Where should they go next?
In Rovi's plan, the rampaging giants had already formed storm legion after storm legion across the land, commanding countless undead.
They had scattered the flames.
Rovi, in turn, would head to the place with the greatest concentration of people.
There, he would wait for the right moment.
Wait for the flames to catch, until they finally became a raging blaze that would burn across the entire Norse Age of Gods...
The steed galloped through the snow. Its twelve pairs of wings beat up savage currents, while the mighty hyena running beside its hooves let out the occasional howl.
Clad in armor and a cloak, lance in hand, his whole body steeped in deathly stillness like the march of a ghost, Rovi sat astride the steed, tugging the reins as he gazed at the distant scenery.
Then he pulled the reins again and slowed their advance slightly.
From behind came a clear cry. "Wait for me—"
He looked back and saw the Goddess of Ice and Snow arriving through the wind and snow on her swaying sleigh. He could not help laughing. "How did you get so miserable?"
"Hmph!" Skadi stopped her sleigh. Her delicate cheeks puffed up slightly. She glanced at Rovi without speaking, then huffed as she patted down her luxurious gown and shook off the snow and wind. In the process, however, a cold bit of snow accidentally slid into her neckline. That icy, slick sensation made the goddess shudder all over, and the movement sent a soft ripple through her body.
Then she became even angrier. "You awful man... you did that on purpose, didn't you?"
"So what if I did?" Rovi felt not the slightest guilt.
They had come rushing all this way. Without using Authority, Mystery, or magical energy, Rovi had galloped ahead on horseback, while Skadi could only follow behind on her sleigh. As a result, she had trailed him the whole way and been splashed all over by the snow kicked up by the horse's hooves.
A god would not get frostbite, but being made this disheveled was still irritating.
Looking at the goddess's slightly puffed cheeks, Rovi forcefully suppressed the urge to poke them with the storm lance. "Actually, you could use magical energy."
"Aren't you a god who's better at using magecraft?"
"I..." Skadi opened her mouth.
Rovi had indeed never said she could not use magecraft or Mystery. It was just that, seeing Rovi act like an ordinary person, she had instinctively refrained from using magecraft as well.
But before, she had done so out of the fear of a captive toward the one who had captured her.
Now, Skadi had already let go of her fear of Rovi.
Then why?
"I don't want to use it, so I don't. There don't have to be so many reasons—" the goddess replied, brushing back her smooth long hair and straightening the thorn-like crown on her head. "You're not the only one who can live like an ordinary person... eh?"
Before Skadi could finish, Rovi lifted his lance and hooked her by the collar, hoisting her up.
"You may not want to, but I don't want to keep waiting for you." Rovi spoke helplessly, then ignored her startled cry and the frantic flailing of her hands and feet. With a swing of the shaft, he placed Skadi directly on the horse's back behind him.
Her body landed, and Skadi wobbled, tightly hugging the horse's belly.
Since this heavenly horse was tall and imposing, its back, which had twelve pairs of wings, had more than enough room for one person to sit and another to lie down.
"We're off!" Rovi pressed his legs in and tugged the reins.
"Awoo!"
The hyena transformed from the evil dragon Fafnir let out a high howl at his side.
The horse lifted its hooves and brought them down on the snowy ground. The wind and snow it kicked up trailed behind like a curtain. Amid the swaying and jolting, Skadi gradually eased from her earlier tension.
Her side-lying body shifted slightly as she sat up. She set both legs to one side and lightly tucked together the hem of her hanging skirt. Though the journey was bumpy, it was strangely steady. And so the goddess watched the wind, flowers, and snowflakes constantly retreating around her.
The scenery of Midgard seemed unchanged after endless years. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but wind and snow, the vast sea, and rolling hard ice.
Spring arrived on occasion, but it was only a brief mingling of ice and snow.
In the thousand years since her birth, Skadi had gradually stopped feeling any beauty from such sights.
Yet at this moment, things seemed somehow different from before.
Was it because her state of mind had changed?
Skadi looked ahead. She seemed to be watching the scenery in front of her, yet from the corner of her eye, her gaze always unconsciously fell on the figure tugging the reins.
The goddess still had reservations toward Rovi.
Yet from the bottom of her heart, she had already begun to believe that he would not hurt her. She could, in truth, believe that...
The gods of Asgard had already wanted to kill her without hesitation.
The King of the Wild Hunt before her was also pressing her step by step, yet he had never once thought of achieving his goal by killing her.
He could actually have done it.
In Skadi's mind, the King of the Dead who could rival Thor, God of Thunder, surely possessed the power to extract souls and draw out personality and memory.
Rovi simply seemed never to have considered doing so.
Even when he wanted to gain her trust...
He did it through protection. Through salvation.
He was actually very good to her.
"Why are you so good to me? If you keep doing that, I'll end up able to stay nowhere but here... I am a goddess of Asgard. Other than that place, I was never supposed to go anywhere." Skadi clenched her fists slightly.
She gently closed her eyes, yet those inexplicable, girlish thoughts would not stop stirring...
"Should we rest for a bit?" Rovi tugged the reins and shifted his gaze, only to pause at the same time.
Something soft touched his back, faintly swaying. Smooth hair fell down, resting against the hard, cold armor on his back. The goddess was sitting sideways on the heavenly horse, but she had leaned her body against him...
She had fallen asleep.
Do you trust me that much now?
Rovi raised an eyebrow. Gods should not need sleep, but perhaps too many things had happened in this short time, leaving Skadi's personality exhausted. And so the goddess could no longer suppress that heavy feeling, unknowingly sinking into sleep amid the jolting ride.
Sleeping... was a good thing.
Rovi smiled and left her be.
Born a mortal, he loved everything ordinary humans did most of all: walking, eating, sleeping... Much of the time, when Rovi did these things, he was also reminding himself that he was still human.
At the very beginning, for the sake of death, for the power he had left upon the "Throne," he had resolved to abandon everything without regard for anything else.
But now, he was instead somewhat afraid of that version of himself.
Because the more one experienced, the more one understood the importance of the original heart.
If he cast aside this human heart, what would he have left?
He would no longer be Rovi.
"Since you're asleep... have a good dream." Rovi laughed, his voice distant and broad as it spread across the boundless snowfield.
Skadi, however, quietly opened her dark-purple eyes...
She was awake.
But she did not want to wake.
She only rested her head against Rovi's back. Even through the cold armor, in this moment, she felt incomparably at ease.
This moment was very much like before, when thunder had flashed and shaken the world, and that tall figure had held his lance across himself, standing in front of her.
...
Night fell.
Amid the rushing sound of waves, the seawater rose and rolled... A cold sheen of moonlight shone down upon a seal crawling over the ice by the sea.
It was hunting.
But in the next second, light abruptly rose from beneath the sea, and cold serpent eyes covered the bright white moon.
The abyssal maw that opened with it swallowed endless seawater. Even the ice along the shore collapsed and sank in an instant. Before the seal could so much as wail, it was swallowed whole and vanished.
With a splash, an enormous serpent shadow pierced through the cover of the seawater and surfaced.
As its forked tongue flickered, it made a chilling sound. "Hissss..."
Its head alone occupied one corner of the vast sea, but on closer look, its existence seemed to divide the sea's inner and outer sides—even to divide off the domain of the Norse.
In fact, that was exactly what it did.
This was Midgard, one of the Nine Realms divided and supported by the World Tree, the edge of the Midgard domain.
And that serpent was the monster dividing the Midgard of the Norse Nine Realms: Jormungandr.
In Odin's prophecy, several monsters would appear during Ragnarok. The first was Nidhogg, the black dragon that dwelled beneath the roots of the World Tree in Niflheim, land of mist, gnawing at the World Tree's roots all year round.
The second was Fenrir, the sun-devouring wolf sealed upon a certain island.
The third was Jormungandr, the serpent encircling Midgard—that is, the giant serpent existing at the boundary of Norse Midgard.
Though listed last, in truth, Jormungandr's strength was extraordinarily great. According to the words Odin left behind, he would clash with the strongest war god of the Norse, Thor, God of Thunder.
His body was vast beyond calculation, his existence enough to encircle all of Midgard, and thus he was named the "Midgard Serpent." Of course, from another perspective, this was also because Jormungandr had been suppressed by Odin in the bottomless deep sea. He existed encircling Midgard, able to reveal only a single serpent head, and on every night of the full moon he looked up toward Asgard.
The night of the full moon was precisely this moment.
"Hiss!"
The serpent's tongue flickered. The enormous serpent fixed his gaze upward on that bright moon, his eyes filled with a desire to devour the gods. Very soon, however, Jormungandr moved his gaze downward and looked before him.
At the figure standing on a reef that seemed insignificant compared to his head.
"Long time no see, my child." A playful, frivolous voice rang out. A figure like a clown from later ages stood on one foot, wearing a comical expression.
"Loki. I am not your child... hiss!" Jormungandr spoke in human language. His forked tongue curled with the words, and his tone was full of coldness.
Loki did not mind. "Oh my, oh my. Are you still blaming me for abandoning you?"
Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Hel, goddess of death, were all children of Loki, God of Chaos. Unlike ordinary monsters, if not for Odin's prophecy, they should also have been gods standing high above in the White-Gold Palace.
Yet precisely because of a single word from the King of the Gods who ruled Asgard, these three children of Loki—powerful to the point of being nearly terrifying—were all cast down from the heavens.
One was suppressed in solitude beneath the deep sea. One was bound eternally upon a lonely island. One guarded the world of the dead and gazed out upon death.
They naturally resented him. They resented Odin, the God-King, and they resented Loki, God of Chaos, even more for failing to stand up for them.
At the thought of the past, Jormungandr naturally roared again. "You are Odin's brother, and you are also the adviser of the gods of Asgard! You clearly had the power to save us!"
"But I could not save you!" Loki raised a great big smile. "Because only like this could you truly obtain new life!"
"Believe me, my child. I love you, but I love this changing world even more. And I have already felt it—the flames of change have arrived!"
Loki spread their arms. "I am the God of Chaos, 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 Wild Hunt has already arrived... ahahahahaha!"
Jormungandr froze.
Wild Hunt?
What a familiar name...
...
Still beneath Midgard's night sky, upon the snow-swept land in the distance, a bonfire illuminated the deep, bewildering darkness. After traveling through the night like an ordinary person, Rovi finally decided to stop for a moment within this dense forest.
The heavenly horse with twelve pairs of wings lay in the snow, and the hyena transformed from the evil dragon rested against his belly. After lighting the bonfire, Rovi placed the dreaming goddess Skadi on the ground and covered her with his cloak—though the goddess did not actually need it, this too was a human instinct.
It was not concern for her, but a reminder to himself.
Rovi let out a long breath. This body of the dead now had a trace of vitality, and gradually, an insignificant trace of warmth as well.
He turned his head slightly and listened to the voices carried by the wind.
Upon the land of the Age of Gods, countless spirits were scattered through the wind. They answered the call of the King of Storms and brought him news from afar.
They said, "Ahead lies the region with the most humans. There are cities and nations built by humans, loud songs and wine, stories of poets and heroes."
They also said, "There is a cult that worships giants there. They spread their faith wantonly under your name."
They said further, "They praise the ruler of storms, the King of the Wild Hunt, commander of the undead army."
"Even little things like you have learned to flatter people?" Rovi laughed and cursed softly, then fell into thought for an instant.
People who worshiped giants... Ymir?
If he remembered correctly, the God-King of the Titans had once had contact with Ymir, and had even joined forces with him.
Eresh seemed to have images of it as well.
"In that case, this journey ahead is unavoidable." Thinking this, Rovi sat beside the bonfire, closed his eyes slightly, and sank into sleep.
His habit of sleeping remained, but if something worth being wary of happened outside, he would wake at once.
Yes. Something worth being wary of...
In an instant, a faint rustling suddenly sounded. The eight-legged, twelve-winged heavenly horse opened his eyes.
Then he closed them again.
Because the one making the sound was Skadi, who had originally been lying on the ground. Wrapped in the cloak Rovi had given her, she looked at Rovi, who sat there "sleeping" by the firelight, and her pretty face could not help shifting.
I'm not going to be grateful to you... the goddess thought, but then suddenly found herself reluctant to leave the warmth brought by the cloak.
Even though it was the coat of the King of the Dead... forget it.
Lucky you.
Skadi crept over on tiptoe and wrapped the cloak around Rovi. Then, in the same motion, she slipped in behind him.
Back to back.
The head peeking out was tinged with a faint blush beneath the soft light.
What could not be denied was that the goddess did indeed feel very warm like this.
Night lay heavy, and the stars shone down.
Skadi shifted slightly and let out a low, murmuring sound.