This piece was surprisingly a good fit to illustrate just how craptastically lonely and borderline pointless Goblin Slayer's crusade really is....
You would need an entire army dedicated solely to the 24/7 extermination of goblinkind.
But nope. We get a single crafty yet average psycho.
To reiterate.:
His stats upon creation are as average, if not moreso, than a regular RPG NPC with the sole exception of his vitality stat--his sole saving grace against monsters tougher than him.
...Well, GS also has God tier throwing skills too.
Due to focusing solely on goblins... his combat skill is mid rank Adventurer at best, unless he plays defensively.... or cheats. He's almost overly specialized.
...That doesn't stop him from taking out monsters and enemies way better than him though. Dood did one shot an ogre after all. He was able to fight evenly and eventually beat a Dark Elf too, but only mostly by fighting defensively.
He is utterly INCAPABLE of recieving Divine favor... of ANY kind. Why?
The Gods aren't able to influence him---at all.
Even more tragic is...
His suffering was, in a way, cosmically necessary.
Ask yourself this:
How do do you think things would've turned out had GS's home never been attacked by goblins?
This is EXTREMELY important if you've read Year One.
Here's a hint.
At worst. Priestess would be dead.
At best. Priestess would either be another Sword Maiden... or catatonic.
Hero would've suffered a 'tragic backstory' bc nobody was available to save her home due to the the Rock Eater quest. In fact, the only Adventurer not part of that quest, was GS.
Oh, and GS was the very reason Priestess learned to use Miracles in the first place
Yup. He met BOTH Priestess and Hero during his first year as an Adventurer.
Ironic in that both were, or would, be saved by him and/or served as catalysts for their future life paths to move in the direction that they did.
Also worth noting is that both Priestess and Hero were/are among Illusion's favored souls.
Priestess was MEANT to be a Hero too. But then... God fucked up a dice roll and doomed her to die and/or be goblin gang raped. The 'Red String of OTP" is more than a little strong with Priestess and Goblin Slayer.
...Never mind the main storyline ship tease, but the ACTUAL reason Priestess can't bear be away from GS is an earnest desire to grant that broken man true salvation. The very few times she outright gets mad at him for not taling her along is when he's trying to let her rest which, ironically backfires. The other times she skips work are due to clerical duties... and when she's on her period, which happened at least twice in story.
Also, Priestess, due to being a Hero Candidate, has the Revelation skill. Like, a magically empowered sixth sense. The reason it didn't work very well in her first adventure is... bc Illusion already unintentionally fucked Priestess over and doomed her to die a miserable death in some random goblin infested cave....
So...as fucked up as it sounds... many a character's lives in the series could only be made manifest by way of one poor nobody's relentless undeserved suffering to give him the Power of Hate needed to literally screw with destiny(to an extent) and steer things in a less bullshit direction.
Another thing worth noting is that many, if not all, of GS's goblin related adventures have had a connection/impact on the Hero's own adventures.
Volume 3 is the best example of this so far.
A fitting requiem indeed, almost like a false Game Over.
Goblin Slayer is pretty much the Hero's Shadow in every way imaginable.
He is also known as the 'Hero of the Frontier' by many a bard.
His Priestess partner/love interest is a failed Hero/foil to an actual hero(2 in fact), the Archer is a literal Princess, and he has 3 spell casters total with one doubting as a frontline tank.
All Hero has is a Sword Saint and Sage.... guess who she skipped recruiting cuz God fucked up.
...Priestess.
