"Guraa... guraaahhh!"
The Giant whose knee had been shattered by Vihera's strike collapsed onto the floor, just like the first one.
The only difference was that, rather than swinging its arms about wildly, it directed its blows at a specific target—Vihera.
But even so, she easily read its movements and threw it using the Giant's own momentum, just as she had before.
Since it was a throw that harnessed the opponent's force, the more powerful the Giant's strength, the more devastating the resulting blow.
Moreover, rather than hurling it toward another Giant like last time, she channeled the creature's force, locking its wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints before slamming it into the floor.
A Giant's weight easily exceeded two hundred kilograms.
At worst, it was close to three hundred.
All of that weight bore down on the locked joints... and even a Giant with a sturdy body could not possibly withstand that.
The sound of bones snapping in multiple places at once echoed through the room.
Inside, Giant children were even now being born by eating their way out of pregnant women, and the sounds of that filled the air... yet even amid that din, a dull, unmistakable crack rang out across the chamber.
"Gaa, gaaah... gaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!"
"You're a little loud, you know. You're done already. It was reasonably enjoyable, at least."
Having thrown the Giant while locking its joints and then crushing them, Vihera naturally stood right beside the screaming creature.
Hearing the shriek erupt from the Giant's mouth at such close range, she found it irritating and furrowed her brow.
Then she gently placed a hand on the screaming Giant's head.
The Giant, writhing in agony from its ruined arm, didn't even register the touch...
"Fu!"
Vihera unleashed what could be called her signature technique—Magic Impact Palm—and in the next instant, the Giant's Flame of Life extinguished as though it had simply fallen asleep.
Judging solely by appearances, the Giant's head was nearly undamaged.
...Well, seeing blood seeping from its eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, one could hardly call it unscathed.
But to any onlooker, it looked as though Vihera had merely touched the Giant's head.
In reality, with that single touch, the entire contents of the Giant's skull—bone, flesh, blood, and brain—had been utterly destroyed.
"What... what happened..."
Rei, who had been watching the battle between the Giants and Vihera from a slight distance, heard the voice.
There was no question who had uttered it—none other than Rezel, the man who had summoned the Giants and the only person present besides Rei and his party.
He had held near-absolute confidence in the Giants' power. That they could be dispatched so effortlessly was something he had clearly never anticipated.
(Giants, huh. As individuals, they're reasonably strong. From what I just saw, they can even manage simple coordination. But... at the end of the day, that's all they amount to. I suppose it depends on the battlefield, too.)
This was not a place designed for combat. It was, ultimately, a place where pregnant women gave birth to Giants.
...To be honest, watching Giant infants eat their way out through their mothers' abdomens, Rei had no desire to use the word "birth" at all.
Regardless, given the nature of the space, the Giants' greatest advantages—their massive bodies and the overwhelming physical strength born from those frames—could not be fully brought to bear.
The beds where the pregnant women lay were likely the biggest factor.
Since the women were strapped down with leather belts to keep them from moving, carelessly smashing a bed would also harm whoever lay on top of it.
Well, anyone cooperating with Jaya probably wouldn't care if a pregnant woman suffered a minor injury... but the Giant children inside those bellies were another matter entirely.
Or perhaps, Rei mused, the rampaging Giants understood that their own kind were inside those women's wombs.
In any case, precisely because of the setting, the Giants had difficulty moving, and Vihera was making sport of them as a result.
"Now then, next it's you two.... Oh my, it seems you're already prepared. Come, shall we enjoy ourselves?"
The first Giant that had been thrown glared at Vihera with venomous hatred, its shattered right knee pressed against the floor.
The other Giant, unharmed—aside from minor bruises from having a comrade thrown into it—was glaring at her just the same.
Vihera flashed the two Giants a smile. It was a terrifyingly alluring one.
If asked who among Rei's party possessed the most feminine allure, everyone would undoubtedly name Marina.
But right now, Vihera, smiling at the Giants, radiated a feminine charm that rivaled even Marina's.
If anything, "lascivious" might have been the more fitting word, Rei caught himself thinking as he watched her.
Still, voicing that observation would definitely cause trouble later, so he said something else instead.
"What's wrong? Your prized Giants are in that state. If you don't call them off now, their numbers will only keep dropping. Maybe you should quit while you're behind?"
"Gnuu... but I won't lose. There's no way they'd fall so easily!"
Rezel's rugged face flushed red with anger and humiliation, veins bulging on his forehead as he roared.
For Jaya, the Giants were the closest thing they had to a trump card.
To see them so effortlessly destroyed—not even a battle, but a one-sided slaughter—was something Rezel simply could not process.
"Well, if you want to be stubborn about it, that suits us just fine."
The only reason Rezel was still alive—and hadn't even lost consciousness—was to show him this: Jaya's trump-card Giants being massacred before his very eyes, breaking his spirit.
For Rei, the longer Rezel held out, the more pliable he would become once he finally broke.
"We cannot lose... we absolutely cannot lose in a place like this! Do it! With your strength, prove that you can defeat even High-Rank Adventurers!"
As if answering Rezel's shout, the two Giants charged at Vihera.
The first to rush in was, naturally, the uninjured one.
The Giant with the shattered right knee followed close behind.
As a result, though by pure coincidence, it became a staggered attack.
If Vihera had only the skill of an ordinary adventurer, she might have somehow dealt with the first Giant only to take a direct hit from the second one trailing behind.
Unfortunately for them, Vihera was far beyond the level of an ordinary adventurer. She possessed immense combat power.
The fist of the lead Giant was clenched, and it threw what could be called a straight punch rather than a hammer blow.
Vihera responded exactly as she had with the first Giant—evading the fist while slipping into the Giant's reach.
But what came next was different from before.
She activated her Magic Item Hand Gauntlets, generating claws of magical energy... and as she swept past the Giant's flank, she sliced through the little toe of its left foot.
Given the Giant's size, even magically generated claws couldn't sever a torso or an arm.
But when the target was the foot—the smallest toe, no less?
The claw strike cleanly sheared through the little toe, severing it completely.
Since no shoes existed that could fit a Giant, it had been barefoot. That became a critical opening.
"Gaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Losing a little toe might not seem like devastating damage in isolation, but in practice, a portion used for weight transfer had vanished. Even if it was only a small part, it was enough.
Naturally, that caused significant impairment in combat.
(Besides... stubbing your little toe on the corner of a dresser hurts like hell. This must be an even more painful version of that.)
Rei's face twisted into a grimace, and Elena and Marina looked much the same.
Even Byune, perhaps recalling memories of stubbing her own toe in the past, distorted her usually blank expression in phantom pain.
Baring its pain and fury, the Giant brought its hand crashing down toward Vihera at its feet.
Having lost the composure to form a fist, it struck with an open palm this time—an attack clearly meant to crush her flat...
"Gaaaaaaaaahhhh!"
But Vihera sidestepped the palm strike, and the magically generated claws sliced off the little finger and ring finger of its left hand in a single pass.
As the Giant instinctively clutched its severed fingers, Vihera used the opening to close the distance with the first Giant, now coming in from behind.
The other Giant, apparently not expecting Vihera to appear from right beside its comrade, hesitated for a beat.
Above all, with its right knee shattered, its movements were inevitably a step slower.
"Guraaahhh!"
The Giant swung its arm with everything it had, its deep voice thundering.
That strike was undoubtedly powerful... provided it connected.
There was no chance such a wide swing would land on Vihera. She dodged it effortlessly and kicked off the floor.
Sweeping along the Giant's arm as if tracing its path, she launched toward its head... but the Giant reacted reflexively, snapping its jaws wide open.
It wasn't trying to catch her attack with its teeth—it was trying to bite off her body whole.
A Giant's teeth were extraordinarily durable, more than capable of tearing through human flesh with ease.
Vihera, airborne, seemed to understand exactly what the Giant was after.
She twisted her body in midair, spinning together with the claws extending from her Hand Gauntlets.
And as Vihera and the Giant crossed paths...
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
A scream tore from the Giant's maw.
Raked across the right side of its face were multiple gashes.
These were not the playful scratches of a cat. They were wounds that shredded the flesh of its face and gouged its eyeball.
With its right eye destroyed... no, even a glancing touch to the eyeball would have been enough to completely blind it on that side.
Half its vision gone, the Giant met the same fate as the first—finished off with a Magic Impact Palm to the head, its life snuffed out in an instant.
Vihera turned her gaze to the last surviving Giant, closed the distance in a flash, and delivered a Magic Impact Palm to its head just as she had with the others, effortlessly snuffing out its life.
"Impossible... impossible..."
Their trump card—the Giants that had overwhelmed every opponent with absolute power, regardless of who stood before them—had been effortlessly cut down by a single woman. Literally toyed with.
One could say the side doing the massacring had simply become the massacred, and that would be the end of it. But for Rezel, it was utterly incomprehensible.
Until moments ago, he had been brimming with confidence. Now he could only stand there, dumbfounded, incapable of anything but watching.
Seeing Rezel like that, Rei allowed himself a smile. Everything was proceeding exactly as planned.
With his reliable Giants effortlessly destroyed, Rezel was visibly broken in spirit.
"I don't know what methods you used to produce those Giants, but that's the extent of their ability. Still, for a criminal organization in a small country like Reblurina, I suppose it's not bad."
"Don't screw with me! I am a national researcher! I'm merely cooperating with criminals like Jaya on the orders of the Chancellor!"
"Oh? So you're not a member of Jaya."
The Chancellor naturally held a considerable position within the nation.
If anything, they would rank second or third in the entire country.
If someone like that had dispatched him to cooperate, this was tantamount to the nation itself backing Jaya.
(The question is whether the King of Mireana is in on this... or if the Chancellor is acting alone.)
If it were the Chancellor acting unilaterally, conducting such operations behind the King's back would almost certainly trigger a civil war.
However, given the scale of creating and maintaining a place like Mejougo, it was hard to believe this was one man's solo venture.
In all likelihood, the King was involved as well... and this was a state-level conspiracy. That much was easy to deduce.
"I'll need you to tell us quite a lot.... But don't expect to be treated humanely."
Even as he spoke those words, his cold gaze was fixed on the pregnant women whose abdomens were being torn apart by the Giants.