While he was still trying to wrap his head around the sheer scale of the citadels and forests, the silence was suddenly shattered by the appearance of a creature that looked as if a mountain had decided to manifest in human form. A man of titanic stature stood there, his presence so overwhelming he seemed like an ancient oak tree with roots anchored in the very core of the earth.
He stood a few paces away, crossing massive arms over a chest as broad as a shield. Muscles bulged beneath his light bronze skin, looking ready to burst. His long, sky-blue robe—tinted with turquoise—was thrown open with a rugged pride, revealing an eight-pack of abs carved with such precision they looked like solid rock.
The edges of his robe were adorned with delicate gold embroidery, hinting at the heritage of a noble warrior, while the wide sleeves gave his powerful arms room to breathe. Below, he wore tight black trousers that highlighted his powerful legs, ending in heavy black boots made to crush the earth.
Despite his terrifying intimidation factor, his face bore a suspiciously friendly expression. His dark purple hair was neatly styled, and his eyes sparkled with a reassuring glint behind a wide, confident grin.
He took a single step forward, and Espen felt the air pressure shift around him. Then, a booming voice filled the clearing:
"Hah! Espen! How are you, my boy? Lili's been searching for you everywhere. She even came to us, frantic, but there was no sign of you."
He let out a short laugh, then continued with a suggestive wink:
"Don't tell me you were trying to run away from the wedding again! She's still stinging from your last rejection. But you told me before that you were on board now, didn't you?"
Espen stared up at this towering figure blocking out the sun, feeling himself shrink in the presence of such a muscular entity. With a tone dripping with irony despite his shock, he asked:
"Who the hell are you, Hercules? Did you just step out of a Greek myth?"
The grin vanished from the giant's face, replaced by a look of wary confusion. He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Espen's features, and spoke with a thundering voice:
"Who am I? Has the earth wiped your memory, son? Or is the soul inhabiting this body not my boy's? I think I need to settle this doubt right now!"
Before Espen could process what was happening, he placed a hand on his chin to think. But in the blink of an eye, the giant's hands shot out like industrial pincers, clamping around Espen's small frame. With raw, brute force, the man began to "mash" and squeeze him as if he were a piece of rebellious dough.
Espen's muffled screams erupted under the pressure of those steel muscles:
"Stop! What are you doing, you lunatic?! You're juicing my internal organs! I'm going to be crushed into pulp!"
Suddenly, the man loosened his grip. To Espen's absolute shock, he didn't fall as a lifeless corpse; instead, his body snapped back into its natural shape in seconds, as if his bones and muscles possessed a "memory foam" quality that refused to break. The man looked at him with an ecstatic expression and a provocative smile, as if he had just performed a casual morning ritual:
"Aha! Now my heart is at ease.. You are my son, without a doubt! It seems today's incident really did wipe your memory, but it didn't touch your essence."
Espen stood there agape, lost between pain and bewilderment. He muttered bitterly to himself:
(Wow! Paternity tests here involve mashing your kids like potatoes! What a brilliant parenting model!)
Amidst this chaos, the noise suddenly died down with the arrival of a delicate girl. She was slightly shorter than Espen, but her presence had a radiant glow that made the area feel new. She approached with dreamlike steps, like a butterfly landing on a flower, embodying a magical balance between royal dignity and enchanting innocence.
She had a graceful figure—a sculpted waist and long, shapely legs accentuated by an innovative dress design. Her oval face was the definition of beauty: wide, sky-blue eyes overflowing with serenity, and thick auburn hair cascading like silk down her back, decorated with a side fringe and a delicate blue flower tucked behind her ear.
She wore a royal blue evening gown, short in the front to show off her confident gait and long in the back, flowing behind her like a fabric waterfall. The bodice and edges were decorated with luxurious gold embroidery, and she completed the look with soft ballerina flats that harmonized with her legendary dress.
She stood there in silence, watching Espen with her deep blue eyes, before her lips parted into a small, warm smile—one that was enough to dispel the ghost of the "mashing" he'd just endured and soften the charged atmosphere.
Espen remained frozen, his mouth slightly open as his brain tried to process this new visual data. He stared at the delicate girl with the auburn hair and royal blue dress, thinking in a daze:
(Wow! It's like I'm looking at Rias Gremory in the flesh, but a smaller, more delicate version! Am I in a dream or some illogical anime?)
The girl approached him, her wide blue eyes full of tenderness. She spoke in a voice so light and soft it felt like a caress:
"My son, how are you? Tell me, have you isolated yourself from the world enough, or do you still wish to run away?"
Espen's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He took a frantic step back, screaming in hushed hysteria:
"Wait a minute! Stop messing with my head! Are you telling me you're my 'Mother'? I want to know who the hell is writing this story! What is this tangled, messed-up family tree? How can this massive giant and this delicate girl—who doesn't even reach my shoulder—be a married couple?! This makes zero sense!"
The mother gave him a worried look and said in surprise:
"What is wrong, my boy? Did you hit your head so hard you've lost your mind?"
At this point, Lili stepped in, her fiery red outfit matching her temper. She spoke with a tone dripping with sarcasm and spite:
"Leave him, sister! It seems your 'devoted' son is trying to play the 'amnesiac' role perfectly, just to dodge the idea of marrying me! Imagine, sister, he doesn't want to be with me! And on top of that, he disappears for a whole week without a trace—no visits, no school.. he's simply a negligent, irresponsible troublemaker!"
The mother nodded in sad agreement with her sister's words, while Espen remained in shock, watching the dialogue like he was witnessing an Absurdist play:
(Wow! This is just great.. one speaks with a voice like thunder, and the other just nods like it's some royal sign language! Are you two really sisters? And what kind of twisted plot makes my aunt my fiancée? Where is the logic?)
Atterman, Espen's giant father, cut through the noise with his usual confident smile. He stepped forward, gesturing with his huge hand toward his broad chest and then toward the mother:
"Espen, listen to me well, boy! I'll simplify things for you.. I.. I am your father! And this delicate lady before you is your mother! Do you get it now?"
Espen looked at him with a deadpan expression, his mouth still hanging open at the stupidity of the explanation. He shot back with biting sarcasm:
"Did anyone ever tell you I lost my sanity or became an idiot? I told you I lost my 'Memory,' not my 'Mind'! What part of your giant head are you thinking with? Do you think pointing at yourself is going to bring back twenty years of memories?!"
While Espen was drowning in an existential crisis about his new family, a sudden silence fell over the place, as if the air had become colder and sharper. From the shadows emerged a girl whose presence commanded discipline before it commanded beauty—a quiet presence, but one charged with a power that didn't need to shout to prove itself.
She stepped forward with steady strides, wearing an outfit that blended officer-like elegance with adventurer flexibility: a dark, waist-cinching jacket that emphasized her slender frame, ending in tattered coattails that gave her a rebellious edge. She stood with overwhelming confidence, one hand on her hip while the other was raised near her face in a pose of constant readiness.
Her short black hair framed her sharp oval face with severity, but it was her eyes that truly captivated Espen; glowing orange eyes like burning embers, radiating a sharp golden spark and a mysterious smirk. Her feet were planted firmly in high-top military boots, suggesting she was ready for any battle.
She looked at everyone with a piercing gaze and said in a low but powerful voice:
"Hah! You finally found Espen! Seems he was sneaking around and hiding in some mountain cave as usual."
Espen looked at her in bewilderment and asked:
"And who are you? Does this world have even more surprises in its pockets?"
She looked at him with total coolness, the smirk never leaving her lips. She replied:
"I am the girl who crushed your pride and wiped the floor with you more than a hundred times! I am the one you will never dream of defeating.. allow me to introduce myself, kid: Linda Elian, Mistress of Skill and Stealth."
Espen nodded with unexpected calmness and replied simply:
"Aha, alright then. Nice to meet you, Mistress of Skill."
Linda's eyes widened in surprise at his cold reaction:
"Strange.. where is your usual anger? Where is the screaming and the protesting, Espen?"
Lili exploded again in her sharp tone:
"Linda, he's lost his memory! Imagine! He disappears for over a week and then comes back claiming he's forgotten everything just to escape the wedding! I don't understand how his mind works; I feel like they scooped out his brain and replaced it with a stupid goblin's!"
Linda looked suspiciously at Sofia (the mother) and asked:
"Is this nonsense true, Sofia?"
The mother replied with her usual cheerful voice:
"Yes, my little sister. It seems my son has gotten lost in the labyrinths of his own mind."
At that moment, a bolt of realization struck Espen's thoughts. He finally grasped the structure of this bizarre family: his mother was "Sofia," and even more incredibly, the two girls—the angry blonde "Lili" and the cold fighter "Linda"—were his mother's sisters! Which meant they were his aunts, yet one of them was claiming she had to marry him!
He thought to himself in total shock:
(Good god! What kind of story is this? My aunts are my fiancées and my rivals? It seems my transition to this world wasn't a rescue—it was an entry into the most complex family drama in history!)
Espen stood in the middle of the path, his mouth slightly agape as his mind struggled to process this glaring narrative paradox. He spoke in a low voice tinged with shock and sarcasm:
"What a strange fairy tale! The plot hasn't even properly started yet, and you've already thrown three stunning women in my face before I've even glimpsed the castle walls! Brilliant.. truly brilliant, Fate! You've sent me an army of beauties and made one of them my supposed fiancée as if I'm in a feverish pink dream!"
Linda, the Mistress of Skill and Stealth, shook her head in confusion at his incomprehensible rambling:
"What are you babbling about, Espen? True, you met many girls in your 'past life,' but I doubt you remember a single one of their names now. Regardless, don't forget your father is standing right here—stop ignoring him!"
Espen shot a sharp, disapproving look toward his giant father, accusingly pointing a finger at him:
"That? Look at him! That massive creature isn't a normal human—he's a Titan straight out of Attack on Titan without a doubt!"
Linda furrowed her brows and replied with a tone of complete ignorance regarding his old world's terms:
"What 'Attack' are you talking about? Is this some kind of forbidden magic you discovered in the mountains?"
Espen exhaled in despair, giving her a hollow look:
"Forget it.. it's just a masterpiece of art from a world you'll never understand."
Meanwhile, Atterman continued to watch the scene with his unwavering, confident smile. In a booming, reassuring voice, he spoke as he prepared to leave:
"Alright, son. I'll send your private secretary to escort you home. Clearly, amnesia has made the paths confusing for you, and you won't be able to find your way back alone."
With a surprising agility that betrayed his massive size, the father leaned down and lifted his wife, Sofia, onto his broad shoulder as if she were a feather. He then headed toward a magnificent carriage Espen had never seen before. It was massive, pulled by a terrifying black horse with rippling muscles, two large sharp horns sprouting from its head, and a thick white mane that fluttered as it moved.
Espen's eyes widened in horror:
"My god! Look at that creature! Is that a horse or a vengeful demon? No one in existence could pull that giant who escaped from Isayama's imagination except a monster like that!"
The carriage took off and disappeared into the dust, leaving behind a silence that didn't last long. Linda approached Espen, leaning forward slightly with her hands on her hips, a mysterious smile playing on her face:
"Before I catch up with them, I want to tell you one thing.. You know what, Espen? I like this 'new rhythm' you're showing. Maybe amnesia was the medicine you needed to become more interesting. See you later." She said, waving as her footsteps faded into the distance.
As for Lili, she stood in her sharp pose, giving him one last warning look before turning to leave:
"I advise you not to think about running away again! Do you hear me, Espen? I'm warning you.. and I'm warning you sternly!"
Lili marched off in a huff, leaving Espen alone to face the silence under the sun of this strange world, waiting for the new unknown that this supposed "secretary" would bring.