Waltrautesan no Konkatsu Jijou - Chapter 1 - Part 5

Ignorant of the issues involved for those adults (or rather, gods), the boy continued grabbing at the rough bark of the world tree Yggdrasil on his way to Asgard.

However, his breathing grew erratic.

His face grew pale.

He entered an altitude sickness-like state, but it would not end there. As he continued on, there would be even less oxygen and the atmospheric pressure would fall. As the air grew thinner, the temperature dropped due to the loss of the atmosphere’s insulation. A cold wind reminiscent of midwinter blew through the area around the boy.

It would not have been surprising had he stopped there.

But if he lost consciousness, he would end up falling down to the surface from that high altitude.

As the boy continued grabbing the bark despite the blood oozing from his fingertips, two ravens flew up to him.

They spoke simultaneously.

“Hi there! I’m Muninn!!”

“You’re Huginn!!”

“We were forced to run over and give you a message!!”

“We were forced to run over and give you a message!!”

The boy who had not been at all fazed by the talking cat replied, “But you flew.”

“He played the straight man! Now we know you’re not too far gone to do that!!”

“Anyway…ahem. We have a message from Waltraute. Are you ready?”

“…Hm. I really shouldn’t get any help from her while climbing Yggdrasil.”

“This is important information about that very competition. And we don’t really need your permission, so we’ll just tell you. Here goes!”

“Mhh…”

The boy looked displeased, but the ravens’ voices changed.

They now spoke with the voice of that Valkyrie he had met. Muninn and Huginn stood on the boy’s left and right shoulders so the boy could listen to the voice as if he was hearing it via headphones.

“Can you hear me, boy? I now know more or less what that bearded old man is planning. For a human, it seems there is little difference between approaching the heavenly world of Asgard and approaching death. Odin purposefully overlooked that fact to bring you into the army of Einherjar.”

“…”

“If you do not wish to die, climb down from Yggdrasil now. That is what I wish for as well. Surely the marriage you have imagined is not one that occurs after your own death. And I did not set up this challenge for it to have such a ridiculous result.”

The boy fell silent for a bit.

He remained perfectly still while clinging to the bark.

The two ravens tilted their heads as they looked at his face from the side.

Finally, the boy raised his head and said, “You must be enemy characters sent here to mislead me!!”