/06:00:00

/05:59:59

"...less than six hours remaining..."

Mika breathed out and reported.

"Understood."

"Cool."

Both Shanks and Mary acknowledged her a bit absentmindedly.

Mary was standing between the large blue griffin and the big but equally skinny black wolf, all three were staring at the fog in front of them as if hoping for something.

Shanks on the other hand was sitting crosslegged on the ground and tinkering with a massive high-tech rifle that didn't fit the fantasy world setting and was as long as he was tall.

"I thought that we weren't allowed to take their weapons...?"

Mika asked glancing curiously at the shining gun.

"..."

Shanks glanced at her and continued doing the maintenance.

"This one here doesn't belong to the army. She was made specifically for me the day I was born."

He explained after a moment of silence.

"Eh...?"

Mika blinked a few times in confusion.

"She's different than the guns that the Sloth soldiers use, she doesn't rely on the powers of the avatar of sloth to takes any mana. This beauty only works together with charge cannon - a skill exclusive to members of the Sloth family. My older brother made it for me, it's a downsized version of his own weapon. It amplifies our skill multiple times before unleashing it... this is the first time I have had the chance to use it. I was never allowed to touch before I escaped, charge cannon skill is too dangerous for a child to use after all."

Shanks said with a warm smile, gently caressing the gun's side.

"Oh? Sir Shanks, you have a brother?"

Mika raised her brows.

"But it sounds like you didn't contact him after you arrived here."

The ashen-haired girl tilted her head, making a sad face.

"That's because there is no possible way for me to communicate with him..."

"Ah! I'm so sorry...! SInce he is your older brother, that means he is a member of the Sloth family too, right? I'm sure that after all of this is over you two will get a chance to reconcile!"

Mika clenched her fists and affirmed the rat-faced man with a strong-willed smile.

But her upbeat demeanor met with a rather cold reception.

"It's not like he doesn't want to talk to me. There is just no possible way for someone whose body is alive but the mind died many years ago to even communicate with anyone, to begin with."

"Eh...?! I-I am so sorry, sir Shanks! I had no idea that..!"

"No, it's alright, I'm the one who's sorry, this whole thing is complicated and I can't really disclose it to the outsiders."

Shanks explained and when Mika gasped and tried to apologize, he interrupted her with another explanation.

"O-oh, is that so..."

Still, his words left the ashen-haired girl more confused than she was before.

"Hey, do you think that the titan-class monsters will come sooner if they'll hear a really loud voice...?"

Suddenly, Mary joined their conversation, but rather than continuing the subject, she intercepted it and asked her own question.

"No. I don't suppose so, not unless it's coupled with a very powerful taunt skill."

Shanks shook his head in picked up his rifle, checking whether the optics aren't off.

"Good. You better block your ears."

Mary nodded and turned to her griffin.

"Blueberry, call her."

She patted the griffin's side.

"SKWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The griffin's screech tore through the air and echoed, bouncing off from the mountains hundreds of miles away.

"What, for the love of system, was that?!"

Shanks asked slightly louder than normal, since even though he managed to cover his ears in time, they still ended up ringing from the overwhelming volume of the screech.

"I still haven't received a message confirming Cinnamon's death. I can't summon or contact her but it might just be that the fog is blocking our connection and she's still alive somewhere. If she heard Blueberry's call and is still alive, she should try to come back here. Hopefully, our connection will be renewed somewhere along the way - that way even if she is injured, I'll be able to get her here."

"Oh... I see."

Shanks nodded and picked up the gun he hurriedly put to the side before.

"Whew..."

Mika, who removed her hands from her ears only then, breathed out in relief.

"Still, isn't it weird? The titan-class monsters are approaching only at a very specific time, and after the time on the timer runs out, they are leaving or trying to leave. Isn't that very unnatural behavior?"

The ashen-haired girl asked, not really expecting an answer.

"There's nothing natural about any of the titan-class."

Yet the answer did arrive straight from the owner of the Sophia skill, who was none other than Shanks.

"Those beast don't eat, they don't drink, they don't even multiply like any other living being. They just exist, and unfortunately, they seem to absolutely hate the intelligent races and want to exterminate them all."

He frowned, making sure that the trigger mechanism isn't janky.

"Eh...? So they don't eat people...?"

Mika's eyes widened.

"Wha...? Eat people? Oh! Like in the stories used in the south to scare the naughty children? No. The titan-class won't eat you. They will bite and chew on you if they get a chance, but they'll spit you out after. So try to keep away from their jaws, alright?"

Shanks laughed.

"Though, it's not like all of them actually have any jaws, mouth, or teeth to begin with. In the end, titan-class monsters are just too foreign to us to truly understand them. But back to your original question - yes it is odd. Normally one or two would try and attack the defense lines every few hours or so, but since the -Final frontier- quest of yours begun they would only come in large groups..."

But soon enough his good mood disappeared.

"How much time left...?"

He asked, aiming his long rifle towards the direction he expected the titan-class monsters to arrive from.

/05:39:24

"A few seconds under forty minutes."

Mika reporters after checking up on the first of three timers in the upper left corner of her vision.

"Thank you."

Shanks nodded and took a sniping position.

"Hey, kind sir, are you sure you should be doing that? Wasn't it confirmed that even with the maximum output of the guns or whatever it's very hard to harm the titan-class that started showing up since the 7th wave?"

Mary asked without as much as looking in Shanks's direction.

"It's hard but not impossible, but even so... I just explained that this one's different. The standard ones just take mana, the difference in capabilities of soldiers can be showcased only by the number of times they can fire them. This one is directly dependant on the user's MAT."

Shanks scoffed and shrugged his shoulders, also without taking his eyes off of the horizon.

"Isn't that bad then? Weren't you weak or something, kind sir?"

Mary snorted.

"..."

Shanks furrowed his brows but even so, he didn't put down the rifle.

"I told the young lady Mika once before that she is the third strongest person in the Sloth territory right now. The first one is the avatar of Sloth, of course, but the second strongest..."

The rat-faced man's expression became gentler as he rested his cheek against the cold gun of his.

"The second one, at least in terms of MAT... is me - after they completely removed the seal from my stats that is."

He added with complete composure.