Goddess Descent (3)
“...What the hell is that?”
The female thief who saw the same thing as me groaned and asked. But it was a difficult question to answer, even if I wasn’t some ignorant Kitai martial artist with pitifully little knowledge. What kind of phenomenon involves a tree growing in the sky? Infinite Tsukuyomi? Or did some fucking Jop bastards secretly plant a World Tree seed and pump it full of Hebil’s growth accelerator?
“...Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem like we can afford to take it easy.” I said in a serious voice.
After spitting out the words, I activated Odin’s Eye. The tree in the sky only looked like a plant; it was neither a living creature nor magic. It was nothing more than a trace left behind by some spell, like soot from a fire-attribute blast. In other words, standing here staring at it like idiots wasn’t going to make anyone show up with the answer. As I thought that, I spotted something falling from the tree and my eyes widened. My guess had been wrong. It wasn’t a tree. It was a ‘crack.’
BOOOOM!!
Something plummeted from the dimensional gap. Was it my imagination that the sight somehow resembled the moment I woke from the dream on the day I spread the shade? “EUuuggeeeq───!!!” The creature had fallen from over a hundred meters up, yet it didn’t die. It simply writhed and bounced around in a hyper, unseemly way for its massive size. Even though I knew the female thief was right beside me, I threw my concept out the window and cursed.
“This motherfucker!!”
“I-it’s disgusting!! So fucking disgusting!! It really makes you want to scream fuck!!”
The female thief frowned with a look of pure revulsion, responding in perfect sync. I couldn’t even answer her. I just kept repeating fuck dozens of times inside my head while watching the giant throw a tantrum like a kindergartener on a trampoline. Its appearance was slightly different, but I knew this creature. That vertically slit dick-like mouth! That supreme ugliness that could drive a person insane just by looking at it!
‘It’s the frost giant I saw on the Bicorn’s Garden Island!’
The monster I had barely managed to kill by burning every drop of my own mana, borrowing external mana, and firing off my ultimate technique had been randomly dropped into Renapolis. Veronica had guessed it was a Yotun, but its exact species classification wasn’t what mattered. It had been a long time since I quit veterinary science, and if a day ever came when someone collared one of these things and dragged it into an animal hospital, every clinic in the country would go bankrupt.
The truly important part was that there wasn’t just one.
THUD!
THUDUDUM!
CRASH!
The Yotuns pouring from the crack in the sky had long since exceeded what I could count on one hand. My face turned deathly pale the instant I registered the number of falling sounds.
‘We’re fucked!’
The one I fought before had been that strong even after reviving from a dormant state like a tardigrade. The one in front of me was smaller than that specimen, but in this bloodline-obsessed other world, racial advantage could not be ignored. There were at least ten of them! And since the ‘crack’ remained open, there was no telling how many more would come.
“Obatettete!!!”
The Yotun writhed on the ground as if throwing a tantrum at a mother who refused to buy it a toy, even though it hadn’t been injured by the fall. I had often called goblins the “green jammins” of this other world, but at least those bastards were small, easy to kill, and weak like the juvenile offenders they resembled. Jammins are hard to stop because the law protects them. That’s why the green jammins of this lawless other world are weaklings. If goblins had been protected by juvenile law, adventurers couldn’t have slaughtered them like old men collecting scrap paper and looted their corpses!
But Yotuns were different. Those fuckers might not have established the rule of law either, but they were the type of jammins that couldn’t be stopped because they were simply too damn strong. Just imagine it—a five-meter-tall hell-chang jammin whose mom is a bitch. That could only be described as a nightmare. If Champy had been three times a human’s size, he would have founded the Futaba Empire! Interdimensional cultural exchange is nothing but hell!
“Obatete Tututu!!!”
“Uwaaaaaack?!”
CRASH!!
The Yotun that fell in front of us writhed, then charged straight into a nearby fruit shop. The middle-aged shopkeeper screamed and fled. Fortunately the giant didn’t chase him. Instead, the female thief and I were subjected to an unwelcome view of its wide-open ass.
“Kwaaaaaack!!”
“Hukyaaaaack!!”
We both screamed. But my enhanced eyes still managed to observe its skin in that instant.
‘Fuck, it looked like that bastard’s hide was cracking all over?’
Could it be weak to sunlight? The way it immediately scrambled into the shade of the fruit stall suggested it was possible.
‘Come to think of it, the Yotun I fought before also avoided stepping into direct sunlight.’
It had been an unimaginable eye-rape, but if this information was accurate, the damage to my vision had been worth it. I had learned the enemy’s weakness. Still, I couldn’t be optimistic. It might hide in the shade and camp out for now, but the moment night fell it would clearly go berserk like a vampire served garlic chives for breakfast.
The female thief who had suffered the same eye-rape shouted as if she had stepped in dog shit.
“Hey, Yesugei! Sorry, but I’m heading to my lady!”
“Got it! We each have people to protect, so let’s split here!”
“Yeah! It doesn’t sound like me, but—good luck!”
After the short exchange of opinions, we scattered. If this was that Diabolo bastard’s doing, the smart move would be to ask Primor whether her family’s secret weapon had any connection to the current crisis. But people never want to teach their daughters-in-law the family’s secret kimchi recipe, right? I didn’t know how long Primor had been married, but the chance that those people would have passed down a secret hundreds of years old to her seemed extremely slim.
SWOOOOSH!!
I activated the escape skill I had mastered during my phantom-thief days and sprinted at tremendous speed. First I released the clothing transformation in a nearby alley and hid my mask. With my identity now safe, I crossed the city like a jet plane while even using Fog-Fog Body.
THUD!
“UboGeeeeeeekkk!!”
While running I spotted another Yotun rampaging around without even finding a place to hide. I was worried about casualties, but I couldn’t kill it in a brief skirmish, so I nimbly shook it off.
“Uwaaaaaack!! Save me!! It’s a fucking ugly monster!!”
“My house is collapsing!! I still have so much loan left!!”
SCATTER!!
Citizens were also fleeing to avoid getting caught in the Yotuns’ indiscriminate destruction. I frowned at the small wooden building collapsing into ruin. Behind the street that had become a wasteland in mere moments, the lord’s mansion came into view. The pillar of the tree stretching into the sky was growing from that direction.
‘Is this what Diabolo did?’
It was hard to understand. Covering one incident with another was certainly a classic damage-control method. Back in my homeland of South Korea, whenever a political scandal exploded, the entertainment industry would take the bullet and the media would run with it—it was practically national law. But that only applied when you weren’t the one responsible. A lord’s power comes from his territory. Territory management runs on taxes. It was obvious the auction incident would cause massive losses, yet he would destroy the very land where he reigned as the real power just to cover it up? That was far from logical thinking.
‘...The only things that beat money are more money and conviction.’
After a short train of thought, I became certain. No matter the reason, this was an incident that red-haired fucker had planned from the very beginning.
‘And there’s no way a bastard who pulls this kind of shit with dogshit philosophy is sane.’
This was less deduction and more empirical rule. This bold madness felt all too familiar. I clicked my tongue.
‘The Compilation Battalion, or Immortalis.’
If it was one of the two, it was probably Immortalis. And considering Correntus’s existence, I could tell these bastards would never cooperate with each other. From the start, the unicorn black-mage bastard was suspected of backstabbing the colleague he had teamed up with Yerna to live with in the city of the dead, wasn’t he? If my speculation was correct, simply dropping Yotuns wouldn’t be the end of it.
“...Ah, fuck!”
When I returned to the Hermeion Guild leader’s mansion, I cursed the moment I arrived. There was a Yotun at the mansion as well.
“Where the hell does this fucking bastard think this is, crawling in here!!”
Flames erupted from my eyes as I charged. It wasn’t our house, but it was the house where our wives were staying! And as I got closer, I realized those very wives were personally running the raid!
“Ssk──!!”
“Kyaaaaack!! Sisters!! Our Ringling’s arm is breaking apart──!!”
“Hold on just a little longer!! Fuck, its hide is so disgustingly tough!!”
Larilura was pinning the Yotun down with Ringling 4.5, its output boosted by the thimble’s effect. Dana seemed to be applying debuffs from behind with the gauntlet magic I had given her. Grass from the garden had grown and tangled its feet, while a red snake writhed around its neck.
“Die, you face terrorist!!”
I transformed the bracelet into a spear and hurled it. The Yotun lowered its head deeply and dodged. Damn it!
“Ah, mom!!”
As expected of a race that shed its ugly face and rose through pure skill—it fought incredibly well!! Still, its feet were currently sealed by Dana’s magic! It couldn’t dodge Franc’s close-range attack either.
“Oageeekk!!”
WHAM!!
THUD!!
Dana’s debuff apparently included a defense-down effect, because Franc’s earthen hammer strike landed like a critical hit. The moment I noticed, I shouted to Veronica, who was chanting magic from the rear.
“Veronicaaaaa!! Sowulo!!”
“The sun is the light of the nine heavens (ᛋ Sól er landa ljóme), I shall pay homage to the gods (lúti ek helgum dóme)!!”
⟨ Skínandi Röðull ⟩
Our maid canceled the spell she had been preparing and began a new chant. The flame clinging to the tip of the Burning Branch sparked like a torch soaked in gunpowder.
The magic strengthened by the Sowulo rune condensed natural sunlight into a mirror-ball of radiance. Then the illusory light show began!
The Yotun writhed in agony.
“GbvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV!!!!”
“Eiii──☆!!”
“Yah!!”
The adorable battle cries from Larilura and Franc struck the Yotun’s torso from front and back at the same time. Hit by the double lariat, the giant vomited blood and died.
“W-we did it…! We defeated it, sisters!”
“Haa, yeah. Fucking hell… that was ridiculously hard…”
Larilura retracted the nearly shattered Ringling, looking utterly exhausted. Even Dana, who had played the most decisive role with her debuffs, collapsed as if every ounce of strength had left her. I was about to run over to them when I spotted Selena being supported by the butler, blood dripping from her, and my heart nearly stopped.
“Miss Selena! Are you alright?!”