People back on Earth used to avoid violence. But even then, a few became so entranced by the thrill of the fight, by the bloodlust of causing harm to others that they gave up any sense of self-preservation. And those few were only the edge cases. A lot more people would love to spread violence if that pesky survival instincts didn't hold them back. But add healing magic, regenerative powers, health potions, and even the occasional resurrection and the inhibition of self-preservation flew out the window.

They taunted and goaded me. I ignored the provocations while I sorted my thoughts.

These shieldmaidens, or Valkyries, or whatever these Viking women called themselves fell square in the "it's a flesh wound" side of the equation. The way they eyed me, it was like I was game and they were on the hunt. Given, foxes were hunted for food and sport since time immemorial but still.

They had no idea who they were provoking. If I died to them, all it would happen was that I'd be reborn in the next baby to pop out of their mothers around here. Given that the Dvergar had even slower birth rates than the elves of Yznarian, I would probably become some critter or...

"Tuisto, am I limited to only becoming humanoids?" I asked in my thoughts.

"Do you wish to activate this limiter? It's off right now."

"No, leave if as is. It matters little what body I'm born as... unless I'd still need to wait for puberty."

"No such restrictions exist. Though your new body might not withstand the full power of your soul."

"For example, if I'm reborn as an ant or a roach?"

"Or as bacterium."

"Can we limit my rebirth to multicellular organisms?"

"Absolutely. Done."

I shifted my focus back to the Viking warriors.

"Is that sword only for show?" One of them asked.

"This is only so Brynn could test my skills. She said she doesn't sell weapons to the uninitiated," I replied.

"And did she pass," Meinar asked the Dvergar smith.

"Yes," Brynn said curtly, then scowled and laid down the law. "If you guys want to fight, do it in the back. If you ruin my smithy, I'm going to send you to Valhalla earlier."

The Dvergar were a mighty people. Though their proclivities laid in crafting and arts, just a glance at their obsidian bodies told anyone that even their civilians were powerful warriors. Given the realm they inhabited and the vicious neighbors they shared said realm with, they had to. But she mentioned sending them to Valhalla so they weren't Valkyries.

I went on a mental tangent. Hadn't Loki offered me a Valkyrie Class once or twice? He never said why but he did say it was entirely optional.

I refocused on the situation and caught the tail end of a challenge. I stared at Meinar, their leader.

"I have no problem fighting you ladies," I replied nonchalantly. One on one or all at —"

"Friendly spars only," Brynn cut me off. "No Techniques or spells either."

"Fine by me," I shrugged.

*

*

It was decided we should spar with training weapons. I thought about bringing out an Adamantite blade but gave up. That metal would eat away at the enchantments in the Viking's gear.

I faced Signyi first. She was the shortest Viking, with a height of six-feet-one. She got two dull hand axes while I was armed with only a wooden short sword. No armor or shield.

"I'm gonna break that toothpick," she growled and dashed forward at the sound of her colleagues' jeering.

I parried the first few blows, using my technique to keep the wood from chipping. Each blow from her wooden axes was like a sledgehammer swung by an Olympic champion. It wasn't just strength, Signyi was also fast as fuck. A normal person would need to windmill their arms to swing this fast, or something like that. Signyi struck with technique and guile. Each ax swing was intended to put the opponent in the right spot to get cleaved by the next.

We exchanged a few dozen blows. I had some difficulty finding an opening to strike, a gap widened by the reach of our limbs. Still, I had an edge regarding speed. I could move faster and swing faster than Signyi.

Then, when we clinched closer, she swept her boot around my legs in an attempt to trip me. My tails lashed around to give me the balance I needed. With three dozen of them, I could walk without using my legs.

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"Physical attacks? Really?" I asked as I spared a glance at Meinar. The Viking leader was unfazed. Then I shifted my attention back to the behemoth of a woman that was so deeply absorbed into her bloodlust I believed she would only stop after one of us was down on the ground.

That's when I stretched my tails, each of them growing longer than six meters (20ft). They went around the sparring area, creating a ring of colorful fur.

The next moment, three tails shot for each of Signyi's limbs and two for the neck, seizing her elbows, knees, and choking her. I pulled as she struggled to keep her body from becoming the Vitruvian Viking.

Next, I stabbed her stomach, sinking the wooden blade just enough to draw blood. Another two tails came for her practice axes and I overcame her will, sending both dull weapons to my item box, making them reappear behind me.

"Winner!" Brynn shouted. "Goddess Haru of Yznarian."

Meinar nodded at me as she entered the ring to retrieve her warrior. I withdrew my tails, dropping the woman who promptly fell into a crouch and stood up. With a hand on Signyi's solar plexus, Meinar kept the Viking berserker from coming at me.

Though I'd won, I didn't feel like celebrating. My body was weak, as weak as one of my 1st level incarnations back in Yznarian. Though I had the combined strength of a handful of grown men, when compared to the heroic band of warriors blessed by Odin himself, it was ass-weak. I was even sweating!

Once Signyi got her bearings and cleared her mind, Meinar left her to the other Vikings and approached me.

"We are honored that you granted us this spar, Goddess Haru." The Viking sergeant (I had no idea of their ranks) said respectfully.

Oh. Right. I stared at the Dvergar blacksmith, feeling betrayed.

Brynn shrugged. "Every Dvergar in Nidavellir knows you came escorted by none other than Loki of Asgard. Just as every metalsmith in this city knows Loki spent the better part of the day pestering Sindri to smelt him an Orichalcon bauble for you."

I wiped the sweat off my brow with my Water-affinity tail. Then I looked at the awestruck eyes of the Viking women.

"Okay, okay. It's not like it's a secret anyway. Back in my homeworld, I was worshipped and wielded the powers of a goddess."

Meinar then knelt though I sensed it was just to bring our eyes to the same height and not adoration, subservience, or any passive bullshit.

"Goddess Haru, I believe our meeting is not a coincidence, then. Loki is Wise and he surely foresaw this."

Loki was an asshole but I wouldn't spit in the women's faith. I kept my opinions to myself. Meinar sounded like she wanted to ask something.

"Are there any tasks you need my aid for?"

Meinar laid her sales pitch on me. Boy, oh, boy. Did she had that rehearsed to a tee.

*

*

"Ragnarök is coming," Meinar said ominously. Her voice had that halo of certainty, desperation, and defiance. I had no doubt she truly believed that Ragnarök was coming, like, tomorrow. "And it falls upon our shoulders to stop it. At any cost."

"I sense you need my help with a quest," I suggested. When the battle-hardened woman's eyes shone, I broke into a faint smile. "What is it?"

"We need to slay the Böggdra Bögvar," Meinar confessed. In the corner of my perception, I saw Brynn wince.

"I'm sorry, but what is a Böggdra Bögvar?"

"It's a worm from Niflheim, one that has a thousand legs and an appetite for people. It can burrow through almost any stone with the ease of a fish in a still pond. The Böggdra Bögvar strikes from surprise, appearing from the tunnel walls. We need a magician who can sense the Böggdra Bögvar before it strikes."

"The Böggdra Bögvar is a thorn in Nidavellir's arse," Brynn said and spat on the ground. "The geomancers' magic protects the city but trade through the tunnels became harder after it moved here."

"King Hrothgar," Meinar continued, "tasked us with this quest. To prove our worth to the Dvergar, we need to slay the Böggdra Bögvar. Only then will he grant us the ore we need. We must take the ore to Midgard to forge arms and armor for our brethren."

"Why not forge the equipment and then transport it?" I asked.

"We will use the ores for other purposes," Meinar said.

"What the Vikings request is no ordinary ore. Magically infused ore needs to be forged right after smelting else they lose their properties."

"Fair enough," I conceded. "Tell me about the Böggdra Bögvar."

"It is a worm that's as thick as a house is wide from the underworld realm of ice," Meinar lectured. "It is covered in white fur and has a thousand bear legs. Its main attacks are to come out of a tunnel by surprise and bite down some unfortunate soul, then dive into the rock while the thousand legs claw at whoever is nearby. Its mere presence freezes any water within seconds, even in a fur canteen. Many warriors who attempted to kill the beast were frozen and then raked into chunks."

"How fast does it move?"

"Inside rock, as fast as a galloping horse. Out in the open, it actually becomes slower. In one of our early attempts, we lured it to an open cave. The legs aren't oriented just below the monster. They grow in all directions."

That would explain why it was faster while tunneling through solid rock.

"What spell do your geomancers use to keep the Böggdra Bögvar from tunneling into the city?"

"It's a ward against all monsters," Brynn said. "But I do not know the details. Not my job to know."

"Sure. Can we ward a tunnel?"

"Probably. Do you know how to ward a tunnel? Because I don't, and the Vikings know only slaughter."

Some of the Norse women grinned with pride.

"I can help. Let's go hunt us some Böggdra Bögvar."

*

*

I went back to the library and asked some acolytes for information.

Turns out that the warding spell the geomancers used was a state secret. Those who knew how to cast the wards also knew how to bypass them. It let me little choice. Our best bet to kill the monster was to trap it in a tunnel, and then hack at it until it was dead.

Next, I researched about this monster. It wasn't a unique creature but this particular specimen journeyed all the way from the underworld of Niflheim to Myrkheim and has been eating merchants and wanderers and monsters for quite some time. As it grew, its appetite also grew and the now ravenous and humongous monster became more and more active and aggressive. I didn't doubt the books for a moment when I learned it had a powerful regeneration or even a way to discard injured segments of its body. If the section wasn't injured enough and was long enough, a new Böggdra Bögvar would be born from the discarded part.

it was a common property of some worms, like those flat ones that kids cut in half at school and then watched the halves become full individuals. What were they named again? I forgot.

Anyway, as I studied the monster, I made a plan to defeat it. If the Böggdra Bögvar was an inexorable force, All I needed to defeat it was an unmovable object. But the monster wasn't dumb. Some scholars even theorized it had gained sentience. So, it could go around the immovable object. I needed to do better than that. After a day of study and design, I finally had something that might work.

I went back to Brynn's forge and asked to use the back area. There, I conjured my [Shadow Workshop] and set myself to forge a weapon to defeat the Böggdra Bögvar.