Calm down.
‘What do you mean calm down? There are 3 of them in front of us!’ Michael was currently suppressing the urge to use all of his mana to summon a massive Sword of Light.
Maybe that would at least give them time to escape, he wasn’t sure exactly how strong a Tier 6 was, but the difference shouldn’t be that vast.
‘Right?’
Wrong, they could get rid of this entire mountain with a wave of their hands, well maybe not this one in particular, the terrain of Jotunheim is strengthened heavily by mana.
‘Doesn’t really sound like something that benefits us though.. has a genius idea maybe popped into your mind, Systempedia?’ Michael teased despite the situation he was in.
You.. are special… give me a moment. Don’t do anything stupid.
Michael shrugged and returned his gaze to the giants, they didn’t seem that hostile at a glance, they were just staring down at the two of them.
“Astraea.. don’t attack them okay?” He walked up slowly beside her.
“Obviously…” She let out an exhausted sigh, they hadn’t even fought them yet, and both of them were already tired.
The standstill continued as the giants looked at them with curiosity, even crouching down to get a better angle.
‘System…’
Despite the system’s previous words, the giants did not seem that hostile, at least, they were not trying to kill them.
Michael took in a deep, cold breath and spoke up “Hello?”
At his words, the giants immediately stepped back in surprise, their movements causing the entire mountain to shake.
What did I tell you about not doing anything stupid…
‘And what should I have done if they, I don’t know, decided to step on us? Remain quiet?’ Michael shot back and noticed the giants once again coming near them.
Well, it wouldn’t have come to that.
Michael began ignoring the system as it was not sure what to do either, just trying to buy time for some opportunity to arise so it could claim it as its doing.
One of the giants stretched out their hand and started slowly bringing their pinky finger towards Michael.
He was expecting to be crushed, however, it stopped just a few meters away from him.
Michael took a glance at Astraea and she seemed just as confused as he was.
Nonetheless, the giant wanted something and since Michael didn’t have any better ideas, he walked up and put his whole hand on the giant’s finger.
And immediately, it retracted its whole hand before speaking some kind of words to the other giants.
Michael could not understand the language, but it did seem similar to something he once learned.
Some words were the same and better yet, the pronunciation was too.
It seems like their language does indeed share some similarities with the one you learned back in the temple, do you want me to analyze it?
‘Analyze it? Yes?’ Michael was a bit confused by the system’s question, since when could it analyze languages?
However, in the next moment, he was slowly able to understand their words, it felt unreal, as if what they were saying previously was being translated in real time.
But hearing them talk didn’t give him much of a reassurance, since the topics were a bit.. strange.
“Edible? Maybe?”
“They looked like the sea urchins we eat, so indeed.. I vote yes”
“Come on… it can speak, doesn’t that make it just like us? I vote no”
The two giants who voted amongst each other turned to the remaining one who hadn’t.
“Rigurd, eat or no eat?”
The giant named Rigurd seemed deep in thought for a moment before a massive smile appeared on his face “Eat!”
All the while, Michael was standing by speechlessly ‘Hold on… what the fuck are they talking about?’
According to my Systempedia insight, I think they might be trying to eat you.
Michael’s eyebrow twitched ‘You think?’
However, as he was arguing with the system, the giant who voted no stepped up and suddenly, its size began drastically decreasing, until eventually, it was just a tad bit taller than Michael.
“Bug, can you understand me?” The giant began approaching him, the pressure it was giving off was similar to Amanda’s, just a little greater.
It placed its hands on Michael’s collar and began lifting him up, and spinning him around.
“S-Stop!” He quickly said and expended a small amount of mana to create a tiny explosion around himself.
“Hm?” The giant suddenly stopped and held Michael right in front of its face, confusion clearly present.
“You can speak our language?”
“I can.. can you put me down now?” Michael said in the nicest way he could as he noticed Astraea glaring at the giant in front of him.
If history repeats itself and she attacks it, then death would be certain.
It seemed like the other giants heard the conversation as their size rapidly decreased and they walked up to Michael.
“Are you food?”
Michael quickly shook his head and shot back “No, neither is she”
“Oh…” The two giants seemed a bit disappointed upon hearing that.
This is an interesting development… maybe the giants’ behavior changed as time passed?
‘Were they previously violent or something?’ Michael wondered, he did see some of that savageness in the two hungry giants, however, they seemed young, even though they were taller than him.
Giants were once as arrogant as dragons. I can recall a small memory fragment of an interaction from one of your previous lives, you offended a giant and were sentenced to die by being frozen inside of a mountain, how unique..
‘That sounds.. terrifying’ He held himself back from showing any visible emotion as he didn’t want to trigger the giants in front of him.
“Say bugs, what are your names?” The first giant that came down to Michael asked.
“I am Michael… she’s Astraea” He introduced himself and Astraea, she seemed too preoccupied with holding herself back from attacking the giant.
“Good, the two of you will come with us.” The giant announced and suddenly grew in size before picking up both Michael and Astraea.
“Hey w-” Michael didn’t have time to protest as they suddenly began moving at incredible speeds, to the point where the surroundings began shifting from mountains, to grasslands, to volcanoes and then once again, back to mountains.
However, these mountains seemed a bit different than the rest, and that’s because there was some kind of city carved into the side of it.
‘No… this whole mountain is a city’ Michael looked on with widened eyes as the several kilometer tall mountain was full of holes and he could see all sorts of people gathered there.
But considering that the giants were taking them here, that meant these people were also giants.
‘System, are there any humans in this realm?’ Michael asked as he found it quite interesting.
None that would be living here willingly, they are either visitors, warriors or better yet, prisoners.
As Michael was about to start asking more questions, the system interrupted him.
Don’t forget that you only have 5 days, after that, you will be stuck here forever.
‘Didn’t you say there were warriors and visitors here from time to time?’ Michael raised his eyebrow and questioned.
He understood that the situation was pretty grave, however, he didn’t exactly know how to deal with it without being killed accidentally by a giant.
The situation would have been much more bearable had it only been those Wraiths, yet, now it was completely out of his hands.
You are neither of them, you are more like a prisoner now.
‘Well.. shit…’ Michael sighed in helplessness and let the giant take him up the mountain, until eventually they arrived at the very peak.
It was not as cold as the previous mountain, however, by no means was it warm.
There was a little house, one that seemed to belong to their leader.
The giant dropped Michael and Astraea to the ground, however, they managed to avoid falling flat on their faces.
“Go inside bugs, introduce yourselves” The giant walked up and opened the door, inside stood a single blue skinned man, cooking up some food.
Without turning around, he said “Lart, what’s the ocass-” But his words stopped as he suddenly turned around, the pressure crushing the plate of food in his hands.
His sharp glare landed on Michael.
“You…”
