Chapter 52

“That’s a bit strange.”

Golb replied, tilting his large head at the information that Alia and I received through the Stone Mason Guild Free Masons.

“Generally, being expelled from a village means one family, maybe two at most. I’ve never heard of twenty people being expelled at once.”

“Is there a chance that the population suddenly increased?”

“I can’t say it’s completely impossible, but unlike humans, we giants are a species that is quite scarce in terms of labor, so I think the possibility is low.”

It seems it’s the same as with the Elves.

After a bit of thought, Alia posed another question.

“Then, is there a chance that the wandering giants who were expelled have accumulated over time?”

Golb scratched his head, looking a bit awkward.

“Well… to be honest, we tend to eat a lot, don’t we?”

“… That’s true.”

Alia’s face, who was also in charge of the nation’s financial issues, darkened momentarily.

The giant brothers, revered as deities in the new religion, were more than a labor force capable of moving immense stones; their immense size made them highly valuable representatives of the religion.

However, the problem with the giant brothers, important enough to be managed by the state, was their appetite.

Though I had never seen an elephant, the amount these giants ate must surpass that of an elephant.

Each one devoured anywhere from 200 to 500 pounds of food daily, according to the current weight unit used in Pohelrn.

The annual maintenance cost for two giants was equivalent to that of maintaining 300 robust soldiers.

While it didn’t concern me, I couldn’t help but chuckle at Alia’s viewpoint, which managed the kingdom’s finances.

“We met our master, and right now, humans provide food for us, but generally, wandering giants struggle to survive the winter after being expelled. Their size makes efficient hunting difficult, and they find it hard to store food, so the expelled giants usually starve to death from hunger and cold during the winter. Furthermore, with twenty of them… coexistence would be difficult.”

Golb asserted.

“Considering all that, you two managed to survive for 14 years with your mother, didn’t you?”

“It’s embarrassing to say it myself, but my case was special.”

Golb, eyeing Alia cautiously, explained carefully.

“When human villages began to spring up everywhere, even destroying one village would yield enough food to survive the winter if done carefully. They hunted by ambushing along paths that were traversable, even as the villages grew larger and hard to disturb. Average giants wouldn’t even think of setting such traps. Plus, now that Pohelrn has been established, the northern villages have much stricter borders, so a stroke of luck like mine would be difficult.”

Alia didn’t directly mention that giants had eaten humans, but she understood the implication.

However, Alia was also a succubus from the Eastern Continent, where humans were merely seen as wild animals.

She nodded at Golb, as if to say she understood.

“Ultimately, we will have to go see for ourselves.”

“That poses a problem. If the opponent is giants like the ones you mentioned, sending regular soldiers will not suffice.”

“Plus, winter is approaching, and if they are inexperienced, there will be significant limitations in operating in the bitter cold.”

“We have an expedition planned for next spring, so we can’t push ourselves too hard just before the expedition.”

I glanced at Alia and spoke up.

“I will handle this myself.”

“… Are you sure, Araya?”

“If we’re dealing with giants, it would be better to send a strong team rather than just a mediocre contingent, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s true, but…”

“After all, Priegoss has returned from the expedition and will still be here until next spring, so in the meantime, could you not take charge of the barrier?”

“That makes sense.”

Seeing Alia nodding at my words, I continued with a benevolent expression.

“As I mentioned before, while I won’t meddle in human conflicts, I cannot ignore these abnormal phenomena. Don’t worry; if I’m going personally, I will handle it well.”

“Then I am counting on you.”

“Mm, I’ll take care of it.”

“However, you must return by next spring.”

I felt a twinge as Alia looked at me with an expression that seemed to say, ‘You can’t enjoy yourself too much.’ Nevertheless, I nodded casually.

“Of course.”

◈ ◈ ◈

“So I was thinking of traveling a bit leisurely on my own for the first time in a long while.”

I sighed while reminiscing about what happened before departing.

Slurp, slurp, slurp—

“Hm? Master, is there something wrong?”

“… No.”

I looked at Silv, who was chewing on a huge bison leg, bones and all.

Under the dark night, the light of the campfire was far too small for a giant.

Thanks to this, with only the lower jaw illuminated and his fierce face casting a harsh visage, he looked like a demon.

“There’s really no charm in this, is there?”

The only two suitable candidates who knew the local geography and could deal with wandering giants were the two giant brothers.

I unconsciously clenched my mouth shut and looked up at the star-filled night sky.

I half-expected a trip where I could quietly catch fish grilled over the campfire or roast acorns, listening to the sounds of the night and the chirping of insects.

But the reality was rather grim; witnessing the two giants savagely consuming an entire bison that had been smashed by their massive fists made the idea of an enjoyable journey seem like a distant fantasy.

As I watched the gruesome remains of the bison, my appetite vanished completely, so I laid down on the ground where I’d made a bed from cloth.

Rudolf also sat beside me, dozing off repeatedly.

“That guy. He’s gotten used to being cared for by the priests in the temple and is suffering a bit now.”

Rudolf had been tense throughout the trip, worried he might get stepped on between the two giants.

Furthermore, with no priests or paladins to watch over him, he decided it was time to correct his habits, so he wouldn’t complain or express any discontent.

Despite being a deer, there was no way he could be larger than a giant’s footsteps.

Perhaps due to the continuous rigorous journey over the past few days, I reached out and gently patted his head as I gazed at him as he drowsily nodded off.

“I should let him go a little slower starting tomorrow.”

As he rubbed his nose against my hand in his sleep, sniffing it contently, he fell back into a peaceful slumber.

Was he aware that it was a man touching him?

“… Maybe he’s still half-asleep.”

I turned my gaze from Rudolf, who had fallen asleep beside me.

Rolling the stem of a dogbane in my mouth with my lips or tongue, I gazed up at the stars scattered across the sky and pondered.

“Even if spring comes next year, I won’t be rushing to the expedition. The land needs to thaw, and the soldiers whose bodies have been frozen during the winter will need time to warm up. So, if that’s the case… I have about four months left for this outing.”

Once Priegoss starts roaming outside, Alia will get busy again, so I will have to manage the barrier at the Grand Temple once more.

“This is my first outing in five years. I can’t be dragging these hefty realities along for four months.”

I had lived like a monk or a master, locked away for five years, only practicing martial arts or training disciples.

While my martial arts and internal energy had grown, I didn’t want to live a nun’s existence in a place as narrow as the Grand Temple.

So far, my experiences in this world had been limited to the western forest where I was born and parts of eastern Pohelrn.

There were still so many things I had yet to see.

“But I got lucky.”

Something happened in the north that I hadn’t been to before.

Moreover, the north was a place I wanted to visit since I had heard stories from the giant brothers.

Back then, while teaching the giant brothers how to hunt and seeing how much they ate, I became curious about the kind of nature that could sustain these giants.

“I must quickly resolve the issue of the growing number of wandering giants, send them back, and then travel through the giant’s realm in the north.”

If the expelled giants wandered through the giant’s territory, the probability of problems would increase, and giants weren’t suited for stealthy actions either.

Then, suddenly, a thought struck me.

“… Have I been too careless? I can’t believe I had forgotten something like this.”

I rose from my lying position and spoke to the two giant brothers, who were finishing off a giant bison, leaving only bones behind and licking their greasy hands.

“But would you two be all right with that?”

The two giants paused their hand movements and tilted their heads at my words.

“What do you mean?”

“Depending on the situation, we may need to kill the wandering giants. With that number, there’s a high chance they would cause chaos before winter arrives, so we probably would have to.”

“Ah… is that what you mean? I don’t particularly care about that.”

Golb said nonchalantly.

“Every year, who worries about getting killed in the village and being expelled? There was never any real bond or attachment formed.”

“… But didn’t you want to return to the village?”

“That was more about the difficulty of surviving outside the village than longing for it. At this point, I have no lingering feelings toward the village.”

“I feel the same! I like it here. My master is here, and the humans are kind. The dates are delicious!”

As a warm atmosphere flowed, Golb hit Silv on the head to prevent him from rushing toward me.

“Does your mother, whom you both serve, feel the same way?”

Unlike the giant brothers, their mother, Bryonia, lived separately from humans.

Sometimes, supplies were sent from the humans, or the brothers would visit to help her.

“My mother doesn’t want to go back to the village where she lost her husband. There’s no worry of starving, and she seems content that we are healthy now.”

“That’s good.”

I nodded, watching the brothers who had integrated into the human world better than I had expected.

“Even so, if you feel hesitant, you don’t have to get involved. After all, I came to handle this alone.”

“If you, Master, are going directly, how can I just stand by and watch?”

Golb smiled brightly as he spoke.

“The reason I learned martial arts from you was to beat the giants in the village and reclaim my place there. If it’s good, it’s my pleasure; if it’s bad, I won’t shy away.”

“Mm. That’s a relief then.”

Seeing how the giant brothers, who were once akin to bandits and savages when I first met them, had now come to understand their master’s heart made me feel somewhat moved.

“This must be what it’s like to raise disciples.”

I looked at parts of the giants’ bodies illuminated by the campfire light and asked.

“It seems your Giant Divine Art has reached the fourth rank. Silv… is still at the third rank.”

“Is that so?”

“You’re being arrogant. It was tailored to fit your bodies, after all.”

When I realized the energy from the east was the energy of Ul Kanadiel and decided to settle in Pohelrn to form a pact with Priegoss, I sought out the giant brothers.

As promised, the giant brothers lived without eating humans, helping with tasks between villages made by humans they occasionally roughed up and lived off the rewards.

By the time I arrived, they were beginning to be known as giants who did not eat people but helped instead.

Thus, as promised, I taught them martial arts.

The issue was that, unlike humans and elves, the Titans had a very simple physical structure.

They had large, solid, and simply functional bone structures, with few in number.

Moreover, their blood vessels and nodes were not complex at all, making it highly inefficient to feel and accumulate internal energy due to their underdeveloped systems.

While it would normally be a challenge even to stand with their weight, they were strong and resilient enough to support bipedal locomotion.

In other words, they were a naturally strong and tough species that found it difficult to accumulate internal energy.

For this reason, I created martial arts for the giant brothers with external martial arts rather than the usual internal martial arts.

As they refined their weak blood vessels and nodes, I led the strength of the giant’s body to a higher level using the Giant Divine Art.

And since they had no weapons that could withstand the strength of the giants, I utilized the strength of their trained physical bodies to create a technique that would exploit their might.

Due to the size and weight of their bodies, I introduced some agility techniques to reduce the boisterousness while moving.

“You should be able to behave decorously even when meeting other giants.”

“In my old days, even if there were five of them, I could crush their skulls in an instant.”

“Why would you need five?”

As I saw Golb confidently clenching his trained fist and smiling boastfully, while Silv made some nonsensical remark, I ended the day with a laugh.

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