Suddenly, the barghest stopped moving, surprise knotting its face, and it stared at the place they had gathered the herbs from.
Ah—
Enri pulled her face back. The others quickly followed suit.
Behind the tree trunk, Enri opened her hands. Her skin was green and speckled with stray bits of plant matter. Beside her, Nfirea did the same thing.
The sap and juices from the herbs we picked…
This was the same sort of thing that Nemu was soaked in when she ground up the herbs. Although those with numbed noses (like themselves) wouldn’t mind, but the powerful stench still hung in the air. Her heart raced, and Enri thought it was annoying.
“It’s started moving. …Is it coming this way? Hasn’t noticed us, has it?”
Unlai, with his ear on the tree to listen, flashed a querying hand sign.
“…are you telling me it can’t use its sense of smell?”
“What do you mean, Ani-san? Don’t monsters have very sensitive noses…?”
“It’s because of that,” Nfirea said as he explained himself.
The key point was that because it had an extremely sensitive sense of smell, the stench floating in this area was particularly effective against it. The barghest had confused the scent of Enri’s hands and bag with that of the already-harvested areas. Even better, the smell had covered up their original scent.
It was also possible that the barghest had torn up the herbs to smoke the goblin child out.
Although the powerful stench was everywhere, if they fled in haste, the displaced air from where they were fleeing might catch the barghest’s attention.
“Then, let’s use the kid as a sacrifice and be done with it. We don’t know how strong this barghest is, and engaging it without prior knowledge would be too risky.”
These cold words made Enri look at Gokoh’s face.
However, these words were logical ones. The goblins put Enri’s personal safety as their top priority.
With that in mind, avoiding combat with that magical beast was only to be expected. They would sacrifice one of their own kind for that without a second thought.
The words he said, judging by their conviction, were not mistaken at all.
However, Enri hated this sort of thing. Even if they were of different species, not helping someone you could help would disgrace herself as a human being.
Who knew, if she had not been a silly village girl who had never known a goblin attack and lacked a sense of danger, she might not have thought that way.
Enri looked around to the others. The goblins knew Enri’s wish. They just didn’t want to speak it.
After that, Enri looked to Nfirea.
“Enfi…”
“Haa… I’ll help. Who knows, that goblin child might become a valuable source of information. If we don’t find out why he fled here, it might end up causing danger to the village.
The goblins knitted their brows.
“Is there a chance you might lose?”
“Certainly. But if that’s a barghest, we’re in luck. Greater barghests are pretty strong. But from the look of that guy’s chains and the size of his horns, I don’t think he’s of that type. If it’s just a barghest, we’re sure to win.”
“Wait a minute. Ane-san is going to stay here, right? You should avoid danger.”
Enri swallowed. She knew what she was saying was only to satisfy her ego, and her foolish words would endanger not just herself but the others around her. But even so, Enri still opened her mouth to speak.
“…If we abandon someone we could have helped, it would be as bad as tormenting him ourselves. I don’t want to be like those people who harm the weak. Please!”
Kaijali, who had been watching Enri’s earnest expression, sighed in defeat. At the same time, the monster’s strange bark rang out. They could clearly hear the sound of mocking laughter within it. In response came the goblin child’s pitiful wail.
There was no more time for confusion or debate.
“It can’t be helped. Get him, lads!”
The goblins took the lead in jumping out, followed by Nfirea.
Enri felt a terribly wrenching pain in her heart as she watched the warriors who went into battle to fulfil her wishes.
All she could do was watch them from behind.
Then, Enri thought, at the very least I should stay here and watch them, without allowing myself to lose focus for even a single moment.
The four who had leapt out saw the barghest pressing the goblin child down beneath it. The goblin child sported new wounds but was not dead yet, because the barghest had the bad habit of toying with its prey.
The barghest’s movements stopped, and it stared at the group of people who had jumped out and then at the goblin child. Perhaps it was afraid that its prey had led it into a trap.
“Hey hey, come on boy,” Unlai said, pointing to himself with his thumb. “Want to play? I’ll play with you. Come on.”
The barghest growled, full of menace.
In a natural, flowing motion, Kaijali drew the machete at his waist. The other goblins followed suit.
“No need to think so much. I’ll teach an old dog like you new tricks. How about we start with ‘play dead’?”
“Ashaaaa!”
As a response to the goblins’ taunts, the barghest squeezed the goblin child it was stepping on, and he let out an angry growl.
Although it couldn’t speak, its actions made its intentions clear. Make a move and I kill the brat.
However―
“Very good! Go ahead and kill him!”
The three goblins ignored the barghest’s taunt, and stepped in with growls of their own.
This unexpected response brought confusion to the eyes of the barghest.
The barghest could not have known that the goblins had not shown up with the intention of saving the goblin child. They were only here because of Enri’s wish, and their attitude was “as long as we tried to save him, it’s good enough”.
Since they had shown themselves for a confrontation, if they didn’t kill the barghest their precious Enri might get hurt. Because of that, they needed to finish off the barghest for good. So if the goblin child was murdered, if that wasted their opponent’s first action and let them seize the initiative, then the goblins would gladly let the kid die.
Seeing itself reflected in the blades of three machetes, the barghest understood that it could not use its hostage against them and stopped moving. It was confused as to whether or not it should kill the boy it was pinning down.
Taking his life would be easy. It would be gone in one bite. However, if it did that, there was no question that it would be hacked to pieces by its enemies’ weapons.
The threat to its life led the barghest to its decision.