Volume 2 - CH 4

“C, can it not be done without hunting a poison snake?”

“I won’t know for sure unless she drinks the potion I have on hand but… Is it really that strong of a monster?”

“Y, yeah.” I tried making a higher quality potion from what I could make currently. Then I handed that over to the goblin who was sitting close to the side of the goblin queen. They looked back and forth cautiously between the potion I’d given them and the goblin next to me who nodded their head in confirmation.

They put a cup filled with the potion up to the goblin queen’s lips. A gulping sound started coming from the goblin queen’s throat. Her complexion got a bit better, but it seemed like she was still affected by the poison.

“…As expected, it seems the potion can only work as a temporary measure. As a test, let’s see how this antidote potion works.” I handed over an antidote potion made from parts of a poison bee. …It was actually pretty low quality. I might not make any more poison bee antidote potions after this.

The goblin queen drank it like before. It didn’t seem to cure her poison though. I guess nothing but a higher quality antidote potion will work.

Seeing this, the goblin next to me balled his hand into a fist. “…I guess we have to kill a poison snake after all.”

“Yeah as long as I have a medicinal herb too. I think it was called… dokunai1 grass? It’ll be really easy with that. Well, don’t worry too much. I’ll help out.”

“R, really!?” Said the goblin with it’s eyes sparkling with joy.

“Yeah. I’d gone too far to back out now.”

“…I, I see! It’s very reassuring to have you on our side, Crest!” Even for me it’s better to fight with someone else on my side. I mean seeing the state of the goblin queen, I’m also in danger of being poisoned. Having more companions would have made fighting a lot easier.

“In that case then why don’t we start right away? I want to save our queen as soon as we can!”

“…Alright, then let’s go.” We left the goblin queen’s house. Then the goblin went to gather the other goblins. They came back having organized the five goblins I’d met before.

“We here are the elite force of the village.” The goblin who had been with me the whole time gestured towards them with his hand. But, although he calls them the elite, they all had pale faces.

“Those don’t really look like the faces of those who are about to go defeat a poison snake….”

“Ah, hey! You guys! Do you not want to save the queen!?” Shouted the goblin with the scar. …I’ve though this since I first met the goblin, but he’s got quite a bit more burning loyalty than the rest of them.

“N, no we want to save her but…”

“B, but… will this be alright? I mean we can go and fight it but… When that poison snake attacked before, weren’t we so scared we couldn’t even move our arms and legs?”

That strong huh. While I was thinking that the goblin let out a grunt before turning to me. “…We definitely want to save her. But yeah… going up against a poison snake will be pretty tough. …Do you have any sort of plan?”

“…A plan, huh.” Even if you say that. I don’t really have anything that could easily motivate everyone. “Maybe something like a date with Goblia?”

Getting to be together with a female goblin might motivate them. The goblin with the scar raised his voice. “No way we would get fired up by such impure motives!”

“C, Crest! Really!?”

“You idiot, stop you’re embarrassing!” The goblin with the scar whacked the heads of the two goblins with sparkling eyes. …See, they seem plenty motivated. The goblin with a scar let out a cough.

I gave a different proposal with a slight grin on my face. “If you want to get strong faster, how about I name you guys?”

“Eh?” The goblins looked at me in surprise.

“I mean, that would be faster right?”

“B, but… shouldn’t you have a limit to how many names you can give?”

“No, I don’t seem to have anything like that. …Plus, I can just take it away after naming you as well. In the one in a million chance I do have a limit I might have to remove your names though.”

That doesn’t seem to be the case no matter how I look at Goblia and Rufina though. When I said this the six goblins all got really excited. The goblin with the scare glanced over at them then nodded his head. “A, alright… Could we ask for a contract?”

“…Yeah. Well, coming up with six names is difficult in and of itself though. Do you guys have any specific names you want?” That would certainly make my job a lot easier. The goblins all got sparky eyes and then began to think to themselves.

The first ones to raise their hands were the two who had been really interested in the prospect of a date with Goblia. “C, Crest! I want to be Gobriel!”

“…Alright. You’re Gobriel.”

“Oh, Gobdon2 for me!”

“…Roger. Hey you guys, what’s up with the obsession with starting your names with ‘gob’?”

“Of course we would! We’re all goblins!” Gobriel and Gobdon were both smiling widely. Their statuses displayed. …I see, I guess that’s from me naming them.

Gobriel and Gobdon both had stats that were all at least 110. It’s pretty high but I bet some of that was from me naming them. Maybe they were originally all less than 100?

“M, my body’s light! We might be able to beat anything as we are now!”

“S, so this is a name! Thank you Crest!”

“Yeah, next please.” The goblin with a scar meekly raised his hand. “Did you decide on one?”

“Y, yeah… w, what do you think about ‘Darkvolt’?”

“…” Yeah. A name that is totally unrelated to being a goblin.

Gobriel and Gobdon started whispering to each other. “Wasn’t that guy reading from a grimoire before?”

“Yeah he was. He was mumbling a bunch of profound phrases to himself too. …It’s almost like the outbreak of some kind of disease.” That was known as chuunibyou3 in the upper world. Certain individuals taking second year schooling fall into a similar state, so that’s what they call them.

“Sh, shut up! Be quiet! I’ll smack you guys in the head!” Shouted the goblin with his face red. …That name is pretty long.

“Darkvolt4 is fine, but is it fine to shorten it?”

“O, oh yeah… in that case how about shortening it to Onyx?” Gobriel was pretending not to know the goblin who seemed to be embarrassed.

“No, isn’t Darkle fine?”

“Th, that’s lame though!”

“No, but it’s easy to say right? Darkle is fine. Right?”

“G, guh..” …Well, Darkle is a lot easier to remember. It does seem more like a name for a monster like a kobold though.

“Alright, do Darkle’s fine?”

“Y, yeah okay…” And so Darkvolt, now Darkle was named. At that moment Darkle naturally looked to both of his hands.

“P, power…. Is raging inside me…” I figured this was a case of chuunibyou, but it was more than that in this case. I realized that my monster evolution technique was reacting to Darkle.

1. Dokunai grass. Doku = poison, nai = not. This author has hurt me guys. First chiyu chiyu grass now this…

2. I feel like it would be disrespectful to the author if I didn’t make this Gordon with a b.

3. In case you happen to be one of the few individuals unacquainted with the concept of chuunibyou (and by extension its fantasy world derivatives), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%ABniby%C5%8D

4. ダークボルト is long to say in Japanese, so they’re shortening it to 漆黒which is longer in English. Means Onyx sounds cool while also being short so that’s what I’ll go with.