ACT 3
“So, where exactly have you been all this time, hm?” The police officer asking Yuuto this question was middle-aged and seemed mild-mannered, sitting across from Yuuto with his elbows on the desk and his hands folded together.
His way of speaking was non-threatening, but there was something in his voice that indicated he wasn’t taking silence for an answer. Perhaps this was the sort of aura a veteran cop projected.
As for Yuuto’s current location, an interrogation room with grey, oppressive walls... was not where he was at all. Instead, he was in a place with furniture like you might find in some normal business building, mass-produced cheap work desks and chairs. He sat in a reception sofa chair over set up over in a corner of the room.
Yuuto hadn’t really committed any real crimes in particular, so he’d been handed over to the custody of the Hachio Police Department’s Community Safety Bureau, Juvenile Division.
Apparently, Yuuto’s initial disappearance had been big enough news at the time to get on local broadcast TV and into the newspaper. Of course, the modern era being what it was, the story had soon faded from the trending news and been forgotten. But by some strange coincidence, one of the employees at the department store had recognized Yuuto’s face, and called the police.
One could certainly call that the act of a good-hearted model citizen, but for Yuuto, honestly, that goodwill was nothing but trouble.
“It’s not something I really need to hide, and I’m certainly willing to talk about it, but to be frank, I don’t really think you’re going to believe me, sir,” Yuuto said, sipping his tea.
It was just your average, cheap green matcha tea, but the taste gave him a rush of nostalgia.
“That’s something that we can be the judge of,” the officer said. “For now, why don’t you just tell us everything you can?”
“Mmm, in that case... Well, the thing is, I was off in another world.”
“Another world?”
“Yes, a different world from this one, called Yggdrasil.”
As Yuuto finished that statement, he considered whether it would have been better to say that he’d experienced a “time slip” into the world of the past, but concluded that “another world” was best.
Even if he said it was the past, he didn’t know the exact date or location. If he were questioned for details on that point, he wouldn’t be able to answer, and it would make it easy for them to call his story a lie.
Of course, “I went to another world” was just as easy to call a lie in its own right.
“Ahh, I know about that, that isekai genre that’s popular in novels right now. Hey, I read them too, sometimes. How about that?” The middle-aged officer nodded to himself.
As expected, he didn’t believe Yuuto at all.
“Ha ha, well, that is the normal reaction.” Yuuto gave a small, self-deprecating laugh, and shrugged. In truth, this result was within his expectations.
“Uh huh. We do this for a living, after all. Now, I’d really like to hear the real story from you. You can just tell us, no need to hold back out of pride or something. That’ll make things easier for us, and you can go home quickly without having to sit here and have this boring discussion with us anymore. You see, that would work out just awesome for both of us.”
“Yes, I agree with you all the way, sir,” Yuuto said. “That’s why I told you the truth, but as it so happens, I find myself thinking now that it would have been a lot faster if I had lied. Like, I was off wandering across some foreign country for a while — that story is a lot more believable, right?”
“Hey, cut that out! Make light of the police, and you won’t like what happens!” That sudden outburst came from a younger police officer sitting next to the first one. He had been quiet until now, but suddenly raised his voice threateningly.
According to normal society, Yuuto had been a runaway from home, whereabouts unknown, for almost three years. It might not make him a criminal, but it certainly meant he wasn’t going to be treated as a normal, law-abiding citizen.
For the time being, I’m glad that I was at least able to calm Mitsuki down and get her to go home. Thinking this, Yuuto smiled softly.
That girl got pretty reckless and daring when it came to Yuuto, so if she’d been here to witness this scene, she might have tried to interject and make things more complicated.
Unfortunately, Yuuto’s little smile to himself struck a nerve with the younger police officer.
“What’s so funny?! Are you trying to make a joke out of officers of the law?!” The officer slammed the palms of his hands loudly on the desk, and his face grew even more intensely angry.
He was strongly built, as if perhaps he practiced some sort of martial arts or combat sports, and his muscular arms were twice as thick as Yuuto’s.
Naturally, this man must have confidence in his physical strength; it was written all over his face.
However...
Hmm... unarmed, Felicia would be stronger. Yuuto made a calm analysis of the officer’s combat potential.
His muscles themselves were big, but Yuuto didn’t feel that certain aura of strength particular to the strongest warriors he’d met in Yggdrasil.
Yuuto himself wouldn’t be able to take the man down in a straightforward fight, of course. But on the other hand, in an “anything goes” situation, Yuuto doubted he would lose.
“Come on now, Saki! Don’t scare the boy!” The middle-aged officer held up a hand to subdue his furious, younger cohort.
“Rgh, if you say so, Asamiya-san...” The younger officer reluctantly sat back down on the opposing sofa.
Having done this, the older officer turned back to Yuuto with a smile. “Sorry about that, Suoh-kun. Do me a favor and don’t provoke this guy too much. He’s got a bit of a short temper. Anyway, it’s lunchtime and you must be hungry, right? Do you want anything to eat? My treat.”
The middle-aged officer’s smile was friendly, but Yuuto’s sharp senses drew him to the man’s eyes, which weren’t really smiling at all.
From deep within those eyes, narrowed from the man’s feigned smile, Yuuto could sense him watching his every little movement, not missing a thing, plumbing him for information.
This was a real pro.
In a way, this man reminded Yuuto a little bit of the Claw Clan patriarch, Botvid. Of course, the latter was more skilled by several degrees.
I see, Yuuto thought. So this is what the real “Good Cop, Bad Cop” routine looks like in action.
It was the same negotiating technique that Yuuto had used against the Horn Clan patriarch Linnea during their first meeting.
Now that he was having it used on himself, he could see just how easily he might have been pushed into being manipulated by the kind behavior of the “good cop” if he hadn’t known about the technique beforehand.
“Hmm... then, can I get a katsudon?” Yuuto made his request without any reservations. “I haven’t had anything with rice in such a long time, I’ve really got a craving for it now.”
He’d already had to take a rain check on eating his favorite food after three long years of waiting. At this point, he was sure he could be forgiven for playing along with their little act and getting a meal out of it.
“...You sure do seem calm, kid,” said the older officer. “You know, normally, when someone your age gets dragged in by the police, they curl up into a tiny ball, or they put on a big show of acting tough. One of those two.”
As he said this, he gestured with his thumb at the younger officer sitting next to him.
“You’ve even got this fierce-looking guy getting in your face, to boot. And yet you didn’t react one bit. You’re sitting there calmly like nothing’s wrong. You’ve got some nerves of steel, don’t you?”
“Huh?” Yuuto said. “No, it’s not that at all, really. It’s probably just because I simply haven’t done anything bad.”
...In this world, anyway, Yuuto added in his head, a bit bitterly.
However indirectly it may have happened, he was aware of the fact that he now had blood on his hands. He didn’t regret it, though, since without going down that path, he wouldn’t have been able to protect his allies, his family.
“I think running off and causing your parents to be worried sick is hardly good as far as normal society is concerned, don’t you?” the officer asked archly.
“Oh, and do the police nowadays make it their business to stick their noses into a person’s private family affairs?” Yuuto replied with a smile, but his voice was ice cold.
He knew that it was indeed part of their job, but he also didn’t want any outsiders barging in on that part of his life.
“So you finally show a reaction, and this is what I get, huh?” For some reason, the older officer’s friendly smile froze stiff, and large beads of sweat began to appear on his face. He actually looked a little pale too, like he was sick.
The younger officer visibly shuddered, and looked around, muttering, “Is the thermostat busted or something?”
Yuuto didn’t feel anything strange, though.
As Yuuto sat there confused, a female officer came around from behind the partitioning screen sectioning off the little corner they were in.
“Please excuse me. This boy’s ride is here to pick him up.”
“My ride?” Yuuto asked.
“Yes, your father.”
“...I see.”
He had technically been a missing person for around three years. It was natural enough that they’d put in a call to his family in this situation. He couldn’t exactly blame them for that.
Even so, he couldn’t stop from thinking, You had no business doing that.
“Well, it seems like your guardian is here, and for now it doesn’t seem like there’s anything criminal about your case.” The middle-aged officer put extra emphasis on the “for now” part for some reason, but he waved his hand at Yuuto, dismissing him. “You’re free to go. Go on home, and make sure to have a nice long private talk about things, just like you wanted to.”
While the officer was back to his earlier casual smile, Yuuto thought he seemed a bit more tense than before. He got the sense that the man was being a lot more wary of him.
“Right, well, then...” Yuuto lightly bowed his head, then stood up.
He wouldn’t get anything out of staying here and talking in circles with these people.
He decided to quickly take his leave, though it was annoying that he could only do so thanks to his father.
Once Yuuto was out of sight, the younger of the pair, Officer Saki, slammed his hands on the table in hot-blooded fashion. “Sure was a cheeky little smartass, wasn’t he?”
He practically spat out the words.
Back in his college days, he’d belonged to a championship Judo club, and he’d been terrifying as a demon in his role as captain, striking fear into his own junior club members.
Even now, whenever he ran into his former clubmates, they took defensive postures before he even said a word.
And yet that boy hadn’t shown even the slightest bit of fear towards Saki, which had left him feeling less than amused, to say the least.
“Cheeky? That came off as cheeky to you?” His middle-aged counterpart, Officer Asamiya, was looking totally exhausted by contrast, slumped heavily into the office sofa and sipping at some fresh tea one of the office ladies had poured for him.
“Of course it did. What other word would you use to describe that kind of attitude?!”
Asamiya lowered his teacup and gave a long sigh before speaking. “Hahh. Saki, you said you’re aiming for the C.I. 1st Division, right?”
A police department’s 1st Division was a section of their Criminal Investigation Bureau, and the one that handled investigation of the worst, most serious crimes: murder, armed robbery, assault, kidnapping, and so on. For a cop aiming to make detective, it was the perfect stage to perform on.
“Ah. Yes, sir,” Saki said. “I want to make good use of the strength I’ve built up until now.”
“Heh! Those rough fights and chases you see in detective dramas don’t actually happen all that much, you know. Well, that said, it’s true that it’s still dangerous work.”
“Yessir.”
“In that case, work on improving your ability to sense danger some more.” Asamiya punctuated this with a glare at Saki. Unlike the friendly eyes he’d directed towards Yuuto earlier, this was a sharp glare that seemed to pierce right through his target.
Saki gulped once before replying. “What exactly do you mean, sir? Was that young boy really that dangerous?”
“Yeah. Don’t be fooled by appearances. That kid was bad news, no mistake about it.” Asamiya rolled up his right sleeve. The sharp tone of his arm muscles stood out immediately, even through his somewhat thick arm hair.
And there was something else that stood out.
“Take a good look. My goosebumps still haven’t died down. That little punk let just a bit of his anger slip out, and this is what happened. You felt something too, didn’t you? A sudden chill?”
“O-oh, that. I... I thought that maybe the office’s heat had gone on the fritz or something.”
“You idiot!” Asamiya poked Saki in the forehead with a finger. “That’s why I said you need to work on your senses!”
The older officer shook his head, exasperated.
“Sure, I might be working here in Community Safety now, have been for awhile. But you’re talking to a man who spent twenty years in C.I. 4th Division, dealing with organized crime. I’ve had more than my share meetings with yakuza bosses, face-to-face. But that kid... he made even those big shots feel like small fry by comparison.”
“Th-that much...?” Saki couldn’t really bring himself to believe that.
Part of him held on to the idea that maybe Asamiya’s instincts were off.
But on the other hand, Asamiya was, in fact, a long-time veteran of the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s 4th Division. (Though, nowadays, the division had branched off into its own department, and the official name had been changed to the Organized Crime Control Bureau)
His group had specialized in dealing with criminal organizations, and his skill had been such that even yakuza patriarchs with subordinates numbering in the hundreds had taken careful notice of him.
If a man like that was being so firm in his assessment, Saki couldn’t just deny it outright.
Asamiya shuddered, remembering the earlier scene. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone with eyes like that. Just what sort of hell did that punk have to crawl through to get like that at so young an age?”
“Sorry, I know this is cutting into your valuable work time.” Yuuto put a pretty obvious emphasis on those last words, adding a sneer.
He didn’t actually feel even a bit sorry; he was just using the chance to rub in the fact that while his late mother had been lying in critical condition, his father had prioritized his work.
He was conscious of just how childish he was being right now, but in front of his father, he couldn’t stop himself from taking on this hostile attitude.
His father, by contrast, said no more than those few words and gestured towards the truck. “It’s not a problem. Get in. We’re going home.”
It was the same small, white truck as three years ago.
Just the thought of sitting in that small cab space alone with his father made Yuuto feel like he was going to suffocate.
“No, I’m good. I’ll walk home.”
“Just get in. There’s a bit we need to talk about.”
“Talk?”
This was rather unexpected. Yuuto had figured his father wasn’t interested in him — or really, in the concept of family at all.
“...Fine.” Yuuto nodded and got into the passenger seat.
His father got in, as well, and the truck set off.
Yuuto didn’t look in his father’s direction, instead looking out the window. “So, what is it? What’s the talk?”
“It’s about what’s going to happen next,” his father said. “What are you planning to do? Are you going to go back to school?”
“...Oh. Um.” Honestly, he hadn’t been thinking about that at all.
Back in Yggdrasil, his thoughts had been focused entirely on trying to get back home. What he would do after that had felt so far away, it had never really entered the picture.
“Entrance exam season is long past already,” his father said. “If you want to start classes right away, you’ll need to do it somewhere like a part-time night school.”
“......” Yuuto said nothing. Suddenly, reality had been thrown in his face.
He’d had a vague plan at some point in the back of his mind to start attending the same school Mitsuki went to. But now, really thinking about it, if he hadn’t been sent to Yggdrasil, he’d be in his second year of high school.
There was the problem of his lost years of education, the gap in his studies, and the difference in age. It was too late for someone like him to ever go back to leading a typical student life.
Once again, he felt the weight of the three years of time that had passed.
“Or will you start working instead?” his father asked.
“That might actually be a good idea.”
Attending school would mean having to be financially dependent on his father for as long as he was a student. He would prefer to avoid that.
If he was going to put becoming self-sufficient as his first priority, then getting a job and an income was the fastest way forward.
“But there aren’t going to be good jobs out there for someone who hasn’t even graduated from middle school.” His father’s words once again shoved reality into his face.
That was entirely correct, too; there was no room for Yuuto to argue back.
So he answered in an almost indifferent tone. “Well, it’ll work out somehow.”
“Society’s a lot harsher than you think it is.”
“I’m sure it is. But I’ll be all right.”
It was true that the circumstances surrounding him were, in a word, tough. It might also be true that he was seeing things a bit naively.
But Yuuto had been thrown headfirst into a primitive world where the strong crushed the weak, where he didn’t speak the language, and he had still survived.
With that experience backing him, he had a confidence and pride that told him he’d overcome any adversity.
“Still, what’s with this all of a sudden?” Yuuto added. “You sound almost like a parent. That’s out of character for you.”
“Well, I am technically your parent.”
“Hmph! Mom was my parent. So was a guy who took good care of me in the place I was in for three years, a leader I ended up calling ‘Dad.’ Those were my only two parents. Not you, the man who abandoned Mom.”
“...I see.”
The conversation ground to a halt.
The only sound was the engine noise reverberating through the cab of the truck.
They reached the house soon after that; it wasn’t that long of a trip.
As Yuuto got out of the truck, his father said he’d be heading back to work and left. Yuuto clicked his tongue as he glared at the truck driving away, and cursed, spitting out his words.
“At least come back with some kind of excuse, you shitty excuse for a dad.”
Once Yuuto got home, he called Mitsuki to let her know he was back from the police station, since she would be worried about him. She told him to come meet her at a nearby chain restaurant.
This was perfect for Yuuto, who still hadn’t had lunch yet, so he headed straight over. However...
Mitsuki, you little rat, you tricked me! Yuuto aimed a rueful glare at his childhood friend, sitting next to him with her hands clasped together in an apologetic gesture.
With her was another girl, now sitting across from Yuuto.
“Heh! Oho! Hmm...” The girl was eyeing him up and down like she was appraising some product. He couldn’t help but feel incredibly uncomfortable.
The girl’s name was Ruri Takao, and Mitsuki had introduced her as her best friend since middle school.
As it happened, she had spotted Yuuto and Mitsuki together in the department store, and while Yuuto was getting hauled off to the police station, she had hauled Mitsuki off to this restaurant and had been giving her the third degree in the meantime.
Apparently Yuuto had called during the middle of that. For Ruri, that had surely been the perfect chance to get Yuuto to walk right into her trap.
Thinking back on it now, Mitsuki had been acting a little strange during the call. He’d noticed that and come rushing over here out of concern, only for it to backfire like this.
“So this is the boyfriend I’ve heard so much about,” Ruri announced.
“W-wait, we’re not going out yet, so—”
“Ohh, not yet, right. Not yet!” Ruri repeated herself with an evil, evil grin.
“Uuuuuugh...” Mitsuki whimpered, her face bright red, and shrunk into herself.
She was already overwhelmed at this point, so Yuuto couldn’t count on any help from her in this situation.
Ruri smirked. “Hee hee hee, I’ve heard allllll sorts of things about you from Mitsuki.”
“Oh, is that so.” Yuuto’s reply was completely deadpan.
Inside, he was curious about just what sort of things had been said about him, but his instincts forged on the battlefield were ringing out like alarm bells, telling him that he shouldn’t react to her.
“So, how do you feel about Mitsuki?” Ruri demanded, pressing forward anyway.
The question was so sudden and straightforward that even Yuuto flinched.
“How...? That’s, um...” Yuuto stumbled on his words, and stole a glance at Mitsuki.
Having his first declaration of his true feelings to her be right in front of a third party was out of the question, even as a joke.
“Geez, Ruri-chan!” Mitsuki shouted. “This is your first time even meeting him! What are you saying, all of a sudden?!”
Mitsuki’s face was as red as an apple, and her eyes were welling up with tears. Still, Ruri paid her no mind.
“Well you know, after making you wait for three whole years, it’s only right to make him come out and say these ow-ow-ow-ow!”
All of a sudden, Ruri was interrupted by a blonde-haired woman who came up from behind her and pulled sharply at her ears.
“Sorry about that. This one was pretty impolite, wasn’t she?” While still pulling on Ruri’s ears, the blonde woman smiled sweetly.
She looked to be around twenty, give or take. She was a slender beauty who looked just like an older version of Ruri.
“Ow, ow! Saya! I’m sorry! I was wrong, okay? Just let me go!”
“I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to.”
“Uuugh... Mitsuki, Suoh-san, I’m sorry,” Ruri groaned.
“Good.” Saya nodded with satisfaction and finally released Ruri’s ears, then sat down next to her.
Ruri put her hands over her ears, muttering, “Ughh, it hurts...” to herself with tears in her eyes. Even for a family member, that treatment was pretty merciless.
The beautiful older girl shrugged, then gestured to Ruri as she introduced herself. “Oh, I’m Saya Takao, her cousin. Pleased to meet you.”
“Um, you are... the person who’s experienced with archaeology, right?” Yuuto asked. “I’m Yuuto Suoh. Please allow me to thank you for your assistance last time. It was very helpful.”
“Hey, you certainly know your manners. I wish my little cousins could learn a thing or two from you.”
“Ahaha...” Unsure how to respond to that, Yuuto could only let out a dry laugh.
“I’ve always wanted to have a chance to talk with you directly. It’s spring break right now, so I was back home, and it turns out you returned at the same time, you know? I thought this was a good chance. That’s not a problem, I hope?”
“No, it’s actually the opposite,” Yuuto said. “I’d wanted the chance to talk with you, as well.”
“Hm. You have a really composed air about you for someone your age. And even though you’re calm, there is a certain ‘weight’ I feel from you. I suppose that is the sort of bearing that should be expected from someone who commands tens of thousands of people below him.” With a hand to her chin, Saya nodded as if confirming her thoughts.
Yuuto couldn’t help but shrug and give a wry chuckle. “I think what you’re feeling is something more like the placebo effect, actually.”
“Hmm, really? Well, we’ll just leave it at that, then. Oh. I’m paying for the meal, so just order whatever you like. Don’t hold back; I may not look like it, but it so happens that I make a good living.”
“Ah, okay.” At Saya’s urging, Yuuto opened the menu.
Ruri had come at him so fast earlier that he still hadn’t had time to place an order.
He wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of people paying for him, but with an adult and a lady making that statement, as the younger person, it would actually be rude of him to decline. So Yuuto decided to take advantage of her kindness in this case.
As he went ahead and ordered something random off of the lunch menu, Saya popped open her laptop.
“Now then, will you tell me your story?” she asked right away. It looked like she was completely prepared for a long talk.
Yuuto nodded. “I’m okay with talking about it, but I’m not sure where to start.”
“It’s fine if you start from the very beginning.”
“All right, then...”
With some oolong tea from the restaurant drink bar on hand to quench his throat, Yuuto started retelling everything from the beginning.
“Right after I got called there, I really didn’t have a clue what was going on. But I still remember clearly the cold feeling of Sigrún’s sword blade against my throat. My very blood ran cold, as they say.”
“Mm-hm, yes. As expected, this is much more real coming directly from you rather than secondhand.” Saya made small remarks as she listened attentively, all while tapping away at her laptop’s keyboard. Naturally, she was a touch-typist.
Yuuto did have a desktop computer at his own house, but for someone like him who almost exclusively used a smartphone, seeing someone type so quickly and cleanly up close was honestly impressive.
“Hmm... the divergence from mythology is on the whole pretty much as I predicted in advance, but the most vital part being the most contradictory is what really concerns me.” Saya’s fingers stopped typing and began tapping rhythmically on the table.
“The most vital part, you say?” Yuuto asked.
“Yes, when you were summoned to that world... that is, in terms of Norse mythology, the time when Fenrir was captured and bound by Gleipnir.”
“Okay...?”
“In the myths, the gods of Ásgarðr decide to imprison Fenrir, who is prophesied to bring disaster upon them. They use an iron chain called Læðingr, but it gets ripped apart. After that, they prepare a chain that’s twice as strong as Læðingr, called Drómi, but Fenrir easily rips that one apart too.”
“Sounds like an uncontrollable, rampaging beast.”
“We happen to be talking about you, though,” Saya said. “Right, mister ‘Infamous Wolf Hróðvitnir?’”
Saya giggled a bit at this, but for Yuuto, it didn’t really feel like this story had any relation to him at all, so the joke fell flat.
She went on. “So, what this means is we can interpret that as describing that several attempts were made to perform a summoning ritual, but you weren’t successfully summoned before.”
“Hmm, I see.”
“And so the gods, having reached the end of their patience, fashioned a magical cord made entirely from ingredients that don’t exist in this world, and they called it Gleipnir. More specifically, it was prepared under the direction of the god Frey’s servant, Skírnir.”
“Wait, Skírnir is...!” Yuuto’s eyes went wide upon hearing that familiar word.
“That’s right, it’s the rune wielded by your adjutant Felicia. There are some who theorize that Skírnir was a spy working for Surt, as well, but perhaps we can just say that things weren’t too close or too far off.”
“Hey, she’s not any kind of spy.” Yuuto’s response was a bit sullen. “She’s been at my side this whole time.”
Felicia had been completely kind and loyal to him ever since the time when he’d been helpless and useless, mocked by everyone else as “Sköll, Devourer of Blessings.” Naturally, he didn’t take kindly to any talk of her being some kind of spy.
“Well, on that point, we could bring the Hoof Clan’s Yngvi into the equation and come up with some temporary theories,” Saya said, “but that would just take us off track, so let’s leave it aside for now.”
“Hearing you say that just makes me think about it even more, though.”
“For now, just let me continue talking about Gleipnir.”
“...Right.” Reluctantly, Yuuto nodded.
“So with Gleipnir, the Norse gods finally manage to seal up Fenrir. And you were also bound successfully to the world of Yggdrasil. It’s fine up until this point, but at least from what I’ve heard from you, one big element that’s absolutely necessary to the story is missing.”
“An element that’s absolutely necessary?”
“Exactly. The war god, Tyr. There’s an episode in the myths in which, in order to capture Fenrir, he ends up sacrificing his own right arm. But in your story, there’s nothing to match up to that.”
“Could Dad... I mean, could the previous patriarch Fárbauti be that? His second-in-command, or in other words his right-hand-man, Loptr, was...”
“Mm-hm, I thought of that possibility too, but it just doesn’t seem to fit. Tyr is the highest-tier god in the Norse pantheon, okay? And, sorry if this is rude, but your patriarch predecessor was, at best, the chief of a small regional clan, right?”
“Highest-tier? Wasn’t Odin the chief god of Norse mythology?” Yuuto wasn’t incredibly familiar with the mythology, but even he knew that much.
“Yes, he is in the version of Norse mythology that’s passed on today. But in the earliest period of the mythology’s history, Tyr was the god of law, prosperity, and peace, the highest god. After that, there was a long era of fierce warfare, and in the middle of that, a majority of the faith switched over to Odin, the god of warfare. Tyr was reduced to a lesser war god, a god of soldiers.”
“The world of the gods sounds like a tough society,” Yuuto said, grimacing.
And because he’d mentioned the name earlier, he couldn’t help but recall it again: Loptr was originally supposed to have captured the title and position of Eighth Patriarch of the Wolf Clan. But the one who’d forced him out from that destiny was Yuuto.
“You’re right,” said Saya. “In the end, the gods are something humans made up, so you could say they suffer the same faults and consequences as in the human world.”
The conversation went on for a long while.
Yuuto finally finished his narrative.
“...And so, when this Sigyn woman used the seiðr Fimbulvetr on me, before you knew it, I was in Mitsuki’s room, and that’s how I ended up here. Well, that’s about all of it.”
Having finished speaking, Yuuto took a breath and exhaled deeply.
He’d tried to tell his story in a summarized fashion, but even so, it had been more than four hours since he’d started. He was understandably worn out.
“Hm, thank you,” Saya said. “That was all so fascinating.”
Finishing her typing with one loud clack! of her ring finger on the enter key, Saya reached her arms up and stretched.
“No, thank you for taking the time to listen to me.” Yuuto bowed his head to her deeply.
“I went to another world and was living as something like a king” was a completely ridiculous story, and she had taken him seriously, listening to the whole thing and taking notes the whole time. He was incredibly grateful to her.
“You’ve got nothing to thank me for,” Saya said. “In the end, even after hearing all of that, I still can’t pinpoint where or when you were.” She put a hand to her mouth, frowning thoughtfully.
“If you couldn’t figure it out, then...” Yuuto sighed, feeling a little depressed at that conclusion.
He really wanted to know exactly where he had been and at what point in time. Of course, that was because he couldn’t stop thinking about what would come afterwards in history.
He wanted everyone in the Wolf Clan to be able to live peaceful lives.
If that were possible, that is... but if they were following the thread of Norse mythology, then in the near future, a great war equivalent to the end of the world was going to happen. Anxiety kept growing within him.
“Going by their race, language, spiritual beliefs, clothing and the like, I would have assumed it was somewhere in Eastern Europe area, but that region’s geography is clearly different.” Saya started typing again.
She tilted her laptop screen so that Yuuto and the others could see it. She had a map of the European continent on display.
Yuuto had stared at maps like this one many a time on his smartphone, but seeing it on a larger computer monitor made it a lot easier to read.
Yuuto started tracing the 53 degrees latitude line from left to right. “That’s right. There should be three very large mountain ranges, but...”
“But there’s definitely not a single one in the area, right?”
“Right...” The area he traced his finger over was a wide patch of green.
There was none of the dark brown color used to indicate high mountain ranges.
“If we go as far east as China, then the race of the people doesn’t match up, and if we go to North America, there are mountains, but the ocean is directly west of them,” he pondered. “In the world I was in, west of the mountain ranges was a large land area with regions like Álfheimr and Vanaheimr.”
“As much a mystery as ever,” Saya agreed. “This is a bit of a basic question, but do you think you miscalculated when you were figuring out your latitude?”
“I suspected that as well, and researched it over and over.”
“Hmm...”
“I mean, if we go to the 45 degrees latitude line, there are the Alps, maybe.”
“No, from what you told me, the topography of the Alps is clearly different... hm?” Saya froze up.
Suddenly, she stared at him with her eyes narrowed, so intensely that Yuuto took a step back, but it was like she wasn’t even seeing him.
“Alps... ‘álfkipfer’... so that’s it. So that’s what it is. It’s all come together. If we think of it not as 9,000 years but as 900 years, then that way ends up fitting more naturally with the era.”
Saya was mumbling to herself and seemingly agreeing with her own hypotheses, but Yuuto and the others were completely left out.
“Um, Saya-san?” Yuuto asked.
“Ah!” Saya gasped and whirled around to her laptop, and began to type at a feverish speed as if possessed. And just as quickly she slammed the laptop shut and stood up.
“There’s something I have to go check out, so I’ll be going! Here’s the payment! Bye!”
She pulled out a bill from her wallet and slammed it onto the table, then walked past the register and out of the restaurant.
It was exactly the kind of erratic, “marching to the beat of my own drum” type of behavior one might expect of a genius.
“What?! Last night the Panther Clan launched a nighttime assault on the Wolf Clan... and broke them?!” Steinþórr exclaimed.
The Lightning Clan patriarch couldn’t help but repeat back in shock the news his trusted man Þjálfi had just brought to him, for it was as surprising as a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky.
Steinþórr was a man of around twenty years, with an appearance and behavior that was still a bit immature and rough around the edges, but in spite of that, this Einherjar was one of only two people in all of Yggdrasil to have two runes. And in all the land, there were none who could compare to his strength and valor on the battlefield. He was feared as a warrior-general who could take on an army himself.
But even this fearsome warrior known as Dólgþrasir, the Battle-Hungry Tiger, had been easily turned aside by a certain man, and even with the Panther Clan fighting alongside him, that man had just barely rebuffed his assault again.
“For Suoh-Yuuto to really be defeated so easily... are you sure this isn’t some kind of lie?!”
In the previous battle, both clans worked together to attack the Wolf Clan, and even struck them when they least expected it, and still hadn’t been able to defeat them. It was hard to believe that the Wolf Clan which had withstood that would be defeated by the Panther Clan acting alone.
“Yes, I also wondered if it might be disinformation, but it seems there’s no mistaking it,” Þjálfi said.
“You’re kidding me... Suoh-Yuuto should have been wary of a nighttime assault. How were they still able to get him?”
Hveðrungr was a great general; that was true. He was the type who could strike at any small weakness the second you revealed it, and had an obsession with victory that Steinþórr lacked, along with a logical mind and no scruples. He was a man you couldn’t let down your guard around.
Even still, Steinþórr couldn’t understand it.
He knew in his head that both victory and defeat were a matter of course in war, that no commander could ever win one hundred percent of their battles, but...
jálfi said, “There is something the Panther Clan soldiers have been making a huge fuss about. It might be relevant.”
“What? Tell me.” Steinþórr impatiently gestured with his chin.
“Right. ‘Suoh-Yuuto is gone. Without their commander-in-chief, we have nothing more to fear from the Wolf Clan.’”
“Gone?” Steinþórr repeated. “What does that mean?”
“Sadly, I do not know.”
“Damned mask-wearing brother of mine! He’d better not have pulled an assassination.” Steinþórr spat out the words, and cracked his knuckles.
Certainly, with Yuuto gone, it would be understandable to think that the Wolf Clan might suffer a huge defeat afterward. However, even though things like this were known to occur in war, this was such an incredible let-down.
“So then, what shall we do from here on?” Þjálfi asked.
“We’ll join in the attack on Gashina,” Steinþórr growled. “We can’t just let the Panther Clan do it themselves, after all.”
Fort Gashina had originally been under control of the Lightning Clan. They couldn’t go back to their clan capital Bilskírnir without at least recapturing that.
Yuuto often referred to Steinþórr as simply “that idiot,” but in reality, he wasn’t just a fool. When it came to these matters of war, Steinþórr understood the essentials.
Steinþórr scratched his head, then sighed and muttered to himself half-heartedly.
“But, to be honest, I don’t actually feel excited about this anymore.”
Meanwhile, in the commander’s room in Fort Gashina, Olof was racking his brains over what to do next. He had been appointed to succeed the absent Yuuto as commander-in-chief of the Wolf Clan Army, but this situation had him at a loss.
The huge loss from their last battle had left them with a great number of casualties, and troop morale was hopelessly low.
In addition to that, the structure of Fort Gashina itself had been damaged in places during an earlier battle with the Lightning Clan for control of the fortress, and its ability to function as a defensive stronghold was dramatically reduced.
The food supplies in storage here had also all been taken by the enemy back then.
The Wolf Clan army had been transporting food along with their formation, but even most of that had been seized by the enemy in the chaos after their defeat on the field. What was left couldn’t be expected to last long.
They definitely couldn’t wage a long siege defense like this.
Of course, the Lightning Clan had Steinþórr and his rune Mjǫlnir, the Shatterer, and the Panther Clan had the trebuchet. With destructive weapons like that in the enemy armies, Olof didn’t imagine he could hold out for long against them, either way.
“Should we abandon Gashina and flee, then?” Olof muttered to himself with a troubled expression.
The Panther Clan had already set up formations in the nearby narrow mountain pass, but there was still a long detour route around the mountains, which the Wolf Clan had used during their “lure the tiger off its mountain lair” strategy. The Panther Clan hadn’t yet finished surrounding them with troops in that direction, so they could try to escape using that route.
However...
“Could we even flee successfully?” Olof added with a groan.
The Wolf Clan’s forces were mainly comprised of infantry. Meanwhile, the Panther Clan forces were made up entirely of cavalry. The difference in their armies’ mobility was enormous.
In other words, even if they made a break for it, the enemy could catch up to them.
It was well known that most kills in a battle came from after an initial exchange had been decided, by launching follow-up attacks against the loser of the contest as they pull back. By this same token, an army in war suffered its greatest casualties when attacked while fleeing.
“Would it be better if we commit to making our stand here instead, and dealing more losses to our enemies?” Olof wondered aloud. “Would that be the better thing to do for the Wolf Clan in the long run?”
However, that brought him back to the fact that the Wolf Clan army was full of injured right now, and emptied of morale, in no shape to fight effectively.
Either choice seemed to promise only a hellish outcome, and Olof had been trapped going in circles on this for an hour now.
But time was limited; he needed to make this decision and get it over with.
Just then, a voice called out to him.
“Big Brother Olof, do you have a minute?”
“Oh, Sigrún,” he said. “What is it?”
With an expression and tone of voice that were both clearly completely exhausted, Olof motioned to invite the silver-haired girl into the room.
Sigrún stood before him and bowed once. As she raised her head, he saw her lips were pressed tightly together in an expression of grim resolve.
“...Hm.” Olof sensed that this was no ordinary matter, and straightened himself in his chair, indicating that she continue.
Sigrún took a small breath. “Big Brother, the Múspell Unit and I will remain in this fortress and keep the enemy in check here. Please use that opening to lead the main force of the army out of here and escape.”
“Wha—?!” Olof raised his voice, but her sudden request had left him at a loss for words.
Sigrún’s Múspell Special Forces, or Múspell Unit, was a group comprised of the clan’s most elite fighters, but it only numbered around three hundred soldiers. There were trainees as well, but even including them, it was still fewer than five hundred in total.
Going up against both the Lightning and Panther Clan armies with just that number wasn’t just unreasonable; it was thoughtlessly absurd.
In other words, this was...
“You... you mean to sacrifice yourself, then.”
“My job is to fight at the head of the pack, to lead the fight in order to protect everyone,” Sigrún said. “That’s the duty handed down to each Mánagarmr through the generations. It’s going to be all right. Whatever it takes, I’ll definitely secure you enough time for everyone to get away.”
“Urrgh...” Olof growled, and put a hand to his mouth in thought.
It did certainly seem like that was the only good move.
In that scenario, while the main body of the Wolf Clan army fled, the Panther Clan forces definitely would not simply charge past Fort Gashina in order to chase them.
If they were to ignore and pass by a fortress with their enemies still inside, they would be making themselves potential targets of a perfect pincer attack from the back and front. From what Olof had observed so far, Hveðrungr was not the sort of foolish commander who would do that.
Put another way, this meant that until the Panther Clan finished capturing Fort Gashina, the Wolf Clan’s main force could flee without taking any attacks from them.
And if facing the enemy on the front line to protect everyone was the duty of the Mánagarmr, then it was likewise the commander-in-chief’s duty to make necessary sacrifices to protect the greater army — to be the one to make those decisions and give the order.
Olof took a long, long breath, then let it out slowly. Standing up, he walked briskly over to Sigrún’s side and clapped a hand onto her left shoulder.
“I’m sorry, and thank you. Then, we’ll leave the rest... to me!”
Thwack! Suddenly, Olof struck Sigrún with his fist.
Sigrún reacted to the attack in an instant by reflexively blocking it with her right arm. “What are you...?! Augh!!”
Her injury felt the force of the impact, and her face twisted in pain.
Olof did not overlook that opening that gave him. Rather, his attack had been calculated to create it.
“How did you even plan on fighting with your sword arm in that shape?” he demanded. “Hah!”
“Gugh—!” Sigrún let out a wordless grunt as Olof’s follow-up struck her right in the solar plexus. He had hit her with every ounce of his strength behind the attack.
“Olof... you...” Even Sigrún couldn’t remain standing after that. She fell to her knees, then collapsed onto the floor, where she lay unmoving.
Apparently she had lost consciousness.
“Heh. Thanks to you, I’ve made up my mind.” Olof said, looking down at her. “This defeat is my responsibility to bear. How could I run off shamelessly and leave my sworn little sister to clean up my mess?”
As he spoke, his expression bore no more signs of doubt; it was the face of a man who had found his resolve.
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