A/N: Huzzah, a new chapter! I think this is the most overdue chapter to date, and that's saying something! Life has been busy, and university is back in session, full-throttle :(
Three months is a long-ass time, so let's do a "brief" recap of what's been going on recently in this story. If you have a good memory or are a new reader who has freshly binged to this point, just ignore this:
- Hopefully you at least remember that Ainz has left Nazarick, having embarked on a journey of self-discovery to reconcile his identities as both Suzuki and Ainz. The night before he left, he shared a passionate evening with best-girl Lupusregina, and it's been about a week since then.
- Ainz ran into a fairy princess named Vian who enlisted his help in protecting her sanctuary against a group of hungry Lycans, and engaged in some good ol' fashioned lopsided slaughter :) he is now an ally of the forest fairies, who may have close ties with certain celestial beings...
- Sebas made a grandiose appearance in Re-Estize riding atop his trusty steed Gargantua, nearly making Crown Prince Zanac shit himself: a bold start to a diplomatic endeavor, I must say. The Iron Butler implicitly revealed himself as the temporary ruler of Nazarick in Ainz-sama's stead, whom he transparently revealed had stepped down to do some serious introspection. Thanks to the urgings of Renner, Brain, And Climb, the latter two having been saved by Sebas in the past, Zanac was able to swallow his pride and agree to an official alliance between his Kingdom and the Sorcerer Kingdom
- Best-girl Lupu, struggling to overcome her lovesickness, received some unlikely comfort and support in the arms of the guardian overseer in the bathhouse. Though Albedo is not willing to give up, she acknowledges Lupusregina as a worthy contender for Ainz's love, and thus a rivalry was formed. Oh, and then after battling and retreating from Lucifer's bath golems, Lupusregina realized she had forgotten her clothes inside the bath, and was abandoned by Albedo in the changeroom, left for dead, naked and afraid ;(.
- In the last chapter, we finally revisited Neia as she made her anxious return to the town of Mellevitch. She received a surprisingly warm welcome, and then crossed paths with Damian and Claudius, two paladins whose lives were made a lot easier when Ainz conveniently did most of their job in clearing out the dead that had taken over the Roble Kingdom's capital city after the massacre (oops). Learning that Damian was next in line to become Grandmaster of the paladin order, Neia accepted his duel to test him and herself: though she fought valiantly and exceeded everyone's expectations, it was Damian's win. Then we learned that Claudius' wife, and the mother of Sarah and Sophie (who Ainz encountered in chapter 27 after he had resurrected everyone he had killed in Mellevitch), who for the longest time had been bedridden because of an insidious disease, was now in good health because of her resurrection. Death is the greatest purge of all :)
That just about covers what's been going on: thanks for your patience! Now, enjoy the new chapter!
Chapter 33
The New Momon
"[Dispel]," Suzuki whispered, placing one hand on his steed's muzzle in appreciation for its service as he relinquished its existence. It managed the first note of a regretful whinny before disappearing into nothingness.
He turned around to face the mountain range that had been teasing him for several miles now as its peaks became increasingly visible through the trees' canopy of the forest he had been traversing, like gnarled digits clawing their way farther and farther past the skyline.
Even standing at its base, the mountains didn't appear particularly daunting, with the most prominent peak being only about 2000 meters high: the climb itself would not be arduous, and Ainz was sure his skeletal horse would've managed the winding trail with ease. He was just as certain, however, that mountain paths like this were hardly conducive to horseback travel, regardless of the equestrian's quality—it was sure to be a bumpy and unstable ride, one that he would rather avoid needlessly subjecting his rump to. The thought of teleporting or flying was thus tempting, but hardly congruent with the spirit of wayward adventure.
No, he would scale the mountain on foot, the good-ol'-fashioned plebeian way, and then he would enjoy the view for a while once he reached the top—after he had earned it. Ainz nodded, resolutely consigning himself to a several-hour hike. He approached the start of the inclined trail optimistically, drawing in a lungful of fresh air, but just before he took his first step—
"Stop," a voice suddenly called out coldly, sounding extremely close.
!
Ainz instinctively stepped back as he whirled around to face the speaker, hand poised and ready to cast any of the multitudinous spells collecting on the tip of his tongue, ready to be invoked at a moment's notice depending on what the situation called for.
It's true that he had not been paying attention and was lost in thought, but an average person could still not have managed to get this close to him without him noticing.
Ainz's paranoid and analytical brain sized his attacker up in an instant: ostensibly human, about five feet tall, little to no magic capabilities, assuming they weren't concealing their power, but he didn't think that was the case—she looked like an assassin, or more specifically, a kunoichi, based on her attire. His eyes flickered over her hands: she had yet to invoke any ninjutsu. He would have to create some space before that happened, and then maintain it, restricting her movement and ability to make hand signs as he—
But then he saw it, and his neurotic assessment of the situation was abruptly cut: there, dangling around her neck and protruding from her yellow scarf, was an adamantite plate, unmistakably distinguishing her as a hero-level adventurer.
Suzuki lowered his hand skeptically, his mind racing on the verge of recollection.
"You're… a member of Blue Rose, aren't you..?" he hazarded a moment later.
Tina nodded dismissively, burying the lower half of her face behind her scarf—wholly unaware of how close she had been to meeting her Maker.
"My team is currently eliminating a group of monsters that suddenly emerged from the mountains, and I've been instructed to keep passersby away until the job is done," she explained monotonously.
"Monsters? What kind?"
"Cave giants. It shouldn't take too long, so please be patient," Tina apologized with an awkward bow, the insincere politeness of her tone sounding very contrived and instructed.
Suzuki pursed his lips.
"I see, cave giants… yes, they are a troublesome bunch, I suppose…"
He was hardly in the mood for waiting, but there was no helping it: getting involved with a group like Blue Rose was a headache he'd rather avoid if he could help it. Besides, such an experienced group of adamantite adventurers should be able to make quick work of cave giants so he shouldn't have to wait much lo—
"GROoOoOoOoOoOAH!"
A blood-curdling ululation suddenly erupted from high above in the distance, but a moment later, Suzuki heard it again, echoing down the mountainside: the ground began to quake and Ainz felt the sound reverberate through his entire body. A murder of crows frantically took to the sky and flew by overhead, fleeing in the opposite direction of the mountains.
When the earth became still and the sound faded into nothingness, Ainz turned to Tina as the latter uncovered her ears.
"Cave trolls, was it?" he asked dubiously.
"..."
The narrowing of her eyes said it all.
"...Excuse me," she said flatly, bringing her hands together and quickly weaving three signs, promptly conjuring a thick plume of smoke to obscure a hasty getaway.
Ainz turned back around just in time for another portent bellow to resound from the gnarled spires of stone above.
"Hahhhh…" he sighed, allowing his shoulders to slump: "I just can't seem to catch a break..." he muttered, somewhat petulantly, as he took to the sky with a [Fly] spell.
After about ten seconds of soaring straight up, he reached the zenith of the highest peak. Floating in place, he scanned the area below, his eyes quickly fixing upon a fairly sizable plateau nestled between three peaks. Upon it, he could make out half a dozen moving bodies, locked in combat.
"[Perfect Unknowable]" he cast before diving in for a closer look.
Yes, all the members of Blue Rose—Evileye excluded—were present. Gagaran, Tia and Lakyus. Tina had yet to regroup with her allies, but Ainz could sense her bounding nimbly up the trail at a pace befitting an adamantite-ranked shinobi.
the enemies they were facing off against… indeed, they certainly weren't trolls, as he had thought based on the wretched wailing before.
Ainz clicked his tongue.
"Fomorians…"
A species of giant of towering stature, even relative to most of its kin. Once beautiful and intelligent creatures, now misbegotten and twisted abominations, plagued by an inescapable curse that warped their minds and physical appearance to match the malice within their hearts. Their flesh was warty like a toad, a dark and dismal shade of violet, bloated and bulging at various spots and suppurating from incurable boils all over. Their hunched postures, making their head in line with their unevenly sized shoulders, would've made them seem decrepit and frail were it not for the bulging of sinnuous muscles all over their chest and limbs.
Their faces were no less offputting than their general forms. Crooked, gaunt, drooling maws lined with luteous fangs split an otherwise swollen visage, so horribly that one eye was forced permanently shut, seeming like someone who had gotten their face utterly pulverized by a skilled and ruthless pugilist. The other eye made up for its concealed counterpart however, as it bulged, jaundiced and bloodshot, quivering in its tenuous socket like bloody yolk.
Looking at them, Ainz couldn't help but pity them, even though he knew they didn't deserve it.
But what were they doing here, anyway? Fomorians were quite powerful: he had presumed them extinct at this point, wiped out by the players that had come here long ago and offed a whole bunch of dangerous, inhuman species. Maybe they had avoided slaughter and gone undetected all this time since they preferred to lurk in dank, dark abodes which they scarcely left, for they hated fresh air and sunlight. They hated the surface so much, in fact, that in order to avoid it as much as possible, they often enslaved weaker, coercible species into gathering food for them.
So then what had compelled them—two of them—to the surface now, after all this time..?
Ainz narrowed his eyes.
"Ah, this is bad…" he whispered to himself as he watched one of the giants, with a condemning screech, swing its massive club into Gagaran's side, crashing through her stalwart guard and launching her off her feet into the mountainside with an explosive crash.
"Gagaran!" Lakyus cried out in alarm, and she made a move to begin running towards the man-lady before being cut off by a lethal downward swing of a club, whose fat end was as wide as she was tall. She leaped backwards to dodge it, and no sooner did she land than she had to roll to the side in order to evade the second giant's fist. The instant she emerged from the roll, her battle instincts tingled presciently. She whirled around just in time to feel a gust of wind blast her face, pushed down against her from another downward swing of a massive club. With no time to dodge, she raised her midnight-blue blade, bracing her free hand against its flat side for extra support while bending her knees slightly to help absorb the impact as best she could.
!
It felt as if an entire mountain had fallen upon her. Her boots were driven several inches into the igneous ground, the mountain itself cracking and groaning in protest of the mighty blow. Her entire arms and legs exploded with excruciating pain for a single second, enough to evict the breath from her lungs and make her vision darken for a moment, as though her mind had dithered for a moment, wondering whether or not it was worth it to stay conscious and have to experience this pain or just go to sleep: but before a decision could be made, her limbs were seized by a somnolent fuzziness, dissolving them into nigh-inoperable lengths of static. The pain had been so unbearable that it had taken her body, practically all her nerves, only a single second before unanimously opting to just shut down. One of her knees buckled beneath her, much to Lakyus' surprise as she dropped to one knee, for she did not feel it happen, and the massive club pressed down upon her, so harrowingly close now that the half-inch width of her blade occupied the entire space between it and her skull.
Kra-Ka-Ka-Koom!
But just when the noblewoman's strength was about to falter completely, a chain of explosions engulfed the Fomorian's arm in a roaring burst of flame. The giant howled in surprise and yanked his conflagrant arm back reflexively, relieving Lakyus of her Atlas-like burden so she could finally collapse.
The residual fire of the explosions had already dwindled considerably against the Fomorian's damp and hardy flesh, and with a snarl that conveyed more irritation than agony, plucked with a lumpy thumb and index finger the explosive-tag kunai from its shoulder, elbow, and wrist, tossing the charred and smoking shards of metal away with unnecessary force.
It looked over where it presumed the knives to have been thrown from, and found nothing.
As expected, the shinobi had already slipped into obscurity.
The giant spun around in place, its beady pupil darting this way and that, and all it took was one rotation for it to come to the logical conclusion that it was being deceived. It stamped its feet indignantly, bringing a hand up to cover its face. A moment later, it lowered its hand to reveal its cursed eye, bulging even more grotesquely than before, glowing and projecting a cone of orange light.
It then began to search again, whirling around, tilting its head up, down, all around, sweeping its cursed [True Sight] vision over every nook and cranny, determined to lay bare the vermin who dared to play such games.
Tia, unfamiliar with such potent ocular prowess, supposing her rudimentary [Invisibility] still sufficient, remained motionless in place, lurking in plain sight.
Ainz looked towards Gagaran, still a crumpled heap half-embedded within the mountain's side, and then to Lakyus who, although still clinging to consciousness, would not be able to join the fight again any time soon. It was taking all the strength she could muster just to remain upright on her knees, bracing her upper body against her sword. Her whole body was in shambles, quaking with exhaustion—she resembled an old lady struggling to stand up with the aid of her cane.
Tina had finally made it to the top, cloaked in an [Invisibility] spell just as fallible as the one concealing her sister, towards whom the scrupulous beam of light steadily scanned its way.
Did they even have a chance at victory then, with their tank incapacitated and their leader just as impotent? Perhaps if Evileye were with them, the three of them could prevail, but Ainz was unsure if the two shinobi possessed the firepower to put down these titans who seemed to have incurred an insubstantial amount of damage thus far.
Would he have to intervene after all..?
!
Suddenly, the other Fomorian, the larger of the two, who had remained eerily still for quite some time now, suddenly made a move. With a lumbering stride, it approached Lakyus' defenseless self, emitting a garrulous sound that was most likely a sadistic cackle. Its heavy footfalls sent tremors through the mountaintop, and when its final steps slammed down right in front of Blue Rose's leader—its fungus-covered big toes well within striking distance had Lakyus the strength to swing her blade—she was knocked off balance and face planted unceremoniously; her blade was jostled out of its flimsy anchorage and clattered uselessly against her back.
She lifted her face, now slathered in dirt as well as blood, to bravely meet the giant's scornful eye. She made one last attempt to rise, inspired by the sight of its club poised thirty feet above, ready to reduce her to gory paste, but failed immediately.
'Is this… really where I fall..?' she thought to herself. The most renowned adamantite-ranked adventurer of her country, on some craggy mountain, at the hands of some stupid, ugly monster she didn't even know the name of…? Her strength was not something the Re-Estize kingdom could afford to lose right now, of all times.
She clenched her fists shut, watching as the club savagely arced down towards her, promising at least an instant death.
'Tia, Tina, Gagaran,… Renner-san… forgive me..!' she cursed inwardly: though it barely even scratched the surface of her regrets and frustration, it was the best she could do given how little time she had left—less than half a second, her hyperactive and desperate brain calculated as the club began its long journey down towards her.
She clenched her eyes shut, unable to bring herself to track its course until the very end.
Time slowed down for her, dilated by her fearful mind, desperate to protract this final fraction of a second into infinity. The world became gray and mute, affording time for snippets of her life to flash before her eyes, and all Lakyus could focus on was the impossibly slow beat of her own heart, a single beat, swelling in her ears over an eternity, and the sensation of tears trickling down her grimy cheeks at a leisurely pace real-time gravity would never permit.
But such a small amount of time could only be stretched so far—and so when the perceived time elapsed exceeded that which the hyperactive and fearful brain could conjure, she snapped back to reality.
"..."
A peculiar sound tickled her ears, the sound of a light fabric rippling in the wind.
She opened her eyes in confusion and looked up to behold a sight she could scarcely believe, that held her eyes open wide in awe.
A figure—a human, no less—had situated itself directly in front of her and intercepted death with a single hand: the tip of the great club, carrying every ounce of the Fomorian's might, held aloft in the palm of his hand as if it were nothing.
It was so surreal, that Lakyus forgot all the pain, all the numbness, all the regrets, and rose to her feet, entranced by the majestic billowing of her saviour's jet-black cape which seemed almost allusive to some sort of sentience, as if it were reaching out to her protectively.
"W-who..?" she muttered hoarsely, but the last vestige of strength that this mysterious man's appearance had inspired within her suddenly faded, and she began to fall—
But something caught her on either side before her knees hit the ground.
"Evil boss!" two voices cried out from either side of her.
She looked to her left, and then her right, and smiled weakly.
"Tia… Tina…" she muttered tiredly as they lifted her back up to her feet, slinging her arms over their shoulders.
"Urgh… have you put on weight recently?" Tia groaned quietly, her voice having settled back into its typical apathetic tone after confirming her boss was alive.
Lakyus laughed dryly, but before she could say anything, movement drew their attention forward.
The Fomorian withdrew its club from the newcomer's hand and retreated several steps. He and his kin eyed him with skeptical disdain, growling irately.
"You three should get out of here before they finish sizing me up," the man suddenly spoke, startling the members of Blue Rose.
The adamantite leader shook her head vehemently.
"N-no! We can't leave. Gagaran, she's—!"
"Lakyus-san".
!
At the utterance of her own name, spoken so calmly and confidently, all manner of protest caught in her throat as a voice-stifling lump.
"You don't have to worry," he continued, just as mellifluously, looking over his shoulder so that their eyes could meet at last.
"Now that I'm here, everything is going to be alright".
The weight of his gaze pushed the lump in her throat all the way to the deepest depths of her gut, where it dissolved and spread throughout her numbed entirety as a stimulating warmth. It was almost overwhelming, the impossible dichotomy reflected in his eyes: depthless compassion and unyielding power. It drew her in despite a large portion of her urging that she shy away, and she could not look away even after he had returned his gaze to the giants ahead. She still felt his gaze through the back of his head.
"...Alright, we'll leave it to you," Tia suddenly muttered judiciously, jarring Lakyus back to her senses.
The two shinobi looked to each other and nodded, promptly hoisting their leader up before leaping back, retreating several great bounds until they had reached the opposite side of the mountaintop and perched themselves atop an overhanging cliff jutting out from an adjacent mountain's peak.
No sooner had the twins deposited Lakyus than she scrambled to the edge of the cliff to peer down at the battle that was about to unfold. From this height and this distance, the solitary man seemed insurmountably tiny in comparison to the towering giants.
She clenched her hands shut in frustration. Now that she was out of immediate danger and clear-headed, it became painfully clear: her craven desperation had eagerly trusted this man's confidence, and she, a renowned hero of the kingdom, had shamelessly depended on his sacrifice so she could retreat with her tail between her legs.
What kind of an adventurer was she?!
"Tina! Tia!" she whirled around, almost ferally: "Why the hell did you run away!" she projected angrily: "we have to go help him! We have to go back!" she hissed, panic creeping into her voice as her eyes darted frantically between the man and Gagaran's limp form.
"We can't," Tina assured with monotone incisiveness: "what would you even have us do? You're completely spent, and so are we".
"We used all our ninja tools in the cave already," Tia chimed in, opening up her satchel and exposing its emptiness to the group: "it took everything we had just to kill the smallest of the three and buy us enough time to get back out into the open".
"Tina!" Lakyus turned hopefully, ignoring the other's explanation: "you always keep a spare potion handy, don't you? Give it to me, I can still—!"
"No," the shinobi spat out, brushing off her leader's groping hands and stepping away. She then looked to the ground with uncharacteristic thoughtfulness as she idiosyncratically adjusted her scarf, pulling it up over the bridge of her nose.
"I think… we should leave it to him. I feel like we'd only get in the way at this point," she added incisively.
"Get in the way..?" Lakyus repeated in disbelief: "how can you even say that, Tina?! We're the highest-ranked adventurers in the kingdom, we have a duty t—!" her pride began to protest,
but Tina silenced her with a firm shake of her head as she turned her eyes towards the battlefield below.
"You felt it back there, didn't you Lakyus? This man's power. I felt it before too. I ran into him at the base of the mountain: I carelessly approached him from behind to tell him to turn back, thinking he was just a normal traveller… I caught him off guard, and he whirled around thinking I must have been a threat. When our eyes locked, and he raised his hand towards me," she paused to thrust her open palm towards Lakyus' astonished face, mimicking the gesture he had made:
"I completely froze. I thought for sure I was going to die at that moment," she retracted her hand and readjusted her scarf again, though it ended up staying in the exact same position.
"The only other time in my life I had felt such fear was when I came face to face with Jaldabaoth…" she trailed off potently.
Lakyus dwelled on the implication, recalling how she had felt when she had locked eyes with him as well: then she imagined his gaze murderous and hateful, and shivered.
She turned around to look over the cliff, biting her lower lip.
"...Look, if things start to get bad and he starts losing, I'll give you the potion and we can back him up," Tina suggested, sensing that Lakyus wasn't wholly convinced or satisfied with the way things were playing out: "For now though, let's rest and catch our breath while we can. Even if you took the potion and replenished your health, you're still too exhausted right now to be of any use if you charged in".
And for that, Lakyus had no rebuttal. She could only look longingly over the cliff, and wait.
No matter what, she resolved: she would not let this stranger die for her sake. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if that happened.
...
'Ah, I've made a bit of a mess of things,' Suzuki thought to himself as he stared up at the giants' hideous faces. He flexed the hand with which he had caught the Fomorian's club. There had been a real, undeniable weight behind that attack. He had actually felt it, in his wrists and forearms: if it had hit him directly, he would've incurred a modicum of damage. He estimated they were at least three, maybe even four times more powerful than Guu, the Giant of the East, and their weapons were much denser and sturdier than his had been. That being said, they were also considerably more durable: far tougher than what he could possibly take down with his daggers as a dilettante rogue.
He had already determined through [Discern Enemy] that the smaller one (though still twenty feet tall), was level 45, and the larger one, 47.
Truthfully, they're right around the power level that he would've liked to test his combat prowess against as Momon, but he had been forced to intervene suddenly and hadn't been able to cast [perfect warrior] in time.
It was too late to transform into Momon now though.
So he was stuck as Suzuki, or in other words, a magic caster.
In OTHER words… this fight would be easy. TOO easy, in fact. A simple [Twin-Dragon Chain Lightning] or any other of well over a dozen other spells he knew would put an end to this fight in an instant.
But he couldn't really do that. The members of Blue Rose were cream-of-the-crop adventurers, and close with Evileye, so they undoubtedly had a solid grasp of what constitutes 'powerful' magic. If he just unequivocally exceeded Evileye's capabilities, it would be too suspicious.
He'd have to make a show of things: he had to appear strong, but just strong enough.
With a resolved exhale, he stepped forward, and saw for a moment the giants' calves flex indecisively. Were they already preparing to run..?
Ah, that's right. Fomorians were notorious for their self-preservational cowardice. If at any point they felt victory was not assured, it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for them to flee preemptively.
This would be an even trickier balancing act than he anticipated.
"Alright then…[Fly]," he chanted, re-imbuing himself with the power of flight as he took a step forward:
"Shall we?"
The response came in the form of a tree-sized club crashing down upon him.
...
"I-it's started..!" Lakyus grimaced as, judging by size alone, the ostensible leader suddenly lashed out with a devastating, surprisingly quick strike—one second the its club had been hanging innocuously at the giant's side, and the next, it had been swung with a full, windmill rotation of the arm and viciously brought down upon his teensy opponent with all the momentum it could muster.
The reverberations of the blow reached them, even over such a great distance.
From the resultant cloud of dust and debris, the man emerged, seemingly unscathed and scintillating with a myriad of colourful imbuments.
He floated etherally in place just outside of the giant's reach, the many colours which had sluiced over him in rapid succession having finally stabilized as a decidely gorgeous purple.
Before she could consciously dwell on her thoughts on his form, however, the two giants, clearly agitated, suddenly lunged forward: one swung horizontally, the other vertically, evincing an unexpected sense of teamwork.
'Move!' Lakyus shouted in her head, her hands clenching into tight balls as the giant clubs intersected upon the unmoving ball of light.
At the last possible second the sorcerer evaded both attacks by zig-zagging forward, surging up the extended arm of the one that had swung downward. He looked like a shooting star, and in his wake he left a purple trail, coiling and slithering its way up the giant's forearm like a snake.
The Fomorian, with a hissing grunt, tried to swat him away, but its hand met nothing but the crook of its elbow after the violet star, almost tauntingly, had beelined towards its slapping hand and deftly maneuvered between its gnarled fingers before swooping up over its shoulder—
Fwoosh!
—to deliver an explosion of fire right to the side of its neck. The giant staggered back with a horrendous screech, clawing at its throat as it blazed with a dark orange inferno.
"A-amazing…" Lakyus stammered in disbelief, watching as the mysterious mage dive bombed back down to deliver another blow to the preoccupied giant—but the other Fomorian moved quickly to protect its brethren, swinging its club at the incoming attacker like a bat.
!
This time however, betraying expectations, the hit connected. Lakyus' stomach lurched and her breath hitched audibly as the magic caster was blasted away by a direct, unmitigated hit: his aura flickered falteringly from the stress of the blow, making it easy to discern that he was spinning uncontrollably, tumbling with violent disorentation as he streaked across the sky, completing several flips before he crashed into the mountain, splintering its exterior with deep fissures.
Blue Rose's leader jumped to her feet frantically, her heart sinking into her gut. She knew full well the force behind those blows… to take one head on like that could only mean one thing.
Certain death.
The throaty cackling of the putrid titans only further legitamized his demise in her mind.
She shook her head bitterly.
But of course it had ended like this: deep down she knew it would have. How could it have come to any other conclusion? No single human could ever hope to defeat a foe that an experienced team of adamantite adventurers could not. How could she have believed anything else was possible? How could she have, even for a second, believed in him, or—!
Krakoom!
But before she could even finish her lament, the sorcerer emerged, bursting out from the rubble he had been buried under with an explosive shower of dust and debris. He rocketed across the sky, just as vibrant as before, at a supernatural speed even exceeding the velocity at which he had been launched, closing the hundred-meter gap between him and the giants in the blink of an eye, positioning himself just below the somber canopy of clouds.
The giants barely had time to look up in astonishment before—
KRA-KOOM!
They were barraged by a shower of thunderbolts, blue streaks of crackling mana that extended themselves down towards the ground in jagged surges, widening as they travelled like an expanding net such that they blanketed the entire mountaintop with a torrent of sparks.
The array of electricity appeared in the sky, for a second-long blinding flash before it faded, as a byzantine network of roots extending themselves to the planet in search of nutrients for whatever celestial plant they originated from in Heaven.
The members of Blue Rose shivered slightly as every hair on their bodies stood up in reaction to the dry staticness with which the air was now charged.
"W-wow…" Tina muttered, a rare expression from the stoic shinobi on behalf of the group.
"But look," Tia said a few moments later, finding composure in the silent wake of the electrical storm: "the giants are still standing".
!
Indeed, as the dust began to settle, the giants' enormous frames, though blackened and smoking promisingly, came into view, still standing. The thunderbolts had struck and burned their bodies all over, but the damage was ultimately superficial.
The giants slowly lowered their hands which they had hastily raised to shield their heads, and howled seethingly, cursing the nuisance above.
And in the waning echo of their despicable screech, there grew a deafening, almost sacred silence, one that Lakyus dared not to disturb with even just a breath.
The only ones who had any right to disrupt it were those who had allowed it to take hold, this calm before the—
"Groooooooooooooooooooh!"
The Fomorians bellowed discordantly, their voices shrill with scorn as the sorcerer, the storm, descended upon them.
And thus a battle that made the earlier exchanges seem trite and meaningless began.
It was like watching two people being terrorized by an angry hornet—and this analogy was by no means a denigration of the sorcerer, for in its wings and in its stinger this hornet possessed the power of Mother Nature and all her most inclement calamities.
Gales of wind, cones of frost, streams of fire like dragon's breath, bolts of acid, blasts of lightning—a continuous onslaught of pure chaos and destruction.
And the Giants, in unyielding retaliation, set their clubs ablaze with cursed black flames and swung them relentlessly, each strike wilder and more vicious than the last, fuelled by a limitless rage boiling inside of them towards the mage who remained constantly, frustratingly, within striking distance. They did their best to protect their vitals, the front of their torsos and their faces as best they could but damage was clearly accumulating over the rest of their bodies—lacerations, caustic, electrical, and thermal burns, and frostbite-blackened patches of skin steadily appeared—but their wounds had yet to take their visible toll, evident by the fact that their own attacks continued to get faster and more ferocious.
When one became the primary target of the mage's attacks on the basis of proximity alone, the other lowered its club to spew carriage-sized boulders or streams of bile from its maw in an attempt to snipe the sorcerer.
Though she had already clarified to herself that the insect analogy was not demeaning, she no longer found it sufficient; Lakyus now thought herself to have been transported eons into the past, long before the creation of the mortal races, and was now bearing witness to a legendary battle between a God and two progenitors of the now-extinct Titans: an ancient and primal skirmish depicted only within the pages of fairy tales and fiction.
She watched the battle of mythical magnitude unblinkingly, her heart skipping painfully every time the sorcerer harrowingly avoided an incoming attack, the black flames licking at his form.
At one point a boulder had struck him spectacularly and exploded against him, knocking him out of the air at a crude angle. The other giant, seizing the opening his kin had finally made, wasted no time in lashing out with a stomping foot, into which it committed all of its weight—its heel plunged deep into the mountain, but by some miracle, the sorcerer had recovered and slipped out from under the sole of its foot a literal instant before being crushed.
When that had happened, Lakyus had had to physically bring a hand up over her chest to keep her heart from leaping out.
Frustrated, both colossuses began spewing projectile after projectile, hoping to recreate the same opportunity, but the magic caster managed to nimbly slip through the barrage and get in close once again, forcing them to give up for now and reclaim their clubs. The sorcerer had taken several glancing blows even after that, though each and every time he rebounded with astounding—or perhaps miraculous—speed, never giving the gigantic oafs a chance to land a decisive blow.
Lakyus drew in a deep breath, and then found herself gasping for another, and then another—for how long had she forgotten to breathe?
Her heart was beating so fast, faster than it had ever beaten before, even when she herself had been locked in mortal combat. Its rhythm was more stimulated, more anxious, than what could be justified as a result of vicarious adrenaline, no matter how spectacular the battle before her was. There was more to it than that—a peculiar sensation swelling within her bosom, crescendoing every time her eyes remained glued to the sorcerer for too long.
'Lakyus-san,' her ears suddenly recalled, being uttered with such authority and dignified composure:
'You don't have to worry. Now that I'm here, everything is going to be alright'.
'Lakyus-san. Lakyus-san... Lakyus-san...'
Lakyus bashfully brought her hands up to cup her face and was surprised by the warmth of her cheeks and the lobes of her ears.
...Had he really said her name as seductively as her ears remembered?
She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head self-beratingly.
'A-as if! What is wrong with me?! Focus, Laky—!' she began to reprimand herself, but at the invocation of her name, her inner voice was supplanted by his, and she had to cut the thought off lest she suffer a heart attack.
"L-Lakyus..?" Tina murmurred, finally pulling her eyes off the battle as her captain's squirming became unignorable.
"I-I'm fine!" she assured a little too quickly, turning around on impulse before quickly realizing her mistake and turning away. She hoped the shinobi hadn't noticed.
"..."
"Your face is all red. Are you sure you're al—"
"I know, I know, I'm fine, really, can we just—!"
THOOM!
Lakyus was interrupted—and saved—by a mighty crash, and all eyes snapped forward to the battlefield.
!
One of the giants had collapsed with a telling stillness, his body having at last succumbed to his wounds.
The other, larger one, looking just as battered as his slain kin, staggered back in shock from the corpse of his slain kin: a harsh reminder of its own mortality, and all the convincing it needed to attempt to run away. With a high-pitched wail, it turned on its heels and began limping—presumably moving as quickly as it could—towards the cave. Its club, having now lost its cursed enchantment and appearing pitifully mundane, rested tensely on its shoulder, threatening to swing out not with the ferocity it had displayed these last several minutes, but with sluggish desperation.
And what a sight it was, to see this colossal titan, raw with wounds all over, retreating haplessly from a man an eighth of its size, closing in upon it with predatory strides.
Realizing it did not have the strength to make it to the cave, it whirled around, unleashing a screech that was as mad as it was fearful.
The sorcerer effortlessly soared over the clumsy swing, high above the giant's head, at which point he deactivated [Fly], and ostensibly all his other imbuments, as his magical aura faded.
In that half second of time and stillness before gravity took hold of him and his upward momentum reversed, he raised his hands overhead, and within them conjured a slender purple blade of magic.
A majestic sight to behold, Lakyus felt her cheeks flare once again.
The Fomorian, perhaps against its better judgment, looked up in despair, as suddenly the man that had seemed so tiny this enitre time filled his vision. It clenched its grotesque yellow eye shut, though of course its eyelid did nothing to protect it from the hornet's stinger, its entire three-foot length disappearing from sight as it plunged all the way in.
Down went the giant along with the man, clinging to the hilt of his blade, twisting and wrenching it violently from side to side as he went, wreaking havoc within the lumpy skull.
By the time the giant's upper back hit the ground with a calamitous tremor, it had already gone quiet and limp, having been stripped of its faculties due to the destruction of its frontal lobe.
At last, quiescence. Following such a dynamic battle, it seemed almost surreal, and eerie: Lakyus questioned for a moment if she was actually awake, or if this entire ordeal was all just a dream.
The three members of Blue Rose looked to each other, perhaps all sharing that thought.
"He… he actually did it…" Tina murmurred in disbelief.
More incredulous silence: for what more needed to be said? Finally, though, Lakyus could no longer take it. She swallowed, a grave lurching of her throat.
"C-come on, let's go down there already!" she ordered, rising shakily to her feet. She did not wait for the shinobi's reply before leaping off the cliff and sliding down the mountain's slope before tapping down on the battle-scarred plateau. She startled at the sound of something cracking under her boots, and looked down to find she had landed upon a thick sheet of ice, its magic chill quickly permeating her feet. A moment later, the two ninjas landed silently on either side of her, neither of them heavy-footed enough to crack the ice. The trio walked trepidatiously and in complete silence, for their foosteps said enough: one moment they were walking on ice, the next, a smoldering patch of soot-covered stone, still warm underfoot, and then a few steps past that, a gritty and uneven surface that had been corroded by acid. Chunks of shattered stone, fragments of the Fomorian's boulder projectiles littered the ground all around them like shattered bits of eggshells. The closer they drew to the epicenter of this catastrophe, to the giants' corpses, a horrible smell began to fill the air, a fetid blend of burned flesh, blood, and sulfur.
As they approached the giant's feet, they came to a stop in morbid admiration.
"...I'm going to go check on Gagaran," Tia declared, producing the potion from her satchel.
Lakyus and Tina nodded and began to circle around to the Fomorian's side, up along its torso, congregating wordlessly around its sideways-turned face, just before the repugnant lump of necrotic looking flesh that was its tongue that had lolled out of its gaping maw overtop a bed of crooked, luteous teeth.
It was a disgusting sight to be sure, but they paid it little heed.
The sorcerer, sitting cross-legged upon the giant's cheek and leaning back tiredly against its bulbous nose, had all their attention.
"..."
His eyes drifted languidly over the pair before eventually settling on Lakyus.
"Well, please, don't all just stare at me like that. I'm beginning to feel self-conscious," he joked with a weary smile, motioning to his blood-slathered garments.
Lakyus' hand subconsciously drifted up over her breast as she felt her stomach churn with butterflies. He had such a kind smile.
"...S-sorry, it's just…" she began, her voice tinged with a meekness that had not possessed her in many years.
"...Thank you. You saved me," she finally managed, though when she started the sentence had fully intended to say 'us'.
The man nodded.
"It's no problem. It's the least I could do, given how hard you adventurers work to keep people safe," he explained warmly. In a vacuum, the words would seem patronizing given what just transpired: but the admiration in his voice was irrefutably sincere, and it sent a tingle down Lakyus' spine.
"The least you could do?" Tina interjected dubiously: "You claim to have endangered your life for the sole purpose of thanking us for our services? Do you even live in this country? Why did you really help us?" she pressed bluntly.
"T-tina!" Lakyus scolded, and was about to apologize—when suddenly the sorcerer threw his head back and laughed, a fruity guffaw that suited his voice.
"It's alright. I would be just as wary of me if I were in your position. Caution is a virtue in your line of work. Even still, I'm not sure I can provide an answer to assuage your doubts..." he paused for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest thoughtfully.
"I helped… because I could," he finally offered with a shrug.
"Because you could..?" the ninja repeated, unconvinced.
"Mm. Is it not a natural thing to do, to try and help those in need when your paths happen to cross?" he asked.
Lakyus nodded immediately—her compatriot did not.
"Helping people for the sake of helping people isn't normal. In fact, I'd say it's entirely abnormal," Tina rebuked plainly, expectantly.
The sorcerer slowly rose to his feet with a heavy sigh.
"You may be right about that. Truth be told, I don't have the right to say otherwise: I've only recently started practicing what I just preached. I won't claim to be an altruistic person, but, at least in this particular instance, I assure you I have no ulterior motives".
"..."
The shinobi fell silent, a begrudging acceptance that the man acknowledged with a nod.
"[Fly]," he chanted, and slowly began rising into the air.
!
Lakyus' heart did a somersault in her chest.
"You're leaving already?!" She blurted out without thinking, immediately clamping a hand over her mouth and shrinking as the mage abruptly froze in place.
"Er…" the man stammered in a confused way that made Lakyus want to die with embarrassment: "as much as I'd like to stay, I really must be going. I have somewhere to be, and I have just enough mana to sustain flight long enough to get there," he explained—of course, that was a lie, and he in fact still had well over half of his reserves.
"I-I see…" she replied, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot: "that's unfortunate. I… I would've liked to thank you properly for all that you've done… m-maybe..." she trailed off into inaudibility, glancing furtively around her—anywhere except up.
"Maybe some other time then?!" she finally managed, surprising even herself with her loudness.
She then began screaming internally, wishing she could sink into the mountain and disappear.
"I see…" the man trailed off, misconstruing her volume as frustrated adamance.
Perhaps she was the proud type who hated being indebted to people? Such personalities weren't uncommon among adventurers, especially those of higher rank.
If she really was one of those people, the last thing he needed was for her—a noblewoman as well as the leader of the most esteemed adventurer group in E-rantel—to start asking around about him in an attempt to track him down in order to repay a non-existent debt…
After a moment of deliberation, he reached into his cloak and withdrew a scroll.
"Here," he called out, tossing the neat bundle of tawny paper down towards her.
Lakyus' eyes, which had been clenched shut in embarrassment, snapped open at the same moment she caught it reflexively.
"This is..?" she trailed off hopefully.
"A [Message] scroll. Perhaps I'll take you up on your offer another day, but for now, I really must be going," he explained and began his ascent once again.
Lakyus clutched the scroll tightly against her chest, pursing her lips to suppress a giddy grin. She watched him rise farther and farther until all she could see was the end of his cape and the bottom of his boots.
And just as he got to the point that it was questionable whether or not he was still in earshot, Lakyus could no longer contain herself.
She opened her mouth…
...
"—and shouted: 'I-I'm looking forward to it!' BAHAHAHA!" Gagaran threw her head back in ruckus laughter after a histrionically feminine impersonation of her party leader.
"I-I-I did not sound like that at all!" Lakyus stammered: "b-besides, how would you even know, you were still unconscious, you big oaf!" she cried defensively.
"That is actually exactly how you sounded," Tina chimed in mercilessly and then, after taking a modest sip from her mug, added:
"And you were about as red in the face then as you are now".
Gagaran howled with laughter as Lakyus shrunk in her seat, daintily covering her face with both hands.
Then she felt a tree-trunk sized arm wrap around her shoulders and pull her in close.
"Oi, Lakyus!" Gagaran bellowed teasingly, leaning in close: "Sounds like you found your very own Momon-san, eh? Eh? Isn't that just great! Ahahaha! Seriously, you should've done what I always do and just demanded to fuck him!"
Lakyus finally managed to pull away, shaking her head vigorously. Her face was burning so hot that it was borderline feverish, and she was beginning to feel dizzy.
"A-a-a-a-as if I could've d-done that!" she stuttered deliriously before promptly burying her head in her arms against the tavern table as Gagaran erupted with more boisterous laughter.
"...at least he gave you a means to contact him," Evileye pouted from across the table, glaring jealousy-slathered daggers at the scroll in the middle of the table. She sighed longingly.
"...Still, from everything you've told me… assuming your description is accurate, it sounds like you ran into some Fomorians, somehow. A powerful race of giants that was thought to have gone extinct long ago… they're incredibly strong. If this mage was really able to defeat two of them by himself, then he's most likely attained power beyond the sixth tier. What did you say his name was again? It would be wise to make an ally of him".
"Ah?" Gagaran stopped laughing and scratched at her chiseled jaw: "now that you mention it, I don't think you guys ever told me. Tina?"
The shinobi dipped her chin into her scarf for a moment before looking to her sister for assistance—Tia shrugged lamely.
"Oi," Gagaran grunted, forcefully poking the top of Lakyus' head repeatedly: "what did he say his name was?"
A muffled, incomprehensible noise was the only response, followed by a faint sniffle.
Gagaran narrowed her eyes and leaned in closer, cupping a hand around her ear.
'Hahh? Speak up, would y—"
But she was cut off as Lakyus' head suddenly snapped up, knocking the giantess' mouth shut.
"I SAID I FORGOT TO ASK!" she proclaimed shamefully, her bottom lip quivering and the corners of her eyes glistening with tears.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Not even Gagaran could find it in herself to laugh. Evileye's head drooped in exasperation.
"...Really, Lakyus? He saved your life, and you didn't even bother to get his name?"
"IT ALL HAPPENED SO FAST AND THERE WAS A LOT GOING ON, OKAY?!"
(A/N: for reference, just imagine Lakyus' tearful expression like Aqua's from Konosuba :p)