Chapter 124: The Little Lion and the Country of Small People
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 124: The Little Lion and the Country of Small People
The girl named Adelaide von Lennart was a good person.
While not a paragon of virtue worthy of being called a saint, she possessed a kind heart that, by any normal standard, would be considered ‘good.’
The fact that she didn't treat bandits as mere humanoid monsters—even after being kidnapped by them and nearly sold into slavery, and despite undergoing the Tin Knight's training, which would have a profoundly negative impact on any developing adolescent's character—was proof of this.
And so, Adelaide found herself in a predicament.
What should I do about this situation?
“Aaaah! The giant is free!”
“Soldiers! Call for the soldiers!”
“Bring the catapults!”
Adelaide freeing herself must have been quite a shock, as the small soldiers surrounding her shrieked and created a commotion.
They seemed to be taking their actions very seriously, but to Adelaide, the sight of people only ten to fifteen centimeters tall bustling about was, for lack of a better word, rather cute.
Relieved that she could understand them, Adelaide looked at the small soldier in her hand.
His earlier confidence was gone; the soldier was trembling uncontrollably.
Adelaide loosened her grip, placed him on her palm, and asked.
“Excuse me, but could we… talk?”
“T-Talk?”
The soldier’s eyes widened, completely taken by surprise.
Adelaide nodded.
“I-I'm sorry for entering your country without permission and for destroying His Majesty the King's garden. I assure you, I had no malicious intent. Could you tell me what happened when I first appeared here?”
The soldier hesitated for a moment before answering. “We don't know for certain ourselves. There was a sudden crash, like something huge falling near the royal palace. When we investigated, we found you lying here, having crushed the garden.”
“I see.”
Adelaide gently rubbed a spot on her head that had been throbbing with a dull ache. There was no serious cut or bleeding, just a small bump.
…So, I was about to fight the Witch of the West when a massive boulder fell from above. Then the Tin Knight struck the ground, and… hmm.
Adelaide realized her memory of what happened next was hazy. She must have hit her head on the ground or a piece of falling debris as the platform collapsed beneath her.
She also guessed why her companions were nowhere to be seen. It was just as Dorothea had explained before the battle: Emergency Escape Magic. Single-use only, due to the cost of its components. And it would likely scatter them, so they had to regroup as quickly as possible.
“Um, do you know where the castle of the Witch of the West is?”
“The Witch of the West? Who's that?”
“Oh.”
The unexpected reply left Adelaide speechless for a moment. Come to think of it, titles like ‘Witch of the West’ and ‘Witch of the East’ were just names used by the people on the continent for their own convenience.
The problem was, Adelaide didn't know the witch's real name.
After a moment's thought, Adelaide tried again. “She's the witch who commands the Golden Monkeys with Wings.”
“Ah, you must mean Lady Elphaba,” the soldier said. “She is one of the key diplomatic partners of our Lilliput Kingdom. But getting to her domain won't be easy. It requires a very long voyage across the sea. In fact, it's nearly impossible unless you fly with the ‘delegation’ she sends.”
Diplomacy, the sea, the Lilliput Kingdom.
The flood of new information left Adelaide feeling confused.
The Scarecrow or the Witch might have been able to quickly piece things together from these few clues, but the little lion didn't have that kind of talent.
More importantly, her surroundings didn't afford her the luxury of getting lost in thought.
“Fire!!”
Before she knew it, the army of small people that had gathered around her fired their catapults.
What were giant boulders to the small people were merely the size of clenched fists to a human, but even so, the projectiles were more than enough to pose a serious threat to an ordinary person.
“Wait a minute!” Adelaide cried out. “I have no intention of fighting!”
However, Adelaide, who had survived the Tin Knight's Hell Course since she was a beginner, was an exception. She wore a troubled expression, but her movements were effortlessly nimble.
She dodged the incoming stones with light, nimble hops, all while having the presence of mind to keep the soldier on her palm from getting too dizzy.
She asked the soldier, “Can you please tell them to stop attacking?”
The soldier, clinging desperately to Adelaide's finger, shouted back. “I-I can't! Any giant who enters our kingdom is sentenced to one year of labor! And anyone who destroys the garden must plant five times as many seeds as the plants they ruined! That is the law of this land! Once a law is made, no one but His Majesty the King can change it!”
Adelaide was somewhat impressed by the soldier's reply. The laws of the Ionian Kingdom, after all, were neither so detailed nor so absolute.
In fact, the law itself was often subject to the whims of the ruling lord. If a lord declared someone guilty, they were guilty. If they declared them innocent, they were innocent.
But personal admiration aside, the soldier's answer put Adelaide in a difficult position. Planting seeds was manageable—she could probably finish it quickly—but being forced to work for a year was out of the question.
For the sake of her companions, she couldn't afford to stay here long. She had to find a way to nullify the punishment and secure their help to get to the other island. And she had to do it fast.
Adelaide asked the companions in her head.
What should I do?
The Tin Knight in her head replied.
-[The ‘Tin Knight’ exclaims, ‘These little people are like trash!’]
The Witch in her head replied.
-First, try to negotiate. If that fails, move on to threats, intimidation, and taking hostages.
The Scarecrow in her head replied.
-Perhaps it would be best to create a hypothetical scenario to obscure what is right and what is wrong?
Adelaide let out a dry laugh. Not a single one of them was of any help. Then again, considering two-thirds of them weren't even human, maybe that was to be expected.
She could have fought back at any moment, but the fear of permanently losing any chance of getting their cooperation held her back.
After some time spent agonizing over her dilemma, Adelaide suddenly realized the barrage of stones had stopped.
Puzzled, she looked around.
The small soldiers were no longer firing their catapults. At first, she thought they had simply run out of ammunition, but they showed no signs of reloading.
As Adelaide tilted her head in confusion at the sight of the soldiers, who for some reason now looked thoroughly intimidated, the one in her hand spoke up.
“…Ahem. Would you put me down? I will convey to them that you have no intention of fighting.”
If the Witch had been in her place, she would have retorted, ‘And why should I trust you?’ But Adelaide, without a second thought, set the soldier down.
The soldier approached his comrades and began to speak.
“Captain! You're safe! We were sure you were a goner…!”
“I'm fine. More importantly, everyone stand down.”
“But, Captain…”
“You must have realized it by now. If that giant decides to fight for real, we have no way of stopping her.”
At the words of the soldier—no, the captain of the small people—the other soldiers hung their heads. Adelaide had dodged their relentless barrage without the slightest sign of exertion.
The thought that she could use those agile movements to simply crush them from above made them shrink back, their knees weak with fear.
Perhaps because their will to fight had already been broken, the captain had no trouble persuading the other soldiers.
The small people assumed the giant Adelaide couldn't hear their conversation, but with her keen hearing, she overheard every word.
Feeling a little guilty that the situation had resolved as if she had intimidated them with force, Adelaide accepted the captain's offer to take her to their king so she could explain her circumstances.
Perhaps because the royal palace was nearby, it didn't take long for an answer to arrive.
“His Majesty summons you. He wishes to speak with you.”
*
Before they set off for the capital, the soldiers very cautiously asked if they could bind Adelaide's hands and feet. They explained that it was customary to transport visiting giants on a special cart, tightly restrained.
“His Majesty wished to come here himself to see you, but that would be a breach of protocol. On the other hand, if you enter the capital unrestrained, it will cause a great panic among the people.”
The captain looked incredibly sheepish as he explained, his tone now noticeably more polite. To put it in the Tin Knight’s words, he had the face of a civil servant who was just following orders from above while personally doubting if it was the right thing to do.
“I don't mind,” Adelaide said, obediently holding out her hands.
Her actions might have seemed to lack a sense of urgency, but from her perspective, there was no reason to object.
After all…
I can break free just by flexing a little.
Restraints are only meaningful when you can't break them. Bonds that could be broken at will were nothing more than a formality.
A dozen soldiers, tense and nervous, tightly wound ropes around Adelaide’s wrists and ankles (over her boots, to be precise). A small commotion broke out as they were tying her wrists.
“What is this thick golden thread? It looks like it's alive.”
“It's not going to attack us, is it?”
Only after hearing the soldiers did Adelaide notice the golden thread bracelet on her wrist. A few strands had come loose and were pointing in different directions.
Ah, this must be Franka's handiwork. Adelaide was inwardly relieved to have a clue that would help her regroup with the others.
Next came the task of loading her onto the special cart. It looked like a grand operation that would normally require a great deal of manpower, pulleys, and ropes, but Adelaide saved them the trouble by simply sitting down on it herself.
About a hundred soldiers grabbed the ropes attached to the cart and began to pull, inching Adelaide forward.
Don't they have any pack animals, like horses or oxen? Adelaide wondered, feeling a mixture of fascination and guilt.
Fascination, because these tiny people were somehow managing to move her at all; guilt, because the work looked so strenuous.
She wanted to walk on her own to spare them the effort, but remembering the captain's desperate plea, she couldn't bring herself to suggest it.
Resigned, she focused on observing her surroundings instead.
The buildings of the small people were, unsurprisingly, quaint and tiny. They reminded Adelaide of the ships-in-a-bottle her older brother used to build for fun.
An ornament that was a mere curiosity for a normal person could be a perfectly practical item for one of them.
The small people whispered amongst themselves as they stared at Adelaide. Their style of dress wasn't much different from that of the outside world.
Even the trees and rivers were proportionally small, making Adelaide feel an unsettling sense of anxiety. What if it wasn't that they were small, but that she had somehow become gigantic?
After traveling like this for some time, Adelaide was granted an audience with the king of the small people, a man with a golden crown and a bushy beard.
Since it was impossible for Adelaide to enter the royal castle, the audience was held in a large square before it.
“Hoh, so you are the giant who destroyed my garden,” the king said, looking at Adelaide with great interest. “I hear you are quite powerful, is that so?”
Adelaide hesitated, unsure of the proper etiquette for addressing a king, and settled for an awkward bow of her head.
“I have heard the circumstances,” the king began. “That this incident was unintentional, and that you have a request for me. Well, we can discuss the details later—”
He trailed off, then abruptly drew his sword and pointed it at Adelaide. A powerful surge of mana erupted from his tiny frame.
“—first, let us have a bout. If you can show me skills that impress me, I will give your request my serious consideration.”