If you found a dime in the morning, you might not think much of it. But if you found a hundred dollars, you'd happily pick it up and stuff it in your pocket. Then, at lunchtime, you'd announce cheerfully, "Boss! One serving of rice! Give me a big spoonful of ribs! Oh, and throw in two chicken legs!" The fast-food owner would ask curiously, "What's the matter? No greens today? Did you get rich or get promoted?"
"How could I? With my level of skill, neither would ever happen to me! I'm just in a good mood today, so I'm treating myself!"
"Yeah, right! You think I don't know you? You found some money, didn't you?" Caught out, you'd grin and walk away with your lunchbox.
Chen Jinyang now felt like an office worker who'd found a hundred dollars that morning. Grinning, he hung the Hell Hound's corpse on the wooden frame, a fixture the village had built specifically for butchering livestock and wild beasts. The Hell Hound's hide was incredibly tough—even Winter Wolf fur was slightly inferior. Most of the wooden spikes that had struck it had barely scratched the surface; only one, driven deep through its brow, had killed it. Chen Jinyang tried to cut into its neck with his dagger, but it felt like trying to slice rubber with a blunt knife. After struggling for ages, he'd managed only a little slit half a palm wide. With his wrist aching from the effort, he had no choice but to give up on the usual method of skinning it.
"Phinia! Lend me your axe!" Chen Jinyang called over his shoulder to the giantess, who was busy clearing away chunks of ice with the two little ones.
With the Frost Giant Axe in hand, Chen Jinyang set his feet slightly apart, steadied his breath, and silently recited the Blade Control Technique. Using the axe as a blade, he swept it down in a sudden stroke. The edge flashed white, swift as lightning, yet the motion was clear and distinct, flowing in smooth, layered arcs, as gentle as water and utterly without force. With a soft hiss, the Hell Hound's unbelievably tough hide split open beneath its jaw, leaving a cut over half a foot long and more than an inch deep. Chen Jinyang let out a long breath. The mismatch between weapon and technique was partly to blame, but even though his mind held superb skills and experience, his new body couldn't bring them to their full potential without extensive training. If he'd wielded the giant axe with his former body, the cut would have been over a foot long, even though his physical strength had been lower.
Chen Jinyang paused between strokes and made several more cuts. From the Hell Hound's jaw to its belly, he opened a fine slit over three feet long. He slipped his fingers inside and pulled hard with both hands. The hide and muscle separated across a wide area. The Hell Hound's skin was tough, but the tissue connecting it to the flesh beneath was far weaker. It could hardly withstand Chen Jinyang's astonishing strength. He called over Phinia, who was just as powerful, and the two of them pulled in opposite directions, one gripping the hide and the other holding the Hell Hound's exposed flesh. The hide gradually peeled away intact, like a tight garment being turned inside out. The Hell Hound's flesh, however, stank horribly, so Chen Jinyang dragged it beyond the village and buried it. After what had happened before, he no longer dared leave corpses lying around; they might attract dangerous monsters at any moment.
Though Chen Jinyang was happy enough to accept such a windfall, he couldn't shake his doubts about how it had happened. When he'd first seen the Hell Hound, he'd only caught a glimpse of it from afar, but from its appearance and intelligence, it seemed no less clever than a Winter Wolf. It couldn't have been stupid enough to run headlong into the wall and kill itself. While Chen Jinyang racked his brains without finding an answer, the creature responsible was curled up in a tree hollow near a hot spring deep in the forest. The small, fearsome beast was covered in scales and armor, and looked like a lizard. (Take a guess what kind of monster it is! To be clear, it isn't a dragon, nor some random mythical primordial beast making a guest appearance.) It slept soundly with its eyes closed. The space within dozens of feet of it was utterly still, filled with an evil, uncanny aura.
Winter hadn't left, but spring was on its way. After several consecutive days of bright sunshine, the slowly melting snow made the ground even colder, almost more unbearable than when it was snowing. Frost-coated houses and trees shimmered with colorful, scale-like glints beneath the sun, while hints of green emerged beneath the snow. The little ones stayed in the cellar, hardly ever venturing outside. It took Chen Jinyang and Phinia several days to clear away the ice and rubble in front of the entrance. Afterward, they began tidying up the disorderly village.
The last goat in the stable had been slaughtered the day before, but the livestock and wild-animal droppings that had accumulated inside all winter still needed to be cleared away. There were also bones left over from the stewed meat, antlers that hadn't been used up, and the traps and other defenses set up against monster attacks. The villagers would soon return, so anything that was an eyesore needed to be thrown away, dismantled, or put away. But over the past few days, the giantess had seemed troubled, often frowning and drifting off. This worried Chen Jinyang, who was nearly inseparable from her and had grown somewhat infatuated with her.
"Phinia, what are you planning to do from now on?" Chen Jinyang asked the busy giantess beside him as he cleared away the livestock droppings with a wooden shovel.
Phinia raised her proud, handsome face. Her well-proportioned, muscular body paused for a moment. "Your human kin are coming back soon, aren't they? Don't worry. I will leave before they find me." For the half-giantess, who was still just a girl by Frost Giant standards, it felt as if the Wall of Hope were crumbling around her. Her long, nimble fingers trembled around the relatively small wooden shovel. She had never felt such pain—not even when her Uthgardt barbarian father died, when her tribe drove her out, or when the Frost Giant tribe treated her coldly and rejected her. She even felt the urge to destroy everything, but a winter spent supporting each other had taught her to control her emotions. Phinia wanted to smile; it was a "special skill" she'd worked so hard to learn from little Mishaer. But her despair and dejection left her with a lonely, miserable expression, as though she were about to cry. This simple barbarian warrior would never learn to hide how she felt.
Chen Jinyang wasn't stupid, and though he didn't understand how Phinia felt, he understood what she meant. "Leave? Why do you have to leave? Do you still like wandering alone in the wilderness?" As a woman, Phinia was so tall that he felt a little inferior beside her, and she was strong enough to make most men feel utterly inadequate. She was crude and rough, with no gentle, considerate side at all. But setting aside the way the giantess's blood affected Chen Jinyang's training, her figure was beautiful and alluring by the standards of any race—so strong and wild that it was almost criminal (someone had apparently already committed rape and kidnapping). And above all, he cherished her simple, guileless nature. After weathering countless storms in his previous life, Chen Jinyang felt he had no need to fear schemes or betrayal from the giantess.
"No, I don't!" Phinia answered honestly. "But your people will be afraid of me and drive me away! You'll get caught up in it too!"
"No! I won't let anyone bully you! If anyone dares hurt you, they'll have to step over my dead body first!" Chen Jinyang felt like a real man now! Dashing! Full of love!
Unfortunately, his heartfelt declaration might as well have been delivered to a blind person. Phinia wasn't blind, but the simple giantess couldn't understand such a profound figure of speech. Looking puzzled, she asked, "Oh! You'll die first when someone hits me! What does that have to do with me leaving?"
The man's bold declaration had been misunderstood and dismissed, and he felt like he was about to faint. He roared in a burst of anger, "I absolutely won't let you leave! You silly woman! Do you hear me?!"
"Ah, I really can stay here and don't have to leave?" The giantess-sized little girl looked hopefully at the furious man, like a little girl who'd just been told she was getting candy, and asked in a soft voice.
Chen Jinyang looked into Phinia's innocent eyes, as guileless as little Mishaer's, and all his anger vanished. He answered weakly, "That's right! You don't have to leave."
"Oh! I don't have to leave! I'll never have to sleep alone in the dark forest again! It's so scary!" The giantess beamed through her tears and swept Chen Jinyang into her arms, heedless of the poor man's futile struggles as he nearly suffocated in her embrace.
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