It wasn’t long until the Laughing Vipers were fully awake and getting ready for their day. While I did my best not to snoop on them, I couldn’t help but hear Axel’s absurd snoring.
He was loud enough to attract two sets of Orcs during the night. I killed both groups using a quick surge of Earth Magic, sending a spiral rock through each of the monster’s heads. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t go killing the Orc’s needlessly, but if I hadn’t killed them, then the people I promised my protection to would be dead, so I felt no moral qualms about the necessity of their deaths.
Archy and Axel both took the death of the Orcs rather simply, just accepting it as another part of daily life. Aspen, on the other hand, had to be distracted from questions about my Earth Magic with news that I finally learned Fire Magic. I had to perform a few demonstrations for her to finally believe me, but we finally made it to breakfast, after which came the difficult conversation. I started off with a simple explanation of how I saw the situation.
“Now that I know Fire Magic, I plan on finally killing the giant in my roots. I know you all have some trauma regarding Giants, so I encourage you to go out and hunt Orcs, just like yesterday. I can handle the elimination of the monster myself, especially given its vegetative state.”
TO my surprise, all three objected.
Axel and Aspen held their heads in their hands, stating that they wanted to be there to “make sure the deed was done.” Archy was more eloquent with his desire to stay.
“If you aren’t able to kill it and it manages to escape or fight back and- Well, I think we should be here in case something goes wrong and we need to report to the guild. If you order us to leave, I will go and do my best to bring the other two with me. But I implore you to allow us to at the very least watch from a distance.”
Archy got right up in my puppet’s face with his speech. I was still against them being here for this, but since they insisted, I guess they could watch. I doubt anything dangerous will come from me cooking up a vegetable.
“Fine, but you will watch from above and stay away from the fire. I have a pretty good idea of how this is going to go, and my branches will be the safest place for you if I somehow lose control of the mana. Now come.”
I guided them to a spot close to my trunk and used Earth Magic to raise the ground under them high enough to grab on to my vines and climb the rest of the way there. I assisted, using the very vines they were grabbing to pull them up further into my canopy. I brought them up to the nook that Lilly first rested in when I found her that fateful day. There they had a good view of what was to come.
Now that the trio was out of the way, I reached my mind deep down into my roots and reconnected to the ones that acted as the Giant’s tomb. I was immediately hit with a rush as my body started absorbing the giant’s blood again, refilling all three of my resource pools in a matter of seconds.
I poured mana into the ground around me at surface level and continued to flood the earth all the way down to where the giant’ body was hidden away. When the earth was properly saturated with my mana, I used a combination of Earth Magic and Body Manipulation to drag the giant out of the ground.
As the nonresponsive body rose through the forty feet of dirt and roots that were his jail, I started to remove my roots from inside of its body. Doing so slowed how much mana I was able to recover, but I was still recovering more than I was using, so it wasn’t a problem.
When the body reached the last few feet, I moved the ground to create a tunnel with a large cavern in the middle. The cavern would be where the body would lie for the duration of its termination, and the tunnel would act as air flow, as both ends connected to the surface.
“Prepare yourselves for quite the show.” I told the trio who saw the two openings appear in the ground.
I laid the giant’s body down so its head was at one end of the cavern and the feet were at the other. It was in surprisingly good condition, just a little dirty. If I wasn’t actively checking for any mental activity, I would almost say the big guy was just sleeping.
I created a large fireball near the tunnel entrance by the giant’s head. Next, I used Air Magic to have a strong and steady breeze that warped around the fireball so as to not put it out. When that was ready, I added a stream of fuel to the flame and watched as the hottest flamethrower I have ever made roared to life.
The Giant’s body started to burn, but it was still regenerating. I could tell that I would outpace the regeneration eventually, but I wasn’t that patient.
I started tweaking the mixture of Fire Magic and Air Magic to get the right ratio of oxygen and fuel. While tweaking, I realized I was pouring regular air instead of specifically oxygen into the stream. A quick magical fix was all I needed to turn the bright red flame into a roaring blue blaze.
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What resulted was the Giant’s body turning to a large pile of ash and bones along with a very welcome notification.
Through experimentation and practice, skill [Fire Magic (U)] has been upgraded to [Fire Magic (R)].
While I relished in the upgrade of my magic, I made the rookie mistake of stopping too soon.
The Giant’s bones started to knit together and regrow the very flesh that I just celebrated burning. I watched in horror as the giant regrew from nothing but bones.
I set the cavern ablaze again, ramping up the amount of mana I was sinking into this project. I turned on Mana Circulation and drained fourteen Mana Berries to top myself off. While this might have seemed like mana intensive work, I’ve only used 28% of my mana pool so far and had plenty left in reserve.
The blue blaze kept burning for several minutes before I remembered that bones didn’t get turned to ash in cremations in my past life. The flesh was burned leaving behind brittle bones that were then crushed into a powder. That means that no matter how much fire I use, I still won’t be able to kill the damn thing.
If fire won’t work and its mind is destroyed, then I guess I need to grind its bones to powder. But how will I do that? The puppets that I’ve made so far wouldn’t last long enough to survive the heat, so what else can I do?
Well, if a wooden puppet won’t work, then I guess I’ll need to make a dirt puppet instead. While I could waste time making a full puppet out of the ground and walking inside, I instead chose to make it out of the dirt inside the cavern.
As I formed the body, the weaker materials burned off in the raging torrent around them, leaving stronger and more dense metals behind. I continued replacing the burnt off materials until I had an entire manikin made out of various metals. Once I had enough to make two models, I got to work having them grind the bones between the many hands I gave them.
It's working!
I kept a close eye on my mana as the metal puppets I had to use for this task require a whole lot more mana than the wooden or dirt puppets to move. That plus the required extra force to grind the bones down left my mana draining quite rapidly. If I timed this correctly, then I should be able to finish grinding the bones down right as my mana pool reached 10%. It would leave me with a killer headache and probably in a bad mood, but it would be worth it. I only needed to get through this slog fest and I’d be done with this hellish task.
A minute went by as my metal puppets worked, followed by a second and a third.
It took me almost half an hour to grind the giant’s skeleton to dust, and I was still left with the head. I had to drain every last Mana Berry in order to get to this point, and I only had 9% of my mana pool left to finish the task. Unfortunately, the skull is the part giving me the most problems.
I connected with Aspen to see if she had any mana potions or a Mana Berry she hadn’t used yet.
“I have one, so I need you to make it count. Kill that bastard for us, Willow!”
Aspen reached into her bag and brought out a Mana Berry I had given her before she left with Lilly so long ago. It was a lot smaller than the ones I had now, showing me that the berries actually grew as I grew. The ones I drained earlier, along with the Health and Stamina Berries, were about the size of apples now, whereas this one was the size of a regular blueberry.
Hope it’s enough.
I kept my worries to myself and used a vine to reach over and drain the berry. It added a single percent of mana to my pool, which was still helpful, but I have yet to see if that would be enough to finish this monster off.
I got back to work grinding the skull, breaking off little pieces and crushing it between the metallic hands of my dolls. When I got down to the last square foot of bone matter to crush, I abandoned the constant inferno I had been pouring into the cavern and dropped the humanoid shape to crush the last of the giant in a large metal blob. It used the last of my mana, but I did it, damn it!
As the last piece crumbled into a powdery dust, I got a series of notifications.
Tamed monster [Atlas] (Giant lvl 50) has been slain. Exp has been awarded. Bonus exp has been awarded due to level disparity. Exp has been deducted due to affliction of tamed monster [Atlas] (Giant lvl 50), [Mind Zero].
You have reached level 38. Congratulations!
You have used the skills [Earth Magic (U)], [Fire Magic (R)], and [Air Magic (R)] to overcome legendary rank regeneration. These skills will receive a boost in power equal to 4 skill levels.
Skill [Earth Magic (U)] has become [Earth Magic (R+)].
Skill [Fire Magic (R)] has become [Fire Magic (R+3)].
Skill [Air Magic (R)] has become [Air Magic (R+3)].
I pushed all the notifications to the side and prepared to celebrate. I reached out to the Laughing Vipers that weren’t currently laughing and told them, “The Giant is dead.”
Then I promptly blacked out for the first time in a long time.
“It’s done,” Aspen whispered. “It’s really done. He killed a Giant, all on his own.”
“Well, it was fully restrained and brain dead, so it’s not that big of a deal,” Axel commented.
Archy retorted with, “And who restrained it and destroyed its mind again? Oh right! That was Willow! He did this entirely by himself, Ragnar. He had no help, beyond learning Fire Magic from Aspen, and we saw how much she taught him. He truly is a prodigy. If he were human, he’d be heralded as a damn hero! Like, what the hell was that flame? I’ve only heard of elementals using blue flames before Willow.”
The two men bickered back and forth for a few minutes while Aspen curled into a ball and quietly cried to herself.
“The giant who killed my family is finally dead,” she thought to herself. “Maybe I should quit the adventurer life now that I don’t have to hunt it myself. Willow might be willing to let me move here and start up an alchemist lab or something. I could keep him company, at the very least.”
“Thank you, Willow,” she whispered to the mighty tree she was sitting on.
She looked to the horizon, where a field of green met her eyes. She was still up in his canopy, safe from all harm, when she realized something.
“Hey guys,” she interrupted her squabbling friends, “How are we going to get down?”
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