The afterlife was a scam.
Not a metaphor. Not a bitter philosophical disappointment.
A real scam—cold, deliberate, and methodical.
Fuku stood in an endless line that stretched far beyond the gray horizon of Helheim. Ahead of him, behind him, everywhere—souls. Blurred silhouettes, half-dissolved in the mist, shuffling forward step by step like obedient cattle toward a destination they had long since stopped questioning.
There were no infernal flames. No rivers of lava.
No eternal screams, no cackling demons.
And certainly no Valkyries descending from the sky to escort a man like him.
There was only fog.
A thick, clammy fog, cold to the bone—or rather, to whatever remained of the soul. It crept into mouths, eyes, thoughts. It tasted of wet ash and rust, like a world left abandoned for far too long.
"Next."
The voice came from far ahead, flat and hollow, stripped of all intent.
At the front of the line stood a guard: a skeleton wrapped in time-eaten mail, clutching a ledger so ancient that mold had nearly consumed what little ink remained. Its empty eye sockets skimmed the pages without truly reading them.
Fuku looked down at his hands.
They were translucent, pale as fading memories. Once, those hands had been everything he owned—and everything he needed. In the slums of Midgard, his name had been whispered with a certain fear. They said his fingers could persuade any lock to open, that his movements were so fast no one noticed the theft until the prize was already gone.
A royal vault: thirty seconds.
A dense crowd: ten steps to vanish.
A flawless escape.
Now, those hands were useless. They didn't even feel the cold anymore. They were the cold.
Is this it? Fuku thought.
An old, familiar anger flickered weakly inside him.
I die in a back alley, stabbed over a worthless purse… and my reward is a thousand-year wait in a fog-soaked parking lot?
A low rumble cut through his thoughts.
The ground trembled beneath his feet.
It wasn't an ordinary quake. Not a sharp jolt, but something slow and immense. A deep, visceral vibration that resonated through what remained of his being—as if a colossal creature were turning in its sleep somewhere beneath the foundations of the world.
The entire line wavered.
The skeletal guard froze.
High above, the gray sky of Helheim tore open for a heartbeat. A sickly green light pulsed through the clouds, and in that fleeting flash, Fuku saw the unthinkable.
The great gates of the Underworld were shaking.
"The front…" he murmured, eyes narrowing. "Where are the heavy guards? Where are Hel's Hounds?"
Normally, the Garmr—massive black wolves whose fangs could tear apart a soul—patrolled the lines without rest. They growled, snapped, reminded everyone of their place. But the kennels were empty. No snarls. No clashing jaws.
The overseers, meanwhile, all stared up at the sky.
In their hollow gazes, Fuku recognized the emotion that had paralyzed them.
He knew it too well.
Fear.
They're gone… he realized.
The gods. The wardens. They've emptied Helheim to send everyone to the front lines.
"Do you wish to rot here, little thief?"
The voice exploded inside his mind.
It didn't pass through his ears. It imposed itself directly into his bones—heavy, wet, ancient. It smelled of salt, dried blood, and venom. A voice that had known the birth of the world—and its slow decay.
Fuku instinctively grabbed his head.
"Who's there?" he gasped.
"A prisoner… just like you," the voice hissed. "I am Jormungandr. And I have a proposal for a man with fingers as deft as yours."
Nothing around him changed. The souls continued their mindless shuffle forward, unaware. Only he could hear it.
Suddenly, heat bloomed in his right index finger.
It wasn't an illusion. Real heat—bright, golden, defying the eternal cold of Helheim. Something alive.
A slow, crooked smile spread across his pale lips.
"I'm listening."
"Asgard is nothing but a hollow shell," the Serpent whispered. "The Aesir have bled themselves dry fighting the Titans at the Sunken Borders. Idunn's Orchard lies unguarded. Its golden fruit ripens in silence. Bring them to me… and I will grant you a life even the Norns cannot write."
Fuku lifted his gaze toward the titanic gates of Helheim, towering like a mountain, clad in black iron and ancient runes.
"And how do I get out of here?"
A deep laugh echoed through his skull.
"Break them. I have given you a spark of the Origin. Reach out, Fuku. Take what has always been denied to you."
He stepped out of the line.
A guard shouted, raising a jagged spear.
"Soul! Return to your rank!"
Fuku was already running.
The heat in his finger became a roaring inferno. When his hand touched the lock of the Great Gate, he felt something he had never known before—not strength, but certainty. The absolute resolve of a man with nothing left to lose.
"My turn to pick a god's pocket," he growled.
The iron did not click.
It screamed.