Chapter 263: Land of the Giants

"Uhh, Sheeby! Could you slow down a little?! And the river is behind us, not in the sky!"

Sheeby ignored all of Jacob’s commands and continued flying towards the head of the corpse.

"Jacob, get a hold of your dragon!"

Slimo was gagging feeling Jacob’s stench be pressed into his face from the wind.

"I’m trying to but she doesn’t really listen to me that often."

"Then why the hell are you the one piloting her?!"

"I’ll have you know I am technically her father, so watch your mouth! If anyone is piloting my daughter, it’s going to be me!"

"You could not have worded that any weirder!"

Everyone gripped onto Sheeby’s white scales with all their might as the wind crashed against their bodies. Surprisingly, they were moving so fast that a majority of the filth simply flew off their body, but the stench was still more than prevalent. Sheeby finally reach the head of the giant’s corpse and landed gently before shaking everyone off her back. She curled up in a small ball and started dozing off to sleep. Slimo sat on his rear in disbelief.

"Not only did we not go to the river, now she’s asleep! What do we do now?"

Jacob covered Sheeby’s face.

"Don’t yell at her! In her defense, this was our original plan anyway. She did a good job in my eyes!"

Slimo want to retort, but Lidia interupted them before he could.

"Guys, are you seeing what I’m seeing right now?"

She pointed across the land they were yet to explore. Jacob felt a strange excitement fill his heart. Seeing a completely different land opened his world all sorts of possibilities. He began to wonder if the plant life was different to. Soon after he stood up and walked towards Lidia, his expectations dimmed at a grim sight.

"So, it really is true. Are we really all that’s left of humanity?"

Across the entire landscape were thousands of dead giants, similar to the one they were standing on. Some of the corpses were nothing but bare bones already, indicating that something had already appeared to feast on it for nutrients.

"I don’t know what is harder to believe: this land had an entire population of giant humans or that they are all dead. How do you think they normally get rid of their dead loved ones? They seem too large to bury."

It was a morbid question to ask from Jacob, but that didn’t make him any less curious.

"I’m not sure. But don’t you see a pattern with this place?"

Jacob nodded his head.

"I do. The terrain far beyond here seems to also be extremely large, as if it was somehow made for the giants to explore."

He looked down at the small forest by the river they cleaned their bodies at.

"Compared to those trees out in the distance, the ones here look like nothing more than grass."

He shivered slightly. If everything on this land was truly scaled to the giant’s size, that meant the beasts that they had attacked were nothing more than bugs, which in turn made them no more powerful than bugs.

’Damn beetles. I probably should have expected this.’

Lidia shook her head while placing her hands on her hips.

"This could also be good news for us in a way! If we’re looking for a hidden statue, it’s most likely going to be the size of a building! We’ll be able to see it much easier compared to other things!"

"True, but wouldn’t that mean we have to traverse more land to find it?"

Lidai shrugged her shoulders.

"Nothing’s perfect. I still think this is a win."

Jacob walked over to Maria who was currently laying down by Squabee. He bent and moved her hair out of her face.

"Let’s wait for Maria and Sheeby to wake up before moving again. I don’t want to push ether of them any further."

Everyone collectively agreed and prepared to settle as much as they could to rest for a while. Jacob simply laid his feet over the edge of the corpse and stared out over the land of the dead. This wasn’t a continent anymore; this was a graveyard of those who valiantly tried to protect their home. Jacob wondered if maybe the corruption wasn’t the thing that brought them down, but other giants. Perhaps there was a war similar to their own going on in these lands which made it easier for the corruption to spread. He sighed deeply and rested his chin in both his hands.

Six hours had passed before Maria had woken up. When she woke up, she saw Jacob was letting her head lay in his lap this time. However, instead of smiling or grinning, she looked a little uncomfortable. Jacob noticed her reaction and raised an eyebrow.

"What? I thought I would repay the favor."

"There’s something really hard under my head."

Jacob lifted her head slightly to see that there was a white scale in between his lap and the back of her neck. He quickly tossed it to the side before she could see anything was really there.

"I think you were just feeling things. Maybe Sheeby tried messing with you when you were out."

"When I was... out? Sheeby?"

Maria looked to her left and saw Sheeby still laying down calmly, small grumbles sounding from her nostrils with each exhale.

"SHEEBY!"

Maria jumped to her feet and pushed Jacob aside.

"Argh, what the-?!"

Maria jumped up in the air.

"AHH!!"

She wrapped her arms around the dragon’s big snout and started shaking it.

"SHEEBY, SHEEBY, SHEEBY!"

Sheeby slowly blinked awake and saw Maria playing with her nose. Without a single care in the world, Sheeby simply licked her in response and went back to laying down with her eyes still watching Maria happily. Sheeby wasn’t moving, but her tail was wagging very fast. So fast, that Slimo was knocked off the corpse from an impact of one of the shakes, causing Lidia to jump after him to catch him.

Slimo panted heavily while dangling off the head and holding Lidia’s hand.

"That damn dragon! Who said they could keep a dragon?! And why does it hate me so much?! Surely, it should have warmed up to my charisma by now!"

Lidia laughed and pulled him up.

"Oh yes, because you’re so charismatic my dear."

"What does that mean?! I can be charismatic!"

She held his face softly.

"Not with dragons apparently."

Lidia giggled once more and walked over the Maria and Sheeby.

"She crashed through the side of the corpse and immediately tackled you to the ground when you were unconscious. We didn’t know it was her at first and thought a creature was eating your face!"

Lidia started patting Sheeby’s back.

"Luckily, that wasn’t the case."

Maria looked at Lidia over Sheeby’s massive head.

"What happened when I was out? Did I hurt anyone? How long was I out?"

"Close to half a day I would estimate. It could have been longer but it’s hard to keep track of time with a stagnant black sun in the sky. And no, you didn’t hurt anyone. Believe it or not, Squabee was actually the only one who could stop you! You are terrifying in that transformation!"

Maria blushed and looked away.

"I’m really sorry I caused us trouble. I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again."

"Eh, don’t worry about it. Jacob can stay the troublemaker for a while."

"Why am I getting made fun of?!"

"Shut up and help Sarah with rations!"

"We don’t have any! I think someone got into our stock!"

Lidia raised an eyebrow and looked around the group.

"Alright, which one of you sneaked a midnight snack while we were resting?!"

Suddenly, a small fart came out of Sheeby’s massive body, followed by a loud burp. Jacob covered his nose.

"Since when can dragons fart?!"

Lidia drooped over defeatedly.

"Jacob, what did you say Sheeby’s powers were again?"

"Well, that’s a bit of a hard question to answer."

"What do you mean."

"Well, she technically has every power to ever exist?"

"What?! How powerful is this thing?!"

"Let me finish! It looks like she can only have one kind of special power at a time, but it is constantly changing to something else. She also has an attribute to every kind of element which also changes randomly. If you didn’t know already, apparently dragons normally are attributed to a specific elemental power. I think her elemental power may be separate from her random special power, so she technically has two everchanging powers if you think about it."

Lidia nodded her head.

"Very impressive! Sheeby is a very special girl!"

Sheeby wagged her tail some more and wacked Slimo over the head again, sending him crashing into the ground.

"Can you guys stop making her so excited? Or at least wait for me to walk away before doing that?!"

Jacob looked out over the landscape once more.

"Well, where she would start our journey? Are we all ready?"

Slimo valiantly walked up beside Jacob and puffed out his chest, pointing in a direction of a small body of water.

"We’re going to bathe for our first mission!"

Jacob looked at him dubiously.

"And then...?"

"And then we look for the statues! We’ll start by heading there."

Slimo pointed to a massive biome with an insane amount of bright greenery.

"I saw that place. What kind of land is that?"

Slimo chuckled softly.

"That is what I believe you call a jungle. A very giant one though."