How had Fenrir’s thoughts changed?
Because he had turned his head away, Frondier could not see Fenrir’s expression.
If Frondier had been able to see Fenrir’s face at that moment, he would surely have inferred the change in Fenrir’s feelings.
But the current Fenrir was calm to the end. At least, his face was.
On top of that, he was a wolf, not a human, which made his expression even harder to read.
'But whatever.'
However, Frondier did not really care.
What Fenrir was actually feeling was not important. Frondier had decided long ago not to jump to conclusions about everything just by reading another’s face.
Of course, this decision did not particularly work in Fenrir’s favor. It simply meant Frondier would think whatever he wanted.
“Then first of all, there’s something I want to ask. That thing you’re bound with, that’s Gleipnir, right?”
Frondier pointed at the black threads wrapped round and round Fenrir’s entire body.
Fenrir’s eyes widened.
[How do you know about Gleipnir, human?]
“I don’t know the details.”
Gleipnir.
It was something that anyone who avidly read myths in this world would know.
It had little to do with means of killing monsters, so its fame was a bit lower, but it was a clear artifact of divine authority that, once it bound something, could never be undone. At the very least, there would be no Constel student who did not know it.
But items of divine authority generally had very little information. Naturally {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} so, because no one had seen them.
That was why the pieces of divine authority that people knew were almost all weapons. The gods possessed them, and the ways they used them were passed down, and those who received divine power had sometimes witnessed those scenes. Among them were things like Mjolnir, which had fallen into the human world and been enshrined in the Empire.
Gleipnir, however, was not that kind of thing. It had been made solely to bind Fenrir, and while it was binding him it did not appear in myth again. Fenrir being freed from Gleipnir was, itself, Ragnarok.
'......Right. Ragnarok.'
According to the information Frondier had so far, Ragnarok had already occurred once in the past.
If so, then Fenrir must already have been freed from Gleipnir at that time. That was, if things had gone according to the myth Frondier knew.
Then why was he bound again?
'Maybe.'
As one thought reached him, Frondier asked Fenrir,
“By any chance, the thing you’re bound with right now,”
The threads Fenrir could not break free from. Those could only be Gleipnir.
If that was true—
“......Is this a replica of Gleipnir?”
[A replica?]
But Fenrir tilted his head as if he had no idea what Frondier was talking about.
Instead, Belphegor’s eyes went wide.
“......A replica, you say?”
“Yeah. No matter how I look at it, it seems similar to Heukcheon.”
“Heukcheon...... You mean Helheim’s mana.”
At Belphegor’s words, Frondier nodded. When he waved his hand, a black wave flowed out of the necklace at his throat.
“Compare them directly.”
Frondier manipulated Heukcheon, shaping it into a thread. When he did so, it certainly looked very similar to the threads binding Fenrir.
“But as solid as my Heukcheon is, binding Fenrir with it is impossible. It would snap in less than ten seconds.”
[For something like that, five seconds is plenty.]
Grrr, Fenrir spoke with a low growl. Frondier pulled his lips to one side, a little awkwardly.
“Yeah, five seconds. Anyway, I can’t bind you with just Heukcheon alone. From what I can see, this is Gleipnir’s property.”
Frondier stepped a little closer to Fenrir.
In truth, at this moment Frondier was already within Fenrir’s attack range—within the distance at which Fenrir’s teeth could chew and swallow him.
The only one who realized this, besides Frondier himself, was Selena.
Yes. Astonishingly, even Fenrir did not realize it.
'......Dangerous, but.'
Selena was trying with all her might not to let her tension be noticed.
If she reacted now in any way, Fenrir might suddenly lunge at them.
'Lord Frondier just approached him as naturally as if he were someone he met all the time.'
This was closer to brazen nonchalance than acting.
The likelihood that Fenrir would attack Frondier was unprecedented. No matter how she tried to think about it, there was no basis for certainty.
However, Frondier stepped lightly forward as if he were absolutely sure Fenrir would not bare his teeth.
“Can I touch it?”
[.......]
“Maybe I might be able to undo it for you, you know.”
Frondier spoke while looking at Fenrir. He had approached, but he did not reach out carelessly.
Pitch-black eyes, a peaceful face.
Frondier spoke to everyone with the same expression.
With neither affection nor hatred.
With neither joy nor sorrow.
With eyes that held no preconceptions about the other.
[.......]
Fenrir lowered his head without a word. It looked like a nod, and at the same time like he had simply bowed his head.
Since Frondier acted according to how he accepted things—
Sshk.
He lightly stretched out his hand, and the tips of his fingers touched Gleipnir.
'......This.'
Frondier felt it the moment he touched it.
This was not Heukcheon. It was pitch-black, but different in essence.
However, there was one thing they had in common.
'It isn’t Heukcheon, but this is mana too.'
Just as Heukcheon was Helheim’s mana, this was also some kind of mana.
It was simply different in quality from anything Frondier had possessed so far.
'......This is incredibly nasty mana. If I put all the Helheim mana I’ve been holding into a pot and boiled it down until only a handful was left, would it become like this?'
Mana from another world was, in itself, not something humans should be taking in. Among those, Helheim was even more dangerous.
But this mana was beyond even that. It was so concentrated it was like jam. Frondier’s image of boiling it down in a pot was quite an appropriate metaphor.
'Right. Originally, Weaving had nothing to do with Heukcheon. The fact that I use Weaving with Heukcheon as a medium is nothing more than coincidence.'
Weaving was originally a skill used for record storage. That was, if Menosorpo was not involved.
To be used in combat, Menosorpo had to be there. Even Jeanne d’Arc had thought so.
In other words, the combination of Heukcheon and Weaving was Frondier’s original.
'This mana is not Heukcheon, and it can’t have been made by Weaving.'
In other words, Frondier’s guess was wrong.
It was neither Heukcheon nor a replica.
Then why did it feel so similar to Heukcheon?
If these black threads were not Weaving but Gleipnir’s original, did that mean it had not snapped during Ragnarok?
“......Huh?”
At that moment, as Frondier realized something, he let out a sound.
“What’s wrong, Lord Frondier?”
When Selena asked, Frondier brought his hand to his mouth.
“......It’s not there.”
“Pardon?”
“In my workshop, Gleipnir isn’t registered.”
Frondier could register everything he had seen in his workshop. Registration itself did not care about rank.
He had stored and even used Gram, Excalibur, Mjolnir, and so on, after seeing them once.
But these black threads before his eyes now—
Gleipnir would not register.
“In that case, there is a method.”
Light flashed in Frondier’s eyes.
He activated the skill ‘Analysis’.
However—
“......This doesn’t work either.”
The Analysis skill would not function.
To be precise, it did not react to Gleipnir.
'Because it’s not a weapon? No, Analysis doesn’t discriminate like that. Weaving doesn’t, to begin with.'
Then what was it?
Was this also something a god had done? So that Frondier would not replicate Gleipnir?
'That’s nonsense. If that were possible, they should have done that to every weapon.'
And if there were a way to interfere with registering in the workshop, the Weaving skill would become worthless at that moment. It would become a skill the gods did not need to be wary of at all.
'I’m misunderstanding something. Maybe the reason Gleipnir feels so familiar lies right here......'
Frondier pondered for a moment. Then he asked Selena,
“Selena. You’ve heard of Gleipnir, right?”
“Pardon? Y-yes. I’ve only heard of it as something passed down in myth, though.”
“How do you know Gleipnir as an object? Do you know what materials it’s supposed to be made from?”
At that, Selena tilted her head.
Her eyes drifted off to the side, as if she were trying to recall what she had learned.
“Hmm, a woman’s beard, the roots of mountains and the roots of stone, the sound of fox and cat footsteps, the inhalation and exhalation of fish, bear sinew strong enough to use as a bowstring, and bird spit—that’s what I was told it was made from. That they gathered things that don’t exist in this world. Of course, since it’s a myth, I just took it as a fun story.”
Frondier nodded. It was similar to the knowledge he had.
The materials used when Gleipnir was crafted were absurd to the extreme.
'They could not have actually made it from a woman’s beard or a fish’s breath or anything like that. But I need to know why it’s been passed down that way.'
The materials spoken of in the tradition were close to pure imagination—flesh added by humans to glorify the myth. What mattered was that Gleipnir was passed down as having been made by gathering things that did not exist in this world.
Things that did not exist in this world, and—
Would not register in Frondier’s workshop, and—
Were similar to Heukcheon.
“......Don’t tell me this is.”
Frondier looked at Gleipnir from a bit closer.
High-density mana. He examined the mana that had made him think it might be what you’d get if you boiled Helheim’s mana for a long time. He activated his sixth sense and dug through every corner.
And faintly, from within Gleipnir, he smelled the scent of Heukcheon.
“......I get it.”
Frondier spoke.
“This isn’t an object.”
“Pardon?”
“Gleipnir isn’t something like an object or an artifact, it’s just—”
Frondier gripped Gleipnir.
“This is just mana.”
“......Mana, you say?”
“Mana?”
Selena and Belphegor asked at the same time.
[What are you talking about?]
Fenrir, also not understanding, spoke.
“They must have gathered all the mana of the Nine Worlds and woven it into a single thread. That’s how it became such an incredibly compressed mana.”
The Heukcheon Frondier used, by itself, was an all-purpose tool that could serve as both offense and defense.
He did not know how many of the otherworld manas had such properties. But it would surely be enough to help amplify Heukcheon’s power.
And they had gathered as many as nine of those and made them into one mana.
Even though it was woven into a thread, it remained mana, and therefore it was not an object.
For that reason, it could not be registered in the workshop, and—
It was a mass of mana gathered from other worlds that did not exist in this world.
[I am bound by mana right now?]
At that, Fenrir’s expression turned savage. He had thought it was an item of divine authority, yet he was unable to move his body because of mere mana?
Rumble rumble─
Heat rose in Fenrir as he tried to tear the threads apart, but of course they did not budge. There was no way they would come undone now.
“That’s only natural. It’s the mana of the Nine Worlds—no one could undo it.”
The Heukcheon Frondier possessed. Even for that alone, the number of people who could free themselves once they had been completely subdued by it could be counted on one hand. At the student level, there was not a single one, and among the PROs there was perhaps Eden, and above that they were all Zodiacs.
Even just Heukcheon narrowed the number down to such an extreme, and here they had gathered the mana of the Nine Worlds.
[Then what changes? No matter what it is, nothing is different, is it?]
Fenrir spoke in displeasure. Explaining in tedious detail the reasons it could not be undone only made Fenrir angrier. He did not care about such things.
“No, it’s different.”
But Frondier spoke.
This was not an object, but mana.
Once he realized that, Frondier already had a possibility.
“......Wait, wait, Lord Frondier!”
And Selena realized it too.
“You can’t, it’s too dangerous!”
“What is?”
Belphegor asked from the side.
“He’s trying to take it into his own body! Lord Frondier is!”
“Into his body? Ah, like Heukcheon.”
Belphegor nodded as if he understood.
The fragment of Helheim he had met in Yeranhess—Frondier had absorbed the whole of it.
For an ordinary person, just swallowing a few handfuls of it might cause them to suffocate to death on the stench of death. That Helheim mana, he had drunk into his entire body, and it had filled his necklace on a lake-like scale.
Selena was also one of the people who had seen Helheim’s mana up close.
Humans must not touch that liquid. She knew that very well.
And here, an amount of mana like that had been gathered ninefold.
However, Belphegor instead spoke with an interested gaze and a smile.
“That sounds fun. Why don’t you try it?”
“Belphegor!”
“You swallowed Heukcheon with a human body and came out fine, didn’t you? But now you’re a demon. You can easily withstand it.”
Belphegor spoke through narrowed eyes.
Of course, that was a lie.
To be precise, there was absolutely no certainty he could withstand it.
A demon’s body was somewhat stronger than a human’s. That much was clear.
But how much help that “somewhat” would be—
“Fenrir.”
Frondier spoke.
“If you’re freed,”
[If you’re about to tell me to obey orders,]
“I’ll let you do as you please.”
Fenrir’s eyes widened at Frondier’s words.
Soon the wolf’s eyes filled with fierce audacity.
[Indeed. I understand well.]
Fenrir held deep resentment toward the gods, and it was obvious what he would do the moment he was freed.
Frondier had absolutely no reason to interfere with that.
“Hey, Frondier.”
Just then, Belphegor spoke.
“As you know, this will be treason.”
“......”
“The gods will from that moment on try to kill you completely, and the Seven Deadly Sins will be the same. Besides, this world is already the gods’ stage. Their power will no longer weaken. The very act of you absorbing that mana is already dangerous, but at that moment you’ll become the gods’ clear target.”
At those words, Frondier let out a short laugh.
“I’ve never been afraid of something like that.”
“──Heh.”
Belphegor stepped half a pace back, as if that single sentence fully satisfied him.
If he really could swallow that mana, Frondier would become an unparalleled calamity to the gods.
He was one who had witnessed Ragnarok in the past. And one who knew of its failure.
Ragnarok.
For that end-of-days, there had been one prophecy.
'......When Ragnarok came, ‘everything would be freed.’ That was how the prophecy went.'
That was why, in the past, humanity had waited for all the beings who would help them to be freed. They believed that prophecy.
But contrary to humanity’s expectations, the prophecy did not come true. On top of that, even Olympus had joined in, and Ragnarok had ended in failure.
'But if that prophecy was not about waiting for things to be freed,'
But about making them be freed—
Thump, thump.
Belphegor watched Frondier’s back with an unprecedented feverish smile.
If it was not that everything would be freed because Ragnarok was coming,
But that by freeing the bonds, Ragnarok would come—
Then this time, truly—
'It is the time of the prophecy.'
Right after Belphegor’s thought—
Frondier stretched out his hand toward Gleipnir.
