"You… you can talk!"

She said, just as speechless as he was.

She had heard him speak earlier, but it had been so quiet she thought it was just her imagination.

Yet here he was, talking to her.

"You monster!" she cried, raising the rod in her hands higher.

"See, imagine a poor little boy,"

Everlearn suddenly said, making her freeze mid-swing.

"Brimming with life and energy, he walks without a care in this cold, brutal world, only to step on an iron bar and get himself trapped by a fearsome-looking giant standing five times his height."

"Then he gets thrown into a group of equally fearsome beasts who gnaw and growl at the poor little boy in the cage."

"Then he finds himself in the hands of a psycho giant who tries to impale him to death with a red-hot iron from a blacksmith's forge."

"Goriondor?" Greta muttered under her breath.

"Luckily for him, though, he was helped by a little girl giant who took amusement in him, saving him from more headaches, only to land back in the cold, brutal hands of another giant who holds an iron rod above him, seeking to beat him to death," he said, and her eyebrows quivered.

"Tell me… who are the monsters in these situations?"

He dusted his clothes as silence filled the air.

The giants didn't see themselves as monsters, though almost all Nvidians would have called them that on sight.

But they saw Everlearn as a monster due to his short height, though all Nvidians would have argued he was the only normal thing here.

So what could define what a monster was that both sides would agree on?

It was actions.

And right now, even Greta couldn't argue against that theirs had been quite monstrous.

"You might look harmless," she said finally, "but you're still a monster."

"You could have broken that cage and escaped, but you didn't, allowing yourself to be captured."

"Everything that has happened has been very well orchestrated by you, making you far from innocent."

She scoffed.

"That's half-right, I think," Everlearn replied calmly.

"Good thing we can come to terms…"

"What are you!?" she repeated, and he sighed before straightening up.

"I am Everlearn. My divine mission is—"

"Everlearn? That's a weird name. Most likely a fake!" Greta called out, and Everlearn halted, his brows twitching in disbelief.

"You think my name is weird!? What the!? All of you giants' names start with G!?"

"Did you all eat the remaining letters and leave only G behind!?"

He asked in obvious mockery.

"That's not something an outsider like you can understand."

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered.

"My divine mission here is to learn as much as possible; a quest given to me by a Divine being called System."

"Now you know why I'm here, and you're welcome."

He said that, and while there was no way she fully believed him, it did make a bit of sense.

If he had come with malicious intent, the first thing he would've done after escaping the cage would be to harm her daughter.

But instead, she had found him reading.

That seemed unnatural… but if his mission truly was to learn as much as possible, then it made more sense.

"And who is this divine being of yours? Why would he want to know about us?"

"That's a question even I would like to know."

And Everlearn was serious this time.

Why was the system sending him here? What was the purpose? What was here, even?

The last time he had been sent here, he had spent the following weeks trying to force answers out of the system, but every time he asked, it simply went silent.

"Unfortunately," he sighed, "I think I've been deemed unworthy of learning that."

"Go," she said suddenly, pointing the rod into the distance.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Go away into the wilderness."

"As far, far away as your tiny legs can take you, and never come back!"

Everlearn unconsciously turned his head to where she pointed.

There were treacherous mountains, and even from here, he could feel the turbulent howling of the winds just beyond them.

Whatever was out there couldn't possibly be a good thing.

"You really are just… telling me to get lost?" he asked, looking at Greta's cold, merciless eyes.

"The only thing anyone else would have done is smash your head with this stick and kill you! So, me letting you go is already being gracious enough!"

"Has any giant who's ever walked beyond those mountains ever returned?" Everlearn asked.

"No. Why are you asking?" she replied, frowning.

Everlearn's brows quivered.

"I've made my choice," he announced grandly.

"And that's that, I'll be staying here until I get a good grasp of things around."

She huffed coldly. "Then don't blame me…"

She raised the rod high, but halfway through the swing, Everlearn vanished.

He simply faded from sight, and in the next instant, the weight disappeared from her hands.

Gretta looked down at her grip and could no longer find the iron rod she had been holding.

"What the!?"

Turning her head down, she found him, Everlearn, standing calmly, the rod now in his hands.

"What…"

Her words stopped when she watched him slowly fold the iron, shaping it into a smooth circle, then spinning it once around his finger before flinging it forward.

The circular rod spun far into the distance, following a smooth arc, and then collided with the peak of the faraway mountains.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A shockwave rumbled through the far sky as the entire mountain peak, about ten meters thick, was completely blown to rock dust.

The sight made Greta's lips part open and close in utter shock, unable to form a single word.

Everlearn raised a finger.

"I have just one question for you," he said quietly.

"If I had flung that same iron toward the door behind you… Would even the tiniest pebble survive being reduced to dust, let alone your husband or daughter?"

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