The giant bellowed again, staggering. Even one-armed, it wasn't done. It swung its remaining fist down in a tantrum that shattered earth and sent shockwaves across the river. The fire-haired man, Lukka, Halfdan remembered, stepped forward, bored expression intact, and met the blow head-on.
His sword rose in both hands, caught the strike, and the impact detonated into sparks and molten shards. He slid one boot back, pivoted, and carved up through the arm with a trail of fire so bright it burned the afterimage into Halfdan's vision. The smell was volcanic; the scream that followed made birds collapse out of the air.
Brynhild, because that was the only name that could fit her, moved while the cry still echoed. She stepped into the space between heartbeats, the hem of her cloak rising like a sail in a hurricane, and her blade drew lines that only the wind could follow.
The cyclone she summoned didn't howl; it sang.
Halfdan staggered upright, more by reflex than reason, and joined in because standing still felt like betrayal. He raised his bow again; his MP gauge was screaming red, but "empty" was a word for accountants, not heroes. He drew anyway.
Include would do. He didn't have the MP to keep Install active, nor the need for it now. Reinforcements had arrived, like heroes from some story who show up at the last possible moment to save the day.
Absent-mindedly, he wondered if they'd actually waited for the giant to whoop his ass and get ready to squash him just so their entrance would be more dramatic. He had to admit that was exactly the kind of thing he'd do. But Brynhild and Lukka didn't seem like the type. Brynhild radiated duty, heroism, and all those shiny knightly ideals. Lukka, on the other hand, gave off the vibe of someone who considered theatrics beneath him, less fun, more action.
"Less fantasizing, more shooting," he told himself.
Arash's instincts were quieter now, spent, but not gone. They guided his shaking hands. He sent arrow after arrow into the storm Brynhild was weaving, feeding it, letting the wind catch them and carry them into the gaps she opened in the giant's hide.
The three of them found a rhythm without talking: air, fire, and light.
Brynhild's strikes turned the giant's hide to ribbons, Lukka's fire cauterized what she cut, and Halfdan's arrows hunted the soft places those two exposed. The monster fought back, wild, blinded by rage, swinging at ghosts, but every motion drew another wound.
When it tried to retreat, Brynhild's winds pushed it back into range. When it reared up, Lukka's fire coiled around its ankles like chains. When it tried to scream, an arrow found its open mouth and made that noise gurgle.
The fight ended in a storm. Brynhild leapt, her sword tracing a white arc across the giant's throat. Lukka drove his flaming claymore into its chest. Halfdan, breath tearing his lungs, drew one last arrow and whispered to no one, "Let's end this."
The shot left his fingers with a golden hiss. It hit where her cut and Lukka's fire crossed, through the throat, through the spine, and something in the world exhaled.
The giant froze. Its red eyes went black. Then the body folded in on itself, the size of a tower collapsing, and fell backward into the river with a crash that blew spray thirty feet high. The wave rolled over them, hot and filthy and full of blood.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then Halfdan started laughing. It wasn't dignified; it was exhausted, hysterical, the kind that comes from realizing you're still here.
Brynhild wiped the edge of her sword clean on the grass before sheathing it. The blade vanished into its scabbard with a faint sigh of wind. "That," she said evenly, "was reckless, but well aimed."
Lukka snorted. "Reckless, period." He was already inspecting the smoking corpse like he was grading it.
"Thanks for the warm welcome," Halfdan said, voice dry. "I'll be sure to check in next time before saving a few dozen farmers."
The red-haired man's eyebrow twitched. The angelic knight, Brynhild, almost smiled. Almost.
She offered a hand. He took it. Her grip was strong, steady, everything about her precise. The air around her still hummed faintly, as if reluctant to let go of its mistress.
"Brynhild," she said. "First Master of the Order of the Table." She nodded toward her companion. "Lukka."
The Order of the Table, alongside the Order of the Lion, stood as the two most powerful knightly orders in Mostalmia and its vassal territories. Halfdan, Alexander, remembered that his younger brother Giovanni had served as a squire to a knight of the Order of the Lion.
If his memory was correct, the royal children of Mostalmia had also belonged to those orders: the heir apparent was supposed to be the first Master of the Order of the Table. But Brynhild had claimed that title for herself.
So either he was misremembering… or things had changed. Perhaps the crown prince is the 1st Master of the Order of the Lion instead.
Lukka grunted in something that might have been a greeting.
Halfdan thought: Cool hair, cooler sword… definitely a jerk.
He looked past them to the villagers gathering again at a distance. Some stared in shock, some cried, some prayed to gods who hadn't answered in a long time. Smoke rose from a half-burned granary. The river ran red for a stretch before clearing itself.
Brynhild followed his gaze. "They'll need healers. Lukka and I brought a few from the harbor. We'll see them safe."
"Thanks," Halfdan said, still catching his breath. "Seriously."
Lukka tilted his head, eyes narrowing as if trying to decide whether gratitude was suspicious. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"
Halfdan opened his mouth, then closed it. "Archery club," he said finally.
Neither of them laughed.
Brynhild studied the gauntlet on his arm. "That gauntlet," she said softly. "It's not ordinary."
Halfdan lifted the golden gauntlet, its once-bright metal now dull and resting. "This old trinket? Bought it at a yard sale."
"A what?" Lukka raised an eyebrow.
"More importantly," Halfdan went on, "why is the First Master of a knightly order from the Western Continent doing in the Archipelago of Atlas? And even more importantly, how the hell does a creature that went extinct an era ago just show up out of nowhere?"
Brynhild's gaze drifted toward the horizon, where smoke still curled over the fields. "I came to the archipelago investigating Maddrifts," she said. She gestured toward the blackened corpse. "This one was likely pulled through one."
"Maddrifts?" Halfdan echoed.
That drew both of their eyes. For the first time since she arrived, Brynhild looked truly surprised. Lukka's hand drifted toward his sword again, not threatening yet, but the movement was there.
"You don't know the term?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I've been… away."
Lukka's tone went flint-sharp. "Away where? The moon?"
"Something like that." He met the man's stare. "Long story. You'd call it complicated; I'd call it traumatic."
Brynhild's expression eased a little, curiosity overtaking suspicion. "We'll speak later," she said finally. "Right now, we need to assess casualties."
She turned toward the villagers. Lukka lingered, eyes still hot as his hair. "You pull that thing on us, and I'll melt it off your arm."
Halfdan smiled faintly. "Good to know we're starting on trust."
When Lukka walked away, the grass smoked under his boots.
Halfdan exhaled. The adrenaline had gone, leaving a lead weight where energy used to live. The river sounded too loud. He glanced down at the gauntlet, still inert, still heavy, and felt the comedown hit.
The world had returned to normal speed. His limbs shook from the absence of Arash's steadiness. He felt, for the first time, exactly how close he'd come to being a smear under the giant's hand.
Brynhild called orders; healers moved through the crowd. Children clung to their mothers, and old men knelt in mud. Relief made everyone noisy again.
Halfdan joined the edges of it, scanning faces automatically. A pale-blonde head should have been easy to spot. Pink eyes even easier.
Nothing.
His stomach sank. "Lili?" he said under his breath, already knowing no one would answer.
He checked the nearest healer. "Did you see a little girl? Blonde, red-tinted eyes, maybe nine?"
The woman frowned, shaking her head. "No child like that came with us. Is she yours?"
"No," Halfdan said quickly, "just someone I met."
He pushed through the small crowd, ignoring the ache in his ribs. The villagers parted for him, startled by the gold-banded arm and the distant look in his eyes. He scanned every face, every corner of the field, every figure being bandaged. Nothing.
Brynhild found him pacing. "Halfdan," she called. "What's wrong?"
"The girl," he said. "Lili. She was with me when the giant came. She's not here."
Brynhild's eyes flicked toward her assistants. "We accounted for everyone in the fields. No one by that name."
"She's out there," he said. "She wouldn't just vanish."
Lukka, overhearing, walked up, wiping soot off his blade. "Children run when they're scared. She's probably halfway to the next village."
"No," Halfdan said. "She'd go looking for her father."
Brynhild's brows lifted slightly. "Her father?"
"She said his name was Alcides; he got lost."
That made Lukka pause. "He? Not the other way around?"
Halfdan shrugged. "That's what she said. She made him sound like some kind of airhead."
Brynhild said nothing. Her gaze drifted toward the forest, where mist was already curling back over the trees. "Maddrifts often bring more than one calamity at a time," she murmured. "The forest isn't safe. No part of this island is safe, not for airheaded men, and even less for children."
He followed her gaze. There, along the mud, faint, light footprints. Bare. Too small to belong to a fleeing adult. They pointed toward the deep woods.
Halfdan crouched and brushed his fingers over one of the prints.
"She couldn't have gone far."
Brynhild's voice was soft but firm. "We'll regroup and search when the wounded are safe."
He stood, shaking his head. "You can regroup. I'm going after her."
"Halfdan-"
He was already walking, the gauntlet's dull metal catching the evening light. The wind had changed again; it smelled of rain and something older.
He looked once at the fallen giant, at the crimson water curling around its corpse, and then back toward the trees.
"Hang on, kid," he murmured. "You wanted to find your papa? Then I'm coming with you."
The wind carried the promise away, up toward the clouded sky and the silent titan's statue far in the distance.
The forest swallowed him in green silence, and the chapter closed on the faint echo of his boots fading into the wild.