“This is way more chaotic than I thought!”
Strange objects, screaming “Giant infection!” were charging towards Adel.
Before Adel could ask anything, the general yelled,
“Watch out! Their target is you! The best way to take down the enemy’s giants is to pick them off one by one! Damn it, we should’ve been more vigilant to prevent this! What the heck is the border patrol doing?”
Even though the general continued with his complaints, Adel had no time to listen.
The giants were right in front of her.
Adel shouted, “Wait a second! I don’t want to fight!”
Instead of an answer, she was met with a sharp jab.
Adel dodged a spear aimed straight at her chest and took two steps back.
She still didn’t want to get caught up in a fight with these strangers, but it seemed like her words weren’t going to reach them.
Besides, she couldn’t just run off; a ship in the midst of drying was behind her.
Two more giants, having arrived, were now looking at Adel, and while evading their attacks, she tried to get a glimpse of them.
Thanks to the bizarre, object-like armor they wore, she could barely see their faces or eyes.
Each giant wielded a spear that looked quite freaky.
While the spear tip was normal enough, the opposite end resembled a broom.
And it was not made of dried grass or twigs, but tangled up with blades of metal wire.
Imagining that broom sweeping away the little folks on the ground, Adel couldn’t help but scowl.
Swish!
Adel’s sword sliced through the air.
It was a sharp strike aimed at an opening in their defenses, but her weapon bounced off the giant’s armor.
Upon seeing the golden glitter that flew off upon impact, Adel realized that the armor was not just bizarre in appearance, but enchanted with some kind of special power.
That was a bit of a problem.
She had hardly any magical power left to use her sword techniques.
After battling in the West Witch’s castle and running around solving the king’s requests upon entering the land of little folk, she had barely paused to catch her breath.
Physically, she had done tougher things, so she still had stamina, but magic power was a different matter.
Thus, Adel decided to change her tactics.
Dodging an attack from the front and right, she spun around and, with momentum, sliced her sword upwards.
Just as the third spear was coming down to strike her, it clashed against Adel’s sword and flew off into the air, unable to withstand the force.
Seizing the moment of the now-off-balance giant, Adel dove into its embrace and delivered a powerful kick to its leg.
Though the object-like armor emitted another golden flash to fend off the attack, the strength from Amaryllis’s belt was not entirely nullified.
The giant turned sideways as its head and legs swapped places.
With a thud, the giant’s head hit the ground as Adel moved on to grab the spear of the second giant.
Try as it might to pull its weapon free, the giant was at a loss.
Adel hoisted the spear high and brought it crashing down towards the ground.
The giant holding the spear was too late to release it and was pinned down to the earth.
The final giant didn’t even require any special techniques.
With a nonchalant game of whacking it on the head with her dual swords, the wobbling giant collapsed.
Seeing the three giants sprawled out on the ground, General Redrezal bellowed,
“Now’s our chance! Subdue them!”
Among the shipbuilders mobilized, some were excellent soldiers.
They jumped onto the staggered giants’ heads.
The back of the armor seemed to bulge like it had a lump, and when the soldiers pried it open, little folk tumbled out.
As the little folks poured out, the giants wilted.
Adel noticed that the soldiers were dressed differently from the troops of Liliput, realizing they were from a neighboring country.
However, she couldn’t understand why they were popping out in a place like this.
After the general finished restraining the captured little folk and sending messengers elsewhere, Adel asked him,
“Um, what exactly is going on?”
“Hmm.”
The general made a strangely pinched expression at Adel’s question.
“I wanted to let you leave without explaining, but well, I can’t now.”
With a sigh, he continued,
“The strength of the giants is tremendous. It’s not impossible to temporarily suppress them, but it’s risky for them to be used as soldiers. You never know when they might turn violent against their own.” The armor the giants wear is made to prevent that kind of rampage.”
“Preventing rampage, how?”
“By climbing onto their backs and manipulating devices in the armor, you can inflict pain on the giants. You can choke them or stab them with spikes. There’s even a function that stops them in their tracks to prevent them from trying to throw off whoever’s controlling them.”
Adel was left speechless by such an unimaginable response.
“So, can I do that too?”
“No, no, absolutely not!”
The general shook his head in a cold sweat.
“While some ministers proposed ideas like that, the first punishment for a giant who intrudes is nothing but labor! They can earn their freedom after a solid year of work. The measure of treating a giant as a criminal only applies to those who do not fulfill the labor duty or commit further crimes! It doesn’t mean we turn them all into giants like those Blefuscu thugs!”
Not exactly reassuring words.
Considering the way the general had acted when they first met, it was even more dubious.
If Dorothea were here, she would’ve scoffed, and if Sophia were here, she’d have asked, “So where did the free ones go?” making the general break into a sweat. But alas, or perhaps fortunately, it was only Adel who remained.
Having not quite felt doubt about the general’s somewhat flimsy explanation, she pivoted to another question.
“They’ll die. No, they must die.”
The general’s words were firm.
Adel hesitated to object.
“That only applies before they become giants. Once they do, they likely have slain our soldiers mercilessly with those vile weapons. You can’t tell the slain comrades ‘Forgive them, they had no choice, they were forced to massacre you!'”
After hearing that, Adel found herself short on words.
Even though Adel was stronger than anyone else here, when it came to matters of morality, it was a different ball game.
Feeling pity for the downcast Adel, or perhaps fearing her potential wrath if he upset her further, the general added cautiously,
“I understand that the existence of giants might displease you. But, originally, it was your kind, you giants, namely, the West Witch who spread the armor for giants. We are merely utilizing what we received.”
“So the armor was made by the West Witch?”
“Yes. She had the courtesy to provide us with instructions and techniques to adjust the armor for different types of giants. Unfortunately, she didn’t just pass it to us; she handed it over to those Blefuscu guys too, which is a problem.”
While the general rambled on about how it wasn’t fair to share trade goods with enemy nations, Adel wasn’t paying much attention.
Her sharp hearing caught something significantly quieter—a murmur from inside the armor.
-Let me… out.
-Break… the prison… for me.
-It’s suffocating… I can’t breathe.
Adel hesitated for a moment, but soon a determination shone in her eyes.
She approached the giants.
She heard the captain’s panicked shouts off to the side, but Adel pressed on.
Gathering what little magic power she had left, she formed a blade of sword energy and struck down at the helmet.
While perhaps a Tin Knight could have managed clean cuts, Adel didn’t have the finesse to just slice away the armor neatly, but at least she could create a sizable crack.
And that was more than enough.
Adel gripped the sides of the helmet tightly, bracing herself as she put her strength into it.
The resistance only lasted a moment. Unable to endure her fierce grip, the helmet split apart sideways.
As the face revealed itself, Adel gasped.
Sunken eyes and emaciated features framed by stark white hair.
From the looks of it, this once-noble elder should have been sitting in an armchair.
The old man blinked in surprise then began trembling and weeping.
“Thank you, truly, thank you…!”
Struggling to find the right words, Adel gave a brief nod and raised her sword again.
Carefully making more cuts in the armor and repeatedly gripping it to dismantle it, the old man was finally freed.
The old man’s body was in a dire state.
He was gaunt, with his skin riddled with wounds and infections.
The general, seeing the inside of the armor for the first time, seemed flustered as he spoke,
“Incredible. No way he could’ve ran or handled weapons like that. Is this one of the armor’s effects?”
Adel silently repeated the process on the other two giants as well.
Their conditions were better than the first giant, but they too were far too weak to move under their own power.
Not all the giants were old men.
No, it would soon be understood that the first giant was not old either.
Numerous types of nails sprouted from inside the armor.
Those nails had a hollow structure that allowed them to pierce and extract life from the giants.
Through intuition, Adel realized.
The armor’s strange strength and movements were all a product of this magic that drained the lives of those inside.
The old man hadn’t aged; he had been drained of his vitality by the armor.
“Why create such an armor?”
Adel felt a wave of malice wash over her.
From the armor that was said to be made by the West Witch, she sensed a terrible evil intent to torment humanity.
Just as Adel trembled in a mix of fear and rage,
“Giant! Get down!”
The general’s shrill scream pierced through the air.
Adel instinctively ducked down.
Right after that, something came crashing down from the sky right where she had just been.
Wings. Golden fur. Monkey.
The West Witch’s familiar had finally found Adel, looking down at her as if it had found its mark.
Adel swung her dual swords.
With a squish, the monkey’s left arm was severed in an almost ax-like chop rather than a clean cut from her sword.
The monkey screeched in agony, attempting to claw at Adel with its remaining hand.
Calmly, Adel blocked the attack.
As she readied herself for the next assault, the monkey, for some reason, wore an irritated expression and flew up into the air instead of attacking.
Adel stared with astonishment as she followed the monkey’s ascent.
“Ah.”
Dozens of golden monkeys were staring down at her, each with their own piercing gaze.
***
Some time later.
The number of monkeys that had first appeared had dwindled by half, now commencing their crossing over the sea.
In their hands, they clutched a limp little lion.
![[TS] The End of Magical Girls Has Come](https://i3.wp.com/darkmtl.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1737407792-8993-TS-The-end-of-magical-girls-has-come.png?resize=85,105 "[TS] The End of Magical Girls Has Come")
