Hahaha!
A burst of deafening laughter rang out.
Ruger recognized that hearty voice. It belonged to the master of this island space, the powerful Cyclops Wizard. The laughter also told him that this peculiar Oddity was an early work. After a certain point in time, the giant's laughter had lost that hearty quality. Even when some stage of an experiment achieved tremendous success, his laughter sounded more like relief after pent-up frustration, a release that came in a great rush of breath.
A few fragmentary images flashed past.
He watched everything with a calm mind, searching for clues while avoiding anything that might hurt him.
To Ruger's surprise, the scenery in those images was not even on the island.
The giant looked a little younger, too. Many people surrounded him, including dozens of human Wizards laughing together, a person who resembled a tree, and the human Wizard who, in Monster Wolf's memories, had urged the giant to treat the World Child Project with caution. That man also looked somewhat younger.
These powerful Wizards and unusual humanoid races looked slightly different in age and appearance, which meant this might have happened long ago, across a very considerable span of time.
Some human Wizards held wooden drinking cups high, loudly egging the others on. They all sat in a circle. With a giant among them, that circle looked particularly comical, but everyone seemed thoroughly accustomed to it.
As the giant laughed, his cup swayed and accidentally spilled a drop. Two Wizards sitting what should have been a safe distance away received a thorough shower, drawing still more people into the laughter.
A bonfire burned in the middle of the gathering, apparently fueled by a kind of towering tree. The tree-like Wizard, much taller than an ordinary person yet much shorter than the