The next day, across the frozen wilderness still buried under ice and snow, a graceful streak of purple cut through the endless white world.
Skadi stood atop a sled.
Her purple dress billowed wildly in the oncoming gale, making the swaying curves of her full figure stand out all the more.
The goddess kept shifting her shapely hips, leaning left and right to guide her course.
Skadi was both the Goddess of Ice and Snow and the Ski Goddess, and because she loved gliding across the snow, Odin had granted her those divine roles, even though they were not the sort of domains that should have existed on their own in the first place.
So Skadi had always been extremely confident in her skill on snow.
After hurrying through the night, with their destination now close at hand, she had naturally proposed finishing the last stretch this way.
She wanted to show off a little.
More than that, she wanted to win back some of the pride she had lost in defeat.
"My, my, you're awfully slow, Mr. Dead Man, aren't you?" came her clear, lovely voice as Skadi glanced back over her shoulder. "At this rate, you won't be catching up to me. You certainly won't be able to follow me all the way to the entrance of Jotunheim..."
"Oh?"
Skadi's eyes widened slightly as she looked at Rovi.
His hands hung at his sides, his whole body hidden beneath his robe. He seemed barely to be moving at all, and yet he kept pace with her perfectly, gliding alongside her as though in parallel.
The Ski Goddess stood on her sled, staring at him in disbelief.
She badly wanted to call it cheating.
But obviously, it was not. His movements were simply so slight, and his calculations so precise, that every fraction of force was being used to its limit—so much so that it looked as though he were floating over the snow itself.
"That really is enough to take someone by surprise..." Skadi came back to herself, pursing her lips as an inexplicable sense of frustration welled up inside her.
Being outclassed by him in technique was one thing.
But being beaten by him even in the field she was best at...
'What's wrong now?'
A voice rang out in Skadi's mind—similar to hers, yet clearly different, carrying a touch of heroic sharpness.
It was the other her.
The Queen of the Land of Shadows, Scathach, with whom she communicated through the "Gate of the Magic Mirror" hidden deep in her consciousness.
'Nothing,' Skadi replied inwardly.
'Hm? You're lying even to me? I could clearly feel your mood souring, my other self.'
'I said it's nothing.'
Skadi still refused to admit it.
How could she possibly say something so embarrassing?
She would never... not even to another self...
Rovi clasped his hands behind his back, enjoying the sensation of gliding through the air as though floating weightlessly like an immortal riding the void. Then he cast Skadi a sidelong glance.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing, stop asking already... hm?"
Only after answering did Skadi realize something was off.
"I only asked one question," Rovi said with a smile, clearly implying something.
"So you really are that interested in digging into my secrets?" Skadi was not flustered.
She had thought Rovi would flatly deny it. After all, prying into another person's secrets was an extremely rude thing to do.
Instead, he answered with complete seriousness.
"Yes. Very."
"If I want to know, then I want to know. If I don't, then I don't. There's no point hiding it. Besides—you're just my spoils."
"Don't get the wrong idea, miss."
Skadi's heart tightened slightly as her thoughts were laid bare.
So Rovi continued, "Were you speaking with that other 'you' you mentioned before?"
He could calculate all that just from the changes in her expression.
And he truly was curious.
Curious why the Queen of the Celtic Land of Shadows had appeared in the Norse world at all.
"Yes," Skadi said, tilting her head. Though her body still swayed as she steered the sled, she answered Rovi's question with complete calm. "She's very powerful. So far, I've only been able to hear her voice—I haven't seen her in person."
"But I know my spear technique isn't even a tenth of hers."
"Is that so? I don't believe it. Not unless you call her over."
If I could call her over, would you still be bullying me like this?
Skadi turned her head away and refused to look at Rovi.
Her cheeks puffed out slightly. She was annoyed.
'Who upset you this time? Not going to say? My, my... what a troublesome child you are.'
'There seems to be someone interesting beside you. It's a bit too far away—the connection's fuzzy...'
Scathach's voice kept chattering in her head, and for some reason it only made the Ski Goddess more irritated.
"Come to think of it, I'd really like to meet that counterpart of yours..." Rovi lifted his head and looked forward. "She treats you well, doesn't she? And you want to meet her too, right?"
"Look—you want to see her, and I want to see her. Doesn't that mean we're on the same side?"
"What kind of ridiculous logic is that?" Skadi did not quite know how to react.
"I'm dead, so naturally what I'm saying is ghost logic," Rovi replied lazily.
Skadi froze again for a moment, then suddenly laughed.
"You really are kind of interesting, aren't you?"
But once she said that, she fell silent again.
The snowfall had stopped, leaving the world vast and white. Seeing that Skadi was no longer responding, Rovi did not mind, because ahead of them he could already see the trunk of the World Tree.
That pale tree—pale enough to be called deathly white—linked heaven and earth, and also linked the nine realms above and below in the Norse world.
Of course, that did not mean one could simply climb up or down it directly.
The World Tree itself was unimaginably vast, while the tree hollows connecting the Nine Realms were comparatively small. And as a creation of the gods, cultivated from the remains of the Vanguard of the Umbral Star, it was also a living thing.
It moved.
Without knowing its precise location, it was very difficult to find.
Otherwise, Rovi could have come here by himself. He would not have needed Skadi to guide him.
"Follow me!"
With a twist of her waist, Skadi redirected the sled.
Rovi followed after her.
Through the frozen wilderness, four long tracks stretched out behind them across the snow.
But by the time they reached this point, Rovi no longer needed Skadi to lead the way.
Because he could feel the faint trembling of the ground.
He could feel the "riot" coming from beneath the World Tree.
"Those guys... why are they at it again?"
Skadi turned her feet and came to a stop. Raising her eyes, she looked toward a huge hollow in the World Tree ahead, and a trace of heaviness filled her dark-violet gaze.
That hollow was the passage leading to one of the three lowest worlds at the roots of the World Tree—Jotunheim.
Ever since the giants from Odin's prophecy had appeared, they had often tried to charge up through the World Tree and break into Midgard, the realm where humans lived.
And each time, they had gotten closer than before.
Skadi had once seen it from far away.
So now, she instinctively stopped.
Roars were already sounding in her ears.
And they were growing louder.
Louder and louder.
Skadi shrank back instinctively.
Those lunatics...
The Ski Goddess was afraid.
But Rovi smiled.
Because he could feel that those guys... had arrived.
ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!
Like thunder, like war drums.
Looking down through the hollow of the World Tree, one saw a sheer abyss like a cliff dropping into darkness. Yet from the edges hung long, vine-like strands, like ladders descending from heaven.
Huge giants clung to those vines with both hands, hauling themselves upward inch by inch.
They roared as their massive bodies bulged with muscle, furnace-like heat pouring from their forms. Hazy steam filled the entire hollow.
The giants' strength was immense, but an invisible force radiating from the World Tree itself pressed down on them, making the climb incomparably difficult.
That force was not something the gods who had planted the World Tree had deliberately imposed.
It was the World Tree's own law of rejection.
The civilization of the Umbral Star revered "evolution."
And beings like the giants, who lived within primitive disorder—chaotic, dim-witted creatures—belonged, under that law, at the very bottom.
They were shadows of the past.
And beings already "dead."
The reason they had failed time and again in their attempts to break into the central, core realm of the World Tree—the present world of Midgard, where humanity lived—was because of that suppressive force.
There was no need for the gods themselves to intervene.
No need to organize any army to oppose them.
And yet, after so many failures, the other native giants had long since given up.
Only this group of suddenly appeared giants continued to persist with stubborn determination.
Skadi feared that spirit.
That madness.
She could not understand it.
"Maybe we should wait until next..." She parted her lips, about to say they could simply come down another time, when the giants were less agitated. There were so many of them, and among them were terrifying beings at the level of gods. The Goddess of Ice and Snow quite clearly lacked confidence.
"There is no next time. We're going down." Rovi smiled. "Think about it. Once those giants fail in their charge again and drop back into Jotunheim exhausted, won't that be the perfect chance for us to go in?"
When they are spent and we are fresh.
Skadi did not understand the allusion from some foreign land, but she understood the principle.
This assault by the giants was fiercer than ever before. Even the ground above was trembling violently from it.
And yet perhaps because it was so fierce, it ended just as quickly as it had begun.
"Listen. It's gone quiet." Rovi pointed at the tree hollow.
Now that they had come this far, there was no chance he would turn back.
And he certainly was not about to let an absolutely first-rate "helper" like Skadi leave.
Since he had already lured her in, he might as well see it through.
So Skadi nodded. Drawing a deep breath, she steadied herself.
She was not a warrior, and in sheer nerve she was obviously no match for her counterpart Scathach. But she was still a goddess counted among Asgard, the highest realm of the World Tree.
She calmed down quickly, parted her red lips, and said, "Then let's go down."
The moment the words fell, a dark-violet spear appeared in the air and was caught in her hand. At the same time, a black staff dropped into her other palm.
She was fully on guard.
Rovi, meanwhile, still looked utterly at ease.
"I'm dead. Those giants probably won't react too strongly to me." Rovi glanced at the goddess and smiled. "Just stay close to me."
"I hope you're not deceiving me, Mr. Dead Man." Skadi cast Rovi a look, thoughtful for a moment, but in the end still nodded.
Before entering the hollow, however, Skadi raised a hand and swept her staff through the air, marking a sign nearby—a Primordial Rune.
If anything went wrong, she would be able to use that rune to return to Midgard.
It was a safeguard against those giants.
And even more so against Rovi.
No matter how smoothly they had been getting along, the goddess had not forgotten that she had known this "dead man" for less than half a day. They were only "cooperating."
Even now, she still did not know his name.
Rovi had already moved ahead. Snow began to fall once more from the heavens. Before them, the vast pale trunk of the tree swayed, deep-blue cubes studding it like stars and casting mottled light.
The enormous hollow was black as an abyss.
Rovi stepped into it first and let the darkness swallow him whole.
Gripping spear and staff, Skadi followed close behind.
Their bodies fell—
How far was it from Midgard to Jotunheim?
Farther than the distance between life and death.
Because Jotunheim lay even below Helheim, the Norse underworld ruled by Hel—a place closer to death than death itself.
But Rovi was already dead to begin with, and Skadi, as a goddess, had no true boundary between life and death in her essence.
So for the two of them, that distance might as well not have existed at all.
When his feet hit the ground, Rovi brushed off his robe and raised his gaze.
What he saw was a land of shattered rock, sheer cliffs, and barren woods. The vault overhead was dim and yellowed, like an eternal dusk. Rivers seemed once to have flowed across this land, but now only dried-up riverbeds remained.
The world was silent and profound in every direction. Cold wind whispered through it.
Skadi landed as well, and her body trembled for no reason at all. She felt cold.
Not a physical cold.
A psychological one.
The discomfort of a god of the present world setting foot on the soil of a bygone age.
Still... it looked pretty safe, didn't it?
The girl, who had been worried they would be attacked the instant they landed, let out a sigh of relief. She had just been about to ask Rovi what their next move should be when she realized he was standing motionless, facing into the barren, frigid wind without moving at all.
That figure was sunk in shadow.
And the dead stillness that had always clung to him suddenly became much denser.
An uneasy feeling rose in Skadi's chest.
At that same moment, the ground beneath their feet trembled, as if something were standing up...
The heaps of rock piled throughout the land swelled.
One figure after another appeared in Jotunheim.
Those were not piles of stone at all.
Those were clearly the heads of giants rising from where they had hidden themselves in the earth!
Skadi stared, stunned.
These lunatics knew how to set up an ambush now?
Rovi, however, simply said, "I'm here."
I'm here.
Here.
Here.
The three words echoed again and again, and even the dim yellow vault above seemed to ripple.
He had come.
THE KING—HAD COME.
"ROAR!"
The Titans from Tartaros let out a deafening cry.
Then, beneath Skadi's even greater shock, they knelt.
As if before a sovereign.
As if before the sacred.
"You..." Skadi turned to Rovi.
"Hm?" Rovi raised a brow. "I'm the... King of Giants you were looking for."
Skadi was stunned—more than that, horrified. She had never imagined that this "dead spirit" at her side could be the "king" of these strange giants.
He was unmistakably human.
And yet what she was seeing before her left her no choice but to believe it...
Fortunately, the Ski Goddess had long since prepared an escape route.
Instinctively, Skadi tried to flee by using the rune she had left above the tree hollow.
However...
Rovi raised a hand and pointed upward.
"Thank you," he said, "for bringing those people here."
"—my collaborator."
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thunder and lightning exploded above Jotunheim.
And there, figure after figure appeared.
They held spears in their hands and wore armor over their bodies.
Black wings spread from their backs, and with every beat, feathers drifted down.
They were the gods' messengers—demigods known as "War Gods."
They had been following behind Skadi the entire time, both to protect her and to watch her.
Which meant they too had witnessed Skadi's contact with Rovi, the "King of Giants."
And as a result, they too had been lured into the giants' ambush.
Of all things, the gods hated betrayal most.
Even a goddess as cherished as Skadi—once the seed of suspicion was planted—even suspicion alone would be enough to send her standing plummeting.
Let alone now, when she had all but been caught red-handed.
Skadi froze completely.
She even forgot that she had meant to flee.
Rovi, meanwhile, burst into laughter.
Of course he had known about these War Gods following behind them.
He had merely allowed it on purpose.
He had said it before...
There was no way he would let go of a "helper" he had gotten so easily for free.
From beginning to end, Skadi had never truly trusted him.
But Rovi had never needed her trust.
All he needed was to force her into a position where she had no choice but to stand on his side, to advise him and make plans for him in this unfamiliar land.
That alone was enough.
And so, in that instant, the giants threw back their heads and roared to the heavens, while the War Gods were seized by both shock and fury.
And in that instant, Rovi raised a hand. Brilliant ripples of light spread into being beside him, and from within them a blade slowly emerged.
Rovi reached out.
Gripped the sword.
And drew it upward.
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T/N: im guessing the messengers are NOT valkyries