Chapter 566: Angry Giants

Twenty-four hours was quite a long time, especially considering the force with which the giants stormed into the house. Thalion could hear their deafening roars and the thunderous booms that echoed through the building with every step they took.

Someone must have been foolish enough to hide in the garden because a gong echoed through everyone's mind, notifying them that the first trial taker had died.

"Jeez... that was only the fifth second," Purpuff muttered, his face visibly paling.

The crashing sound of the front door being torn open and the booming roars of the giants charging through the rooms below were impossible to ignore.

Soon, more gongs echoed through their minds as more and more trial takers died.

"They're dropping like flies. Just how strong are those giants?" Purpuff continued mumbling to himself.

Within the next minute, more than thirty trial takers were eliminated.

Thalion had to admit this was far more dangerous than he had anticipated, and there was another problem.

What was he supposed to do after jumping out of the window?

His original plan had been to fly upward in his wyvern form, but with the increased pressure, even he wouldn't be able to remain airborne for very long. Definitely not for twenty-four hours, or even half an hour.

It sounded as though a few trial takers had attempted to fight back, which seemed even more futile. The triumphant roars of the giants never stopped, constantly accompanied by more kill notifications.

Thalion carefully leaned out of the window to check whether any giants were already moving through the garden.

Instead, he saw dozens of trial takers jumping out of the ground-floor windows.

The plants were just as vicious and clearly nowhere near early D grade. Thalion watched as a four-armed trial taker was seized by several vines and torn in half before he even had a chance to react.

None of the trial takers here were weak.

Quite the opposite.

They were among the strongest beings in the new multiverse, and yet they were dying with alarming speed.

With so many escaping into the garden, it wouldn't take long before the giants entered the fray as well, meaning it would be best to leave now—but not by going down.

Why not climb onto the roof instead?

From there, he would have the best overview of the area and the easiest escape route should a giant decide to climb up as well.

The loud boom... boom... boom... of a giant charging up the staircase made the decision for him.

Without another word, Thalion jumped out of the window and activated Scarlet Maelstrom to propel himself upward toward the gutter.

The resistance was now immense, and by the time he reached it, he had already lost nearly half of his mana.

Purpuff the Strong arrived right behind him.

The ogre was breathing heavily as he landed beside Thalion, who didn't stop there and immediately sprinted up the roof tiles while allowing his mana pool to regenerate.

Beneath them, they heard the loud shouts of a giant as it burst into the room they had just left.

The bed was violently shoved aside, followed by the unmistakable sound of the window being slammed shut.

"He closed the window so the others can't escape?" Purpuff muttered in disbelief. "Good thing we left immediately."

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Thalion had reached the same conclusion.

He had briefly considered staying hidden until the perfect moment to escape presented itself, but thankfully, he had abandoned that idea.

"Let's move higher. You keep an eye on this side while I check the other. I don't want one of the giants spotting us," Thalion said.

However, he stopped mid-sentence as he noticed a woman sitting silently on the rooftop.

It was the unsettling one with the long black hair and the face that lacked both eyes and a nose.

She had concealed her aura so completely that Thalion had only just noticed her.

Purpuff spotted her a second later.

"Nice. Looks like you had the same idea as us. Why don't we work together to survive this game?" he offered in a loud voice.

Thalion immediately kicked the ogre against the shin, causing him to wince in pain.

"Have you gone insane? Just because the giants are big doesn't mean they don't have good hearing," Thalion hissed at the ogre.

"Finally, someone who isn't completely arrogant," the woman commented in a whisper, motioning for them to come over to her.

From their vantage point, they had a perfect view of the entire garden.

Most of it consisted of a wide variety of flowerbeds, each one more dangerous than the last. Some contained crimson flowers that emitted a hypnotic aura, while others had enormous open maws and long vines tipped with razor-sharp thorns.

There was also a giant creature roaming through the garden, something that looked like a cross between a dog and a cat. It had the body of a cat but the head of a dog. Its nose, in particular, was far larger than normal, as though a swarm of bees had stung it countless times.

"That thing is going to become a problem once most of the others are dead. It must have an incredible sense of smell," the woman muttered.

Nothing remained of the attitude she had displayed earlier when she had arrogantly declared to one of R-87's avatars that she wanted to fight instead of playing games.

"There have to be some spices in the kitchen that we could use," Thalion thought out loud. He hoped they wouldn't have to resort to such extreme measures to throw the creature off their trail, but it was best to be prepared.

"Hmm... I like the way you think," the woman whispered with a faint smile. Combined with her countless needle-like teeth and the complete absence of eyes and a nose, the expression looked rather unsettling. "Although I suppose I should have expected as much from the great Thalion. I was wondering whether I'd meet you in the third System Event."

"The pleasure is all mine," Thalion replied. "But for the moment, we should focus on escape routes and where we'll go if the giants come up here."

There was a chimney that could serve as a shortcut back down into the house, but Thalion suspected the giants would search the rooftop last. If they spotted them up here, they would probably prepare a proper trap before trying to catch them.

"I don't think we'll have much of a choice. The best option is probably to already be gone by the time they come looking," the woman whispered, perfectly mirroring Thalion's own thoughts.

With so many trial takers already dead, the giants had to be competent hunters. If they caught sight of them once, they would likely devise a strategy to hunt them down.

"I think they're still clearing the house. They might lock all the windows and doors before going after the ones outside," Purpuff suggested in a low voice.

"Probably. In that case, the chimney might not be such a bad idea," the woman mused.

She was clearly on edge.

To be honest, everything below them sounded like a battlefield. Explosions echoed throughout the house, not to mention the constant vibrations caused by the giants moving around.

More and more trial takers fled outside, unwilling to remain trapped inside with the seven giants.

It didn't take long before many of them joined the group on the rooftop.

Thalion wasn't happy about that.

With so many gathered in one place, the giants would inevitably search the roof eventually. He had secretly hoped that one of them might simply glance upward, see nobody, and move on. With this many trial takers crowding the rooftop, he could forget about that possibility.

The fact that so many of them recognized him from the broadcast was becoming rather annoying as well.

"Be quiet, you Trimbolas. The giants can probably hear us," the woman hissed after another trial taker arrogantly remarked that perhaps Thalion, as a mere E grade, wasn't even meant to participate in this trial.

This trial also had a very high number of Chosen, and one human cyborg with short blond hair, in particular, simply wouldn't stop telling Thalion what his patron god thought of him.

"My patron says it's only a matter of time until you die. I felt the auras of the other D grades during the broadcast, and it was quite obvious why you weren't showing yours. Oh wait, you're only an E grade. Didn't bother hunting all that much? Mere hunting is probably beneath you, right?"

That was when Purpuff grabbed the cyborg by the neck, leaped onto the chimney beside him, and hurled him downward, activating a skill that accelerated the throw.

Thalion watched as the furious cyborg plummeted toward the floor below. Before he could crash onto the stone tiles—somewhere around the living room—a giant hand shot forward so quickly that it was almost impossible to follow and snatched him out of the air.

The cyborg was simply gone.

A second later, the familiar gong echoed through everyone's minds.

Another trial taker had died.

"Oops... didn't mean to do that," Purpuff apologized, even making an exaggerated farewell gesture toward the spot where the cyborg had disappeared.

Thalion didn't feel particularly sorry for the cyborg.

His amusement, however, vanished almost instantly as he realized what had just happened.

If a giant had already been waiting there to catch someone, then one of them had to be on its way up to the roof.