Frondier listened to Sigurd’s words and recalled it.
The many phrases he had seen in Manggot.
—Ragnarok has failed.
—We could not protect Fenrir.
—We witnessed Olympus.
—We launched a surprise attack from Nastrond.
There had definitely been a mention of Olympus. At the time, he didn’t know what “witnessed” was supposed to mean.
Frondier asked:
“Did Olympus originally not intervene in Ragnarok?”
“There was no room to speak of intervention. Back then, we didn’t even know they existed. But yes. Setting aside the fact that we didn’t know, Olympus joined Asgard in the middle of our war.”
So as he thought, the “witnessed” in that phrase had not been some casual remark. It had been a sentence far more urgent than Frondier had imagined.
'Even Asgard alone would have been overwhelming, but Olympus on top of that. Of course the Giants couldn’t have won.'
All the more so if they hadn’t even known of the existence of the gods of Olympus.
But wait. When Frondier heard that far, he felt something strange.
“But Sir Sigurd. If Olympus intervened later, then what would have happened if they hadn’t?”
To that, Sigurd answered as if Frondier were asking something obvious.
“Why, then victory would have been ours.”
“...Truly?”
“It was an evenly matched battle, but the advantage in the war was clearly on our side. Without Olympus, victory would undoubtedly have been in our hands.”
Of course, if Asgard had been winning, Olympus wouldn’t have joined late. If they had been allied from the beginning, that would be different, but they wouldn’t jump into a war that was already being won.
'Even so, to have been winning against gods like Odin, Thor, and Baldr...'
Back then, the gods would not have been in any sort of possession. They would have been using all of their power themselves. If they had been winning against such gods, then what on earth were the Giants.
“You must have been incredibly strong. To bring down gods.”
“That’s not it. It’s only that his plan worked.”
“Whose, exactly?”
“Loki’s, of course.”
Sigurd answered calmly.
That was why it took Frondier longer to accept it.
“...Loki came up with the strategy that brought down the gods?”
“Yes. Don’t tell me you don’t know Loki? I don’t know how much time has passed, but to forget that name.”
Frondier shook his head.
Of course he knew Loki. How could he not. He just couldn’t understand why that name had come up here.
“Loki is also a god. Why would someone like that help humans?”
“...Huh? No, that’s not what this is. You’ve got the wrong idea about Ragnarok. Is all of modern humanity like this?”
Frondier kept his mouth shut, having nothing to say to that.
Unfortunately, modern humanity knew even less than Frondier did.
Sigurd scratched his head roughly.
“Well, now, where should I even start. I don’t know what you know and what you don’t.”
Then he sighed and said:
“At times like this, having Menosorpo would have been so convenient. Ah, sorry. You probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Just me complaining.”
“...”
To Frondier, the only thing increasing in real time was riddles.
But if he wanted to solve these riddles, Frondier had no choice but to take out the key.
Even if he had no idea what would be behind the door that key opened.
“Sir Sigurd.”
“Mm?”
“Menosorpo, I possess it.”
“What?”
Sigurd’s gaze changed at that. He looked Frondier up and down again. A hint of suspicion mixed with hope. But that expression soon turned to disappointment.
“Just possessing it is useless. Menosorpo is a magic circle. Surely you know. Whatever happened here, we can’t draw a magic circle.”
Sigurd looked around as he spoke.
This place had already been wiped clean by Frondier’s Ecleksis. There was nothing but a pitch-black background. Sigurd didn’t look particularly surprised at the sight.
“Are you not curious why it turned out like this?”
“I assumed it just aged, since so much time had passed. I didn’t know even the world of souls could get old.”
So that was how the situation looked from Sigurd’s point of view.
“In any case, now that Pandemonium is like this, there’s no space to draw Menosorpo. It’s a small mercy that there’s at least enough room left ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) for you and me to stand.”
Of course, Frondier had left exactly that much space on purpose, but naturally, he didn’t say so.
Sigurd let out a sigh.
“If we at least had Weaving, that’d be different, but Menosorpo is useless as things stand.”
“...”
How was he supposed to explain this.
Frondier felt like he was watching a morning drama.
Everything that happened to be needed in this situation.
He just happened to have it all.
“I have Weaving as well.”
“Yes, if you had Weaving, then... Hm? What did you say?”
“I have both Weaving and Menosorpo.”
Sigurd stared blankly at Frondier. Rather than shocked, his face looked like he simply couldn’t process the information.
“Are you joking?”
“I am not.”
“Do you even know what Weaving is before you say that?”
“Of course. I have no way to prove it, though.”
Frondier would have liked nothing more than to unfold Weaving and show him, but he couldn’t use magic here.
No, wait.
Whether it was Weaving or Menosorpo, he couldn’t use either here anyway, so why had Sigurd even brought them up—
Grab!
Sigurd seized both of Frondier’s arms.
“You can really use Weaving? Together with Menosorpo? Those two are truly residing in a single person—you?”
“Y-yes, that’s right.”
“Can you swear to that on the sky itself, that your words are sincere?”
Frondier had no idea why Sigurd was this worked up, but he answered.
“I don’t swear on the sky. I don’t believe in gods.”
“...!”
Sigurd’s eyes flew wide at that.
Whatever he was thinking, he closed his eyes deeply and lowered his head.
“...It took a long time, but it has arrived.”
“...”
Frondier did not really understand what Sigurd was feeling.
But this story did come with a memory.
Jeanne d’Arc had said it.
—The ideal, of course, would be for one person to hold both Weaving and Menosorpo, but that was ideal and at the same time unrealistic.
—The most we could hope for was that the strongest individual of the era would possess Menosorpo.
According to Jeanne d’Arc, the “ideal situation” was for one person to hold both Weaving and Menosorpo, and the next “best reality” was for two people who each held Weaving and Menosorpo respectively to cooperate.
According to her words, Frondier was now in the ideal situation.
But he still did not know the clear reason why.
“Then you’ll have to prove it.”
Sigurd spoke.
“...I can’t use Weaving here.”
“No, there’s no need. Proof is simple.”
Sigurd shook his head as he spoke.
“You must have a workshop.”
“I do.”
“Then when you first saw the workshop, what was in it?”
“Pardon?”
“It’s a simple question.”
...What had been there?
Frondier recalled the past. The first time he had seen the workshop after arriving in this world.
There wasn’t anything particularly impressive.
So Frondier simply said what came to mind.
“...Just some ordinary iron shield-looking thing, and...”
“There was a wooden hammer, wasn’t there?”
“How did you—”
He almost reflexively asked that, but then Frondier understood.
The meaning of this question.
“...So the skill is—”
“That’s right.”
Sigurd nodded.
“Weaving carries over the contents of the skill. The information stored by the previous generation is visible to the next.”
Frondier’s mouth fell open.
When he had first opened the workshop, there had been a bunch of random things inside. The shield and hammer he had just mentioned, for instance.
He had originally thought those were items stored there by the Frondier from before he possessed this body.
But thinking about it, that made no sense.
According to Jeanne d’Arc, “Weaving” was not Frondier’s skill. It was something he had received upon coming to this world. A power Frondier had not even known existed.
In other words, the items in the workshop were not things stored by the previous Frondier. They had been stored by a holder of this skill from far earlier in the past.
“If you have Weaving, you know what the workshop’s function is. The workshop is nothing more than a warehouse that stores the information of the things you’ve woven.”
Exactly. The principle of the workshop was simple. It just stored what he had woven.
In other words, there should be nothing else.
“But you must know, too. What exists inside that workshop that only stores things.”
That’s right.
Frondier knew, and he had already seen it.
“...The basement.”
The workshop had a basement. A hidden space he had discovered when he pulled the workshop out as a transcendence reward.
And there,
“There were statues of heroes gathered there.”
“Yes. Do you understand what I’m trying to say now?”
The workshop was a warehouse that merely stored things.
Which meant those statues, too, had not been there “from the beginning.”
A workshop owner before Frondier had recorded those statues.
And in order to record them, he would have had to see them in reality.
But no matter how many times Frondier had played the game “Etius,” he had never seen statues like those. There had been statues depicting heroes now and then, but none like what he had seen in the workshop’s basement.
And more than anything, there was no way that such detailed, well-crafted statues existed for every single hero.
“...So those aren’t statues?”
Frondier gave voice to a chilling speculation.
“They’re not statues, are they?”
“...Hahaha!”
Sigurd laughed out loud.
From Frondier’s perspective, it was absolutely not a part to be laughing at.
Sigurd smiled, but his eyes were serious as he spoke.
“Frondier, listen well.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know what state humanity is in now, or how they remember us. But ‘Ragnarok’ is a little different from what you think.”
“So it isn’t a war between gods and humans?”
“I’m not saying that’s wrong. I’m saying that by itself is not enough.”
A war between gods and humans. That alone was not enough to express Ragnarok.
“When you leave this place, visit your workshop again. With what you know now, you’ll be able to discover something else.”
“...Can’t you just tell me now? I’ve had more than enough shocks already.”
Sigurd shook his head.
“It’s not something I’m allowed to say.”
“...You’ve been forbidden?”
The “forbidden statements” Jeanne d’Arc had spoken of. Sigurd nodded.
“Don’t worry. The answers you seek are not far off now. But remember this much.”
“What?”
“Ragnarok is not over.”
It was a terrifying statement, and also an overwhelmingly grand one.
Frondier almost swallowed those words, but instead threw out the question that came to mind.
“How can you tell it hasn’t ended?”
“Because Ragnarok is destined to succeed.”
“...Judging by fate is—”
“I know you don’t believe in fate. That’s not what this is.”
Sigurd’s voice was firm.
“Can you resist the water falling from a waterfall, or the sun and stars rising and setting? Do you intend to refuse the fact that you will grow old and die as time passes, and that your body will become ashes and scatter?”
In other words, the “fate” he spoke of was that kind.
Not something an individual is dragged along by, choosing to comply or resist.
For Ragnarok to succeed was something like that.
“As long as gods exist in this world, they are still at war.”
“If it’s a war, then who are they fighting against?”
“Humans, obviously.”
Frondier couldn’t understand.
They were fighting against humans? Right now, humans were not fighting gods.
And in the first place, this was not something Sigurd, who had been stuck in here, could possibly know.
“Humans are not fighting gods.”
“No, if that’s truly how it looks, then it’s only that they don’t know. They don’t know that they’re fighting gods.”
Frondier’s thoughts spun.
He tried to understand Sigurd’s words.
“Frondier, this is a very old tragedy.”
To such a Frondier, Sigurd said:
As if he believed that someday, Frondier would understand everything.
“We must put an end to this tragedy.”
