Goblin Slayer - Volume 2 - Chapter 1.1

Interlude – Of The Gods Making Merry

Somewhere else—immensely far away, yet incredibly close. 

Done! So saying, the goddess, Illusion, wiped the sweat from her brow. 

She unrolled a large sheet of paper on which there was—gracious!—a vast dungeon. 

Illusion spun about her map in an excess of happiness, then suddenly stopped. 

Darn! That’s right. A dungeon isn’t complete without monsters! 

That’s what adventures are supposed to be about, after all. Dungeons! Dragons! Tunnels! Trolls! A few traps wouldn’t hurt, either. What to do, what to do? 

Illusion dropped a few goblins in, just to get started. You had to have goblins. 

But she couldn’t figure out the next step. What to do? 

Strong adventurers need strong foes, and weaker ones need enemies to match. Otherwise, the adventurers wouldn’t be able to get into the quest, and then no one would have fun. 

And then along came a god who said, Let me show you a trick. 

It was Truth. Really? Illusion looked at him doubtfully. 

Truth, after all, had a reputation for doing rather unpleasant things. 

He would whisper some evil thing in the ear of a quest giver, for example, repeatedly betraying adventurers and then silencing them forever. If a party was looking for traps with a ten-foot pole, he would place a trap eleven feet away. 

Just watch, Truth said to the dubious Illusion and pulled a book out of thin air. Opening the dog-eared cover and flipping through the pages, he exclaimed, Come out, foul monsters! Come out, traps! 

Truth touched pictures that could have been alive, and they appeared in his palm. 

Then, before Illusion could say a word, he dropped the monsters and traps into her labyrinth. 

Truth cackled at Illusion’s distraught Oh! 

Now just hand out a little oracle to some heretic sect, and it’ll be perfect! 

I wonder…, Illusion murmured, but it was too late. 

The dice were already rolling. 

…Oh. 

Seriously? 

Then, he and she showed up.