The steel hand at her throat made it faintly hard to breathe, and the icy snow beneath her body left Skadi dazed.
Even now, she still had not fully processed what had just happened.
It was not because his strength had exceeded her expectations. In truth, while the power Rovi had displayed was nothing to scoff at, he had deliberately restrained it to no more than the level of a god.
What had truly shocked Skadi was his technique.
He had turned her own attack into the foundation of his counterattack. Even the force that had ultimately struck her had been entirely her own.
Skadi's martial skill came from her counterpart, the Queen of the Land of Shadows from Celtic mythology—the god-slayer Scathach, a combat master whose skill had reached the divine realm. Though Skadi fell far short of Scathach herself, she could still be called powerful and highly skilled. But this way of applying technique was something she had never even imagined.
So she had failed to foresee it.
Failed to react.
And so the battle had ended in an instant, with her defeat, before she could bring many of her stronger methods into play.
She had lost.
And become this "dead man's" spoils.
"Not happy with how that ended?" Rovi raised a brow. In truth, he had no real intention of treating this goddess as "spoils." But if he wanted to investigate what made the Norse gods unusual, the best approach was combat.
And he also happened to need a guide—someone who could accurately lead him to Jotunheim, where the Titans were.
As long as Skadi could help him accomplish that, everything else was negotiable.
Victory and defeat meant little to him. At the end of the day, aside from his human identity, Rovi was still a Machine God of Atlantis. He could call on the vast computational power of his machine body at any time. Against that level of calculation, things like technique naturally became inevitable results.
His clash with Skadi could not truly be called a battle.
But Skadi was clearly unwilling to accept it.
Though that changed nothing.
There was no way Rovi was letting go of such a useful helper.
"Before that, could you let me up first?" Rovi cast a sidelong glance at the slender hand clutching the front of his robe.
Though she had been knocked down, Skadi—who prided herself on her skill as a warrior—had still instinctively countered at the last moment.
She had meant to seize Rovi by the throat.
But as the two of them toppled, her grasp slipped, and she caught his collar instead.
Which meant that even if Rovi wanted to get up, he could not. She was still gripping him tightly, leaving his whole body pressed against the goddess.
His steel hand still rested at her throat, while his other hand braced itself beside her head amid the spread of her purple hair. His legs were planted on either side of her hips as though hemming her in, while Skadi's own legs were slightly raised, resting against his waist.
They were close—far too close, in an unmistakably intimate way.
Skadi came back to herself, drew in a breath, and calmly let go.
Was she embarrassed? Or angry because she was embarrassed?
Though she had never had any contact with the opposite sex before, Skadi considered herself to have at least some of a warrior's temperament. There was no way she would dwell on something like that.
Rovi remained perfectly composed as well. He had long since been tempered by experience.
She released him, and he rose.
Skadi sat up in the snow as well and said, "A loss is a loss. There's no point talking about whether I accept it or not."
Perhaps because of the influence of her counterpart, the Ski Goddess was astonishingly straightforward about such things.
Rovi found that a little unexpected.
"However, I really am not satisfied," Skadi added, immediately taking it back. In the end, Skadi was different from Scathach. Scathach would only have enjoyed it, while Skadi, once the fight was over, could not help thinking that she really could have won.
Even if they shared an origin, different experiences still created a gap between a goddess and a warrior.
Still, Skadi was only dissatisfied, not resentful. Her temperament had always been gentle, even toward strangers... even strange ghosts.
The Ski Goddess brushed back her soft purple hair, shaking loose the snow caught in it. The motion made the fullness of her chest sway. "So I'll be keeping my eyes on you at all times—until I defeat you!"
The goddess held grudges.
But the way she bared her teeth made her look more adorably petulant than fierce.
Even so, what she said was effectively a compromise.
If she was going to keep watching Rovi, then the premise was that she would be following him.
Of course, Rovi knew very well that her real goal was to steal from him—to copy the technique he had just used, the way he had turned her own strength against her, then use it to defeat him and wipe away the humiliation.
But Rovi personally did not care.
"You're welcome to try anytime." Rovi spread his hands and glanced around at the surrounding scenery, placing no restrictions on Skadi at all.
As long as she stayed under his nose, she was not going anywhere.
"Now then—I need to go somewhere."
"So I'll have to ask you to guide me there."
"Where?" Skadi asked instinctively.
"The bottom of the World Tree. Jotunheim." Rovi pointed toward the distant World Tree. In any case, no one in this world could possibly know his true identity.
So it did not matter if he revealed a little.
Skadi let out a startled sound. "Hm? You're going to Jotunheim too?"
"Too?" Rovi drew his gaze back from the distance and fixed it once more on the purple-haired goddess at his side.
"That's right." Skadi nodded and straightened her somewhat disheveled dress.
"In fact, the reason I hold the Goddess of Ice and Snow's hunting rite every year is to find heroes capable of breaking into Jotunheim."
Perhaps because she assumed Rovi was human—and not only human, but a dead human at that—she thought he could not possibly have any connection to the giants. After all, the giants were violent by nature, embodiments of disorder and chaos, while humans, who lived within order, were their natural enemies. Communication between them was impossible, let alone any deeper tie.
So Skadi hid nothing. That was also because this was no particular secret.
"As early as several decades ago, the great god Odin delivered a prophecy."
"He said that a group of terrifying giants would appear in Jotunheim. They would possess bodies of lava, frames of steel, and strength powerful enough to rival the gods."
"Odin ordered the gods to investigate the truth of it. Whoever found the 'king' of those giants first would receive the great god Odin's eternal protection."
Odin, king of the Norse gods, held the same kind of absolute authority among the gods that Zeus did in Greece.
Naturally, that protection was enough to make the gods scramble over one another to claim it.
"But what are you going to Jotunheim for?" At that, Skadi narrowed her eyes slightly.
"Of course I'm going there to find a way back to life." Rovi smiled.
The answer was half true and half false.
But Skadi still did not suspect a thing.
There truly was a spring of wisdom and knowledge in Jotunheim. Gaining the knowledge of resurrection by drinking from it was entirely plausible.
"Then that works out perfectly!" Skadi smiled. "You and I can cooperate."
"You help me investigate the king of those giants, and I'll help you search for the knowledge of the Spring of Rebirth."
The Ski Goddess and Rovi hit it off immediately.
"That doesn't count as cooperation." Rovi waved a hand. "It just means you'll be following my orders."
"Oh? A mere dead human dares act so arrogantly?"
"This dead human just defeated you, a goddess."
"That was only because you used a trick. Once I break your technique, I'll show you what it means to wield the wisdom of the magic mirror!"
But after saying that, Skadi drifted into thinking about something else entirely. "Though I do wonder what the king of those strange giants is like."
"The giants I've seen before were already frightening enough. The king of this strange group of giants might be far more terrifying still."
"We may even end up in a huge battle, you know?"
The goddess kept chattering on about one thing after another.
But she clearly had not noticed that, in the dimming light of the approaching dusk, Rovi's expression had become rather strange.
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T/N: errr skadi u already met the king of those giants (Titans)
T/N2: heres ur updates :3 meeting the 4 chaps a week quota :3 do u think itd be better to do it earlier in the week to make u guys wait more for the bonus chapters
bonus chaps
100 stones -> 1 chapter
200 stones -> 2 chapters
300 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
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This is a fan translation of 求你让我上英灵座吧 by 洛州白马 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!