Chapter 13
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 13: Asgard
Meanwhile, at the time Nidhogg was healing Baek Yeon.
Far away from him, a multitude of people were moving busily inside a Gate.
Centering around a massive palace situated in the middle of the Gate, all the people engaged in construction work such as leveling the ground and erecting pillars possessed beautiful appearances, and they wore the standard Valkyrie armor on their bodies that Nidhogg had handed to Shin Su-ah.
Their true identities were none other than gods and Valkyries who had crossed over from the perished world just like Nidhogg.
The one commanding the Valkyries engrossed in construction work was a goddess whose beauty could not be adequately described with merely the word "beautiful."
Golden hair flowing down like a waterfall and an appearance that seemed to be the very embodiment of the word "beauty" could not be hidden by the hard hat she wore on her head or a mere bit of dust.
Freyja.
The god possessing the most beautiful appearance among the Asgard gods.
She pointed out a Valkyrie who made a mistake during the work.
"Over there! The pillar is leaning! Stand it up straight vertically!"
"I'm sorry!"
"And over there! That's the place to plant the catalyst for magic, so be careful!"
"Yes!!"
Through the Valkyries moving in perfect order according to her command, a Valkyrie in charge of external reconnaissance hurriedly flew over.
"Lady Freyja!"
"Linnea? How did the reconnaissance outside the dimensional gate go?"
"Lady Freyja! That's not what's important right now!"
"That's why I'm asking what happened!"
The Valkyrie, who flew in front of Freyja deathly pale, looked around and whispered softly enough for only Freyja to hear.
"I, I, I discovered traces of Nidhogg...!"
"?!"
As the name Nidhogg came out of the Valkyrie's mouth, Freyja's face also turned pale.
Who is Nidhogg?
The one who attacks filled with hatred. The sneering slaughterer. The dragon of hell.
All these sinister epithets refer to Nidhogg.
Since his power surpasses the gods, and his fights with his rival, the eagle living at the highest peak, always shook the world, Freyja, although having never faced him directly, harbors fear toward Nidhogg.
"...We must inform Odin. Follow me."
"Understood!"
Freyja took the Valkyrie Linnea and entered the palace situated in the center of the Gate.
Unlike outside the palace, which was busy and noisy due to construction, inside the palace was quiet and empty.
Snap!
Freyja, walking down the palace hallway, snapped her fingers.
Then, the hard hat and the dust on her face disappeared, and she returned to her usual self, Freyja, the goddess of beauty and magic.
She opened the door to the deepest part of the palace and entered.
"Odin!"
That place was the mystical royal presence chamber.
A place where liquefied gold and various magic circles floated leisurely in the air.
At the end of such a presence chamber, a person sits on a throne.
Long black hair and an eyepatch covering one eye. And dark circles under her eyes.
A woman with an exhausted appearance sitting on the throne in a posture hugging both her knees.
Outwardly, she looks like a shut-in loser, but this woman is none other than Odin, the king of gods who rules all the gods of Asgard.
Odin answered with an indifferent expression devoid of any emotion, moving only her fingers to modify the magic circles floating in the air.
"Freyja. What is it? What about the Asgard reconstruction plan?"
"That's not what's important right now. Nidhogg. Traces of Nidhogg have been discovered!"
"......"
As soon as Nidhogg's name came out, Odin stopped in place as if someone pressed the pause button.
Soon, her body began to tremble violently.
"H, hiiiiieek..."
"Haa..."
"D, death! Death is coming...!"
Freyja, looking down pathetically at the having-a-seizure Odin, approached her closely, took medicine out of her embrace, and shoved it deep into her throat.
The effect of the medicine personally manufactured by Freyja, who is also the god of magic, appeared immediately.
The trembling of the seizing Odin stopped.
"I told you to take your medicine on time."
"Hiii... but..."
Odin, having calmed down after taking the medicine, lost the cool-headed appearance she had shown until a moment ago, and squirmed around, looking crumpled and unable to even make an excuse.
"Ragnarok has already passed. We survived the twilight of the gods."
"W, we just ran away to another world."
"Anyway, we survived."
"Eek! Y-yes..."
Freyja, having calmed Odin down, crossed her arms and asked with a high-handed attitude.
"So."
"Pardon?"
"So what are you going to do. Since traces of Nidhogg have been discovered, we can't just stay still like this, can we? You haven't forgotten what we did to Nidhogg, have you?"
"Well... after proposing a bet, we tricked him and ripped off a few of his scales."
Just as the two said.
Having already been bestowed the fate of destruction and death, the two, gathering materials to cheat fate and escape to another world, had even tricked Nidhogg and ripped off several of his scales.
Therefore, the two think Nidhogg must be deeply angry with them.
Furthermore, they were even thinking that perhaps Nidhogg being discovered here meant he came to kill them.
"W, we have to stop Nidhogg."
"To do that, we must hurry the reconstruction of Asgard."
"Y-yeah. If Asgard is completed, we can stop a guy like Nidhogg who's only strong."
The two were confident.
If it's the Nidhogg they know, they'd be able to block him with the tightly woven barrier of Asgard.
"In the meantime, we'll also need personnel to monitor Nidhogg."
"T, that's Freyja. You take care of it."
Since Freyja was originally in charge of operations and personnel, she nodded.
Having finished dividing the roles like that, when she turned her body, the Valkyrie Linnea was waiting below the throne with a blank face.
"Come to think of it, you were here. Odin had another seizure, so I forgot."
"Y-yes. I didn't see anything!"
"I won't say anything even if you did see, so don't be scared. More importantly, where and how did you discover traces of Nidhogg?"
At Freyja's question, the Valkyrie, tightly disciplined, confessed what she had seen.
Linnea, who had been investigating Earth while hiding her appearance according to the orders she received, first headed to the Association to check on the beings called Awakened here.
And while discovering and observing the humans gathered in a group from the morning there, she discovered Nidhogg hanging on the shoulder of a human.
"Wait. Nidhogg was hanging on a human's shoulder?"
"Pardon? Yes. That is correct."
It was utterly hard for her to understand that the arrogant dragon, Nidhogg, was hanging on a human's shoulder, but since a Valkyrie wouldn't tell a lie, she had her continue explaining for now.
The Valkyrie Linnea also thought she had seen wrong at first, but no matter how she looked at it, it was definitely the Nidhogg she knew.
Therefore, she hid her aura as much as possible and continued monitoring, and shortly after confirming that Nidhogg entered inside some Gate along with many people, she hurriedly returned to report this fact.
When Linnea's report ended, Freyja looked back at Odin and asked.
"Hmm... Odin. What Linnea just said. What do you think?"
"M, maybe. Could it be that some restriction was placed on Nidhogg when he crossed over here? H, he's terrible at magic, after all."
"That's a valid opinion."
"R, right?"
Just as Nidhogg was subjected to isolation measures inside a Gate upon crossing over to this world, they too were almost isolated immediately after crossing the Gate.
However, Odin and Freyja minimized the restrictions by interfering with the system with their outstanding magic skills, and thanks to that, they were able to eliminate other restrictions except for their power being somewhat restricted outside the Gate.
Odin's face, having thought of the hopeful assumption that a problem arose with Nidhogg's power, although not confirmed, relaxed considerably.
"I, if it's a weakened Nidhogg..."
"If we play our cards right, maybe we can suppress him and use him?"
"H, huhuhu..."
"Ahaha."
Seeing the two laughing wickedly, Linnea, who was standing after finishing her explanation, trembled violently.
The two, laughing wickedly for a long time while thinking about ripping materials from a suppressed Nidhogg, riding him instead of a broken magic carriage, and anyway using him here and there, stopped laughing simultaneously and looked at Linnea.
"Linnea?"
"Y, yes?!"
"I will entrust you with an important mission. Monitor Nidhogg and the human he is with until the Asgard construction work is somewhat on track."
"Me?"
"Then shall I go? Once the Asgard construction work is on track, we'll handle the rest, so you just have to do it for that duration, just for a very short while."
"U, understood."
"If you understood, what are you doing? Hurry up and go."
"I, I will be back!!"
After Linnea received the mission and left, and only the two remained inside the palace, Odin and Freyja, with sneaky faces, quietly—lest anyone hear—made a fuss planning what they would make Nidhogg do first once they caught him.
Without even knowing that his power is intact.
No one is talking about me, but my ears are itchy.
I scratched my itchy ear and asked Baek Yeon, who was sitting on her knees in front of me.
"So... what did you say? Want to say that again?"
"I was dismissed from the Guild."
A week since coming out of the Gate.
Baek Yeon, kicked out of the Sungcheon Guild, came to find our house.