Chương 167: Chapter 243: Giant Space Anthropologists

William Oh brushed his teeth on the 11 th floor, accidentally creating a race of space giants from his frothy spit. Many Coils later, he returned and saved them from an apocalypse by hiding them inside a snake of mythical proportions that he had raised from an egg. Jason Salazar"Martha, am I seeing things, or is there a flying little man approaching us?"

"You're seeing things, sweetie." Martha replied.

"You didn't even look."

"~""I think it said something."

"Pfft."

"Greetings!" A tiny little voice said, barely audible and pitched ridiculously high. Martha leaned up on her elbow and blinked her bleary eyes, her gaze landing on the floating hallucination.

"By the gods Harold, there is a tiny little man."

"I'm not tiny, you're huge!" The miniscule figure squeaked.

"Rude." Martha said, frowning.

"What circumstances bring your tiny self to join us at the end of days, oh incredibly small one?" The entire world dying and then randomly burning for days at a time was certainly a strong candidate for the title.

"Ya'll. Are. In. A. Snake!" the tiny figure shouted, it's voice still barely audible.

"Steve the world-snake, duh, everyone's in a snake. That's the way the world is." Martha said.

"What's going on, Mom, Dad?" their son asked, approaching, nearly running into the tiny person, who flitted out of the way of his approach.

"Oh, Jace, there was a tiny little man floating there, suspended on a string or something, you might've gotten him in your hair." Martha said. Jace frowned.

"Are you okay?" He asked, putting his hand on their foreheads.

"You two have a fever. Try not to move around too much. We can't have you lose any more water than you already have, because we don't have much to spare."

"I'm real!" a tiny voice squeaked.

"Gah, what the out-hole is that!? Jace demanded, levering Grandpa's totem towards the sound and unleashing a blast of fire.

"I told you!" a tiny voice squeaked from the distance.

"You said crushing, and it was fire, so it doesn't count!" Another voice squeaked.

"Are we…haunted?" Jace asked growing pale. From Will's perspective the whole thing was amusing and a little frustrating.

"No, we're just really small! Change your focus a bit!" Will took some extra sheets out of his bag and waved it around to give the giant something to focus on. It was like asking someone to see an ant hanging in midair. If one wasn't directly looking at it, it vanished.

"Egads!" Jace started as he saw Will hanging in the air thirty feet or so away, just outside his arm's length.

"It's a tiny person!"

"Indeed!" Will said, tucking the sheet away.

"I'm afraid I already know what's going on here, but would you mind filling me in?"

"…What?" the healthy, younger giant with the bone staff asked."'Fill me in' means…something different here." The bandaged male giant on the ground said.

"Right. Umm…tell me what happened that caused you to be stuck here?" Will asked.

"Cuz the whole worlds on fire? Seems pretty obvious." Jace said.

"It's the end of days. Duh."

"Maybe they have less brains because they're smaller." Martha said.

"That does make sense." Harold chimed in.

"This new glowing island is the only place where the flame doesn't reach. Some of the towers and the home island might be safe from the flames, but we were out exploring all these new islands when everything started burning and trapped us here. We don't know if it's safe back home." Martha said.

"How about you, little one, what circumstances led you here?" Harold asked.

"There's a necromancer outside who turned Steve into a zombie, he's got someone dilating it's time, and it burns whenever it's in combat. When it is eventually destroyed, Steve is going to explode and wipe everything on this Floor off the map!"

"There's nothing outside Steve." The younger giant said with a scoff.

"Then were did all the new islands come from?" Will asked.

"They're gallstones formed by the great world-snake, Steve." Jace said. Patently false. Will thought.

"You know, Jace, now that I look at him, I think he might be one of the little people. You know, the ones whose bones and gear we discovered on some of the older islands." Harold said, adjusting his giant glasses and squinting to get a better look at Will.

"I thought little people were extinct. That was your whole thesis. You're just gonna accept something that refutes it?"

"That's how science works, son." Harold said.

"You said you came from outside the world?"

"Yeah." Will replied.

"Are there…more of you in the nullspace beyond Steve?"

"Only about three hundred or so on this Floor, but if you include all the Floors and outside The Tower, a few million." Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"A few…million, you say?" Harold asked.

"Mmmyes?" Will said.

"Oh dear, I think we might be the ones that are endangered." Harold said.

"That's what I'm saying, there's a ton of evidence of you guys living on the islands outside Steve, but no actual living examples. An island of you must've gotten swallowed by Steve a long time ago, and got saved from…whatever killed the ones outside. Everybody thought you were extinct." Will said.

"Huh. Go figure." Jace said, leaning on his bone staff.

"Anyway, sometime in the next few weeks to the next few years, Steve is going to explode. Is there anything we can do to get you guys somewhere safe?" Will asked. Martha, Harold and Jace all glanced at each other, their expressions haggard and hopeless.

"…I don't think so." Harold said.

"This glowing pillar eats up the flames before they reach us, but an explosion…I just don't know how we could survive the entire world exploding."

"You believe him?" Jace asked.

"A mythical race of little people show up out of nowhere and have an explanation for what is happening to us. Why not believe him?" Harold replied.

"We're not the same species." Loth said.

"What? But you're the same size. Hold on, Jace can you get me my loupe?" Jace groaned and opened up a hut-sized backpack and retrieved a man-sized lens, handing it to his father. Will and Loth humored the giant and flew close enough for him to peer at them, his enormous eye rendered even larger by the lens.

"My word, you're completely different!" Harold said.

"Indeed." Loth said.

"There's more than just little people out there?" Harold asked.

"A lot more." Will replied.

"Fascinating."

"I think we can help you folks get back to your island." Will said.

"We're in no condition to travel." Jace said, slamming his staff into the ground.

"Maybe we can help." Will said, pulling out a Supreme Healing Potion. The giants were wary of foreign substances, but like a proper scientist, Harold was willing to try anything once, which greatly improved Loth's perception of him. Will poured the healing potion over the burn and it healed about a twelve-foot radius of skin in every direction. Not bad. It still took about three Supreme healing potions per giant to get them moving again, but with Sourdough, that was no limitation. 180 Charges remaining.

Once they were on their feet, they started marching back towards their home with Will and Loth in tow. Thank you for clearing the Key Site. You may advance or retreat to a prior Floor at your discretion. + 200000XP Sweet. The XP wasn't much but the Door helped a lot, securing a lifeline off the Floor. It wasn't only for the key Site that Will wanted to help them. He also wanted to have some giants that could vouch for him when they made it back to their homeland.

From their conversations as they walked, Will got the impression that Harold was something of a historian who had tagged along with his wife and hunter son, eager to see if he could discover signs of ancient civilization on these new islands that had suddenly appeared in the 'Mouthward' side of the world. The rest of the giants were warriors and hunters, sent by the chief to check for invasive species and remove them if necessary.

Once that was done, they had planned on moving the islands further back and joining them with the main island, creating a precious expansion to their living space. Harold especially was interested in the outside world, as it refuted his theory of extinct 'gland-living' little people that had existed in Steve's other organs. Well, it didn't completely refute it, but it was certainly less likely now that Will had explained how 'little people' couldn't gestate in The Tower without serious problems.

"You know, I heard that was once a problem for our people as well." Harold said offhand.

"But an ancient hero solved it for us."

"You're welcome." Will said.

"Eh?"

"It might've been me in a previous life." Will replied.

"I'm just pre-empting the shocking reveal."

"He thinks he's important." Loth said.

"You know, there's ruins further towards the butthole that have little-people sized buildings. None of us are able to fully explore them for obvious reasons. I'd be willing to pay handsomely for you to explore them." Harold said. Do we have time for that? Will thought. I suppose it could help me figure out a way to get them out of Steve before it explodes. In theory, If Will managed to kill Void before he could blow up Steve, then everyone would be safe from faefire...

But Steve would still be dead, which would mean the giants were still on a time-limit. Still need to get them out of here. Which means I need to investigate the butthole anyway. Might be able to pass these people without too much trouble. They might be huge compared to me, but we're all nothing compared to Steve. And it's towards the tail instead of the head where the worm's people are… Kyle. Ugh.

"Pay me with what?" Will asked, turning his attention back to the giant he was floating beside. Will didn't have to shout as much as long as he was within ten or so feet of their ear. for the giants that was rather close, but it made it easier to speak to each other.

"You take cinters?" Harold asked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a couple coins made of clean crystal bone roughly the size of Will himself.

"I sure do." Will said. They were a bit big to fit in his already-stuffed Dimensional Storage, so he asked Harold to hold onto them for now. With Loth's help, they were able to fly further buttward, her flying insects able to transport the giants in the low gravity, allowing them to sleep and move at the same time. It wasn't perfectly safe, but between Will, Loth and the warriors taking shifts, they cut their way back to their homeland in record time.

"Whooah…." Will said as they arrived at the giant's homeland. It was a conglomeration of dozens of islands mashed together into a single island, lumpy and awkward, with enormous structures carved into the crystal. It put Zodiac's island stronghold to shame… although it was a bit messier, only using one side of the island, since the other side was resting against the side of Steve's ribs. Will could see why the island was safe from the flames.

The entire thing was hundreds of feet thick, and the 'sky' was thousands of feet further above. The flames simply didn't reach. That being said, anyone outside the island when an episode happened was in horrible danger. As the away team approached, there was much shouting and waving of bras from the giants on the crystal island, as if the hometown heroes had returned victorious. Which I suppose they have. Will thought.

Just surviving the entire world turning into an oven for days at a time was a pretty tremendous achievement. They'd actually just gotten lucky that they'd been nearby the Key Site when things went down. I wonder… Will was thinking about using the Key Site to create a cone-shaped safe zone behind it when they arrived at the Island, and Harold introduced him to their chief, forcing Will to switch his attention to what was actually happening.

The Chief of the giants was shorter than the others, hunched over by what Will could only assume was various nutrient deficiencies, living inside a snake with no sunlight or plants. He was withered and wrinkly, his gnarled hands slightly opalescent, as though he were slowly mineralizing. I wonder how old he is?

"Eh. What?" the chief's name was Mann, and he had both poor hearing and eyesight, which made establishing communication difficult.

"You sure you aren't seeing things?" Mann asked, squinting.

"Let me help!" Will shouted so the old man might hear him before grabbing the air and lensing it, getting the idea from Harold's lens.

"Egads!" Mann shouted, jolting away. Will waved. Mann reflexively swiped through the air, prompting Will to slip around the enormous hand. Loth was safely outside what she defined as the 'crush zone', where panicked giants might reflexively try to kill them. Thankfully it didn't happen too often.

"Chief, they helped us." Harold reminded the old man.

"Right. Sorry, little one."

"No problem." Will replied.

"Eh!?" Mann grunted, leaning his presumably 'good' ear towards Will.

"He said 'no problem'." Harold replied. This is going to be tedious. Will thought. Using Harold as an amplifier, Will explained that they were all in danger, and the world was ending sometime very soon, and they needed to get everyone out of Steve. This was met with a fair amount of skepticism. It was commonly believed that Steve's butthole led to the afterlife, and passing through was a one-way ticket. From their perspective he was basically asking all of them to commit suicide.

How am I supposed to go about convincing them? Will didn't have a strong reason to save them, but they were just people in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn't have any reason not to help them. That was when Will's investment in befriending Harold paid dividends. The giant stepped up and gave a passionate speech about how there were other snakes that people lived in beyond Steve, and it was open space, not death that awaited them outside the butthole.

Will wanted to correct Harold about there being other snakes beyond Steve, but… the listening giants were enraptured, nodding along to the historian's fiery tales of habitable snake-worlds beyond Steve. I mean… if it gets them to leave… Will thought with a shrug.