Our footsteps echoed through the dim dungeon. I moved along the right-hand wall, Freyr along the left, with Solana between us, keeping a careful watch on him. I never imagined that, in a situation like this, I would actually be having a conversation with this man.
Stay calm. The goal was simple: exchange information. I decided to start by stating the facts.
“Freyja-sama… has already awakened.”
Freyr tilted his head slightly from the opposite wall.
“But—”
He cut me off.
“She cannot appear in the open like the other gods, can she?”
I stared back at him, surprised.
His lips twisted into a faint smirk as he shrugged.
“If it were Odin, perhaps he would. Your sister, Luisia, seems to be both a person and a cage for my own sister, then.”
…Better speak carefully.
I had no idea how much he might already know or suspect about the Skill: Miko. I couldn’t afford to slip and give him more than necessary. Freyr’s blue eyes fixed on me, sharp and unyielding.
“…And… she seems well?”
I could answer that one easily. Somehow, it felt like a genuine question, not just a test.
“Yes.”
“I see.”
Freyr’s expression remained carefully neutral, but behind that mask-like smile, I thought I caught a glimmer of real relief.
We continued exchanging information. I spoke of Freyja, while Freyr shared a bit about Ymir and her followers. It seemed the main base was no longer here—Ymir had long since moved far to the north.
Solana tilted her head.
“The north…”
In the kingdom of Asgard, there lay a barren tundra to the far north. It was plausible that Ymir and the others had hidden there. After all, neither the warrior corps nor adventurers had yet discovered the gathering point of the monsters.
“How did they get to a place like that?”
Freyr let out a soft chuckle.
“Ah… that’s why you came here, isn’t it? Once you reach the end of the dungeon, you’ll understand soon enough.”
He paused. A wind brushed against his cheek.
Thanks to his divine blessing, his senses were sharp—he could tell it was a wind coming from outside.
“…We’ve come quite far.” he muttered.
Then, as if to conclude the conversation, he started walking again.
“By now, my exit is close. It seems this is where we part ways.”
There might be some hidden passage that Ymir and his followers used as a base. Even Freyr wouldn’t want an endless march through the dungeon, constantly risking running into the gods.
“Go on. The Yggdrasil Water Mirror is just down the stairs from here.”
I called out to his retreating back.
“Freyr…”
He didn’t stop. But before we parted, there was something I had to ask.
“…Why are you on the enemy’s side?”
“I already told you,” he replied.
Freyr kept moving forward.
“To retrieve my sister.”
“The sister you speak of… is Freyja. The one I’m trying to protect is Lu. We can cooperate to defeat Ymir, and once it’s all over, we can each return to our families.”
Solana looked at me, surprise written across her face.
“Rion…”
By now, there was no way I could think of him as an ally.
Still, I wanted to understand—down to the deepest reason—why he had to fight. I was already ready to point my short sword at him. All the more reason to ask.
“I’m sorry, Solana. But I need to know,” I said.
Right now, Freyja resided within Lu. It was almost a seal, a side effect of the Skill: Miko, but the original purpose had been to contain the Power of Creation. And because Ymir was a threat, Odin desired that very power.
In other words—if Ymir were defeated…
Then, Freyja could be returned to Lu, the Power of Creation restored to Odin, and both Freyr and I could finally be with our families. In theory, there was hope.
Freyr stopped walking. He didn’t turn his back to me, but his sharp, slit-like eyes glanced over his shoulder.
“…Ymir cannot be defeated. Most likely, the gods will fail again.”
“That… can’t be!”
“There is no time.”
He added, slicing through my words like a sharpened blade.
Solana stepped forward, demanding an explanation.
“…Time?”
“Think about it. Do you imagine it’s easy for a god to dwell within a human?”
Freyr withdrew a flask from his pouch and drank water. I found myself momentarily lost for words.
“That is to say…”
“There is a price. Just as I had to take on a body to resist the seal, Freyja is now gradually being absorbed into Lu—becoming one with her power.”
Both Solana and I caught our breath.
“…Does that mean Freyja will eventually disappear?”
“One body cannot house two awakened minds indefinitely.”
Freyr replied.
I remembered something he had said before: “My sister is two, but she has only one body.” Now, I understood. That was what he meant.
I pressed further.
“Are you sure? Freyja never said anything like that herself.”
“I speak from knowledge and preparation. It would be a burden to your sister—so she would never say it. But… I can feel her magical power slowly changing.”
Freyr’s sharp eyes fixed on the reddish-brown walls ahead. Perhaps Lu was somewhere beyond them.
“When she was under the sleeping seal, I heard her words. And there, I learned of Odin’s plot.”
I exchanged a glance with Solana.
Freyja had stolen the Power of Creation from Odin and fled. A fragment of her immense magic had been hidden in the Flocia dungeon as a copy of herself. At that moment—surely, she had called out to her brother Frey, who had also been sealed in the same dungeon.
“…Even back then, my sister had already steeled her resolve. And yet she fled, carrying the Power of Creation with her.”
A shiver ran down the back of my neck. The gentle smile I had seen in Flocia came to mind.
“My sister chose the path of dwelling within a human, to protect humanity.”
A goddess who had acted for the sake of others, even at the cost of her own being.
“I will protect Freyja at all costs. Even if it goes against her own resolve.”
Freyr’s eyes turned toward me, swirling with a storm of emotions: sorrow, loneliness, love, and anger.
Words caught in my throat. But I tried anyway—
“Freyr… you mean—”
I struggled to form the sentence. “…You want to take Freyja away from the humans?”
Freyr’s eyes widened. We held each other’s gaze. He shrugged, a faint smile playing on his lips.
“…Perhaps. In the end, I cannot forgive a sister who valued humans over gods.”
With that, he walked away, vanishing quickly from sight as he headed toward the upper levels of the dungeon.
I turned to the goddess beside me.
“…Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
We descended the nearby staircase.
Freyr’s words had been true. The destination, the Yggdrasil Water Mirror, lay straight ahead from the stairwell.
The chamber was bowl-shaped, and the other gods, Mia-san, and Lu had gathered there already. The room was cluttered with empty barrels, broken crates, and sturdy cages. But the most striking feature was the rift at its center. Like cracks in pottery, fissures ran across the chamber. From them, icy winds poured in, chilling the air.
“The same as the rift in the sky over the capital…” I murmured.
Heimdall’s eyes narrowed as he studied it.
“Progress has been made. There are clues in this dungeon.”
The method of investigation seemed already decided. Safi, the dwarf blacksmith, and Lu stepped forward.
Meanwhile, I replayed Freyr’s words to myself, the words weighing heavily on my chest.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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