So Fran went to inform the guild leader about the goblins.
When Donadron heard the numbers — how many goblins, how many hobgoblins — he recognised it for what it was: a goblin stampede. Clint learned that the goblins had not retreated at any point, that they had fought until the end, and that told him the nest was held by hobgoblins stronger and more numerous than anyone had assumed. Then Fran mentioned that a dwarf had called the place a dungeon, and the situation became a great deal more serious.
Clint concluded that an urgent subjugation team would have to be organised, F rank and above, and asked Fran to join it. He made an exception to raise her to F without the usual side quests; anyone capable of clearing a horde of goblins alone, he said, could not be left at G.
Meanwhile, back at the workshop, Garus put Fran's armour down on the table and repaired it in an instant.
He showed them the crystal he had used to restore the item on the spot, and explained the catch: its effectiveness fell with every use, so each repair after this one would need more crystal than the last.
Fran wanted to know about dungeons.
Dungeons, the old man explained, were thought to be a test set by the goddess of chaos to test humankind, and they could appear anywhere, at any time. More precisely, a dungeon core appeared, and whatever creature happened to be nearest to it became the dungeon master. Dungeon masters had the intelligence to build a maze around the core. The ancient dungeons even developed their own ecologies, with monsters living inside them and all manner of treasure and magic weapons waiting as a reward for anyone who could challenge them.
Fran put her armour back on. Before she left, Garus told her the scabbard would be finished before the raid, and wished them luck.
Late that night, the sword looked over his wielder's stats and found them enormously improved, with a goblin killer title on top. Then he noticed that she was sitting very quietly, and out of sorts, so he patted her on the head.
Fran decided to take a bath. She wanted to take the sword in with her so she could clean him, and the sword refused. She went on at him about it until he gave in and was carried into the bath under protest.
She was in the middle of cleaning him when Nell walked in on her and forbade her from ever bringing the sword to bathe again.
The two of them sat down to dinner, and after some small talk Nell started cursing the vice captain. The whole dungeon business was his fault, she said. August, vice captain of the knights, hated adventurers, and had refused to mobilise a single knight for the raid, which dropped the entire burden onto the guild.
She wished Amanda were there to help them. Amanda was the guardian of children, an A-rank adventurer, the guild's ace — but she had gone off to investigate the Maru Plains.
A dungeon, Nell said, was the very last thing this town needed right now, and she had a few words for the goddess of chaos and her mischief.
Then she explained where it all came from.
Everything in the world began with ten gods. The gods of the sun, the moon, the sea, the land, the fire, the forest, the storm and the beasts made the world. The god of the underworld made the laws that governed it. After them, their descendants — the seventy-eight gods — painted in the colours of the world. And last of all came the goddess of chaos, who spread chaos everywhere so the world would not stagnate. The dungeons were believed to be one of the things she had made.
Fran asked whether there was a god of war.
There had been, Nell said. He turned evil out of greed for power. Once he had turned, his power became unchallengeable, and he challenged the other gods with it — and lost. His body was cut into pieces and the pieces were sealed away across the world, because the seas alone could not hold them all.
Every kind of goblin and monster in the world was born out of those pieces.
Nell was still talking when Fran fainted at the table.
The sword looked after her, and understood that she had pushed herself much too far.
The next morning, before anything else, the two of them went to see Garus.
When the scabbard came out, both of their eyes lit up. The sword did not waste a second: he sheathed himself in it and fell instantly, completely in love. Then Garus showed them the rest. He removed a metal piece, and the scabbard opened along its length, so that the sword could draw himself without needing Fran's hand at all.
With the scabbard collected, Fran and Teacher stood outside the dungeon, thoroughly pleased with themselves and looking forward to killing some goblins.
Donadron called everyone together for the strategy meeting. Their magic, he reported, had found an alarming number of goblins inside the nest. The objective was to take down the goblin king and the queen and stop the stampede, and then to take out the dungeon master.
That was as far as he got before the goblins attacked.
The dwarf shouted at everyone to stay together. The goblins came through them anyway and began tearing the party apart. The sword saw what was happening — the goblins were exploiting the confusion, going hardest at the men who had underestimated them — and told Fran to get clear and make for the entrance.
Fran ran for it, and as she passed among them the goblins scattered out of her way in fright, because of her title.
Then she saw an adventurer pinned under a goblin. It was about to kill him when Fran took its head off with her sword. She could not absorb the crystals out in the open — that would draw far too much attention to the weapon in her hands — so she left them.
The mouth of the cave was still blocked solid, which left her only one way through it.
She used the saber-tooth tiger's midair skill and jumped, straight up through empty air. Everyone watching was left staring at a child using an advanced skill; then she came down out of the sky with fire magic and amazed them all over again. She followed it with a sonic attack to clear the entrance, and the entrance stayed packed with goblins.
So the sword used advanced fire magic.
Fran levelled him at the cave mouth and a vast blast of fire came out of the blade and opened the path in an instant.
She went in at a run, hunting the king and the queen.
Deep inside the dungeon, the dungeon master was congratulating himself on catching the humans off guard, and celebrating the strongest monster he had ever made for his dungeon.