Frondier approached one of the unmoving humans.
The pupils had stopped, and there was no breathing. He lightly touched the person’s face, but it was only cold as ice.
"...All of these are giants?"
"Yeah. I told you, Frondier. It’s the same wherever you go. All the giants in the myths look like this."
Those who raised rebellion against the gods. That was how it was taught even at Constel, and reality is not much different. The only difference is that the rebels against the gods were, in truth, on our side.
But in the end, they are losers.
Those locked in Pandemonium, receiving endless torment.
"It’s the same wherever you go?"
"Yeah. It means your guess was correct. Giants are all humans. There are no exceptions."
"......."
"What were you expecting? Fine, shall I talk about some famous giants? Surt of Muspelheim? The giant who’ll burn the world at Ragnarok? The enormous sword that could split the world in half with a single swing? No, that’s not how it is. Surt is human too. Just a defeated human. Nothing more, nothing less, than the one who lost to the gods ‘first’."
Surt. A famous name in Norse mythology. A giant said to exist to burn the world.
But that is only mythology. A common exaggeration made for the sake of fear.
Frondier asked,
"...Then what about King Arthur or Jeanne d’Arc? They’re revered as heroes."
At that, Belphegor closed his eyes deeply and let out a sigh.
"Frondier. They met a proper death. That alone makes them lucky."
"......."
"What do gods find so admirable that they’d call giants heroes? From the gods’ perspective, giants are nothing but loathsome enemies. It’s just that some of them achieved deeds so great that humans revered them, so the gods couldn’t speak of them that way."
King Arthur or Jeanne d’Arc did not lose in Pandemonium. They met a pure death.
Because of that, humans revere them as heroes. Ironically, because their deaths were confirmed.
Giants who are revered as heroes by humans are extremely few. Only those whose achievements were so great that the gods found it impossible to drag them down.
"For most, this is how it ends, Frondier. That’s what giants are. Remember that the very term itself held disgust from the beginning."
Giants.
Humans who grew too large without knowing their place beneath the gods.
That is why the gods called them giants.
To make people believe giants were enemies of humanity.
Belphegor spoke.
"Have you seen enough now? Let’s go, time keeps slipping away."
"We’re just going to leave them like this?"
"Then what are you planning to do."
Belphegor took a step closer to Frondier.
"Are you going to listen to every single one of their complaints and laments? Enter every one of their Pandemoniums one by one?"
Belphegor spoke with the eyes of a demon.
No, right now, things like that have no meaning at all.
He was right.
"Give it up, Frondier. This is a waste of time."
"...Are all of these people dead?"
"Yeah, they’re dead."
"Even if I enter again, there’s no chance they’re still alive?"
"...Haa."
Belphegor let out a sigh on purpose, as if to show him.
"You really do like humans. I never thought I’d see you turn your eyes from reality this hard."
Saying that, Belphegor then approached one of the humans who stood there motionless.
"For such eyes of yours, I’ll open them myself."
With those words, Belphegor—
Thwack─!
He raised one hand and smashed it into the human’s body.
The arc of the blow was not controlled at all; it was nothing but sheer violence.
"Belphegor!"
Selena shouted.
After Belphegor struck, the human, with that one blow, crumbled like ash and sank down.
"......!"
"Frondier, just now I didn’t use aura. You saw, so you know. That attack was something that would at worst make a child cry if it hit."
Frondier did not answer and simply looked at Belphegor.
It was a bitter gaze.
"This flesh rotted away long ago. It only froze because this place is so cold. Why can’t you accept something so obvious."
Only the soul enters Pandemonium. The body remains here.
An absurd amount of time has passed. There is no way these bodies are still alive.
"Or do you want to enter Pandemonium again? Too bad, but these people don’t have the information you love so much either. It’s all things you already know."
Belphegor’s words were cold, but Frondier agreed with them as well.
Because of that, Frondier did not refute him.
"Let’s go."
Belphegor turned his back as he spoke.
"We have to save Atjie."
That’s right.
Those words were correct.
Frondier had come here to save Atjie.
He could not afford to be held back by humans he had never even met.
Besides, from the start, he had been told they could not be saved.
'At the very least.'
Frondier once more took in all the unmoving humans with his eyes.
Let’s record them.
To register them in the Workshop.
Weaving, the archive that originally existed to record everything.
So that the battles they fought in the distant past would not be forgotten.
"...Fine."
After registering them all, Frondier lifted his foot.
Walking slowly, he opened the Workshop to check the ones he had registered.
He stopped.
And those steps halted not long after.
"Frondier?"
"...The same people."
"Yes?"
"In my Workshop, those people are already there."
Through the Workshop skill, Frondier could see them all.
After the Workshop became a target of Weaving, he learned that the Workshop had a basement.
And in that basement, the countless statues he had seen.
'How does this make sense?'
Frondier brought one hand to his mouth. A habit that came out when he was thinking.
'I already knew when I met Jeanne d’Arc, my Workshop carries over the skill as an inheritance.'
What the previous holder of the Weaving skill left behind is passed on to the next holder. In fact, considering the characteristic of being an archive, it might be obvious. If everything scattered when the holder died, it would defeat the whole point of keeping records.
That is why in the Workshop’s basement there had been many statues Frondier himself had never registered.
And the people here belong among them.
'I thought it was a place to register heroes.'
Of course, Frondier does not know the identities of every statue in the Workshop’s basement.
However, all the people he checked were famous heroes. King Arthur, Merlin, Bellerophon, Roland, and so on.
And even these people are among those statues.
"They’re already in the Workshop?"
At that point Belphegor asked. Frondier nodded.
"Yeah. If all they did was oppose the gods and lose, then it’s strange for them to be registered in my Workshop. Even if there are a fair number registered, it’s not like just anyone gets put in there,"
Frondier spoke up to that point, then suddenly sensed something odd and looked at Belphegor.
"No, I wanted to ask you this even when we fought last time—how do you know about Weaving?"
Just now, Belphegor had spoken as if he knew the Workshop.
Come to think of it, he already knew about Weaving. The first time they met and fought, he had immediately recognized Frondier’s Weaving.
How does Belphegor know Weaving? In the past, who knows, but among modern humanity there is no one who knows this skill.
"Because I saw it, obviously."
But Belphegor just shrugged, as if it were nothing.
"Saw it?"
"Yeah. I saw one of the giants in the past using it. Not in the same way you do, though."
Saying that, Belphegor touched his forehead with his fingertip, as if calling up his memory.
"That giant used Weaving like a virtual space. They would draw some kind of special magic circle, and then place the items made with Weaving on top of it. And then, later on, when they activated the magic circle, the things registered with Weaving inside that circle would appear again."
"...Ah!"
Frondier shouted, realizing what he meant.
It was Manggot. The Menosorpo he had found at Manggot. When he restored it and activated it again, he had been able to meet Jeanne d’Arc.
'Right. Jeanne d’Arc died long ago, but she appeared before me again. That was the power of Weaving.'
Jeanne d’Arc had said so. That the reason she could appear again was thanks to Weaving.
She could only do extremely limited things and could not leave the magic circle, but Jeanne d’Arc had clearly appeared again.
'I still can’t do that. I don’t know how.'
But if that is Weaving’s power, then of course Frondier should be capable of it too.
Weaving has levels.
However, that leveling had not progressed for a very long time. As if its growth had stopped.
Until now, he had assumed he had simply reached the end of the level and left it alone, but in this situation it was clear there was more above that.
There was still some condition for leveling up he had yet to fulfill.
'Maybe.'
Frondier looked at his smartwatch. This thing had long since become an item he could hardly make use of.
Maybe there was some hint about Weaving inside this device.
'...There’s no way.'
However, the smartwatch showed no reaction, and nothing about it had changed.
It was still the same useless thing as ever.
"Hey, Belphegor. Where did you meet that giant?"
"The giant who used Weaving? Let’s see, it wasn’t that special a place. I only remember it was some forge somewhere."
Perhaps because it was such an old memory, Belphegor even frowned just trying to recall it.
"A forge?"
"Yeah, they were making some weapon."
"How did you, a demon, get to see that?"
"They didn’t even know I was a demon. And back then, humans didn’t have the leisure to pay attention to demons."
True, demons are indistinguishable from humans. As long as they hide their wings. Up to now, Frondier has made use of that fact many times.
"When you say they didn’t have the leisure to pay attention to demons, you mean because of the gods?"
"Exactly. In the middle of fighting gods, they didn’t have room to keep demons in check. And from the demon side too, if humans were willing to fight the gods, there was no reason to get in the way. For that reason, there was no interference between us."
"So what kind of weapon were they making?"
"I don’t know the name. It looked similar to a spear, though."
Thump.
At those words, Frondier’s heart plunged for a moment.
Forcing himself to stay calm, he asked again.
"...Do you remember that giant’s name?"
"Mm."
Belphegor folded his arms and lowered his gaze.
A voice that slipped out without any particular weight.
"If I remember right... the name was Loki."
***
A snake.
There was no other way to describe it.
There was nothing else in particular to be said about its appearance.
A deep green body, reptile-typical eyes, a flickering tongue, a long, split mouth.
It was a snake.
It was just that—
"...Re-re-really huge."
It was simply an overwhelming size that could make even Cybel’s words of awe sound dry.
"Hello. Do you by any chance have a name,"
[You.]
The snake cut Cybel’s words and spoke.
[How did you get in here?]
"Eh?"
Cybel asked back.
"What do you mean, how? You’re the one who brought me in here."
Cybel recalled what had happened just before.
A snake had suddenly appeared above the head of the King of Palma.
When the king was writhing in agony, she had fired flames ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) at it, but they hadn’t worked, so she grabbed the snake with her bare hand instead.
Right after that, this sea and this snake had appeared.
[Me? That’s impossible.]
The snake shook its head. With that leisurely movement, a wind arose.
[I only meant to kill you.]
"...Oh, well, that’s just great."
Cybel closed her mouth, at a loss for what to say.
'So it tried to kill me, but in the process somehow I ended up entering this domain instead.'
Cybel asked,
"By the way, how were you planning to kill me?"
[Why, with Ecleksis, of course.]
Cybel blinked at those words.
Ecleksis.
It was a word she had heard before.
After the mess that happened last time in Palma City, Frondier had explained it to her.
...Except, what had he said again...
"Ah."
Cybel nodded as if she had realized something.
"This is Pandemonium, isn’t it!"
[...The fact that you didn’t know that means.]
The languid look vanished from the snake’s eyes.
The snake tilted its head, as if it truly could not understand.
"You’re saying you resisted Ecleksis without even the slightest awareness of it. Without knowing the form of your own soul."
Not knowing the form of your soul.
Right, Ecleksis was the power of the soul.
You had to be aware of your own soul to use that power.
Frondier had definitely told her that.
Cybel smiled brightly.
"I’m a pretty lucky person, you see!"
