I arrived in another world.
To be honest, before crossing the door, I had been a little nervous and even somewhat excited about going to another world. But the other world I arrived in was not much different from the worlds I knew.
A perfectly ordinary world, with lush greenery and a blue sky.
I looked up at the sky and asked Ratatosk.
“This is another world?”
“Yeah. A completely different world, beyond the nine worlds supported by Yggdrasil.”
“For that, it’s awfully ordinary…”
“What exactly were you expecting? Even if it’s another world, it’s still a world that didn’t even have Yggdrasil’s protection, you know? If anything, it’s probably worse off than the world we came from, not better.”
“Is that so…”
Still, since it was another world, shouldn’t there be something special unique to it?
Unable to let go of that faint hope, I focused power into my eyes to survey the place with a dragon’s gaze.
But before I could even examine my surroundings, something interesting appeared before my eyes.
And it seemed it had not appeared only before mine.
“What is this?”
“Huh?”
Ratatosk and I both voiced our doubts at the same time and looked at each other.
“Did something strange appear for you too?”
“Looks like it.”
I turned my gaze forward again and looked at the message that had appeared before me.
[Intrusion of an extradimensional entity confirmed]
[The intruder’s power exceeds the standard that current humanity can contend with]
[Initiating quarantine]
“Quarantine?”
No sooner had I spoken than the surroundings shook as if an earthquake had struck.
It was not an ordinary tremor, but a shaking that rattled space itself. As I barely managed to keep my balance, the surrounding ecosystem began to change.
In the space that had been full of grass and trees beneath a blue sky, the grass withered, the trees dried and twisted, and the sky filled with dark clouds as snow began to fall.
It was a landscape I had seen many times before.
“This is basically Niflheim…”
“You—!”
Smack!
As I muttered while looking around at the scenery, Ratatosk struck me on the crown of the head.
It did not particularly hurt, but when I glared at Ratatosk as if to ask why she had suddenly hit me, she instead got angry and said,
“You brainless, muscle-bound idiot lizard! This happened because you’re pointlessly strong!”
“What?”
“Then do you think the surroundings changed like this because of cute and lovable me? It’s all because you’re absurdly strong, so the world itself interfered to lock you up!”
No, if we were talking about strong or weak, then sure, I was strong… but was this really something to go this far over?
It was not as if I had any intention of doing anything to this world.
“I told you! It’s a place worse off than the world we lived in, and that place didn’t even have Yggdrasil’s protection! But then someone like you, who possesses power ranked among the strongest even in the Nine Worlds, suddenly dropped in. Of course it caused a commotion!”
“Then you should have chosen a world that could withstand someone like me.”
“You think worlds like that are common? And I didn’t know it would react like this, like it was having a seizure!”
To think we would be quarantined the moment we crossed into another world.
“Is there a way to move to another world again?”
“To open a passage large enough for us to pass through, I need time to recover my strength. And if we’ve been deliberately quarantined like this, I’ll have to find a passage that bypasses the quarantine, so it’ll take even longer.”
It seemed we would have to spend some time in this barren place reminiscent of Niflheim until Ratatosk found a passage.
“…Should we build an igloo or something?”
“Just die!!”
I tried throwing out a joke to lighten the mood, but apparently it was not the right answer.
***
On the day the twentieth century passed into the twenty-first.
Things called Gates appeared out of nowhere in the world.
Appearing in midair with black fissures and an ominous aura, the Gates, true to their appearance, poured monsters out beyond them, and humanity had to begin a struggle for survival against the monsters that emerged from Gates that had appeared without any warning.
Thirty years had passed since the Gates appeared.
Along with the appearance of Gates came the phenomenon of humanity’s Awakening, and with systems such as the Association, guilds, and parties falling into place, people seemed to have adapted even to a world like this.
The five people currently inside a Gate, hunting monsters and gathering materials, were also an ordinary party formed by freelance Awakened.
They were five low-rank Awakened registered with the Association but not affiliated with any guild. Among them, four remained wary of their surroundings inside the Gate while occasionally glancing at Sin Sua, the only woman among the five.
It was because her looks were anything but ordinary.
She was a sharp, catlike beauty with long, deep-black hair.
And her ample curves drew the eye enough to make passersby turn around at least once.
Even the smile she showed whenever their eyes met made all four of them harbor a faint, hopeful expectation.
“Sua. We’ve been walking since morning. Aren’t you tired? If you are, just say so anytime.”
“Yeah. We’ve already filled the quota well enough, and we can take it easy from here. If you’re tired, just say the word.”
At the consideration of the others, who wanted to make even the slightest good impression, Sin Sua smiled brightly and replied,
“No. I can still move, and it would be a nuisance if we rested because of me.”
“A nuisance? Come on.”
“Seeing you hunt goblins, your skills are no joke. If anything, I’m wondering if we’re the ones being a nuisance.”
In the amicable atmosphere of mutual praise, once the four men’s gazes turned away, Sin Sua erased the bright smile she had maintained until moments ago and thought with an expressionless face.
‘It’s definitely today… but exactly when?’
Unlike the other four, who had entered the Gate purely for the purpose of hunting, she was waiting for the right time.
And the moment she had been waiting for arrived before long.
Just as they were hunting goblins and collecting materials and mana stones.
Rumble—!!
The inside of the Gate shook violently, and the surroundings began to change.
The grass and trees dried and twisted, and snow fell from the sky.
At the sight, the four were horrified and struggled to keep their balance, while Sin Sua’s lips curled into a crooked smile.
‘It’s here!’
Aside from Sin Sua, who was instead enjoying the long-awaited situation, the faces of the other four turned ashen.
“A-A Gate shift!”
“Fuck! I knew our luck was too good today!”
A Gate shift.
Once a Gate had occurred, it normally did not change unless it became saturated and caused a monster wave, or unless the Gate’s core itself was conquered and it disappeared. But occasionally, when special conditions were met or for unknown reasons, a Gate would change, and people called that a Gate shift.
And the reason the four went pale was because a Gate in which a Gate shift occurred would transform into a higher-level Gate at least two stages above its original rank.
When the shaking subsided and the Gate finished changing, snow was falling inside, and a cold, chilling wind blew.
“Wh-what do we do?”
“What do you mean, what do we do? We get out, obviously!”
“B-but if we move recklessly and run into monsters…”
“Then are you planning to sit here and wait to become monster food?”
Their opinions clashed in the face of the sudden change, and their voices rose. Those raised voices were enough to draw in nearby monsters.
-Grrr…
From between the dried, twisted bushes, a monster with a hairless gray body and sharp claws sprang out.
“A gh-ghoul!”
“Fuck, of all things!”
Unlike goblins, which were only F-rank, ghouls were D-rank monsters.
On top of that, a ghoul’s claws contained corpse poison, so even a single scratch would be fatal to them, equipped as they were for hunting goblins.
-Kraaaah!!
“Everybody run!”
At the appearance of an enemy they could not handle, the four scattered in different directions at once.
Only one ghoul had appeared, and if one person became bait, then four out of the five could survive. That was the judgment they made.
And among the people fleeing in different directions, the one the ghoul chose was Sin Sua, who was running the slowest.
Sin Sua ran in a far direction that overlapped with the others as little as possible, adjusting her speed so the ghoul could follow her well enough.
Then, when she had gotten far enough that the four were no longer visible, she stopped in place.
-Kwaaak!
As the ghoul leaped toward Sin Sua and swung its sharp claws, she watched it indifferently and drew the sword at her waist.
Slash!
The sword, drawn at a speed invisible to the eye, cut the ghoul’s body in half in a single stroke.
It was power impossible to see as belonging to a mere E-rank low-level Awakened.
After cutting the ghoul in half, Sin Sua shook the black blood from her sword, sheathed it at her waist again, and then began walking in one direction as if nothing had happened.
As if heading toward a destination, she walked on, cutting down every monster that appeared along the way in a single blow.
Zombies, ghouls, banshees, even living armor.
Not one of the undead monsters was able to so much as touch a strand of her hair.
How long had she walked like that?
Just as higher-ranking undead monsters began to appear more and more.
The trees and forest vanished, and a wide plain appeared.
‘I found it!’
Thinking she had finally arrived at her destination, she smiled faintly and looked at the enormous something visible in the distance.
Dark blue scales and massive wings.
Black poison that spilled from its mouth with every mere breath.
A dense deathly aura and presence incomparable to any other undead monster she had seen moments ago.
A dragon.
Sin Sua’s face turned pale beneath the enormous presence pressing down on her entire body, but even so, she moved forward, one step at a time.
The dragon, which at first had shown no interest at all, also became intrigued by the sight of the woman gradually approaching it.
And when Sin Sua finally arrived in front of the dragon, barely alive and clutching her trembling legs, she squeezed out her strength and shouted,
“Nidhogg! I’ve come to make a deal!”
“Huh?”
***
I was wondering what to do from here on when a human who had appeared from who knew where shouted that she wanted to make a deal with a line that sounded like it would repeat until she died if I refused.
A deal? You and me?
More importantly, how did a human who looked half-dead know my name?
For some reason, I had a hunch that if I made a deal with this human, something interesting would happen.