It took Bono a tedious hour to remove the layer of earth from over the girl. He could have done it faster, but he didn’t want to rush for fear of hurting the girl during the excavation.

Finally the job was gone. I likened the still girl to giant statues from old civilizations.

“So now you can proceed to step two,” I said.

Bono glanced at me with hesitation.

“I will have to wake her up with words of respect that we use when we rouse any of our people from their slumber,” he said.

“Go on with it,” I encouraged him.

“But what will I say once she comes around?” Bono asked nervously.

“Just that you love her,” I said. “Do not worry; she will not be angry with you. Why will she be angry with somebody that tells her that they love her?”

The stone giant wiped his face that shone with sweat. Were his sweat glands also made of stone?

As though Bono was touching a bomb about to detonate, he prodded the shoulder of the girl with one finger, and began speaking,

“Oh, lady of stone—”

He stopped and turned towards us.

“Come on, wake her up,” I said.

“I think you should go some distance from us,” Bono said. Did he want privacy? Very well. I signaled my monsters and we withdrew from the two giants.

Bono bent near the female and mumbled words. Some moments passed and there was no response from the girl. Bono swung his head at us.

“She isn’t waking—”

Before he could complete his sentence, Bono received a colossal punch on his face. The force threw him several meters away, and his body collided with a large tree which snapped like a twig. Several of my monsters had to leap away to avoid getting hit by its branches.

I could see now why Bono had been so nervous. Human girls were far better to ask for a date, that was for sure.

As Bono scrambled back to his feet, blood leaking from his granite nose, there was a scream from the girl. She climbed out of the hole with unbelievable agility, and she went and kicked Bono who failed to even register the second attack. The foot of the female hit Bono's stomach and the male giant went sailing, flattening all the trees that came in the way of his body.

My monsters and I were paralyzed with shock. We had no idea what to do. There was a stupefied expression on the face of the girl as though she had no sense of what she was doing. She halted briefly.

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I prayed she wouldn’t go and hit Bono again. I felt pity for the stone giant because he had acted under my encouragement.

The female turned her head and her eyes fell on us.

She beat her massive bosom, let out a wild cry and leapt at us. She threw her fist at one of my Hornie soldiers, who barely escaped by diving into some bushes. This infuriated the stone girl further, and she focused her attention to the next possible victim closest to her— me.

She seized me by the stomach, and lifted me several meters off the ground. Her grip was so strong that my torso felt like it was getting crushed. My health declined rapidly. My monsters launched themselves at the girl, but she swept them all away with her foot like they were toys.

The stone girl opened her mouth wide, revealing massive incisors that could easily decapitate me in a single bite.

I was staring at her face intently from the pain. Her eyes met mine, and she began to cool down. Was she realizing that I was an Evilun, as such not an enemy? Was she finally coming out of her daze?

Just then there was a great roar.

“Leave him!”

It was Bono.

He was coming to rescue me, but I wasn’t sure if the girl wanted to hurt me anymore. Bono wrapped his arms around the stomach of the girl and with incomprehensible strength he lifted her off her feet. Distracted, the girl let go of me. As I dropped to the ground in a heap, Bono slammed the girl down like a professional wrestler.

Bono’s intention to confess his love to the stone girl was obviously veering south. I watched with a mix of horror, astonishment and confusion as the two giants of stone grappled with each other. Somehow, Bono was able to overpower his opponent. He pinned her to the ground and barred the girl from making any movement.

“And to think that I fell in love with you!” Bono barked at the girl. “Crazy female!”

The two of them engaged in a death stare, hissing and panting. A minute passed and their expressions slowly softened.

Bono let go of the girl’s hands which he had been pressing against the ground to prevent her from hitting him. The two of them continued to eyeball each other. Their expressions metamorphosed from hatred to a certain degree of shyness. Yet another minute passed and Bono stood up.

“I am sorry,” the two of them said at the same time, surprising one another.

“I am sorry,” the girl repeated, and this time Bono let the girl speak and remained silent. “I shouldn’t have hit you. I couldn’t make out the difference between what is real and what is not.”

“Were you having a fight in your dream?” I asked the stone girl. I had drunk a health vial but continued to massage my torso. The stone girl sat up from her sprawled position, and for the first time she really took in her environment.

“I can’t remember it exactly,” she told me. Her voice sounded soft and beautiful to my ears, a stark contrast to her ferocious screams from only a few minutes back. “But I think I was not having the best dream.”

“I think it’s my fault,” Bono chimed in. “Maybe I should have been more gentle while waking you.”

“So it was you that broke my sleep?” the stone girl said to Bono.

“Yes,” Bono said. He twitched, as if recollecting the reason why he had roused her in the first place. He fidgeted uncomfortably.

“I hope there was a good reason for that?” the stone girl said. “I only slept last year. You were saying something… when the two of us were fighting each other.”

Bono became very rigid. And he spoke. His words were surprisingly confident. As confident as the words of someone who had made peace with the possibility of the worst outcome.

“My lady,” he said, “I saw you reposing some time back, and from the moment you graced my eyes, I was enchanted by your beauty. I have fallen in love with you. If you reject me, then I understand. I am sorry for waking you up and for giving you such a fright.”

Silence.

The seconds passed by as Bono waited for the girl’s response. However she just stared at him, undecided what to say. And then the seconds gave way to a minute, and then the minute gave way to another minute, but the stone girl did not utter a single word. The sudden confidence that had come over Bono waned, and he made a furtive glance towards me.