Chapter 174
Chapter 174
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 174
Chapter Title: Successor of Atlas
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A tenacious and resilient creature.
The Matryoshka doll, once a demon in the past, could sense it.
The grip strength, toughness, and vitality emanating from that small body.
Mir, who had been pinned down, appeared to have lost consciousness.
Her eyes rolled back white, blood pouring from her mouth, her body brutally crushed.
How many bones in her entire frame had shattered?
An ordinary person would have died instantly long ago...
[...]
But this wasn't enough.
This was the type that needed to be thoroughly crushed.
The doll leaped once more, plummeting down to smash into Mir's unconscious body.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Once wasn't enough, so twice, three times, four.
The floor caved in.
If the space below the corridor had been empty, it would have collapsed outright.
The doll knew.
Most of the space beneath the corridor was filled with earth. It was designed not to crumble even under the doll's onslaught.
[...]
And so, the doll confirmed the complete silence of the small, irritating presence.
Its massive bulk turned forward once more.
It knew all four were still on this floor.
The moment the doll moved toward the nearest enemy—
* * *
The northern tundra.
Homeland of the Frost Giants.
For Mir Giant, her homeland held scarcely any good memories.
"Hey! Shorty!"
"...I'm not a shorty."
Mir grumbled in reply as she glanced back.
A bellybutton at eye level from one of her peers. A jeering voice came from above.
"Shorty! What're you looking at? Don't you know you gotta look someone in the eye when you're talking? What, trying to say hi to my bellybutton?"
"......"
As if she didn't know.
Of course she did.
Mir often thought that even though she was small, her brain was surely bigger than this idiot's.
Yet she didn't look up.
Simply because lifting her head to peer up at him hurt her pride.
Mir stared stubbornly at the empty air.
"Got something to say to me?"
"The other day, I saw Rakita's little brother. He's already bigger than you. And the kid's only four!"
"......"
"What? Hey, shorty! Aren't you ashamed? Even the chieftain probably wants to dunk a runt like you in the ice lake!"
"...Ugh."
"What? Your voice is so tiny I can't hear—"
"Shut up—!"
Even then, Mir's voice was loud enough.
As the peer giant flinched and covered his ears, Mir bolted toward home.
"Father!"
She immediately sought out her father.
The chieftain of the Frost Wolf tribe, and the tribe's greatest warrior.
"Hmm? My proud daughter! What's wrong?"
"Why... why am I so small...!"
"Er..."
Mir looked up at her father with a quivering lip.
Her proud father, massive even among giants, looked especially cruel to her today.
"Am I really your child?"
"Of course! You're my one and only daughter!"
"Then why am I so small!"
"Hmm. As I said, everyone grows at their own pace. So someday, you—"
"Someday, someday, someday! When is this someday? I'm already twelve...!"
Mir tore at her hair as she shouted.
"Today they mocked me! Yesterday too! And probably tomorrow...!"
"Hmm..."
"I heard Raunda's already leading his own hunting party... The day before yesterday, I saw him take down five ice boars bigger than me... Meanwhile, I was just drilling holes in the ice to fish..."
"......"
"At this rate, I can't become a warrior... I'll be the shame of the Frost Wolf tribe... and of you, Father..."
Her father gazed down at Mir.
Then he hoisted his only daughter up high.
"Wha...?"
"Come with me for a bit."
"Father?"
Without a word, her father placed Mir on his shoulder and stepped out of the house.
For a moment, Raunda's jeer flashed in Mir's mind.
- Even the chieftain probably wants to dunk a runt like you in the ice lake!
Her small body began to tremble.
'Does Father finally want to abandon me?'
Terror gripped Mir, but she couldn't utter a word. Her stern-faced father looked nothing like his usual self—like the scariest person in the world.
'Even if he abandons me... I can't blame him. I'm so small.'
Mir understood resignation before she even knew the word.
Maybe it was right to plunge into the ice lake like this. At least then she wouldn't burden her father anymore.
That's what Mir thought, but tears already plopped from her wide eyes.
"Mir, you can open your eyes now."
"Wha...? Just a sec..."
The chill northern air.
Her tears had frozen over her eyes, making it hard to open them.
Her father pressed a thick finger to Mir's head.
Rough, but warm.
Mir loved her father's fingers.
Thinking this was the last time made it hurt even more.
She rubbed at her eyes furiously and said,
"Father... what's under the ice lake?"
"What? Quit talking nonsense and look at that."
"Huh...?"
When Mir opened her eyes, her mouth fell open.
"Whoa..."
Vast, open tundra and a pale-lit ice lake stretching wide.
Beyond it loomed towering snow-capped mountains.
"Look closely at that mountain."
"Huh..."
Mir blinked.
About halfway up the snow mountain sat a massive boulder.
No.
It was too large for a boulder, its shape too bizarre.
"Do you know the legend of the giant who once bore the heavens?"
"Huh...?"
"That is our great ancestor, Imir."
Mir's eyes went wide.
Naturally, she knew of Frost Giant Imir.
Not just her—no giant was ignorant of that name.
But a boulder as huge as that mountain was Imir?
"To be precise, it's the remains and tomb of Frost Giant Imir."
"Wh-why there of all places..."
"That snow mountain is the tallest and largest in all the northern ranges. It's among the continent's highest peaks. One day, an unprecedented massive earthquake struck the north. Countless mountains crumbled, the earth split. Innumerable northern lives perished, including us giants."
Her father spoke, eyes on the ice lake.
"This ice lake formed then too."
"Oh..."
"The tallest snow mountain didn't crumble, but the quake triggered an avalanche of unimaginable scale. The records call it a scene of annihilation. Left unchecked, that storm of snow would have swept away every life in the north."
"......"
Mir's vision blurred.
Strangely, a scene she'd never witnessed vividly filled her mind.
The world's mightiest snow mountain's avalanche looked like the sky itself collapsing.
Shattered cloud fragments endlessly raining from the heavens.
"All giants despaired. The waves of snow cascading from the lofty peak looked like the sky falling even to giants. We're all fine warriors, but none dared fight nature. Even the elders accepted it as fate... That's when Imir stepped forward."
From that point, Mir's heart began to beat faster.
"Imir charged out alone, spreading his arms to take the avalanche full on his body. Cold no Frost Giant could endure, weight no peak-bearing strength could halt—he bore it all with his flesh. They say it was mythic. The great Frost Giant truly blocked a collapsing mountain with his body."
The girl named after Imir asked,
"How could he do that...?"
"Because everyone believed in Imir. Believed he could somehow make it right."
"Isn't that too harsh?"
Her father chuckled.
"Not at all. Imir was probably glad. A warrior's life finds its greatest worth in repaying loyalty."
Her father stroked Mir's head once more with his finger.
"The great ancestor, Frost Giant Imir who halted the avalanche of doom, froze to death standing on his own two feet. On the loftiest snow mountain, leaving a legacy that would endure thousands, tens of thousands of years."
Her father's gaze returned to the snow mountain.
"I found you at the base of that mountain."
"......"
"But even so, you're my one and only daughter. Even if you'd been far smaller than now, I'd have seen you as pride, not shame."
"Really...?"
"Of course. I even thought—you might be the true heir to Imir's bloodline. His rightful successor."
"What's a successor...?"
"One who inherits their will."
Successor, successor, successor...
For some reason, Mir loved the ring of it, repeating it silently several times.
Her homeland held scarcely any good memories for Mir Giant.
...Scarcely any.
In other words, there were a few good ones.
This memory was one.
On a day when the wind was unusually still.
Before the ice lake and snow mountain, her father's voice rang clear in her ears.
"...The giant who plugged the falling sky."
"The great giant god who let us keep our home."
"His form resembled the ancient legends' greatest Titan who held up the heavens... From that day, we giants began calling Imir something else too."
* * *
"......"
Mir opened her eyes.
Her vision was hazy, her mind even hazier.
Yet amid it all, one thought obsessively gripped her mind.
'I must repay loyalty.'
That is a warrior.
Only then could she truly be of the Frost Wolf tribe, worthy of the giant name—and above all, the name Mir.
Her life so far had offered no such chance.
- You? Don't make me laugh, Mir Giant.
So Karon Woodjack's scorn wasn't wrong.
Even she found her own actions frustrating and foolish.
No one had believed in her.
Not even herself.
Thus, no loyalty offered, none to repay.
Until now.
- Pure physical prowess? You're the strongest.
She was acknowledged.
- When that moment comes, all you can trust is your honed body.
They'd noticed her diligent training.
- Being small doesn't mean weak.
- Lend me your strength. I need you.
She'd heard the words she longed for most.
'I was trusted.'
So it was fine to break.
Fine to shatter.
If she could just stand now, she could die after.
Repaying loyalty—that's what a warrior did.
That's what she'd been taught, what she wanted to be.
"Do you know the legend of the giant who once bore the heavens...?"
The moment the jeering voice escaped her, the doll leaped again.
Shocked that she still lived, its slaughter-machine body moved to ensure her total silence.
The doll's massive bulk plummeted mercilessly toward the barely risen Mir once more.
BOOMMMMM!
Another explosion.
[...]
Yet this small lifeform seemed tougher than expected.
The doll thought.
If four or five times wasn't enough, then ten, twenty. Crush her until her body's form was unrecognizable.
Thoroughly pulverize her until she couldn't function as a living being. No matter how resilient, even the toughest wouldn't move then.
But as the doll prepared to leap again—
[.........?]
It suddenly realized its body wouldn't move.
As if it had taken firm root in the earth.
The doll's sense was slightly off.
The one rooted was not the doll, but Mir.
Crunch.
Small but thick fingers exerted superhuman grip, piercing the doll's sole and hooking like claws.
A muffled voice rose from below, barely visible.
"I am..."
Mir rose.
Supporting a body dozens of times her size, hundreds in weight, through raw strength alone.
"The daughter of the Frost Wolf chieftain..."
She straightened her knees,
"...successor of Frost Giant Imir..."
Her waist,
"...and rightful heir to Titan Atlas."
She bore the trial.
The feat of the greatest ancestor, who long ago held up the crumbling sky and halted annihilation.
She couldn't even reach its toes, but at least she'd honor that will.
"By my small body and vast pride, I swear..."
Mir Giant smiled through bloodied teeth.
"...you shall not pass."
