Chapter 47: Killing a Giant
-You were the most special child in the world.
Mother had blessed me.
I couldn’t remember her face.
-The bitch who devoured her own mother, the bitch who would bring about the end of the world.
Father had cursed me.
Likewise, I couldn’t remember his face.
-Dirty thing, corrupted thing, a seed of desolation that would carry ruin wherever it went.
Everyone in the village had despised me.
Their faces, at least, I remembered.
Because Herja had personally cut off every single one of their heads.
She remembered.
The day she had gathered all the faces of the village in one place.
The day she had arranged their faces in a circle inside a small room.
The day she had asked the question she had wanted to ask all along.
-Why does everyone hate Herja……?
Why did everyone hate me.
Why did everyone spit at me, throw stones at me, and hurl curses at me.
Was it a sin to be born as the daughter of a forgotten Valkyrie.
Or was it a sin to possess special power from the moment of birth.
-Can someone please answer me…….
There was no way to know the reason.
The rotting heads merely kept their silent silence.
How much time had passed.
One day, warriors clad in gleaming armor burst in.
They called what Herja had done a ‘massacre’ and shouted threats at her.
-We exile the Valkyrie of Desolation from the realm of Nord forever!
And so, the Valkyrie, who had just turned two years old, was expelled from her homeland.
To some unfamiliar world she had never even heard of.
Among them, where was it again.
It had been an extremely cold and harsh land.
Herja had wandered aimlessly through a land where snow flurries scattered viciously.
Then, there, she met someone for the first time who listened to her story.
-You are a very special person.
She introduced herself like this.
-I am Fixer River.
-…….
-May I speak with you for a moment?
That was when it began.
When Herja started learning how to live in this world.
And when she started learning something called ‘jobs’.
“Kill me?”
Gnar’s eyebrow twitched.
There was no answer in return.
Instead, a small Valkyrie wearing a helmet charged straight at him.
“Hm…….”
The Valkyries, beings blessed by the highest one of Nord.
They were the bravest of warriors, and embodiments of the battlefield itself.
Back when Gnar had been in his homeland of Nord, he had fought Valkyries countless times.
Messengers of death endlessly dispatched to kill giants like himself.
‘But this Valkyrie…… is something different.’
It was said that Valkyries were given weapons connected to their souls from the moment they were born.
Axes, swords, hammers, bows, spears, shields…….
They wielded the arms bestowed upon them as freely as if they were parts of their own bodies.
But among those many weapons, Gnar had never once seen the one that little Valkyrie was using.
‘A Valkyrie who uses daggers. And I can’t even feel a blessing from her body.’
Thunk, thunk!
The sound of metal colliding with metal echoed through the warehouse.
The Valkyrie’s attacks were blocked by the massive shield.
A single short blade held in her hand.
To a giant, it was smaller than a tool for picking teeth, but the power and technique with which it was wielded could never be ignored.
‘How can she produce that kind of strength without a blessing?’
The blessing bestowed by the highest one of Nord.
Granted solely for battle, it allowed Valkyries to dominate the battlefield.
But the Valkyrie before his eyes possessed no such blessing at all.
‘Is it purely her own skill?’
The Valkyrie moved at an unbelievable speed to get around the shield that stood like a wall.
And the attacks that had been helplessly blocked began to grow sharper by the moment.
‘Dragging this out won’t be good.’
An attack that failed once was never used twice.
The next attack was stronger and faster than the last.
Using previous failures as stepping stones, she aimed for a higher place.
With only one goal, to kill her opponent.
‘Her talent alone is worth praising.’
She was aiming for a single opening.
She seemed to believe that if she could drive her dagger into that opening, she could kill the giant before her.
Whether that was true or not, the Valkyrie’s attacks were growing ever more razor-sharp.
On top of that, the mage in the distance was throwing magic in troublesome trajectories whenever possible, supporting the Valkyrie.
Ice that could not be blocked without the shield called Svalinn.
‘I can’t keep giving her opportunities like this.’
What was needed now was to turn the situation into an offensive.
And to do so with overwhelming force that would crush the opponent.
With that thought, Gnar stretched his hand high into the sky.
Then he pulled something out of thin air.
[Be careful. Something is coming.]
At Diesel’s warning, Herja stepped back for a moment.
Immediately after, a flash of light burst forth, and a gigantic hammer appeared in midair.
“……!”
Kwaaang!
A massive chunk of metal slammed down into the solid warehouse floor.
The Valkyrie, who had narrowly avoided the attack by a hair’s breadth, took a brief breath and glared at the giant.
“What is it.”
Gnar assumed a combat stance with a firm expression.
“Didn’t you say you’d kill me?”
“…….”
A violent weapon held in the giant’s hand.
A crude combat hammer, nothing more than a lump of metal about the size of a car attached to a long shaft.
But even if its shape was simple, the oppressive presence it exuded was anything but.
‘It’s stupidly huge. And it’s wrapped in all kinds of Miracles, too.’
For a human to even lift that thing, heavy-grade output cyberware would have been required.
And even if one somehow managed to hold it, swinging it would have been impossible.
Gnar began handling such a weapon as if it were nothing more than a mole-smacking club.
Bang! Bang!
This time, the giant slammed the massive hammer down again and again toward the Valkyrie.
Herja was dodging the attacks at high speed, but there was nothing she could do about the shockwaves bursting out from the missed blows.
[We need to change our strategy.]
Diesel instructed Herja.
Now that such a vicious weapon had been brought out, a different approach was necessary.
No matter how fast Herja’s movements were, her opponent was a seasoned warrior who had fought countless battles.
Rather than aiming his attacks precisely, Gnar was deliberately releasing shockwaves powerful enough to make the ground tremble.
Those waves were surely inflicting significant damage on Herja’s internal organs.
At this rate, it was only natural that her evasion ability would gradually decline.
And then, just once.
If she were hit even a single time by that hammer he swung, it would be over.
[Proceeding to the next plan.]
The moment Diesel’s command came down, Herja spread her wings of light wide.
Then the Valkyrie’s small body fluttered upward into the air.
“You’re pulling tricks.”
Gnar snorted and slightly turned his head.
Toward Diesel, who was forming some kind of Magic in his hand.
“Then I’ll just kill the other one first.”
The giant began to charge forward at terrifying speed.
With him, the ground rumbled as if an earthquake had struck.
‘He’s faster than I thought.’
Among the public, there was a fixed notion that the larger a giant’s body, the slower it would be.
But those who had actually fought giants knew just how absurd that idea was.
In the blink of an eye, Gnar’s massive body, which had been far away, closed the distance in great strides.
The giant pulled the hammer far back behind his body, then swung it forward as if hurling it, using centrifugal force.
Whoooong……!
The chunk of metal sliced through the air with a menacing sound.
But before that, a change occurred in Diesel’s body.
Pajijijik……!
Loud sparks burst as electric arcs shot out like thorns.
‘Leigong(雷公).’
The form known as the god of lightning.
A Magic formula from the latter pages of electroshock reinforcement techniques settled into Diesel’s two legs.
Diesel moved his reinforced legs and narrowly avoided the giant’s attack.
‘Ugh……. As expected, the pain can’t be helped.’
After learning the Magic formula while facing Kaztikan, he still hadn’t gone through sufficient practice.
Because with a single use, the backlash burned out all his muscles.
No matter how Magic-compatible the artificial muscles implanted in Diesel’s legs were, they couldn’t withstand Leigong’s tremendous voltage.
Still, since this was his second time using Leigong, the side effects had been greatly reduced compared to the first.
If he practiced a few more times, he might even figure out a way to eliminate the side effects entirely.
But for now, Diesel didn’t have the funds to blow out his artificial muscles with a single test.
That was precisely why he had been trying to build a matrix called a Test Chamber.
Inside the Electrosphere, a virtual space, there was no need to worry about side effects.
“You’re quite fast.”
Gnar praised him as he deflected the hammer.
That incredible speed even surpassed the Valkyrie’s.
Because Diesel had modified the power called Leigong solely to enhance speed, he was able to escape far beyond the range of the shockwaves Gnar emitted.
“Then I’ll show you properly as well.”
The giant let out a sharp shout and continued his attack.
Then the hammer swung with a speed that was hard to believe could come from such a massive body.
‘Ugh, this won’t do…….’
Bang, bang, bang!
Once again, sparks flew as the hammer crashed down all over the warehouse.
At a speed incomparable to before.
‘If only that shield weren’t there…….’
He intermittently froze Gnar’s feet with Black Ice to bind him somehow, but each time, the giant smashed the ice apart with the shield called Svalinn.
[Now.]
As Diesel was dodging the attacks.
Herja, who had risen into the air, moved.
Like a stone hurled toward the giant’s head, the Valkyrie’s dagger surged forth.
A thrust powerful enough to pierce the skull of that hardy race.
The strike Herja extended with all her strength aimed for the back of Gnar’s head.
“……!”
Tung……!
But at the very last moment, the shield shot up.
A dense vibration rang out from the metal mass, spreading through the air as a shockwave.
“So this was the trick you were going for.”
While Diesel evaded the attacks, Herja launched an aerial ambush.
An attack aimed solely at the blind spot.
No matter how powerful a warrior Gnar was, he wouldn’t be able to avoid a dagger stabbing in from a place he couldn’t see.
‘At this rate, we can kill him.’
Watching Herja’s movements, Diesel was convinced.
As she repositioned herself, her face seemed filled with determination not to repeat the mistake of the first attack.
‘That Valkyrie……. She’s a genius when it comes to combat.’
The innocent look of a naïve child picking up jelly at the airport was nowhere to be seen.
In its place stood a single Valkyrie with refined combat techniques.
A Valkyrie who grew stronger the more she fought, as if she had been born solely for battle.
“That was a good attempt. But…….”
Had he sensed that subtle shift in momentum?
Gnar suddenly stopped attacking and began to focus on defense.
“……!”
Along with that, a Miracle sigil of Nord floated in the high air above.
Realizing what it meant, Diesel hurriedly formed Magic and shouted.
[We have to block it!]
Dozens of ice spears formed in the air.
They were capable of easily piercing steel, and they were all fired at the giant at once, but—
Nord’s shield, Svalinn, was not ordinary steel.
Next, the Valkyrie’s dagger flew toward the back of Gnar’s head.
But before that.
“It’s already too late.”
With the giant’s heavy voice, space split open with a ripping sound.
‘This is insane…….’
Urrrrr……!
Thunder roared.
A storm raging in the seas of Midgard.
Along with it, from the torn space, a colossal wave began to pour forth.
“Face it.”
Gnar took up his attack stance once more.
“The Sea of Aegir.”