grimoires… why waste it on horses?

In other words.

Blanca had never ridden a horse in her entire life.

Indeed, she had never experienced anything moving ‘fast’—faster than a person could run.

“Eek! Kyaaah!”

“You’ll bite your tongue off if you keep your mouth hanging open like that.”

If you know that, then stop, you animal!!

Blanca wanted to scream those words, but she didn’t possess even a speck of the strength required.

The blur of passing scenery and a disorienting, floating sensation gnawed at her nerves in real-time.

All she could do was cling to Vern with every ounce of strength, lest she fall.

Thanks to this, Vern’s back was experiencing a soft sensation in more ways than one, but Blanca, gripped by fear, had no time to dwell on such things.

-Kuaek?

He was screaming at the top of his lungs as he ran; to expect not to be noticed in this state would be truly shameless.

The goblins, alerted to the abnormal situation, spotted Vern and Blanca and assumed battle stances, but Vern neither drew his sword nor set Blanca down to prepare; he simply charged straight into the goblin throng as he was.

And then, he kicked a small, green body flying.

Thwack!

The ribs near its chest shattered instantly, the force piercing its innards and turning them to mush.

The goblin died instantly, unable to even scream, let alone resist.

The goblins beside it simply froze, uncomprehending. Vern, without hesitation, declared:

“Fire when ready.”

Instead of asking ‘Where?’ or ‘What?’, Blanca gritted her teeth and wordlessly extended her right arm.

The『Magic to Burn Wood』 shot from her hand, striking among the dazed goblin pack.

-Keugiiiik!?

It was a low-level spell, and not a direct hit, so no goblin was instantly felled.

But the sudden, intense heat that erupted before them was enough to shrink them, and Vern, with his free right hand, swung his sword, clearing them out.

“Continue in this fashion. However, there’s a chance we might need to use an intermediate spell later, so you must tell me beforehand if you think your mana reserves are running low.”

“I understand, just go a bit slow-, mph!”

Blanca’s grumbling was abruptly cut short.

Bern didn’t need to look back to guess the situation, and inwardly shook his head.

‘I told her, if you open your mouth, you’ll bite your tongue off.’

No need to worry Blanca would strangle him if she heard that.

Regardless of whether she knew Bern’s inner thoughts or not, at this very moment, Blanca was choking the life out of his neck.

In her mind, she was merely clinging on for dear life, afraid of falling, but this would usually leave a normal person gasping for air. Bern, with his decidedly abnormal physique, was perfectly fine.

After that, it was mostly a repetition of simple tasks.

Bern ran without pause, and even when goblins barred their way, he never stopped, simply kicking them aside or requesting Blanca to cast a spell.

“Fire away, please.”

*Ka-BOOM!*

“Release.”

*Ka-BOOM!*

“Once more.”

*Ka-BOOM!*

Blanca’s magical accuracy wasn’t particularly high.

She missed more often than she hit.

Bern didn’t rebuke her for it.

Considering her unsteady position and the blurred view, he figured it was understandable.

But Blanca felt differently.

She had the subjugation of a Lich as her goal, and this quest was the first step on that journey.

Bern was showing off his abilities and doing all the work, while she was just clinging to his back, making mistake after mistake?

Blanca was not one to simply shrug something off as “unavoidable.”

Bern, of course, realized this.

Blanca’s reaction speed and magical precision were demonstrably accelerating.

*A good prospect, nay, a good comrade*, Bern mused, turning his gaze forward.

The end of the first fork in the path.

Heaps of various foodstuffs and supplies met his eyes.

This branch, it seemed, led to a goblin storage area.

Standing guard before the warehouse was a goblin a head taller than the others, radiating an unsettling aura.

Finely crafted leather armor and helmet. A gleaming iron sword. And eyes that locked onto Bern with unwavering intensity.

Unknown to Bern, his opponent was the second-in-command of this goblin horde.

So great was the Goblin Lord’s favor that he had commanded the human slaves to forge armor specifically for him, and had bestowed upon him one of the mere three iron swords possessed by the tribe, their own forging capabilities still lacking.

Already, his strength rivaled that of a decent human warrior, and should the goblins’ true kingdom ever materialize, he held the potential to become a knight of the Lord.

Unlike most of his kin, barely exceeding the mental capacity of a primary schooler, he possessed the cunning of a middle schooler and roared at the approaching Bern.

Rendered into human speech, his goblin pronouncements would have sounded something like this:

–Assail me, human! By order of our glorious lord, this treasury shall be yielded to no one!!

And to his bellow, Bern offered a simple reply.

Thwack! Snikt!

There were no dramatic verbal exchanges, no intense stares, no fierce interspecies sword duel.

Bern kicked a pebble, sending it arcing into the goblin’s face, and in the moment of his flinch, severed his head with a single stroke.

The demon, the only one among them capable of understanding the second-in-command’s words, shook his head in the shadows.

* * *

A proper rookie adventurer, now that’s someone who could have been a mid-boss, a rival even. Instead, I’m stuck with this guy.

“Seems like this path is a dead end. Let’s turn back.”

“Just set me down for a moment.”

Bern almost blurted out, ‘Surely claiming rewards can wait, no?’ But he bit back the words.

He figured it would sound far too dismissive.

Blanca had, up until now, shown plenty of competence. More than that, he was a veteran, having been an adventurer far longer than Bern himself.

If Blanca, who’d been so agreeable to Bern’s plans, was saying something, then Bern assumed there must be a good reason.

Blanca surveyed the warehouse, here and there, and finally nodded.

“Just as I thought, they’ve been collecting oil here.”

In the corner of the warehouse stood a large oak barrel, filled to the brim with a liquid that gave off a peculiar odor.

It seemed they’d gathered oil from their prey, or perhaps from tree nuts and the like, all in one place.

Bern felt a stirring of interest himself.

“Thinking of using it for incendiaries? But burning it here wouldn’t accomplish much, and hauling the barrel would be difficult, I think.”

“Just watch.”

Blanca pulled something from his pack, about the size of a fist. To Bern, it looked like a clump of tan cotton.

Blanca submerged the cotton in the oil, and it began to rapidly absorb the liquid, growing in size.

The strange thing was that even though the massive oak barrel had lost more than half its contents, the cotton’s volume had only doubled, at most. Even after being completely submerged, the surface remained strangely dry to the eye.

“Is that…magic?”

“Not magic, but it’s made with plants infused with mana. Some alchemist developed it as a sort of waterskin. It can absorb far more liquid than its own volume. And it won’t leak, as long as you don’t physically damage the surface.”

“That sounds like a remarkably innovative invention.”

“But nobody uses them. You can reduce the volume, sure, but not the weight. And once you open it with something like a knife, the contents keep squeezing out until it’s all gone. If you’re going to use it as a water bladder, you need to be able to drink as much as you want and save the rest, but it doesn’t let you do that at all. Plus, it can’t be recycled, and it’s not exactly cheap, so the place just gathered dust and went bankrupt.”

“Why do you have it, then?”

“That alchemist hired me as security, saying it was a revolutionary product and weirdos might try to steal it by force. When the shop went under, he said he couldn’t pay me, so I took this instead.”

“……”

Finally, the cotton ball absorbed all the oil from the large oak barrel, swelling to the size of a volleyball. Blanca spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Take it out.”

“Huh?”

“This thing, it might not be big, but it still weighs the same, you know? I can’t carry it, so you carry it for me. And when you think we need a lot of firepower, throw it at the enemies. It’ll burn them to ash.”

Bern tilted his head for a moment, wondering if this was really the right call, but soon obediently picked up the cotton ball.

Its surface was fluffy enough that it wasn’t too difficult to hold in one hand.

When the two returned to the first fork in the road, they saw a group of goblins milling about nearby.

Judging by the atmosphere, they still didn’t know what was going on and were wandering around aimlessly.

Bern and Blanca crushed them with kicks and minor spells, then charged toward the second path.

The first half was similar to the first fork that led to the warehouse, but the depths were completely different.

It was a factory.

And a factory filled with humans, not goblins.

“……”

The humans were mechanically creating weapons and armor for the goblins to use, their faces filled with resignation and despair.

They weren’t even properly clothed; it seemed even that had been completely stolen by the goblins as a ‘resource.’

Goblins wielding clubs and short whips oversaw the humans, and upon seeing Vern and Blanca, they panicked greatly, about to shout some warning.

*Thwish!*

Of course, the two wouldn’t stand for that.

Vern and Blanca, without either taking precedence, sliced and incinerated the goblins, and in an instant, the workshop filled with bloodshed and the scent of roasting flesh.

Vern addressed the humans.

“Are all the survivors here?”

“Huh? Y-yes?”

“What’s going on…?”

Every one of the captives, dazed beyond reason, couldn’t properly answer Vern’s question.

The goblins, who had been their nightmare, had died like insects without offering any meaningful resistance, and their brains simply hadn’t caught up with the situation.

Vern frowned. It was then.

“No! There are about ten more inside!”

From a corner of the factory.

A man, seemingly recording something by scratching into wood with a sharp stone, suddenly emerged and answered Vern clearly.

Vern asked again.

“Are there goblins inside as well?”

“There were, originally, but they were just summoned somewhere, so they’re not there now!”

“Then can you gather everyone here and have them ready to leave at a moment’s notice? Not right now. There will be many goblins near the entrance.”

“We can!”

“I’m going to crush their leader; the left path at the fork leads to him, correct?”

“If you go left, there’ll be another fork in the road. Take the right path there! It’s a large goblin with eyes that gleam like gold!”

A remarkably quick-witted attitude, indeed.

The dazed expressions of the others around him weren’t exactly encouraging, but someone this fluent felt suspicious in its own way.

Bern’s gaze rapidly assessed the man.

‘…A man quick to adapt, I see.’

The way he’d been alone, doing something that looked like paperwork, the alertness in his eyes compared to the others… it seemed he was showing a cooperative attitude towards the goblins to receive relatively better treatment.

Even now, goblins were dying by Bern’s and Blanca’s hands, and he’d immediately switched his allegiance.

He’d likely betray them without a second thought if Bern and Blanca fell into a disadvantage again, but Bern didn’t mind.

Better this type than those frozen, unable to even grasp the situation. Easier to use them, that was all. The key was to not show weakness, wasn’t it?

“Then, we’ll leave it to you.”

“Yes! Leave it to me! Hey! You lot! A chance to escape! Move, move!”

Blanca glanced sideways, dumbfounded by the man’s instant assumption of command.

“That one, can we trust him?”

“Better than being helpless, don’t you think?”

The two returned to the fork in the road once more, then advanced down the last remaining left-hand path.

Just as the man said, a fork appeared, so they took the right.

The advance was smooth.

So smooth, in fact, that not a single goblin appeared to block their way.

The two silently surmised the reason for this, but they didn’t slow their pace.

And so they arrived, deep within the cavern’s heart.

A cavern vast enough to swallow a manor whole yawned before them.

Gone was the confused rabble; now, a goblin force stood arrayed, ready for war.

“–So, it’s you lot. Trampling my lands and stirring up such a ruckus.”

The Goblin Lord, seated on a throne cobbled together from leather in a crude imitation of humankind, greeted them.