The journey, which had felt like a casual stroll while watching the clouds, had come to an end.
The atmosphere shifted with the arrival of the Giant.
Encrid adjusted the direction of his blade, gauging the Giant's reaction.
His opponent remained calm, blinking innocently like an ox.
"What are you doing? Playing with your sword?"
The Giant tilted his head as if acting stupid. His speech was slow, too. Encrid wasn't fooled by the Giant's head tilt.
Look at this bastard.
Despite his words, the Giant subtly moved his hand toward his waist, clearly preparing to block with his sword.
At the same time, the Giant began swinging the club in his right hand through the air with a whoosh.
The wind from the club's movement hit Encrid's face with a strong gust.
It didn't matter if it was just wind, the pressure from the club's swing made Encrid's eyes sting.
Squinting to protect his eyes, Encrid had two simultaneous thoughts.
'If I get hit, it won't just break something, it'll be worse.'
'Would that help me with my striking technique?'
His thoughts accompanied his actions.
He readjusted his grip on his sword, pointing its tip toward the Giant's abdomen, and shifted his stance.
"Need help?"
Dunbachel asked, though it seemed more like she wanted to release some of her frustration from being beaten by Rem for the past few days.
"No need."
Encrid refused.
The Giant's energy was remarkable, and he was a unique opponent. One Encrid did not want to miss.
As his skills improved, Encrid often felt a certain desire.
There was a pleasure in the fight itself.
But if he succumbed to it, he'd become a killing machine.
Of course, that would never happen to Encrid.
He had a dream, after all.
Still, was there really a need to deny himself all this enjoyment?
Of course not. That's why he didn't yield or let go of his opponents.
A fragment of the exhilaration he had felt while fighting ghouls grew within him, giving him something akin to joy.
Is this opponent dangerous?
Regardless of skill, getting hit by that club would shatter bones for sure, even for a Junior-Knight.
If he doesn't dodge, he might die.
In any real fight, danger was ever-present, and that added to the thrill.
Luagarne cracked her whip lazily in the air.
The Giant's gaze didn't shift, but Encrid knew the creature was already aware of everything.
It was his instincts warning him.
The Giant wasn't stupid, pretending to be was merely a tactic.
"What are you looking at?"
Encrid asked, locking eyes with the Giant.
Their gazes met.
Encrid's blue eyes were steady and bright like jewels, shining like starlight.
The Giant's eyes were dull, like dirty sand. They looked dry and earthy, a dark brown.
Outwardly, the Giant's eyes appeared innocent and dumb, but they couldn't completely hide the shrewdness within.
One could say they reeked of treachery.
The Giant's eyes darted around a few times. Encrid tried to read his thoughts but failed.
He couldn't know, of course. Encrid didn't possess the ability to read minds.
But he was sure of one thing.
This isn't going to end easily.
At that moment, the Giant stopped twirling his club in the air.
"Aren't you scared?"
The Giant's voice had become much softer, almost coaxing.
There was a hint of friendliness, or so it seemed.
The Giant had quite the talent. He changed his tone to lure his opponent into a false sense of security.
"If you leave one behind, I'll let the others live."
The Giant spoke again, not even bothering to wet his lips.
Throughout the Giant's speech, Encrid kept his eyes fixed on the Giant's gaze.
At that moment, he felt a bit sorry for Krais.
They're similar but different.
The biggest difference?
The presence of deceit.
The Giant's eyes seemed to enjoy tricking and toying with others through countless lies.
There was a vile, lowly stench about him, as if he took sadistic pleasure in it. It almost smelled like blood.
Giants who ate human flesh did have a peculiar, pungent odor.
"Is that what you want?"
Encrid squinted and asked back.
"That's right. I swear it on the name of Banaturr."
The Giant, without moving a muscle, swore.
"Understood."
Encrid responded, equally motionless.
Their words and bodies were disconnected from one another.
While they spoke, neither lowered their guard.
The Giant, Banaturr, realized his opponent wasn't fooled.
"Are you mocking me?"
Suddenly, the Giant roared in anger, leaning forward as if about to charge.
Encrid watched the Giant and thought of the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique.
What the Giant was doing was exactly that.
Though the methods of deception and mockery differed, the tactical approach was the same.
It was the same now.
The Giant feigned a charge, pushing off the ground with a loud thud, only to stop halfway and calmly swing his club.
Ka-boom!
The sound tore through the air.
Even though the Giant didn't put all his strength into it, the swing was still packed with monstrous power, slicing through the air.
The Giant wasn't called a Giant for nothing. He remained calm throughout.
And so did Encrid.
Whether it was talk of eating or sparing lives, Encrid remained unshaken.
It was the Heart of the Beast.
The calm brought about by that training allowed him to stay composed, never forgetting his focus.
Encrid raised his blade, Aker, upward at an angle.
At the moment when the club and sword met, Aker's blade pressed against the club at an angle.
Just like shaving wood with a plane, Aker's blade shaved the club.
Thorns stuck to the dark brown club snapped off with a crackling sound.
At that moment, the Giant shifted his weight onto his right foot and kicked with his left.
The gust from the kick sent the broken thorns flying back toward Aker's blade like projectiles.
Encrid smoothly twisted his body, dodging the thorns.
As he dodged, he switched Aker to his left hand and swung at the Giant's shin.
Whack!
The blade struck the Giant's shin guards, but it didn't feel like it cut into flesh.
Even so, the sensation of cutting through something solid was undeniable.
"Argh!"
The Giant screamed.
Even then, Encrid only focused on the Giant's eyes, which remained calm.
The Giant screamed while extending his hand.
He was faking pain while launching an attack.
The way his fingers were spread suggested he believed he could crush anything if he grabbed it.
He probably could. A Giant's strength was a weapon in itself.
Giants were known to crush rocks with their bare hands.
Inside the fur-like shin guards, there was clearly something hard protecting the Giant's legs. The fur was just for show.
Another trick.
The scream wasn't because he was in pain but because he was pretending.
Yet another trick.
He extended his empty hand, intending to grab and crush something.
Go ahead, grab me. I'll lose my mind and crush you. If I catch you, I'll break you.
That was the clear intention behind the move, but it was still a trick.
Encrid recognized and reacted to every situation with precision.
The Giant screamed from the strike to his shin and extended his hand.
In that brief moment, the broken club came down toward Encrid's head.
There was no deafening crash this time.
The swing was clean and fast. Earlier, the Giant had widened the club's swing to increase air resistance, but this time, he angled the club differently.
'Hmph.'
Encrid exhaled briefly and held his breath.
'Focus point.'
Time seemed to slow down.
His senses processed everything around him, feeding him information.
With his entire body surging with vitality, Encrid moved, drawing on his Will.
His right hand shot out straight, like a blade, while Aker in his left hand extended upward.
At the same time, he stepped forward, crushing the Giant's foot beneath his own.
Crack, crunch, snap!
His hand struck the Giant's wrist, breaking it, while his foot crushed the bones in the Giant's foot.
Aker pierced straight through the middle of the Giant's club, splitting it apart.
Splinters of wood rained down from the broken club.
"Raaaghh!"
This time, the Giant let out a genuine scream.
It was real.
Encrid withdrew Aker and stepped back.
The Giant, unwilling to give up, abandoned his club and swung his fists.
Whoosh!
If that punch had landed, it would have been fatal, but it only cut through empty air.
"Damn it."
The Giant cursed.
That too, was real.
Encrid looked at the tears forming at the corners of the Giant's eyes.
Those, too, were real.
He was satisfied.
* * *
While Encrid was toying with one Giant, Rem had already killed two.
It wasn't a long fight.
At first, they had exchanged weapon skills at mid-range, but soon after, Rem closed in on the Giants.
The two Giants, having lost their distance advantage, flailed their limbs, but Rem brushed them aside and used his axe to create new mouths in their bellies.
One Giant died, spilling its entrails as it fell, while the other, with a hand axe lodged in its skull, held on for a while before succumbing.
Purple blood splattered on the ground.
Seeing how the Giant kept fighting even with an axe in its skull, their vitality was truly remarkable.
But no one could survive spilling all their guts and having their skull split open.
The three Giants were unlucky. After all, they had encountered monsters like these.
"What are you?"
Rem asked, approaching after the brutal fight.
The only Giant left alive was the one whose wrist and foot Encrid had shattered, so the question was obviously directed at him.
The Giant blinked, seemingly mulling over Rem's question.
"Why are creatures like you here? You don't live here."
Rem asked again.
The Giant, Banaturr, blinked.
"Urgh, it hurts. Why are you asking me that?"
Still pretending to be dumb.
Encrid wasn't the only one who could see through it.
Rem didn't bother with words. He pulled out a dagger and placed it under the Giant's eye.
Luagarne used her whip like a rope to bind the Giant's arms.
Even so, getting that close to the Giant was still dangerous.
But it was fine because Rem wasn't the kind of person to fall for such tricks.
Even though he knelt, Rem's eye level was still slightly higher than the Giant's, while his foot was pressing down on the Giant's thigh.
If Rem got annoyed, his foot could shatter the Giant's femur.
"I'll start with your eyes. Any particular body part you'd like? I can cut off your middle one if you prefer. You'll get there at some point, you know. I can keep you alive for two days."
Jaxon might be a master of torture. He certainly gave off that impression many times.
And Rem? He would do it if necessary.
Even if he wasn't a master, Rem's countless experiences killing people would have given him a thorough understanding of the human body.
A Giant wasn't some monster with four hearts.
They were still, for the most part, human-like.
"Wait, if I talk, will you let me live?"
Something about this situation felt unfamiliar to Encrid.
He hadn't encountered many Giants, but they weren't called Red Blood Beasts for nothing.
A species born for battle.
Even when they knew they were going to lose, they never backed down, driven by their mad instinct to fight.
That's what Giants were. That's how Encrid had always known them.
The Giants he had seen during his mercenary days had been unstoppable war machines on the battlefield.
He could still picture them, charging toward platoons of crossbowmen, bleeding from head to toe.
"Ha ha ha! See, just keep pushing forward!"
One crazed Giant had mocked everyone else as he executed his tactics, which only he could manage.
Of course, not all humans are the same, just like not all Frogs are the same. And not all Giants are the same either.
But wasn't this going too far?
Would a Giant really drop its tail just because one hand and one foot were injured? Giants? Even though his wrist was bound with a whip, the Giant could still resist if he wanted to.
And yet, this was the result.
Rem shoved the dagger deeper under the Giant's eye, causing purple blood to ooze out. In that state, Rem spoke.
"I'll kill you cleanly."
He didn't lie. That was typical of Rem.
"You bad humans."
The Giant replied.
His brain seemed to work, but his speech was regressed.
His tone remained awkward. His deep voice echoed as if he were speaking from inside a cave, slightly garbled, making him hard to understand.
Only now did it become clear.
"Damn it. What's good land without keeping your word? What nonsense."
That's what the Giant said, although it was hard to decipher. Much of it had to be inferred from context since half of it was incomprehensible.
"All is as the Gods will."
Suddenly, the Giant tried to ram his head into Rem's dagger.
Of course, Rem wasn't going to let that happen. He pulled the dagger back and punched the Giant's cheekbone with the handle.
Crack.
The Giant's head snapped backward.
Luagarne tightened her grip. The veins in her muscular Frog arms bulged.
"It hurts!"
The Giant shouted.
"Did you think I hit you to make you feel pleasure?"
Rem replied, spinning the dagger back around and stabbing it into the Giant's eye.
There was no hesitation in his movements.
Squelch.
"Raaaah."
Another scream.
And once again, it was a genuine scream.
The Giant surrendered then.
"This place is now our land. That's what they told us."
"Who?"
"The great prophet."
Not much of what he said made sense.
After a few more questions, when it seemed there was nothing more to learn—
Squelch.
Rem slit the Giant's throat with his dagger. Blood sprayed out. It was a purplish hue, close to violet.
"I don't know what's going on, but we'll have to keep going to find out."
Rem said.
"It's best if you don't follow."
Rem added, and Encrid remembered the time when he had told Rem to enter the Demon Realm without hesitation.
He had spoken, and Rem had followed.
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