“Belphegor.”
Frondier called him in a tense tone.
“Did you just say Loki?”
“Hm? Yeah. The giant Loki. The guy who ran around here and there for Ragnarok.”
Belphegor said that and grinned.
“If you compared him to someone in this era, he’s the one most similar to you.”
He spoke as if joking, but it did not sound like a joke at all.
Frondier ran a hand through his now-complicated head.
'It’s definitely Mistilteinn.'
The spear Loki had been making in the forge. No question. It was Mistilteinn. He probably wasn’t making it himself, but giving the orders.
'Right...... Loki was a giant before he was a god. And he was sworn brothers with Odin.'
Loki, god of fraud and deceit, mischief and lies. That image was so strong that one forgets who Loki originally was.
Loki is a Jötunn, in other words, the son of a giant.
─Giants are all humans. There are no exceptions.
Belphegor had said it. Giants are all humans.
Which means that Loki, who was originally a giant, was, in other words, originally human.
'He ran around here and there for Ragnarok....... Simply put, he was on our side.'
It sounded a bit too simplified, but it was probably not wrong.
And if you go further and think that all those records of Loki “playing tricks” were actually acts of resistance against the gods including Odin, it was enough to be chilling.
'Loki used Weaving, huh.'
But he probably had not used it as a weapon the way Frondier did. Even if he did use it, he must always have needed Menosorpo.
“Do you regret it, Frondier?”
“What?”
“Not bringing Mistilteinn with you before you came here, is what I mean.”
Mistilteinn, the spear that kills gods. If they had it, it would be more reassuring than anything in the current situation.
But Frondier shook his head.
“I couldn’t have that spear anyway. It’s inside a temple, and for me that’s more dangerous than anywhere else.”
“If you’re that scared, Mistilteinn will end up a thing you’ll never be able to use.”
“That’s not a problem either.”
“Oh?”
“I already decided who would use Mistilteinn.”
From a very long time ago.
“......Hmph.”
Belphegor’s eyes widened a little in surprise, then he snorted.
“You really don’t have a cute side.”
“Let’s go. This time for real.”
Frondier checked that all the giants in this area were inside the statues.
Next was only the way to level up Weaving.
That was not something he could figure out right now, so first they had to cross over this world.
Fwoooosh─!
Once again, Frondier and Belphegor took flight. Of course, he was carrying Selena.
“Selena, I’m sorry, but I’m going to speed up.”
They had wasted a lot of time. At that, Selena nodded.
“Yes. With this cloth, I’ll be fine.”
Selena pulled Penelope’s cloth deep over her head. Seeing that, Frondier grinned.
“Belphegor, keep up!”
“You arrogant brat.”
Soon, the two accelerated their flight.
KWAaaaaaa──!
Originally, by forming wings out of Heukcheon, Frondier could fly faster than ordinary demons. The tricks for that were really no different now that he had actual wings. Since his entire huge pair of wings became thrusters of aura, his speed was tremendous.
However,
“......I thought you wouldn’t be able to keep up.”
Next to him, Belphegor was easily following along.
“You really underestimate the Seven Deadly Sins too much, Frondier.”
“You’re not one of the Seven Deadly Sins anymore.”
This guy only claimed the Seven Deadly Sins when it was convenient for him. You could truly call him an outstanding demon.
As they went, Frondier asked,
“How much farther do we have?”
“Judging by the thickness of Yggdrasil’s root we saw earlier, it’s soon.”
Belphegor narrowed his eyes.
“Frondier, do you have enough mana?”
“Why are you asking that? Of course I do.”
“Because there’s someone we’re going to meet before Yggdrasil anyway.”
Ah, right.
Frondier understood and completed his battle stance. He sharpened his nerves so he could draw a weapon at any moment.
And soon.
“I see it.”
Belphegor spoke.
Before their eyes, they saw black storm clouds.
No, that was not clouds.
What swirled in the sky was only a mass of evil spirits.
And beneath that, a woman with pale skin was floating in the air, scattering a razor-sharp aura.
“......Hela.”
Frondier let out a low voice.
“Belphegor, I’m asking just in case, but Hela,”
“Drop it.”
Belphegor’s low voice.
“The possibility of Hela being on our side is zero. She’s different.”
“......That so.”
Hela is, like Fenrir, a child of Loki.
If she was a child of Loki, who had been at the very front line of Ragnarok, he had hoped she might help them depending on the situation.
“Look at that.”
Frondier followed Belphegor’s upward gaze.
There, the evil spirits, gathered like storm clouds, were starting to lose their individual shapes and clump together.
'......Same as that time.'
The mass that had tried to devour Frondier’s body in Yeranhess, it looked the same as then.
The difference was that this time, it was something Hela was controlling.
Kuo-ohhhhh─!!
The mass of wraiths swelled further, and its volume grew as its mouth yawned wide open.
A skull shape with nothing left but the neck.
“......Dodge it on your own.”
Belphegor said.
“Why would I.”
Frondier created and drew out a spear into his hand.
“I just have to pierce through it.”
What he held was Atjie’s spear.
'Fastest speed.'
Weapon, Heukcheon, mana crystal, Menosorpo.
His technique, created by compressing all of these.
Up until now, it had taken time to reach the final state, but Frondier now was a demon.
At least when it came to magic, he far surpassed human speed.
The spear shattered together with the crystal, then gathered again.
For a brief instant,
Frondier Original
Black Lightning Spear
FLASH!
KWAaaang!!
It pierced through the skull’s open mouth and passed on.
The wraiths scattered like ash, and Frondier broke through them and advanced.
Ahead, he saw a woman.
“......Tch.”
The moment she saw Frondier’s face, she clicked her tongue as if displeased.
“Yeah. So you came after all.”
“Hello, Hela.”
Frondier stopped, keeping his distance from Hela.
If he approached any closer than this, she would probably attack without asking yes or no.
“Hela, aren’t souls the residents of this world? To make them like that. Isn’t that too much?”
“They’re stray spirits. Things that had no ego to begin with. Let alone their true bodies. For example, it’s like your hair that will fall out smoothly in the future.”
“......That’s a scary thing to say.”
As expected of a god of death. She knows well what humans fear.
“Hela. Do you really have to fight me?”
Frondier asked.
Belphegor had told him to drop it, but for Frondier, the help of each and every god was precious.
All the more so if it was Hela, child of Loki.
“......Haah.”
But what came out of Hela’s mouth was only a sigh.
“Frondier, I’ll only say this.”
“What is it?”
“You can never be on the same side as me.”
THOOM─!
At the same time she said that, heavy sounds came from all around.
Frondier looked around him.
There were ships.
Huge ships floating in the sky. Ships, dyed in cold and gloomy colors that resembled this Niflheim, rose up from all sides.
'......That’s......'
The huge ship Hela had created in Niflheim.
Frondier knew its name.
“Naglfar.”
When he spoke the word, Hela’s eyes opened wide.
“How do you know that name?”
“I just, know.”
As he answered, Frondier realized.
This knowledge wasn’t something Constel taught. It was just knowledge from his previous world.
'Right, at Constel they only focus on heroes or gods related to fighting monsters. Hela is probably someone the current humans barely know.'
Frondier looked at the ships again. He focused his gaze on their outer surfaces.
“If you really know Naglfar, then you also know what this ship is made of, right?”
“.......”
Frondier’s eyes darkened.
“......Human fingernails and toenails.”
“You really do know.”
Hela shrugged her shoulders.
“Dead humans feel pain too. I pulled out the fingernails and toenails of all of them and made ships. Using their screams as accompaniment. The bodies of the dead keep regenerating. No matter how much you pull out. So you can pull them out endlessly, and humans scream until their voices go hoarse. Well, their voices don’t go hoarse though.”
After saying that, Hela looked down at Frondier.
“That’s why I’m saying this, Frondier.”
“.......”
“You, do you really want to be on the same side as me?”
Frondier fights ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ for humans.
To protect their lives, he is sacrificial enough to throw away his own safety.
There’s no way such a Frondier would accept the existence of a ship called Naglfar.
As if she was testing that, Hela.
“......Good grief.”
Frondier closed his eyes and roughly scratched his head.
“There’s some kind of misunderstanding, but whatever.”
When he opened them again, his eyes were cold.
“I understand your will very well.”
Weaving
Imperial Palace Armory
Full Open
Dozens of ships surrounding Frondier.
Countless weapons aiming at all of them spread out in the air.
The weapons bared a razor-sharp light, as if protecting Frondier and at the same time ready to pierce the enemy at any moment.
“I happened to be curious, anyway. Just how strong gods are who have no penalty called the human world.”
“......Arrogant brat.”
At Hela’s words, Frondier smiled faintly.
“You already knew, didn’t you?”
Shushushushuuk─!!
Along with that, hundreds of weapons shot out in all directions.
Hela lifted her hand above her head. Then clanking sounds rang out from the ships on all sides.
Skeletal soldiers rose up on the decks and charged toward the weapons.
Crack, KWA-CRRRRK!
Hundreds of weapons, and bones in numbers several times that. The skeletons that hurled their bodies at the weapons each had their bodies split and broken apart, but the individual bones did not.
When the skeletal soldiers are broken, they only become bones. The bones tie themselves together and cling to the weapons.
'......!'
For almost the first time, Frondier felt resistance from the weapons he controlled. It was something close to “weight.”
'She’s deliberately not breaking the weapons, but just restraining them.'
If the weapons were broken, from Frondier’s point of view he only had to shoot again. Then a gap would arise where they couldn’t respond in time, and if you started stabbing from there, the forces on the ships would collapse helplessly.
But if she did not break the weapons like this, Frondier would have to personally cancel them. In other words, it gave Hela a few seconds.
'She used her head well.'
Next, when Hela waved her hand, this time skeletal archers took position on the decks.
“Fire.”
Arrows flew at once.
Frondier took all of them into his sight.
Chryselakatos, Iokeira.
Let it become a rain that never misses its target.
He quickly created a bow and arrow and shot.
One arrow became hundreds, tens of thousands.
A skill of blocking flying arrows with arrows.
Dddddddddd─!
As the arrows broke in the air, it sounded like wind blowing through a forest.
But even if the number of soldiers was greater on that side,
Thudthudthud─!
The arrows were not.
Even after blocking all the arrows, Iokeira’s rain remained and pierced the heads of the remaining enemies.
'One more shot.'
In the meantime, when Frondier had grasped another arrow in his hand,
“?!”
Right in front of his eyes, an enemy he couldn’t even see before suddenly appeared.
A strange woman, naked, with arms that were bat wings.
'What kind of monster is this─'
Before Frondier could finish the thought,
Kyaaaaaaak─!!
A sound like it would rip his eardrums poured out right in front of Frondier’s nose.
For a normal person, just having this sound brush their ears would make them faint on the spot. At this extremely close range, it would definitely kill them. It was quite literally a scream let out by the dead.
However,
“Too loud!”
CRACK!
Frondier drove the arrow into the bat woman’s neck.
This kind of attack was useless against him.
But it was true that he was surprised.
'I see. My sixth sense is something I gained by acquiring Helheim’s mana.'
Helheim is a place inside this Niflheim. In other words, mana of the same world.
'So it gets a bit dulled here.'
It wasn’t that his sixth sense wasn’t working, but if it was a monster with stealth abilities on that level, it would be allowed to get this close.
“......! That’s right! Selena!”
Realizing that, Frondier looked down at the ground.
Selena was different from Frondier. She would take this kind of attack head-on.
When he lowered his gaze in that worry, on the ground,
“......?”
There were walking corpses guarding Selena.
Those corpses—he had seen them in Manggot.
“Hey.”
As expected, next to her was Belphegor, master of those corpses.
Belphegor looked up at Frondier with a completely relaxed attitude.
“Don’t worry about here and just do what you have to do, Frondier.”
Frondier was at a loss for words.
Belphegor went so far as to add one more line.
“I’ll protect the princess.”
“......I’m definitely killing you later.”
