novelraw Chapter 68 : Eden, the Garden (7)
Chapter 68 : Eden, the Garden (7)
Chapter 68: Eden, the Garden (7)
“Kyaruru!”
“Kya haha!”
“Hahaha!”
The girls held hands and spun in circles. From the hill it looked like a joyful festival.
Their laughter tinkled as they ran across the blue flower field, and there was a strange kind of beauty to it.
“Nike. Do you know those girls?”
“I don’t.”
Elena advanced slowly with her shield held forward. As she moved, she studied the girls and, to her surprise, found that every single one was a different person.
There were none of the faces of the children who had died earlier.
She had to give up the hope that they were illusions or dolls.
“…If all those children were abducted.”
“Witch. Massacre.”
Among witches, the Witch of Motherhood ranked among the worst of the worst. Harming children was a sin that could never be forgiven.
For the first time in a while, faith settled in the heart of the once indolent archbishop. Her sense of responsibility felt heavy.
She felt guilty, thinking that because she had grown lax, such evil had run rampant.
‘I’ll do it with my own hands.’
Elena quickened her pace. Nike kept stride so he would not fall behind.
As they drew near, the girls stopped spinning. All of them turned as one and fixed their eyes on Nike and Elena.
One girl pointed a finger at Nike.
“That’s him! Let’s take that Mister to Mother!”
“It’s a chance to do something good for her!”
“Right! Right!”
“Then… What about that big sister?”
The children covered their mouths and laughed with a mocking curl to their lips.
“What else! We throw her to feed the guard dog!”
“Wahaha! Great idea, Sister 301!”
“Everyone! Let’s wake it up!”
Giggling, the girls ran to a triangular wooden structure. It was larger than it looked. It took about forty girls just to surround it.
They ringed the triangle and began to sing. It was a chant to rouse the guard dog.
“Wolf who grew on Mother’s milk, wake up and tear into raw meat. You are a wolf weaned from milk now.”
“Wolf who grew on Mother’s milk, wake up and tear into raw meat. You are a wolf weaned from milk now.”
“Wolf who grew on Mother’s milk, wake up and tear into raw meat. You are a wolf weaned from milk now.”
The girls’ song sounded eerie. Elena felt a chill run down her spine and gripped her warhammer.
‘…What are they doing.’
What was that? What kind of wooden house was that, that the children behaved like this around it?
Elena got her answer at once.
Kugugugugugu.
Moments after the song began to flow, the ground started to shake. The triangular wooden structure trembled, then began to pull free of the earth.
No.
More precisely, the wooden structure stood up.
It was a giant.
The triangular structure had been the giant’s helmet.
The giant rose and shook dirt from its body. Blue petals scattered through the sky.
— Grrrrrrrr…
The girls called out in one voice and the giant answered in a gloomy tone.
“Nike… Everything will be alright. I’ll protect you.”
“Ah?”
Naturally, Nike did not waver.
He did not grow afraid, or tense, or startled.
He was simply fascinated.
“A giant! First time I’ve seen one! Amazing!”
“…Can you really say that in a time like this?”
Elena took a deep breath. The more she learned, the harder it was to understand how this rascal of a boy thought.
By common sense, facing such an oppressive giant within a witch’s domain would make even a veteran hunter tense.
‘But this child doesn’t tense up at all…’
Born to be a hunter.
A natural predator.
Elena smiled faintly.
Now she knew exactly why the elders of the Order of the Silver Blades and the witch had hidden Nike all this time.
Beyond his special existence, they had honed him into the Order’s keenest blade.
‘Let’s see. Just… how sharp this blade is.’
Wooooong!
A fierce wind blasted across the field. The giant’s roar came like a gale.
“Kya haha! Everyone, run away!”
The triangle-headed giant stepped forward, and the girls scampered behind it. They looked forward to seeing the giant squash Elena like a bug.
Thoom!
The giant drove its arm into the ground. When it pulled free again, a colossal sword came up with it.
Every motion in that chain of movement was transcendent, the manifestation of a mythic being.
With a single arm the giant swung the blade. Its strength made no sense. It looked ready to smash a mountain with one arm.
Vwoooom! The threatening whistle of riven air tore the sky.
“Nike! It’s coming! I’ll block it, so you—”
Kraaaang—!
The moment Elena rushed in to catch the strike with her golden shield, the giant’s sword swatted her away.
“Ah? Elena?”
She vanished from before Nike’s eyes in an instant, leaving only the hollow clang of a stick on an empty metal helm.
Thud!
A sound came a heartbeat later. She had flown a very long way and crashed into the ground. The giant’s power defied imagination.
‘She’s alive!’
Thankfully, she had not died. Sensing her life force, Nike relaxed a fraction.
“Revenge time!”
Nike planted his feet and shouted. He pictured himself leaping straight up and knocking the giant’s head clean off.
A perfect picture in his mind.
He kicked off the earth.
Thwack.
The instant he launched, the giant ripped its blade free and swatted him. Boom! When Nike came to his senses, his head was buried in dirt.
“Bleh, ptui, ptoo!”
He yanked his head out of the ground. The giant was very far away. Elena was already charging it again.
The giant had smacked him with its sword and sent him flying.
“Uuugh...”
It was a humiliating hit. He had flown like a mosquito. Nike ground his teeth. Grit grated between his molars.
“I’ll kill it! I’ll kill it!”
He sprinted hard. Dust plumed where he ran.
Elena and Nike rushed the triangle-headed giant together.
Boom!
The giant’s sword targeted Elena again. This time she did not take it so easily. Nose bleeding, she reinforced her body. Sacred power wrapped her, and this time she held against the giant’s strike.
As her tiny shield held firm against that enormous blade, Nike bounded up and landed atop the sword.
Elena channeled sacred arts and grabbed the blade. Even when the giant heaved, it would not budge. Her strength was astonishing.
“Nike! Go finish it!”
“Okay!”
The archbishop and Nike moved in fine rhythm. While she kept the giant from reclaiming its sword, Nike sprinted at full speed and reached its head.
He boosted his legs with magic and sprang. He poured mana into his fist and smashed the giant’s head.
— Uwoooor!
Wood shattered and the giant’s posture buckled.
Elena did not miss the opening. She dashed in at full speed and brought her warhammer down on the top of the giant’s foot.
Golden radiance gathered around the hammer and unleashed a monstrous output.
“Sacred Mace!”
Kabang!
The giant’s instep mashed like ground meat.
The archbishop of the Hall of the City God wielded sacred arts beyond imagination. Even Nike, fighting at her side, stared with his mouth open.
“Let’s not get cocky!”
“Nike! Focus and finish it!”
Elena thundered like a rolling storm. It felt as if a heavenly voice rang from above.
Nike nodded in midair. The finish mattered. The boss had said it often.
In hunts against fiends or witches, never let down your guard and always confirm the kill. Comrades and juniors who got careless all died.
Whoomph!
Glass flame blazed from Nike’s fist. Once it caught, it tore flesh and muscle like shards of glass as it burned.
‘...Dear God.’
Watching the fire flare in the air, Elena prayed.
It was truly magic.
A boy wielded the wicked sorcery of a witch.
She had known, yet witnessing the reality still shocked her.
And it was also wonderful.
“Die!”
Nike plunged straight down from the sky. His fist drove home, and the giant that had been toppling slowly crashed hard to the ground.
Kwooooam!
* * *
The finishing blow was so unexpected that even Elena and the watching girls gaped.
“Beautiful.”
Elena was entranced.
Magic was beautiful.
Even hunters did not deny that simple truth.
Mana and magic were thorns of fatal beauty. Knowing they would be pierced, people still reached out to touch them.
Fwoosh!
A many-colored blaze surged over the giant’s triangular head. Dying, the giant let out a gloomy sound.
“T-This is crazy… That can’t be!”
“What? The guard dog lost?”
“W-What do we do?”
The horrified girls shuffled backward. Anyone would panic after seeing a small body blow the head off a giant.
“Run!”
At one girl’s shout, they all turned and bolted. White dresses fluttered in confusion.
—
A wave of magic brushed them, and the girls’ arms vanished.
“Huh…?”
By the time they noticed, blood was geysering from both shoulders. Shocked, the armless girls fell to their knees.
“Gyaaaaaaah!”
The girls reared by the witch had no tolerance for pain. They had lived in a dream among flowers. With no warning, their arms were gone, and they all fainted.
“A-Ah. Ah. Ah…”
They had no time to call for Mother.
Dozens of arms blossomed like flowers over the giant’s neck, where the glass flame was burning.
Those slender arms clawed with their nails and frantically dug out the giant’s neck.
“What the…”
Elena stared in horror. The girls’ arms had sprouted from the giant’s neck and torn it free.
Headless, the giant was freed from the glass flame. Once the pain was gone, it rose again.
— Grrrrrrrrr…!
It rumbled low with wrath. Even without vocal cords, the sound was immense. The world shook. It felt like a colossal calamity had come.
“Kgh… Nike, once more, we’ll work together and…! Agh!”
When Elena tried to gather sacred power again, many arms burst from the ground. They seized her ankles and dragged her under.
Curses were branded into their palms. Her ankles blackened where they gripped her.
“Damn it…! In the name of the Almighty Sun, grant me protection…!”
Elena no longer had the leisure to assist Nike. The witch’s reaching hands now threatened her life directly.
“Elena?”
Nike looked her way. He had to decide whether to run to her aid or finish the giant.
‘Mission!’
The highest priority was protecting the archbishop. Nike started to rush to her when Elena shouted from far off.
“Do not come! Nike. I am fine! Judge the giant!”
Her will was firm. Nike turned without hesitation. Elena was briefly taken aback by his quick decision, then smiled.
“As expected from you, Nike.”
In this situation, that was the right thing to do. She was the archbishop of the Hall of the City God. Even if a powerful witch appeared, she had the ability to protect herself.
Therefore, the giant needed to go down first.
Staggering, the giant hefted its sword onto its shoulder. As it turned, the tower-sized blade carved the ground and swept toward Nike.
“Danger!”
No matter how much he strengthened his body, there was no blocking this centrifugal sweep.
Experience had taught him the instinct to calculate.
Nike decided fast and moved faster.
He ran while folding space. In an instant he arrived at the giant’s wrist.
“Hyah!”
Nike twisted the space at the giant’s wrist, precisely at that point.
Crunch.
A grotesque sound came as the thick wrist cinched in. Functionally, it was severed.
“Hrng!”
Even so, the sword stroke still carried through. Nike barely caught the powered blade with both hands.
His body could not withstand the momentum. He was dragged along and whirled around.
“Waugh! Waaaaah!”
The giant clutched its wrist and staggered, and Nike clung to the enormous blade and unwillingly danced a sword dance.
Vwoom!
On the first rotation, both of the giant’s legs came off.
Vwoom—!
On the second rotation, its waist was cut through. Blood and viscera sprayed in every direction.
Thud! Crash!
The giant toppled. Nike still could not overcome the weapon’s motion and swung it one more time.
“Gyaaah! I’m gonna die!”
Slaaash!
With the third sword dance he ripped open the giant’s flank. The spinning finally stopped.
However, guts and blood gushed over him like a burst dam.
“Urrrrgh.”
It was Nike’s noisy victory.