The Human Giant



As the night slowly passed, the sinister dark cloud of Three-Eyed Crows thinned to the point where the very last Three-Eyed Crow capable of surviving the whole night suddenly disappeared as the sound of bones cracking followed. Even though the sun was rising from the horizon, meaning everyone had stayed up all night, they didn't feel tired.

They marveled at the extraordinary event they had just watched, and all knew this would be recorded in the history books. Future generations will only be blessed with reading about the uniqueness of this event. In contrast, they are blessed to be capable of watching this historic event.

Many people felt their convictions on believing the truths of the god of Eternal Justice's words strengthened and solidified. At the same time, some merchants had converted after experiencing such a horrifying event. However, as a whole, everyone breathed a deep sigh of relief as they watched the last evil crow disappear.

"The attack on the town has been defeated, and we are now safe. Right now, our town's scholar is cleaning up the remaining mess, so there is no longer a need for everyone to watch."

"By my orders, everyone will return home and sleep until they feel well rested. There will be no work or construction until then as we do not want anyone to accidentally make a serious mistake due to being sleepy." Lucien calmly spoke, causing everyone to realize that they were incredibly tired.

The wave of drowsiness engulfing the town caused everyone to feel as if their eyelids had become as heavy as sandbags, and their minds felt like a bag of stones was inside. Some people even struggled to keep their eyes open, so no one bothered to start since they likely fell asleep before Yoze finished cleaning up this mess.

When the last few people left, and Lucien was alone, he saw a young charming merchant walking toward him with a grim look plastered to his face. This young merchant was Devi, who had been watching everything on the sidelines and felt embarrassed that he shared the same teacher as Lucien.

To see a Cursed Witch making up stories for a whole town was ridiculous. Witches had the reputation of being mysterious and powerful, but here is Lucien, who was a public figure and fueling this town's religious belief.

Even though he was displeased with Lucien's methods, he couldn't help but accept that it was effective in getting the townspeople to regain their calm and even forget about questioning how Lucien had gotten to town's entrance before anyone else even though the town hall was at the center of the town.

"So what do you think?" Devi asked as he walked beside Lucien.

"This can only be done by immortals, witches, and anomalies. I am leaning toward an anomaly since there doesn't seem to be a sign that this was caused by a crazy immortal or a witch trying to get revenge."

"I came to the same conclusion, but this anomaly seems weak and simple. Unless it just popped up, I recommend that you move your town to a different location for the time being." Devi said before continuing after he noticed Lucien's silence.

"You can always return to this place after the anomaly was destroyed. All you have to do is inform the nearby towns and have them send over some soldiers to find and get rid of this anomaly." 

As Devi finished his thoughts, he saw Lucien's eyes shine and nodded in agreement with his suggestion. But even still, Lucien didn't move his eyes away from the pillar of fire.

After a few seconds of silence, Devi finally asked what had been bothering him and what Lucien had been preparing for all night. 

"Is Yoze really your student? From the looks of it, he is extremely powerful, and his witchcraft is very good. Might be even better than yours."

Knowing that he had been caught, Lucien let out a heavy sigh as he looked away from the pillar of fire for the first time and started at Yoze's back. He knew that his plot wouldn't last forever, but he didn't expect it to end in less than a day.

He had paid Yoze so many valuable items and knowledge only for him to be exposed before he even took the test. Seeing that he was caught red-handed, he could only tell Devi the truth and deal with the consequences.

"Yes, Yoze is my student. I have been trying to teach him some witchcraft for the past few years, but he has always been kind of slow when learning witchcraft."

"As you could guess, this is most likely a combination of his lack of talent and my poor teaching. But it seems that everything that I believed was fake and just something that Yoze had put in front of me." Lucien's eyes dimmed as he masterfully made it seem like this realization had hurt his soul.

"I am sorry to hear that your student was so brilliant and thoughtful that he was a Black Frog under your nose."

It was unknown whether Devi believed Lucien's story after seeing his earlier performance, but he still offered his condolences. For teachers to find out that their student was lying to them was a sad thing, and this was especially true for witches.

Since there were too many stories and examples of students killing their teachers to take their titles and steal all of their treasures, there was previously a crisis of lack of trust between students and teachers. Student betrayals and kills happened so frequently that a metaphor had been created to explain the situation.

Black Frogs were one of the most common ingredients witches used to create treasures. But because it was so commonly used, there would be occasions when a Black frog would sneak under the nose of a witch's nose and jump right into it.

The pain that followed a black fog jumping into one's nose was so painful that many witches died. So many witches who found out their students lied about their capabilities called them Black Frogs.