Epilogue (1/2)

Heavy Object

All wars are determined by the colossal weapons known as Objects that can withstand nuclear weapons. But two stupid delinquent soldiers run around with explosives and rifles to overturn that established rule!! …And they seem rather carefree about it.

At an unknown time and in an unknown place, Waltraute confronted a certain G.o.d: Light G.o.d Baldr.

“Lady Frigg is wondering if you will return to Asgard.”

“Mother, hm? No, it would be best if she spent some time away from her son. After all, it only took seeing my death in a dream for her to call in every object, phenomenon, and life form and yell at them to never harm me.”

Invulnerable Baldr could deflect any attack, but that was why. It made him look like he had a mother complex or an overly-protective mother, so he could not exactly brag about the skill.

“And if I had resurrected myself there, I would have needed to use the boy as a stepping stone. The G.o.d of light will not ascend to heaven by abandoning a human seeking salvation. That’s the kind of G.o.d I want to be.”

“I suppose I should thank you for that. Normally, a human who stabbed his own throat would never come back to life.”

“I need to thank him. It was undoubtedly his actions that allowed me to remember my position as G.o.d of light.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?”

“Well, I’m sure Niflheim will become something else entirely now that is has been cleansed of human sin, but if Odin doesn’t change his ways, the underworld will quickly fill back up with human souls sent there for false sins. …Someone will need to monitor Hel’s progress. And that got me to thinking. The G.o.d of light…no, light itself is meant to illuminate the darkness. There was nothing for me to do in Asgard which is already full of light. I’ve found somewhere I want to s.h.i.+ne my light on, so I won’t return until I’ve saved Niflheim.”

Baldr smiled a little.

Waltraute maintained her usual sour look and did not smile, but her att.i.tude did soften.

“I still can’t believe that boy took his own life to pa.s.s between worlds and talk directly with a G.o.d.”

“I agree with you there. I need to give him a talking to later. Whatever the reason, I can’t let him glorify the act of suicide.”

Kamijou and the others gathered back on the Divine s.h.i.+p Skíðblaðnir.

The Hel ordeal was over and they had a way back home.

“Now that it’s over, it all feels too short.”

Heivia reluctantly looked back to the land.

“We never did run across a long-eared elf bathing, did we? Well, a lot happened and we almost died, but it wasn’t a bad vacation.”

“Agreed,” said Quenser, sounding exhausted. “But that last person who was summoned was something else. I never want to run across someone like that again. It isn’t normal to make the Princess dizzy when she’s inside her Object.”

Jinnai s.h.i.+n.o.bu was running around trying to escape the Yuki Onna.

“Heh heh heh. Eh heh heh heh heh. I know you feel like you missed out. You were lonely frozen all on your own, weren’t you? So this time, I’ll freeze both of us together. That way, I’ll never, eeeever let you feel lonely again.”

“No! Nooo!! Have your traits as a Youkai been strengthened because we’re in some fantasy world!? And why is being a yandere a trait of your entire species!?”

Incidentally, the leaf swimsuit Zas.h.i.+ki Waras.h.i.+ showed no sign of helping the resident of her house. She was staring off into the distance but not because she was reminiscing. She was only thinking about how she could eat normal bread and soba again soon.

Meanwhile, college student Anzai Kyousuke sat on the far-too-large deck.

“Sigh. So our adventure with the Absurd is finally at its end.”

“By the way, bunny girl, will you be okay when we get back? Weren’t you already-…”

“Not to worry. Some things are just meant to happen in life. …And let me warn you that you should never let your guard down and a.s.sume I’ve completely vanished from the world.”

Nanajou Kyouichirou and Satsuki were having a conversation of their own.

“Y’know, I think I’d rather stay here forever if the alternative is going back to that world filled with killers.”

“While this world doesn’t have very many killers, it does seem to have a lot of war and famine. Maybe they all have to work so hard to survive that they don’t have time for intelligent bloodl.u.s.t.”

The entire plain-sized s.h.i.+p began to glow faintly.

Kamijou paid careful attention to where he put his right hand so as not to negate it by accident.

“Well, I’m glad this isn’t going to leave a bad taste in our mouths. That alone I can agree with.”

“There’s a lot I’m still curious about, but it may be better for both worlds if I don’t bring back the knowledge here.”

“I’m more curious about how much time will have pa.s.sed when we get back. It’s been a week. A whole week. Do you think maybe time will revert to when we vanished?”

Seeing them off from the land were Waltraute on her white horse, the boy sitting in front of her, and Hel on Níðhöggr.

Kamijou waved to them.

The change continued and the scenery before them blurred. Or perhaps it was their existence that was fading.

This was the end.

Everything was breaking apart around them, but Kamijou Touma’s voice still got through strangely clear.

“See you again somewhere and sometime.”

With a flash, several lights scattered in several directions and surpa.s.sed the boundaries of that world.

The Circ.u.mstances Leading to Waltraute’s Marriage

A boy falls in love with Waltraute the Valkyrie and Waltraute is dragged around by that boy. That should have been all it was, but the next thing she knows, she is frying Odin and destroying Ragnarök.

Part 1

However, they were unable to return home.

Part 2

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Kamijou Touma, Index, Misaka Mikoto, Quenser Barbotage, Heivia Winch.e.l.l, Milinda Brantini (aboard the Object), Jinnai s.h.i.+n.o.bu, Zas.h.i.+ki Waras.h.i.+ Yukari, the Yuki Onna, Anzai Kyousuke, Higas.h.i.+kawa Mamoru, Bunny Girl Karen, Nanajou Kyouichirou, and Satsuki all stood in complete silence on the Divine s.h.i.+p Skíðblaðnir’s deck.

After so confidently declaring they were going home, here they still were.

Their surroundings had seemed to blur, but they found themselves standing in the exact same place again. A few hours seemed to have pa.s.sed, Waltraute and Hel were gone, and the absence of the previous heat left them feeling even colder about being stranded here.

It was the same feeling as waiting to scare some people during a test of courage, but having no one walk down the path and realizing you had been left all alone in a haunted area.

The search for the culprit soon began.

“Is this what I think it is?” asked the Zas.h.i.+ki Waras.h.i.+. “Did one of us want to have some more fun and didn’t want to go back, so they ended up shutting down the entire process?”

“You mean someone is keeping us from going back?” asked an enraged Misaka Mikoto. “Well!? I don’t really get what’s going on, but boys!! I’m sure it was you as gave us dirty looks!!”

“What!? Wouldn’t it be you girls who don’t want to go back? After all, you’ll be thrown out in the streets wearing nothing but your bikini armor!!”

“And whose fault is that!? I’ll fry you!!”

Starting with Mikoto and Heivia, sparks flew between the girls and boys.

The only one they could rely on here was their big brother in spirit, Kamijou Touma.

“C-calm down,” said the gentleman. “We all want to get back home, so instead of fighting, we should try working togeth-…”

“Shut up!! Let’s attack him first!!!!!!” the rest shouted.

After they created a great cloud of dust filled with flying star marks, they stood around the pointy-haired idiot who could only crawl along the deck with his clothes about to fall off.

“I-I really think this treatment is unacceptable…”

No one listened to what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d said.

“Anyway, if we don’t solve this problem quickly, we might be stuck here forever!” (Index)

“Quit trying to take the reasonable side!! I hate when people try to stay so pure! You’re so full of yourself!!” (Anzai Kyousuke)

“I don’t like how heated up you get. Should I cool you down?” (Yuki Onna)

“Um, is it just me or are all of you so preoccupied with finding the culprit that you don’t care about getting back to our worlds?” (Bunny Girl)

“I’ve never liked this place! It’s supposed to be a legit fantasy world, but there’s no sigh of a nude Witches’ Sabbath or a cursed swimsuit that makes any girl who wears it h.o.r.n.y!!” (Quenser)

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re trying to say, but I can a.s.sume you’re saying you want me to kill you, can’t I?” (Satsuki)

The second round began.

Some might wonder which side would win in a serious conflict, but generally, the girls were far stronger. If the boys could be seen as a p.a.w.n with a chance to be promoted, the girls were all rooks and bishops.

They might have been able to strike at the weaknesses of any one of the girls, but there was nothing they could do when an Object, some Youkai, a Level 5, and a Killer Queen all attacked at once.

And after thirty seconds, all of the boys were forced to crawl along the deck with their clothes about to fall off.

“Wh-why don’t you get that no one wants to see this!? This is where the armor is supposed to break for a nice ill.u.s.tration!!”

“And all of you are too powerful!! Did you create an angry beauty barrier or something!?”

The victors were not about to listen to the complaints of the pummeled ones.

The girls began planning while looking down on the boys as if they were dung beetles.

“So what should we do now?”

“Hmm. Whether intentionally or not, I think someone is interfering with the process to take us home.”

“In other words, we can get back if we slaughter all of the despicable guys?”

“Starting with all of them would be too cruel. How about we kill them one by one and see when the sparkling transportation effect comes back?”

They were about to see firsthand how executions were used as public entertainment in Medieval Europe, but something stopped them.

Or rather, a bigger problem fell on top of them.

Waltraute, the fourth Valkyrie sister, and Hel, queen of the underworld and second head G.o.d, crashed down like a shooting star while tearing at each other’s hair and clothes.

“Gwoooooohhhhhhhh!! Just give up already, you d.a.m.n thief!! I already know you took that boy down into the underworrrrrrrlllllllllld!!”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!? I know you’re the one that dragged him up to the heavenly world, you murdererrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!”

The others had no idea what these two were talking about, but fortunately, their collision with the deck did not create a giant crater in it.

Instead, they tore up the ground like a plane making an emergency landing and they slid toward the others.

“Um, I think this is bad news. A fight between people on the level of G.o.ds isn’t the kind of Absurdity you run into every day!”

“Aren’t they on a complete collision course!? G-get out of the way! Everyone get to the left and right!!”

On Mikoto’s instructions, Index, Satsuki, and the other girls scrambled away.

And like bowling pins, the pummeled boys were sent flying into the air.

But the G.o.ddesses paid that tragedy no heed.

“Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die!!”

“Do you want to try starting Ragnarök again!? Well, do you!?”

In this battle of G.o.ds, they teleported from point to point and the shockwaves of their clashes arrived after a short delay, but then Index muttered something.

“Hmm. I think maybe we weren’t the cause. These rampaging G.o.ds may have destroyed the laws of this world. With polytheism, each G.o.d is essentially a.s.signed part of the world’s formula.”

“I-Index, you just said something really important. …That means you attacked us for no reason, you perverted nude cape girrrrrrrlllllllllllllll!!”

History was written by the victors, so Index and the other girls did not listen to their complaints.

More importantly, the proper resolution was rolling around in front of them.

“So if we stop their fight, we can get back to Academy City?”

“There might be more than one cause, but a fight between a Valkyrie and the second head G.o.d is undoubtedly one reason. So either way, we need to stop them.”

“Um, does that mean we’ll have to step in between two furious G.o.ddesses? It looks to me like they’re about to start using some ridiculous overpowered attacks that directly destroy each other’s existence.”

It was not often that the bunny girl looked like she wanted to run away, but that just showed how dangerous the situation was.

So the gentleman known as Kamijou Touma gave his own suggestion.

“Why do all of you a.s.sume it has to come to a fight!?”

“I don’t want to hear that from the guy who immediately clenches his fist when faced with any kind of problem!!”

“No, the key to a battle is the speech!! So, Waltraute, Hel! What happened? If you like, you can discuss it with Kamijou Touma, the boy who ended World War Thr-…”

“Shut up, you worm!! Get in my way and I’ll kill you first!!!!!!”

“Shut up, you worm!! Get in my way and I’ll kill you first!!!!!!”

The boy was left with his clothes in an even more precarious position.

No one wanted that, so they were fortunately just barely hanging on.

“Bh…bfh. Bghbfh…”

“You really are stupid. This is what happens when you try to judge a raging G.o.d by human standards. You should count yourself lucky that you aren’t suffering from a strange fever brought on by divine punishment.”

However, the G.o.ddesses seemed to feel a little guilty for attacking a normal person on pure momentum, so they cooled down some.

“T-Touma sacrificed himself for us…”

“You’re just saying something that sounds meaningful to distract us from what happened before that, aren’t you!? If this is how this world works, I feel sorry for the people who live here!!”

Waltraute and Hel had cooled their heads enough to hold a conversation, so they explained the situation.

Apparently, the small boy who was always with Waltraute had vanished.

“I got some help from Hliðskjálf, the throne that lets you see across all nine worlds, and the Norns, the three G.o.ddesses who make unchangeable prophecies. Those G.o.ddesses have even seen the result of Ragnarök, but not even they know where that boy is. That means he must be in the underworld where the power of the G.o.ds doesn’t reach!!” (Waltraute)

“Yes, but Niflheim contains the villa of the priestess spirit that even Odin bowed down to and asked to prophesy for him! And she claims that boy isn’t anywhere in the nine worlds! I can only imagine the G.o.ds are using their greater spiritual power to jam the priestess!!” (Hel)

The G.o.ddesses pointed at each other and pleaded their case to the audience.

Jinnai s.h.i.+n.o.bu finally recovered and got up.

“So you’re talking about that kid who’s always grabbing onto your waist? He seems a lot like me, so do you think maybe he got caught up in some trouble related to something non-human?”

“Uuh!? Th-that isn’t it!!”

“But you can see the entire world using the prophecies and viewing devices in the heavenly world and the underworld, so I’d think you would find him if he had been abducted by someone or just gotten lost.”

Index tilted her head as she spoke, but the G.o.ddesses jabbed each other’s cheeks with their extended pointer fingers.

“Weren’t you listening!? She’s clearly lying!!!!!”

“Weren’t you listening!? She’s clearly lying!!!!!”

The Zas.h.i.+ki Waras.h.i.+ and Yuki Onna both sighed.

“Does everyone turn into an idiot when they become a G.o.d?”

“If so, I want to stay a mere Youkai forever.”

A step away, the bunny girl observed them even more lukewarmly.

“(Well, it’s always the ones who say that that end up going three times as far when the same thing happens to them.)”

At any rate, it seemed they had to do something about the boy who had suddenly vanished, so Mikoto looked back and forth between Waltraute and Hel.

“Um, if we’re a.s.suming one or both of you are lying, how about we try that ‘compare their stories to find the truth!’ thing?”

“Will that really work under the rules of the G.o.ds?” asked an amazed Satsuki. “To me, it seems like anything goes with them.”

It seemed unlikely to work, but they could only search for a hint from what the two G.o.ddesses had said.

“I got some help from Hliðskjálf, the throne that lets you see across all nine worlds, and the Norns, the three G.o.ddesses who make unchangeable prophecies. Those G.o.ddesses have even seen the result of Ragnarök, but not even they know where that boy is. That means he must be in the underworld where the power of the G.o.ds doesn’t reach!!” (Waltraute)

“Yes, but Niflheim contains the villa of the priestess spirit that even Odin bowed down to and asked to prophesy for him! And she claims that boy isn’t anywhere in the nine worlds! I can only imagine the G.o.ds are using their greater spiritual power to jam the priestess!!” (Hel)

Satsuki held her head in her hands because there were a few things she still did not understand.

“Um… What even are the nine worlds anyway?”

“Well, this entire Norse world is supported by the World Tree Yggdrasil. The nine worlds exist on its roots, around its trunk, or at the end of its branches and altogether they form the Norse world.”

“To name them, there is the heavenly world of Asgard, the giant G.o.d’s world of Vanaheimr, the human world of Midgard, the underworld of Niflheim, the giant’s world of Jötunheimr, the elf world of Alfheimr, the dark elf world of Svartálfheimr, the underground world of Niðavellir, and the fire world of Muspelheim. Odin and the other G.o.ds rule them all, but Surtr and I have essentially hacked in and overwritten some of them with our own rules.”

“That’s why the power of the G.o.ds wouldn’t be able to find the boy if he was hidden in Niflheim or Muspelheim! Because they’ve hacked them!!”

“What!? You G.o.ds are the ones who rule the nine worlds, so you’re the first ones to suspect when someone goes missing there!! This is like having to worry about a global corporation’s authorized spyware!!”

“I’ll kill you, you thief!!”

“Shut up, you old wife!!”

The G.o.ddesses started heating up again, so Index threw Kamijou Touma between them. At this point, it was a miracle his clothes were still hanging onto him.

After the G.o.ddesses calmed back down, Quenser suddenly realized something.

“Hm? So you can only use your power inside those nine fields? That’s like having a set range for your spy satellite.”

“Only inside? But that’s everything.”

“But…”

He pointed in a certain direction.

He pointed off of Skíðblaðnir but not toward the land.

In other words…

“Based on what you said, wouldn’t he be in the ocean?”

Part 3

The situation led to an inevitable change.

Yes.

If they had to search the ocean for the little boy, they all had to change into swimsuits!!!!

Index → Equipped: School Swimsuit (White)

Misaka Mikoto → Equipped: Racing Swimsuit (Black)

Zas.h.i.+ki Waras.h.i.+ Yukari → Equipped: Bikini (Red)

Yuki Onna → Equipped: School Swimsuit (Blue)

Bunny Girl → Equipped: One Piece (Purple)

Satsuki → Equipped: Monokini (Yellow)

Waltraute → Equipped: Dressmaker (Pink)

Hel → Equipped: Two Piece (Green)

Normally, a change to swimsuits would be a wonderful reward, but tragically, the swimsuits actually looked more normal than what they had been wearing before.

But regardless, the girls sent a rush of complaints Waltraute’s way.

What even was a dressmaker anyway?

Mikoto got things started.

“Hey, what kind of old lady terminology is that?”

“I-I am not an old lady!! That isn’t quite the right genre!!”

“And why is the oldest one of us wearing a pink one piece with a short frilly skirt!? That’s the kind of swimsuit a parent buys their kid and makes them wear, isn’t it!?”

“We do not have this kind of clothing in our world, so I have no idea what is right and what isn’t.”

“Teacher, since you mentioned it, I don’t know the different between a bikini and a two piece. Both of them show off the navel, don’t they?”

“Shut up, old lady #2. A bikini is held together by strings while a two piece has cloth around the shoulders and back like a tank top. In other words, a two piece is a large category and you get a bikini by removing more cloth and making it more revealing. Got it?”

“And a monokini is?”

“From the front, it looks like a one piece, but from the back it looks like a bikini. I guess it has a nude ap.r.o.n kind of effect.”

“Um, and a school swimsuit and a racing-…”

“No matter how I explain those, someone’s sure to argue against my definition as pa.s.sionately as a religious debate, so search for the answer at your own risk.”

There was no explanation for the boys. None was needed.

At any rate, they had finished equipping their new outfits.

“Okay, now we need to search for that boy. If he’s in the ocean, a certain someone’s home would be my first guess.”

“Oh? Does Norse mythology have something like Ryugu-jo?”

The generally immortal Zas.h.i.+ki Waras.h.i.+ seemed carefree enough, but Jinnai s.h.i.+n.o.bu grew pale next to her.

“Um…if we’re going to some place on the bottom of the ocean…”

“Yes?”

“How exactly are we going to get there?”

In her frilly skirt swimsuit, Waltraute jerked her thumb back toward the ocean and sounded like she was announcing their execution.

“We dive, of course.”

Part 4

The nine worlds of Norse mythology were said to have been created from the corpse of a giant named Ymir.

The ocean was no exception as it was supposedly made from Ymir’s blood.

The ma.s.sive ocean that surrounded the entire Norse world was ruled by a sea G.o.d named Ægir.

And a certain G.o.ddess was his wife: Rán.

While Ægir was the ruler of peaceful seas, Rán was the ruler of especially stormy seas. She would use her large net to capture humans who were thrown out into the ocean and drag them down to the bottom. That may paint the picture of an evil G.o.d that devoured human souls, but she only dragged down the souls she took a liking to and she gave them a special reception in her undersea palace.

In a way, she may have been something like an extremely predatory Otohime.

Although, she was still a wife.

“Fis.h.!.+”

A small boy raised his hands in joy in the undersea palace ruled by that sea G.o.ddess.

“Wow!! There’s so many fis.h.!.+”

Despite being called a palace, it was several dozen kilometers across, so it could be seen as a tenth world that was not contained by any of the other nine. It also helped indicate the scale of what people in the Norse civilization thought of as a “world”.

A transparent dome covered the entire palace with room to spare and it also protected several other buildings built from piles of ma.s.sive carved stones. The overall size was easily one hundred kilometers across. The level of technology could be seen in the decorative waterways built along the stone-paved roads despite having gone to the trouble of holding back all of the seawater.

A tall woman stood next to the boy.

She had white skin and black hair cut to shoulder length. She wore a long dress so thin that any kind of backlight revealed her bodyline below and some accessories made from sh.e.l.ls adorned her hair and wrists.

“What kind of fish is that?”

“A striped beakfish.”

“It’s so s.h.i.+ny and cool. …Voom voom! And it’s fast!!”

“It is delectable when grilled.”

“It’d be sad to eat it, so no thanks.”

In this Norse world, falling from a boat in your clothes was a death sentence for anyone but the most well-trained warrior. While being less technologically advanced than the G.o.ds, the humans had named themselves Vikings and used extremely well-made high speed s.h.i.+ps, but they did not do much to polish their personal swimming skills.

That gave them very few chances to see the fish who swam freely through the sea.

With that in mind, it was not surprising that the boy was in high spirits.

“I never knew the ocean was so pretty. I thought it was a scary place.”

“You weren’t wrong to think that. The ocean is the mouth of death. The question is whether you have the technology needed to overcome it.”

“I want to show this to Waltraute. And to my parents.”

“…”

“I can’t? Is this a secret place?”

“No, the ocean is open to anyone. The boundaries between worlds and the head G.o.d’s rule do not reach us. Still, I doubt may people would want to come here.”

“What are you talking about? Everyone would love to see somewhere this pretty!”

Rán narrowed her eyes and gently rubbed the boy’s head.

“Can I come here again, Rán?”

“Again?”

“I need to get back home or my parents will be mad.”

“…” She fell silent again.

Her expression barely changed, but she looked somewhat troubled.

“What is it?”

“I am sorry, but I think you need to stay here for the time being.”

“Okay! I’ll go tell my parents!”

“…”

“I can’t even do that?”

“Soon.”

Finally, she spoke while looking down at the small boy.

“Soon, the sea will bare its fangs. The mouth of death swallows all. This is a mutation that not even the Norns were able to predict, but I doubt there is any changing the flow of events now. You and the heroes from foreign worlds smashed the plans of the second head G.o.d, so no one in this Norse world can stop you.”

“Rán?”

“So you must stay here until the calamity of the mouth of death has pa.s.sed. I am Rán, queen of the king who protects the tenth location which is not contained in the nine worlds. But while I will escape Ragnarök, I have been stripped of the right to influence major events such as Ragnarök.”

The boy did not understand the workings of the G.o.ds.

He did not know what she was specifically referring to when she said the sea was the mouth of death, when she said it would bare its fangs, or when she said it would swallow all.

But…

“Rán, if everyone’s in trouble, you have to tell them!”

“…”

“Rán! Can’t we have Waltraute and everyone else escape to here!?”

“…”

Rán could only give him a troubled look.

He had not realized that she could not influence the general path of history. Even if she knew of the coming destruction, she had no way of stopping it. She could only use her power on the branches where it would not affect the trunk.

She could not even speak a single word.

She could not get out the words she truly wanted to say.

If those words would influence any major events, she was forbidden to even open her mouth.

“…”

So this was all she could do.

She could only protect people with methods that did not change history in any obvious way.

But…

(Here they come.)

Without speaking a word, she looked away from the boy and straight up.

A ma.s.sive transparent dome protected the palace and the surrounding buildings with room to spare.

And now, the Divine s.h.i.+p Skíðblaðnir dropped straight down to break through the very top of it.

(I cannot directly influence history.)

As she listened to the shattering of the tenth world she controlled, Rán gave a silent, thin smile.

(But if the branches I move manage to drag along the G.o.ds and the foreigners who overpowered them…!!)

Surely, something would change.

However, the sea G.o.ddess might be swallowed up and destroyed by that very torrent of change.

Part 5

“So that’s what’s going on.”

Loki, the man known as an evil G.o.d, leaned up against a stone wall in Asgard and faced the giant wolf named Fenrir.

Fenrir could be seen as his child, his greatest masterpiece, or his anti-G.o.d weapon.

“I am more sensitive to most when it comes to this world’s destruction. It comes with how I was created. So there is no mistaking it.”

“The sea is the boundary between worlds. It surrounds our territory and possesses the power that separates us from the truly foreign.”

The Norse world was composed of Yggdrasil and the nine worlds, so it had an extremely simple structure.

It was just one continent with the world tree at the center. After that, there were only the various worlds at the end of the roots and branches.

Then where was the sea?

That was simple: it surrounded that one continent. Or more accurately, it was a ma.s.sive ocean with a continent floating in it.

“That is why Odin can’t retrieve the souls of the humans who die at sea. The sea is the mouth of death, but that is because the people it swallows are dragged into the truly foreign. Sea G.o.ddess Rán is the one acting to prevent that.”

“You are the one who summoned those heroes from truly foreign worlds. Did you not know what would happen if they decided they wanted to go home and tried to connect to those truly foreign worlds once more?”

“Oh, c’mon. I’m the evil G.o.d who tried to change the outcome of Ragnarök. That was enough to satisfy me. Do you really think I had predicted what would happen after the battle?”

“…”

“But in a way, I suppose this could be used to overturn Ragnarök,” spat out Loki. “What lies beyond the sea? And I’m not talking about simply circ.u.mnavigating the world. I’m talking about ignoring the three-dimensional vectors and connecting to the truly foreign. The sea divides the worlds, but there may be a similarly great ocean on the other side of that invisible boundary.”

“So they came here just fine, but repeatedly opening holes in such a short period of time could break the valve and the other ocean could pour into this world.”

One only had to think about it.

A Certain Magical Index.

Heavy Object.