Chapter 55
#55. Wyvern Roast for Dinner Tonight?
"Whoa, whoa, calm down, Zephar. You did a fine job."
Galad could not even properly remember how he had dismounted from the wyvern.
Still dazed, he planted his feet on the ground, patted his partner's neck, and gave it some water.
"You all worked hard. Rest here for a while."
The wyverns folded their wings as they exhaled rough breaths through their nostrils.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!"
At that moment, Lumiela's scream rang out from ahead.
Galad startled, drew his spear, and looked up.
"What happened!?"
Galad rushed over, thinking they were under attack, only to be left staring blankly.
The sight unfolding before him was utterly astonishing.
"Look at those things! Mr. Galad! Have you ever seen anything like that!?"
"As if there could have been!"
Everything on the floating island…… was enormous.
Absurdly so.
A single leaf rolling along the ground was as large as a knight's cloak.
They could barely see properly because of the nameless weeds.
"W-What is all this……?!"
"It makes the Fairy Forest look shabby by comparison…"
Lumiela and Aria looked around in shock, unable to contain their astonishment.
And it was not only them.
Every member of the expedition was looking around in every direction with their mouths hanging open.
Galad had roamed the hidden wonders scattered across the continent ever since reaching Mithril rank, but he had never seen scenery like this in his life.
'Even the Fairy Forest, said to be the most perilous place on the Southern Continent, and the hidden wonders of the desert…… They cannot compare to this.'
Just then, someone entered Galad's field of vision.
A man gazing toward a different place all by himself.
Galad swallowed nervously as he looked at Kylan.
"Your Highness, Grand Duke……. How in the world did you know about a hidden wonder like this?"
Kylan did not answer.
He merely continued staring silently beyond the enormous undergrowth.
'……Well, a Swordmaster must know things ordinary people like us don't.'
Galad decided not to pry any further.
The group naturally followed Kylan deeper into the enormous grassland.
"……Oh my."
Aria, the Tower Master, who had been walking with the group, suddenly stopped.
She slowly swept her fingertips through the air and muttered.
"The mana concentration…… It's abnormally high. It must be several times higher than in the Fairy Forest."
"Is that why the plants have grown so large?"
Lumiela asked as she curiously toyed with a flower as large as a person.
Both women looked desperate to investigate the unknown plants.
"That is probably the reason. In a place where mana this pure has gathered so densely, not only the plants but also the animals living here……"
Aria had not even finished speaking when—
"Ha-ha. Take a look at this!”
Hans, who had been walking behind them, laughed heartily and held something up high.
It was a red fruit the size of a human face.
“This one alone should keep us fed for several days.”
Before he had even finished speaking, Hans sank his teeth into the enormous fruit.
"……Wait, do you even know what that is before you eat it?!"
Galad shouted in horror.
"It looks kind of like a strawberry, doesn't it?"
'He hasn't got a shred of caution. He should have died long ago, but he survived by sheer luck.'
It was while everyone was walking, distracted by the enormous scenery, that—
Hans, who had been noisily chewing the fruit, suddenly stopped moving his mouth.
Then he slowly pressed one ear to the ground.
"……Something is coming."
At his words, everyone looked around.
But the undergrowth was so enormous that they could not see anything properly.
The vibrations were drawing closer and closer.
Rustle! Kraaak!
"Aaaaargh! What the hell is this thing!?"
The undergrowth directly in front of Galad tore open, and something burst out.
Red compound eyes. A carapace gleaming with black luster. Jaws spread apart like pincers.
The attacker was nothing more than a soldier ant.
That was all.
The problem was that it was as large as a full-grown tiger.
"Kieeeeeek!"
The ant opened its jaws, from which acid dripped, and lunged at Galad.
"Damn it!"
Galad cried out in alarm and reflexively swung his spear.
Kaaaaaaang!
Every time the jaws writhed from side to side, a gruesome grinding sound like iron being crushed rang out.
But the thing did not retreat and kept pressing forward relentlessly.
Acidic saliva splashed out and melted the guard on Galad's shoulder.
One after another, dozens of giant ants began pouring through the undergrowth.
'It's over……! We don't even have time to form a defensive formation!'
It was just as Galad was about to squeeze his eyes shut in despair.
Shing─.
Kylan, who had approached without anyone noticing, lightly swung Frost Fang.
"Could you be quiet?"
Krrrddddk─!!
The instant a blue flash cut through the air,
the soldier ant biting at Galad's spear, along with dozens of ants about to burst through the undergrowth, became ice statues all at once.
Without stopping, Kylan dragged the tip of his sword lightly across the ground.
In an instant, a massive wall of ice rose up and blocked the ants' path.
Beyond the transparent wall of ice,
the ants waved their antennae frantically for a while… then eventually scurried away in another direction.
Galad trembled with fear as he watched them leave for a long time.
"……."
Thud.
The strength drained from his legs, and he sank to the ground.
"I-I'm alive……."
As he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, Hans held out his large hand with a good-natured smile.
"You all right?"
"......."
Galad stared at Hans's hand for a while, then…
stood up on his own and brushed off his clothes.
"I-I was merely caught off guard! Could a Mithril-rank adventurer really be frightened by something as insignificant as an ant?!"
Even as he put on a brave front, Galad's gaze remained fixed on the frozen ants.
Dozens of monsters the size of tigers had been transformed into ice statues in an instant.
'……He only swung it once, and so casually.'
Galad swallowed dryly.
After reaching Mithril rank, he had prided himself on being a force to be reckoned with. In the South, there was no one, wherever he went, who did not know Galad of the Sky.
He had seen the swords of countless other Mithril-rank adventurers as well.
But the swordsmanship he had just witnessed was on an entirely different level.
He could not even properly follow the movement of the sword as it swung. Before he knew it, everything around him had frozen solid.
'……So this is a Swordmaster.'
He could not help but shudder at the overwhelming power of the Monster Grand Duke.
A legend was a legend, after all.
The spearmanship he had honed throughout his life was nothing more than a child's game in front of that man.
Sweat trickled down his spine.
"……."
For a long while, Galad could not tear his eyes away from Kylan's back.
Only now did he truly understand why that man was called the Monster Grand Duke.
Galad lightly shook his head and pulled himself together. This was no time to stand around dazed.
"It's too dangerous down here. We should climb onto the wyverns and observe the situation from above……"
Galad turned around and whistled toward the wyverns.
The wyverns, which normally would have flown over to him long ago, were nowhere to be seen.
Zephar, whom he had been calling through their mana link for some time, was not responding either.
He could not hear Zephar's thoughts.
That had never happened before.
"Hey! Zephar! Come here!"
No matter how desperately Galad called, the area beyond the enormous undergrowth remained as quiet as the grave.
"Could something have happened?"
Aria said, her face pale.
"Wait."
Qasim the Far-Sighted stared intently toward the undergrowth.
"It's dangerous. Everyone, get back!!"
Ssssss─.
No sooner had Qasim shouted his warning than something burst through the enormous undergrowth.
It was moving too fast for Galad to see.
Something enormous shoved Galad aside and charged toward the Tower Master directly behind him.
- Shhhhhhhhhk!!
It was a snake.
It opened its jaws wide and shot its body toward Aria like a bolt of lightning.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!"
It was the moment Aria collapsed and screamed, while Galad and Hans simultaneously leaped forward.
Snap!!
A massive shadow covered the expedition party overhead.
"……!?"
The next moment, the snake that had been lunging at Aria shot up into the air.
The snake writhed violently in midair.
Yet for some reason, its enormous body could not move even an inch from that spot.
The expedition members trembled as they slowly raised their heads to look up.
Then, a deep and boisterous voice that shook the earth rang out from the sky.
[Mm-hm. A-are you~ all right? L-little friends?]
A gigantic face
was looking down at the expedition party in the undergrowth.
***
"Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!"
Aria and Lumiela's piercing screams split the sky above the floating island.
"A-A giant─!?"
Galad's legs gave out, and he sank straight to the ground.
"Huh……."
Even Hans, who was always laughing heartily and remained unfazed by everything, stood there with his mouth open.
He had been talking about roasting or boiling house-sized camels, but the sight before his eyes was utterly beyond the realm of reason.
Aria was already on the verge of passing out, while Lumiela stared blankly upward without even realizing that her round glasses had slipped to the tip of her nose.
While everyone was overwhelmed by shock and terror,
only one person, Kylan, remained unnaturally calm.
His blue eyes gazed up at the enormous shadow.
'At last, we've met.'
The giant race said to guard the Sun Magic Stone.
And the golden land they ruled, the floating island of Alcaria.
A source of floatstone, an ultra-rare mineral that could not be obtained anywhere else on the continent.
A race he had known only as a setting in a novel was alive and moving right before his eyes.
'If the negotiations go well…….'
A grin
spread across Kylan's lips.
Floatstone. The giant race. And even the Sun Magic Stone.
If everything went well, Winterwald's value would skyrocket dozens of times over.
[Hello, little friends… B-but how did you get up here?]
A thunderous voice rang out from the sky.
The expedition members, who had been cowering in terror, flinched.
There was not a trace of hostility or menace in it—only a relaxed and friendly tone.
The giant looked down at them with a good-natured smile.
The enormous basket tucked beneath his arm was filled with red fruits the size of human heads.
It seemed he had been gathering fruit.
Kylan stepped forward without hesitation.
"We came here riding wyverns. I am Kylan Winterwald, lord of Winterwald."
[Wyverns?]
The giant tilted his head as though he were hearing the word for the first time.
Kylan did not waste time on a lengthy explanation and went straight to the point.
He already knew that giants were guileless by nature, after all.
"Do you happen to know about the Sun Magic Stone?"
At Kylan's question, the giant scratched his shaggy hair with one enormous hand.
[Hmm, hmm… I don't really know about that… Ah, ah! The village chief might know.]
'Hmm…. The village chief.'
There could be nothing better than negotiating directly with the person in charge. Kylan was stroking his chin and lost in thought when—
The giant began squirming, his eyes sparkling with what looked like tremendous anticipation.
[Would you, w-would you come to our village?]
'This is going more smoothly than expected.'
When Kylan nodded, the giant smiled brightly and slammed his enormous palm down onto the ground.
It was an invitation to climb aboard.
"W-Wait, you're not asking us to climb up there, are you?!"
Galad backed away, his face ashen.
"If that palm suddenly clenches into a fist, we'll be nothing but ground meat right there!"
But Kylan climbed onto the giant's palm without hesitation, taking long strides. Eleanor followed behind him as though she were accustomed to it.
"We can't match his stride on foot. Hurry up and get on."
At the Northern Grand Duke's impassive command, the others climbed onto the palm one by one, reluctantly.
Kylan and Eleanor settled on the giant's right shoulder, while Galad, Qasim, Aria, Lumiela, and Hans huddled together in the gaps of the giant's basket.
Once everyone was aboard, the giant carefully rose to his feet.
But then, he suddenly pulled the basket right up in front of his face.
"E-Eek!"
The house-sized giant's eyes stared intently at Aria inside the basket. Just as Aria held her breath and froze,
the giant blushed and shouted as though he could no longer contain himself.
[H-human is so cuuuute—!!]
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Unable to contain his joy, the giant began stomping his feet in place.
It was nothing short of a catastrophe.
They even felt as though the entire floating island were shaking.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!"
"Aaaaaaaaaah!! We're falling!!"
Aria and Galad pressed themselves flat against the basket and screamed.
[O-oh… sorry. S-sorry.]
The giant stopped stomping in surprise.
He hunched his broad shoulders and repeatedly apologized with a dejected expression.
Kylan clicked his tongue, hugging Eleanor tightly.
'……Just like the original.'
The giants' traits: simple-hearted, unable to control their strength, and utterly helpless when they saw something small and cute.
When he had read about them in the novel, he had merely thought that such huge fellows were rather cute and moved on.
But being on the receiving end of it was quite the spectacle.
[My name is Gogon. The village is over thereee.]
"Wait, before that. We have friends who brought us all the way here. Could we go pick them up?"
[Friends? You have to bring your friends along.]
The giant Gogon began walking through the undergrowth with the group aboard, taking enormous strides.
As they neared the place where the wyverns had landed,
Thud, thud.
Two or three other giants about the same size as Gogon emerged through the enormous undergrowth.
[Hey~ Gogon! I caught a whole bunch of birds—!]
The giants approached, waving cheerfully.
The moment the expedition members saw the harvest cradled in their arms, their eyes went round.
The things they called birds…… were the wyverns themselves.
A group of wyverns hung limp, their necks lolling to the side without the slightest movement.
White foam bubbled at their mouths, and their long tongues hung out grotesquely.
"……."
All color drained from Galad's face.
"……Z-Zephar……?"
His voice trembled faintly. His eyes shook violently, as though he were denying reality.
"Hey…… Zephar……? Wake up…… Hey……"
There was no answer to his desperate calls.
The leader of the wyvern pack that had ruled the skies of the South was being carried in the arms of a giant as nothing more than food.
Apparently, a single blow had knocked the wyvern unconscious, leaving it unable even to call for help through the mana link.
"……You're lying……? W-Wait, just a moment……"
In the midst of it all, one cheerful giant lifted one of Zephar's legs high and proudly shouted,
[He's nice and plump, isn't he? Dinner's going to be quite a feast tonight─.]
"Ze…… Zephar……."
Rip. Galad tore through the bottom of the basket with his palm and rolled his eyes back.
Then he let out a mournful scream.
"Zephaaaaaaaarrrrrrr—!!"