One of the men pointed to a shaded spot. The other grabbed MagNe’s hand and dragged her along.
“Here’s good.”
They shoved her down on the ground as if she were a thing, not a person.
She lay on the grass, looking up at the branches of a tree swaying in the wind when she felt someone touch her cheek. She shuddered. MagNe reminded herself again and again that she was needed—that was how she got her self-affirmation. She had to do this to protect her sanity.
MagNe felt someone lie down on top of her, and suddenly, all she could see was a stretch of pale orange.
CRRR-CREEEAK!
The noise was so loud, as if a large tree was breaking.
“It’s gonna fall!” one of the men shouted.
It turned out a tree was breaking. Fortunately, it didn’t fall on MagNe and the men around her. Confused, the two men stared at the fallen tree…and then they saw something terrifying.
“It’s…it’s a monster!”
They fled, leaving MagNe behind. It was only then that she noticed what had scared the men away.
“Eek…!”
There stood a towering man with red hair and a red beard. His stunning armor made MagNe think of a shogun.
“Nothing but weaklings here,” he said.
The exasperated giant scratched his head. Then he looked down at the strangely dressed woman at his feet. She was opening and closing her mouth like a fish.
“You there. How do I enter Allistras?” he asked.
Intimidated by the giant’s overwhelming aura, MagNe timidly replied, “Th-through that gate…”
The giant grinned and picked her up. “Very well, woman. You will be my guide.”
“S-sorry?”
And that was how the Third Evil Overlord, Gallarus, met MagNe, a woman buoyed by fate in the strangest of directions.
People were screaming around them. MagNe hid her face but stole glances at the giant who was carrying her. He seemed unfazed by the reactions.
Why is he so at ease…?
A group of ex-noncombatants who’d been fighting rats panicked when they saw who was approaching the city gate.
“Oh crap! There’s a huge monster!”
“An invasion?! We’ve gotta tell Crest…!”
“Run! Run for your life!”
A number of people shouted in horror, but Gallarus paid them no heed.
Even someone as trusting as MagNe was convinced she couldn’t trust this enormous man, who was holding her pinched between his fingers.
I mean, he’s definitely not human…
The man had a humanlike appearance, but he stood more than three meters tall.
“Woman.”
“Eek!”
His booming voice made her involuntarily shudder. Since she was so close to him, it seemed almost as loud as an explosion.
“What is your name?”
“I-I’m MagNe, sir.”
“MagNe? I’m Gallarus. I’m defending this city as per my master’s orders.”
“Oh,” MagNe said weakly.
Crest was Allistras’s guardian, although it was no longer the strongest guild around. Lately, it seemed as if the ex-frontline fighters who’d returned and were doing as they pleased were the strongest force in the city. And in any case, monsters couldn’t get in because of the magical barrier.
“Gotta say, your battle earlier was frankly comical,” Gallarus remarked. He guffawed at the memory.
When it dawned on MagNe that he meant the group of men being rough with her by that tree, her face flushed red. She glared angrily at Gallarus.
“That wasn’t a battle…”
“To defeat a man, a woman should aim for his weak point with deadly precision. You could’ve easily kicked them in the jewels…”
Gallarus chatted away at MagNe while he walked with her. Before long, they reached the city gate.
“Can you put me down now…?” she asked.
“Ah, I suppose so.”
The giant dropped her nonchalantly. MagNe landed on her butt and screamed.
“Ow… That wasn’t very gentle…”
“The lady has high demands, huh?”
MagNe quickly went through the gate. Gallarus peered at the city curiously and then took a big step inside. He went in without any problems. MagNe looked up at him, thinking what it meant.
If he can go through the gate, then he must be human…or maybe he’s an NPC.
The city’s magical barrier was working fine, but what MagNe didn’t know was that the game system considered Gallarus a member of Shuutarou’s party, and that was why he was able to enter towns. Even if that wasn’t the case, he could probably force his way past the barrier.
“Holy moly! What is that?!”
“A monster has entered the city!”
“Don’t be dumb. Monsters can’t get in…”
“Look at the size of him…!”
They became the center of attention. A giant walking together with an alt girl must have made for a surreal sight. And while Gallarus appeared completely unbothered by the shocked onlookers, MagNe was somewhat uncomfortable.
“They’re calling you a monster, sir,” she told Gallarus.
“Hmph! Ignorant fools. Do I look like such a primitive creature?”
“I can’t speak for those people, but monsters definitely don’t talk, for one thing…”
Then again, humans weren’t three meters tall.
“And why were you outside the city, sir? Were you lost?”
“Lost?”
“Did you go the wrong way?”
“Hmm. I suppose you could say I was lost.”
“Huh…,” MagNe murmured vacantly.
Gallarus had been asked to deal with any invading monsters that might slip through and threaten Allistras, but he didn’t need to be inside the city for his skill to work. In fact, it was better for him not to be. He had stayed on standby on the field map and didn’t even know where the entrance to the city was located.
“I have another task to accomplish besides city defense—learning about humans, and for that, I need to interact with humans other than my master. An unpleasant necessity…” Gallarus sighed bitterly.
“You wanna learn about us?”
MagNe finally thought to check Gallarus’s info.
AcM Gallarus
Where have I seen AcM before…? Right, that stands for “Accompanying Monster.”
She remembered a certain summoner who’d been nice to her. He’d had an accompanying monster, too. Which meant that Gallarus was a monster after all. A monster who could talk just like a human. She thought they were similar, in that she depended on men who validated her just like a summoned monster depended on their master, and that made her feel a sense of kinship with Gallarus.
“Your master’s really important to you?” MagNe asked.
“More than my life!” Gallarus replied proudly.