Thunder's Reckoning
"—Not happening, you dumbass."
The reply was short, which only made it more resolute. Enlir looked genuinely surprised.
"What? Why not? If you keep this up, you're one hundred percent dead."
Why? Because it's a stupid self-own, you piece of shit. I swallowed the bitter laugh trying to escape. Entering a rampage state was easy. If I wanted to, I could do it right now. The irritation boiling up from my gut had been hard to suppress for a while. Then again, it was asking too much to stay calm against the bastards who'd stolen happiness from Franc's family.
But there's no guarantee things will go well just because I go berserk.
When I'd crushed Yerna, I'd had plenty of mana. The dark and yin mana filling the Ghost City had been mine to command. But now? This trading company didn't exactly brim with natural mana. More importantly, even if I went berserk and took him down, that wouldn't be the end of it. With this much commotion, guards were probably swarming outside the walls. Could I keep my sanity against them too?
A pitch-black bastard was smashing up the company's trading post. Of course the guards would try to stop him. And that pitch-black bastard—me—would treat every last one of them as an enemy and reenact the "Professor Joffrey Dismemberment Show" from the Ghost City. Franc or the others might be able to endure it through tears of blood, but I had no confidence I could hold back against complete strangers swinging first.
Going berserk whenever I felt like it, like some game or cartoon character, was idiotic. It looked cool on a screen or page, but reality didn't work that way. Mana shortage and an uncontrollable rampage. Those were the reasons I couldn't afford to lose myself.
"Because you're not as impressive as you think, you retard."
—And that was also the "winning chance" I'd calculated.
"……What did you say?"
"Your hammer work is trash. You swing a fancy weapon and still take forever to put down someone weaker than you, you lightning-slinging bastard."
I didn't know how Enlir's weapon was made or what principle it ran on. But it was undeniably powerful. If something that spat out high-tier magic output nonstop—something Veronica needed a long chant to match—was considered weak, then ninety-nine percent of the world's warriors and mages were worthless. Mjolnir was insanely strong.
—Mjolnir, that is.
"I can tell just from watching your fighting style. You've trained from the start to use that hammer. Whether before or after you got Mjolnir, you built your entire technique around it."
Fighting barehanded was to wield Mjolnir. Coating his hands in aura was to grip its handle. The runes at his waist were to control its lightning. From head to toe, everything screamed he'd raised himself around a Thor knockoff final build. Having played games on twenty-first-century Earth where I always optimized skill trees and gear for max level, I recognized the pattern immediately.
"And yet you're still not using it properly."
Something that broken, that overwhelmingly strong, and he still couldn't wield it right. That was why the hammer's form kept flickering between lightning and solid shape, why its inner power looked incomplete. He was pulling maybe five to ten percent of its full strength. And the reason was simple.
"—Because you don't have enough mana."
Pathetically, that was the truth. The same logic that had kept me from being certain of victory even if I went berserk. A simple fact. Every bizarre technique in this world ran on mana as its energy source! Enlir lacked the mana to properly manifest Mjolnir and anchor it to the present world. Even though he possessed more mana than I did.
……If we're talking pure strength, Yerna was stronger.
I couldn't say it out loud, but the evidence was there. Yerna had prepared thoroughly to repel pursuers. As a professor, she'd been clever. She'd been smashed to pieces by me, but that was something even I hadn't predicted. She'd secured all the light mana in the Ghost City and sent clones ahead so she wouldn't be caught off guard by a weapon as powerful as Mjolnir. By her design, one Yerna clone equaled two or three Enlirs. She'd clearly believed she could win even if multiple opponents like him came after her.
"And another thing, you bastard. From the very beginning."
I flashed Enlir a mocking grin.
"If I were your superior, would I have assigned a capable guy like you to guard some drug-dealing merchant?"
"……You really want to die. Fine. I'll grant that wish."
Good. The aggro had landed perfectly. Even while feeling a chill, I twisted my lips upward. Since he'd seen my face, I had to draw his attention. A guy like him wouldn't retreat when a pathetic opponent was right in front of him, and I couldn't afford to let him escape.
"Your face looks like shit. I must've hit a nerve. Thor's supposed to be the second-strongest god after Odin, yet you can't even catch one guy while holding his weapon? You're broadcasting how much of a loser you are."
"……Is that something a man who's about to die at my hands should be saying?"
"Yeah~ I'm saying it because I'm not dead yet~. You were whining about being bored and lonely, but you can't even talk back to your boss and you're stuck babysitting a drug dealer. How badly does your company treat you like an idiot—"
While hurling provocations, I forgot to gather mana and let out a small laugh.
"—Ah, I see. So that's why you kept whining for me to imitate you."
"………………."
Enlir's furious expression vanished completely.
"You got properly fucked over by your superior, didn't you? That's why you followed orders even when they gave you boring work, and why you told me to handle Odin's mana—so you could eventually beat that guy or girl someday."
I tapped my head with my index finger while watching the now-expressionless Enlir.
"—Because your direct superior uses Odin's power. Am I right?"
—KRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
It happened right after I provoked him. Lightning descended from the sky, connecting Enlir to the heavens and forming a pillar of thunder. The clock tower's hands spun at an unnatural speed. Enlir's body rose as if pulled by magnetism, soaring into the sky.
"……I understand. I'll do it this way."
Enlir's voice echoed through the company's garden. Though quiet, it boomed like the lightning pillar itself was speaking.
"I'll leave you as a half-dead corpse, then bring your women here and tear them apart in front of you. We'll see if you can still say the same things then."
"Dumbass. You got mad because you lost the verbal fight, didn't you?"
I snorted, but the cold sweat running down my back kept warning me how dangerous the situation had become. Still, there was no choice. The provocation had been necessary. No battle-hungry bastard stayed calm when his skill was belittled. If you mocked a competitive fighter by calling him trash, he'd definitely go all out to prove himself. I waited for that one hundred percent.
—More precisely, the charging time it would take for that bastard to draw out one hundred percent of his power.
I was inferior to Enlir in mana quantity. In experience, he was an aura user while I was just a rookie warrior. As for weapons, even comparing them would be an insult to the rainbow-bridge-crossing, ball-loving goddess. If I don't have it, I'll have to steal it. The only winning chance was to gather whatever natural mana or power I could and make it work. That required time to charge, and I'd bought that time by provoking the bloodthirsty twenty-something brat.
Pathetic for my age? So what. It was only a seven- or eight-year difference. In the working world, you spoke with skill, not age.
"Burning Hand. Freezing Hand—"
I recited the spells with the mana I'd been gathering. I deliberately spoke the incantations aloud. If I failed, our wives' husband was about to become roast meat. The voltage of the lightning pillar kept rising endlessly. He'd said he'd keep me alive to torture me, and the heat was intense enough to melt the clock tower. Getting hit would kill me. There wouldn't even be bone fragments left. So failure wasn't an option. I squeezed out the greatest concentration of my life and muttered.
"—Enchant."
The heated mithril spearhead glowed even brighter. The end of the shaft, accepting my mana, froze solid. Rotation. The key to this technique was separating the mana trying to combine, spinning it, and deploying it. With hands that were finally starting to regain feeling, I spun the spear like a windmill, sweat pouring down my face.
Whoosh—. Whoosh—. Whoosh—! Whoosh—!! Faster. Even faster. As the rotation intensified, the spear began spinning faster than I was turning it.
"Summon Cloud."
Fire mana and ice mana chased after it. Steam erupted from the spinning spear like a storm. This was a first attempt. Using the spear's rotation to compensate for the insufficient mana separation power of Summon Cloud. A challenge to turn the mithril spear into a mana centrifuge. To put it bluntly, this was insane. Of course it was. I was trying to recreate the centrifugal separation of a storm with my own strength. It couldn't not be crazy. Adding my own power to a spear that was already spinning on its own required ridiculous technique and strength. But there was a possibility. Veronica's gravity magic had separated the two manas. The giant had withstood that gravity magic, and I'd been able to trade blows with that giant. In inequality terms: gravity magic = giant's strength = my strength. I added more spin while chasing the spear's movement with my hands.
KRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR—!!!
KUOOOOOOOOOOOO—!!!
We faced each other, calling down lightning and storm. A battle on the scale of a natural disaster. Just like the fights between Mithril-class adventurers I'd witnessed before.
—And then the moment came. When the spear's acceleration reached its peak, I felt a resistance like I was flipping the storm itself and slammed the shaft into the ground.
Absolute Celestial Domain.
As I recited the spell named by Odin's ghost, the eye of the storm unfolded. I stood within it, spear planted in the ground, waiting for the enemy's attack. A silhouette of limbs rose from the lightning pillar. The black shadow within the blue column possessed a dignity worthy of being called a god. With a roar that sounded like thunder given voice, he shouted.
"—Thunder God's Crushing Hammer (Þunras Mjöllnir)!!!!!!"
In mythology, Mjolnir was a throwing axe. Therefore, Enlir's ultimate technique was the same hammer throw. If I were being arrogant, I'd say I'd predicted even that. But its majesty far exceeded my imagination. The lightning hammer flew like a meteor, trailing thunder, and collided with the storm wrapping around my radius. It collided—and stopped.
"—You blocked it?!"
Enlir, transformed into an incarnation of lightning, screamed in shock. What was there to be surprised about? Gods wielded power like natural disasters, but a storm was a natural disaster. Mjolnir, filled only with Enlir's mana, clashed with magic that summoned and controlled natural disasters. The lightning cloaking the hammer was scraped away by the storm like stone against sandpaper. Current flowed through the storm clouds circling me. Not a problem at all. If anything, I was grateful. The lightning trapped in the storm would only add power to my attack.
—KABOOOOOM!!!
Mjolnir, pushed back by the storm, was sent flying. If it had been the real thing, my upper body would've gone with it. But what wasn't there wasn't there, and reality was reality. At the end of the clash, the fake Thunder God's hammer was defeated by the storm I commanded.
"Shattering Hammer, connect."
I gathered the lightning storm onto the spearhead. Even in his inhuman state, Enlir called Mjolnir with desperate humanity. Watching that urgency, I felt no impatience. The cumulonimbus gathered on the spearhead became a golden hammer at my spear's tip. A true Gordian Hammer. Gripping the hammer imbued with transcendent power in one hand, I roared as if hurling the storm itself.
"Bring me Thor—!!!!!!"
I kicked off the wind and leaped. Rising higher than the melting, collapsing clock tower, I gathered every last bit of remaining strength and brought the golden hammer down. A momentary clash! Then the air exploded and sound vanished. Two fake Mjolnirs collided, scattering reactor-like lightning. One was an imitation of the genuine article. The other was a rootless otherworlder's knockoff. But as an archaeologist, it was regrettable—past glory didn't determine present value.
—CRACKKKKKK!!!!!
The lightning hammer, unable to reclaim even a fraction of its true power, scattered and lost its form before the new golden hammer. The divine hammer shattered, the armor of lightning dispersed, and finally the hammer reached unprotected human flesh.
"KRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR—!!"
KUGUGUGUGUGU……!!
Lightning erupted from Enlir's body as it pushed away the scattered wind. It spewed the same lightning he'd produced from his eyes, mouth, and ears.
"You, youuuuu……!! You think you can do this to me—to us—and still survive!!!!"
In his horrific state, lightning pouring from all seven orifices, Enlir grabbed my spear shaft.
"I am the 7th seat of Humanum Dei, Enlir!! The successor to the Thunder God Thor, destined for the Divine Throne in the heavens!! Do you think someone like me—the next generation's god—will die in this trivial trading company's grass?!"
"Whether god or human, dying is surprisingly empty."
I poured strength into the hammer with the intent to shatter the mantle itself.
"—If Odin's in hell, tell him this!! Bless my wives' lives instead!!"
"Stop, stoooooop—!!"
Burning the self-proclaimed god's scream, I shouted.
"Mjolnir, Thunder—!!!!"
—CRACK!!
KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNG—!!!
Enlir's body, protected by lightning, succumbed to lightning. Like sugar sculpture weathering in fast-forward, his human form burned away. The golden hammer struck the empty space where he'd been, leaving no trace. The hammer's remaining force churned the garden's foundation, burned it, caused an earthquake-like tremor, and thrust up rocks. And so, I realized.
"—Ah."
This storm. Once released, it couldn't be controlled.
—FWOOSH!!!!
The compressed storm's aftermath lifted my body. With far greater propulsion than expected, I was launched toward the half-destroyed company wall, slammed into it, and tumbled while sending wooden planks flying.
"Shit."
—THUD!!
The spear that had followed me embedded itself beside my head as if mocking me. Damn spear bastard. I almost pissed myself. Just because your master handled you roughly, you're acting like this? I lay spread-eagled and tilted my head back.
……This isn't the time to be lying around.
I had to go help our wives. Jade probably wasn't as strong as his guard Enlir, but you never knew. What if the wives got hurt while I was lying here? But perhaps because I'd squeezed out every last bit of strength after taking near-fatal damage, my body refused to move no matter how much I tried. As I clung to my hazy consciousness, feeling like my brain had been pickled in formalin before death, leaving only awareness—
"Over here!! A suspicious person flew over here!!"
"Arrest him!! We need to find out what all this commotion is about!!"
As if telling me to go to hell, heavily armed dwarf guards charged into the room where I'd been buried.
"G-Attack!! Something moved over there!!"
"S-Subdue him!!"
—Stab stab stab stab!!
Watching the guards stab at a rat that couldn't even run and hide, I went limp. Well, they'd been deployed to a place where lightning and storm raged. They probably realized it was beyond their level. That was why their eyes were bloodshot, ready to thrust their spears at anything that moved in their vision. Staring at the moonlit night through the completely blown-out ceiling, I repented.
……Lord Odin. You're not doing this because I killed your friend's successor, are you?
The timing was too perfect for it to be "he's already dead so he can't do anything."
"It was a rat, you fucking—"
"H-Here!! Someone's buried under this rubble!!!!"
"K-Kill him!! No, subdue him!!"
Save me, you bastards.