Chapter 732 Giant Town
In the distance, a huge gate extended far into the sky. It seemed weirdly otherworldly. But even if that was the case from the perspective of humans, from the perspective of giants, this was nothing but a very rudimentary gate for giants.
At its side sat a single giant, casually sleeping in a position where any beast could attack him with ease. It seemed like he was about 10 to 15 meters taller than Eisen right now, meaning that it might be hard to get him to show proper respect to Eisen.
After all, Giants often compared themselves depending on their height. At the very least Askr was tall enough. Of course, Eisen himself didn’t care about being respected by people he never met and would never meet again. However, what he did care about was that he wouldn’t have to bother dealing with diplomatic stuff too much.
If he was insulted here, this information would definitely be relaid to Girland, who would make a bit deal out of it. And Eisen really didn’t want that. But well, the fastest way forward was through this settlement, which really seemed to be nothing but a village of giants.
Eisen took a deep breath and approached the sleeping giant so that he could let Eisen and the others through. Of course, he had Askr standing right behind him, while Fafnir was right by his side as well, just sitting there like a dog.
"Excuse me?" The old man exclaimed, loud enough to wake the giant up. With a slightly surprised expression, he opened his eyes and had to orient himself for a little while first.
"Huh? Who’s there?" The Giant asked, "Huh, you’re wearing a pretty neat set of armor there, bud! But wood ain’t particularly the sturdiest thing around, y’know?"
With a loud yawn, the Giant slowly stood up, "And what’s with this weird bearded kid?"
Eisen could already hear Sal, Bree, and Sky swearing at the Giant from the group behind him, but he quickly ignored this, "Sorry for the late introduction. As I’m sure is quite obvious, but I am a Giant as well. A half-giant to be more specific. My ability to change my size to be more like that of a normal Giant’s has not developed particularly far yet."
"Eh? You’re an old fuck, aren’t ya? If you didn’t manage to get there yet, then I suggest givin’ up." The Giant said, and Eisen looked at the Giant with a deep groan. Right now, Eisen wasn’t as tall as him. But he had a way to get there. Right now, Eisen was around 25 meters tall when he increased his size to the max.
But he had another ability that would increase his size quite a bit. By up to 50%, to be exact. Which would barely make up for the difference in height between Eisen and the Giant in front of him.
Slowly, the old man activated his True Demonic Transformation. His height increased by another 10 or so meters, and he was now at eye-level with the Giant guarding the gate. Surprised, that Giant took a step back.
"Huh? Didn’t ya say-"
"I did. But I didn’t want to bother with the fact that you think you can insult me just because I’m shorter than you. For your information, I didn’t even have the ability to grow like this until a couple months ago. For that, I’d say my progress is rather impressive." The old man said, "However, I must apologize for the late introduction."
The old man took a step back and pressed his cane into the ground, "My name is Eisen de Grandour, King of Asgard and son of the Fire Clan’s first leader, Argon de Grandour, the Great King of Heavenly Flames."
The Giant stared at Eisen with a shocked expression. Family heritage was something incredibly important to a Giant, there was no way one would ever lie about it. Even a half-giant wouldn’t dare do so.
But even then, some random guy appearing and saying something ridiculous like that... "You’re trying to tell me you’re a hundred thousand years old? Hah, who do you think you are? Some kinda-"
"Person that peaked?" Eisen asked with a soft smile. The Giant laughed loudly in response, "Right, if you were that kinda person, then sure. It’d be possible. But obviously you’re not, so fuck off and come on through."
Thinking that Eisen had been joking around all of a sudden, the Giant pushed open the gate and let him inside. Well, that was fine. Eisen didn’t need to convince random people of who he was. But it was weird.
This was the second Giant that Eisen could vividly remember meeting and speaking to, but he didn’t feel anything. He thought he would get a bit excited or nervous, or even feel some sort of nostalgia; but nothing happened at all.
He was just able to treat him like any other person immediately. Of course, at the end of the day, he was still just any other person. Eisen just thought he would act a bit different. It was the same with that young envoy that was sent, the daughter of the current Grandour.
Well, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. Eisen quickly made his way through the gate. But as they were walking through, the Giant quickly stopped Eisen, "Oi, are those really tinies with ya? They’re gonna get themselves crushed to death in there! Pick ’em up or somethin’, but don’t let them just walk around like that."
Eisen slowly turned around and looked at the people behind him. He did have a point... "Fafnir, can you open a gate inside of Askr’s chest again? Let’s have them stay inside for the time being." The old man suggested.
Kiron stared up at Eisen with a deep frown. The old man shrunk himself down to speak to him for a moment, "Grandfather, I don’t think leaving you alone like that is a good idea. At least let me stay out here with you." The Half-Dragon suggested. And since he was Eisen’s strongest Knight, the old man figured it wasn’t a completely ridiculous idea.
"Alright, but you’ll travel on my shoulder then. That way you don’t have to sprint the whole time, and we don’t have to slow down." The old man suggested. With a bit of hesitation, Kiron agreed to the suggestion. It would be better if he stayed on Eisen’s shoulder. There, he would be able to react to anything that came up instantly.
Eisen picked up Kiron and placed him onto his shoulder, while the others were lifted into the Dungeon so that they could stay in there while Eisen, Kiron and Askr made their way through this small town. And just like that, they kept on going. And just so that Eisen wouldn’t run into any trouble with people that would look down on him, literally and metaphorically, for being so much smaller than them, he stayed in his True Demonic Form.
On top of that, it simply helped him stick out, and keep a bit more of his royal aura while making his way through this place. This was really a rather interesting place. On first glance, everything looked the same as it usually did, but when Eisen took a closer look, it was very different at the end of the day. For one, the materials for the building-creation were very different.
For one, there was surprisingly barely any metal used, no nails or anything like that. The base was created by interlocking the special wood used, seemingly Ironbark or some slight variations on it, with each other in a way that would make it impossible for anything to fall apart without outside intervention from someone skilled enough in it.
Of course, sometimes there were metal bits; like in the doors and windows, but for the most part, there wasn’t too much metal all around the structure. And even if there was, the metal wasn’t just iron either. At the minimum, it was very high quality steel mixed with some stronger materials.
But the buildings weren’t the only interesting thing that Eisen could see here. The clothes that the Giants were wearing were interesting too. There was a lot more hide and leather involved in their clothes, instead of cloth which would obviously take a lot more base materials. The tools and weapons people were carrying were, more often than not, made of parts taken from monsters instead of metal just to save on that material which was a bit rarer, and most likely harder to work with except if you had special abilities to allow easier work.
After all, the properties of metal and flames would be the same as they normally were. That meant that it would be practically impossible to heat up the center of what giants would consider a ’large chunk of iron’. Except of course if you were a skilled craftsman that had the system’s assistance. This was a reason why ’Fire Giants’ became craftsmen in the first place.
Because they innately were more skilled in controlling flames and heating metal than other types of giants were. That was also the reason why Fire Giants were amongst the richer clans that existed here in this country, as well as amongst the most influential. Who controlled the tools and weapons in a country held all the power, at least in a medieval environment like this.
But there were many other clans as well. The Mountain Clan, the Water Clan, the Forest Clan, the Cloud Clan... There were numerous kinds of dragons, and Eisen was curious about meeting all of them from now on.