The Matryoshka puppet, a former demon, could feel it.
The creature it faced was tenacious and strong.
The raw power, strength, and vitality emanating from its tiny body...
Mir, crushed beneath it, appeared to have lost consciousness.
Her eyes were rolled back and blood was pouring from her body where it lay horribly crushed beneath the puppet.
How many bones had been broken? A normal person would have died instantly, but...
[...]
This was not enough.
This creature had to be thoroughly stomped.
The puppet leaped again to crush the already unconscious Mir.BANG! BANG! BANG!
Once wasn't enough, so two times, three times, four times...
The floor fractured.
Had the space below been empty, it would have given in.
However, the doll had already known that most of the space below the hallways was filled with earth specifically to prevent it from collapsing under the puppet.
[...]
Finally, the puppet confirmed no sound or squeak came from the small, troublesome creature.
In the midst of the sudden silence, the puppet wobbled its big, fat body upright and faced forward again.
It knew that the others were still on this floor.
Changing its target, the puppet moved to chase after them, but—
* * *
The snowy north.
Home of the frost giants.
It was a place that Mir Giant held few good memories of.
“Hey, runt!”
Mir grunted and looked over her shoulder. “...I'm not a runt.”
What entered her sight was the belly button of a fellow giant.
“Where are you looking, runt?” came that same mocking voice from above. “Don't you know you should make eye contact when you’re talking to someone? What are you doing, trying to say hello to my belly button?”
“...”
She knew the etiquette. Of course she knew.
Though small, Mir had often consoled herself with the thought that her brain must at the very least be bigger than this idiot’s.
Still, she refused to look up.
The mere act of lifting her head to look up at her opponent would wound her pride.
Mir forced herself to stare off somewhere else. “Do you have something to say to me?” she asked.
“The other day, I saw Rakita's younger sibling, and guess what? Only four years old, and you’ve already been outgrown!”
“...”
“Well? You should be ashamed of yourself, you runt! Even our chief would want to throw someone like you into the ice lake!”
“...up.”
“What did you say? Your voice is so tiny, I can barely hear you—”
“I said SHUT UUUUUP!” Mir roared, loud and clear despite her tiny body.
Her peer flinched and covered their ears, and Mir seized the opportunity to run home.
“Father!” she called out immediately, searching for her father, the chieftain of the Frostwolf Tribe and its greatest warrior.
“Hmm? My proud daughter! What is the matter?”
Mir looked up at her father with tearful eyes. “Why, why am I so small...!”
“Oh...”
Her father, towering even among the giants of their tribe, appeared particularly large today.
“Am I really your child?”
“Of course! You are my one and only daughter!”
“Then why am I so small!”
Mir’s father cleared his throat. “As I’ve said before, growth differs between individuals. Someday, you too will—”
“Someday, someday, someday! When is that ‘someday’ supposed to come? I’m already twelve...!” Mir exclaimed, gripping her hair in frustration. “I was teased again today! I was teased yesterday! And I'll be teased tomorrow too...!”
“Mmm...”
“I heard that Larunda is already out leading a hunting party. The other day, I saw that they managed to take down five ice boars, all larger than me! Meanwhile, I’m just... I’m just sitting on the ice, drilling holes to catch fish...”
“...”
“At this rate, I’ll never become a warrior. I’ll be a disgrace to the Frostwolf Tribe... and to you, Father...”
Her father looked down at Mir. Then, without warning, he lifted his only daughter high into the air.
“Wha—?”
“Come with me for a moment.”
“Father?”
Without another word, he hoisted Mir on his shoulder and walked out of the house.
Suddenly, Larunda’s mocking words echoed in her ears.
—Even our chief would want to throw someone like you into the ice lake!
Her small body began to tremble.
Is my father finally going to abandon me?
Mir was terrified, but she didn't dare say a word. Her father's solemn face was so different from his usual self. He now looked like the most terrifying man in the world.
Even if he abandons me... I can't complain... I’m so small, after all.
Before she’d even learned what the word “resignation” meant, Mir had already understood the feeling.
Maybe being dropped into the ice lake was the way it should be. At least then she would no longer be a burden to her father.
That was what she told herself, yet tears began to flow from her big eyes and fall silently down her cheeks.
“Mir, open your eyes now.”
“H-huh...? Just a moment...”
The chill of the northern air.
Her tears, now frozen, made it hard to open her eyes.
While she was struggling to open them back up, she felt her father’s large fingers press gently against her head.
Rough yet warm.
Mir liked her father's hands.
The thought that today might be the last time she would feel his touch made her so sad it was almost unbearable.
Mir roughly rubbed her eyes and asked, “Father... what do you think lies beneath the ice lake.”
“What? Stop with the nonsense and look over there.”
“Huh...?” Mir finally opened her eyes to a sight that made her mouth fall open. “Wow...”
Before her was a vast expanse of snowfields and the shimmering ice lake.
Beyond that was a magnetic snow-covered mountain towering high.
“Take a good look at that mountain.”
Mir blinked her eyes. “Uh...”
There, halfway up the mountain, was a large boulder.
No, it was not a boulder. It was far too big, and its shape was bizarre.
“Do you know the legend of the giant who once carried the sky?”
“Huh...?”
“That was none other than our great ancestor, Ymir.”
Mir's eyes widened in awe.
Of course Mir knew of the Frost Giant Ymir.
Not just Mir, every giant knew that name.
But to think that the colossal form on the mountain was Ymir...
“To be precise, those are the remains and tomb of the Frost Giant Ymir.”
“Wh-why would he be in a place like that...?”
“That snowy mountain is the tallest and largest in the north. It is one of the tallest on the continent, even. One day, a great earthquake shook the northern lands, the likes of which had never been seen before. Mountains crumbled, the earth split, and countless lives, including those of our kind, were lost.” Father gazed at the lake of ice. “That was when this ice lake was created.”
“Oh...”
“The tallest mountains still stood, but the earthquake triggered a massive avalanche. No, it was beyond anything that could be called an avalanche. According to the ancestors’ records, it was a scene of pure destruction. If left unchecked, the blizzard would have swept away every living thing in the north.”
“...”
Mir's eyes clouded over.
Strangely, a vivid image of a scene she had never seen before flashed through her mind.
The avalanche from the world’s tallest mountain looked as if the sky itself was coming to meet the earth as fragments of shattered clouds fell endlessly.
“All the giants fell into despair. The waves of snow falling from the mountains seemed, even to the giants, like the heavens falling. Though all giants are great warriors, none dared to fight against Mother Nature. Even the elders accepted this destruction as fate... until Ymir stepped forward.”
Mir's heart began to beat faster.
“Running out alone, Ymir stretched his arms wide and faced the avalanche head-on. The unbearable cold that even frost giants could not withstand, the crushing weight of the snow... He bore it all with his body. It was said to be a sight to behold, straight out of a legend. The great frost giant had stopped a collapsing mountain with his flesh.”
The girl who bore Ymir's name asked, “How was he able to go to such lengths...?”
“Because everyone believed in Ymir. They trusted that he would find a way.”
“Isn't that too cruel?”
Her father smiled as he replied, “Not at all. I'm sure Ymir was pleased, for the most rewarding moments in a warrior's life are when they repay the trust placed in them.”
Father stroked Mir’s head with his fingers once more.
“Our great ancestor, the Frost Giant Ymir, who stopped the avalanche of destruction, died standing on his two feet on the tallest snowy mountain, leaving behind a mark that will not be erased for thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years.” Father's gaze fell once more on the mountain. “I found you at the foot of that mountain.”
“...”
“However, you are still my one and only daughter. Even if you were much smaller, I would never see you as my shame, only as my pride.”
“Really...?”
“Of course. And at the same time, I can’t help but think that you may truly be the one to carry Ymir’s blood, his true successor.”
“What's a successor...?”
“One who inherits his will.”
Successor. Successor. Successor...
Mir liked the sound of that word, for some reason, and she repeated it to herself several times.
Mir Giant’s homeland was a place with very few good memories.
“Very few,” but not none.
There were some good memories, too.
This was one such memory.
A day when the wind was unusually still.
Standing before the ice lake and the snow-covered mountain, her father’s voice reached her ears clearly.
“...The giant who held back the falling heavens.”
“The great colossus who allowed us to keep our homes.”
“The image resembled the ancient legend of the titans who held up the sky... From that day on, the giants began to call Ymir by another name.”
* * *
“...”
Mir opened her eyes.
Her vision was blurry, and her mind even more so.
And yet, her mind was obsessively focused on a single thought.
Trust must be repaid.
That was what it meant to be a warrior.
Only then could she truly call herself a member of the Frostwolf Tribe, worthy of the name “Giant” and, above all, the name “Mir.”
So far, her life had not given her that opportunity.
—You? Don’t make me laugh. Mir Giant...
Charon Woodjack's reproach had not been wrong.
In fact, even Mir occasionally found her own behavior frustrating and stupid.
No one believed in her.
Not even Mir herself.
So there was no trust to receive and none to repay.
That was how it had been, until...
—In terms of raw physical power, you’re already the strongest.
She’d been acknowledged.
—When that happens, the only thing you will be able to rely on is your trained body.
Someone had noticed the effort she was putting in.
—Small doesn't mean weak.
—Lend us your strength. We need you.
She had heard the words she most wanted to hear.
I was repaid.
Then it was okay to break.
It was okay to be destroyed.
As long as she could stand now, she didn’t care if she died later.
Because that was what warriors did. They repaid the trust placed in them.
That was what she’d been taught, and that was what she wanted to become.
“Do you know the legend of the giant... who once bore the sky...?”
At the sound of her voice, the puppet leaped again.
The matryoshka puppet was surprised that the creature was still alive, but its body, designed to be a killing machine, naturally moved to silence its enemy completely.
Its massive, round body plummeted once more toward Mir, who had barely gotten to her feet.
KWA-BOOOM!
Another thunderous crash.
[...]
However, this small creature was stronger than expected.
The puppet thought that if four or five times wasn’t enough, then ten, or twenty. It would have to crush her body until it was unrecognizable.
If it crushed the creature so thoroughly that it could no longer function as a living thing, even the strongest life force would no longer be able to move.
But as the puppet poised to jump again...
[...?]
It suddenly realized it couldn’t move.
It felt as if its body firmly was rooted to the ground.
But the puppet's perception was a teeny bit off.
It wasn’t that the puppet was rooted to the ground—it was Mir.
CRRRRACK.
Her small but strong fingers exerted extraordinary strength and pierced the bottom of the puppet’s shell, gripping it like a hook.
From below, where nothing could be clearly seen by the puppet, a strained voice spoke.
“I am...”
Mir pushed herself up to her feet while supporting something dozens of times her size and hundreds of times her weight with sheer brute strength alone.
“I am the daughter of the Frostwolf Tribe’s chieftain...”
Straightening her knees...
“Descendant of the Frost Giant Ymir...”
Straightening her back...
“...And the rightful successor of the Titan, Atlas.”
She bore the trial.
The legacy of the greatest ancestor, who once held up the crumbling sky and prevented destruction.
Though she might never hope to match the greatness of that feat, she could at least honor her ancestor’s will.
“I swear on this small body, with great pride...”
Mir Giant smiled a defiant, blood-streaked grin.
“...You will not pass.”
____