Chapter 61
#61. Proper Education Starts with a Flashbang
A quiet night, with everyone asleep.
At the dining table, Grang and Kylan met each other's gaze.
"You said you would give us part of the floatstone mining rights?"
Kylan pretended to stay calm, but his heart felt as though it might leap out of his chest at any moment.
Floatstone.
The miraculous mineral that kept the island aloft!
They weren't merely selling it; they were offering to give us a portion for free.
[That's right. I wanted to offer at least a small token of gratitude to you all for working so hard for us.]
Kylan suppressed a smile and maintained a deliberately solemn expression.
"……What can Winterwald do for you in return? Floatstone is far too valuable for us to simply accept. Name anything."
There was no such thing as a free lunch.
Even if the other party was a guileless giant, a payment this substantial meant there had to be something they wanted in return.
Grang interlaced his enormous hands and looked down at Kylan with clear eyes.
[Could you establish a place in the land you govern… where our giants can live in safety?]
"In our domain?"
[That's right. Our people need a home where we can descend from the sky and live alongside your subjects.]
Kylan thought for a moment.
If they built a huge carriage out of floatstone and had wyverns pull it, inviting the giants down to the ground wouldn't be impossible.
Besides, the North still had plenty of undeveloped land.
What if they built a city on a giant scale there for the giants to live in?
'It might even become a tourist destination as famous as the hot-spring village.'
As an added bonus, he could enlist the giant warriors in the Northern Defense Forces.
There was no reason to refuse—in fact, it was an offer he ought to bow and thank them for.
"I'll gladly see it through. But……"
Kylan readily nodded and accepted.
But there was one thing he wondered about.
"May I ask why?"
According to the setting, the giant race was extremely reluctant to interact with other races, including humans.
The giant race was not even mentioned in the ending of the original novel.
Chief Grang smiled bitterly.
[Thanks to you, we've made up our minds. You showed us that giants and humans can live together without discriminating against one another despite belonging to different races.]
"……."
[The children in our village pick tomatoes with smiles on their faces every day and learn how to hunt beasts. That's because we adults…… had nothing else to teach them.]
Grang's rough hand gently brushed across the table.
[Not everyone should spend their entire lives farming. I want to show our children a wider world. I want them to learn to cook like you, learn to read and write, and live with their feet on the continent rather than in the sky.]
It was the heartfelt wish of an old village chief who did not want his children's generation to remain trapped on a narrow island.
[And…… I wanted to finish this conversation before matters with Gorga were settled.]
"What do you mean by that?"
[I thought that after you killed Gorga, it would be difficult for me, as his older brother, to ask you for something like this.]
Grang gazed at the table with a lonely look in his eyes.
Though he had outwardly rejoiced at the possibility of Gorga's return, inwardly he had already steeled himself, to some extent, for his younger brother's death.
At the sight of the sorrowful old giant, Kylan opened his mouth.
"……I give you my word."
Kylan's blue eyes met Grang's without the slightest tremor.
"I'll make that foolish little brother of yours, who doesn't even understand how his brother feels…… open his eyes, no matter what."
When the ruler of the North made that promise,
clear tears streamed down from Grang's enormous eyes.
It was then.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Someone was pounding on the chief's hut in the dead of night.
[Grang! Come out right now!]
Gorga's henchman, Ging.
Only yesterday, he had been apologizing and anxiously watching their reactions over breaking the cart, but now he was yelling with a furious expression.
[The woman who made the meat soup! Hand her over!]
Awakened by the sudden commotion, the expedition members and giants poured outside.
"Th-those ignorant fools have come barging in again! They really don't know when to stop!"
"Oh my, are they hungry again?"
The Tower Master raised her staff, while Eleanor rubbed her eyes and began preparing to cook.
[Ging! What kind of ruckus are you making in the middle of the night?!]
Ging seemed not even to hear the chief's shout.
Sweating coldly as though something were chasing him, he merely rattled off what he wanted to say.
[It's Lord Gorga's order! He said that if you don't hand over the woman who made the meat soup, he'll turn the southern village into a sea of blood tomorrow morning!!]
Ging shouted as though in agony, his fist trembling violently.
It seemed he didn't truly mean it either.
[Haaah. What an insufferable bastard.]
Just then, Auntie Melon, the giants' finest chef and a self-proclaimed protégé of Eleanor, stepped forward with a sigh.
[Fine. I just have to go with you, right?]
She firmly tied her apron and boldly rolled up her sleeves.
But Ging shook his head.
[N-no! It has to be the human woman who cooks. If you make mediocre food, Lord Gorga might kill you.]
[What!? What did you say about my cooking?!]
[I-I didn't mean it like that.]
Auntie Melon bristled and raised her ladle, while Ging desperately tore at his hair.
Sssssss—!
[……Uh, wh-what!?]
Ging made a flustered noise.
His lower body, along with his right arm holding the spiked club, had been buried in a transparent iceberg in an instant.
[Aaargh!!]
As biting cold rose around him, Kylan slowly emerged from the darkness with Frost Fang drawn.
"Absolutely not. How dare you demand that we hand someone over?"
Kylan's cold heterochromatic eyes looked down at Ging.
Clearly, Kylan was the one looking up at Ging.
But Ging felt as though Kylan were looking down at him.
“Say that again. What did you say you were going to do to my wife?”
[Gh… guh…]
"This won't do. I'll go deal with the bastard myself. Galad, lend me a wyvern."
Ging froze and trembled at the anger in Kylan's voice.
The Monster Grand Duke looked ready to single-handedly turn the northern forest into a wasteland.
Tap.
But a slender hand caught Kylan by the arm.
The only woman who could lay a hand on the Grand Duke of the North.
"Your Highness."
It was Eleanor.
"The lord of Winterwald is going to head alone into enemy territory in the dead of night? I can't allow that as your wife, whatever anyone else may think."
"Eleanor…… But they're after you."
"Which is why I should personally knock them down a peg with the food I made."
The couple's gazes twined tenderly in midair.
"That's too much, Your Highness."
The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess were not the only ones who decided to set out.
Kasim, wearing a brown turban, stepped forward with a shrug.
"You promised us generous compensation, yet you're taking all the chances to shine for yourself. Is that fair?"
"Big fellows are my specialty too, Your Highness!"
Hans laughed heartily as he picked up his axe, followed by Lumiela and Aria.
"I-I'd like to help too! I'll show you what the master of the magic workshop can do!"
"The Green Tower Master is coming too! I have to earn my keep!"
As everyone stepped forward in support,
"Gulp."
Galad finally shuffled forward.
His legs were trembling, but the spear in his hand remained steady.
Kylan teased Galad when he saw him.
"Why don't you stay here quietly and watch the house?"
"D-don't joke around! Zephar has been waiting for a chance to get his revenge too!!"
Galad shouted angrily, his face reddening, and Zephar flew in behind him, spreading his wings and roaring valiantly.
Ging's eyes shook violently as he watched from inside the iceberg.
[Do you really intend to fight Lord Gorga? No matter how strong you are, with bodies that small……]
"We're not going to fight."
Warm solar mana flowed from Eleanor's fingertips.
The sharp ice binding Ging's lower body began to melt slowly with a crackling sound.
At the same time, even the last remnants of demonic energy deep within Ging's body were completely purified.
"We're only going to make him open his eyes."
At Eleanor's gentle voice and warm presence, the tears Ging had desperately held back finally spilled from his eyes.
[Thank you… human…!]
Ging bent his enormous body and bowed politely to the humans for the first time.
[For bringing us to our senses…… thank you, truly!]
A little while later.
Ging headed for the northern forest, pulling a cart loaded with humans and food.
***
The barracks in the northern forest.
Swish.
Kasim returned from scouting, carefully lifting the cloth covering the cart.
"I went and checked Gorga's condition myself."
After hearing Kasim's report, Kylan asked with his arms folded,
"Well, how was he?"
"The Grand Duchess's food doesn't seem to have much effect on him."
Kylan frowned at that.
He had fed him so much meat soup, yet it had no effect.
"I watched his behavior closely in case he had some sort of exploitable weakness."
"Did you find anything?"
Kasim wore a confident smile at the corner of his mouth.
The epithet Kasim the Clairvoyant had not been bestowed on him for nothing.
"I confirmed that a truly tiny piece of metal is lodged in his left shoulder. The demonic energy emanating from that fragment is gnawing away at his reason."
“A piece of metal…… So that's what happened.”
Kylan rose from his seat as though he knew what it was.
"I'll deal with Gorga myself. Everyone, proceed according to the plan."
***
Gorga, who had emptied an entire pot of meat soup, glared at Melon with bloodshot eyes.
[Hey. Why is there so little?]
Despite the rough shout, Melon did not even blink. Instead, she snorted.
[Are you stupid? You lot keep sweeping everything away, so do you think the southern village has ingredients left over?]
Gorga's brow furrowed viciously at her retort.
Snorting angrily, he turned to his subordinates standing behind him.
[Hey. Go south right now and sweep up all the food you can!]
Yet even after the order was issued, the subordinate giants merely shuffled their feet and furtively gauged one another's reactions; none readily stepped forward.
[What are you doing?! Move right now!]
[L-Lord Gorga……]
One of the giants carefully opened his mouth.
[Couldn't we leave it at that for today……? I feel sorry for the southerners too…….]
No sooner had he finished speaking than Gorga's enormous fist cut through the air.
Kraaang!
[Aaargh!]
The subordinate went flying out of the barracks.
[Anyone else want to stop now!?]
The barracks fell as silent as the grave.
The giants all bowed their heads deeply and kept their mouths shut.
[You useless idiots. You stuff down a few bowls of meat soup and completely lose your minds.]
Enraged, Gorga picked up his club and started walking.
[I'll go there myself and teach them a proper lesson.]
He was just about to storm out of the barracks, snorting furiously, when—
Grab—!
Someone seized both of Gorga's arms tightly from behind.
It was his most loyal henchman, Ging.
[I'm sorry, Lord Gorga. You can't go to the southern village.]
[Ging? Have you finally gone mad!? Let go of me this instant!]
It was just as Gorga struggled to break free.
Fwooooooosh!!
The barracks ceiling collapsed, and a brilliant golden light swallowed Gorga's entire body.
[Aaargh, my eyes!!]
Gorga writhed in agony.
It felt as though his entire body were burning.
He somehow raised his arms to cover even his eyes, but…
Through his pain, he looked up to see strange, plump birds rising into the air.