A Mirage

The soldier's body was frozen in place, his arm outstretched, pointing towards the horizon.

Hearing this, many soldiers began looking in the direction the soldier pointed. What they saw made their hearts freeze; air stuck in their throat.

"It's a giant. It must be a giant," a soldier said through gritted teeth.

"No, it's not a giant." 

"It's a god." Another soldier shouted with fear. The word hung in the air like a death sentence, and then the soldier fainted, his body falling to the ground with a dull thud.

Hearing this panic began to appear among the soldiers. The words of the fainted soldiers lingering in their hearts.

Looking at the huge figure, they felt hopeless.

"How is this possible?" Austin muttered to himself in disbelief.

Looking around Austin, if the soldiers are just left like this, the morale of the army will fully collapse. So, he needed to think of a plan.

"Stand your guard." The command of Austin sounded in the army. His voice was full of anger.

"It's not a god or a giant or any of that nonsense!"

When the soldiers heard this, they were more scared. What if this was heard by the god? They began to hate their general, who was taking them towards sure death.

"It might just be a mirage created in this cursed place!" Austin was still shouting, trying to inject confidence back into the soldiers.

"Just look at it; it's not even moving."

Hearing this, some soldiers began cautiously looking towards the collosal figure. It really wasn't moving. Standing there like a statue. Seeing this, a flicker of hope emerged in some soldiers. What if it really was just a mirage?

But for most, Austin's words were hollow. The thing in front of them was too real, too terrifying to be an illusion. They couldn't believe that it was anything other than what it appeared to be—a god, here to judge them.

Even Austin himself didn't fully believe his word. But he couldn't back down in front of his soldiers. But according to secret information he read from the Kano library, such a thing shouldn't exist at all.

'This can't be real,' Austin thought, his mind racing. 'It has to be a miracle.'

"It's just a mirage!" he shouted, trying to convince both himself and his men.

"Even if it is a god or a giant, I WILL KILL IT MYSELF!"

"Shit! Austin's lost his mind!" Gaston, one of Austin's closest men, muttered to the soldiers near him, his voice shaking.

"We need to get out of here before he gets us all killed."

Ferrer and the others in Gaston's vicinity nodded in agreement, their faces pale. Without a word, they began to fall back, moving cautiously but deliberately away from the front lines.

But before they could run faraway. Austin began shouting commands again.

"Archers, ready your bow," Austin commanded the archers. "It is just a mirage, and it will disappear after it is touched."

The archers hesitated, glancing at each other uncertainly. But they didn't disobey Austin's orders, so they slowly lifted their bows, aiming at the giant.

"FIRE!" Austin commanded, his voice echoing through the forest.

Rows upon rows of arrows were fired towards a collosal figure. The arrows touched the giant's leg, but instead of the giant disappearing, the arrows bounced off the giant's leg.

"What? It didn't work!" A soldier shouted, his voice high-pitched with panic.

"Didn't the general say it was a mirage?" Another soldier asked, his voice trembling.

"No, it's real! It's a god!" Someone else cried out.

"We're doomed!"

The soldiers now were truly hopeless. The giant didn't disappear as the general said, but instead they might have attracted the attention of the giant.

Then, before anyone could react, the air around them began to tremble. A deep, thunderous sound rumbled through the forest, causing the ground beneath their feet to shake.

The sound grew louder and louder as if the heaven itself were roaring in anger.

"What... What is going on?" a soldier shouted, his hands covering his ears as the sound reverberated through his skull.

"What kind of sound is this?" another soldier yelled, his fingers digging into his ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise.

"We can't understand it!" a soldier screamed, his voice filled with terror.

"It must be the language of the gods!"

"The god is speaking!" another soldier cried out, and that was the breaking point. The army descended into chaos. Soldiers scattered, running in all directions, their minds consumed by mindless horror.

Austin, who was watching all of this, was frozen in his place. He, who was so confident, is now staring at the giant, his body refusing to move.

The sight of the colossal figure, combined with the deafening voice, had stripped him of all his courage.

---

The truth was that the giant who was regarded as god by these people was not a god nor any mythical creature.

It was Oliver, who had just traveled to this world through the mysterious door. For Oliver, everything in this world was very hard to perceive; all things were so tiny that it was hard for his eyes to capture them.

As he was slowly observing the surroundings high above the clouds with interest. He suddenly felt a lot of stinging sensation in his legs.

"What is happening?" he muttered, glancing down.

His voice, amplified by his massive size, echoed through the forest below, sending the soldiers into chaos.

Then he began looking down, and what caught his attention were dense, very dense black dots moving around in the distance. As he observed, he frowned in confusion.

'What are these? Bugs?'

Thinking of this, a wave of disgust and goosebumps traveled through his entire body. He especially hated these kinds of bugs in the forest. They are tiny and hard to spot.

They could potentially even be poisonous.

'I need to get rid of these things before they become a problem,'

Thinking of this, Oliver began looking inside his emergency bag that he carried to this world. After a few moments of searching, his hand found a spray bottle of wound disinfectant. He pulled it out and examined the label.

It was made of neem oil and a mixture of herbs—ingredients known for their natural insect-repelling properties. Seeing this, he nodded to himself.

'This might do the trick,'

He thought. Without wasting another moment, he pointed the nozzle of the disinfectant spray toward the bugs and pressed down.

A fine mist sprayed out, covering the bugs in front of him. Oliver pressed the nozzle a few more times, making sure to coat the entire area where the bugs were concentrated.