"Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why?! Why are we running from mere Goblins?!"
Tears of frustration streaming down his face, the adventurer kept running toward Gilm.
Another man running beside him — a veteran in his thirties who carried himself with far more composure than the twenty-something who had just cried out — barked at his companion.
"Shut up! Just focus on getting back to Gilm! If you waste your stamina now, they'll catch us!"
Precisely because he was a veteran, the man understood how dire their situation had become.
Under normal circumstances, Goblins were nothing more than trivial foes for adventurers operating out of Gilm.
But that was only true when dealing with one or two of them.
Against five at once, a single moment of carelessness could earn you an injury.
Against even more, the wounds would only grow worse — and against over a hundred Goblins at once, even D-Rank and C-Rank adventurers would struggle to survive.
Even if one's raw combat ability was sufficient, as living beings, everyone had a limit to their stamina.
Once that stamina was exhausted, movements would grow sluggish, and ultimately, even Goblins would become impossible to beat.
Unless there was some extraordinary exception, that was a certainty. And unfortunately, these two adventurers were no exception.
As a result, they had been told to inform the surviving members of their party about the Goblins. The two of them were now fleeing toward Gilm, leaving their comrades behind as a rearguard sacrifice.
It was supposed to have been a simple request — finding a Harpy nest in a grove just off the main road. Instead, they had been ambushed by a crisis that nearly annihilated their entire party.
"I can see it — Gilm!"
The familiar sight of their home base appeared on the horizon. The veteran shouted, and a look of joy broke across the younger man's face —
"Guh—"
A strange, wet sound. The man glanced sideways — only to find his companion with an arrow buried in his forehead.
As a veteran adventurer, he should have been able to react to an arrow fired from behind, especially one loosed by a Goblin. And truthfully, he possessed that level of skill.
But the mental turmoil of witnessing a flood of Goblins, the shame of having fled from mere Goblins, the burden of looking after the younger member of his party, and the relief that had flooded through him the moment Gilm came into view — all of it mixed together, and the result was that he couldn't dodge the arrow fired by the Goblin Archer pursuing them from behind.
Right before his eyes, the light faded from the gaze of the man who had been encouraging him moments ago. He collapsed to the ground, carried forward by the momentum of his own sprint.
The last man standing couldn't stop his feet, even as he watched.
Because the Goblins were still chasing him.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it all to hell!"
The realization that he was now the sole survivor of his party — and the bitter frustration that it had been Goblins who killed everyone else — tore a scream from his throat.
His one stroke of luck was that his desperate sprint had brought him close to the main road.
And on the main road, there were several adventurers. Upon spotting them, the Goblins' pursuit force judged that continuing the chase was too dangerous and broke off.
...That was something no ordinary Goblin would ever do.
Goblins were creatures that attacked any enemy in front of them and, upon losing, scattered and fled in utter panic. They couldn't even comprehend the gap in power between themselves and their opponent — they would charge headlong at even a Gryphon without a second thought.
And yet, once that power was demonstrated, they would scatter in all directions like startled insects.
For such Goblins to assess a situation as dangerous and voluntarily withdraw midway — that was nothing short of abnormal.
A few of the adventurers on the road had noticed the Goblins' behavior. It was only natural, given that they had seen the horde chasing the man and had been on their guard.
Realizing that he had been saved by the skin of his teeth, the man harbored doubts about what he had just witnessed. But he pushed them aside, set foot on the main road, and broke into a dead sprint toward Gilm.
As the last surviving member of his party, he ran without pause, oblivious to the inquisitive — almost reproachful — gazes of the people traveling the road, who looked as though they wanted to say something to him.
Upon reaching Gilm's main gate, he seized the guard processing entries into the city and blurted out:
"Listen to me!"
"Wah! What the — !? ...Ah, your paperwork is finished. You can go on in."
Having delivered that to the person whose entry he had just been processing, the guard turned back to the frantic man gripping his arm.
"Goblins — a horde of Goblins has appeared!"
"...A Goblin horde?"
If this had been anywhere other than Gilm — an ordinary city, not a frontier town — he might have dismissed it. Goblins? What's the big deal?
But this was Gilm, a frontier city. When you heard that a horde of Goblins had appeared, there was one obvious conclusion.
"Is the one leading them a High-ranking Species or a Rare Species?"
The guard's expression had shifted entirely from the routine attentiveness he wore while processing entries moments before. Now it was sharp, alert.
He clearly understood the danger.
"Probably a Goblin Leader. There were over a hundred Goblins."
"...A hundred?"
The guard's expression softened slightly. He had assumed from the word "horde" that it might number in the thousands or tens of thousands.
Of course, even for a monster as lowly as a Goblin, a force of a hundred was still a genuine threat. A skilled, high-rank adventurer could handle it, but for low-rank adventurers and traveling merchants, it was an insurmountable, despair-inducing menace.
(Well, it's only in the hundreds. Probably a Goblin Leader, just like he says. And thank god it wasn't Orcs — a High-ranking Species or Rare Species of Orc would've been far worse.)
Both Goblins and Orcs reproduced by using human women. In that respect, they were the same.
But the difference in individual strength was enormous. A single ordinary Orc could take on several Goblins — perhaps even a dozen or more at once.
Given the Goblins' sheer stupidity, that gap would only widen, never shrink.
(Should count myself lucky it's only a Leader.)
If a higher-tier commander had appeared — a Goblin General leading thousands, or a Goblin King at the head of tens of thousands — the knight order and Guard Force would have had to deploy alongside the adventurers.
The settlement led by the Orc King that had been discovered not far from Gilm some time ago had fewer individuals, but that was partly because fewer Orcs had gathered there to begin with, and partly because Goblins and Orcs differed vastly in their reproductive capacity.
Compared to an Orc King, a Goblin Leader — roughly a squad leader by human standards — was well within the range that a reasonable gathering of adventurers could handle.
A single party might struggle, but given the skill level of Gilm's adventurers, it was by no means impossible.
He would need to report it to his superiors, but it shouldn't escalate into a major crisis — or so he assessed.
Making that call, the guard checked the man's Guild Card and rushed through the paperwork.
"I'll report the Goblin situation to my superiors as well. But most likely, the Guild will handle it."
"I know! But let me tell you — I don't think it's just an ordinary Goblin Leader!"
He must have been in an extreme hurry. Spitting out those words, the man plunged through the gate and into Gilm.
"...Goblins, huh. Let's hope this doesn't turn into something troublesome."
A Goblin Leader appearing wasn't a frequent occurrence, but it wasn't particularly rare, either.
And yet... the guard couldn't shake a bad feeling settling in his chest.
He made a mental note to include, as a special annotation in his report, that the man had insisted this was no ordinary Goblin Leader.
"A horde of Goblins has appeared!"
Bursting through the doors of the Guild and rushing to the counter, the adventurer blurted the words out to the receptionist.
Fortunately, it was still daytime, and the Guild wasn't in its busy hours. The man didn't have to wait in line — he was able to speak to the receptionist right away.
"A Goblin horde!? How many!?"
Lenora, who had been organizing documents at the counter, looked up in alarm.
As her eyes found the man, she realized it was a familiar face.
Hester — one of the still-young adventurers.
He had recently joined the D-Rank party Flowing Clouds, and his name had begun to gain recognition as a promising up-and-comer.
But right now, there was nothing about him that suggested promise. He looked exactly like a man who had barely escaped with his life.
"Over a hundred... Everyone else is dead. All of them."
I see.
Lenora understood why Hester radiated such despair. If the party he had only just joined had been wiped out, of course he would look like this.
Feeling a pang of sympathy for the man before her, Lenora nonetheless had a job to do.
"A hundred, you say. Then it would be a Goblin Leader?"
He'll probably say yes, she thought. But Hester hesitated to nod.
"Hester?"
"No, I know that leading around a hundred Goblins is what a Goblin Leader does. But compared to that, the Goblins were... strangely smart."
"Smart, you say?"
"Yeah. For example, they were chasing us, but when we got close to the main road, they sensed it was dangerous and called off the pursuit midway."
"That's..."
As someone who worked as a receptionist at this Guild, Lenora had accumulated extensive knowledge about monsters. She likely knew more than the average adventurer.
And even for her, she had never heard of Goblins behaving with that level of intelligence.
"Could it be a higher-tier variant... a Goblin General, perhaps...? No, even they wouldn't act with that kind of tactical judgment..."
"Lenora, shouldn't we report this upstairs for now? If Goblins are doing something like that... it could potentially be a Rare Species of Goblin Leader."
Kenny, who had been listening beside Lenora, spoke up with a grave expression.
"You're right. Even if we don't know, someone above might. At the very least, the Guild Master might know something."
"Exactly. She's lived that long, so it wouldn't be strange for her to know at least that much."
"...Was that a jab?"
"Hm? Was it?"
Exchanging that brief banter, Lenora rose from her seat.
She headed to her superior deeper inside the counter area and recounted what Hester had told her.
"I see. It's correct to assume a Goblin Leader has appeared. But that's precisely the problem."
A man in his fifties groaned with a troubled expression after hearing Lenora's report.
Based on what he heard, there was no doubt a Goblin Leader had spawned. But the Goblins' behavior on the main road was not a judgment any ordinary Goblin Leader could make.
"This is concerning. Are there any skilled adventurers available who can move immediately?"
"Even if you ask me..."
Since it was daytime, the vast majority of adventurers were out on requests.
There were a few in the tavern, but only those celebrating a completed job or taking a scheduled rest day.
Near the Request Board, a handful of adventurers were looking to accept new requests, but most were not particularly skilled.
If this were a true emergency — a matter of whether Gilm itself would survive — they could call upon skilled adventurers within the city walls. But a Goblin Leader with a hundred Goblins didn't rise to that level of severity.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, precisely because Gilm was a frontier city, it had no shortage of skilled adventurers. Enough that one could probably find some just by walking outside the Guild for a few minutes.
(Though with most adventurers out on requests right now, even that might be difficult.)
Since the situation wasn't that urgent, if worst came to worst, they would have to assign the investigation to adventurers returning in the evening after finishing their requests.
That was what Lenora had been about to suggest — but just as the words were forming on her lips, a familiar voice rang out from the counter behind her.
"Ah, Rei-kun! I heard you went to Solrein, but you're back already!?"
At the voice of her friend — no, her partner in chaos — Lenora silently thanked the heavens for their timing.