SSS-Ranked Trash Hero: I Was Scammed Into Being Summoned-Chapter 49: Business in the Dark

The human didn’t notice them.

Hiroshi realized it fast and made a sharp gesture with his hand. Stay still and don’t move. The others read it immediately. Nobody breathed too loud.

The human walked into the room. He was tall. Well dressed compared to where he was. A long coat, dark colored, and boots. He wasn’t young but he wasn’t old either. Somewhere in the middle.

He wasn’t looking around the room.

He was talking to the goblin.

Not in any language Hiroshi recognized. Something guttural and clipped. The goblin was listening carefully, nodding along, holding the torch up. The human kept talking. Calm and steady like this was a normal conversation in a normal place and not a goblin treasury underground.

Hiroshi watched from behind a stack of crates. He could see Elias on the other side of the room pressed flat against the wall. The woman guard hadn’t moved from her spot near the passage entrance. Baros was crouched behind a chest. The injured man was still against the far wall, sitting completely still, eyes tracking everything.

The human finished talking. He made a short gesture with one hand.

The goblin disappeared back into the passage it came from. The human waited. He pulled something from inside his coat and looked at it. A folded piece of paper. He read it once then folded it again and put it back. His expression didn’t change.

After a minute the goblin came back. It was struggling. Another goblin was with it now, both of them carrying a chest between them. They set it down in front of the human with a grunt. The human crouched down and opened it.

Gold coins. The chest was full of them.

He checked a handful. Turned them over. Nodded once. Then he closed the chest and stood back up and said something short to the goblin. The goblin bowed its head slightly.

Then the human picked up one side of the chest and the goblin that had come in first took the other side and they carried it back through the passage together. The second goblin followed behind them.

And then they were gone.

Nobody moved for a long moment after the footsteps faded.

Then Hiroshi let out a slow breath.

"Who was that," Baros said quietly. It wasn’t really a question.

"Someone who knows goblins well enough to do business with them," Elias said.

Hiroshi didn’t say anything. He was thinking about the paper the man had read. Whatever was written on it had brought him down here to collect a chest of gold. That meant this wasn’t a one time thing. That meant there was a system here. Someone was running something and the goblins were part of it.

"We go through that passage," Hiroshi said. "Same way they went. We wait a little first."

Nobody argued.

They waited long enough that the sound of the human and the goblins had fully disappeared into silence. Then they moved. Hiroshi went first this time. The passage was wider than the hole they had crawled through. High enough to walk upright if you ducked slightly. The torches were spaced further apart here and the light was thin but it was enough.

They moved single file and quiet. Hiroshi kept his hand on the sword. Behind him he could hear the injured man’s breathing. It was labored. The man was pushing through something significant just to keep walking.

The passage curved and then opened up.

They came out into a wider tunnel. Rough carved stone on all sides.

Hiroshi stopped.

Ahead of them the tunnel split into two directions. He looked both ways. No sound from either side.

"Which way," the woman guard said.

Elias moved to the left branch and crouched down and looked at the floor. "More foot traffic this way. The ground is more worn."

More foot traffic meant more goblins probably. But it also meant it was more likely to lead somewhere real. Dead ends didn’t get walked often.

"Left," Hiroshi said.

They moved.

The tunnel went on for a while. Long enough that Hiroshi started to feel the distance in his legs. The ground was uneven and sloped upward slightly which he took as a good sign. Up meant closer to the surface. Up was what he wanted.

Then he heard them.

He stopped and raised his fist and everyone halted behind him.

Voices ahead. More than two.

He looked back at the group. Elias held up both hands and spread his fingers. Ten. Or close to it.

Ten goblins.

Hiroshi looked at what they had. Himself with a sword. The woman guard with her sword. Elias had a short blade he had picked up from the treasury. Baros had an axe from the same place. The injured man had a knife but realistically he had nothing.

It wasn’t good odds. But the tunnel was narrow and that helped. They couldn’t all come at once. Width forced them into smaller numbers at a time.

He had no choice anyway. Going back wasn’t going anywhere.

He looked at the woman guard and pointed forward then held up two fingers. She nodded. Two upfront.

She moved up beside him.

They came around a bend in the tunnel and the goblins were right there. A pack of them milling around a wider section where two tunnels crossed. Some were sitting. Some were standing. One was eating something Hiroshi didn’t look at closely enough to identify.

The first goblin that saw them let out a sharp shriek and then everything happened at once.

Hiroshi closed the distance fast. The sword felt right in his hand. He caught the first goblin before it could raise its own weapon and put it down. The woman guard was already engaging on his right. Two goblins came at her together and she handled one and took a cut across her arm from the other but kept going.

Elias and Baros pushed up behind them. The tunnel was doing what Hiroshi hoped. It was keeping the goblins from surrounding them. They could only come from ahead.

But they kept coming.

Hiroshi fought through three more. His arms were burning. He was breathing hard. The goblins were small but they were fast and there were a lot of them and they were angry now.

He heard a shout from behind him.

He turned.

The injured man was on the ground. Two goblins had come from somewhere, a side passage Hiroshi hadn’t seen, and they had flanked them from behind. Baros was fighting one of them off. The other one was standing over the injured man.

Hiroshi moved but he was too far.

He watched it happen and couldn’t stop it.

The man didn’t make much sound. Just a sharp exhale. Then he went still.

The goblin looked up at Hiroshi.

Hiroshi’s jaw tightened.

The remaining goblins hadn’t run. They were regrouping at the far end of the crossing, chattering fast to each other. More noise was coming from somewhere deeper in the tunnels. More footsteps. Hiroshi couldn’t tell how many.

Baros killed the goblin standing over the injured man.

Nobody said anything for a second.

"More coming," Elias said quietly.

Hiroshi looked down at the man on the ground. Then he looked up at the tunnel ahead.

They had to keep moving.