“Nnghhh!”
And not just once. The slave soldier had planted its right foot into Manato’s midsection two or three times. Was it aiming to rupture his stomach? He wouldn’t have been surprised if he was already spilling his guts all over the place, or if his organs had been mashed to a pulp inside of him.
Something came up and spewed out of Manato’s mouth. He didn’t know what it was, but it tasted bitter and smelled terrible.
“Gagh!”
He swung his sword around wildly, but the slave soldier easily twisted away. Manato leaped to his feet, but he couldn’t feel his legs and staggered. Then the slave soldier kicked him again, or maybe it punched him.
“Agh!”
The air was blasted from his lungs as he landed on his back. He couldn’t breathe, but even so, he needed to move or he was gonna get killed.
A few moments later, it seemed he had ended up wrestling with the slave soldier. It grabbed his throat, and he somehow managed to tear free from its hands. That much he was sure of. But then it quickly slugged him in the face a few times, making him lose sight in his left eye. The slave soldier got on top of him and grabbed some part of his body. He wasn’t sure where, though.
Seen up close, and with only his right eye, the slave soldier didn’t feel human. It wasn’t just because of the deep blue scales covering its flesh. The structure of its face was, uh, well, he didn’t know how to describe it, actually. Manato had never seen any creature like it. If anything, it was more like a fish or insect.
A fish? An insect? Or something in between? But in what way, exactly?
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
It’s splitting. Splitting, splitting, splitting. It’s gonna split. My head’s gonna split. It’s gonna split my head. My head.
The slave soldier had Manato’s head in a clawlike grip. Was it trying to crush his skull?
There was a voice, or maybe just a sound, that went, “Shihshihshihshih!”
It was probably the slave soldier’s voice.
Is it laughing? What’s wrong with this thing? What the hell? It’s gonna split my head open. I mean it, seriously. This’s bad. It’s gonna crack.
“Ugyigih!”
Different. That voice was different. It wasn’t the slave soldier’s. And it wasn’t Manato’s either. A totally different voice. A goblin’s?
Something had grabbed the slave soldier from behind. Had a goblin really come to help him?
No doubt about it. That was a goblin. He was clinging to the slave soldier’s back, and had sunk his teeth into its neck. The slave soldier had thick skin. It was still stretchy rather than stiff, but it was tough. Would teeth do anything to skin like that? It was hard to say. But the goblin was trying, at least.
The slave soldier, who was trying to crush Manato’s head with both of its hands, let go with its left, but continued to hold on with its right. Its free hand then reached for the goblin’s head. Oh, that wasn’t good.
It’ll be crushed. Seriously crushed. The goblin’s head’s in danger.
Manato was tough, but that goblin had come from the farm. There was no way he was in good health. Manato couldn’t imagine that his body was particularly robust. And he was smaller than Manato.
Manato didn’t have his sword. It had flown off somewhere. But he had a dagger.
While the slave soldier had been squeezing his head in both of its hands, he’d been in too much pain to try anything, but now that it was only one hand, he had more freedom to act.
Manato held his dagger with a backhand grip and drew it from its sheath. In a single breath, he slammed it through the underside of the slave soldier’s jaw, into its gullet.
“Gogh!”
That was the noise that escaped the slave soldier’s throat. It wasn’t clear if the blow had been enough to make it falter, but the pressure on Manato’s head let up.
“Run!” Manato shouted as he tried to throw the slave soldier off of him.
The goblin’s eyes seemed to meet his own. His words might not have gotten through to the goblin, but his feelings had. That was the sense he got.
The goblin screamed something as he jumped away from the slave soldier. Good. That was the thing to do. Manato brought his left hand up to join his right, which was holding the dagger. Then, as he tried to tighten his grip, the slave soldier took a swing at him with its fist. Whoa, uh, that was bad, but what could he do?
Manato took the blow with his forehead. It had probably been trying to hit his right eye. Instantly realizing that he would be finished if it managed to put his right eye out of commission too, he’d twisted his neck a bit to adjust the position of his head. That had saved the sight in his right eye, but left him groggy. Not good. It was still looking really bad for him.
If someone hadn’t come and clobbered the slave soldier, then he would have lost for sure. He saw them out of his right eye, and though they were only a blur, he knew it was Riyo. Riyo had come to save him.
Manato tried to stand. As much as he would’ve liked to get back on his feet, though, the best he could do was to roll over onto his front. Why had he ended up face down? Maybe he’d messed up somewhere along the way. He was hurting pretty badly. Where had he been injured, that it was causing him this much pain? Manato couldn’t even imagine. All he knew was that it hurt more than he could take.
Riyo was apparently fighting. He felt like he heard Yori calling his name. Then Haru did too. They asked if he was all right.
Manato tried to reply that, yeah, he was fine, but who knows if he actually managed it. He might have only tried to reply.