The Giant’s Fury

The golden-haired girl, dragging the half-crippled Thin Man, emerged from the cellar. She unexpectedly discovered a heavy, charred wooden chair, and despite its appearance, the chair remained remarkably sturdy.

She settled into what had once been the wooden manor’s grand hall. Above her, the roof was entirely incinerated, allowing her to gaze directly at the azure sky.

The fierce struggle she had just endured, though lasting barely a minute, felt exceptionally protracted and draining due to her accelerated neural responses.

“Haaah…” Noren leaned back against the wooden chair’s support, only for the backrest to snap with a sharp crack. Only the chair’s four legs remained steadfast.

“This isn’t so bad,” she mused, “at least there’s a chair to catch my breath on.” Noren untied her golden braid, then quickly fashioned it into a simple, yet defiant, ‘dangerous lady’ hairstyle. As she finished, a noticeable lightness settled over her, and stroking her smooth, golden hair, she felt her spirits lift considerably.

Noren glanced at the half-dead Thin Man lying beside her. His knees were tightly bound with strips of cloth, the parts below having been abandoned in the cellar. His upper body was bare, marred by a dark, hand-shaped imprint on his chest. His shirt, she recalled, had been torn into bandages by her.

“ROAR—!!!”

A sound, like the roar of an ancient beast, rumbled from not far away. Moments later, Noren watched in disbelief as two startled horses—one grey, one white—galloped past her, neighing wildly as they fled.

She blinked, dumbfounded.

“Damn it, my horses!”

Noren moved in a flash, the chair beneath her splintering into pieces from the sheer force of her sudden rise. Yet, no matter how swift her initial burst of speed, Noren remained merely human. After a fleeting moment where her fingertips almost brushed the reins of the fleeing horses, she was inevitably outpaced and left far behind.

Watching the two warhorses disappear in a cloud of dust, the girl stamped her foot in frustration, but it was futile. Startled horses would only return once their fear had subsided and they found their way back on their own.

“What in the world is going on?!” Noren fumed. “It seemed the Thin Man on the ground had deceived her; he must have accomplices. Otherwise, her horses wouldn’t have fled without reason.”

Moreover, that roar hadn’t sounded human. Judging by its direction, it had originated from where the caravan was temporarily resting. She had to investigate what had transpired.

Noren strode purposefully towards the caravan, her mind racing with questions:

‘Could a brown bear have descended from the mountains? A male bear, perhaps? Mistaking the caravan’s wagons for the presence of a female?’

‘Young bears typically remain with their mothers until they mature, and rutting male bears are known to kill cubs. Perhaps the brown bear cub traveling with the caravan had attracted a large male.’

‘It’s mid-June, the peak of the brown bear breeding season. It must be a brown bear.’

‘I just don’t know how the Thin Man’s accomplice managed to lure one here. From that roar, it must be a massive male. I hope Tolke and the others can handle it without suffering casualties!’

These thoughts flashed rapidly through Noren’s mind as she moved with incredible speed, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground, and soon she neared the caravan’s resting place.

There, a giant was relentlessly smashing the caravan’s wagons with an enormous tree trunk. All four wagons had been flattened into unrecognizable wreckage, and a round wagon wheel slowly rolled to a stop by her feet.

Noren felt her heart bleed. Her eyes and the corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably. Ten thousand ‘grass mud horses’ galloped and roared through her mind, and these ten thousand ‘grass mud horses’ bleated and spat furiously in her direction.

The golden-haired girl took a deep, shuddering breath, her ample chest rising prominently. As her chest fell, a long stream of white vapor burst from her lips—

“KILL!”

‘I don’t care what kind of monstrous entity you are! Dare to destroy her caravan, and with Tolke and the others’ fates unknown? For either reason, this giant is dead!’

Noren moved with astonishing speed, covering the distance to the giant’s back in but a single breath. She sprang upwards, delivering a Superman Punch imbued with immense power directly to the giant’s nape!

A distinct four-fingered imprint was left on the giant’s thick neck.

Noren’s lips had just curled into a triumphant smile, certain of the giant’s demise, when suddenly, alarm bells shrieked in her mind, a violent death premonition echoing loudly!

Without a moment to spare for thought, she forcefully kicked off the giant’s back with both feet, propelling herself backward through the air.

The giant, having absorbed Noren’s full-force punch, let out a furious roar, a sound that shook the heavens and earth, making the ground tremble and the sky itself seem on the verge of collapse. He swung the massive tree trunk he held behind him, generating turbulent currents of air, a fierce gale, and even faint sonic booms.

Fortunately, Noren had retreated immediately after her strike. The gnarled roots of the enormous tree trunk grazed past her face, and the turbulent air swirling around the trunk swept up her flowing hair, her golden tresses billowing in the powerful air currents, all forced in the same direction.

Noren executed a backward somersault in mid-air, landing steadily on her feet, just as the giant charged towards her with boundless ferocity. Only as the giant bore down on her did she truly register its current state.

One of the giant’s eyes had been pierced by an arrow. The fletching of the arrow was black, a detail she recognized from the black-beaked crow carcass she had previously harvested. She had given those feathers to Tolke for crafting arrows.

‘No wonder this giant is so enraged,’ she thought. ‘He’s gravely wounded.’

‘A giant, a hunchbacked Thin Man…’

Noren finally pieced it together, recalling the words spoken by the gnome and the maid named Riva when she encountered them last night. They had spoken of a giant and a hunchback who had slaughtered all the guards and servants in the manor, and Sir Černý as well.

Coupled with the Thin Man’s statements before and during their fight, this fact solidified in her mind.

With this realization, Noren felt a burden lift from her heart, a great weight of anxiety dissolving. She had feared the ‘treasure’ the Thin Man mentioned was her Bloodstone, but it must be something else entirely. The gnome had been dispatched by Mayor Kunar to steal from Sir Černý’s wooden manor even before her own arrival in Osbrück.

“Ah, what a relief,” Noren sighed internally, her mind eased considerably. However, the immediate situation quickly reignited her tension. Her most powerful blow, a Superman Punch delivered with maximum speed and force, had struck the giant’s nape without even wounding him. ‘What kind of monster is this?’

The thought flashed through her mind. The giant, though appearing clumsy with its massive limbs and torso, was surprisingly swift. Its long legs, as thick as a normal man’s waist, covered the distance to Noren in just a few colossal strides.

“I need to keep my distance and fight a war of attrition,” she thought, “like the Red Viper against the Mountain.” Noren immediately settled on her strategy. Only by utilizing her superior agility and mobility could she hope to find an opening for victory.

She realized that while the giant was fast, its movements were slow to change. In simpler terms, the giant had a long wind-up and recovery period, but its actual attack delivery was incredibly quick.

Noren arched her back and ducked under a sweeping blow from the tree trunk, then performed several agile tumbles backward to widen the distance between herself and the giant.

“It’s too long, that tree trunk,” Noren thought, dodging another of the giant’s attacks. “It must be three or four people long; I can’t get close.” With the twenty-foot-long tree trunk in the giant’s grasp, a frontal assault was utterly impossible.

‘It seems I’ll have to circle around him.’

“Shing!” Noren drew her Northlander’s Sword.