The bizarre objects the general had called giant soldiers were charging toward Adel.
Before Adel could even ask what was happening, the general spoke.
“Be careful! You're their target! The best way to defeat the enemy's giant soldiers is to take them down one by one! Damn it, we should have been more thorough with our patrols and reconnaissance to prevent this! What in the world is the border unit doing?!”
The general's grumbling continued, but Adel had no time to listen.
The giant soldiers were already right in front of her.
Adel shouted.
“Wait! I don't want to fight!”
The only answer she received was a sharp thrust.
Adel dodged the spear strike aimed at piercing her heart and took two steps back.
She still had no desire to get caught up in a fight between people she didn't know, but her opponents seemed unwilling to listen.
But she couldn't run away either; the ship, still under construction, was right behind her.
Adel couldn't retreat, if only to protect the vessel.
The other two giant soldiers, who had arrived in the meantime, also targeted Adel. While evading their attacks, she studied their appearance.
Because of the bizarre, object-like armor, she couldn't see their faces or the look in their eyes.
Each of the giant soldiers carried a spear, and its shape was quite strange.
The long shaft and spearhead were ordinary, but the other end looked like a broom.
Not a broom of dried grass or bush clover, but a tangled mass of bladed metal wires.
Imagining the sight of that 'broom' sweeping away the small people on the ground, Adel frowned unconsciously.
Swish!
Adel's sword cut through the air.
It was a sharp slash aimed at an opening in their attack, but her sword failed to cut through the enemy's armor and bounced off.
Seeing the golden light that flared up the moment her attack landed, Adel realized the armor wasn't just bizarre in appearance but was a magic armor imbued with a special power.
That was quite a problem.
She had almost no mana left to use sword energy.
She had fought a series of battles in the Witch of the West's castle, and after coming to the Country of Small People, she had been running around nonstop to fulfill the king's request.
Physically, she had endured far worse and still had stamina to spare, but her mana was a different story.
Therefore, Adel decided to change her tactics.
Spinning her body to evade the attacks rushing in from the front and her right, Adel used the momentum to swing her sword upward.
Just then, a third spear that was about to strike her down collided with her sword, unable to overcome its force, and was deflected upward.
Adel immediately closed in on the giant soldier whose posture had crumbled and kicked its leg with all her might.
The object-like armor once again emitted a golden light, blocking the attack, but it couldn't completely nullify the giant strength emanating from The Belt of Amaryllis.
The giant soldier's body spun sideways, its head and legs swapping positions.
Thud! Leaving the giant soldier that had fallen headfirst to the ground, Adel grabbed the shaft of the second one's spear.
The giant soldier put all its strength into its hands to pull the spear away, but that was a mistake.
Adel lifted the spear shaft high and slammed it down onto the ground with all her might.
The giant soldier, still clinging to the spear, was smashed into the ground before it could let go.
The last giant soldier required no special technique.
She simply bashed its head with her two-handed sword, not caring whether the slashes were effective, until the staggering giant soldier collapsed with a thud.
Seeing the three giant soldiers fall to the ground, General Redresal shouted loudly.
“Now! Subdue them!”
Some of the workers mobilized for shipbuilding were also excellent soldiers.
They rushed to the back of the twitching giant soldiers' heads.
The back of the armor's head bulged out as if it had a lump, and when the soldiers forced it open, small people spilled out from inside.
And as soon as all the small people were pulled out, the giant soldiers went limp.
Their attire was different from that of the soldiers of Lilliput, so Adel could tell they were soldiers from a neighboring country.
However, she couldn't understand why they were coming out of such a place.
Adel waited until General Redresal finished securing the captured small people and sending messengers elsewhere before asking him,
“Excuse me, what was that all about?”
“Hrmm.”
At Adel's question, the general made a strangely guilty face.
“…I was hoping to send you off without you ever knowing, but I suppose it can't be helped.”
The general sighed and continued.
“The giants' strength is immense. While it's not impossible to subdue them temporarily, they are too dangerous to use as soldiers. You never know when they might turn on their allies. The armor the giant soldiers wear is a device to prevent such rampages.”
“Prevent rampages? How?”
“By boarding the back of the armor's head and operating the device there, it's possible to inflict pain on the giants. You can choke them or stab them with spikes. There's even a function to stop their movements completely, in case they try to reach back and tear off the cockpit.”
Adel's jaw dropped at the answer, which was beyond anything she could have imagined.
“Then, me too?”
“No, no, not at all!”
The general denied it, breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Some of my retainers did suggest it, but the first punishment for a giant who trespasses is always penal labor! After diligently completing one year of labor, they are granted their freedom! The giant soldier sentence is a measure reserved only for villains who fail to carry out their labor or commit other crimes! We don't just turn them into giant soldiers unconditionally like those bastards from Blefuscu!”
His words weren't very convincing.
Especially considering the general's attitude during their first meeting.
If Dorothea had been here, she would have scoffed. If Sophia had been here, she would have asked, 'So where did all those who earned their freedom go?' and made the general sweat buckets. But unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it was Adel who was here.
She didn't question the general's somewhat flimsy explanation and instead asked something else.
“So, what will happen to those giant soldiers now?”
“They will die. No, they must be killed.”
The general's words were firm.
Adel carefully countered.
“But, didn't you just say that the enemy nation uses even innocent people as giant soldiers?”
“That's only their story before they became giant soldiers. After becoming one, they surely used those heinous weapons to brutally murder our own soldiers. I can't very well tell my fallen comrades, 'Please forgive them, they were forced to slaughter you,' can I?”
Hearing that, Adel was at a loss for words.
In terms of physical strength, Adel was stronger than anyone here, but reading minds was another matter entirely.
Perhaps feeling pity for the dejected Adel, or perhaps fearing the consequences if he upset her and she went on a rampage, the general hesitantly added,
“I know the existence of giant soldiers might be unpleasant for you. But the one who distributed the armor for them in the first place was a giant like you—Lady Elphaba. We are merely using what we were given.”
“The one who made the armor... was the Witch of the West?”
“Yes. She kindly passed down the instruction manual and even the technique to adjust the armor for giants of different builds. The problem is she didn't just give it to us, but to those Blefuscu bastards as well.”
The general continued to ramble on, saying things like, 'Even if it's a trade good, giving it to an enemy nation is too much,' but Adel wasn't paying close attention.
Her keen hearing had caught a faint mumbling that others couldn't hear.
The source of the sound was the giants inside the armor.
-Let... me out.
-Break... this prison...
-It's suffocating... can't... breathe.
Adel hesitated for a moment, but soon, determination filled her eyes.
She approached the giant soldiers.
She could hear the general shouting something in alarm, but Adel didn't stop.
She scraped together what little mana she had left to form sword energy and struck down on the helmet.
Unlike the Tin Knight, Adel's skill wasn't refined enough to cleanly slice off just the armor, but she could at least create a large gash.
And that was enough.
Adel grabbed both sides of the helmet firmly and applied force, focusing on the gash.
The resistance lasted only a moment. Unable to withstand her intense grip and arm strength, the helmet split in two.
Seeing the face revealed inside, Adel gasped.
Protruding cheekbones. Sunken eyes and cheeks. And hair that had faded to white.
From his appearance alone, he was an old man who looked like he should be sitting in a rocking chair.
The old man's eyes widened for a moment, then he began to tremble and shed tears.
“Thank you, truly, truly, thank you…!”
Adel wondered what to say, but in the end, she just gave a short bow and raised her sword once more.
She repeated the process—carefully gashing the armor and then tearing it apart with her bare hands—until the old man was completely free.
The old man's fully revealed body was in a terrible state.
He was emaciated, and his skin was covered in all sorts of wounds and sores.
It seemed to be General Redresal's first time seeing the inside of the armor as well, as he spoke in a slightly bewildered voice.
“Incredible. He doesn't look like he could run so vigorously or swing a weapon at all. Is this also one of the armor's effects?”
Without a word, Adel repeated the process on the other two giant soldiers.
The condition of these giant soldiers was slightly better than the first, but they too were too weak to move on their own.
It wasn't that all the giant soldiers were old men.
No, she soon realized that even the first giant soldier wasn't actually an old man.
The various types of nails protruding from the inside of the armor.
Those nails, hollowed out so they could extract something from whatever they pierced, were embedded in the giant soldiers' bodies like stakes.
Not through logic, but by intuition, Adel understood.
The armor's strange durability, its movements—all of it was power generated by burning the life force of the person inside.
The old man hadn't aged; his vitality had been drained by the armor.
“Why would anyone make armor like this….”
Adel felt a sense of malice.
From the armor said to be made by the Witch of the West, she could feel a terrible malice, a desire to torment humans.
Just as Adel trembled with an emotion she couldn't identify as a chill or rage,
“Giant! Get back!”
The general's scream-like shout echoed in Adel's ears.
Adel reflexively threw herself from where she was sitting.
Immediately after, something fell from the sky and slammed into the spot where she had been.
Wings. Golden fur. A monkey.
The Witch of the West's familiar was staring at Adel, as if it had finally found her.
Adel swung her two-handed sword.
Crunch! The monkey's left arm flew off, looking less like it had been cut by a sword and more like it had been hacked by an axe.
The monkey let out a pain-filled shriek and tried to claw at Adel with its remaining hand.
Adel calmly blocked the attack.
Adel readjusted her stance and prepared for the next attack, but for some reason, the monkey, despite its annoyed expression, didn't attack her again and flew up into the sky.
Following the monkey with her gaze, Adel's eyes went wide in dismay.
“Ah.”
Dozens of golden monkeys were looking down at her, each with a different expression in its eyes.
*
A short time later.
The monkeys, their numbers now halved compared to when they first appeared, began to cross the sea.
In their grasp, they held a limp little lion.