Chapter 143: Skaði Hides Under the Covers!
Where to go next?
In Rowe's plan, the rampaging giants had already assembled storm legion after storm legion across the surface of the world, commanding innumerable undead. The flames had been scattered.
All that remained was to head for the places where people gathered most densely, then wait for the timing to ripen.
To wait for sparks to catch.
To wait until a firestorm rose, until it finally burned through the entire Norse Age of Gods.
The steed galloped through the snow, twelve pairs of wings beating and tearing the air into fierce currents. The majestic hyena running alongside the hooves occasionally lifted its muzzle and howled.
Armor. Greatcloak. A long spear. That dead quiet clinging to him like frost on iron.
Rowe rode as if he were leading an army of wraiths through a white wasteland, reins in hand, gaze fixed on the distant scenery.
Then he pulled back slightly, easing the pace.
From behind came a clear, indignant shout.
"Wait for me!"
Rowe looked over his shoulder at the Snow Mountain Goddess, swaying as she drove her sled through the wind and snow, and could not help laughing.
"Why are you so disheveled?"
"Hmph!" Skaði stopped her sled. Her exquisite cheeks puffed slightly. She shot Rowe a glance, said nothing, and began patting at her luxurious dress to shake off the snow. In the process, a cold corner slipped into her collar. The sudden chill against smooth skin made her shiver, her body swaying.
That only made her angrier.
"You hateful fellow. You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
"So what if I did?" Rowe spoke without the faintest guilt.
They had galloped this whole way. He rode like an ordinary traveler on a tear, while Skaði could only follow behind on her sled, eating the snow his hooves kicked up.
Gods did not suffer frostbite, but looking like this still felt miserable.
Seeing her cheeks puffed out like that, Rowe suppressed an absurd urge to poke them with the Storm Spear.
"Actually, you could use magecraft."
"Aren't you a god more skilled in magecraft?"
"I…" Skaði opened her mouth.
Rowe had never told her she was forbidden from using mystic arts. It was just that, seeing him move like an ordinary man, she had subconsciously refrained.
Before, that restraint had been fear, the instinct of the captured before their captor.
Now, she had already let go of that fear.
So why did she still not use it?
"I don't want to, that's why. There don't have to be so many reasons," the goddess replied, tossing her soft hair and straightening the thornlike crown on her head. "It's not only you who can live like an ordinary person. Eh?"
She did not finish.
Rowe's raised spear hooked her collar and lifted her clean off the sled.
"You don't want to, but I don't want to wait for you forever," he said, sounding more resigned than anything.
Then, ignoring her startled cry and frantic flailing, he swung the spear haft and set Skaði onto the horse's back behind him.
Her body dipped. She clutched at the horse's belly, trying to regain balance.
This Pegasus, magnificent and excessive, had twelve pairs of wings and an absurdly broad back. It was more than spacious enough for one person to sit and another to lie prone.
"Let's go," Rowe said. He squeezed with his legs and pulled the reins.
"Awooo!"
The hound, transformed from the Evil Dragon Fafnir, let out a high, eager howl beside them.
Hooves rose and fell, raising a curtain of powdery snow behind. Amid the rocking, the jolting, the constant wind, Skaði gradually released the tension that had been coiled in her shoulders.
Her prone posture shifted. She sat up, then turned sideways, placing both legs to one side and crossing them lightly to keep her skirt from flying. The ride was bumpy, and yet strangely steady. The Snow Mountain Goddess watched the endless snow and wind roll past.
Midgard's scenery seemed unchanged for an eternity. As far as the eye could see, there was only white, and beyond that, the distant ocean and undulating ice.
Spring came sometimes, but only as a brief melting of snow.
For thousands of years, Skaði had grown numb to that beauty.
But now, it felt different.
Was it because her state of mind had changed?
She looked ahead, as if watching the scenery, but the corner of her eye kept drifting to the figure holding the reins.
She still had reservations toward Rowe.
Yet she had begun to truly believe he would not harm her, that he could be trusted.
Asgard's gods had tried to kill her without hesitation.
The King of the Wild Hunt beside her had pressed her at every step, but he had never pursued his goal by killing her.
He could have.
In Skaði's mind, the King of the Dead who could rival Thor must possess the ability to tear out souls, to peel away memories, to strip personality like bark from a tree.
But Rowe had never even seemed to consider it.
Even when he sought her trust, he did it through protection, through rescue.
He was, infuriatingly, good to her.
"Why are you so good to me?" Skaði's fingers tightened into fists. "If you keep doing that, I'll become someone who can only stay here. I'm a goddess of Asgard. Besides there, I shouldn't go anywhere else."
She closed her eyes, but a girllike thought that had no place in a divine heart still rose, uninvited.
Just then, Rowe tugged the reins and turned his head.
"How about we rest a bit?"
His words stopped.
Something soft pressed against his back. A faint ripple. Smooth hair settling against cold armor.
Skaði was sitting sideways, and she had leaned into him.
She was asleep.
Rowe raised an eyebrow.
Gods did not need sleep, yet perhaps everything that had happened in such a short span had exhausted her personality. Weariness, heavy and dull, had finally overrun her, and in the bumping of the ride she had drifted into slumber.
Sleeping was not a weakness.
It was, in its own way, a privilege.
Rowe smiled and did not disturb her.
Born human, he treasured all human things. Walking. Eating. Sleeping. He did them often, not out of necessity, but to remind himself what he had started as.
In the beginning, for the sake of death, for the power he intended to leave on the Throne of Heroes, he had been willing to abandon everything, no matter the cost.
Now, he was faintly afraid of that version of himself.
Because the more he experienced, the more he understood the weight of his original intent.
If he discarded this human heart, what would remain?
He would no longer be Rowe.
"Since you're asleep," he murmured, voice carrying over the boundless snowfield, "have a good dream."
His laughter was distant and vast.
Skaði, however, quietly opened her dark purple eyes.
She was awake.
But she did not want to be.
She rested her head against Rowe's back anyway. Even through the cold armor, an immense sense of security rose in her chest.
This moment felt painfully similar to earlier, when thunder roared, when the tall figure had stood before her, spear held across the world as a shield.
Night fell.
The sea churned. Water surged and hissed against coastal ice. Cold, clear moonlight shone down on a seal crawling over the frozen edge.
It was hunting.
Then a light flared beneath the sea.
Cold, serpentine eyes eclipsed the bright moon. A maw opened, abyssal and vast, swallowing seawater in a single motion. The coastal ice collapsed and fell. The seal did not even have time for a final cry before it vanished into darkness.
With a splash, the enormous serpent broke through the surface, dragging a shadow across the ocean.
A forked tongue flicked out.
"Sssst…"
Its head alone occupied an entire corner of the sea, yet its presence seemed to divide the ocean itself, to draw a line between inside and outside, and to mark the boundaries of the Norse world.
In truth, it did.
This was the edge of Midgard, one of the Nine Realms held up by the World Tree.
And that serpent was the monster that encircled Midgard.
Jörmungandr.
In Odin's prophecy, several monsters would rise during Ragnarok. One was Nidhogg, the black dragon in Niflheim at the roots of the World Tree, forever gnawing at its foundation.
The second was Fenrir, the wolf demon that would devour the sun, sealed upon a certain island.
The third was Jörmungandr, the serpent that coiled around Midgard, existing at the boundary of the mortal realm.
Though listed last, Jörmungandr's strength was terrifying. In Odin's words, it would face the greatest war god of the Norse, Thor himself.
Its body was immeasurably vast. It existed to encircle all of Midgard, hence the name Midgard Serpent. It was also because Odin had suppressed it in the bottomless deep sea, forcing it to exist only by coiling around the realm. It could only raise its head and stare toward Asgard on the night of the full moon.
The full moon, which was this very moment.
"Sssst…"
The forked tongue flicked again.
Jörmungandr stared up at the bright moon, eyes full of the desire to devour gods. Then it lowered its gaze, looking down at a figure standing upon a reef.
That figure was insignificant compared to its head.
A playful, frivolous voice rose, as a clownlike figure stood on one leg, expression absurd and exaggerated.
"Long time no see, my child."
"Loki," Jörmungandr spoke in a human tongue, words clipped and cold, tongue still flicking between each phrase. "I am not your child. Sssst."
Loki did not mind at all.
"Oh my, oh my. Are you still angry that I abandoned all of you?"
Jörmungandr, Fenrir, and Hel, the Goddess of Death, were all Loki's children. Unlike ordinary monsters, had it not been for Odin's prophecy, they too might have stood among the exalted gods in the Platinum Palace.
But a single word from the God King who ruled Asgard had cast Loki's three children down.
One was isolated and crushed beneath the deep sea.
One was bound eternally to a solitary island.
One was made to rule the realm of the dead and stare into death itself.
Resentment naturally festered.
Resentment toward Odin.
And resentment toward Loki, who had not stood up for them.
Recalling that past, Jörmungandr's voice dropped into a low roar.
"You are Odin's brother. You are also the strategist of Asgard. You had the power to save us."
"But I couldn't save you." Loki's grin widened until it looked painted on. "Because only this way can you truly be reborn."
He spread his arms as if embracing the moonlight.
"Believe me, my child. I love you. But I love this changing world even more."
"And I can already feel it. The spark of change has arrived."
"I am the God of Sophistry. The god of schemes. The god of mischief."
"And also the god of fire."
"The light of fire is coming. Ragnarok is not far away."
"Because that King of the Wild Hunt has already arrived. Ah hahahahaha!"
Jörmungandr paused.
King of the Wild Hunt.
A name that scraped across something old, something familiar.
Elsewhere, under the same Midgard night sky, on a distant land swept by wind and snow, a bonfire burned. Rowe, who had traveled like an ordinary person through the night, finally decided to rest within a dense forest.
The Pegasus with its twelve pairs of wings lay on the snow.
The hyena that was Fafnir curled against its belly.
After lighting the fire, Rowe set the sleeping Skaði on the ground and covered her with his greatcloak. The goddess did not need it, but it was a human instinct.
Not concern for her.
A reminder to himself.
Rowe exhaled slowly.
This corpse shell now carried a trace of vitality, and with it, a warmth so small it was almost imaginary.
He turned his head slightly and listened.
In the Age of Gods, countless spirits drifted on the wind. They heeded the call of the Storm King and brought him news.
They said, "Ahead lies the most populous region of humans, where cities and nations stand, where poetry and wine burn hot, where stories of poets and heroes are sung."
They said, "There are cults that worship giants. Under your name, they spread their teachings without restraint."
They said, "Hail the Lord of Storms, the King of the Wild Hunt, commander of the undead host."
"Even the little creatures are flattering me now?" Rowe muttered with a low laugh, then fell silent in thought.
People who worship giants.
Ymir?
If he remembered correctly, the Titan God King had once had contact with Ymir, and even forged an alliance.
Ereshkigal also seemed to have an image tied to this.
"Then this journey is unavoidable," Rowe thought.
He sat by the fire, eyes half closed, and sank into slumber.
The habit remained. If anything in the outer world shifted into danger, he would wake at once.
Yes.
Something did shift.
A faint rustling.
The eight legged, twelve winged Pegasus opened its eyes.
Then closed them again.
Because the sound came from Skaði.
She had been lying on the ground, wrapped in Rowe's greatcloak. Now she looked at him sitting upright, asleep by the firelight, and her pretty face twitched.
I will not be grateful to you, the goddess thought.
And yet, she was unwilling to leave the warmth of the cloak.
It is clearly the King of the Dead's coat. Never mind.
I will let you off easy.
Skaði tiptoed closer, wrapped the greatcloak around Rowe more tightly, then slipped behind him and burrowed in.
Back to back.
Her exposed face was faintly flushed in the firelight.
It was undeniable. It felt warm like this.
The night ran deep beneath the stars.
Skaði shifted slightly and let out a whispered murmur.
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