You quietly fell into thought.

The power of the Witch of the West was stronger than expected.

Retreating in front of the enemy boss was quite frustrating, but also exciting at the same time.

Your fighting spirit burned fiercely, thinking that it should be at least this challenging to be worth defeating.

The Tin Knight’s experience informed you of the weaknesses and limitations of that technique.

You found hints for attack from there.

No matter how powerful a technique was, once analyzed, it was merely another pattern.

What appeared before you, anticipating a rematch with the witch, were giants of enormous size.

However, it was ambiguous to say exactly “how big” they were.

While there were giants who could grasp you with one hand, there were also giants with bodies only half that size.

It was unclear if it was a difference between adults and children, as there were small adults and large children.

The giants’ sizes and ages seemed to have little correlation.

Also, their body proportions were all mixed up, with some having excessively large heads or short limbs.

The surrounding environment was also strange.

Although the giants were huge, the other animals and plants around them were normal-sized, or rather small compared to the giants, making it look like people walking around in a model structure.

You didn’t know what these things meant.

The Scarecrow might have noticed, but you weren’t her.

More precisely, you weren’t very interested in their stories or background settings.

This was the witch’s workshop, they were beings related to the witch, and crucially, they were hostile towards you.

When one giant tried to grab your head and pull it off, you recognized them as enemies.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ declares a giant hunt!]

Slash!

The giant’s fingers flew off at your sword swing.

You jumped up along the giant’s arm and slashed its neck.

Due to the short sword, it was impossible to completely separate the body and head as usual,

But the giant, with a large crack in its neck, choked and collapsed.

You prepared for another giant to immediately attack, but instead of attacking, the giant ran out the door.

You chased after the giant.

“□■◆◇◇!”

The giant that ran out into the street opened its mouth and shouted.

It seemed to be some kind of language, but perhaps because the opponent was so large, it sounded like an unidentifiable roar to you.

The surrounding giants looked at the shouting giant, then at you who the giant was pointing at.

Some of the giants laughed heartily.

It seemed they were mocking the shouting giant.

They approached you casually and lightly swung their front legs.

It looked like they were trying to kick you lightly.

When you dodged to the side, the giant twitched its eyebrows and then tried to stomp on you with the sole of its shoe.

You rolled to the side to avoid it.

Then you launched your body behind the opponent’s foot and slashed its heel with your sword.

“◆◆◆◆!!”

The giant with its Achilles tendon cut grabbed its leg and rolled on the ground.

You felt a strange sense of dissonance.

It felt like your mental expectations and actual sensations were misaligned.

You hadn’t been using sword energy until now.

Since you didn’t know when you might regroup with the witch, you needed to conserve mana as much as possible.

However, according to the Tin Knight’s senses, a giant’s body shouldn’t be this easy to cut.

It was like the strange jolt and dissonance you feel when you step expecting stairs but it was actually flat ground. A similar sensation tickled your chest.

“■□◇◆◇!?”

“◇◇◆◆■!”

The giants cried out.

They seemed to have finally recognized you as a threat.

Boom!

Rocks about the size of your body fell around you.

The giants watching you had picked up nearby rocks, which were pebbles to them, and thrown them.

Some even grabbed gravel or soil and scattered them wildly.

Patter patter!

The mercilessly flying attacks were like shotgun pellets.

Even though you were only caught in the attack range once, countless scratches appeared on your body.

While deflecting the most dangerous and fatal attacks with your shield, you charged at the giants throwing rocks and sand.

And you cut their ankles.

Slash!

Screams rang out, and blood bursting from their heels soaked your body.

You didn’t stop and continued swinging your sword.

By the time you had taken down one, two, three in succession, one of the giants turned its back and started to flee.

Seeing this, the other giants also fled together.

You watched this scene.

You had been feeling strangely deflated since earlier.

For some reason, the fight wasn’t very enjoyable.

But the reason was hard to understand.

Was it because of the burden of having to calculate mana consumption?

Was it because other battles felt trivial after experiencing an intense fight with the witch?

You suddenly looked around.

The giants you had cut were still alive.

They were crying and suffering while holding their ankles, though.

Normally, you would have finished them off without much thought, but for some reason, you didn’t feel like it now.

You convinced yourself that there was no need to waste mana unnecessarily.

Leaving the giants behind, you looked at your wrist.

You thought it would be better to regroup with your other companions rather than fighting pointlessly if the enemies had no will to fight.

As you were pondering which direction to head among the various directions the golden thread bracelet was pointing,

“■■■■■!!!”

With a terrifying roar, something with a fierce momentum tore through the air and flew at you.

The Tin Knight’s instinct rang an alarm that this was not the time to save mana.

You strengthened your shield and body with mana and held your shield forward.

Clang!

Your body was thrown high into the air and greatly pushed back.

However, despite the spectacular flight, there was almost no substantial damage.

This was thanks to deflecting most of the impact.

In the brief time before falling to the ground, you confirmed what had thrown you.

It was a pillar.

No, it only looked like a pillar from your perspective, but in reality, it was closer to a spear.

The shaft of the spear, made by assembling several trees, was about 15m long, and the size of the blade was larger than your body.

The one who threw it at you was, of course, a giant.

However, it was a giant particularly large and muscular even compared to the giants so far.

It was properly equipped with armor, and its bulging eyes showed intense will and fighting spirit.

You instinctively realized that the opponent was the leader of the giants.

Judging by how accurately it threw the spear at you, who would be at most mouse-sized by their standards, its skills must be quite excellent.

Around the leader giant were nine other giants, who were also properly armed.

Your two will-o’-wisp-like eyes flickered greatly.

If you had a mouth, you might have curled up the corners and laughed loudly.

That was right.

Rather than enemies that made you feel inexplicably gloomy, you preferred such clear obstacles.

“■■■!!!”

“■!”

The leader giant roared and drew the sword at its waist.

The other soldier giants also charged in response to the leader’s cry.

You couldn’t lose either.

You willingly raised your shield and provoked them.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ shouts to come at him as much as they want!]

Your words didn’t reach them.

There were no companions here to listen to your voice.

Therefore, you created a story not with language, but with your sword.

Rumble!

Soldiers holding large, wide rectangular shields charged at you, scraping the ground.

From your perspective, it was almost like a city wall charging at you.

Certainly, this attack was difficult to avoid or block.

But you didn’t feel fear.

The moment the bottom of the shield came right up to your nose, you leaped backward while expelling mana forward.

With a slight time difference, your two legs landed on the shield surface.

You started running up the shield surface.

This technique was possible because the opponent was pushing the shield forward.

Reaching the edge of the shield in an instant, you kicked off the shield corner and climbed onto the opponent’s forearm.

The soldier only then noticed you and tried to swat you away, but you were faster in approaching the giant soldier’s neck.

You slashed where the Adam’s apple was, and then circled around the neck.

The giant soldier collapsed, spewing tremendous blood from its neck.

You kicked off the falling soldier’s helmet, leaped, and then fell onto another soldier’s face.

When you stabbed the soldier’s two eyes with your sword, he covered his face with both hands and screamed frantically.

Of course, you had already jumped to the ground long before the soldier’s hands covered his face.

Just as you were about to choose the next target, you suddenly realized the sky had darkened.

The last soldier holding a large shield had thrown his whole body to try to crush you.

You acknowledged that this method was very efficient.

You drew out sword energy once again and swung it.

Slash!

The shield was split in two.

The giants’ armaments were of a usable level, but they couldn’t be called high-quality even as a white lie.

Unless it was a brute mass of rock, there was no reason you couldn’t cut through a shield made of leather and iron plates, especially if it didn’t even contain mana.

As the shield split, the giant’s abdomen behind it was also half-cut, spilling its contents.

You entered the giant’s belly to avoid being crushed by its body.

You were planning to cut through the side and escape, but the enemies’ actions were faster.

Stab! Stab!

Several swords and spears were swung or thrust at you.

It seemed they intended to eliminate you while your movement was restricted.

They seemed to have no hesitation in attacking their ally for this purpose.

You instinctively knew that if you cut through the side or escaped through the gap under the belly, you would be immediately attacked.

Crack!

A huge spear grazed your side.

You forcefully thrust your sword into the spear shaft.

When the sword was firmly stuck in the spear shaft, the opponent seemed to try to retrieve the spear and yanked it.

Perhaps because of you as an obstacle, the spear didn’t come out easily, but when the soldier applied even greater strength, the spear was pulled out. Along with you hanging on its side.

You used the momentum of the pulled-out spear to retrieve your sword, and then flew towards the opponent’s body.

After that, you climbed up the body and cut the neck, as you had done many times before.

***

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