What the hell?
Was someone playing a prank on me?
But there was no sign of anyone nearby.
I could hear voices right beside me and others from a little farther away.
Which meant they had to be ghosts!
Grom, that bastard. He knew it was my first time entering the temple.
He could've at least warned me there were ghosts here.
"Um... Excuse me, spirits? I need to choose a weapon and leave so I can finish my coming-of-age ceremony quickly."
Come to think of it, the ghosts here were Barbarians, weren't they? Didn't that make them my ancestors?
While I was momentarily distracted by that thought, a man's gruff voice rang out.
[Kid, if you can hear our voices, wave your hand.]
I wondered why I should do that, but the spirit of Korea, the land of courtesy in the East, still lived within me. I couldn't very well refuse a request from my ancestors, so I waved.
[Looks like that fellow really can hear us!]
[A living person can hear our voices?]
[That's impossible!]
"Um, could you tell me who you are?"
I still needed to make sure.
They might not be my ancestors at all, but some wandering evil spirits.
If that was the case, I'd have to get out of here, summon a shaman, and put on an exorcism show.
[I am Burunar, founder of the Burunar Tribe!]
[I'm Kardorak!]
[I am Mordavin, the Warrior of Darkness!]
Oh!
I didn't recognize a single one.
The temple enshrined great warriors, but there were quite a few of them.
Naturally, unless one of them had used your favorite weapon, you wouldn't even know his name.
"I don't know any of you."
[How can that be?!]
[You bastard! Are you even a Barbarian?!]
These ignorant Barbarians were about to make a scene.
Why were they getting angry at me just because they weren't particularly famous?
If they were famous gods like Odin, Donar, Loki, or Himir, that would be another matter. But there was no way I could memorize the names of countless ancestors.
"I don't know much, so let me ask. Are you stronger than Lord Odin?"
At times like these, you had to hit them with something they couldn't argue against.
That would make them back down.
[Th-that's...!]
"Or are you stronger than Lord Donar?"
[Grr...!]
See that?
Everywhere you went, there were thugs who bowed before the strong and bullied the weak.
Not that I was saying our ancestors were like that, of course.
It was instinctive to fall silent at the mere mention of someone stronger than yourself.
I named a few more famous ancestral gods, and everyone went quiet.
[......]
"I'm just going to choose my weapon and leave, so please don't interfere."
The moment I mentioned weapons, the place became noisy again.
[Choose my axe!]
[No! Pick the one-handed sword!]
[Hey, you bastard! You've already been chosen plenty of times today!]
Seriously, why were they fighting so fiercely over which weapon I chose?
"All right, all right. Stop fighting for a moment. Do you get something good out of it if I choose your weapon?"
[W-well, that's....]
The very people who'd been shouting at each other a moment ago fell silent.
What an honest reaction.
"If I choose one of your weapons, you receive some kind of benefit, don't you?"
[Gasp!]
[How did you know?!]
Bingo!
Simply choosing a weapon once used by one of these ancestors would benefit them.
In that case, I should get something out of it, too.
Ancestors and descendants ought to help each other out.
"What can you offer me if I choose your weapon?"
Being enshrined in this temple meant they'd achieved something worthy of recognition during their lives.
Perhaps they'd left behind some hidden treasure or inheritance.
I was an orphan with no one to support me.
I might as well use whatever I could get as the foundation for my happy future.
[What can we possibly give you when we're in Valhalla?]
[Should we promise to let him fight to his heart's content when he comes here someday?]
[But anyone who comes here can fight as much as he likes.]
[That's true.]
As expected of Barbarians, they couldn't take a hint.
I'd have to give them a little nudge.
"Did any of you leave behind treasure or something important before you died?"
[I hid a treasure! Choose my axe, and I'll tell you where it is!]
[I have a hidden treasure, too! Mine's definitely better than that fellow's!]
Before I knew it, they were competing with each other.
They were telling me everything they could think of to make themselves look appealing.
Why were they going this far?
"All right, then, let me ask just one thing. What exactly do you gain when I choose your weapon?"
Unlike before, the ancestral spirits were now falling over themselves to give me information and win my favor.
[When one's weapon is chosen, one receives ten challenge tickets.]
Challenge tickets? They'd seemed to be betting those earlier.
"What are challenge tickets?"
[I'll explain that. A challenge ticket is an item that lets you challenge a warrior in a higher region of Valhalla to a duel. You can make one challenge for every ten tickets.]
The Barbarians had suddenly turned into walking encyclopedias.
Thanks to them, my questions were being answered.
"And why would you want to challenge someone?"
[To fight stronger warriors, of course! I've fought these fellows so many times that it's no fun anymore. I want to fight powerful opponents and become even stronger!]
These lunatics!
They really were a race obsessed with fighting.
Even after dying, they were making all this fuss just to fight someone stronger?
At this point, I had to give them credit.
But whose weapon should I choose?
I wasn't sure what any of their treasures actually were, which made the decision tricky.
"Let me hear what treasures each of you hid."
[I have an axe made for me by dwarves!]
[I have a shield that was hailed as a masterpiece by the dwarves!]
But listening to their descriptions, I realized all those treasures had already been discovered.
These people had been dead for quite some time, after all. Naturally, many of their treasures would have been found by now.
In other words, their information was useless.
When I told them that, they all panicked.
'Then what should I ask for instead....'
How about learning combat techniques?
Our ancestors might not have been the brightest, but they certainly knew how to use their bodies.
The rule might be to pass skills down within the family, but if I traced my family tree back far enough, one of them might turn out to be my ancestor.
"Is there anyone here who could teach me combat techniques?"
I doubted they'd agree, given their pride, but these people were probably stronger than any warrior in our tribe today.
After all, the warriors enshrined in this temple had possessed extraordinary fighting strength.
[Very well! I'll teach you!]
[No, learn from me! I'll make you the greatest warrior in the tribe!]
Huh?
That wasn't the reaction I'd expected.
They were all working awfully hard to promote themselves.
Who should I choose?
Your initial weapon choice was extremely important.
Barbarians didn't provide much other support, but the weapons given out during the coming-of-age ceremony were of fairly high quality.
They were made by their dwarf slaves—no, friends—so they could hold their own anywhere.
I would have to use this weapon for at least several years.
Most Barbarians actually used the first weapon they chose at their coming-of-age ceremony for their entire lives.
They could use various weapons, but most decided on their primary weapon around this time.
'I need to choose carefully, too.'
Which choice would make everyone say I'd chosen well?
It felt strange to think about learning something from ghosts.
I couldn't even share my worries with anyone.
There was a good chance some inquisitor would beat me to death with a cross.
"All right. Then I'll make my choice."
It was time to decide. Playing hard to get for too long could backfire.
Especially with impatient Barbarians, who might suddenly decide they wouldn't teach me after all.
There was already a weapon I had in mind.
A one-handed sword.
Axes, maces, and other blunt weapons were commonly used by Barbarians.
But I was planning to learn techniques on the continent.
"I'll choose...."
***
Valhalla was divided into five regions.
The region in which a warrior lived was determined by the depth of his martial prowess before death.
As a result, the differences in population and wealth between the regions were enormous.
There were countless warriors of the lowest martial grade.
By contrast, there were only five Barbarians of the highest martial grade.
The reason Barbarians wanted to go to Valhalla was so they could continue fighting endlessly even after death.
But the five Barbarians who possessed the greatest fighting strength had lost all interest in battle.
Fighting the same opponents over and over.
Going through the same situations every day.
Those were the problems.
By now, they could dodge and block one another's attacks even with their eyes closed.
Not even clowns performing an act could make their movements look so natural.
There were Barbarians from other regions who brought challenge tickets and challenged them, but not one had the skill to satisfy them.
After living like this for more than a thousand years, they were desperately hungry for new opponents.
And so the Barbarian gods of the highest region of Valhalla had devised a solution.
Raise some strong fighters themselves!
They selected a few of the more capable fellows from the other regions and taught them how to fight.
But after trying several times, they gave up.
It wasn't easy for ignorant Barbarians to change the techniques they'd spent their entire lives honing.
So the five gods called an emergency meeting.
"At this rate, we'll spend eternity fighting nobody but each other!"
"Exactly! Is this what I came to Valhalla for? What the hell are our descendants doing?!"
"I've heard strong fighters appear quite often among the other races."
"Should we not send down divine revelations to help our descendants become stronger as well?"
Odin, who had been listening, finally spoke.
"Do you really think our descendants would listen just because we gave them a divine revelation? They would surely dismiss it as a ridiculous dream and ignore it."
"That's true...."
The other four seemed to agree.
It was an unpleasant thing to say, but Barbarians were ignorant.
They were a race that found it exceedingly difficult to learn and understand new things.
"But are we supposed to sit here and do nothing forever? I've already forgotten what it feels like to get excited by a fight! At this rate, our standing will decline!"
Donar slammed his hand down on the table.
"Then shouldn't we at least look for someone who might listen to a revelation instead of sitting around like this? An oddball always turns up sooner or later! There's no rule that every Barbarian has to be born stupid. Surely a clever one will appear eventually."
"None has appeared in a thousand years. Do you really think one will appear now?"
"Th-that....!"
In truth, Donar also thought the chances were extremely low.
But if there was even the slightest possibility, they had to find such a person, even if they had to stake everything on it.
"For now, I'll look around the other regions for someone promising."
Donar left the meeting place and headed toward the other regions.
Then he suddenly remembered that today was the day of the coming-of-age ceremony.
'Right. Someone intelligent might have been born. I'd better check there first.'
With that thought, he made his way toward the place connected to the temple.
And there, he witnessed an extraordinary sight.
A living person was conversing with the inhabitants of Valhalla!
What was more, judging by the conversation, the fellow seemed remarkably intelligent!
Watching him toy with Valhalla's warriors using nothing but words reminded Donar of the smooth-talking humans who could talk their way through anything.
'That fellow's an oddity!'
And an oddity who could converse with them without even needing a divine revelation!
He had to entice the fellow somehow and train him.
Then he had to bring him up to the highest region of Valhalla.
A greedy gleam appeared in Donar's eyes.
***
"I'll choose...."
I was just about to say I'd choose the one-handed sword.
[Wait!]
A shout that reverberated throughout the temple struck me squarely inside the head.
[Gasp! Why are you here?!]
The other ancestors seemed startled by the arrival of a new catfish in their pond.
Who could it be?
The newcomer made quite an entrance.
[Hammer! Choose the hammer!]
[Donar! You're already in the highest region of Valhalla! You don't need challenge tickets!]
[That's precisely the problem! There's no one left for me to fight, so I'm bored!]
I watched Donar argue with the other ancestral ghosts.
If only I'd had some popcorn.
Thor—no, in this world, he was called Donar. He was one of the Barbarian gods, a man known as the God of Thunder.
He was one of the legendary Barbarians who'd used a hammer as his primary weapon.
And even someone like him was begging me to choose his weapon.
But frankly, the hammer Donar had used wasn't particularly suited to combat.
Unlike a warhammer, it didn't have a pointed end on the opposite side, and without tremendous strength, its destructive power was low.
That was why hardly anyone chose a hammer at their coming-of-age ceremony.
Not a single Barbarian in this year's group had chosen one. That said it all.
Of course, I'd often used hammers while working as a carpenter in my previous life, but this one was closer in shape to a warhammer.
Given my current situation, choosing a hammer was very likely to turn the road ahead into a thorny path.
"Is there any reason I should choose it...?"
[If you choose the hammer, I'll tell you where Mjolnir is!]
Oh my!
I absolutely have to choose it!!