I glared at her, holding my cheek. "What was that for?" I felt a sudden pain at my stomach, followed by me flying into the wall. Laegjarn held her foot up. "...Jormungandr, what the heck are you thinking?"

Frowning at her, I stood up with less difficulty than I should have, due to my armor absorbing a bit of the impact. "Laegjarn, I can't do this anymore. I should have prevented their deaths. I could have prevented their deaths. Now what can I do about it?!"

Laegjarn punched me again. I responded, "Laegjarn, I'm not anybody special! in my world, I'm like the lowest of nobility. I don't have royal blood like you, I'm not special in any way. You should really let me go back." I coughed, hurt from her punch. I had to talk her out of this. I couldn't do this anymore.

"Laegjarn I-" she slammed me to the wall. "Jormugandr...no, Kyren...how is this like you? Have you forgotten yourself?" I shook my head. "I know what you mean. You're going to say to me what I once said in the past, that we shouldn't just bemoan over the past, but should take action to fix the situation the past has done."

I paused for a bit. "I can't do this. I just realized...how much weight rests on my shoulders...and losing that weight really hurts. I don't want to do this." I opened up the portal again, it having disappeared due to the distraction.

Before I could go in again, I felt myself being lifted up by Laegjarn. "Get this out of your system, Kyren." I gulped, as I prepared myself for the most painful moments of my life at this point.

A few minutes later, I had a few bruises on my body, my foot was twisted at a funny angle, and well...I could barely feel any part of myself, as I had been beaten up so harshly that I had become numb to the pain. I looked at Laegjarn. "Well, I find it interesting that you never targeted my face..."

Laegjarn yelled outside, "Healer!" Maria ran in, and started to heal me. "How did he-" "Don't ask." Maria nodded, and then ran out again. I stood up. "Laegjarn...I'm adamant about this. How can I lead if so many die on my watch, especially when I can prevent it?"

Slamming me into the wall again, she kicked me. "You literally killed a bunch of people just because they were in your way." I hissed back, "It was a necessary evii. I didn't have enough time to do so without killing them, not to mention nobody really liked them in the first place. However...when the ones under my watch die...it's worse, especially when I could have prevented it. I can't do it."

"But then, who will?" Laegjarn shot back, glaring at me. "You're the smartest of us all. You may be weaker than us all, but your intelligence is nigh-unrivaled." I scoffed. "Nigh-unrivaled...Laegjarn, so many people in my world can do the same. Millions of them can-"

She slapped me. "Kyren...but from what you said about the world of your own, only you have the mentality to do so. To fight your enemies while giving them mercy." she pushed me against the wall, her elbows pressing into my ribs, giving me jolts of discomfort.

Shaking my head, I laughed off her remarks. "It's such an easy thing to do. Who can do it? Me, and a couple million of other people. Who the heck would care? Kiran was right...I should just do a favor to the world and disappear." Laegjarn grabbed me by the chin, making me look directly at her. She was slightly shorter than me, but it didn't make her any less intimidating.

"You may not be important in your mind...and I understand what you're thinking. You think that people hate you so much." I hissed back against her, "And they do. If somebody goes against the popular opinion, and even manages to win or put up a good fight, then he will be hated. Now Muspell must hate me for killing off so many of Muspellans. I can't face my own peers back in the real world, or Muspell either."

Laegjarn responded angrily, "Damnit, if you can't do it for them, at least do it for me!"

I blinked, before staring at her intently. "What..do you mean?" She slapped me. "I'm not asking you to do it for the people. I'm asking you to do it for me, as a friend, and as your princess."

she turned around, her armor blazing with blue fire. "Seeing you going so depressed over the deaths of so many people is pathetic. I knew you as one strong of mind, someone who wouldn't ever give up. And instead, you pull this on me?!"

I jumped into the portal, and closed it.


Landing in my bed, I took out my computer, and started to finish the project. After half an hour, I finished editing, and put it into dropbox. "Alright, if you dare to put that inside your computer, I will do everything I can to hack it back..."

the file disappeared, as apparently Kiran had pulled it into his computer instead of copying it down then pasting it onto his computer. "Why you, Kiran!" I yelled, and then switched to another file, before my computer rang.

It was Kiran. I clicked on the notification, and rolled my eyes as I switched to FaceTime. In front of me was a hispanic young man, with hair resembling the hotblooded wolverine+hulk ripoff known as Eren Yeager.

Looking at him, I asked, "Hey, Kiran. how's it been?" He shoved his hair out of his face. "Not too good, but not too bad. Gee, how the fuck you even keep your hair that good? You look like a girl at this point, with that length! No mames..."

Flicking my finger at the camera of the computer, I chuckled as I saw his surprised reaction. "Hey, man, not cool! No chinges!" "If you're wondering about my hair, I suppose it's just that my hair is naturally silky and straight."

He gave a grunt, sliding in front of his own computer, then got up. I asked him, "So, who's the girl you've been banging or something?" He shrugged. "Oh, it's a really smart girl called Robin, has white hair..."

"Robin?...oh, smart? How smart? Smart like you? Smart like me? Smart like Kenny?" "Smart like between me and you. I'm not sure." "Hm...how is she like personality-wise? Maybe...a female version of you?"

He thought for a second. "She was kinda rude at the beginning, it took me some effort to make her smile everytime she sees me, then, she actually acts a lot like me. Let's say that when I met her, she has-I mean, had a wrong conception about me."

"Oh...onto the love story, eh? I wouldn't mind the JUCIER details." I said, giving him a sneaky smile. I had no interest in dating, though I would never hesitate to make an inappropriate joke.

"Well, another girl told her a lot of bull-" I muted him for a second, then unmuted him as I feared either of my parents would come in and kill me because they heard a swear word. "-about me, due that, she thought I was a miserable pervert. It didn't help I like to stroke hair so, she punched me very hard."

I raised an eyebrow. "Well, it seems that you haven't even learnt your lesson after you stroked mine." When we met each other again in college, after a few years of not seeing each other due to my high school transfer, he was amazed by my long hair that went down to my back. I didn't really blame him, it was a sight to see and feel as well, because I took baths regularly to take care of it and prevent it from getting greasy. But anyway, he had touched it, and I reacted by spinning around to face him.

What he and I didn't know was that Kenny had tied a rather large hairpin to my hair, and as soon as I spun around, it hit him right in the face, leaving me to wince in shock while he held his nose.

He sighed. "Yeah...I guess I didn't." I lay back. "Considering that you're a machocist, it wasn't too bad, eh?" "Well...I do have my limits. Basically, I kept on talking to her until she softened up, let me hug her...and finally, you know what we did."

"You really should have taken your sweet time to do it after the marriage. Seriously, it even seems like the reason why you're disappearing all these times is because you've gone to bang this girl or something."

He gave a hmph. "Well...I am going to marry her in two months." I face palmed. "You seem to enjoy this more than college itself...not that I blame you." I didn't really blame him...not when I myself used to enjoy conquering lands and strategizing...used to.

The weight of people dying on me was more than I thought...I thought that people dying before me would be normal, that I could stand it...but I was wrong. Every time I imagined their faces of disbelief and fear, frozen permanently by that dratted ice dragon, wondering where their savior was.

We remained silent for a few seconds, before I asked another question, one that bugged me to the core. "by the way, how would you cope with this? Imagine as if you were a general, and thousands of men died under you even though you could actually have prevented it?"

He sat there, thinking. "Um.. I don't understand why the question but... mmmh.. guilty of course.. probably I would be depressed, but I wouldn't cry until the end, first I would need to fix the sh*t I did, I mean, I cannot bring them back to life, but the army would still need me."

"...hm...that's around the lines of what most people have told me." I paused for a second, before flashing a sheepish smile. "you know what my psychology professor wants from me."

I sighed. While that was among the lines of what most people had told me, I knew that people liked to act brave. Many wanted to look good in front of people...but in the midst of what that wasn't imagination...was a bunch of nothingness. I thought about real-life cases. Many got drunk, some actually embraced it instead, reveling in the lives lost, while others died along with their troops.

"Yeah, he's a jerk. But anyway, have you heard of this new trend?...Never mind, you wouldn't be interested in it anyway." I frowned. "What are you talking about?...explain before you assume, please." he cleared his throat, and started to explain.

"Basically, there's this new, unexplained phenomenon of people being sucked to this fantasy world called...Askr. The government has been trying to find any dangers within this world, but there haven't been many normalities."

I looked at him. "...have you been sucked to this fantasy world? When did this start?" He lay back. "It's been around for about 9 months or so. I have been sucked into there, and to my knowledge, it just randomly chooses people, and once you're chosen, no one else really has access to your own Askr."

I leaned forward, genuinely interested now. "...what do you mean? Worlds?..." He sat upright, and rubbed his palms. "Alright...this could take a sec..." he finished a crude drawing of a person and a few lines, and destinations.

"Basically, for every person summoned, there will be an identical, but different world known as Askr for them. In other words, consider it a multiverse. Each Askr starts out the same, as well as most of the events, but there are obviously things that one can interfere with or affect."

I nodded. "However...is this ever explained? What are the statistics?" Kiran folded his arms. "hm...considering that many who have been summoned haven't shown interest in returning back to this world, or in other words, ever been seen again...I would estimate around more than 11.7 thousand."

"...it's that interesting?...escaping into that world permanently...tell me, what position do you take on?" he replied to me, "Oh...it's like, we get to become something called a summoner. We become tacticians, and the only person who can summon warriors called heroes to take on an enemy country known as Embla."

I folded my arms. "So...in other words, one is trying to win this war, but at the same time, one can live a relatively lavish life in that world...no wonder so many people decided to never come back."

He nodded. "Yes...there's food, money-making opportunities, it's hard to consider this a war zone when everything is so peaceful...heck, at one point, we even had the Emblain prince under our grasp for a month and he didn't even try to escape!"

I sat there, not really knowing what to say. After all, I hadn't been to this Askr of any sorts, so I was unable to connect with him. He apparently realized it, and asked me, "So, how's the other stuff? Kenny? etcetera?"

"Oh...Kenny's fine. I'm fine. So...anyway, bye then."


I sat at my table, my assignments and projects finished, up to date. I looked at myself. He was right in a way. But however...I shouldn't escape. Escape only delayed the inevitable, and sometimes made things worse.

"I'm asking you to do it for me, as a friend, and as your princess." I remembered Laegjarn's words to me. Did she really think of me that way? I was just at best the lowest of what could be considered nobility, so to have her think such things of me was surprising.

Opening the door of my house, I decided to take a walk outside. Was it really my fault? Did I have to heap the blame on me? Or was it just that I was so used to having the blame heaped upon me, that I willingly did so?

I reminisced my past, where my girlfriend kept accusing me of playing the victim, treating her like a horrible person, etc, and I cared so much to the point where I thought it would better for me to just stop caring altogether.

Now was the same. I had to stop thinking that these lives were mine to take the blame upon. Feeling sad was never the answer. If I didn't take action, who would? Well, Laegjarn would, but could she produce the same result? I doubted it.

As I kept on walking, I saw a dark, masked man. A mugger, probably. I knew that I had horrible combat capabilities compared to the Muspellans, justified by the fact that probably not even guns or bombs could even scratch them. He pulled out his fists, obviously wanting some money from me.

I thought about fighting him, maybe creating a cool scene...but then, nobody would be there to watch. I could take him on, but I had much more important matters on my mind.

Absentmindedly pulling out a knife, I pointed it at him. "Please get your rear hind out of here before I proceed to unleash death upon you, sir." he didn't question my odd way of speaking, instead just nodding and running out of my sight as fast as he could.

Keeping on with the walk, I thought about the circumstances of the battle. Did I kill them? Yes, and no. I could have prevented their deaths...but in the end, it was the Ice Dragon and the blasted Niflem queen who were responsible for their deaths.

Another friend of mine once said to me that if he could remove one word from the dictionary, it would be coward. I now understood it. The reason why Laegjarn was so angry wasn't because I was a coward, but because she didn't want me to act like one.

It didn't matter whether if someone's a coward or not, in the heart. What mattered was how one acts, what he or she does. In the end, feelings matter less than actions. Simple feelings will never achieve anything, but actions can and will.

However, would one be willing to act? I thought to myself whether if I could do so, to take advantage of this dark hour, and instead continue to lead them out to conquer Nifl.

No, this wasn't just about whether if I would be able to act. I must be able to act. Otherwise...my vision, and all these people...I would fail them. Just because I had accidentally helped cause a large amount of deaths didn't mean I had failed them yet. There was still hope, a chance to conquer the enemy. But through what means?

My hands were already bloody. Did it matter now that I continue to cover my hands in the blood of others? It may...but what could anyone do about it? I had power, and I would use it well. Just because I prevented deaths wouldn't ever erase the fact that I had caused deaths as well.

"Kyren!" I spun around, to hear the voice. It was Kenny. "...you've had a tough time, right?" I nodded towards his question, and sat down, my long hair drooping to my chest.

"...so, what happened?" I sighed. "Well...how do I say it...I know what I should do. However, I wonder if I can do it, whether if I'll have the heart to do it." He smiled a bit, and punched my right pec.

"Brother, you're the most intelligent and mentally strongest person in my life that I know personally. Of course, not the most handsome" he said to me, as he sat down on a rock, and ran his hands through his hair. I frowned at him. "Why so?" I wasn't so interested in handsomeness, as my long hair gave me an edge over his shorter hair.

He replied, "Hey, you've been always standing on the 'wrong' side for most of your life. Yet...often, you make it seem like you're right." I frowned. "That...doesn't seem as complimentary as I would expect. Also, why are you playing Licht und Schatten on your phone?"

"Dangit, Ni-san! I'm trying to have a moment here, and you keep on ruining it!" he collapsed inwards, his head ending up on his calves. "But anyway, Kyren..." I looked at him. "Yes?"

"If anyone says that you're not worth it, or that if you're wrong, don't just simply go for their reasoning. Look at the root of it. Look at the person, and see if they really mean harm or not. Sometimes, it isn't just the logic you have to fight, but also the intention."

I thought about it. "Yeah...thanks, Kenny." After sitting down on the rock for a while, I stood up. "So, how tall are you now?" I measured his height. Even though I was 18, I still had some growth spurts. Currently, I was a hundred and eighty seven centimeters.

He looked to me, his nose barely surpassing my shoulder. "Eh...I'll say about a hundred and seventy six centimeters." I ruffled his hair, which was considerably shorter than my hair, as mine reached down to my chest, while his only reached down to his cheeks. "Don't worry. You'll grow."

I got up, and started going back home. "Let's go, Kenny. I can handle myself out there, but I don't trust that you can." he followed me.

3 men went came in front of us... Through my line of sight, I could notice that one of them was the mugger that had earlier ran away from me. So apparently he wanted revenge. One of them pulled out a handgun.

I could hear Kenny gasp in fear. "Ni-san...what are we to do?" I shrugged. "If they want money...I could give them something." walking towards them, with my hands raised, I could see their condescending grins.

With one swift movement, I kicked the man with the gun in the crotch, then proceeded to get punched by the two others, a bit of blood coming from my nose. Kenny, being himself, came to my aide, kicking one off me, smashed his head with a rock, and then slammed the man's body onto the ground, knocking all the air out of him.

While he was shorter and younger than me, it was undeniable that Kenny had much more physical strength than I did...it was probably just natural. After all, we both played basketball with each other all the time, and took the same martial arts lessons for years.

Even though I was considered weak by Muspellan standards, I had gone under intense training for at least an hour each day, making me quite strong by my world's standards. However, Kenny was a prodigy at fighting and prediction, something that I wouldn't ever deny.

As the other one tried to punch me, I dodged it, and then grabbed his right hand by the palm. After narrowly dodging a kick to the crotch, I violently forced his right hand to my left, or in his perspective, his right, while sweeping his legs to prevent him from resisting.

He crashed onto the ground, as he held his arm in pain. Kenny then slammed his foot onto the man's face, knocking him out. Noticing the last one get to his feet, recovering from the crotch injury, he held his gun in the air. "Freeze! The money, now!"

Kenny held his hands up. "..." was his only response. However, I had another solution. Casually walking towards him, I gave a seemingly friendly smile at him. He pointed the gun at me. "I said freeze!"

Kenny yelled at me, "Ni-san, no!" I pressed the gun to my chest. "C'mon. Do it." He looked at me. "...excuse me?" I pressed the barrel to my chest. "Just do it." He shook his head, and pulled the trigger. No sound was heard, nor was anything fired.

I smiled. "I know a fake gun when I see one." He had a face of anger, directed towards me...until it was replaced by a face of pain and shock, as Kenny grabbed his head, and slammed it into a brick.

Looking at the three unconscious men, I looked at Kenny. "So...what should we do with them?" Kenny looked at them. "A waste of human flesh...killing them might be better for them."

Shaking my head, I disagreed with him. "Nah. We should just leave it to the police. If they ever question us, we just have to answer truthfully, and say that it was in self-defense."

Kenny wanted to protest, but he then relented. "Alright, then...hmm, I wonder how you're going to solve your problems." "What problems?" "Your college problems and whatnot."

Opening the door to our home, I glanced at him. "Through my actions."


As I returned to my room, I put my hands together, and whispered the magic words. "May the flames be with me." A portal erupted in front of me, it's fiery entrance wild and searing, though with my ability to withstand heat, it mattered less.

Entering the portal, I felt myself falling, and after an unspecified amount of time, I finally was deposited onto my chair. Looking in front of me, I recognized the familiar figure sitting on my sofa.

"So...have you made up your mind?" Laegjarn asked me. I nodded. "We...must avenge these people. It doesn't matter whose fault it is now. What matters is what I will do." I looked at her. "However...I must allow myself to go to the fullest of my limits."

I took 20 colorless badges, an armful of feathers, and started to chant the incantations while pointing my pathetic excuse of a legendary weapon at them. "Oh Naga, please hear my prayers. I offer this small offering of feathers and badges to have this hero rise above what he can currently do now, to reshape his life, to give him the power he needs to rend the heavens and gift justice upon the people."

While I had promoted myself quite a few times, and each time there would be levitation and sparkles whirling around me, this time, it felt different. I felt excruciating pain flowing through my veins, as instead of bronze or silver sparkles, a fiery blue aura went around me, as I was consumed by the bright flames.

As the feathers and badges flew towards me, I felt them covering me, and with a burst of energy expelling from my body, they were all gone. I looked at myself, a multitude of golden sparkles around me.

My armor, Vulcanus, instinctively started to form around me. I was slightly surprised at this, because oftentimes, instead of forming around me, my armor would instead fly to my body, covering, not form around it.

As the armor covered my body, the Phoenix Crest formed on my face, covering it, and I felt energy gathering around me. I let out a yell, as blue flames, instead of the normal flames erupted from Vulcanus, and then slowly died down.

The armor slowly started to disappear due to my will, and instead of fading away, it dissolved instead, like a liquid. I looked at it, and said, "Vulcanus." the armor itself started to form around my body again, and with a thought, it started to dissolve once more.

Looking at my statistics, I looked at my weapon slots. Instead of a silver dagger+, there was an empty space. Did this mean?... I looked at Laegjarn. "I haven't forgotten my promise. I will accompany you to the temple to retrieve the legendary weapons of Muspell."

She started to walk out of the room. "Come with me. Let's get to Cyclonus." I nodded, and followed her. As we got onto the wyvern, she shook the reins. "Let's go!"

I held my hand. "wait wait wait...let me train myself up for a sec. Also...as I heard that temple is dangerous, I'm just going to put Briedaiblik somewhere safe."

A lengthy amount of time later, I headed back to Cyclonus. My stats were still pitifully low, this time my attack stat being even lower than when I had that 4 star necklace.

Cyclonus let out a rumble of acknowledgement, and soared to the skies. Feeling the blast of wind on my face, I let out a cry of freedom, of relish in the flames that surrounded me.

After an hour of flying, we finally arrived at the temple. Laejgarn pulled out her silver sword, apparently wary of something. I frowned. "What...are there enemies?" I asked, pulling my dagger out.

She nodded. "There are guardians of the temple. Stay back." she held her hand out, preventing me from moving forward. I moved it down. "No, Laegjarn. Just because one is weak, never means that he or she is useless."

I flipped my silver dagger into my bag, pulling out a smoke dagger+ instead. "Even if I won't be doing much damage...I still have this." I looked at my own stats.

Jormungandr: Harbinger of Change

Level: 40

Weapon: Smoke dagger+ speed refine (with special thanks from Saizo)

HP:

Atk:13

Spd: 35

Def: 9

Res: 9

Movement Skill: Swap (Please accept my forgiveness, Stahl)

Special: Phoenix Crest

A Slot Skill: Darting blow 3

B Slot Skill: Poison strike 3

C Slot Skill: Defense Smoke

Seal: savage blow 3

She looked at me. "...fine. If you die on me, I'm killing you." I chuckled a bit at the joke. "Well said, Princess. Now...let's get this thing down." As we entered the temple, a rumbling was heard.

I frowned. "...it seems big...bigger than both of us." From the darkness, burst out a jotunn, a giant, wielding a club. It roared at us, and I instinctively threw my dagger, striking true in the chest...only for it to bounce off. I looked at Cyclonus, ready to fire a stream of flame. "Don't. You could harm Laegjarn." he whimpered, and sulked back.

Apparently, the strike was still enough for it to notice me, and the jotunn charged towards me. I sidestepped, the club barely missing me, as Laegjarn jumped in to battle the weakened foe.

I could see its statistics. Its attack, boosted by the battle club, was now significantly affected by the dagger, with his attack being decreased to 50, his speed being decreased to 16, his defense decreased to 29, and his resistance reduced to 29. His HP was now from 55 to 45.

Laegjarn let out a battle cry, and charged towards the jotunn, blocking his first strike with her silver blade. She slashed at the jotunn, reducing his Hp to 30, while he retaliated with his own blow.

She managed to dodge his blow, and grabbed the jotunn by his neck, only for him to catch her, and throw her into a wall. I took out another smoke dagger+, and threw it at the jotunn, hoping that I could buy her some time.

It looked at me, and roared, yelling, "Die, monkey!" I knew that the only advantage I had over him was speed, but that did little to stop me. Dodging his initial blow, I let him bury his club in the stone, and as he struggled to get it out, I hit him a few more times, reducing his HP to a mere 10.

It glared at me, and let out a roar. "SMASH!" he yelled, as he ran after me, and I could see its wounds starting to heal. "Crap...it's renewal 3." I gritted my teeth, as I threw another dagger at him. "Laegjarn, now!"

Laegjarn burst from behind him, and buried her sword in his back, and then drew it up, slicing the jotunn into two. With the jotunn down, both of us sat down, taking a drink of water.

Fighting was nothing like training. Everything was turned on, reflexes all up to the max level, and so, while fighting, it was apparent that we used a lot more energy than usual. Drinking a bottle of water, I stood up. "Let's get on to the next level."

As the three of us hurried to the next level, I kept on leading the way, and ignited Vulcanus. "Vulcanus!" the blue fire erupted from my armor, and shone in the darkness. While it did a bit to help us see, it didn't do much to see what was ahead.

Running forwards, I kept my eyes left, right, forwards, and upwards, most importantly upwards. Most people didn't expect anything from above, so if this temple was counting on that, I would be ready to make them disappointed in themselves.

However, before I could run any further, a claw grabbed me, and yanked me to the ground. I looked around, and realized why Cyclonus did so. There was a large body of water, and I would have fallen in if not for Cyclonus's actions.

I looked at it. I wasn't a big fan of getting wet, so I hoped that there would be a better way of getting across. But was Cyclonus the best option?...such a large body of water should house at least some hostile predators.

Throwing a rock into the water, I wondered what type of bubbles there were. As I threw in the rock, I felt a slight rumble. Okay...there was definitely something in the water. As I looked at the water, I noticed bubbles, probably six feet...six feet!

My eyes widened. If each of them were about my size, then this monster...must be impossibly big! I took another stone, the size of a baseball, and threw it as far as I could. My farthest throw was about 21 meters, and it took about 6 seconds.

After six seconds, I heard the rock land...on water. "...crap." I heard a sort of breathing noise, and looked around. This temple...was inside the mountain, or else the temple was a mountain. But as a mountain...there was a chance that there were trees around, and maybe their roots sticking out to this level...

I looked at Cyclonus. "Alright, Cyclonus. Blast some fire up there." the wyvern responded by blowing flames out of its mouth, and igniting the roots of the trees at the top of us.

As the flames revealed the truth to us, I couldn't believe my eyes. Down there in the water, was a gigantic monstrosity that I had only heard of in books. This wasn't even its head, it was probably only its mouth.

Rows of serrated teeth decorated its gigantic mouth, and formed around it in a circular fashion. From the size of it, it definitely wasn't a mile long as the old stories had exaggerated, but...gah, if only I could turn into that giant world serpent...

From what I could see, the mouth probably wasn't even the largest part of its body, which only made it more frightening. I peered over it, and realized that if it wanted to, it could kill us in one blow. Good thing that it was lazy...or was it? Was it just waiting to give us a miserable death?

Laegjarn looked at me. "So...what do we do now?...we can't exactly turn back, due to those jotunn." I thought of the three principles of strategy. To create, to flip, and to destroy. Would strategy work in this case?...I didn't know this time.

As I kept thinking, I heard an another rumbling. To my horror, the teeth was moving...and the mouth seemed to be rising. As I looked at the sides, I noticed that it had numerous limbs...dozens, in fact.

Oh..."Sweet mother of merciful flames, get out, it's a Kraken!" Laegjarn yelled, as the monstrosity lunged itself as us three. Running as fast as we could, I felt a tentacle wrap around my body.

Feeling myself being lifted up into the air, I looked backwards, at the monstrosity that was about to eat me. It's gigantic mouth was at the entrance to the chasm of water, and I was about to get dragged into it.

I wanted to scream, but instead, I felt all numb, some sort of fear overwhelming me, robbing my ability to struggle and fight back...not that it would have done much good anyway.

Feeling a warm feeling across my skin, I felt the tentacle squirm, and loosen its grip. Fire was bathing me, burning the slimy and wet tentacle around me. Ha...thank Naga, Cyclonus had used the fact that I was fire-resistant to burn the Kraken's tentacle, giving me a better chance to escape.

I tried getting out, but to my frustration, the tentacle was still too tight. I stabbed at it with my dagger, only for it to deal no damage. I gritted my teeth. I wasn't going to allow myself to die to some hentai-nightmarish fiend!

Letting out a bloodcurdling scream, Laegjarn charged towards me, sliding under the tentacle and my struggling form, and swiped her sword upwards, removing the part of the tentacle from its body.

I dropped to the ground, gasping in fear and excitement. "...I've never felt so alive in my life before." I remarked dryly, as I cleaned myself up. Laegjarn polished her sword once more. "That was too close, Kyren! Too close!"

Waving her off, I wiped my forehead with my handkerchief. "Understood, acknowledged, I get it..." good thing I hadn't brought Breidabilik. I didn't want to know how I would handle heroes charging off into the monstrosity's mouth, nor would I want to know what would happen if I broke Breidabilik...not that I didn't want to, as that pathetic excuse of a pistol just never helped in the direst of situations.

I looked across the carven, where the Kraken resided. "I can see a ledge on the other side, approximately 25 meters away. However...with the Kraken's size, I don't know if we can fly across without getting into another hentai nightmare again."

Laegjarn coughed. "Whats...hentai?" I thought about it. "...basically fantasies that men of my world often have that are drawn. It's disgusting." what made it even more disgusting was that I looked like an anime character, and so did all the others here. Laegjarn chuckled a little. "It seems that your world is quite an abominable place."

I nodded. "Yeah...but it's not the time to talk about my world. I gotta think of a way to defeat this beast." My eyes wandered to the water, then to my bag, then to Laegjarn, then to Cyclonus.

"Laegjarn...does your blood have any unique properties?" Laegjarn thought of it. "Yes. Muspellan blood is poisonous and acidic, even more so for those with royal blood. Whenever one touches it, it's almost as if it burns, like fire itself."

I rubbed my palms. "Perfect." Grabbing a water bottle, I dumped the water out, and looked at her. "I'm letting this beast get a bit of taste of intelligence." I aimed to create some kind of poison. Laegjarn looked at me. "This beast may be very well the last of its kind."

Gritting my teeth, I smirked. "Then let this abominable race fall under my feet." it indeed was disgusting. I could still feel its juices upon me, in a spot at my back where I couldn't exactly reach.

Looking at her, she prepared her sword. "You want to use my blood, correct?" I nodded, and held out the container, as she prepared to do the deed. I closed my eyes, as she sliced her arm, blood oozing out of the wound and dripping into the glass container. After 10 minutes, the beaker was up to 2 cm, and she collapsed, dizzy from blood loss. I gave her an elixir, restoring her health status.

I then searched for something harmful...something that could be potentially poisonous. Pulling out a plastic bottle, I shrugged. Using scissors, I cut a part of it, and then put it into the glass container, bubbling. I was no expert on chemistry, but I knew what was normally poisonous to aquatic life.

Then, I took a piece of lead from an old pencil my grandfather had given me. Removing it, I dropped it into the container, the toxic substance boiling in Laegjarn's blood. I then put an old battery in there, it being quickly melted by the toxicity of the blood.

I bit my lip, and glanced at the container. Would this be able to kill of this monster? While it would be spread out by the water, it would also be diluted, not to mention I had no idea where this water might go. This was groundwater, so I could potentially be poisioning one of Muspell's biggest water resources...

It didn't matter this time. If Nifl was conquered, I could use the abundant snow and its rivers to our advantage, and then we wouldn't have a shortage of water. Anyway...this beast was to die by my hand.

I then looked at the body of water. Considering the beast's size...the best chance I had was to allow it to consume the whole thing. However...at this range, I had a chance of getting eaten myself as well...not to mention I had no idea what other creatures may reside in this body of water besides the Kraken itself.

Looking at Cyclonus, I put a hand on his snout. "Want to go crazy, boy?" he nodded, apparently understanding me. I looked at Laegjarn. "Alright...I have a plan. It's crazy alright, but right now, I can't think of any other plans."

Well, throwing it into the beast's mouth was one plan, but now it was upright, it's mouth no longer facing us. Instead, its head was bobbing up, resembling an angry Cthulhu, though instead of arms and legs, it had a huge amount of tentacles, and its "beard" was tentacles as well...it was like a giant water spider.

Laegjarn bit her lip. "You're crazy, Jormungandr." I grinned. "Well, sometimes playing it safe doesn't cut it all out for me. I prefer playing it safe...but when you just can't play it safe...then find the craziest plan ever."

She shook her head. "Even if I don't know it, I have a feeling I might regret this." I shrugged. "Whether if you regret it or not, we're still going through this, unless if you got a better plan."

Waving her hand, she motioned me to carry on. I nodded, and started. "Basically, on Cyclonus, we get to the top of the carven. With the size and length of its tentacles, it'll have to turn itself over for its tentacles to reach the top of the carven, if I'm not mistaken. Also, we have to light up our area, so that it'll be alerted to our location."

Frowning at me for a second, she then understood. "So you intend to let it get close enough for a good throw...for the poison to do its work." I nodded. "We only got one chance for this. It's do or die."

She patted Cyclonus, and got upon him. "This is the craziest and most irrational of your plans, Kyren..." I nodded. "Yep. But when my opponent is this gigantic and possibly insane beast...it doesn't leave me with too many options."

Jumping on the majestic wyvern, I took the container out of my sack. It was a bloody red, and was still steaming with the toxicity. Looking at it, I noticed that the glass was slightly thinner. "We've go no time to prepare. The poison's eating through the glass."

With a spur on the reins, Cyclonus took flight, shooting for the ceiling. I yelled, "Vulcanus!" and lit up my area with my armor's blue fire, giving me a better sight in the dark.

Fire pouring out of his mouth, Cyclonus's fire began rampaging across the ceiling, as he went rested upon the ceiling, completely upside-down. I kept my feet tucked in the stirrups, using them to my advantage in order to not fall down to my water-and messy doom.

The tentacles shot up to the ceiling, trying to avoid the fire around Cyclonus, as they started to pull the main body upwards. To my slight surprise, besides its tentacles, head, mouth, and these horrifying gigantic pair of red eyes that glared daggers at me, there were no other significant body parts.

Pulling itself up, I waited for the right moment. It hadn't flipped its upper body yet to eat us...but what if it meant to crush us?...that would be problematic, as I wouldn't expect myself to directly throw the container up its throat. Laegjarn could...but then, she was keeping Cyclonus calm, so she was out of the question.

To my relief, the main body flipped itself, revealing that gigantic mouth, full of ugly, serrated teeth. I could smell fish...Naga, that was disgusting. It was like rotten fish, but as I looked closely, it resembled...feces. Wait..its feces smelled like fish...gah, I didn't want to think about it.

I snapped back, trying to not get distracted by its biology. Now...I almost felt regret for making the decision of killing such a creature...ah, never mind. I've done worse.

As I released the container, the Kraken jolted, causing the whole carven to shake. My hands fumbled around with the container, causing it to lose its trajectory. My eyes widened, as the jar started to fall...in another angle that I hadn't meant for it to fall in.

Trying desperately to reach for it, and direct it to not let it end up falling into the water, and instead its mouth, my fingers made contact with the covering of the container...only for it to slip off, much to my horror and dismay.

Crap...I was going to die here...wasn't I?...


Omake:

Kyren looked at the three unconscious guys. "So...what do you think we should do, Kenny?" Kenny had a sh*t eating grin on his face. "I have an idea." he kicked one of them, and he woke up. "Wake your a** up!"

Kyren glared at him. "Language!" Kenny simply ignored him, and the mugger looked around. "What just ha-" Kenny slammed his foot down, and knocked the air out of him, knocking him out again.

"Wake up!"

"What ha-"

And then Kenny jumped on him, doing the same thing over and over again. Kyren sighed. "Yeah, yeah...they're decent chew toys." Kenny stopped, after a few minutes of beating them up. "Video games can't compare to this!"

I didn't care too much, and then I heard bit of rolling. I whirled around, and looked at Kenny, who had thrown him into a trash can, waking him up. "What the heck, Kenny?!"

One of the gangsters popped up. "Holy sh*t! Who the f*ck taught you boys how to be like this?! You have permanently altered my spine! Why did God give you dinosaur-man strength? Geez, that's f*cking wrong! Boys your age and size and at this time should be masturbating or whatever disgusting sh*t you teenagers do! I can't believe what kind of drugs you took in order to do this!"

Kenny kicked him back into the trash can. "Does working out everyday mean drugs?"

"By the Trump Walls, you must have gotten an addiction to working out! You only seem to be like 16, and you look like Chris Evans just came out of the transformation decoration device! What kind of drug makes you continuously work out until your healthy?!"

"Granpda." Kenny plainly said.

"Sweet walls of Grandpa Trump! Your grandpa looks like he's been going hobo for decades straight! Look at his hair, he looks like he tried to transform into the Hulk, but it only worked on the hair and didn't even change the color-" he yelled, pointing at Kyren, which happened to be a huge mistake.

"Shut up!" Kenny yelled, and slammed the dumpster cap, knocking him out again. "And this time, I'm not waking you up."


thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to give me constructive criticism!

Answers to your review- oh wait, never mind. The last one didn't get reviews, so no. But anyway, I hope you had a good time, so until I post again!