It was unclear whether Gianne was cowed by his overwhelming size and his air of malevolence, but on the back of her rearing cyborg horse she kept her arrow unerringly trained on the giant’s heart.
Closing his massive hand into a fist and pulling something from the left side of his chest, he hurled it straight at D with a grunt.
Easily catching the rough wooden needle that’d pierced the giant’s heart in his left hand, the Hunter introduced himself, saying, “I’m D, and I have something to ask you.” Either he didn’t realize he was in no position to be making requests, or he was showing his confidence that his deadly skill could slay the giant where he stood.
“Ah,” said the voice that fell from ten feet high, carrying evident surprise. “I believe I have heard that name before. You are an exquisite man, I see. Now I can understand why Nobles could be so taken with the sight of you that they’re easily cut down.”
Striking the left side of his chest, he said, “You made me experience pain for only the second time in my life. You’re a man to be feared. However, if all that skill cannot slay me, then it matters not! See what it is to battle in Kraken’s watery hell—and then die.”
An arrow whined through the air, sinking into the Nobleman right between the eyes. Seemingly having no effect at all, the arrow came out through the back of his head.
“Did you imagine an arrow would have any effect on water? The man known as D is special!” Viscount Kraken declared in a voice like bubbles bursting. In fact, something foamy was actually spilling from his thick, toad-like lips. It didn’t fall to the ground, but rather rose high into the darkness.
“You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while now,” Gianne said in a fashion that was actually rather bold. “Isn’t water supposed to be taboo for the Nobility?”
“Correct,” Kraken replied without the least delay. “Before I became like this, I was a Noble living on dry land. That was four and a half millennia ago. However, one spring day a faulty setting on the aircraft carrying my wife and daughter caused it to crash in the lakes region. This is the result.”
Changing the subject, he continued, “What do you think are the ways to destroy a Noble? A wooden stake driven through the heart, decapitation, burning in fire? All will suffice, and all do a splendid job of reducing us to dust. All save drowning. My wife and daughter were ladies who placed more value on their Nobility than anyone I know. All their lives it was so. I know not how many times they scolded me for my own lapses. However, when the two of them were fished from the lake, they were foul swine bloated with all the water they had inhaled. It was then that I swore I would master water. And it took me some three thousand seven hundred years to reach this point!”
“A Noble who wanted to be a fish—that wouldn’t even make a good routine for some comedian out in the sticks,” the hoarse voice spat venomously.
“I of all people can solve the riddle of this girl’s physiology. Why is it that time and again she has felt the fangs of Nobles, yet instead of being made their servant she raises her hand against them? This may very well be a boon to the declining Nobility. D, I shall take the girl now!”
A great splash of water bounced off the waterproof tarp. Focused rain. And look! The tarp, shrouded in gray, misty spray, lost its shape and color, and then began to disappear as if it were dissolving in the water—along with the two figures beneath it.
“That ain’t good!” the hoarse voice exclaimed from the Hunter’s left hand. D had just placed it on the tarp.
See how that veritable waterfall of rain became a single column of water that was swallowed by the mouth that opened in the palm of the Hunter’s hand.
In the darkness, the mountain of a Nobleman gasped.
Gianne’s bowstring twanged twice, sending its projectiles toward his heart. She knew full well the attack was in vain. However, when they pierced the heart of that colossal figure, they became scorching balls of flame.
“Gaaaaaah!”
Kraken—the great sea beast—doubled over, clutching his chest. Beneath his hands, it glowed crimson. Just then, fireballs and black smoke gushed from his mouth, nose, and ears, followed shortly by more from his stomach and crotch.
“Count Langlan was good enough to give me these flame arrows. He thought if there was any weapon that could slay Viscount Kraken, this was it.”
The giant jerked his head back and opened his mouth. Smoke still poured from his mouth like it was a chimney, and his whole body twitched.
D didn’t wait for the smoke to stop. The instant he saw that the rain on the tarp had diminished with the viscount’s spasms, the Hunter launched himself into the air. His legs were so powerful he easily sailed more than thirty feet, drawing his blade an instant later and swinging it at a neck as thick as a giant tree trunk.
The Nobleman’s head fell. By the time it passed his chest it had become a ball of water devoid of eyes and a nose, and before it hit the ground it had fallen to droplets.
“What the—” Gianne exclaimed, pulling tight on the reins as the Nobleman’s body also turned to water and gushed toward her.
D was immersed in the weird water up to the waist, though it quickly receded again.
“That was easy, wasn’t it?” Gianne said, but her expression was stiff. It was too easy. There was no way defeating him should’ve been so simple.