༺ Sun – Claiomh Solais (8) ༻
The gates alone of the enormous castle reached 30 meters in height so it was natural for us to immediately think about another species.
“Is it a castle of giants?”
“Seems so.”
“Do we have to solve riddles again?”
“Hopefully not.”
All of us here would fail if we had to solve more riddles or something. Aside from Alicia and Lunia, even Yuel seemed quite unfamiliar with riddles.
“It would probably be hard for us to enter through the main gates. Because the red rowan fruits are supposed to act as the entry ticket,” said Yuel.
Unfortunately, we had failed at gathering the rowan fruits. Thus, the normal approach would be to give up on entering through the main entrance but… there were other ways around it.
“In any case, the walls… are really high.”
“Wow… It’s at least 50 meters tall.”
The walls were just as enormous as the huge gates. Besides, they were maintained so well that I couldn’t see any holes in them.
Well-maintained 50-meter-tall walls, huh.
That at least told us something.
“Seems it does not have Sky Titans inside at the very least.” Lunia appeared to have caught on the same points as me. Hearing that from her sister, Alicia also noticed something.
“Uhh, that’s true. It’s a bit… small for it to be a castle for Sky Titans, right?”
It was definitely a gigantic castle, but wasn’t big enough to hold Sky Titans.
“But didn’t Mr. Uzkias say there would be giants protecting the Sun here?”
“It is most certainly just as he said. There are giants, but they are not Sky Titans.”
“Then?”
“Well, I guess we’ll find out after knocking on the gates.”
I walked up to the castle gates while saying that. We weren’t the invited guests and we didn’t have the important rowan fruits either, but…
“ANYONE INSIDEEEEEE…!!?”
I shouted as loudly as I could. It was an extremely loud voice for a human, but it was probably just slightly on the louder side for them.
Right – for ‘them’.
– Creakkk…!
My voice seemed to have reached the inside of the castle, as the gates started creaking open.
“M, Mr. Korin?”
“Don’t be afraid. We are ‘rightful’ guests.”
“What is your plan?” Lunia asked.
“We are going to be winging everything from here onwards. Just don’t get too nervous.”
I was not aware of the background story of this place. It was an unexplored land of mystery that hadn’t been visited both in the game and in my previous iteration.
Everything here was outside the player’s cognition and the only option for us was to wing it. But fortunately… coming up with random things on the spot was my forte.
“Who are you all?”
It was a loud voice, but wasn’t sonorous enough to shake the pebbles and rocks on the ground as we had been expecting. The owner of the voice soon appeared along with tens of similar humanoid figures.
“Huh?”
“Giants?”
Giants that were all taller than 5 meters were gathered together as a crowd. It was a phenomenal and rare sight of a bunch of mid-boss-level entities, that were at least semi-Grade 1 or above, in large bulks.
“Korin… Are you going to fight them?”
“Of course not. I am not stupid enough to go for a frontal fight against dozens of giants.”
Fighting wasn’t an option; at least until the Solar Eclipse in 2 days’ time.
“Humans? Humans!”
“Ohh. Four humans? Looking very juicy.”
“A stew! We are having a human stew tonight!”
The giants surrounded us while shouting out terrifying sentences. One of the special traits of giants was that they could eat everything including ‘humans’.
Cannibalism was the worst trait of giants, and was one of the reasons why giants were still treated as demi-humans by humans.
“U, uaahhh… Mr. Korin?”
“Don’t worry. We have Yuel on our side!”
“Huh? Me?”
‘I don’t have any means to stop dozens of giants though?’ was the look on her face.
“Wait! We have been personally sent by the Sky Titan, Sir Searbhan, and the Sage of Findias, Uzkias!”
“???”
After shouting that, I could feel my party members sending me puzzled gazes.
“Searbhan? Uzkias?”
Hearing those names, the leader of the giants halted his feet. As I expected… there seemed to be not only a connection between Findias and the floating island of Findias, but also a regular exchange.
“Yes, sir!”
“Speak in more detail, human.”
Now, this was where I had to be very careful with my replies.
Why did Uzkias set the red rowan fruits as the objective of one of the trials? That was most likely a ticket or a necessary device – without that, we couldn’t lay our hands on the Sun, at least not in a valid manner.
Currently, we had two things that were going well for us.
First was that we managed to arrive ‘before’ Scaith thanks to the fertilizer made with the Yellow Gold Mandrake,
And second was that we had information about Uzkias, Searbhan, and the red fruits of the rowan tree, thanks to attempting the trial.
Adding those two points resulted in the following.
“We have been sent beforehand by the honorable hero, Mr. Dun Scaith!”
“Mr. Korin?”
Lying.
“Dun Scaith? Who is that?”
“Yes, let me explain sir! He is our lord and the great hero who has completed all the trials! He will be making his way very soon with the red fruits of the magical rowan tree!”
If these giants were the ones protecting the Sun, there was no way they wouldn’t have any connection with Findias. In other words, it would be impossible for them to ignore the importance of the names, Uzkias and Searbhan.
“Boss! Does that mean these guys are guests from Sir Searbhan and Uzkias?”
“Hmm…”
Red rowan fruits, Uzkias and Searbhan.
Those were all names that the natives of the floating island of Findias should be aware of. Now, it was time for the finishing blow.
“And you see, Miss Yuel here is the druid who has come instead of Mr. Uzkias!”
“Ehk? Korin?”
“Hmm… How could I have possibly missed a druid. But, did you say this little girl is here instead of the sage?”
“Yes sir! Miss Yuel is the future guardian of Findias that will be succeeding Mr. Uzkias! Mr. Uzkias has been very ill and Miss Yuel here has been chosen as the future successor!”
Of course, it was another lie, but there was something we had that could add credibility to that falsehood.
“O, Miss Yuel! Please show us your marvelous power!”
“H, h, huh? O, okay…!”
Yuel, who had been in a stupor from my constant lies, replied with her strongest spell.
ᚄ (Sail)
ᚘ (Ifin)
ᚒ (Ur)
ᚆ (Uath)
ᚎ (Straif)
Twigs and branches gathered to form the shape of a giant – a wooden doll that was even larger than the giants.
Wickerman.
That was the greatest spell of druids that were only inherited by the sages of each forest. A Wickerman summoned with pure mana without a single sacrifice wouldn’t even last more than a minute, but that was more than enough to prove something to the giants.
The fact that she could raise a Wickerman, which was only permitted to the chosen few druids, was the same as saying that she was a sage of a forest.
“Hmm… She really is the sage of the forest.”
Since the giants couldn’t leave the island, Findias on the ground was probably the only place they could interact with. In other words, the only things they could possibly be aware of were the names of the Sky Titan and the druids of this forest.
Everything I said made some sense and as expected, they were soon convinced that I was telling the truth.
“Good. We will treat you as guests. However, unless you have the red fruits of the rowan tree…”
“Yes of course. Sage Uzkias has told us that we must hand them over to you, wise giants, for your permission to lay our hands on the Sun!”
“…You will not be able to take the Sun without the fruits.”
“Of course! Our lord Scaith will be here very shortly! He considered it respectful to let the great giants know beforehand about his visit!”
“Hmm… I see.”
The giants looked quite happy after hearing good things about them. Just like that, we openly entered the castle under the warm welcome of the giants.
“How was that? Super easy, right?”
“…”
“…”
My comment was met by three pairs of squinted eyes.
In any case, we arrived at the guest room built for giants under their guidance. Sitting in front of the milk and large chunks of pork that were served to us, I gave an open announcement.
“Now, let’s go.”
“G, go where?”
“To the treasures of giants.”
****
I know it’s nothing to be proud of but in our last iteration, we were pretty much living as thieves, because Park Sihu the player had an overpowered tool called the ‘Inventory’.
Whenever there was a treasure, all we had to do was sneak it into the Inventory and no one was able to find it. Therefore, it became commonplace for us to sneak expensive-looking things into the Inventory and pretend like nothing happened.
…I only helped a tiny bit though.
In the game, they were simply pictures in the background so it was impossible to take them but in the real world, all we had to do was pick the treasures up one by one, no?
I’m sure there were many gamers out there who saw those pixels of incredible treasures during the campaign, and thought to themselves, ‘Wow, how nice would it be to take a few of those for myself!’
In any case, because of that, we took in the habit of looking for treasures first whenever we arrived at the boss stage, huts, or whatever.
At night, 30 minutes into my search for the room of treasures with Alicia, with Lunia and Yuel staying back just in case, we arrived at a large hall that most certainly contained a bunch of treasures.
“Mr. Korin… Why are you so good at this?”
“Of course it’s from… experience.”
“It’s your first time coming to a giant’s castle… and yet you find the storeroom with a few guesses… You must have done this quite a lot…”
“W, wait a second. Are you doubting me right now? M, my hands are clean, okay?”
At least in this iteration, they were very clean!
“Hold on, Mr. Korin. ‘Immortan Lork’… and the Mandrake Bandits… Are you perhaps very experienced?”
Her eyes were very cold when saying that.
B, but… Most of the time, treasures and storerooms are generally very easy to find! You just have to do it a few times to get the hang of it!
“That’s not important so let’s put that aside… and look for the Sun first.”
“Okay… By the way, there’s absolutely no one here.”
“I know right.”
It was great that we located the room of treasures, but the strange thing was that there was not a single giant protecting the treasures. Did they not even have any guards?
Despite our doubt, we walked into the large hall of treasures.
‘Large’ was not enough to describe just how enormous it was.
There was a time when I watched a fantasy movie… about the nest of a dragon that was filled with treasures of gold and silver that had been taken from the dwarves. The treasure room of giants was so gigantic and remarkable that it reminded me of the one I saw in that movie.
“H, how are we supposed to find the Sun from here?”
“It should look like a sword so… Ah.”
Inside the room were a bunch of swords along with other treasures. I could already see more than a hundred swords.
“…They are too small for giants to use.”
“Besides, these have so many jewels attached that they are practically useless.”
There was literally a mountain of treasures inside the treasure room; there were so many of them that it was impossible to tell which was valuable and which wasn’t.
What was especially strange was that there were a bunch of gold eggs rolling around the room like trash. Even if I was here with stupid Mr. Park, he wouldn’t have been able to grab one-thousandth of what was in here because of the weight limit of his Inventory.
“I was wondering why there weren’t any guards, but I guess it makes a little bit of sense,” said Alicia.
It seemed that they were certain that it would be impossible to find the Sun from this gigantic pile of gold and obtaining it wouldn’t be as easy as it was in certain movies.
“Not like we can go ask them either…”
It was when we were in the middle of searching for Claiomh Solais.
– Cluck! Cluck cluck!
For some reason, there was a chicken roaming around the room.
“A chicken?”
“Do giants have chicken farms or something?”
“But that one… looks a bit too small for giants to eat.”
Treasures were lying around like trash in the same room as a chicken. It was hard to tell why.
For the time being, we ignored the chicken and continued with our search. After spending a while looking for the Sun, we were about to go back to the entrance but it was then.
– Kung! Kung! Kung!
The footsteps of a giant echoed from near the entrance of the treasure room.
“H, hide!”
“W, where?!”
The best place to hide in a place filled with treasures…!
“Come here!”
“Uahht?!”
Grabbing her by the hand, I dug through the treasures and threw ourselves into the large pile. Treasures fell on top of us and created a curtain for us to hide behind.
“…”
“…”
There was a small gap in the pile of treasures we were hiding in. Naturally, we peeked through the gap to the outside and…
– Cluck cluck?
What we found was that same chicken tilting its head while looking at us.
‘T, that bastard…!’
‘Shh! Be quiet, Mr. Korin!’
Please don’t cry at us, and please just go past us Mr. Giant… Despite our earnest prayers, our hope was crushed by the incoming loud footsteps of the giant.
“Ohh~ my cute little baby. Here you are.”
The 7-meter-tall giant trampled on the treasures with his feet while reaching out for the chicken. For a split second, our eyes were on the same level as the giant’s.
– Gulp!
Even a gulp felt as loud as a lightning bolt. Fortunately, the giant did not notice we were there.
“Huhuhu. My cute little chicken.”
The giant stroked the chicken by its head like it was his favorite pet.
It was then.
– Pop!
The chicken laid an egg with a loud ‘Pop!’ on top of the giant’s enormous palm. What was surprising was not the act itself but its egg.
‘What the…’
What came out was a golden egg that sparkled so brightly that it appeared like the materialized form of the word, ‘sparkle’. That’s right – that chicken was a chicken that lays golden eggs!
‘Y, you’re not even a goose…’
‘What do you mean?’
‘N, no… It’s nothing.’
‘A chicken that lays golden eggs… Don’t tell me all the golden eggs here are…’
‘They’re all from that little guy’s ass!’
‘That’s a rather… unrefined way of saying that.’
Stealing that one chicken was probably enough to let you live without worrying about money for your entire life.
‘S, should we take it?’
‘Wake up, Mr. Korin. What are you going to do if it starts crying?’
‘…Right.’
It was a shame but I decided to hold myself back as the giant started walking away with the chicken in hand.
“Huu…”
“That was a close call.”
We both heaved a sigh of relief. Her exhale of breath touched my lips and mine must have done the same – we both raised our eyes and looked at each other.
Buried in a pile of treasures, it somehow made me remember what happened on that night.
『Brother-in-law… Sister is not coming home tonight.』
Under the moonlit sky, I recalled the girl with a sensuous blue light in her eyes saying that after pushing me down on the bed. She had a very seductive gaze that slithered up my body, which I had never seen before on Alicia.
Why was it… that I was suddenly remembering the things that happened on that night?
“A, Alicia.”
“W, what is it?”
“When you first came here, what illusion did you see?”
“?!!”
Inside the heap of treasures, a red flush faintly appeared on her cheeks.
“W, where did this come from?”
“Like… I just became curious.”
“I, I would rather not say it.”
“But why? Did you see something embarrassing…?”
“Whatever you say, it’s a no. I won’t say it even if it’s to you, Mr. Korin.”
“Well, alright then…”
The room turned silent again. A faint scent of sweat was starting to float up when Alicia broke the silence.
“Umm, Mr. Korin.”
“…Yes?”
“What do you think about Sister?”
“Miss Lunia? Well… she’s a great person. I do like her as a person.”
Lunia was a very honest person, and that was something I realized all the way back when we were fighting together in the last iteration. Even when looking at the complex nature of her relationship with Alicia, it was possible to see just how upright and righteous of a person she was.
“‘Like’…”
“She’s a good person, right? She’s competent, gentle, and pretty. I’m sure she won’t be hated by any guys.”
“Is that… so?”
For some reason, Alicia turned sullen. She used to like hearing compliments about her sister though… What was wrong with her all of a sudden?
“…I see.”
Not knowing the reason behind that last mutter, we soon escaped the pile of treasures.
………
……
…
Going around the castle with a circular moon in the night sky, we came across a few giants and every time, we gave the excuse that we were out on a walk.
There was not a single light of caution in their eyes, as if anything we try to do would be meaningless.
“The day after tomorrow is the Solar Eclipse though. Isn’t this bad?”
“…Yeah.”
“It ends in 2 hours, right? Maybe we can try to look for it then…”
“But by then, Scaith would receive the Sun following the rightful procedures.”
It was impossible for us to attack him. Although it was a different story for Dun Scaith, we were still under the constraints of the geass.
We had to apply that geass to stop the greatest threat from entering the fight, which was Dumnroix, but because of that very pledge, we couldn’t strike them at the back of their head in an open manner.
“Huu… Let’s think about it for now. Uzkias said the Claiomh Solais could only be acquired during the Solar Eclipse. Why do you think that’s the case?”
“He said the power of the Sun gets weaker, right?”
“Yeah. Even though it’s not the same as the real Sun, it contains the power of the Sun which is why it’s impossible to even touch it.”
“So… is it only possible during the Solar Eclipse because that’s the magic period where the Sun loses its power the most?”
“Similar to the story with Nazrea.”
A Solar Eclipse might be a simple astronomical event but in this world, a Solar Eclipse had the power to carry out a magic phenomenon alongside a Lunar Eclipse.
“But this means that the Claiomh Solais must be at a location that is exposed to sunlight to absorb it.”
“In that sense, the treasure room with all of the sides walled up would be… Ah.”
Remembering that the ceiling of the treasure room was open, Alicia closed her mouth.
“Then maybe we have to go there during the day?”
“…Maybe.”
Something… something wasn’t right.
Why was no one guarding the treasure room?
Was it because they had been protecting the Sun for too long that they found it bothersome to allocate guards there?
No. It was a bad idea to look at it from that perspective.
“Is it because the giants do not even need to protect the room?”
“…”
Approaching from that perspective allowed me to come up with a few other possible locations for the Sun to be hidden in.
What about the roof of the castle? No, that would be way too open.
What about the plaza of the giant’s castle? No, that would be too close. Considering how it was a treasure that was so powerful that you had to wait till the Solar Eclipse to even touch it, it was hard to assume that they would put it somewhere that was so close to their everyday life.
“If only we had a tiny bit of clue…”
I became more and more anxious over time. There was a last resort in my mind but that was a very extreme method that had to be kept at bay until the very end.
For now, I decided to go back to our room for another planning session but it was then.
“Mr. Korin. I’m not… sure if this could be counted as a clue but…”
“Hnn?”
I raised my head in response to Alicia’s words. Her face was shining brightly under the full moon.
“What is it? Did you find any clues?”
“…Actually, it’s been weighing on my mind for a while now.”
She whispered after carefully drawing her face closer to my ears.
——!!!
Holy crap.
That certainly was an incredible place to hide the Sun in.
A place that was constantly exposed to sunlight during the day, that was unreachable during the night. At the same time, if it was there, the Claiomh Solais would most certainly lose its power during the Solar Eclipse.
But if it really was that place…
『It’s supposed to be a New Moon today.』
Hanging above the clouds was something in the form of a ‘Full Moon’.
That was where uninvited guests would never even be able to reach.
The ‘Sun’, Claiomh Solais, was hanging above the floating island in the form of the ‘Moon’.
