I was shaking. It wasn’t as bad as a carriage, and it was somewhat warm. Was I on someone’s back? “Mmm...”
“Sir Albert! Are you awake?” A woman’s voice hit my ears, and I saw golden hair.
“Myra?”
“Yes, it’s me!” Apparently, I was being carried on Myra’s back. On top of that, she was running at a full sprint. She must have started carrying me while I was defenseless from watching Filim’s memories.
“Thanks, Myra. You can set me down now.”
“No need for concern! It’d be faster for me to keep running! Please, allow me to keep carrying you!”
“A-All right.” Seeing how enthusiastic she was, I was hesitant to demand she put me down.
“I’m impressed, Sir Albert! I can’t believe you even took down a giant!”
“Thanks. It’s all because of you guys holding back the other curions.”
“Next time I won’t let a single one through!” Her voice was full of regret. Come to think of it, some of them had made it past and fused with the giant.
“I’ll be counting on you.”
“Of course!”
“By the way, what happened to the giant’s bones? Did it start moving without a head?”
“Have no fear. We shared your report ahead of time, so all the holy women exorcised its corpse the moment it started moving.”
“Good job.” Relieved, I looked around to make sure everyone else was there. Now that the One-Armed Giant had been defeated, we seemed to be in the process of evacuating the city. We didn’t have the stamina, willpower, or mana to kill every single curion there, so we were retreating.
“How are you feeling, Albert?” The princess had started running next to Myra once she’d realized I was awake. Killing two members of the Twelve Corpses in the same day was new for me, so she was probably just worried.
“I’m fine. Were you hurt?”
“No, my holy knight protected me.”
“He’s that good, huh? I’d love to meet him.”
The princess gave an exasperated smile. “I’m talking about you, as I’m sure you know.”
“Aha ha ha.” As a sidenote, the slower members of our group were keeping up by concentrating their Physical Enhancement on their legs.
“You did an exceptional job as well, Holy Knight Albert.” The princess’s older sister, Orlaya, spoke with minimal inflection in her voice.
“You saved my life too,” Irislaevi added. “I appreciate that.”
“Thanks for taking care of her while I was gone,” Lycoris followed up.
“Nice goin’, Albert. White sure did the heavy lifting this time around. It’s too bad. My princess coulda been the one to deal the finishing blow if we hadn’t gotten interrupted,” said Serrulata.
“What’s done is done. Besides, I never expected the giant to use a Heavenly Sword,” Euryops replied. Bronze had come close to finishing off the giant until Theophilus had gotten in their way.
“You were awesome, Albert! I can’t believe you beat the giant!”
“It’s an impressive achievement.” Campsis and Glenn of Scorching Sun spoke up as well. I noticed there was a headless corpse on Glenn’s back—it probably belonged to Theophilus. I wondered how the others were treating his death.
Everything up until the point where he’d prioritized his own glory and attacked Bronze was known by the others, but after that, they had split off from us to deal with the horde of curions. Although I had ended up killing him, the area had been ravaged by the giant’s use of Vulpine Razor. It was possible they thought that was what had killed him. To be fair, that had dealt a fatal wound, so it wasn’t even that much of a stretch.
“Hey, Campsis.”
“What’s up?”
“Your hometown has stories about people who fled this city, right?” She’d said as much before we assaulted the Forbidden City.
“Yeah, that’s right.” She looked at me curiously and nodded.
“Do any of those stories mention the giant having a family he helped escape?”
“Family? Hmm... Oh! You mean Kind Witch Ulrika? She was a human, but they say she was Filim the giant’s mom.”
Those stories were true. “What happened to her?”
“There’s a story that says a village took her in. Until the day she died, she protected not only the villagers but also the people she had escaped the city with.”
“Is that right?” I chuckled. “Makes sense.” Filim’s mom had kept her promise to her son. She had kept his friends safe. She’d had enough power to return to the Forbidden City, but she had instead chosen to protect her son’s friends and wait for him to return.
“Do you know something about the Kind Witch?”
“Nah, the giant just seemed to want to meet somebody, so I thought it might’ve been her.” I couldn’t tell her I’d seen his memories.
“We’re lucky we made it out with barely any casualties after a fight like that,” said Irislaevi, my senior whom I could only see as a child.
“Didn’t you think I died, ma’am?” Lycoris asked.
“I was confident nothing could kill you.”
“Even though you were so happy you cried when you found out I was alive?”
“Enough already! I didn’t cry!”
Like Irislaevi had said, we were fortunate to have suffered such little harm. Without the goddess’s magic, Glenn and Lycoris probably would have died.
“I wonder if Nemo’s okay.” Campsis shot Nemophila a concerned glance.
“I can’t imagine how losing two holy knights in such a short time must be weighing on her,” Irislaevi replied. The two of them had very nearly lost their own holy knights in this fight. They were probably feeling pretty conflicted.
The person in question, Nemophila, was running along in silence. She seemed to be holding something wrapped in cloth. It was right around the size of a head. I had something I wanted to talk to her about, though if she’d seen Theophilus’s memories like I had, then she might not need me to tell her.
Suddenly curious about the curions’ movements, I turned around, only to realize that nobody was chasing us. Maybe it was because of our enhanced leg strength from our divine protections, but something seemed off.
“The curion horde didn’t pursue us,” Orlaya informed me when she noticed my gaze.
After I severed the giant’s head and lost consciousness, the holy women had used the goddess’s magic to exorcise Filim’s body when it started moving, then chose to retreat immediately after. The curions hadn’t chased after them. Instead, as if overcome with grief, they had knelt beside the giant’s body as it turned to dust.
“That’s because the people of the city accepted the giant.” Having seen his memories, I knew how hard Filim had worked to earn their trust. And he’d only piled on more faith by eliminating intruders for the past three centuries. That was why the curions from the city center had come running when he’d been in trouble. Some had even offered their own bodies to restore his bones. They had built such a strong bond that their grief was even stronger than their desire to spread the blessing. Filim had overcome the difference in species, even in death.
And I’d killed that loving giant. Because that was what it meant to be a holy knight. The lives of four of the Twelve Corpses had now come to an end a second time. The Pestilent Guardian Dragon, the Shaman of the Heavenly Garden, the Grave Keeper of the Golden City, and the One-Armed Giant were all dead. Only eight remained, myself included.