Gluttony Demon King with the Swampman ~A Man with No Magic Power Who Dreamed of Magic, Wielding Knowledge from His Past Life Through Steady Research and Hard Work to Become the Most Vicious Final Boss~ - Chapter 27: Shadow of a Higher Species

Chapter 27: Shadow of a Higher Species

Second day since departure.

The abnormality became clear around noon.

As usual, the monsters that kept appearing were nothing but goblins, and we had just finished dealing with them in our now-familiar rhythm.

“Old man, there’s a weird smell.”

The one who called out was one of the blacksmiths, a dog-headed man.

He twitched his tall canine nose, sniffed, looked down at the goblin corpses, and reported to the old man—meaning Zilmoza.

“These guys were just born. They’ve got that fresh-water smell.”

“…What did you say?”

Zilmoza, who had just stepped down from the wagon, let out a low growl at the dog-headed man’s words.

Goblins are already a species with high reproductive rates.

They multiply quickly, which is exactly why the guild keeps them as permanent extermination targets to thin their numbers constantly.

Yet even for goblins—

The idea that freshly born individuals would immediately attack people was, by common sense, impossible. Besides, no matter how you looked at them, these goblins didn’t appear to be juveniles at all.

Noiche and Zaria spoke up.

“…Is there a higher individual?”

“Pretty likely. There’s probably a boss out there turning the newborns straight into soldiers.”

Zaria continued, explaining that goblins with fast breeding cycles were especially prone to producing abnormal specimens, then looked at Zilmoza.

“What do you think, Zilmoza?”

“…Hmph. If that guess is right, from here on out the goblin attacks will only get fiercer. Our destination might have become their territory.”

“Old man, we still have the option to turn back now…”

But Zilmoza shook his head at the dog-headed man’s suggestion.

“No, we go forward. Leave the wagons and horses here. From now on we walk. The adventurers will split—some guard the horses, some come with us.”

That made sense if we were pressing on.

Any more fighting and the horses might panic or get injured.

Zilmoza gave orders and left half the adventurers to guard the wagons.

“Dragon-slaying brats, you’re with us.”

We ended up accompanying Zilmoza and the blacksmith group.

Without putting guards ahead, Zilmoza started marching forward with heavy steps on his own two feet.

We hurried to keep up, while Egiy, the dog-headed man, and the other blacksmiths watched us awkwardly.

“S-sorry again… Master’s doing whatever he wants…”

“Good grief, old man… He could’ve just turned back honestly. I don’t know what’s so special about this trip. Sorry, adventurers—it’s going to be a rough journey, but please stick with us.”

The disciples bowed repeatedly, then ran to stop Zilmoza and at least make him walk in the middle.

“…What do we do, Noiche? Things are starting to feel ominous.”

“Yeah. For now, I’ve already put everyone’s bedding and food in the pouch.”

“As expected of Noiche, always prepared! Then I’ll go take the front guard position.”

With that, Zaria dashed off as well.

…Well, the atmosphere really had turned strange.

If a higher species was leading the goblin horde, the quest difficulty would jump dramatically.

You could clearly see the tension on the faces of the other adventurer party assigned to escort the Zilmoza group.

“I hope tension doesn’t drop their performance…”

“If it does, we’ll just have to cover for them.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

Nodding at Noiche’s words, we moved forward.
Fortunately, the destination wasn’t far.
We had originally planned to arrive in a day and a bit, so we were right on schedule.

Soon we left the wagon-friendly road far behind and started pushing through beast trails overgrown with grass.

Yet the frequency of goblin encounters only kept rising.

“Here they come again. We’re counting on you, adventurers.”

The dog-headed man—his name seemed to be Aljan—twitched his ears.
As expected of a beastman, his detection ability rivaled any adventurer’s.

A few dozen seconds after his report, the sound of goblin footsteps reached our ears too.
Zaria, holding the front line, wrapped magic around her sword—and in an instant severed the head of the first goblin that leaped out.

“More coming!”

“Got it, Noiche, you’re up!”

“Leave it to me.”

The goblins emerged from the bushes, but the ambush had already been seen through.
Noiche fired a volley of magic bullets at the areas Zaria couldn’t cover, piercing heads and hearts with her usual deadly precision.

“A-amazing…”

“We haven’t even had a chance to do anything…”

The adventurers gasped.

Well, I didn’t have anything to do either.

Noiche’s extermination power was as overwhelming as ever.

Zaria’s movements with a real sword still looked a little awkward, but they seemed to be improving bit by bit.

Meanwhile, Zilmoza, standing beside me and watching the two of them, let out a dissatisfied grunt.

“That girl called Zaria…”

“Yes?”

“Why the hell is she using such a dull, worthless blade?”

As expected, he noticed even from this distance.
This escort quest was partly to solve that very problem, but I hesitated for a moment on how to explain… and ended up just saying it straight.

“She can’t find a sword that suits her. That’s why we took this quest—to ask for your help, Zilmoza-san.”

“…What?”

Zilmoza twitched, but immediately turned his eyes back to Zaria’s hands.
It took dozens of seconds before he spoke again. He wasn’t in a bad mood; he was just thinking hard.

“Have Egiy forge it.”

“…Huh?”

“What that girl needs is a magic sword. I could make one, but Egiy is better suited for it.”

Zilmoza said it plainly, with no hidden meaning.

“Egiy can already forge? I thought she was still an apprentice.”

“Who knows. Her pure smithing skill might still be immature, but when forging magic swords, the most important things are deep magical knowledge and precise engraving technique. She’s an elf, after all. You won’t find many blacksmiths in the whole kingdom as versed in magic as she is.”

“And her fingers are more skillful than mine,” Zilmoza added with a grin.

…I was stunned at my own assumptions.

Elves excel at magic and are known for producing master archers thanks to their dexterity. But an elven blacksmith is an ultra-rare specimen—you don’t find one easily. That’s exactly why I had overlooked it.

We had already met the person most perfectly suited to forge a magic sword.
Up ahead, the goblins were cleaned up in the blink of an eye. The group started walking again, and we did too.

But then— Zilmoza’s body suddenly swayed.

“Whoa.”

I quickly supported him with my left arm.

Zilmoza thrust the curved blade at his hip into the ground like a cane and barely kept his balance.

“Are you all right?”

“…Yeah, sorry. I’m fine.”

He nodded heavily and steadied his steps.

Seeing that, Egiy and the beastman Aljan came running over.

“M-Master… are you okay?”

“Good grief, I told you not to push yourself… Come on, old man, walk in the middle. It’s scary having you at the back.”

Zilmoza nodded at Aljan’s words with a “Yeah,” and was led to the center of the line.

Egiy and I were left in the rear.

“…Is he sick?”

“I don’t know. Doctors can’t find anything wrong… He’s just been unsteady these past few months.”

Unsteady? Like dizziness or lightheadedness, probably.

There was nothing I could do about it, so we simply followed behind them.

We would reach the destination soon.

From afar, something that looked like a cave came into view.

I glanced at Egiy walking beside me, and she nodded.

“That’s the cave. The old mining site for Kiel ore. The vein was supposed to be completely exhausted long ago, but magic metals sometimes revive when the surrounding magic environment changes.”

“…Could it be the Demon King’s influence?”

“I think so. A while back, Master heard from somewhere that the vein might have come back.”

So that was the story.

The area around the cave was overgrown with greenery, but the ground was paved with flat, worked stones in places… You could tell that long ago, human hands had been here.

We were finally approaching the cave—
But that was the moment.

“Stop! Something’s coming!”

Aljan barked.

We noticed the abnormality even before he finished signaling.

Because it wasn’t just footsteps—

It was an earthquake.

The ground shook hard enough to stop us in our tracks.

At that instant, the gigantic body dropped from above.

Greenish-gray skin, bulging, knotted muscles.

It looked exactly like a goblin, but its height was easily that of a whole house.

The falling giant landed with enough force to crack the earth—and the blast of sand sent us flying.