The Gunslinger
is a Fanfic by Mugiwara N0 Luffy. It is a crossover between Goblin Slayer and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Arthur Morgan got his redemption at the end, or at least something that made it all worth it to him. But it seems God wants to give him another chance. Now, Arthur has to figure out if he really did learn from the sins of his past to help better a future for a world unknown.
It can be read on SpaceBattles.com.
The Gunslinger contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed. In Red Dead Redemption and RDR2, the Stranger was a morally ambiguous character, sending Marston into situations where he'd have to make moral decisions without actually asking him to do good or evil, leaving it up to him to decide whether he wanted to do good or evil, and his exact nature was left up for debate, with theories ranging from God to the Devil. Here, it's established that he's neither of them, but that he works for God or the equivalent. He still acts somewhat similar to in the first game, as he doesn't give Arthur some grand mission to redeem himself, simply curing him of his tuberculosis, giving him infinite ammo for his guns, and leaving him to his own devices, letting Arthur prove whether he has truly changed his ways or if it was just the looming specter of death that made him try and make amends.
- Adaptational Name Change: Invoked:
- To fit the naming conventions of the Goblin Slayer universe, the Stranger suggests Arthur refer to himself as The Gunslinger.
- Lenny goes by Ranch Hand. The two have trouble remembering to refer to each other by their new names, especially once they get drunk.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Arthur engages in a bit of this with Lenny and Spearman in Chapter 5. It ends with Padfoot Waitress chasing them after they sing a rather lewd song, complete with Arthur yelling "You'll never take me alive!", just like in the Drinking With Lenny mission.
- Almighty Janitor: Downplayed considering that he advances pretty fast through the ranks, but Arthur is pretty respected for his skills by many of the Silver Ranked Adventurers, being able to go adventuring with the likes of Heavy Swordsman, Female Knight, Spearman, and Witch, besides the aforementioned Goblin Slayer, and four of them tell him that he is incredibly capable, mind you though this happened after he was made Emerald it was only a short time ago that he was Porcelain.
- Anger Born of Worry: How Arthur feels towards Priestess when she saved him from a Goblin Shaman in Chapter 6.
- Back from the Dead: Apparently, The Stranger decided Arthur was worthy of a second chance. But he may not be the only one, as it turns out Lenny got a second chance as well.
- Brutal Honesty: Arthur gives this to the Rookie Team - he outright tells them how badly they're underestimating the goblins, in the process directly referencing how each of them was dispatched in canon, in an effort to either dissuade them from taking the quest or at least make adequate preparations before going on it. They still go into the cave anyway, but the fact that Priestess actually took Arthur's advice to heart meant that only one of them died.
- The Bus Came Back: Fighter makes a return in Chapter 11, having decided to become an adventurer again...at least at first. She's Put on a Bus once more when Arthur tells her to go back and think some more before she decides to go adventuring again, with the caveat that if she does decide she still wants to be an adventurer, he'll join her.
- Call to Agriculture: Lenny decided not to become an adventurer, and instead started working as a farm hand on Cow Girl's farm. Implied to be subverted in Chapter 10 when Lenny decided to pick up a porcelain tag for himself after helping Arthur, Rookie Warrior and Apprentice Cleric in dealing with some giant spiders and an Ettercap controlling them.
- Character Development: It's subtle, but after spending a few weeks with Arthur, Goblin Slayer is slowly starting to move beyond his quest for vengeance. While he still focuses on killing goblins, he's now willing to take up other quests if there are no goblins left to hunt and he needs the money.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Padfoot Waitress is very clearly projecting to Arthur her interest in him, giving him food specifically to his tastes and visibly brightening up when he compliments her. Thus, she becomes a wee bit jealous when his interest is captivated by the Songstress, making him pay double for wine and generally being a little petty to him. The only reason he doesn't catch on is due to him still being stuck on his personal misgivings about himself and his mistakes.
- Combat Pragmatist:
- Goblin Slayer finally meets a companion who understands him, as Arthur is just as willing to fight dirty as he is.
- Amongst other scenes, during the fight with the Ogre, Arthur wastes no time in taking out his eyes, even though he's well aware this is only a temporary setback for the latter.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Downplayed:
- While Goblin Slayer may focus all of his quests on hunting goblins, he's encountered a couple of other beasts while doing so. This is why, during chapter 3, he chooses to take a quest to hunt a howler with Arthur, as he fought one that a goblin champion used as a mount.
- Goblin Slayer thinks this is the case with Arthur, but the gunslinger swiftly proves him wrong.
- Didn't See That Coming: Arthur is completely caught off guard when Goblin Slayer reveals that he lives on a farm with a close friend who is a girl...though he loses some of the surprise when he realizes it is a platonic relationship. But Arthur's still in for a shock when he finds out Lenny's working at Cow Girl's uncle's farm.
- Due to the Dead: Fighter took Warrior's body after he was killed and took it back to his village to be buried.
- Expy:
- Arthur muses that Goblin Slayer reminds him a lot about Charles. Two no-nonsense, driven, men with stoic, introverted personalities.
- Goblin Slayer could also be considered to be one to Sadie, seeing how both had a traumatic event in their past that molded them into revenge obsessed (if still ultimately good-hearted) warriors.
- The Songstress Arthur meets is outright stated to be one of Dorothea Arnault.
- Eye Scream: During the quest in the cave near the Elven territory with the canon party in Chapter 9, Arthur shot an ogre on both eyes with his revolvers, disrupting the ogre's fireball which was directed at the party.
- The Face: Arthur zig-zags this trope. On the one hand, he is just as much a doer as Goblin Slayer; he is not The Heart of the group, Priestess is, and is not at all scared of using violence before talking. On the other hand, being on the same party as Goblin Slayer and Priestess makes the more charismatic Gunslinger this by default. This is best demonstrated when they come across a mercenary group called the Ash Wolves, who were transporting Goblins for a scientist to see if they could be reformed. Goblin Slayer however is having none of it and blows up the Goblins, making a brief fight break out. Arthur is able to talk them down through a combination of intimidation, reason, and bribery.
- The Fatalist: Arthur still shows shades of this attitude about himself and his place in Goblin Slayer's world. Despite being given a second chance in life by the Stranger; his previous life as one of the most dangerous outlaws and a prominent member of an infamous gang in the West still left him with emotional scars that shackle him from truly moving forward with his new life.
- It's best summed up in his conversation with Female Knight in Chapter 4:"Listen, Female Knight. You might say I'm good at what I do and, well I wouldn't say you're wrong but... there ain't much I'm good for, neither," Arthur said, raising his gaze to her with a steely expression. "I ain't no hero. I wouldn't call myself a good man. But the world needs exterminators too, don't it? I think... that's what I'm best at bein'."
- It's best summed up in his conversation with Female Knight in Chapter 4:
- Giving Radio to the Romans:
- While the radio hadn't been invented when Arthur died, he does attempt to teach the natives how to make pencils - both for money, and so he can have pencils to write with. He's also considering trying to get an alchemist to make matches.
- In Chapter 9, it's revealed that some time ago, he encountered a merchant selling coffee beans at a cheap price and found out that everyone had yet to discovered other ways for consumption other than chewing it. He then introduces the method of coffee brewing to many shop owners to sell it as a drink. It was so popular that Arthur made another successful business venture, aside from the pencils.
- The Gunslinger: Arthur. It's even the name he adopts when sent to the Goblin Slayer world.
- Heroes Gone Fishing: Literally - Chapter 12 has Arthur, Spearman and Heavy Warrior go fishing. As a nod to Spearman being an Expy of Lancer, he has abysmal luck catching fish - a reference to the latter having similarly bad luck in Hollow Ataraxi.
- Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: Downplayed. While Goblin quests certainly give out a respectable amount of money and make the lands safer (especially for someone as austere as Goblin Slayer), working with a partner and having to share the rewards simply makes them nonviable to exclusively accept them alone. However, the jobs Goblin Slayer and Arthur take to supplement their income still tend to involve hunting dangerous monsters, so they are simply helping people in different ways.
- Hopeless Suitor: Lenny lampshades this about himself while drunk. While stating his growing feelings for Cow Girl, he believes she's a lost cause due to her own feelings for Goblin Slayer; but Arthur cheers him up by stating if anyone is a lost cause, it's Goblin Slayer himself.
- Horse of a Different Color: Priestess ends up getting a Dire Mastiff (that is, a mastiff the size of a horse) as a mount.
- Ignored Expert:
- Arthur, in regards to Priestess' original team. He outright tells them how badly equipped they are to fight the goblins, and even references exactly how they all died in canon, but they still decide to go into the cave.
- It ends up being downplayed: his warnings keep Fighter and Wizard from getting overconfident, which saves the former from getting raped and the latter from dying (along with the potion Arthur gave Priestess).
- Arthur, in regards to Priestess' original team. He outright tells them how badly equipped they are to fight the goblins, and even references exactly how they all died in canon, but they still decide to go into the cave.
- I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: What Arthur states in his conversation with Female Knight, as he's not the type of person to be a hero, but rather an exterminator for the people to thrive in the world.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite Arthur warning them and giving them advice, the adventuring party with Priestess still decides to explore the Goblin cave. Downplayed in that it wasn't an unmitigated disaster like in canon. Warrior still died, but Priestess brought an antidote on Authur's advice and the battle was extended enough that Goblin Slayer arrived before Fighter could get assaulted.
- It Can Think: Arthur warns Goblin Slayer that, unlike the howler used by the Goblin Champion, a wild one will be far smarter, as it only has itself to look after. During the actual hunt, it manages to lure them into a trap using its own blood and a screech.
- It's All My Fault: Arthur feels this way as for the way how he "advised" the Greenhorn Team before their first mission. Of course, we know just how much worse it would've ended up if he hadn't...
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Arthur has been described as an asshole, a good friend and a good man, often in the same chapter, and sometimes by the same person, both sides of this are well demonstrated in Chapter 8, where he goes out of his way to give Goblin Slayer and Priestess horses as gifts, even getting Priestess a mastiff of all things! But he also becomes prickly and trolls High Elf Archer because it amused him.
- Kill It with Fire: Arthur ends up using a fire bomb to roast a group of baby goblins after figuring out how they were born.
- Mirror Character: Arthur and Goblin Slayer may not look like it, but they have a lot in common. Both are experienced killers that were born and molded from terrible upbringing's out of their control, who hide their troubled lives through a deep layer of cynicism. Oh, and both are MASSIVE Chick Magnets.
- Mythology Gag: When dressing down the Greenhorn Team, Arthur directly mentions the ways they were dispatched in canon - he warns Warrior that his sword will probably bounce off the cave ceiling if he isn't careful with his swings, warns them about the goblins wielding poisoned weapons (a poisoned dagger to the gut was what did in Wizard), and also advises them to watch out for hobgoblins (one of which easily overpowered Fighter). While the Warrior still dies as a result of his recklessness, the Wizard saves the Fighter from the Hobgoblin, who in turn is saved herself after being stabbed by a poisoned dagger when Priestess uses the Health Cure that Arthur gave her to counteract the effects of the toxin.
- Nice to the Waiter: Arthur has this dynamic towards Padfoot Waitress, as he notes in his journal entry that he believes her cooking to be good.
- Odd Friendship: Arthur Morgan, a sharp mouthed former outlaw who used to run with one of the most infamous gangs in the Wild West, and Goblin Slayer, a tact-less adventurer whose only interest is the murder of all Goblins. They surprisingly have a lot in common.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Sometime before Chapter 5, Arthur managed to single-handedly kill a Manticore, with Chapter 9 adding an Ogre to that list as well.
- Point of Divergence: Arthur giving Priestess a Health Cure spares Wizard from her canon fate, while his warnings also keep her and Fighter on guard, saving the latter from being raped. Warrior still dies, and Wizard decides to stop being an adventurer, while Fighter is taking time off to reconsider being one.
- Rank Up: Arthur quickly rank up from Porcelain to Steel, and currently sitting at Emerald during the 7-month timeskip.
- Red Baron: By the time Chapter 5 rolls around, Arthur is known as 'The Frontier's Greatest Hunter'.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: It doesn't matter to Goblin Slayer how it is done, and he cares of very little things besides killing Goblins, he won't rest until every single one of them is dead. It becomes deconstructed as Goblin Slayer's refusal to let even a single Goblin live caused him to kill the goblins meant for experimentation about whether they could be reformed, while it is considered unlikely for all parties involved but it nevertheless almost makes a fight breaks out between the mercenaries and the adventurers. Double subverted when Goblins that are captured later to experiment on escape and end up endangering a village, necessitating Goblin Slayer and his party to wipe out the horde.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Arthur really shows off how well Charles taught him - he's able to track down a howler at dusk, whilst only having a small amount of blood and footprints.
- Shipper on Deck: Arthur is very aware of the various crushes and unrequited loves among the various characters around them, and he finds it all very entertaining. However, he doesn't seem to realize that Padfoot Waitress has a crush on him.
- Shoot the Dog: Arthur probably has the distinction of being the only adventurer besides Goblin Slayer who has zero issues with killing infant goblins. Then again, when one considers how they were born and that goblin children are in no way innocent, as well as Arthur's own soft-spot for women in need, in no way is this surprising.
- Someone Has to Do It: While Arthur does agree with Female Knight's assessment of him being able to do more than just hunt goblins, he also states his own shortcomings that prevent him from doing more than that; and is content with just exterminating low-level monsters rather than taking out high-level ones that the Silver-Ranked Adventurers tackle out in the Frontier.
- Spared By Adaptation:
- Of Priestess' first party, Warrior is the only one to die. Wizard saves Fighter from the hobgoblin, and the potion Arthur gave Priestess saves Wizard. While they are nearly overrun, Goblin Slayer saves them. However, Wizard decides to stop being an adventurer (the potion saved her life, but she was still knocked out), and Fighter is most likely also leaving the life (while she wasn't raped like in canon, she almost was, with the goblins tearing at her clothes just as Goblin Slayer arrived; combined with Warrior's death, it shakes her confidence).
- The ill-fated, all female party from the light novels survive their Goblin slaying quest thanks to Arthur being able to accompany them.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Arthur convinces Goblin Slayer to stop buying gasoline for setting goblins on fire because spirits do the job well enough and are significantly cheaper. Goblin Slayer concedes that they are indeed effective enough for him.
- Time Skip: Chapter 4 takes place 7 months after the previous chapter through Arthur's journal entry.
- Too Dumb to Live: Remember Priestess' old party? Arthur meets them before they go charging off half-cocked and warns them of what could happen. They still end up going. At least Priestess isn't the only survivor this time. Warrior is the only one to die, and Fighter isn't raped. However, Priestess is most likely going to be the only that remains an adventurer.
- Unorthodox Reload: Arthur's chosen weapons are modified to automatically spawn ammunition into their magazines/chambers when he goes to reload them, which is a necessity given the Awesome, but Impractical specialist nature of the single-shot muzzleloading firearms in Goblin Slayer (eg. They're best reserved for something you really, REALLY, need dead in one shot), and the fact that cased ammunition does not exist, with ammunition being of the ball n' powder variety.
- For the Single-Action Army revolver, simply opening the loading gate will start the automatic cycle of cartridge ejection and replacement plus the requisite rotating of the cylinder for each chamber.
- For the Schofield revolver, the act of breaking open the frame to eject the casings from the cylinder is quickly followed by fresh ammo spawning into the cylinder's chambers.
- On his Remington Rolling Block rifle, a new round is automatically spawned into the chamber almost immediately after Arthur extracts the spent brass from the previous shot.
- For the Winchester 1887, leaving the action open long enough will cause new shells to spawn into the under-barrel magazine, as well as the chamber if there isn't an unfired shell in there already.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: A howler takes this role in chapter 3 - whilst it isn't all that tough a creature, it is significantly tougher and smarter than any other enemy our duo has faced. Additionally, unlike all other enemies who fought up to that point, they don't really have many preparations for fighting. Amongst other things, the duo has to fight it in the open, where it can run away. Additionally, it is tough enough to take multiple gunshots, and it manages to lay a trap for the two after escaping their first attack.
- Wham Line:
- The very last word in Chapter 4:Arthur: ...Lenny?
- From Chapter 12:Sword Maiden: (referring to one of her previous team members who apparently used guns) He was called the Shootist. But..that was not his true name.note
- The very last word in Chapter 4:
- Wham Episode: Chapter 12 has the team go to deal with the water town goblins, during which Sword Maiden reveals that one of her former party members also used guns, was referred to as The Shootist, though she later says it wasn't his real name. As noted in the Wham Line up above, there's a heavy implication that John Marston was also brought to Goblin Slayer's world, or at the very least someone from Arthur's world.
- Would Hurt a Child: Seeing the horribly brutalized and raped women gives the goblin infants no sympathy for when Arthur decides to kill them.
