Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 11 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Surprise Attack

“Our last objective is a luteum golem,” Lorraine said, a wry expression on her face. “Do you think you can manage it?”

In front of her—which meant in front of us too—was a group of the very luteum golems she was talking about. Yep, golems, plural. And not just a few of them either. Several dozen of them were gloopily meandering about. Our misfortune was evident: we’d run into the type that was high in moisture content. Incidentally, the spot they were meandering around was at the bottom of a depression somewhat akin to a basin, though I couldn’t make a guess as to why they were doing so.

Since they had no escape path available, if we’d been here to hunt them and nothing else, we could’ve just had Lorraine clean them all up with one of her magic spells. However, our objective was to gather their materials. The mud or clay of a luteum golem was rich in mana and prized as an alchemical ingredient, but as it was also very malleable, one careless brush with magic could render it useless. In short, we couldn’t count on Lorraine’s help for this; we’d have to use spirit to attack them. Therefore, the job fell to Augurey and me.

“Doesn’t seem like it’ll be too much trouble, so long as we resign ourselves to getting caked in mud,” I said.

Augurey shook his head. “No, it won’t be that easy. If you let your guard down, you’ll find yourself suffocating to dea—” His face lit up in realization, so much so that I could practically read his mind. But you don’t have to breathe, do you, Rentt? How convenient!

And he was right; this body of mine came in exceedingly handy in times like this. My encounter with the tarasque was one such example. Augurey, on the other hand, not being an undead, reaped no such benefits. While I didn’t really mind taking on this fight alone, it would draw Ferrici’s suspicion if Augurey didn’t go too. We needed to act naturally with her around.

“I can handle this alone if you don’t want to get your clothes dirty, Augurey,” I said. “You can just stand by in case I need backup.”

I tried to pass it off with a haphazard excuse, and Augurey nodded. “I appreciate it, but I’d feel bad making you do all the work. Just this once, I’ll make an exception to my personal policy and change my outfit.”

He took off his outer garments and stuffed them into his magic bag, then took out a set of plain clothes and put them on. I was touched by his concern for me, but Ferrici’s faith in him had probably influenced his decision. Augurey was likely thinking that it might bother her if he just sat back and left all the fighting to me. He was a tactful guy when it came to those kinds of subtleties.

With that, we were ready.

“Okay, here goes,” I said, taking the vanguard and sliding down the rim of the basin.

Augurey followed me down. “Try your best not to get us dirty if you can,” he muttered to me. “I do like these clothes, plain as they are.”

When I was midway down the side of the basin, I felt the luteum golems at the bottom focus their attention on us. Their bodies were made of sludge, and I could make out the hollow depressions that served as their eyes and mouths. I still had many doubts about whether those dark eyes could actually see, but currently, they were unmistakably pointed in our direction.

The luteum golems began to advance toward us, oozing across the ground as they did so. By the time we reached the bottom, we were already surrounded and greatly outnumbered.

“They’re a lot gloopier up close,” Augurey said. He looked depressed.

“I did tell you to let me handle this alone,” I replied.

“I figured that I’d lose Ferrici’s trust if I let you do that.”

“I guessed as much. Well, if it looks like you’re about to get dirty... Actually, scratch that. If it looks like they’re about to try to suffocate you, use me as a shield. Not like I need to breathe, after all.”

Although luteum golems attacked in a similar fashion to slimes, they were scarier to deal with. Compared to a slime—a regular slime, at least—they had more brute strength. Additionally, while a slime’s main form of ranged attack was its Acid Blitz, a luteum golem had...

“Those are totally aimed at us, aren’t they?” Augurey pointed at the swarm of earthen arrows that had just formed in midair, summoned by the luteum golems.

The arrows were instances of Gê Bélos, a human spell. However, that didn’t matter to luteum golems, who could use many different kinds of earth magic. For that reason, a basin like this was the perfect place for them; they could attack and defend as they wished. No wonder there were so many of them here.

“Where else would they be aiming?” I said. “First things first, let’s cut their numbers down. You know what to do, right?”

“Of course. Smash their cores, just like they’re slimes. It’ll take some practice to get right, though. Unlike slimes, these golems’ bodies aren’t see-through.”

“You got it. All right, let’s do this!”

“Yeah!”

We took off, weaving our way through the crowd of luteum golems, stabbing and slashing at their buried cores as we went. If I had to praise their species for something, it would be for the fact that they weren’t very fast. They weren’t exactly slow, of course, but their movements were well within our abilities to handle. Nevertheless, that wasn’t to say we could afford to let our guards down.

As I continued to fight, one of the luteum golems split its body wide open and headed straight for me, clearly intending to engulf me whole. Usually, this would be a dangerous situation—if it caught somebody, it would suffocate them to death—but that didn’t matter to me. I leaped straight into the luteum golem and easily located its now-exposed core. After I smashed it to pieces, the monster melted into a regular pile of mud.

Although this method made hunting golems easy, it would be too dangerous for a regular adventurer. If they messed up, they’d die. It was a good thing I was already dead. The usual procedure of stabbing a golem from the outside was tedious, since even if you vaguely knew where the core was, you’d still need to stab several times to score a direct hit. Thankfully, I could ignore that and make use of the best method for me: diving straight in.

Unfortunately, since Augurey couldn’t do—or really didn’t want to do—the same, he retreated far back every time a golem opened itself up, whereupon I would jump in from the side and smash its core. It made me feel like I was using Augurey as a decoy, but I figured, hey, whatever works. Besides, this way was just more efficient.

The number of luteum golems dwindled rapidly, and in what felt like no time at all...

“Only one more to go,” I said.

“Looks like it.” Nodding, Augurey stepped up behind the final golem and stabbed his sword into it, finishing the fight. After watching it melt down, we looked at each other, each taking in the other’s appearance. What we saw wasn’t pretty—we were both utterly caked in mud.

“The sooner I get this stuff off me, the better,” I said.

“While I’d love to take a bath,” Augurey began, “it might be best if we go for a dip in the lake. I don’t think the inn would appreciate us getting mud everywhere. Speaking of which, let’s not forget why we came here.”

The basin was now littered with piles of mud, which we still needed to collect. Lorraine and Ferrici were going to work with us, hence the former’s wry expression earlier. She hadn’t had to fight, but she still needed to get dirty. Surprisingly, Ferrici seemed to be taking it well; she looked cheerful as she descended into the basin, holding on to Lorraine for support.

“Playing around in the mud like this really takes me back,” she said, taking a container from Lorraine and happily filling it with mud. “It’s like I’m a kid again!”

That was definitely one way to see it.

And so the three of us, taking Ferrici’s pluckiness as an example, diligently set about scooping mud into containers, all the while convincing ourselves that we were having fun.

◆◇◆◇◆

“And with that, we’ve taken care of all the requests,” I said. I was currently washing myself off in the lake. “That took less time than I expected.”

Augurey, who was in the lake with me, nodded. “You’re right. I thought it’d take us two or three days at least, so I’m glad we finished up sooner. We pretty much owe it all to Ferrici, though.”

The girl in question wasn’t with us, and neither was Lorraine. They were washing themselves off somewhere else. It wasn’t as if they could bathe with us, after all. I figured that if I went and tried to sneak a peek—not that I had any intention of doing so—I’d get a friendly introduction to one of Lorraine’s lightning spells. Seeing as how I was drenched in water, that would probably mark the end of my days in this world. If Lorraine were by herself, she might not have particularly cared about her modesty, but currently, Ferrici was with her. Whatever the case, though, I wasn’t going.

“Still, I’m not sure whether to call us lucky or unlucky,” I said. I was thinking about all the fuss that had occurred back at the village. If none of it had happened, we would never have gotten Ferrici’s help. It was the perfect example of a happy accident.

“You’re right,” Augurey replied, studying my body as he spoke. “And that goes doubly true for you. Aside from being so pale, you look like any regular human. I kind of want to know what you looked like when you were a skeleton.”

Right now, with the exception of our underpants, both Augurey and I were naked, which gave him a full view of my body. However, unlike when I was a skeleton and a ghoul, I didn’t have to worry about someone seeing me anymore. Sure, I was a little pale, but that was it.

I also still had my mask on since, as usual, it wouldn’t come off. I was shifting its shape around to clean out the mud that had gotten underneath it, and at the moment, it was only covering the lower half of my face. I had the feeling that this was the style I’d been using the most recently. It came in handy when going in and out of towns because guards were less suspicious and more willing to let me pass if they could see my eyes.

“Being a skeleton really sucked,” I said. “All I could do was rattle around. Being a ghoul wasn’t much better, but I at least figured out a way to talk, in a sense. It kind of felt like I was getting a new lease on life.”

“If you can call being a ghoul ‘living,’ I guess,” Augurey replied. “Although, I’m not so sure I can say that anymore. Maybe having a human consciousness is enough to qualify it as being a life. You know, because of you, I’ve been thinking recently about whether it might be possible to talk with any ghouls I meet, among other monsters.”

“I think about that too, from time to time, but it’s probably a no go.”

I’d never been able to properly communicate with any of the ghouls I’d met. I wasn’t sure why; I’d had a fairly developed consciousness at that stage. What was the difference between me and them? Was it because I was originally a person? Or was it because a dragon gobbled me up? I had no idea. In the first place, what were monsters, really?

Lorraine was continuing with her research and conducting all kinds of investigations, and I was doing my best in my own way to squeeze something out of my dim-witted brain, but we still hadn’t found an answer for my situation. It was probably no surprise, considering that we were basically looking for an explanation for the existence of monsters, and people had been posing that question since forever.

Lorraine was a genius, but history had many geniuses, and none had ever managed to shed much light on the truth behind monsters—whose origins especially remained a mystery. There were many theories regarding that, but none of them could say anything for certain. I supposed our only option was to keep searching and thinking.

“High-ranked monsters can talk, though,” Augurey said. “Vampires and ancient dragons specifically come to mind. But maybe with ghouls, their communication’s closer to something like humans and monkeys. It’s a real mystery, isn’t it?”

I had no answer for him. I hoped that I would, one day...but I didn’t know if that day would ever come.

“Sorry,” Augurey said. Maybe he’d seen that he’d thrown me off a little. “Didn’t mean to make you brood over it. I was just making small talk.”

He was right that I’d been brooding somewhat, but it wasn’t as though it had made me depressed or disillusioned with life or anything. I’d just been pondering what it meant to be alive.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I think about this stuff all the time anyway. You just had me reconsidering what a mystery it all is.”

“Yeah? That’s good then. Well, it’s about time we should be going. Did I get all the mud off?”

Augurey spun around, giving me a clear view of his body. It was slender but well proportioned—the very figure of an adventurer. He looked clean to me, so after asking him to check my cleanliness, we dressed ourselves and headed for the meeting point we’d decided on with Lorraine.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Looks like we’re all clean,” Lorraine said upon meeting up. Maybe it was because we’d all been caked in mud only a short while ago, but she almost looked like a new person. “The innkeeper shouldn’t have any complaints now. Shall we?”

Our return trip was very comfortable. The difference from our journey here was especially notable when we passed through the mime wyvern breeding grounds, since now we were far less worried about them attacking us. We couldn’t completely let our guards down, but neither did we have to stay on tenterhooks all the time. We really owed Ferrici a lot.

Unfortunately, while it would have been lovely to simply finish our carefree trip back, sometimes life just throws lemons at you. We were only a straight shot away from the village when we caught sight of something strange.

“Is that...a person?” Ferrici asked.

The rest of us had already noticed long before she’d asked her question. My eyes could see pretty far, and Lorraine and Augurey knew that something was up from the silent glances I’d been sending their way. The three of us had subtly changed our route as a result, but it didn’t take long for the figure in the distance to adjust for that and cut us off.

Whoever they were, they were clearly suspicious. That being said, we had to go past them if we wanted to reach the village. Left with no choice, we headed in their direction. Having to keep Ferrici safe meant that if anything happened, we’d be fighting an uphill battle, but sending her off to take another route alone was also a scary prospect. It was safest that we all stayed together.

We continued walking, and before long, the suspicious “person” was right in front of us. There was only one way to go about this, really, and that was to approach them and talk. They were clad in a cloak, from out of which protruded a pair of skinny arms, and looked to be an old man.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Excuse me, sir? Is something wrong? We’d be happy to hear you out if—”

Before I had the chance to finish, something massive and heavy crashed into my stomach.

◆◇◆◇◆

What just happened? Lorraine couldn’t make head or tail of it. That wasn’t surprising, of course, because when all was said and done, she was a mage. Though her combat ability was fearsome, the way she fought was fundamentally different from that of other professions, like swordsmen. Her physical ability still far exceeded any average person’s, but even so, she hadn’t been able to catch exactly what had just happened.

Nevertheless, she was capable of making an instantaneous judgment. This stranger is dangerous. Whoever this old man was, he had just sent Rentt flying.

The moment Rentt had approached and began talking, some kind of massive object had slammed straight into his stomach, blowing him far away in the blink of an eye in the direction of the forest and causing him to knock down several trees in his flight path. If it had been a regular person instead of Rentt, they would have died. There was no way they could have survived. An adventurer might have stood a chance of coming away with only grievous injuries, but they wouldn’t have been able to make their way back any time soon.

Rentt, however, was different. His body wasn’t that of an ordinary human, but a monster. His physical ability was incomparable to an average person’s, and so was his durability. In addition, he had Division up his sleeve, which helped him recover from serious injuries in a heartbeat.

All of this reassured Lorraine that there was no chance Rentt could’ve died from a strike of that degree and that he’d be making his way back shortly. Maintaining her composure, she pulled Ferrici in close and cast the strongest instantaneous shield spells she could manage around herself, Ferrici, and Augurey. She knew that their first priority was to make some distance, so she readied herself to do just that—

“You’re slow.”

By the time Lorraine’s senses caught up, the old man was already right in front of her, his cloak fluttering around him. He had closed the gap in an instant. The old man raised his arm, clearly intending to do something with it—something that was obviously connected to the strike that had sent Rentt flying. Even with danger backing her into a corner, Lorraine didn’t miss it, and she knew the next strike would be coming at her, Ferrici, and Augurey. Pointing her wand out, she chanted a spell.

“Ard Harba!”

Even among other earth magic spells, Ard Harba was notable for the sheer amount of mass it summoned. It created a gigantic, sharpened, spear-like shard of rock and sent it flying at the opponent. As spells went, it was exceedingly simple, but that was precisely why it was so hard to defend against. While water, fire, and other such spells could usually be neutralized with their opposing element, throwing a wind spell at Ard Harba would do nothing to get rid of it.

That said, methods to counter it still existed. The reason Lorraine had chosen Ard Harba was because it provided the best means of escape from their current predicament. Naturally, it wasn’t the kind of spell a person could easily fire at will without chanting the full incantation. That is, unless that person was Lorraine. Moreover, she managed to cast it while simultaneously maintaining three shield spells—a truly impressive feat.

The massive earthen spear shot straight toward the old man at an incredible speed—

“Ungh!”

But with a grunt of exertion, he deflected it, blowing it away and sending it crashing into the ground.

Lorraine was shocked. She almost couldn’t believe her eyes, but logic prevailed. She knew that the world was a big place; there were all kinds of monstrously strong people out there, any number of whom could probably have done the same thing this old man just had. She couldn’t afford to let her surprise get the better of her.

In a heartbeat, she gathered her mana, preparing to fire her next spell, but the old man’s legs were faster, and he closed the small distance she’d gone to such lengths to buy in no time at all. But the next moment, Augurey, sword held high, stepped in to bar his way.

“Not on my watch!” he shouted.

“If you want to be first, then be my guest!” The old man grinned and raised his arm, and Lorraine got her first proper look at what exactly had blown Rentt away and deflected her Ard Harba.

As the old man lifted his arm, it expanded to a disproportionately titanic size in a fraction of a second. He swung it at Augurey, who was sent flying bodily away. Against so much mass, there was only so much one could do. That was the cold, hard truth.

Lorraine knew that her hastily cast shield spell on Augurey had fulfilled its purpose and absorbed most of the impact before shattering, but it was obvious that it had been unsuccessful in entirely nullifying the blow. Although she lamented the fact she hadn’t had more time, she was fairly certain she’d saved him from dying, which was good enough for now. The problem was, things were only going to get worse.

The old man hesitated for a moment, as if wavering over which of his opponents he would make his next prey, before finally tearing his eyes away from Lorraine and taking off into the forest in the direction he’d sent Augurey flying.

“I s’pose I can leave the mage for later,” the old man murmured, and then he was gone.

Lorraine was in two minds over whether to pursue, but she had Ferrici with her. She had to get the girl to safety first; she couldn’t put her in danger by taking her along.

She could still sense Augurey’s mana, so she could tell that he hadn’t been incapacitated at least; he was running through the forest. He’d probably be fine for a while. In the meantime...

“Ferrici.”

“Yes? Um, what just—?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out later. Here, take this. It’s a magic item that can cast a powerful shield spell. I’ve already charged it with mana. Take this too. As long as you hold on to it, I can find you wherever you go. Hide yourself and wait for me, okay?”

Lorraine didn’t want to do this, but against an opponent as dangerous as the old man, she had no choice. She, Rentt, and Augurey had to face him together. Ferrici would only get in the way. She couldn’t just do nothing for Ferrici, though, so she fell back on this as her last resort. Neither the Goblin nor the Siren were in the area, so at least she didn’t have to worry about them attacking the girl.

Lorraine didn’t know whether the old man had allies around, but if he did, that was what the shield spell was for. Moreover, the marker she’d given Ferrici could serve as a targeting point at which to fire long-distance spells. None of this was to say the girl was entirely safe, but even so...

“Got it.” Ferrici nodded emphatically. “Don’t worry about me. Go!”

To her brave words, Lorraine replied, “Sorry! I owe you!”

And then she was off, running into the forest.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Can’t say I saw that one coming!” Augurey said to the old man before him. There was no deeper meaning behind his remark. Augurey just hadn’t expected him to be so strong.

The old man had an unusual amount of pure offensive strength. Augurey had barely managed to get the flat of his sword in the way of the old man’s gigantified arm before it struck him, but the weight of the impact itself had been staggering. If it’d been a direct hit, he’d have taken some serious damage.

As it was, even though Augurey had somehow managed to defend himself in time, crashing through the surrounding trees had left his back a mess of scratches and wounds. The body of a regular human was frail. He should have either dodged the strike or reinforced himself with spirit and magic and clashed with it directly.

Augurey thought he’d done the next best thing by wrapping himself in spirit right after taking the blow, but it hadn’t been enough to protect him. Evidently, his skills still had a long way to go. But while his training might have proved insufficient, he still had his life—which meant he could still do something about this situation.

“Why, did you think I was of the same caliber as the other two?” the old man said.

Augurey paused for a brief moment before replying, “Who are you talking about?”

The old man smiled at his feigned innocence. “From that reaction, it’s obvious that their cover’s been blown. I’m not sure how you saw through them, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. That aside, you don’t want to make the mistake of lumping me in with them. They haven’t quite mastered their own strength yet, you see.”

Augurey thought he’d done a pretty good job of playing dumb, but maybe the old man’s age had made him wise to that kind of thing; he’d seen through the act in an instant. Still, maybe that wasn’t surprising, given the situation. The Goblin aside, the Siren’s plan had gone up in smoke, with the woman herself ending up captured. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that had led the old man to believe everyone else had been compromised too.

That said, Augurey had made the exact mistake the old man had mentioned: he’d expected the third member of Goblin and Siren’s group to specialize in tricks and schemes too. He’d been convinced that was just how they operated. But instead of getting that, he’d gotten this old man—a physical combat specialist.

People said to face your problems head-on, but there was such a thing as taking sayings too literally.

“Are you sure this whole cloak-and-dagger business is a good fit for you?” Augurey asked. “I think fighting in a colosseum somewhere would suit you more, personally.”

In many towns and cities, live combat tournaments were a form of entertainment. Places like those were always looking for strong contenders—especially if they had novel fighting styles. In that sense, the old man would make for a perfect contestant.

The old man grinned broadly. “I had enough of that when I was younger. Made me go looking for a job where I’d get to do something other than beat up opponents all day. Luckily, I found one which came with colleagues and all kinds of different employers.”

“Colleagues?”

“You’ve met them, haven’t you? They’re...well, let’s not dwell on the details. You’ve got a strange way of dressing yourself up, but you’re a man, yes? Men should be silent and let their fists do the speaking.”

“And just let you insult my clothes like that? This is fashion, I’ll have you know—although the concept might be lost on you, grandpa.”

“Heh. Then you’d better not let this grandpa get the better of you, eh, kid? That said, maybe it’s because of my age, but I’ve been growing more senile recently. I might forget to hold back.”

“If you could forget who your targets are too, that’d be great.”

“Lorraine, Rentt, and Augurey, was it? How odd. My aging memory only picks the strangest things to...remember!”

The old man kicked off the ground, making it judder with a terrifying bang and leaving an unnaturally huge footprint in his wake. He had probably gigantified his foot at the moment of impact.

Augurey saw the old man’s fist coming straight toward him. He knew what would happen next. The old man would increase its size again before the blow landed. Nevertheless, faced with the imminent threat, Augurey stayed calm, focusing all of his thoughts into a single question: How am I going to fend this off and make my counterattack?

◆◇◆◇◆

“Ugh, damn!”

How far had I been blown away? It felt like my entire body was protesting against me. Upon closer inspection, I realized that broken bones were sticking out of my skin all over the place.

In my condition, any regular human would’ve died. I, however, barely felt any pain, but that wasn’t to say the feeling was entirely nonexistent. Maybe that meant if I was injured badly enough, even this body of mine was capable of dying. Although, considering I was already undead, perhaps “getting obliterated” was the more accurate term. At any rate, I’d hardly be able to put up a good fight in the state I was in.

With a bit of focus, I used Division. It felt strange, as if the outlines of my body were getting fuzzy and I was coming apart at the seams. No matter how many times I did it, it felt unnatural. Still, I’d become a lot more used to it, so the process went a lot more smoothly than my earlier attempts.

Maybe my current location had an influence on that too. For some reason, being in the midst of a forest helped me concentrate a lot better. Did it have something to do with the spirit that had blessed me? I wasn’t sure, but all the same, I managed to disperse and reform my body.

Whereas before I had looked like a mangled corpse, I was now back to normal. My skin was pale and smooth, and my bones were all back in place, but the scary thing was that my robe wasn’t even dirty. It had probably saved me from even worse injuries.

Despite my fresh appearance, though, I hadn’t come away completely unscathed. Just like Nive had once told me, Division only fixed your physical state. Suffer too much damage in a short time, and your very existence would become diluted, eventually causing you to vanish into oblivion. Nonetheless, just as broken bones eventually healed, that damage recovered over time. I had to be careful and avoid too many serious injuries in too short a period, but, well, that was just common sense.

The advantage of this was that I could take some major punishment and keep on fighting as though nothing had happened, but it came with the drawback of not knowing how much I could take before I died for good. All of which was to say that Division was very risky. I’d have to be extremely careful about using it. Maybe it was even a contributing factor to why older vampires like Isaac and Laura had such a detached air of calmness to them. That aside...

“This should do. Now, which way did I...?”

After confirming that I was back in top condition, I took the time to find my bearings. I couldn’t locate people by their mana like Lorraine could, but my body gave me access to a few special tricks of my own. I could strain my ears and use my sense of hearing, of course, but I could also find my way via the smell of blood...and it was the latter that I was relying on right now. I could smell Augurey’s blood, which worried me. I figured Lorraine was fine, given I couldn’t smell hers, but...

“I’ve gotta go!” I took off in a rush. My brand-new body felt strange, creaking and groaning as I moved, but I figured I’d get used to it soon enough.

You’d better not die on me, Augurey.

◆◇◆◇◆

I ran toward the direction I could smell Augurey’s blood coming from, not sparing a thought for anything else. Maybe it was because I was in such a hurry, but it felt like ages before I finally reached him.

I’d been able to tell that some kind of fight was happening from the thunderous impacts I’d heard while running, but the scene that greeted me was one of utter devastation. The surrounding trees had been smashed to pieces by some kind of tremendous force, and the ground was littered with large holes that looked like something massive had stomped them into the earth.

How had—

Bang!

Before I could finish my thought, the deafening sound of another impact resounded. It was so violent it shook the air, sending a strong gust of wind blowing over me.

I looked at where it had come from and saw the old man chasing after Augurey, who had been sent flying away. Augurey’s back collided with a tree, but it didn’t look like he’d lost his will to fight just yet; he was still maintaining his grip on his sword.

By the looks of things, I’d made it in time. But before I could breathe a sigh of relief, the old man raised his fist. Then, with the sudden, odd sensation of space contorting, his forearm abruptly multiplied in size. Seeing the old man gigantify his arm, I finally realized how he’d blown me away earlier.

Back then, I hadn’t understood what’d happened, but if he could make his arm that big, then old man or not, it was no wonder I’d felt such a massive impact crash into me. In any case, it was obvious that even a Silver-class adventurer like Augurey would be crushed if he took a direct hit.

I dashed forward, running toward Augurey as fast as my legs would take me.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Is that all you’ve got, kid?”

“Hah... I’m not...done just yet...grandpa.”

“I see you’ve still got a mouth on you, at least. A lot of people lose that when their backs are against the wall. I’ll give you credit for spirit. It’s been a while since any of my opponents have lasted this long against me too.”

“What an honor. Still...this isn’t over just yet.”

“Really now? Then I look forward to what you have in store for me.” The old man smiled, half-serious, half-joking, and lifted his arm, gigantifying it again in the process.

This is bad, Augurey thought. He didn’t know what to do against the old man’s attack. Regular methods of defending or evading seemed futile, but what else could he do? The massive arm loomed before him. Was closing his eyes and accepting his fate the only option left to him?

Before Augurey could finish that thought, however, someone grabbed ahold of him and flung him away from the incoming blow. Shocked, he looked over to see who it had been.

“Sorry I’m late. I was dead, you see.”

Hearing his friend’s familiar banter, Augurey smiled wryly.

“I’ll say. A little later and I’d have joined you on the other side.”

◆◇◆◇◆

I had just barely made it. The most dangerous thing about this old man was that despite how huge he could make his arm, it didn’t slow him down at all. He simply moved it as though it were a normal appendage. To top it off, he had the agility of a first-class fighter. It was beyond doubt that he was an absolute monster...which, coming from me, was pretty ironic.

Still, “joined me on the other side,” huh? Augurey could be a funny guy sometimes. Him becoming undead too sounded fun in its own way. I could’ve pulled Rina in as well and formed Rentt’s Army. We’d be a force to be reckoned with, capable of even taking on Laura’s Army...or not. At best, we’d probably just get turned into her vassal state. Although, now that I was thinking about it, Laura seemed like she’d be great to have as a feudal overlord. She’d probably distribute all kinds of wealth, fame, and military might among her vassals.

“Ho ho, what’s this? Aren’t you the fellow I sent flying earlier? Rentt, was it? I didn’t think you were alive.”

The old man approached me, cracking his fingers as he came. The fact that he wasn’t rushing to close the distance probably meant that he was wary of me. From what he’d said, it sounded like he’d intended his first attack to be lethal. To be fair, it probably had been. The only reason I looked good as new was that I had the unfair advantage of Division on my side. I’d have been dead without it for sure.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” I said, “but as you can see, I’m as lively as ever. Or maybe I’m not. It’s complicated. Nonetheless, I’m here, and that’s what matters.”

The old man looked confused. “I assume you mean you didn’t escape unscathed? Well, that’s a marvel in its own right. It’s rare that anybody can take one of my blows and be in good enough shape to talk about it afterward.”

“I’ll bet,” I replied. “I’ve never been hit that hard before. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let us in on the trick, would you? You know, as an offering so that I can die in peace.”

I wasn’t being serious, of course. I just wanted to buy a little more time while Augurey recovered his stamina. Surprisingly though, the old man answered.

“Hmph. Why not? Here, look.” He raised his arm, and space contorted again as it expanded to the size of the surrounding trees.

Even though it wasn’t new to me anymore, seeing it again was a shock. How in the world did he do that?

“There, simple,” the old man said.

“Right...” I responded. “I’m surprised you aren’t crushed under your own weight.”

“I don’t train my body just for show. How about a round of arm wrestling? I’ll have you know I’ve never lost.”

I was pretty sure that “training his body” was a massive understatement, but at the very least, it was obvious that the old man was capable of supporting the mass generated by his technique. I didn’t know if he used spirit or mana, or if it was just a latent special ability of his, but it was amazing all the same. Since his ability was basically inhuman, I even felt a sort of kinship with the old man.

“I’ll pass,” I said. “I can’t go around telling people I lost to a senior citizen.”

“I suppose that’s for the best. Now then, has the kid over there recovered yet? I’d like to pick things back up, if you please.”

The old man had seen through me—although I’d kind of expected him to. I was pretty sure he hadn’t played along out of pity. If I had to guess, he’d been taking stock of me as we talked. That made him the kind of person who didn’t underestimate opponents just because he’d beaten them before. One thing was for sure; this wouldn’t be easy.

“Augurey. Can you fight?”

“Yeah, thanks to you slipping some of your divinity my way. I’m injured, but I’ll make do.”

This whole time, I’d been healing Augurey, who’d been hiding behind me, with my divinity. Since my power was nothing impressive, and thanks to my studies in healing magic, I’d been able to keep it subtle.

It didn’t look like the old man had noticed. Now, it was two against one. If Augurey and I steeled ourselves, we could probably manage this...right? Either way, it wasn’t like we had much choice.

“Here I come then, kids. I’m hoping this will be fun. Don’t let me down.”

Then, as if ringing the opening bell to a fight, the old man kicked forward off the ground, sending an earsplitting bang reverberating through the surroundings.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Whoa!”

With the whoosh of air being split apart, the old man was suddenly on me. Reading that he was going for a horizontal swing, I just barely managed to duck out of the way. I felt the sheer mass of his gigantic arm swipe above my head.

Immediately afterward, I went to put some much-needed distance between us, but the old man was way more physically capable than you’d expect of someone his age. If I didn’t at least get a hit in before I jumped away, he’d just close in on me again.

Therefore, I swung my sword hard. It didn’t matter where it connected as long as it did. The old man’s arm hadn’t shrunk back to normal yet, so that would make matters worse for him if my swing landed.

Or so I thought. Apparently, my crude strategy had been a poor choice. Although my sword scored a direct hit on his body...

Clang!

It made a sound similar to metal striking metal and bounced right off.

“You’re joking?!” I exclaimed.

“Rentt! Watch out!” Augurey yelled.

Seeing that the recoil from my strike had thrown me off-balance for a moment, the old man came at me with his arm a second time. Augurey, having read the movement, shoved me out of the way, just like I’d done for him earlier.

Wham!

The giant arm struck the ground, making a deafening impact and kicking up a cloud of dust. Evidently, it had snapped a few trees along the way too, because wood chips were flying everywhere. It was almost silly how much destructive power it had.

“I’m not done yet!” Even with visibility low, thanks to all the dust and wood chips in the air, the old man continued swinging. They were haphazard, but given the size of his arm, that likely didn’t matter. He’d probably figured it was better than waiting for the air to clear.

That would’ve been the correct decision to make against a regular person, but my undead body had a few useful tricks of its own. My eyes could see the body heat and physical presence of living things, so I could see the old man’s arm with no problem at all—which actually kind of scared me, because it meant that what I was seeing was his real arm. It almost made me wonder how a person as strange as him had come to be, but I was in no position to be thinking that of others.

The old man probably had a whole fantastic tale of his own to tell. If we’d met under different circumstances, we might’ve been able to have a good, long chat about it. He seemed friendly, after all—he’d been happy to show off his ability to us when I’d asked. But, well, this wasn’t the time to think about trivialities. I’d hoped it would help me calm down, but it hadn’t worked.

Since I’d figured Augurey couldn’t see in this mess, I’d grabbed him and was running us around, but I wasn’t sure what to do next. I considered my options.

My swing earlier might’ve bounced off, but it wasn’t like it had been the best I could manage—just an on-the-spot attack that I hadn’t been able to put all my power into. I could still pack a lot more spirit or mana into my sword. Mana-spirit fusion or even divinity-mana-spirit fusion were options too. The latter was a double-edged sword, but I thought I could manage the former. Probably. Although, if those bounced off the old man too, we were done for. I took a moment to wonder if he was even human.

Nevertheless, it looked like the inhuman old man still had to worry about his stamina, at least, because his attacks were coming less frequently. Seeing that, I dropped Augurey off.

“Rentt! What’s the plan?!”

“Let’s see... How about— Whoa!”

Bam!

A tree flew by like a spear and embedded itself into the ground nearby. In an unbelievable turn of events, the old man was grabbing them and throwing them at us now. The air had cleared, so both Augurey and I had managed to get out of the way, but we definitely couldn’t let this continue. After dodging the next attack, I’d—

“Found you!”

By the time I realized it, a massive arm was coming straight toward me.

I can’t dodge this one!

I readied my sword, hoping to at least avoid a direct hit, but quickly realized it was futile. Left with no other choice, I used Division. My body lost its shape and became a mass of darkness.

“Hmmm?!” The old man cocked his head. It seemed as though that massive arm of his still had a pretty keen sense of touch, because he appeared confused that his attack had lost its target and only connected with thin air. It looked like we both knew that I would’ve suffered some serious damage if his swing had landed.

“Where did you—? Ah, never mind!” The old man paused for a moment, as if to search for me, but upon noticing Augurey, switched targets. He swung his arm straight down in a crushing blow, but Augurey was far enough away that he was able to avoid it successfully.

This was my chance. I quickly reformed—a feat I owed to my training—and concentrated mana into my sword. Then, I dashed toward the old man and swung it straight at the back of his neck.

I still had a healthy respect for the elderly, of course, but this was no mere old man—something that he proved right away, before I could even decide whether to feel guilty about my attack. I didn’t know if it was because of his experience or simply sheer instinct, but he noticed me coming for him and whipped his arm around in a backward swing. It went without saying that he’d also gigantified it.

The swing wasn’t very fast—maybe because it’d been off the cuff—but it was more than enough to protect his neck from me. Consequently, my sword slammed straight into his arm. An intense blast of power compressed the air around the spot where it connected and exploded outward with a massive bang!

“Ngh!” Unsurprisingly, the old man flinched, then flapped his arm several times and backed off from us.

It seemed I’d managed to get a good hit in. The old man shrunk his arm back down to its regular size, and I saw that the spot where my attack had landed had ruptured open from within. Blood was gushing from the wound, so it looked like I’d done some real damage.

“Perhaps I underestimated you...” The old man ripped off a section of his own clothes and wrapped it tightly around the wound. He then chanted some kind of spell that stopped the bleeding.

I didn’t think he was a mage, but apparently he did have some magic in his arsenal. Having a simple spell to stop bleeding was one thing, but it was pretty scary that he hadn’t even batted an eye when using it on such a serious injury.

He didn’t look like he was going to run, so he was probably still raring to fight. I took that to mean that he thought he still had a good chance of winning this.

Which was to say, unfortunately, this fight wouldn’t be wrapping up any time soon.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Hmm, what should I show you next?” the old man muttered.

“What do you mea—?”

Before I could finish my question, I was interrupted by a shout from behind me.

“Rentt! Augurey!”

I turned around and saw that it had come from Lorraine. She was running toward us across a field of smashed-up trees and massive holes, her face drawn into a scowl.

“Are you two okay?” she asked once she reached us.

“As you can see,” Augurey replied, not turning to look at her. While I’d been turned around, he’d kept a close eye on the old man. It was less that he was quick on the uptake and more that we’d just known each other for so long that we instinctively knew how to work as a team—something that I was grateful for.

“So the mage is here too now,” The old man said, spotting Lorraine. “Are you sure that girl will be okay alone? I have colleagues of my own, you know, and I don’t mean the one you captured.”

He was clearly saying it to throw us off our guard, but we didn’t know for sure that he was lying either. Lorraine’s reply, however, was cold and goading.

“I don’t see the problem. We simply have to deal with you quickly.”

I could hear from her voice that she’d been unwilling to leave Ferrici behind. She sounded kind of irritated, which was rare for her. The old man didn’t notice, though.

“Heh. I suppose that wouldn’t be enough to shake you, would it? You’re a lot more than we bargained for. It’s no wonder my two colleagues weren’t a match for you. If only our information had been more accurate!”

“Your two colleagues?” I repeated. There wasn’t much point in playing dumb now, but I figured there was no harm in trying.

The old man wrinkled his nose. “You can drop the act already...but ah, I suppose I’ll play along. One of my colleagues is a veteran himself but isn’t much to speak of in the ability department. He’s realized that the merchant’s life suits him more, so this was going to be his last job. As for my other colleague, although she has quite the rare ability, she lacks experience, making her too proud for her own good. I intended on this being a tricky job for her, to take her down a peg and allow her to grow.”

I wondered if the old man had completely given up on his cover, but I realized that probably wasn’t the case. He had likely just decided there was no point in maintaining it anymore. Besides, his goal was to kill us, and as the saying went, dead men tell no tales. Except me, but I was a special case.

The old man continued. “Sadly, neither of them managed to pull it off. Although, that’s no surprise, given that the information that got passed down to us was full of holes.”

“Passed down to you?” I asked, cutting him off. I hadn’t been able to stop myself—that was how badly I wanted to know who his superiors were. The old man glanced at me, but didn’t answer.

It seemed that even dead men didn’t need to know some things. I didn’t blame him; nothing was absolute. He’d probably be in trouble if he spilled all his secrets and then we managed to get away. He was right to be cautious, especially since he didn’t know how confident I was in my ability to escape.

I doubted there were many people who could pin me down if I used Division. I couldn’t say there were none, though, considering folk like Nive existed. Adventuring was a profession full of monsters, and Nive was only at the top of Gold-class. Dealing with Division was probably a piece of cake for Mithril- and Platinum-class adventurers.

If I had to guess, I’d say the old man was good enough to put him somewhere in Gold-class—or maybe even higher. Those weren’t the type of people you were supposed to just run into on the road, but, well, here we were.

The old man kept talking. “What got passed down to us was that our targets were two regular Silver-classes and a Bronze-class who wasn’t even worth mentioning. But what we got instead was you three. A monster who can take one of my blows and look no worse for wear, a skilled fighter who can make me run in circles for a long time, and a mage who can cast an instant shield spell strong enough to guard against my arms without even chanting it. If I’d known you three were our targets from the beginning, I’d have done a lot more preparing. This really isn’t worth what I’m getting paid...”

“Then why not cut your losses and go home?” I asked. I figured it was worth a shot.

The old man smiled. “Perish the thought. Worth it or not, work is work, which is why I’ll be killing you, even if I have to push these old bones hard to do it. I’ll be out of a job otherwise.”

Given his line of work, by “out of a job,” he probably meant that his life was on the line. The underworld sure was a rough place. I could feel for him in that regard. Still, it wasn’t like we were going to hold back. Not that we could even afford to against someone as strong as him.

“Now then, I think that’s enough chitchat. I count all three of my targets in front of me, and I’ll have you know that I won’t be letting a single one leave here alive.”

“Do you really think it’ll be that easy?” Lorraine asked.

“No. I’ll not underestimate you any longer. I wasn’t exactly playing around before, but it’s time I get serious. Behold! Hrmmm!!!”

The old man began to tense up all over. I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I knew that it was bad news.

The three of us weren’t nice enough to just wait for whatever was coming, of course. Augurey and I brandished our swords and dashed toward the old man, while Lorraine held out her wand and started molding her mana. However...

“Too slow!”

An enormous wave of pressure shot out from the old man’s body, sending Augurey and me flying and creating an intense burst of wind that broke Lorraine’s concentration.

“What in the...?”

The violent storm centered around the old man had blown us quite a distance away. When I looked back over at him, I realized that there was now a massive something standing in his place.

It didn’t take me completely off guard; given the old man’s ability, I’d considered it to be a real possibility. But because he’d stuck to increasing the size of his limbs, a part of me had thought that was his limit.

Right now, I was being proven very wrong.

“Is that...?”

“No way...”

In contrast to the mumbles from Augurey and me, Lorraine’s words were plain and clear. “He’s a giant. I never expected to meet one in a place like this.”

Yep. We were looking at an honest-to-goodness giant.

◆◇◆◇◆

Giants. Although their race had thrived once, long ago, they were hard to come by these days. Compared to the modern age, a much larger, more diverse assortment of races had existed in older eras.

The proof of this lay in the many relics and abundant folklore that still survived to this day. Many of those races themselves, however, were no longer anywhere to be seen. The reason for this was unfortunately unclear, and it was a confounding question for many, because a significant number of the long-gone races—such as giants—had been mighty and without equal in their own ways. It was difficult to imagine that they had simply just died out.

That said, maybe the giants hadn’t had it quite as bad. After all, if the rumors were true, they were still around if you knew where to look. You wouldn’t run into one in town, but there had been sightings of them in uncharted territory before, in places difficult for humans to access, such as deep within forests or intensely hot volcanic regions.

What’s more, apparently some long-lived races—such as the elves—still had dealings with the giants. It was these sources that had given rise to the rumors of the race’s continued existence. Somewhere, out there in the world, the giants still lived. Still, the chances of actually meeting one like this were basically zero. In the first place...

“Are you sure he’s a real giant?” I asked Lorraine.

“No,” she replied, sounding unsure of herself. “Although, he does look like one. He could also just have the ability to turn into a giant, or perhaps he’s a giant disguising himself as a human. Actually, I’m not even sure if giants can possess such abilities. I can’t say anything for certain. I suppose we’ll have to ask the person himself.”

She was right; it could’ve been either of those possibilities. Unique abilities were still poorly understood. Nobody knew why they manifested in the specific people they did, or even if they were a strictly human phenomenon. Who knew whether a giant could’ve had one? It wasn’t like it was possible to round up enough giants to get a decent sample size and research it. While that might’ve been doable in the past, time only ever moved forward.

“He doesn’t seem to be in a very talkative mood right now,” Augurey joked.

The giant before us was huge. Instead of the skinny old man he’d been before, he looked closer to middle-aged and extremely well-built. Was this his original form, or was it just his ability making him seem younger?

The giant was wearing only a single loincloth. I said a silent prayer of gratitude that he wasn’t naked. That would’ve been distracting in all kinds of ways. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the loincloth was made of the same material as the cloak that the old man had been wearing earlier. Maybe it was some special kind of magic item? It was slightly too big to be the cloak itself. It seemed likely that the cloth could change size to a certain degree as its wearer gigantified himself.

A thought occurred to me, and I looked at the arm that I’d inflicted a wound on earlier. It was still bound up tight, just like it’d been when the old man had been human-sized, which meant the bandages had grown bigger too. That supported my theory about his cloth itself being special in some way.

I guess he could’ve just left his arm small and gigantified the rest of himself, but for some reason, that picture just didn’t seem right in my head—not that my personal thoughts on it mattered. Plus, choosing to do that would’ve made it harder for him to maintain his balance—not a smart decision for sure.

That aside, how were we going to fight him? It probably would’ve been an exaggeration to say that I was familiar with fighting huge opponents, but I did have experience against giant skeletons and tarasques—monsters that were way bigger than me. As such, size alone wasn’t enough to make me falter. On the other hand, those monsters had possessed obvious weaknesses, and I’d gone into those fights with a pretty decent advantage. Comparing them to my current opponent would be just plain silly.

Winning a fight was a lot easier said than done. To begin with, regular sword strikes hadn’t even worked on the old man when he was human-sized. Maybe a fully charged spirit swing would have done the job, but I’d gone straight to using mana-spirit fusion.

That was probably the way to go from the outset here. I felt like holding back would only bring this fight to an unfortunate early finish. But just as I was planning my attack...

“Here I come!” With a resounding shout, the former-old-guy-currently-a-giant came straight for us. The sound of his voice alone generated enough pressure to send shivers through me. His huge form looked like the embodiment of sheer brute force as it rushed toward us.

“Split up!” I called out. “We can figure out the rest later!”

Lorraine and Augurey were already moving. They probably knew that, against our giant opponent, sticking together would only make us an easy target.

Against an oncoming group of small—well, human-sized—monsters, it wasn’t a bad idea to group up, cover different roles, and whittle away at their numbers, but a plan like that here would’ve just got us literally slapped into the ground. Lorraine might’ve been able to delay that outcome with a shield spell, but that was the best we could’ve hoped for.

I could have used Division too, which would’ve let me make a getaway, but I didn’t much like the idea of being the sole survivor. Talk about heavy.

Anyhow, seeing as I had such a unique ability up my sleeve, I figured it fell to me to act as our group’s shield, or maybe its decoy. I started focusing mana and spirit into my sword and turned straight toward the giant to divert his attention away from the directions in which Lorraine and Augurey were running. I tried to ignore the fact that I was basically doing my best wild boar impression. It wasn’t my fault the situation had demanded it.

I pumped spirit into my entire body, improving my physical ability, and broke into a full-on sprint. My target was one of the giant’s legs. Yeah, that would do for now. Robbing him of his mobility would make for a good start. Despite his body having grown so large, his speed hadn’t really lessened, which was pretty scary. It looked like air resistance and such had slowed him down a little, of course, but hardly enough to be of any consolation.

I knew I had to keep my wits about me, and I was proven right. As I reached the giant with my sword held aloft, he lifted his leg, then brought it straight down.

BOOM!

The sound of the giant’s stomp resounded through the surroundings.

◆◇◆◇◆

The giant’s stomp had been ridiculously fast and had covered a large area of ground. Nevertheless, I was fine; it hadn’t squished me into a pulp. Although, even if it had, this was me we were talking about. I could’ve bounced back from that more than a few times. Being a giant definitely gave you an unfair advantage in a fight, but I was the last person who could go around pointing fingers—most people only got a single squishing before they were done. I couldn’t get ahead of myself though. I’d only avoided one attack.

“Dodged that, did you? Then how’s this?!” The old giant began stomping at me in quick succession. To my annoyance, he wasn’t just stamping around like a kid having a tantrum. He was watching me carefully and aiming at where I stood—as well as where he thought I would run to—with scary precision.

Huge monsters that possessed intelligence were always scary, but the old giant went above and beyond that since, for all intents and purposes, he was an actual person—and a pretty seasoned veteran at that. Although people were far smaller than monsters, we’d managed to ensure our survival in this world by being much more intelligent. But here was this old giant, whose size and strength were equal to or larger than that of a monster’s, also every bit as smart as a person. “Dangerous” didn’t even begin to describe him, but that didn’t mean I was just going to give up.

BOOM!

A loud stomp reverberated right next to me, and I felt a shock slam into my left arm from the shoulder down before losing all feeling there entirely. Evidently, my perfect series of dodges had come to an end. That said, I barely felt any pain. As far as my body was concerned, this was nothing more than a scratch.

The old giant, however, didn’t know that. “Ah, I know a mortal wound when I see one!” Sounding slightly happy, he stopped stomping and swung a fist at me, probably intending to finish me off. It wasn’t that surprising; no matter how big he got, his body was still person-shaped. The ability to cause harm aside, a person’s arms were usually way more accurate than their legs.

The fist came straight for me. The old giant was probably sure it was going to hit. That only made sense; not many people could move at their full capacity right after getting their arm crushed from the shoulder down. “Not many” wasn’t “none” though. The world was a big place, and a lot of people in it were unbelievable outliers. It should go without saying that I was including myself in that statement.

I waited until the very last moment, then dodged out of the way before the fist hit me.

“What?!” The old giant made to pull his arm back in surprise, but before he could, I jumped onto it.

I didn’t stop there though. I ran along it up to his shoulder, my sword grasped tightly in my hand. It probably wasn’t hard for him to realize what I was about to do, but that still put him on the back foot in this situation. I swung my sword imbued with mana and spirit at the old giant’s face.

Slash!

I felt the weight of my strike landing at the same time I heard the sound of it cutting into flesh. I’d landed a hit...but unfortunately, it hadn’t connected with my intended target. The old giant’s crazy reaction speed hadn’t dulled at all. He’d managed to get his hand in the way of my slash before it could hit his face.

“Ngah!” Then, with a half-groan, half-shout, he reached out to grab me with his injured hand.

I couldn’t let him catch me, obviously, but I didn’t know how to go about getting away. My fastest option was...well, it was probably just jumping off him. It wasn’t like the fall would kill me, after all. And while climbing down was also an option, I got the feeling that he wasn’t easygoing enough to just wait for me to do so. Instead, I steeled my resolve and leaped into the air. The old giant had likely realized that would be my only option, though, and sure enough...

“You’re not going anywhere!” he shouted, flinging his hand out toward me.

I would’ve said that I was scared he was going to catch me, but that would’ve been a lie. I channeled as much spirit as I could muster into my back. The old giant’s hand shot forward and closed around me...but I was already gone, my previously free-falling body having shifted suddenly to the side. That hadn’t actually been the direction I’d wanted to go in, but, hey, trying to maintain fine control over what I was doing was hard.

“Wha—?! Get back here!” The giant reached out for me again, but the moment he did...

“Glacies Cometes!”

A massive ball of ice came flying toward the old giant from the side. It wasn’t as big as him by any means—just a third of his size—but that was still pretty impressive. It would’ve taken a mage with a lot of mana to create it.

No matter how strong the old giant was, or how fast he could react, dodging a huge chunk of ice that had appeared out of nowhere would’ve been a hard ask for anybody. It crashed straight into him and sent him reeling.

“Nice timing,” I muttered to myself as I channeled spirit into my back again. This time, I was trying to land on the ground. Maybe it was because I was able to take things slower while the old giant was recovering his balance, but my control didn’t slip, and I successfully headed for my intended destination.

That’s right; I was flying. If someone else had been looking at me, they would’ve seen bat-like wings sprouting out of my back. If I channeled mana into my wings, they’d help me float, whereas if I channeled spirit into them, it gave me a difficult-to-control form of propulsion...and that was pretty much it.

Since they were hard to use, I normally avoided bringing them out in combat, but this was the perfect time for them to shine. They had, after all, helped me avoid the old giant catching and crushing me, and it was thanks to them that I’d get to feel the sweet, sweet sensation of the ground beneath my feet again.

Only one teensy problem remained: the ground in question was currently coming straight at me at a pretty menacing rate.

Like I said before, my wings were difficult to control, so even though I’d somehow got myself going in the right direction, it didn’t look like a soft landing was going to be in my future.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Hrngf!”

My awkward landing, by which I mean my collision with the ground, forced a weird grunt out of me. I stood up right away and dashed for a section of the surrounding woods that the old giant hadn’t torn up yet. We were close to the village, meaning people used this area of the woods, so there was enough space between the trees to move about, and it wouldn’t be too hard to get my bearings once I was deeper in either.

But it was a different story for the old giant. He was taller than the trees themselves. From his point of view, it would just look like a sea of foliage. It would be hard for him to find us underneath it.

The old giant was strong and fast enough to seem like an unbeatable opponent, but his size came with some unexpected disadvantages. Still, he probably knew that already and had ways to deal with them. He didn’t seem like the type to overlook that kind of thing.

“Clever! But I can still see you!”

The old giant began swiping his fists in the direction I was running. Apparently, he couldn’t see me as well as he claimed, though, because his aim was worse than it had been before. Still, since his attacks were so wide-reaching to begin with, a lot of the swipes were closer calls than I would’ve liked.

As I was running around wondering what I should do next, I caught a sudden glance of Augurey to my flank.

“Rentt!” he shouted, dashing over to run by my side.

Although the sound of the old giant’s fists crashing through the trees was much louder, I’d still managed to hear Augurey’s shout.

“Augurey! What’s wrong?!”

“Lorraine said the only way we’re winning this is if we hit him hard! Really hard!”

Evidently, Augurey had come by to fill me in on our battle plan. After thinking about it, I realized Lorraine had made the right call. My chipping away at the old giant was making some progress, but at the end of the day, I was only scratching him. I hadn’t been able to convert any of my hits into a finishing blow.

My mana and spirit weren’t limitless either. I had already put a decent amount of my strength into my sword—the only thing that had gotten me past the old giant’s sheer durability. He really wasn’t making this easy.

“But how?!” I yelled. “It’s not like we can just plop her in front of him!”

“We have to bait him somewhere where she can land a spell on him! Just like we did with the aqua hatul!”

The aqua hatul, huh? Back then, we’d caught it by chasing it to a spot where Lorraine had laid a trap in the form of a magical cage. Doing the same with the old giant would be impossible, obviously, but I supposed Augurey meant that we should get him to chase us. I figured that was definitely doable, given that we were already doing it.

“Where?!” I asked.

“This way!” Augurey shouted, running forward and taking the lead. He was as fast as you might expect of somebody who was Silver-class. He’d enhanced his body, but it had probably been with spirit and not magic.

It was one thing if you had the mana to spare, but if you were picking between the two, then spirit offered you more stamina. For adventurers, it was a favorite among the warrior types. All the same, spellblades and such had their own methods, and... Well, whatever, you get the idea.

Anyway, Augurey and I ran. We had an old giant on our tail, and we needed to lead him into a trap.

◆◇◆◇◆

“They’re here!”

Lorraine could see the giant advancing through the woods toward her, crashing through the trees and uprooting them like a destructive tornado. His sheer size had invoked an instinctual kind of fear inside her when she’d seen him up close earlier, but seeing him from far away was scary too in its own way. When she thought about how giants had been much more common in bygone eras and how they’d probably menaced humans at times, it made her wonder how the latter had even survived to flourish today.

That said, she could ponder the past later. Right now, there was only one thing she needed to do: conjure up an attack powerful enough to take the giant out.

In order to give herself the clearest shot at her target, Lorraine had asked Augurey to tell Rentt to “bait the giant somewhere where I can hit him in the flank with a spell.” It seemed Augurey had done his job, because the old giant was heading in the exact direction they’d planned for.

All that was left was to mold her mana, construct her spell, and fire it, but that was easier said than done. Not even Lorraine had an inexhaustible supply of mana. It didn’t help that she’d probably dipped into it more than necessary with the Glacies Cometes she’d cast earlier. The spell wasn’t originally supposed to create a ball of ice that large—it had just ended up that way because she’d cobbled it together with brute force. She still had mana to work with, of course, but not enough that she was fully reassured regarding what she was about to do.

Be that as it may, it wasn’t like she had a choice. A cloud of dust was steadily approaching. Rentt and Augurey were probably just under the giant, running like crazy. If she failed, it’d be the end for all of them. She couldn’t let that happen.

Lorraine began molding her mana. Since she didn’t know what kind of abilities the old giant possessed, she did so as carefully as she could, to avoid his notice. It took her more time than it usually would have, but she had a rough estimate of her target’s speed and distance. So long as she stayed calm, everything would be fine. And then the time came.

“Lorraine!”

She heard Rentt’s voice. It hadn’t been that loud; in fact, the sound of the giant destroying the surroundings had almost drowned it out. Still, Lorraine had heard it. It would’ve been impossible for her to miss. Her eyes flashed open, and the moment the old giant stepped into the spot she’d picked, she recited her chant.

“Terra Cavus!”

A vast amount of mana aggregated around the old giant’s feet, creating a loud boom as it caved in the surrounding earth. The hole was big enough to fit the old giant’s entire body. The sudden lack of footing caused him to fall, but he quickly began to pick himself back up. However, Lorraine wasn’t finished.

“Not yet! Yiesh Gadólmagén!”

A large number of sizable metal lances formed into existence, each one packed with a potent amount of mana that enhanced its strength. The moment they fully manifested, they shot straight for the fallen giant.

The old giant’s skin was tough enough to repel one of Rentt’s spirit-charged sword strikes, but Lorraine hadn’t held back from packing her lances full of mana, giving them a significant amount of destructive power. Nonetheless, although they pierced the old giant’s body, they did so with difficulty, and none of the wounds they caused seemed serious. His sheer sturdiness was impressive.

“And now, finally... Hazina Barqrasūl!”

In the blink of an eye, swirling black clouds formed in the sky, from which shot forth a colossal thunderbolt. It struck the old giant with a deafening crack, and the light it gave off turned the surroundings a pure, blinding white.

◆◇◆◇◆

The area was filled with the reek of burnt flesh and the unique, stimulating odor that lingered after a lightning strike. Coupled with all of the dust in the air, it was pretty unpleasant. That aside, it seemed like Lorraine’s spells had worked. There were probably beings out there who could have endured that onslaught, but I felt fairly certain there weren’t very many.

“That was...ridiculous,” Augurey said. The two of us had barely made it out of the range of Lorraine’s spells and seen it all up close.

If I’d been hit by that, I had a feeling that not even my undead body could have avoided being obliterated. And while I didn’t feel pain, evidently I did still feel fear, because my instincts were telling me that if that thunderbolt had hit me, I would have been gone for good. Did that mean I was alive, even though I was undead? The meaning of life and other similarly philosophical questions were on the verge of getting loose and spinning around in my head, but I tamped them down. Now wasn’t the time.

“They do say an experienced mage is worth an entire army,” I said. “And after seeing that, I can understand why.”

“An army, huh?” Augurey replied. “Something tells me just one wouldn’t have been enough. I’d never seen any of those spells before.”

“Lorraine knows a decent amount of ancient spells. I wouldn’t be surprised if those were all examples. She said she doesn’t use them much since they take a lot of mana, but I guess even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be the kind of magic you’d use every day anyhow.”

The old giant had smashed, crushed, and uprooted a sizable chunk of the woods, but Lorraine had been no slouch herself when it came to the sheer amount of destruction caused.

I’d been treating the old giant like a monster, but apparently we’d had another monster in our party this whole time. Make that two, actually; I couldn’t forget to count myself. Wait, did that mean Augurey was the only normal person? I felt kind of guilty all of a sudden. Well, whatever. It had been his requests that had led to all this. I figured that made us even.

“Still, you think that was enough?” Augurey asked, his expression grim. “I mean, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t, but...”

He was looking at the old giant, but the surrounding trees were still smoking from the thunderbolt, so neither of us were able to confirm anything yet. I was fairly sure it was over, but it never hurt to make sure.

The smoke gradually cleared, giving us a view of something massive and burnt—the old giant. He wasn’t completely charred all over—probably because he was too big—but a lot of him had been scorched black and brown. The thunderbolt had clearly hit its mark.

I couldn’t see any of Lorraine’s metal lances, so I figured that they’d run out of mana. The punctures they’d made into the old giant were still there, however, and I could see smoke sputtering out of them. It looked like the thunderbolt had penetrated pretty deep.

Despite the old giant’s size and despite how much he defied common sense, at the end of the day, he was still a living being. A powerful thunderbolt passing through his entire body was nothing to sneeze at.

“We got him, right?” Augurey muttered. We were both slowly approaching the old giant. We held our swords aloft, though, ready for the possibility that he’d get up.

Augurey reached the old giant and poked him with the tip of his sword. No response.

“Looks like we did,” Augurey said, turning back to me. “Thank goodness for that.”

But just as he was breathing a sigh of relief...

“Augurey!” I yelled.

With a rush of wind, the old giant’s arm swung out wide. I grabbed Augurey and jumped back, quickly making some distance.

“Grrraaahhh!” The old giant let out a half-human, half-bestial cry, and began to slowly sit up. He placed his hand on the ground, and with a hard push, made to stand.

“You’re kidding me!” Augurey said. He was still in my arms, watching the old giant.

I couldn’t blame him for being shocked; I was too. “Incredible” didn’t even begin to describe the amount of endurance and toughness it would take to stand up after eating a spell onslaught like that. The old giant was a monster who broke all the rules, pure and simple.

“It hurt him though,” I said, letting Augurey down. “That’s for sure.”

Observing the old giant calmly, I could tell that his movements were definitely duller. I could hear his joints cracking too as he made to stand. Lorraine’s thunderbolt had done a lot of damage.

Finally, the old giant rose to his feet. A pair of bloodshot eyes on a scorched face focused on Augurey and me, and with a snarl, he came straight for us. All traces of his former composure were gone.

“Augurey! Can you keep going?!” I shouted.

“I can do this all day! The only problem is, how are we going to bring him down?”

“I’ll do it. I’ve got a trump card I can use. I don’t know if my sword can handle doing it more than once though, so if I miss, we’re done for.”

The old giant had started his assault on us already, so we were calling out to each other as we dodged. The “trump card,” I was talking about was divinity-mana-spirit fusion. Although my sword had been forged to withstand any of the three, it probably couldn’t resist all of them together.

The technique caused anything it hit to violently crumple in on itself, and it was likely that the same would happen to my sword. That was why I wanted to avoid using it as much as possible, but if now wasn’t the right time, then I didn’t know what was. There was a chance it wouldn’t even work, or that it wouldn’t be enough to be a finishing blow, but it was better than doing nothing and just waiting to lose. If I was going to lose—not that I had any intention of doing so—it would only be after I’d given everything I had. And even then, I was preparing myself to run before I went down.

Escaping hadn’t seemed like an option before, but now that the old giant was so injured, the three of us could probably manage it. I doubted he’d chase after us in the state he was in, and I was confident in our ability to get away too.

That raised the problem of Ferrici and the villagers, but I supposed we could always just evacuate them somewhere. Either that or take Goblin and Siren as hostages and try to strike a bargain. It was definitely villainous of me to consider that, but, hey, whatever means necessary.

At any rate, none of that was important compared to what I had to do right now, so it was probably best that I focused on the present.

“All or nothing, huh?” Augurey said. “All right, I don’t hate it. I’m the decoy this time, right?”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I’ll just run if it looks like I’m going to die, so don’t blame me if that happens. Besides, I can’t let you and Lorraine do all the work.”

“I’m counting on you, then. But don’t overdo it. Unlike me, you can’t get crushed and walk away in one piece.”

Although, the truth was that I couldn’t exactly do that either, given I didn’t know how many times it would take before I vanished completely. I could probably guess based on the young vampires I’d encountered in Maalt, but that was far from being a sure thing.

Long story short, the danger was mutual. Augurey and I would just have to do the best we could. We steeled ourselves for the task at hand—not that we hadn’t been ready before.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Hey! Over here!” Augurey shouted. True to what he’d just told me, he’d deliberately run out right in front of the old giant to act as a decoy.

The problem was whether our opponent would take the bait, but I’d figured that if he couldn’t see me, he’d have no choice but to go for the only visible target. Therefore, I used Division and hid myself in the shadows of the woods to ensure he focused his attention on Augurey.

If anybody saw me in this state, unless they were clued in on what I was, they’d think of me as nothing more than a patch of shadow. Although the old giant probably had some idea that I wasn’t normal, I doubted that he’d figured out enough about me to know I could turn myself into darkness.

I was proven right. The old giant glanced my way for a moment, but it didn’t seem like he’d noticed me, because he soon switched his focus back to Augurey and began moving away. He might even have been suspecting some kind of trap, but he’d been left with no choice anyway.

I was worried about how well Augurey would hold out, but to my surprise, he was doing just fine. The fact that his combat style focused on speed instead of power was paying off. Part of it was that his opponent’s movements had dulled considerably, but Augurey was dodging the old giant’s attacks with room to spare. Of course, that did nothing to detract from the danger Augurey was in, since all it would take was one slipup for him to suffer a serious injury—or even possibly die.

The sooner I took the old giant down, the better. I thought about where I should aim my strike and came to the conclusion that going for the head was probably my best bet. The old giant had already proven that his arms and legs could take a beating and still keep going. In that case, how was I going to reach his head? I considered using my wings to fly up, but that was too risky. I only had one chance at this; I couldn’t waste it on something so uncertain. I had to think of something else—

“Ah!”

But before I could, I saw Augurey’s foot catch against the root of a tree.

The old giant’s fist swung at Augurey, but before it could connect, I dashed out, grabbed my friend, and ran to the side...where I realized my way was blocked by trees.

Left with no other option, I jumped as hard as I could. The old giant’s arm passed below me, only barely missing, and I landed atop it as it went by. But just as the old giant’s attention was about to focus on me, I heard the sound of a chant.

“Gadól Barák!”

A thick bolt of lightning struck the old giant. It had come from Lorraine. Clearly, she could still manage spells like this even after the grand onslaught she’d cast earlier.

A crackling sound rang in my ears as some of the lightning passed through the old giant and into me, but otherwise, I was mostly unaffected. I could still move. I didn’t have my monster body to thank this time; it was my robe that had done the job.

That being said, I had started to go a little numb, and I was pretty sure that being on the receiving end of any more would be a bad idea. I leaped off the old giant while he was busy recoiling from the lightning and once again hid in the trees.

I dropped Augurey off, and then, noticing that the only sound he was making was incoherent babbling, healed him up with a little bit of divinity.

“Wow, that spell did a number on me,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t get the job done.”

I didn’t think that was true, given his performance out there. On top of that, it had just given me an idea. It was relatively simple, but I thought it had a chance of working out. I told Augurey, and he nodded.

“That...might just work. I mean, it’s not too different from what you just did. Well, it’s still crazy, but this is you we’re talking about.”

And so I had Augurey’s approval.

The two of us went out to take on the old giant again. Augurey, just like earlier, ran out in front and began dodging his attacks. Meanwhile, I kept a close eye on him, waiting for the perfect time...

Now!

I broke into the fastest sprint I could manage. The old giant had thrown a punch, and as a result, he was slightly hunched over. The slight angle between his legs and head meant that his back was a steep slope.

That’s right, slope. I jumped on. After seeing me do so, Augurey dodged out of the way of the punch without a moment to spare and fell back.

“Hmm?!” The old giant tried to stand up straight immediately.

Fortunately, I had already reached my destination: the back of his neck. It was a vital part of the body for any living creature, as well as the most vulnerable blind spot, and although some creatures were extraordinarily tough or had sharp thorns or similar defenses, a giant’s body was basically the same as a human’s, just bigger and sturdier.

In short, their vital organs and weak points were in the same places too, so the back of the old giant’s neck was the perfect spot for me to strike. Probably. Whatever the case, I was already committed. If this didn’t work, I’d just resort to my next best plan: beating a hasty retreat. As for the time being, I channeled all of my mana, divinity, and spirit into my sword and swung it as hard as I could.

The old giant was too injured to react in time. He failed to guard against my strike. It connected directly with the back of his neck, and despite the fact that I was now in a free fall through the air, I had a clear view of his flesh as it immediately began to crumple.

Then I saw a spray of blood burst forth from the old giant’s neck, accompanied by the sound of something rupturing.

“All right!” I struck a victory pose midair...then realized what was about to happen. “Wait, no, crap!”

But it was already too late. The old giant slumped limply forward and began to collapse in the same direction I was falling. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I was about to be turned into paste, and given the situation, it didn’t seem likely that I was going to get a timely rescue. Well, at least I was fairly sure that I wasn’t going to die.

Channeling spirit into my wings might’ve saved me, but unfortunately, I’d just used up every last drop of strength I had. While another ten seconds probably would’ve been enough for me to recover enough spirit to channel, I’d definitely be crushed before then.

I prayed that I wasn’t on my final squishing. I was, of course, talking about using Division to recover. I thought I could still manage it, but I couldn’t say for sure.

Then, with a loud smack, I was crushed. And I mean it—no doubts, no last-minute dodges, nothing. I was really crushed to a pulp.

◆◇◆◇◆

Reconstructing my body from pulp felt kind of strange. I used Division to temporarily become a mass of shadow, then formed myself back into my original shape. The expressions on Lorraine and Augurey’s faces as they watched me return looking none the worse for wear were difficult to read.

“I already knew you weren’t human anymore, but that really puts it into perspective,” Lorraine said.

“That’s a pretty unfair trick,” Augurey added. “Remind me never to pick a fight with you, Rentt. How’s a guy supposed to beat that? At least with giants it feels like you have a chance because you can tell that you’re slowly chipping away at them.”

I thought those were pretty awful things to say.

“It’s not like I can take an infinite amount of punishment,” I said. “Even I’d die at some point. Probably.”

I didn’t have the experience to back that up, but I had seen it happen to others before. It was a sad way to go out, and one I wanted to avoid. If I was going to die, I wanted it to be while I was at peace in bed. Then again, that was probably too much to ask for considering I was an adventurer, so I’d settle for any kind of decent death. Absentmindedly fading out of existence was just too half-baked. Did that even count as dying?

That said, I probably didn’t have the right to be picky since I’d already died once. Maybe it was fine if round two ended up being kind of a throwaway. The only thing was, I couldn’t really remember much about what my first death felt like. I’d have to make sure to commit my second one to memory if it was the last thing I ever did...which it would be.

But that was enough joking around for the time being.

“Now this is a surprise,” I said. “He looks so small now.”

I was looking at the old giant, who was now back to being a skinny old man. He was lying in the hole made by his larger self’s fall, his cloth draped over him. The sight was kind of sad and lonely, actually.

You didn’t really hear of it happening around these parts, but sometimes poverty-stricken villages and such would abandon their elderly in the woods once they’d reached a certain age. I’d come across them several times on trips out to the countryside, and it was always rough to see. I couldn’t just leave them, of course, so I’d always tell them to come with me. Returning to their home villages obviously hadn’t been an option, so I’d helped them find a place where they could earn themselves a living—which hadn’t been too difficult, actually. Turns out all you needed to do was look in the right places.

I doubted the old man lying in front of me needed to worry about that though. You could probably toss him in any old tavern and he’d easily earn his own keep by arm wrestling people and betting on it. A knightly order or the military would work too, and he’d definitely do fine as an adventurer.

I wondered why he’d picked this cloak-and-dagger business instead. Maybe the pay was good? To be honest, I had no idea.

“I think we can safely assume that his gigantification was due to some kind of special ability,” Lorraine said. “That would explain why it reverted after he lost consciousness.”

She was probably right; I couldn’t think of any better explanations.

“We can leave that for later.” Augurey shook his head. He sounded astonished. “I can’t believe it, but I think he’s still alive.”

It was easy to understand how Augurey felt. To have taken a beating like that and survived? The old man’s sheer durability was astounding.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the wound I’d made on his neck was still there, but it was a lot smaller than I’d thought it would be. It was clearly bleeding, but you couldn’t really call it a fatal injury. He’d likely gone down because my divinity-mana-spirit fusion strike had hit him hard in the back of the neck...which probably meant that I had been cutting it real close back there. Any other outcome probably would’ve ended with me lying in the dirt.

“Should we finish him off?” I asked. “We’re done for if he wakes up and gigantifies again.”

“You’re right, but I want to hear what he has to say,” Lorraine said. “We still don’t know exactly why we’re being targeted. Although, I do have a decent idea.”

I did too. It wasn’t that hard to connect the dots. This had all happened right after we’d met the princess, so the person who’d sent the assassins after us was most assumably one of her enemies. Chances were it was one of her royal siblings or their supporters.

Still, that was the extent of what I could deduce. Lorraine was right about wanting the specifics. Our future options hinged on having that information. The princess would probably want to hear it too, so perhaps that could give us some breathing room in our negotiations with her.

“So...what now?” I asked. “Should we cut him up so he can’t move?”

I knew it was a pretty horrifying suggestion to make, but that just went to show how strong the old man was. If we left him alive, it would be hard to keep him in check. I wasn’t sure we had any other option.

Augurey’s face lit up like he’d suddenly remembered something. “Oh, how about this? I figured they might come in handy at some point, so I kept some on me. I know you can’t usually force a person into one, but we’ve got Lorraine with us. You think it’ll work?”

He pulled a familiar-looking set of documents out of his bag.

“A magic contract, huh?” I said. “That’s not a bad idea. You’re right that we’d usually need the person’s consent, but we could probably trick a contract of this quality.”

I made it sound simple, but it was a feat only possible because we had Lorraine. Your average mage wouldn’t know how, and even if they tried, it’d take them a lot of effort.

On top of that, magic contracts came in varying qualities to suit the occasion. The better one was, the harder it was to meddle with. Anyhow, it was convenient that the option was open to us.

“Should we restrict him from using his ability without our permission?” I asked. “He’s stupidly strong even without it though. What do we do if he gets out of control?”

“Make it so he dies if he does that,” Lorraine replied.

There was a pause.

“That was a joke,” she said. “It’s not a terrible option, but it’s not really a clean one either. It’d be hard for a magic contract of this quality to enforce that in the first place. We’d need a potent one from a temple of Hozei for that. The best this will let us do is restrict his ability. Even then, chances are high it’ll break easily, since we don’t have his consent. It didn’t seem as if he could do much magic, though, so I’ll just restrict his mana usage.”

Lorraine sounded disappointed as she explained things while quickly drafting the contract. After she finished, she began casting some kind of suspicious spell on the old man...

Just kidding. She was doing exactly what she’d said she would: setting up a field that temporarily prevented the use of magic. A magic contract was a type of magic item, so if you wanted to break the agreement that it dictated, you needed to use magic too.

The final issue was getting his signature, but just because he was unconscious didn’t mean we couldn’t get it. In fact, as far as magic contracts were concerned, a thumbprint was fine too. Most people didn’t do it, because you’d have to make a small cut and use some of your own blood, but given the circumstances we were in...

In the first place, Lorraine was doing all the work of tricking the contract. All I had to do was cap it off by pressing the old man’s thumb to it.

I made a small nick on this thumb, which actually took some effort. What was his skin made of? Rock? At any rate, I pressed it to the contract. I decided to be the other party, which meant that my consent would be necessary to annul it later on. I didn’t have any terms forced on me though, so in that sense, it differed from general business contracts. That was why it had been given its own unique term, “magic contract,” and... Whatever. Now wasn’t the time to get into all that.

I signed my name on the contract and Lorraine muttered some kind of spell over it. From the way it glowed, I could tell it had successfully been completed. Now we just had to pray that he wouldn’t gigantify when he woke up. More accurately, the hope was that nothing would happen even if he did.

Either way, that took care of that problem. We could explain the contract to him after he calmed down. The only issue would be whether he’d talk to us, but Lorraine had also added a few detailed clauses that would prevent him from doing things like lying to us. She was thorough like that. The only thing left to do now was to wait for him to wake up.

◆◇◆◇◆

After a while had passed...

“Ngh...”

The old man shook his head and opened his eyes. Surprisingly, he didn’t lash out immediately. Instead, he took the time to examine his surroundings. After looking at each of us in turn, he sighed.

“You’re not going to gigantify?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to, but the question had slipped from my mouth.

The old man shook his head. “I’m not sure how long I was out, but I’m sure you came up with a countermeasure for that. There’s no other explanation for why I’m still alive. I won’t waste the effort.”

I was impressed that he’d grasped the situation already.

“Thanks for saving us the time,” Lorraine said. “I’ll give you the specifics, then. We’ve made it so that you can’t gigantify without our permission. You can’t lie to us either. Why don’t you try it out?”

He proceeded to do just that by tensing up, although where exactly, I couldn’t tell.

“Hrng...!”

We still didn’t know how he activated his ability, but evidently he triggered it by focusing power somewhere. On the other hand, his tensing up could just be a habit with little meaning.

Nevertheless, he seemed to reach the conclusion that we’d told him the truth. He sighed again.

“You’re right. I can’t. I’m no better than any other old man now. Don’t suppose you could undo these bindings, could you?”

Lorraine had cast magical bindings on him to restrict his movements. Apparently, he wanted them off.

“With all due respect,” Augurey replied, “your brute strength is really nothing to sneeze at, even at this size. You’d pick a fight as soon as we undid them. So, no.”

I figured Augurey was right and that was exactly what the old man was after.

“Goodness me.” The old man sniffed, proving us right. “You couldn’t have let your guard down even a little bit?”

We really couldn’t have, not against someone as sharp as him. Fortunately, not even he could do much in this situation, and it seemed like he knew that.

The old man glanced around at us. “So? You’ve got me bound and alive. I’m guessing that means you have questions for me. Ask them.”

You’d think he had us captive with how haughty he was, but I could kind of understand his defiance, seeing as how thoroughly bound up he was.

“It’s always something unexpected with you, isn’t it?” Lorraine said. “Well, whatever. I’ll get straight to the point. Why did you come after us? And I’m including Goblin and Siren as part of that.”

“Straight to the point indeed,” the old man replied. “But I’m not obligated to talk... Ah, no, looks like I can’t get away with staying silent. The reason’s simple. The second princess summoned you to meet with her. That’s that.”

From the look of things, the old man had tried keeping his mouth shut to avoid being forced to tell us the truth, but it hadn’t worked out—he was coming clean with us. I’d heard that trying to resist “no lying” or “no staying silent” clauses in magic contracts made you feel restless and itchy, and your mouth would end up speaking even if you didn’t want it to. I hadn’t experienced it for myself, though. I kind of wanted to try it once, but seeing as how that would probably only happen if I landed myself in deep trouble of some kind, I thought better of it.

At any rate, the old man had given us the exact reason we’d been expecting.

Lorraine sighed. “I knew it but was that really all it took? To be frank with you, all we did was make small talk and drink tea. Surely that shouldn’t qualify us as a target for monsters like you.”

Lorraine wasn’t wrong, exactly. That was pretty much what had actually happened, if you left out the specifics. Just because we were questioning the old man didn’t mean we had to give him any information to work with, especially since he seemed perceptive enough to make good guesses from even small tidbits. That was probably why Lorraine had phrased her words the way she had—to give him as little information as possible. But the old man’s reply was unexpected.

“I understand why you’d want to play dumb, but we more or less already know what you talked about with the second princess. The scepter of the kingdom, no? His Majesty’s current condition too.”

“What are you talking about?” Lorraine asked.

“Don’t bother,” the old man replied. “If we hadn’t known that much, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. And considering your capabilities, I’d guess she probably ordered you to go and retrieve the new scepter. She did well to find you though; I’ll give her that. I was convinced we’d suppressed all of her standout options already.”

The old man had pretty much hit the mark, but he was still a little off. It sounded like he didn’t know that, while the princess had asked us to go fetch the new scepter, in the end, it had turned into more of a conditional thing. Technically, we didn’t have any orders right now. He also didn’t seem to know about the prophecy she’d told us about.

Even so, how had he found out? I didn’t think there had been any spying magic items in the room. The princess would have accounted for that kind of thing. Even if she hadn’t, Lorraine would’ve noticed. Given her next question, though, it seemed like Lorraine had figured something out from the old man’s information.

“You hired a diviner, didn’t you? They must have been pretty good too.”

“Ho! You’re sharp. Yes, from what I heard, they’ve never got anything wrong. We actually had them look into my past as a test, and they were able to give very specific answers. Some of which were...a little off, actually. In any case, it was obvious that you three were too dangerous to leave alive. That was why we were ordered to kill you.”

Similar to how the high elves had given the princess a prophecy, people called diviners could see into the past and future. Some were genuinely accurate too. However, since it was pretty hard to discern truth from lies with that kind of thing, most of them were considered to be scam artists. Nonetheless, taking into account the old man’s explanation, his employer had succeeded in hiring a real diviner. Talk about getting lucky.

Still, I wondered why they weren’t aware of the most important details. Even the diviner must have been curious. They must have looked into it, right? Either way, thinking about it wouldn’t get me anywhere.

Although...there were folktales about that kind of thing—gods interfering with divination and stuff like that. And this whole affair involved the high elves’ prophecy, meaning it involved the Holy Tree, which was apparently close to being a god itself. Maybe that was why the divination had been kind of shortsighted.

Lorraine then asked the most important question of all.

“So, who was it that gave you those orders?”

◆◇◆◇◆

“The first princess, Her Royal Highness Nadia Regina Yaaran,” the old man said. “But, no, not quite. Her Royal Highness isn’t actually aware of these matters.”

Lorraine pressed deeper. “Then who is the ringleader?”

“Need you even ask? Countess Gisel Georgiou—Her Royal Highness’s greatest backer. She’s a valiant woman who wants the first princess to one day succeed the throne.”

“That makes sense,” Lorraine said.

It sounded like our guesses about the first princess had been correct. She—well, her followers, really, which made things messier—had targeted us because we’d developed a connection with the second princess, and that had turned us into a problem.

If it had been the first princess herself, we could have reported this attack to the second princess, which might have given her a basis upon which to denounce her sister, but since it was only a backer...

All the same, it would lead to ramifications, of course, but I doubted it would be enough to topple the first princess herself.

That kind of detailed political maneuvering wasn’t in our wheelhouse anyway—we were adventurers. Letting the second princess know and wishing her luck was probably the way to go, except I didn’t especially want to paint another target on our backs. I couldn’t really think of a good solution.

Still, royalty sure had it rough. Having to scheme around your own family like that was... Wait, was that even the case here? The first princess hadn’t actually come up with this plan. I wasn’t sure how good a relationship she had with her sister either. I’d assumed that if anybody was out to get the second princess, it would be the first prince or first princess, but truth be told, I had no idea how they felt about each other. Maybe I’d ask the next time I got the chance.

“In short, your employer is Countess Gisel Georgiou?” Lorraine asked.

The old man nodded. “Although, technically, that isn’t quite right either. It’s true that she hired Goblin, Siren, and me, but we actually belong to an organization, which sold our services to her for a certain period of time.”

“Organization?”

“Yes. One made up of people with unique or special abilities like us. We’re dispatched to all kinds of jobs depending on what’s needed. This was one of them.”

Augurey’s eyes went wide in surprise. “I never would’ve guessed a group like that existed...”

The old man smiled. “You might already know this, but we ability wielders aren’t exactly celebrated. It’s the same story everywhere you go. Rural villages are even worse with how they treat us. Being driven out is the best we can hope for; sometimes they even kill us. The organization rescues such people, raises them into fully-fledged assassins, and gives them work. It’s a charity, really. Not a bad deal, no? I’m sure my fellow monster there understands.”

He’d directed that last part at me. A monster, huh? Ouch. From the sound of it, he’d mistaken me for another ability wielder, which was understandable. It’d be hard for anyone to tell that I was actually a monster-monster without an up close examination. If they did find out, I’d have to dispose of them.

I decided to let the old man remain mistaken. All the same, who could’ve guessed an organization like that existed? The world sure was a big place, which was probably how I would make others feel too, if they knew about me. Besides, even though the old man’s premise was mistaken, I got what he was saying.

People with strange abilities were unwelcome and excluded. In other words, they were treated with the same fear that I’d felt from others during my time as a skeleton and ghoul. If people could tell you were different at a glance, then you were already fighting an uphill battle for their approval.

You’d get accused of being different, you’d be driven away, and you’d be kept out. In a sense, those instincts were how the weak maintained and protected their place in this world, but to their even weaker victims, it would only feel like everything and everyone had abandoned them.

I had been lucky; I’d had Lorraine, Rina, Sheila, and even Augurey—kindhearted people who’d accepted me even when I became a monster.

But if I hadn’t had them, then in all likelihood, I would’ve ended up as nothing more than a genuine monster in heart and body. Wandering in the wilderness away from society, killing and eating people—just thinking about it scared me. I understand why an organization like the one the old man had described would seem like a source of salvation to ability wielders.

It was also a terrifying opponent to go up against. If the old man was anything to go by, then ability wielders were scary. If people like him came after me all the time, I’d need a lot more lives.

Lorraine, Augurey, and I, after some consideration, decided to consult each other about what the old man had said. To prevent him from hearing us, Lorraine set up a barrier.

“Any ideas about what we should do?” she asked. “We know who our enemies are now, but...”

“Well, first things first. How about we ask if he can get them to back off?” Augurey suggested.

I thought that was being too optimistic, personally, but there wasn’t any harm in trying.

“Why not?” I said. “If it works, great. If it doesn’t, we’ll figure out what to do from there.”

Lorraine nodded. “I suppose. We also have the option of going to the countess and this ‘organization’ to speak with them directly. Although, it would be fairly risky.”

I wanted to avoid a place filled with people like the old man as much as humanly possible, but I couldn’t deny that we’d probably have to go eventually. Asking the second princess to make amends with—or at least do something about—her older sister was an option too, but I had no idea if that was even possible.

“I guess we start with the easiest and work our way up,” I said, marking the end of our group discussion.

Lorraine dropped her barrier and turned to the old man. “I’m aware that I might be asking for the impossible, but could you call your people off us? Or, if you don’t personally have the authority to do that, could you arrange a meeting for us with someone who can?”

That would probably end up being the countess or the organization’s leader, both of which seemed like pretty far-fetched options.

But after some consideration, the old man said, “Hmm. Why not? I’m a dead man as it stands anyway.”

Despite being the ones who’d asked, we were kind of surprised.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I know it was our idea, but is this really okay?” Lorraine asked as we walked.

We’d more or less come to an agreement, but it was still kind of hard to believe. It was also a little suspicious how quickly the old man had accepted our request.

As for where we were walking to, we were on our way back to Ferrici. And if you were wondering, the old man was still bound up with magic. He could only move his legs.

It was reassuring knowing that he couldn’t gigantify anymore, but his base physical ability was still amazing in its own right. We were making him walk in front of us and were ready to react the moment he did anything fishy.

To paint a picture of the scene, a guy in a skull mask, a shady mage, and a gaudy show-off had ordered a bound old man to walk in front of them and were keeping an eye on him from behind. I was convinced people would think we were slave traders or something if they saw us. To be fair, the old man did seem like he’d sell for a lot. If we decided to use this opportunity to make a career switch, we could probably make a killing.

“I said as much earlier, but odds are I’m already dead,” the old man said. “It’d be obvious to anybody that I botched the job. I can’t exactly waltz right back like nothing happened. I suppose I could go on the run, but the other two would never last if they did the same.”

“Do you mean Goblin and Siren?” I asked. “I guess you’re right. They didn’t really seem like they knew their way around a fight.”

“Come to think of it, I know this is rather late of me now, but is Siren all right?” the old man asked. “I thought there was a chance you might’ve killed her.”

He looked relaxed; his shoulders were loose as he walked. Despite that, his nerve in the face of the situation made it clear he was someone you could never underestimate.

Not for the first time, I found myself amazed by him. While I didn’t want to give him any information, I figured it would probably be fine if I told him his colleague was okay. After talking with him so much, I could tell that he was the type who really cared about his allies. Maybe that mindset stemmed from the way the world treated ability wielders.

Everybody got lonely when left to their own devices. Back when I had been stuck in the dungeon, I’d sometimes worried if I would be alone forever. I didn’t like to think back on those times much.

I exchanged looks with Lorraine and Augurey, and we all seemed to agree that it would be okay to answer the old man.

“She’s fine,” Augurey said. “We didn’t torture her or anything. Er...we didn’t, right?”

He’d directed that last uneasy part at Lorraine. She’d been the one who’d questioned Siren, and we weren’t sure how she’d done it. It wasn’t completely impossible that she’d done some pretty horrible things to force a confession.

“Not at all,” Lorraine replied. “I can’t really say I injured her in any physical way, and her mind is fine too. I can assure you that her sense of self is the same as it always was.”

I thought that was kind of a suspicious way to phrase it, but I could probably take it to mean that Siren was fine. Right? Right. I hoped so, at least.

The old man didn’t seem particularly concerned. Instead, he breathed a rare sigh of relief. “I see. That’s good.” Then, after a moment, he added, “I told you I’d take you to my employer earlier, yes?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re backing out of that now,” I said. Just thinking about the kind of mess we’d have to deal with if he did that exhausted me, and that probably came through in my tone.

The old man smiled. “Relax. I’ll keep my word. But we do need a way of getting in touch. I’d like to have Goblin and Siren act as messengers.”

Oh, he was talking about how we were going to do this. He was probably right too. If we dragged him in by the scruff of the neck and asked to see their boss, it would only break out into a fight then and there. That was probably going to be our last resort anyway, but it was called a last resort for a reason. Giving advance notice that we’d be coming was probably a good idea.

“You’re right. We do need that,” Augurey said. He sounded concerned. “It’s just, I’m not sure if we can trust them.”

Which was true. It was entirely possible that if we sent either one back as a messenger, it would only result in a group of people as monstrous as the old man coming after us, so we obviously couldn’t just smile and nod along with his suggestion. However, it seemed like he’d already taken that into account.

“It’s only natural you wouldn’t trust us,” the old man remarked. “That said, we do need a messenger. Would it help a little if you kept one as a hostage and sent the other? Personally, I recommend sending Goblin. I can’t be sure Siren won’t do something unnecessary. So, how about it?”

Truth be told, we didn’t have much in the way of other options. Siren was definitely the overly confident, make-a-name-for-herself type, so there was always the chance she’d abandon the old man and Goblin if we let her go.

I had no idea what the old man would do if we let him go himself, which was scary. And if we sent both Goblin and Siren, then he might just cut and run. The only remaining option was to send Goblin as our messenger and keep the old man and Siren with us as hostages.

“Fine, let’s go with that,” Lorraine said, after seeing Augurey and me nod. “But you mentioned how risky going back would be. Will he be all right?”

Goblin was far, far weaker than the old man in a fight. If the worst came to pass, sending him back alone would be equivalent to being responsible for his death.

“As long as I’m here, he’ll be fine,” the old man said. “They’ll just wonder if I have some kind of plan up my sleeve. Despite how I may seem, I’m one of the better fighters in our organization. That is, as long as I get to use my ability.”

“Hmm? Do you mean to say...”

“It’s not hard to deduce, no? We’re an organization of ability wielders. It’s only natural we’d have ways of countering them too. My monster fellow there—Rentt, was it? You’d best stay on your guard too.”

I thought his warning probably didn’t mean much, in light of his misunderstanding of me, but the fact he’d given it at all made a good case for him not being heartless. In fact, he seemed more the caring type, if anything. He just didn’t hold back when it came to his enemies.

That was why I said, “Got it. I’ll be careful. Thanks for the warning; you didn’t have to do that.”

The old man looked at me strangely. “And you didn’t have to thank me. You’re an odd one yourself, you know.”

◆◇◆◇◆

When we met up with Ferrici, she pelted us with a barrage of questions, which was only to be expected. It wasn’t too long ago that the surrounding area had experienced a series of massive impacts and explosions. There’d been a giant sticking out of the woods, and a ridiculously powerful lightning strike too. If I didn’t know better, I probably would’ve believed somebody if they’d told me the world was ending. That said, we couldn’t exactly give Ferrici all the specifics, but that didn’t mean we had to leave her completely clueless either.

“An enemy of ours showed up, and we beat him,” I said. “And the lightning was Lorraine’s magic. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine now.”

“Really?” Ferrici asked.

Except she hadn’t asked me; she’d asked Augurey. She must have had a lot of trust in him.

Augurey smiled. “Yeah. And as for this older gentleman, he’s...one of the enemy’s allies. We still need to ask him about some things. We’re not abusing the elderly, okay?”

Explaining that part was important. We’d look like maniacs who tied up an old man if we didn’t.

Ferrici seemed to accept the explanation. Adventurers always had stuff going on that was hard for others to understand, so maybe she thought this was just a part of that. Most villagers were raised with a healthy wariness of adventurers and told to avoid getting close to them so as to not get entangled in their shenanigans. It was a different story for the adults, but it was kind of like being treated as a wild animal.

Ferrici simply responded, “I feel a little bad for him, but I guess you have no choice...”

◆◇◆◇◆

Surprisingly, after we returned, the innkeeper gave us a warm welcome. I was glad; I’d been convinced we’d arrive only to find our belongings out front and the innkeeper waiting to chase us off. That might have been almost funny, since it would’ve meant that Siren—who we’d left locked in Lorraine’s room—would’ve been dumped outside too. Then again, Lorraine had given the innkeeper some kind of explanation for her already. She was thorough when it came to that kind of thing.

We hadn’t been kicked out of the village or anything though, so I hadn’t been that worried about coming back to find all of our things thrown out.

“So, where’s Siren?” the old man asked as we entered the inn.

He knew she was in here somewhere, of course, but we hadn’t given him the specifics yet. We’d only told him that we’d caught her and restrained her.

“She’s this way.” Lorraine led us to her room. When she opened the door, we saw Siren, tied up and lying on the bed. She saw us when we entered.

“Mmmf!”

As soon as she did, she began trying to speak, but the gag we’d put in her mouth made her words unintelligible. I could tell that she wasn’t happy about the situation though, which probably went without saying. I’d hate it too if I were in her place.

“I suppose we should untie her?” Lorraine asked the old man.

Lorraine probably thought that with all the explaining that we needed to do, leaving the woman tied up would be extremely inconvenient. However, the old man—who I’d thought was the type to care about his allies—took one look at Siren and sighed.

“No, leave her be for a while,” he said. “She’ll only complain our ears off. Call Goblin over. He’ll be quicker on the uptake.”

Wow, cold.

Siren, who had been listening, began to get even louder, but everyone ignored her.

“I’ll go then,” Augurey said. He turned to the old man. “I assume we’ll be using this room for our talks?”

“That works,” the old man replied. “We do need to fill in Siren too.”

Augurey left to go and get Goblin.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Gramps... What’s going on here?”

Goblin, formerly known to us as Yattul, looked both confused and astonished as he entered the room. Augurey came in behind him and shut the door. At the sound of it closing, Goblin jumped a little. His instincts were probably telling him that he’d been trapped and surrounded.

Nevertheless, it seemed the old man had been right about Goblin’s ability to keep a cool head, because the tension quickly drained from his shoulders. He showed no signs of getting violent. I could tell that it would be much easier to explain things to him compared to Siren.

“A lot happened,” the old man said, “but I’ll get to the point. I lost—completely—in a head-on fight. So the job’s a bust.”

Unexpectedly, the person who looked the most astonished was Siren. Her constant muffled shouts stopped as her mouth slackened and shut completely. Maybe despite her antagonism toward the old man, she’d had a lot of faith in his strength. Goblin looked astonished too, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The old man continued calmly, in a tone that sounded like he was teaching them. “They were real monsters. Few times in my life have I ever met anybody so strong. I used my ability to its fullest and fought without letting my guard down, but I still lost. Can’t do anything about it except admit defeat. That’s how I truly feel.”

In contrast to the old man’s gentle words, Goblin sounded flustered. “I don’t want to believe it, but if you say so, then... But what does that mean for us?! We failed the job! I know I can’t say they’ll kill us for sure, but think about who the client is! They’ll definitely make us pay somehow!”

“Indeed,” the old man replied. “That would be troublesome, wouldn’t it? But these three made me a proposition. They want to meet the chief, to negotiate. Besides, the organization and our client bear the responsibility for this failure, not us. They didn’t provide us with accurate information. If we can make them understand that, then maybe we can all come to a peaceful solution.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“The...chief? But that’s...”

Goblin seemed reluctant, but the old man didn’t let up.

“I know how you feel. You’re thinking that’s too big a call for us to make, or that it’d be betraying the organization, but as it stands, we’re most likely dead anyway. If worse comes to worst, I could run away alone, but would you and Siren be okay with that? I won’t stop you if you are, but...”

He probably didn’t actually think he could. If Goblin refused and we couldn’t meet with their chief, then we all knew what we’d have to do with the old man. It wasn’t like we could let him come back in the future to bite us. I guessed we did have the option of letting him go on purpose, but chances were slim we’d have to make that decision, so I put thinking about it on hold for now.

“Of course not,” Goblin replied. “I don’t want to die either. I owe the organization...but not to the point I’d die for it. I was planning to retire soon anyhow.”

“Were you now?” the old man asked. “I was actually going to recommend you do that after this mission.”

“So you noticed, huh, gramps?”

“You’re a kindhearted man. Unlike me, you’re not cut out for this job. It’s a lucky thing that all that acting you did as a merchant grew into something more real.”

“Yeah. I figured I’d do fine for myself if I kept on with the peddler business. Sounds like it’s going to be a long time before I get to achieve that dream though, what with this mess happening.”

“Don’t say that. Think of it as a chance to turn this into your final job and strive for that instead. You’ll feel differently about it that way.”

“You say that, but... Bah, whatever. No sense arguing the point. Still, are you serious? About meeting the chief?”

Goblin had directed the last part directly at us. From the look of things, the old man had successfully convinced him.

“We are,” Lorraine replied. “We heard all about why you’re targeting us, and to be frank, I’ve had enough of this nonsense already. The thought of your organization sending even more people like him against us is enough to make my head spin. I honestly just want to talk to whoever’s in charge so I can put all my concerns to rest.”

That seemed to strike a chord with Goblin, because the look on his face was sympathetic. “Yeah, gramps is one of the better fighters in our organization. I heard from some of them that he used to be really wild in his younger days. It’s...actually kind of ridiculous that you beat him. I’m not doubting you or anything, especially since he admitted it himself. It’s just, there’s not many people out there who can do that.”

“We merely had a streak of lucky breaks,” Lorraine said. She turned to Augurey and me. “I never want to try anything like that again. Right?”

“Right,” I replied wearily.

“You can say that again,” Augurey said, sounding equally as exhausted.

The old man snorted. “That makes all of us then. Don’t let them fool you, Goblin. They’re more monstrous than I am. Frankly speaking, they’re bad folk to have as enemies. The reason I want them to talk to the chief is I don’t want to go up against them again. I don’t want the organization to either, for its own good. Could you pass that message along to the chief?”

“I kind of expected this,” Goblin said. “So I’m going?”

“Who else would it be?” the old man asked. “We’d just kick up a fuss if we all went together.”

“Fuss? That doesn’t sound so—”

“By ‘fuss,’ I mean we’ll all be rounded up and executed on the spot.”

“Oh, right. That kind of fuss. I guess you’re right then. But there’s a chance that’ll still happen to me if I go alone.”

“They don’t know we’ve failed yet, so I doubt it. Just trick them into letting us meet with the chief somehow. You’ll figure something out.”

“You never do sweat the small details, do you? Just like your body.”

“Maybe our abilities have an effect on our personalities too, eh? I’m counting on you.”

“Yeah, yeah. In for a bronze, in for a gold. I’ll get it done somehow.”

That was about when Siren began her muffled shouting again. Apparently, she’d finally recovered from the shock of hearing about the old man’s defeat. We turned to look at her and paused. I think we’d all almost forgotten she was there.

Then, finally, I said, “Should we untie her? We’ve kind of finished up already, so it’s probably fine, right?”

The old man nodded. “Might as well. But I’m warning you; it’s going to be loud. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“You think?” Lorraine asked. “I think it’ll be fine, personally. Here, I’ll do the honors.”

She began chanting something that sounded like a spell to release Siren’s bindings, which was exactly what happened when she finished. The mouth binding was non-magical though, so Siren removed that herself immediately once her arms and legs were free.

“Hey!” Siren shouted. “Don’t I get a say in this?! You think I’m going to sit here and let this happen?!”

“You see what I mean?” the old man commented.

“Don’t tell me she wasn’t listening,” Goblin said.

They both had their hands over their ears as they spoke. It might’ve made you wonder if they were really allies, but it was probably because they were so close that they reacted the way they did.

Siren hopped off the bed and stepped right up to them. “I was listening! Do you really think you’re going to pull that off?! Have you forgotten how scary the organization can be?!”

Even so, the old man and Goblin didn’t falter; they kept up their defensive stances.

It might have sounded like she was in hysterics, but the things she was saying were pretty reasonable. That said, she wasn’t the best at reading the room. We’d kind of reached a tidy conclusion already.

Siren turned to us next. “And you three! Like we could ever agree to—”

She cut herself off and shrunk back when Lorraine stepped forward. While the rest of us were confused by what had just happened, Lorraine brought her wand up to point it at Siren.

“I can do it again, if you want,” Lorraine said.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but from Siren’s reaction, she evidently did.

“Eek! N-No thank you! I’ve had more than enough of that already! I’ll be good, okay? I will!”

And then she began sobbing. Augurey, probably feeling as bad for her as I did, approached and gave her his handkerchief. Then, everyone in the room except Siren turned to look at Lorraine. I could tell we were all thinking the same thing: What did she do to her?

But we were all too scared to ask.