Chapter 103
After the spar with Kyla.
Several days later, one day.
After meeting Kyla from time to time as usual, I talked with her while wondering about her oddly clingy behavior.
During those peaceful days of her occasionally coming to my room and spending time smoking cigars or drinking cocktails she had brought, a change came.
Sss.
"I'm back, Lord Abel."
"Oh, you're back?"
I hung the cigar I had been smoking on the cigar rest, then looked at her.
"Judging by how quickly you returned, I take it you found something?"
"Yes. However... No. I'll give you my report first."
However?
"First, I'll report what happened in the Frozen Mountain Range."
Mist began explaining what had happened in the Frozen Mountain Range.
In addition to temperatures that had fallen to extremes beyond what could be considered a natural environment, there had been snowstorms that distorted human perception.
While investigating roughly half of the Frozen Mountain Range through those snowstorms, she had temporarily entered suspended animation to lure out the enemies.
And.
"A secret base?"
"Yes..."
Although it was Mist's conjecture, it was probably a base called [Tartarus], built by countless subordinate organizations joining forces and carving out an entire mountain.
And the document she discovered there stated that.
"[Tartarus] was built because they are extracting and researching the power of the giant race that destroyed civilization in the ancient era."
"...Giants?"
***
Giants.
A legendary race said to have truly existed in the ancient past, when the gods still lived.
A giant was as enormous as a mountain, and a single stomp was said to cause an earthquake.
A giant's skin was imbued with divine blessings, so no magic could affect it.
A giant's strength could perform miracles that overturned the earth, so one could only lower both hands and hope for its mercy.
This was the actual legend handed down about giants.
But.
They were said to possess power comparable to that of the gods of the ancient era.
"Aren't you glorifying them too much just because they made a mess in an era with technology that was only that advanced...?"
The ancient era.
Well, people said there had been a super-ancient civilization beyond our understanding, and that the magic of the past was superior to the magic of the present.
"How ridiculous."
What?
Ancient magic was superior to the magic we used now?
That was practically the same as mocking all the efforts we had made to advance this far.
Technology from the past, beyond the bounds of our understanding?
In fact, if we wanted to reproduce it, we could do so as much as we liked.
Magic was no different.
No, there was even more to say about magic.
Ancient magic was superior?
Was magic that simply poured mana in brute force to create enormous disasters really better than the magic we used now?
There was no reason for an ordinary mage to say such a thing, and if a magical engineer heard it, they might foam at the mouth and collapse.
"Isn't that right?"
"...Mr. Robert, please don't drag me into situations you're imagining on your own."
As he said that, the man busily moved his fingers while countless holograms appeared before his eyes.
"I'm a little busy right now."
Countless equations that made one's eyes dizzy.
Robert saw his subordinate viewing all those equations at a glance and calculating them mentally all at once using divided thought, so he draped an arm over the subordinate's shoulder as though bored.
"That's harsh. I was just making a joke as your superior."
"Yes, yes, I'm sure. I'm well aware of your hatred of ancient technology, Mr. Robert."
"Hatred?! Good heavens, I wouldn't say something so irrational and impulsive, would I?"
"...Then please leave my trembling body alone."
Making a living—no, indulging in science—was damn difficult. That was what the subordinate thought.
While Robert was in the middle of having such a pointless conversation with his subordinate, he looked toward the deepest part of [Tartarus].
The reason it boasted the most stringent security.
[...]
It was something in the shape of an enormous sphere.
A blue sphere as large as a single massive building.
It was so enormous that it could barely fit, even after spatial distortion magic forcibly adjusted the space in the deepest part of the facility.
It was the legendary being that had destroyed an ancient city whose name had been lost, a city built in the North long ago.
One of the giants, the King of Frost Giants feared by the people of that era.
[Trim]
A legendary being sealed only after thousands upon tens of thousands of mages risked their lives to stop him.
"So, how is it? Does it look like the seal is almost ready to break?"
"...Well, honestly, breaking the seal would be possible even right now."
It was the ancient era, to begin with.
No matter how many tens of thousands of mages had sacrificed their lives to create the seal, it was only natural for it to loosen before the absolute power of time.
Thump.
Even now, the seal had weakened so much that the sound of a heartbeat could be heard from outside that enormous seal.
Honestly, if they had not maintained it to study his power, the seal would have broken long ago.
"But you don't want that, do you?"
"That's right. How could I simply throw away the chance to personally indulge in the traits of that great--- race from legend?"
The legends of giants contained a passage like this.
A giant's skin was imbued with divine blessings, so no magic could affect it.
Aren't you curious?
What kind of mana structure allowed magic not to work?
What was the goal of our organization, [Infinity]?
The infinite unknown spread throughout the world.
We were the organization that explored, indulged in, and interpreted that unknown.
There was no unknown in this world.
We simply had not explored it yet, whether because of the world's perspective or for ethical reasons.
Those were the words spoken by the boss of [Infinity]. Robert strongly agreed with the boss's words as well.
"What an opportunity for us to indulge in the legendary giant race—especially [Trim], the King of Frost Giants."
When they first discovered it, the dopamine flooding out of his brain had almost driven him mad, to be honest.
But even that was now slowly reaching its end.
"Ah, come to think of it, you said an intruder came in today, right?"
"...Ah, now that you mention it, yes?"
"It seems someone from House Nebla infiltrated, roughly speaking."
"Ah..."
The intruder had discovered three things in total.
One, the purpose of this facility: that it was a research facility for indulging in the power of the giant race and studying ways to use it.
Two, that the snowstorms erupting from the Frozen Mountain Range were more or less a byproduct of their research into the power of that giant race.
"Perhaps it was that whatever from House Nebla? Ah, right, a member of [Dark Shadow], their elite assassination unit, must have infiltrated."
The traces left behind were abnormally clean.
They had said it was the foremost among the secret units of the Empire's Four Dukes. As expected, it was truly the best.
"Anyway, it seems the last piece of information they discovered was probably the existence of the companies or cities supplying our provisions."
"...Pardon?"
At those words, the subordinate, who had not taken his eyes off the seal even once while monitoring it, immediately turned his gaze toward Robert.
[Infinity], [Rainas], [Seekers of Truth], and countless others.
The intelligence, technology, and financial power of [Organization], which supported countless terrorist organizations.
To encompass all of these under one umbrella, support from the level of a company, city, or even kingdom was naturally required.
Even if they operated as separate cells, it was impossible to pour money into them that they did not have.
But our sources of funding had been exposed?
"Ah, not all of them. Just some."
Robert corrected the part that his subordinate had clearly misunderstood.
"...No, that means it was exposed, doesn't it?"
"Ding-dong! Correct!"
If I ever really became an executive, I was going to smack that man's head.
Robert's subordinate sincerely thought so.
"So we're leaving this base immediately. Understood?"
"...Because of the singularity?"
"Ding-dong! That's correct too."
No sooner had Robert finished speaking than the forty-five magic circles supporting [Trim]'s seal began scattering into the air.
[Crack!]
At the same time, the seal began to crack.
Yet in that situation, the faces of Robert, his subordinate, and the employees assisting them were filled with nothing but composure.
"It's practically certain that singularity will come charging in."
Judging from the reports, they had concluded that this person handled such matters decisively and quickly.
"We've already extracted everything we needed, haven't we?"
They had already observed the power of the giant race and determined its source long ago.
They had planned to extract cells from that giant and create an artificial giant, but there was no longer enough time.
"So."
[Human....]
As Robert continued speaking, a deep, low voice echoed in his ears—or rather, throughout these depths.
"Oh, you're awake, [Trim]?"
[...I heard your conversation even while sealed.]
What a spectacle.
Rumbleeeee!!
As soon as his words ended, the air itself began to scream.
[How dare you.]
Treat me,
[the King of Frost Giants, as an experimental subject?]
Your arrogance is excessive. And all while you're merely human.
"Puhahahaha!!"
At the giant's words, Robert burst into laughter loud enough to echo throughout the cavern.
Arrogance?
"Ahahaha!!!"
How ridiculous.
[Hm?!]
At that moment, a deeply flustered groan escaped the giant's mouth as he drew up power to bring down Robert—or rather, to destroy the countless magic circles covering this space.
[Ghk!]
"Hey, how much do you think we've studied you?"
"A full fifty years."
Even if mana awakeners lived longer, that was by no means a short time.
[How?!]
"What?"
[Don't mock me. How are you
casting magic on me?!
Boom.
With those words, [Trim]'s two knees buckled under gravity hundreds of times stronger than normal.
The King of Frost Giants, who had been worshiped as a god descended to the earth for hundreds—no, thousands—of years, was suffering such humiliation!?
Don't mock me! I said, don't mock me!!
Creak.
But his feelings of humiliation and rage alone could not dispel the gravity magic or the approximately eighty-five weakening magic circles placed upon him.
[Gyaaaaaaa!!!]
"Hmm?"
At Trim's appearance, Robert chuckled lightly and opened his mouth.
Honestly, he was not so stingy that he would refuse to explain even this much, considering he had extracted more than one or two technologies from that giant.
"You want to know how I was able to cast magic on you?"
That's because.
"I've already finished analyzing you completely."
[What did you say?]
"To explain it simply, your skin did have an innate resistance to immense amounts of mana. Moreover, it even had the effect of defending against magic that tried to infiltrate you through peculiar vibrations."
You could call it the mystery of a living creature.
If they had not known this fact and had to fight that giant, they would have struggled considerably.
However.
The unknown was frightening because it was something they did not know, could not observe, and could not explain.
They did not call phenomena that could be explained and fell within their understanding unknown.
They called them a domain of inquiry.
"It was thanks to that ability of yours that magic and mana didn't work on you."
[...]
"You didn't know, did you? Of course you didn't. These are physical traits you were born with. But you see."
We were curious about it.
Your muscles, your organs, the bones supporting that enormous body, your voice—all of it.
Everything.
"We were curious, so we indulged ourselves in it, examined it, and investigated it."
The King of Frost Giants [Trim]—no, Trim, the giant whose every aspect humanity had already finished investigating—could not hide the trembling in his eyes as he looked at the human before him.
"It's thanks to you. Thanks to you, we completed a spell capable of breaking through any barrier."
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the technology for breaking through the academy's barrier had been completed entirely thanks to this giant.
So this was an act of respect.
The longer they had spent studying that enormous body, the faster magical engineering had advanced.
"So."
Clack.
[What is that...?]
Countless surgical instruments appeared behind Robert.
As though accustomed to Robert's actions, his subordinates began moving in perfect unison.
First, they restrained the giant's body.
Robert brought the surgical instruments toward the giant's head and immediately got to work.
Slice.
[Stop!]
"It's all right, it won't hurt... No, it will, but what can you do? You don't want me to end things here, do you?"
Crunch!
"That's why this is a necessary process, a process."
[Ghk!]
"I'm going to rummage through your brain and give it a single command. Now, think about it. What caused you to end up like this?"
[Ugh... Ghh... Ghk...]
"Humans. Humans."
Click.
"There isn't enough time left to modify your body... Then I suppose I'll just have to build up blind rage."
What a shame, what a shame.
If only there had been time, he could have replaced all the giant's bodily tissues with machines and made something like a giant robot.
Of course, since the core was a giant, he could not call it a complete robot.
But there was no time.
The location of this place had been discovered long ago.
If Robert's thinking was correct, it was obvious that Abel and House Nebla would launch a large-scale surprise attack within a few days.
Or, since he had apparently visited House Stellaraim, he might request support from them.
So.
"Even if we're leaving, we might as well cause a little trouble first, right?"
And so, accompanied by Robert's humming, horrifying sounds of bones breaking and muscles being torn apart echoed for days.
A few days later.
With Robert, his subordinate, and every member of the organizations in [Tartarus] evacuated.
The giant lying motionless in the depths slowly began to move.
[Hu...man...]
With nothing but a blind, manufactured hatred of humanity in his heart.