Goblin Slayer

Goblin Slayer  ( ゴブリンスレイヤー) is the series' main character; an experienced silver ranked adventurer who only concerns himself with hunting goblins.

Appearance
His appearance is not as glamorous or elegant due to using equipment that would seem lacking for an adventurer of his rank.

It is implied that he looks handsome and dignified, if somewhat pale, underneath his helmet.

Personality

 * He is calm and strict, yet he cares deeply for the people around him. His most defining trait is the hatred of goblins that fuels him and his actions. The reason behind this is how his family and village were massacred by goblins and made a vendetta against all goblins everywhere. After he was orphaned, he was taken in by the uncle of his childhood friend, Cow Girl, and uses his income to pay for his stay. Though he is open to the idea of there being genuinely good goblins somewhere in the world, he believes that until proven otherwise, they can only be assumed to be evil due to the death and destruction they cause.


 * Anti-Hero: Of the pragmatic variety. While it's clear that his hunting of goblins comes from a very angry and unhealthy hatred of the creatures, over the usual wish to keep the peace and save the world like typical adventurers, the simple fact is that he's the only silver-ranked adventurer willing to take the poorly rewarded goblin contracts, which are numerous due to the many goblin outbreaks and the unfortunate fact that most experienced adventurers won't touch them due to the low pay.
 * Boring, but Practical:


 * Brutal Honesty: He does not mince words, hurting people more than once in the process. He's usually not trying to, but he doesn't care if he does.


 * Chaste Hero: In stark contrast to his sworn enemy. Sex and nudity does nothing for him. Probably for the best, given his line of work.
 * Combat Pragmatist: Dear  Lord  yes. Setting up traps, using their own weapons against them, using  any  advantage he possibly can, up to and including killing goblin children so they don't grow up and get revenge on him years later. It's all fair game if he can kill more goblins easier and more efficiently.
 * Goblins in an old elf tree fortress and they've already proved strong enough to kill experienced adventurers? Light the fortress on fire with fire bomb arrows and then trap the little buggers inside with your white mage's shield spell.
 * More than 50 goblins inside an old fortress. Do you you run down and try to fight them all? Do you lure them into a trap and then kill the stragglers? Do you fight them in a hallway so their numbers are meaningless? Hell no. Just get your dwarven companion to put everyone to sleep and your white mage to cast a noise cancelling spell so you can just walk down and kill each sleeping goblin individually.
 * The Comically Serious: His single-minded drive to slay goblins, combined with his concise personality, occasionally paints him as a mad man from an outsider's perspective. At times, his intentions borderline on Skewed Priorities.
 * The Manga Adaption has several panels where he eats food and sips tea without lifting his visor. Somehow. The Light Novel doesn't explain it either. He's even managed to stuff ice cream in there. though this is most likely due to his helmet having an opening slit when this happens
 * Defrosting Ice King: It's very, very,  very  gradual, but it's happening. It says something that he's actually considering his companions' opinions of him, possibly because he's finally being surrounded by people who considers him a friend.
 * Dude, Where's My Respect?: Subverted. While most higher ranked adventurers look down on Goblin Slayer for his shabby equipment and the fact he only fights "weak goblins," not only does he not give a damn about what they think, but the Guild Clerks have much more respect and admiration for him, as he's willing to take on the many goblin-related quests instead of some possibly doomed rookies. In chapter 4 of the manga, a bard is able to make good money by singing a song about Goblin Slayer, meaning he's also rather popular with the commonfolk. Amusingly, he is not aware of his influence.
 * Experienced Protagonist: He's had years of experience under his belt by the time he is introduced, and makes no hesitation in teaching Priestess about goblin tactics to better increase her chances of survival.
 * Folk Hero: Villagers know and admire him by reputation since he has singlehandedly and repeatedly slain countless goblins, the most persistent monster threat they face.
 * Humble Hero: He doesn't consider himself special just because he's silver-ranked—the third highest rank of adventurer and the highest one that still takes ordinary guild contracts. The Guild Clerk is rather irritated with this attitude.
 * When a newly-promoted Priestess approached him to show gratitude for everything he's done for her, including his rescue on that fateful day, he tried brushing it off as nothing, bringing up his failure to save everyone else in Priestess' doomed first party. She nonetheless thanked him for at least saving her, leaving him at a loss for words.
 * Hunter of Monsters: Specializes in killing goblins and takes no other job except goblin hunting. He's killed so many goblins that he was able to achieve silver rank from those jobs alone.
 * Kill It with Fire: Fond of this trope, be it using gasoline to ignite a body and roll it down an incline on top of other goblins or setting an entire goblin nest ablaze with burning arrows.


 * Loser Friend Puzzles Outsiders: In a party of visually-striking adventurers, Goblin Slayer is always attracting derisive comments from both peers and the general public about his grungy armor and dour attitude. This gets worse whenever he's around Priestess or High Elf Archer, because others assume the only reason why beautiful girls would associate with him is through some sort of dark secret or coercion.
 * No Social Skills: The events of his past has left him emotionally-stunted and blunt. Not only does he not get along with most people as a result, he treats conversations as just an obstacle to getting more goblin-slaying quests and not much else. It is only until recently does he engage in actual attempts at casual talk.
 * Not Distracted by the Sexy: Cow Girl has made likely several flirtatious gestures towards him, the first shown in Chapter 3 where she greets him in the morning in only her underwear. He doesn't skip a beat.
 * In Vol. 2, after suffering gruesome injuries that left him at death's door, he was healed with Resurrection. It's a miracle that requires the target to sleep naked in the same bed with a Maiden. When he woke up, said Maiden greeted him while wearing a single piece that hid nothing. Priestess, also healed and naked, was asleep with her arms around his waist. Goblin Slayer was more interested in confirming that Resurrection exists.
 * Not the Intended Use: Goblin Slayer uses the protection spell of the Priestess to chilling effect in chapter 4. He starts a fire in an old elven fortress and by using the protection spell, he traps the goblins in a bubble to choke and burn to death.
 * He also uses a Gate Scroll as a weapon, by making the location of the Gate the bottom of the ocean, effectively making it a water cannon.
 * In Vol. 2, rather than escaping a goblin horde by using a newly-discovered teleportation mirror leading to goodness-knows-where, he has his team lift it up like an umbrella while he collapses the ceiling. The rubble is absorbed by the mirror and buries everything else, leaving them the only survivors.


 * O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A series of small footprints on the pasture is enough for Goblin Slayer to deduce the presence of a goblin lord, with an army on the same scale as the one that razed his village. He is almost meek when he reports this to Cow Girl, who is floored by this behavior. The entirety of the Adventurers Guild reacts similarly when he requests everyone for help.
 * Parental Abandonment: Both his parents, his sister and other villagers at his home village were killed by goblins. Hence, his one-man vendetta against goblins everywhere.
 * Pet the Dog: As standoffish and manically driven as he is, he does care for the welfare of others. He even makes the occasional attempt to show it.
 * In Vol. 2, he buys a canary to detect gas while his party travels deep underground. He nevertheless protects it from harm, and by the end of the novel he is shown to have kept it well-fed and cared for.
 * The Power of Hate: His hatred of goblins is what fuels him.
 * Pragmatic Hero: Goblin Slayer is on the side of good, but he's not much of a noble hero. He fights dirty, will mercy-kill poisoned or wounded people who are too far gone over wasting time trying to save them, and is not afraid to get his hands bloody.


 * Properly Paranoid: Never takes off his armor even during his downtime, and refuses to go into detail about his techniques lest the goblins overhear and learn from them. Sounds rather extreme, but there's a reason why he's still alive after years in the goblin-slaying business.
 * Rather than take advantage of a teleporation mirror that could have been used for travel or sold for thousands of gold coins, he blocks the entire thing in concrete and sinks it into a river. Considering that it was the original source of a massive goblin infestation, and one of the locations it lead to was what looked to be the heart of goblin territory, he probably made the right call overall.
 * The Quiet One: Doesn't talk very much, and his responses are usually just one word answers. Thus it surprises a few characters who have known him for years that he says so much when talking with Priestess.
 * Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Or rather Screw the Money There Are Goblins To Slay. The size of the reward doesn't matter to him since he just wants to kill as many goblins as possible.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: It doesn't matter that what he does is essentially pest control. It doesn't matter that his reputation is down in the pits. It doesn't matter that he's just one man against an entire race. He's going to make every goblin his life can afford pay for taking his hometown and sister away from him.
 * Running Gag: Whenever he enters the Adventurer's Guild, he has a bad habit of cutting other people in the waiting line and throwing them off-guard. Even moreso if anyone mentions "goblins" within earshot. Not that the guild clerks mind, though.
 * The Stoic: Besides the helmet rendering his face inscrutable, he typically speaks with a calm, almost robotic tone. Otherwise, his emotional range only ever seems to dial between varying levels of indifference and irritation, except for the rare outlier to remind the audience that he's still capable of warmth.
 * 24-Hour Armor: It's implied he even sleeps in his armor, even when he's staying at his childhood friend's farm. In fact, the only time so far he's seen without it is at the end of the first light novel, when he blacks out after nearly dying from fighting a  giant  Elite Mook ogre. When he comes to, he's back in his room at the farm, wearing nothing but his undershirt and trousers. His armor was heavily dented in the battle and was sent to the local smith to have it repaired.
 * Workaholic: Prefers to take goblin-hunting quests in bulk, and completes enough of these low-paying tasks at a time to nevertheless make a good profit. Even during his spare time he's usually helping Cow Girl with chores, deliveries to the guild, maintaining her farm, or devising strategies to kill goblins more efficiently. In fact, the threat of being laid off from work by the Guild Girl is one of the few ways to unsettle him.

Background
Goblin Slayer was once an ordinary boy in a village. One day, his best friend left to work on a farm for a few days, and the two fought because he couldn't go with her. Later that night, his village was attacked by goblins and everyone he knew was killed.

He hid in his house's basement until nightfall. He sneaked out of the house, seeing all of the corpses, but was attacked by the goblins who hadn't left yet. He was saved from death by a rhea; they spent 5 years together before parting ways.

Chronology
Goblin Slayer appeared to save Priestess from being killed by goblins. He then helped her save Woman Fighter and other women by killing the rest of the goblin nest.

Abilities
His style of combat relies more on pragmatism such as setting traps, using a weapon against its user, and taking whatever advantage that may come. He even uses his own imagination to repurpose a protection spell in order to kill all the goblins in a burning elven fortress.

Master Swordsman: The Goblin Slayer is a extremely skillful master swordsman, he can use any bladed weaponry he can get his hands on, from short swords, daggers to knives, he can slay multiple goblins at once with masterful dexterity.

Master Marksman: The Goblin Slayer is an incredibly proficient archer, he can accurately shot down Goblins from vast distances. With a thrown javelin, he could fatally injured a goblin shaman with little effort.

Master Strategist: The Goblin Slayer is extremely ingenious strategist, specializing in ambush and guerilla warfare. He could come up with extraordinary plans to trapped large numbers of goblins, eliminating them with immense efficency.

Immense Strength: The Goblin Slayer has trained his body to utmost perfection, thus he has a extremely high level of physical strength. He could overpower even large goblins and wield blunt weapons such as clubs and stone axe with significant force to slaughter goblins in a single hit.

Immense Speed: The Goblin Slayer is extremely fast with exceptional reflexes. He could strike down multiple goblins at once and react fast enough to defend to against unexpected attacks.

Immense Senses: The Goblin Slayer is extremely alert of his surrounding, having extensively trained to utilize all his senses including sight and hearing. He could even detect a goblin hiding in pitch black darkness.

Equipment
While wearing only light armor and carrying a small round shield and occasionally a short sword that is routinely broken, the Dwarf noted that his equipment is perfectly suited for taking on Goblins in their dark and cramped lairs.

Trivia

 * He is known as Orcbolg among the elves and Beardcutter among the dwarves.