Gamer Chapter 43

The flight to the eastern kingdom of magic went without any incident where I would just rest with Kusanagi on my lap to watch over myself when I needed a small break. And it did take a solid day and a half of my top speed to reach the Eastern half of the realm.

And as I passed around Skadi's massive castle of glowing ice or whatever it was. I could kinda feel how the realm on this side had more magical energy, while the other side had more lifeforce. Something like that anyway.

I still would exhaust myself if I tried making a fireball with magic. Damn past me for always complaining about Gamers who constantly abused magic. But either way I was able to follow the maps I got from the western kingdom to reach the capital city of the eastern kingdom.

'Well now... This is gonna be interesting.' I mused as I saw that the castle although following the style of Norse building. Had a bit of a kinda dwarven hint to it with their buildings being large stone and metal structures.

The city itself was built inside the space of two large different rivers with the city itself being built on a small dead volcano that acted as the foundation of the city, and after disguising myself I swiftly learned that the wizarding kingdom was one that had its creature comforts locked down.

The first river acted as fresh water that brought in good clean water from the nearby mountains, while the other river was used an exhaust system as the water literally apparently flowed out of the realm itself and into a ward system that Skadi made to force water to evaporate and be redistributed across the realm.

Either way, breaking into the Forsa Kingdom wasn't hard. Not at all... As the common wizards/mages walking the streets were too busy doing their own things in a rather odd-to-see rush.

But hey if I didn't need to jump through a fuck load of hoops to mug Skoryn like I needed to run through the three colosseums in order rightfully challenge Alfridus and take over the Heior Kingdom. The better for me.

Skoryn, the tyrant queen of this kingdom had her own private palace, and although it was clearly warded to all hell. And even having mundane physical traps... There weren't any guards.

No, the paranoid queen couldn't trust someone in her supposedly safe place. And using my martial arts skills to pull in my life force to hide myself from the wards. I had Kusanagi also hide my form with natural winds that further obscured any mana that lied in the wards touching myself.

The palace itself was a large stone structure that followed western designs... Not exactly too Norse in style but honestly did Vikings actually make big castles? 

But either way, I realized that Skoryn if she was as proud and cruel as she was supposed to be. She would be living in the circular tower that stood next to the squarish main keep building.

'Ok, now if I wasn't wearing my crown... Where would I keep it?' I mused with a small frown as I gently used Kusanagi's winds to break open a window for me to climb into the castle building.

And as I pushed through the window I heard Kusanagi whisper. "Fly, do not touch the ground... For each brick is enchanted to explode or something violent should someone not keyed into the wards step on them." 

My lips twitched at the thought of the ground quite literally being lava and I held onto the rugged stone walls as I used my wing skill to keep myself afloat as I entered the next several rooms only to find nothing of extreme value besides some alchemical, and enchantment reagents that I snagged for myself.

But finally, as I continued up the stairs of the tower I was in, I found a heavily warded door, and after Kusanagi pushed so wind through the keyhole and found no-one was within the room.

I broke into the room with Kusanagi's divine winds cutting through the lock of the door so the door could swing past the lock that remained.

"Her wards are built around dealing with other mages... She believes the fighters would need to fight through the entire city before reaching her, and her wards aren't keyed into detecting divine mana signatures." Kusanagi spoke with disdain at Skoryn's arrogance.

To be fair, all her points were correct. There was no other divine in this entire realm other than Skadi, with Skadi herself going after any divine being that came into her realm quite aggressively supposedly.

Given Skadi's terrible lore with her own Norse faction that made sense. She had shattered a part of reality and now in her own tucked-away slice of reality, she was living quite firmly the fuck away from every other faction.

Either way, I took a long breath as I entered what was Skoryn's personal bedroom and low and behold. A large crown was sitting atop a large pillow that had several finger-sized gems inlaid onto its frame sat.

'Thats a garish thing.' I mused before I threw an 'Observe' at it and my lips twitched.

[Crown of Fools- Heavily cursed crown that will first augment the intelligence of those who wears it, but in reality, the user's soul is being enlightened ever so slightly as it is separated into the different gems inlaid in the crown.]

'That's not the crown I need.' I thought as I carefully flew into Skoryn's private bedroom and after a moment of thought I used a fork I got from my inventory to open up the drawers of the dressers and cabinets in the large room.

After stealing a few enchanted rings and bracelets that could be nice gifts for my girls, I frowned as I realized the crown wasn't in here at all as Kusanagi whispered. "The axe handle which acts as the frame of the key has a hint of Skadi's divinity which acts as the key into her castle's wards. After leaking my winds into the castle, I can feel the same hint of divinity in the main keep Jake."

"Which means she is probably wearing it right now... Whelp this is gonna suck." I muttered.

As there went my easy snatch and go. Now the plan had switched to smash and grab style of stealing... Not that I had any shame in yoinking the enchanted goodies I came across even if they didn't have any Primordial Runes on them.

I made my way silently through Skoryn's castle towards what was almost certainly her throne room and when I got there I could only marvel... At just how 'Loki' the throne room was.

Deep streaks of green and gold metal and trim filled her throne room and as I silently floated into the room through one of the large open side doors I just drifted up into the high rafters of the large room.

As Skoryn herself was being kept busy by her courtiers. And they weren't human... No with a single 'Observe' I was able to catch onto the truth of the matter, and thus figure out the true level of how paranoid Skoryn was.

[Connected Homunculi- A homunculus that is grown with a shard of someone else's soul but bound to Skoryn's magic. Should the homunculus die, the subject it's modeled after will have their soul greatly damaged.]

'Jeeze so Skoryn doesn't even trust her subjects and nobles to appear in her court. No they have to remotely connect to their homunculus's and then attend whatever meeting Skoryn wanted them for.' I mused as Skoryn's connection with Loki being her father was apparent even before I threw an 'observe' at her.

[Skoryn-Lvl 87 The Prodigal Daughter] [Skoryn is a lesser divine handmaiden/goddess, born of Loki stealing Skadi's husband's seed and corrupting it with his own and then passing it to the goddesses Skadi during their relations. Skoryn is more Loki and Skadi's daughter then Skadi's previous husband. Wields the Sacred Gear- Root of All Worlds]

My lips curled as I read that final bit as the queen of the martial kingdom already told me all this. I was a bit worried about the Sacred Gear bit and I was right too actually.

[Root of All Worlds- The sacred gear God/Yaweh made when he broke into the Norse Pantheon's dimensions and is the result of Micheal and Lucifer breaking the Bifrost and Yaweh cutting the Ygdrassil tree in half. The Sacred Gear is the prototype of the Longinus Dimension Lost and allows the user to create roots that can connect to all other roots the user has created in the local multiverse.]

'I fucking highly doubt that creating mere roots is all it can do.' I mused as I then looked at the crown mounted atop the dark-haired and green-eyed beauty's head.

[Key of Transcendence- Bears the Primordial Runes of I̴͍̿ͅn̴͖̳͋s̶̬̅î̵̤̻͐g̴̱̈͘ḧ̷̠͎́ţ̶̥͑ and W̸̼̰͊ȋ̴̦͗ṡ̴̰d̷͈̟̀͠o̷͍͌m̴̻̕ which allows the user to advance their skills by more than 75% Also protects the users mind from illusions, and allows the user to see through divine, and otherwise magical disguises.]

'Did Skadi make this crown just so her daughter couldn't be tricked by Loki who may try to come over to impregnate his own daughter?' I thought with some disgust as honestly... It made entirely too much fucking sense with how the divines acted.

Either way I refocused on the crown that would act as the actual teeth and unlocking feature for the key and I realized rather idly that Skoryn was wearing the crown rather loosely on her head with it just resting atop her head.

'Wait... None of the wizards controlling the homunculi have noticed me, and Skoryn isn't looking up as she is trying to pay attention to the courtiers talking about the coming eternal winter in the next week.' I mused before I shrugged.

Taking a couple lines of celestial bronze piano wire that was extremely thin. That I had made to mess around with in the thought of making a braided like rope out of the metal, I got into my survival gear and attached some fishing hooks to the lines.

And then ever so carefully as I moved through the dark rafters of the curved roof of the throne room, I sent the wires down with a flick of my fingers so no one without enhanced senses could catch the glint of metal shooting down behind Skoryn's head.

And either the nobles and servants who were controlling the homunculus bodies didn't notice in the slightest, or they didn't dare to speak up as no one in the crown made any noise at my self made fishing line falling down.

Taking in my surroundings I made my escape plan to myself. The large throne room had a massive painted glass window that depicted Skoryn being crowned queen of the Forsa kingdom behind Skorn herself so I first used some of Kusanagi's wind to carve through the thankfully not enchanted glass to weaken it.

"Now we will discuss our neighborly kingdom. Will we continue to support their secondary towns through out the winter?" One of the more... Noble of nobles who had his homunclus better dressed anyway spoke up.

Skoryn steepled her hands together and she leaned forward slightly and I realized this was my chance as the crown was leaning foward and was a bit looser on her head. "We will not be supporting them this winter, they have become fat off of relying on our aid and now like the sheep they are. They will be shorn with us taking their Primordial Rune treasures when the next winter rolls around and they are begging for the aid they are so used to." 

Even as the 'evil' queen plotted I myself was busy at work on my own plan and with how ornate her crown was. My hooks easily snagged onto the swirling rings of metal that made of the crown and then with a sharp inhale I used all my strength to yank the crown up towards me on the taunt line so it would fly up to me.

The wicked queen shouted in suprise as she covered her head and I saw that I did... Kinda pull a bit of hairs off. But oh well, the crown flew into my gloved hands and then was thrown into my inventory to cut off any magical tracking spells she had in it as I fell out of the rafters to dodge the magical beam that sought to strike me! 

"Ha! Today is the day you shall rue the day of striping the resources from the smaller settlements! We are not your pawns in this game between the two kingdoms!" I yelled out dramatically as I then unveiling my wings and then shot through the painted glass window leading outside.

'Ok, I have no idea how fast she can fly. Or if she can teleport... So time to be a shithead.' I thought as I used my costly spatial movement technique to sprint through the air towards the city and then for good measure I altered my lifeforce signature slightly as I strolled into an inn and got myself some food.

I wasn't going to flee the city towards the outskirts. Nope, I had flared my 'magical' energy to appear like a mage of sorts probably a supernatural creature with my wings and now with my lifeforce changed I was basically a whole new person.

And with the crown hidden in my Gamer inventory it wasn't like she could track it. Now I just had to wait for her to spend a day searching the city. And have to expand her search outwards so I could rush over to Skadi's temple/castle to meet with my girls.

[Quest Completion- A crown no longer. The keys to Skadi's home has been collected and assembled within your inventory.] [Rewards- Fifteen Job Tokens]

I hummed feeling my physcial power from my two jobs strengthen as they leveled up from the job tokens and I idly wondered when I would get another job... Though actually it likely had something to do with how I needed to max out my first jobs anyway.

"Now to just be patient." I muttered with a small smile as I felt a flare of mana as Skoryn was raging in the distance as she had throughly lost me and had obviously just realized all her trackers weren't working.

If they hadn't been completely destroyed when the two keys were fused anyway.