It had been a truly fruitful time.
Wandering through the ruined world, I had managed to get my hands on countless treasures.
In particular, there were many treasures I had taken from Svartalfheim, where the dwarves lived, and Vanaheim, where the gods lived.
If anything, there were so many treasures that I was running out of places to store them, but the magic pouch I found in Vanaheim, which could hold an unlimited amount, solved that problem.
Thanks to that, the magic pouch, which expanded space but did not reduce weight, had grown so heavy that anyone other than a race as strong as mine would have struggled even to lift it.
After stripping clean the treasures gathered by humans, who were as greedy as dragons, I left Midgard.
“Now the only place left is Asgard?”
I had looted seven worlds, and Niflheim, where Hel and I had lived, was a resting place for the dead and had nothing that could be called treasure, so the only place left was Asgard.
And since Asgard had held supremacy over the Nine Worlds to a degree that calling it such was hardly an exaggeration, there would surely be plenty to loot.
I turned my gaze and observed Asgard.
Perhaps the battle had ended while I was busy looting treasures, because all I saw were burning palaces and the scattered corpses of gods and warriors.
At that level, there shouldn’t be any problem going in.
Flapping my wings, I entered the inner reaches of Asgard.
And as soon as I went in, I found something useful.
“Oh, this is.”
It looked like an ordinary sword.
There were no particular decorations, just a common sword one could see anywhere.
Unlike its plain appearance, however, this sword had the ability to fly freely, protect its owner, and cut down enemies.
The original owner of this sword, Frey, had been nothing special aside from some usable magic abilities, but with the power of this single sword, he had become strong enough to rank among the top ten gods of Asgard.
—Wooooong!!
When I picked up the sword, I felt resistance like when I had picked up Gungnir, but this time as well, I pressed it down with brute strength and put it into the magic pouch.
Starting with Frey’s sword, I made my way deeper into Asgard and obtained various treasures.
Heimdall’s horn, fragments of the collapsed rainbow bridge, a Valkyrie’s spear and armor, golden apples that granted eternal life, a cup from which mead poured endlessly, and so on.
As I picked up treasures and went further into Asgard, I found a broken chariot and the half-burned corpse of a woman.
From the outside, it was no different from the corpses of the other gods I had seen on my way here.
But having seen Odin’s corpse once before, I could tell right away.
“This bitch’s corpse is fake too. Did she conspire with Odin?”
Freyja.
The most beautiful goddess in all the Nine Worlds, and the goddess of magic who led the Valkyries.
Her corpse, too, was a fake similar to Odin’s, but unlike Odin, who had even abandoned the real Gungnir and fled, the ornate necklace she carried, Brisingamen, had been switched out for a fake.
When I carefully looked around, aside from her, the corpses of several major gods had also been replaced with fakes.
They said this was a doom foretold long ago, and it seemed they had prepared a way out.
In any case, my goal was to collect ownerless treasures, and where they had gone was none of my concern, so I picked up only the remaining treasures and left Asgard.
After putting all the treasures into the pouch, I stored the pouch beneath my sturdy scales so I would not lose it.
Then I returned to the outskirts of the world where the eagle lady was and landed.
“You certainly picked up every last thing.”
“You were watching?”
“You were running around quite happily.”
The eagle lady’s gaze rested for the briefest moment on the scale where I had hidden the magic pouch, then moved away.
So she had been watching until the end.
“I’m not giving it to you even if you look at it like that.”
“Do I look like some shameless wench who steals children’s toys?”
“There were quite a few dangerous things for toys.”
“At best, they’re no different from toys compared to my feathers.”
I suppose that was true.
When she naturally flapped her wings as if showing off her feathers, I nodded in agreement.
As someone who had been struck by the eagle lady’s feathers more than anyone else—and had survived despite being hit like that—I knew better than anyone that those feathers were harder and sharper than even my dragon scales.
While I was talking with the eagle lady, Ratatoskr, who had been hiding among her feathers, emerged from between them with a face full of resolve instead of her usual drooping appearance.
“Have you sorted out your feelings?”
“Yeah. Yggdrasil is Yggdrasil, and I am me.”
“Then what do you intend to do now?”
“I’m going to find a new home and go to another world.”
“Not a bad idea.”
Another world?
Ratatoskr’s words made me curious.
Yggdrasil, which had supported the worlds, had burned, and naturally, most of the Nine Worlds it supported had collapsed along with it.
And yet, another world?
Where was she saying she would go?
When I looked at the two of them with that meaning in my gaze, Ratatoskr turned her head toward me.
“Stupid lizard. The worlds Yggdrasil supported were nine, but that doesn’t mean they were all the worlds there are. Even excluding the worlds it supported, Yggdrasil stretched out its branches and roots toward countless worlds and connected to them. I’m thinking of finding a world worth going to among them.”
Oh.
Thanks to her, I learned something new.
To think there was such a secret to Yggdrasil’s branches and roots that stretched out endlessly.
I’d always been too busy chewing on them to know.
Once Ratatoskr finished explaining, the eagle lady raised one wing and pointed at me.
“This is just right. If you are going to another world, take this fellow with you.”
“The stupid lizard?... Hmm, he doesn’t seem like he’d be any help, only baggage.”
“Still, though he’s stupid, he is ridiculously strong, isn’t he? He will certainly be of help.”
No, why am I suddenly being dragged into this?
And besides…
“Why are you deciding on your own without my opinion? I have a home to return to, you know?”
“A home? Where do you mean?”
At the eagle lady’s question, spoken with a snort, I raised my arm and pointed beneath Yggdrasil, toward the place where Niflheim had been, and turned my gaze there—but there was nothing.
“Well, obviously… over there, huh?”
“Hahaha! You let your guard down because they wouldn’t burn the resting place of the dead. Yggdrasil burned, so of course Niflheim moved elsewhere. Did you think it would just stay there?”
“No, my home!”
In an instant, I had become homeless, having lost my home just like Ratatoskr.
It was because I had let my guard down since the flames had not headed toward Niflheim.
At that moment, Hel’s words flashed through my mind.
She hoped we could meet again next time?
Don’t tell me she had predicted this far.
“Haa…”
“Well, it is not as though it burned down like the other worlds, so will you not be able to find it someday? Until then, travel with this child.”
At the eagle lady’s consolation, my eyes met Ratatoskr’s.
Then both Ratatoskr and I grimaced at the same time.
Travel with that thing? I’d be lucky if my scales didn’t fall out from stress.
Wouldn’t it be better to just hear how to get to another world and go alone?
Of course, that was impossible.
“An elder is speaking, so what is with that impudent gaze? In any case, if I tell you to go, go.”
Thwack!
“Urgh… why only me?”
While I lowered my head after being struck on the back of it by the eagle lady, a gentle breeze blew and moved Ratatoskr’s position onto my head.
“I, too, must be leaving now. I need to look for a place to build a new nest.”
“Then you can just take this thing with you, Auntie.”
“You little… haah. As the elder, I should be patient. The place I am going from now on is not suitable for that child. So you take her.”
As soon as the eagle lady finished speaking, she flapped her wings and disappeared along with a storm.
It seemed she had already chosen a candidate for her nest.
After the eagle lady left and only Ratatoskr and I remained, an awkward silence fell for no reason.
I wondered if I should leave her behind even now, but if the eagle lady caught me later, or if this thing tattled on me, I would get hit again.
I cautiously opened my mouth.
“So. Where do we have to go?”
“…Are you really going with me?”
“Yeah. So tell me where we have to go. I’ll fly that way.”
“Hmph. We’re not physically connected by Yggdrasil, and there’s no way going to another world would be possible with ordinary wingbeats.”
“Then how do we go?”
“Wait. I’ll open a passage.”
Normally, I thought of Ratatoskr as something like Yggdrasil’s mascot or a troublemaking squirrel, but she was connected to Yggdrasil and possessed the ability to walk between worlds.
If she hadn’t had such an ability, she would have been caught by me long ago and become a one-bite meal.
The cluster of light that poured from her body soon formed a round hole in front of me.
“Phew, it’s hard without Yggdrasil’s support, unlike usual. Now, you just need to go in there.”
“Hmm…”
“What are you doing, not going?”
“Well, isn’t the hole too small for me to enter?”
The gate leading to another world itself was fascinating, but separate from that, the size of the hole looked just right for Ratatoskr alone to enter.
And I was enormous to a degree that couldn’t even be compared to Ratatoskr.
“Eek! You stupid lizard who’s only big and useless!”
“It’s not as if I wanted to be this big.”
“You got that big because you always eat like a pig! Just wait!”
Ratatoskr concentrated again, just as she had when opening the gate, and then the gate leading to another world gradually grew in size.
After she enlarged the gate with all her strength, the hole finally became wide enough for even me to pass through.
“Haa, haa… I can’t maintain it for long. So hurry up and go in!”
“I get it, so rest.”
While being careful not to let Ratatoskr, sprawled atop my head, fall off, I quickly entered the wavering gate.
And so, leaving behind the home of this life in which I had lived for countless years, I crossed over to another world together with a foul-tempered frenemy.