Mjolnir!
It was a weapon everyone knew by name alone.
A legendary weapon that returned to its owner no matter how it was thrown.
And the ultimate weapon, one that could never be destroyed and could smash anything to pieces!
'He's saying he'll give me a weapon like that just for choosing the hammer....'
Unless you were a simple-minded Barbarian, it was only natural to be suspicious of an offer like that.
'Is this a scam?'
Why would Donar go so far as to offer Mjolnir just to make me choose his weapon?
Someone like Donar shouldn't need challenge tickets.
"What do you gain if I choose the hammer, Lord Donar?"
There was no way I could figure it out by thinking, so I asked him directly.
Contrary to all my worries, Donar's answer was remarkably simple.
[Nothing.]
"......?"
Then why the hell had he been so desperate for me to choose the hammer?!
What was this, some kind of amusement for the gods?
[I merely intend to take you as my disciple and teach you combat techniques.]
"......!"
I didn't need to hear another word.
One of the five great Barbarian gods, Donar himself, was offering to take me as his disciple. What could possibly be wrong with that?
The continent? What's that?
From now on, I'm a true Barbarian.
Donar is my master, and Donar is my father, too.
I'm sorry, Father, the one I had in this world!
I've decided to find and serve a new father.
Ignoring the desperate cries of the other Barbarians, I walked toward Donar's statue.
Five hammers remained beneath it.
There were fewer weapons here than at the other statues.
It wasn't because people had chosen them. The hammer was so unpopular that only a few had been made in the first place.
But who cared?
I was about to receive secret private lessons from the number-one instructor in hammering.
I immediately picked up a hammer.
[Excellent!]
Donar shouted in delight.
"Huh...?"
My consciousness suddenly faded, and I collapsed.
***
I dreamed that I was working as a carpenter when the foreman hit me in the head with a hammer he'd thrown.
It was because I hadn't done a job properly, even though nobody had taught me how to do it.
I muttered that he should at least teach me the work if that was how he felt, and he hit me again.
But why did it actually hurt?
If pain could hurt this much even in a dream, something had to be wrong!
"Wake up, kid!"
Huh? What's that voice?
It wasn't my foreman's voice, which had been surprisingly thin for a man of his size.
A rough, gravelly voice belonging to a real man's man struck my ears.
THWACK!
"Ow!"
My eyes flew open.
Pain reverberated through my entire skull.
When I looked ahead, a vaguely familiar man was standing there, spinning a hammer in his hand.
Ah, someone outside must have found me and brought me out.
"Hey, what the hell are you?"
"Pardon?"
What the hell was I?
Was he going to give me trouble just because I'd chosen a hammer?
But why was he complaining when he was holding a hammer himself?
I soon realized I'd misunderstood him.
"How in the world did a fellow who has not even died get into Valhalla?!"
Valhalla?
Only after hearing that did I look around.
To the south lay a wide-open plain, to the east a huge lake, to the west a dense forest, and to the north snow-covered mountains.
This was definitely not the place where I'd lived.
Outside the temple back home, the Barbarians' houses were huddled close together.
A small wall surrounded those houses.
Beyond the wall lay a forest crawling with demonic beasts.
It was a combat fortress designed specifically for Barbarians, allowing the battle-loving people to head outside and hunt whenever they pleased.
It was rather large for a tribal settlement because several tribes lived together there.
Anyway, this place was definitely not within our tribe's territory.
"Is this really Valhalla?"
"That is what I would like to ask you. Only dead warriors may enter Valhalla, yet here you are, alive. Do not tell me you struck yourself in the head with a hammer, died, and came here?"
"What are you talking about...?"
What a thoroughly Barbarian way of thinking.
Who would commit suicide just to get to Valhalla...?
'Well, Barbarians might actually do that...?'
A realization dawned on me, and I nodded.
"Then are you Donar, by any chance?"
"I am."
Donar examined me closely.
He stared so intently that it was making me uncomfortable.
"Your body is still alive... but your soul is ambiguous...? No, it is peculiar......."
He seemed to be pondering why I could enter this place.
I had a rough idea of the reason.
Perhaps it was because I'd been reincarnated.
I'd died, then come back to life with the memories of my previous existence. What if that meant a dead soul had entered a new body?
In that case, I was both alive and dead right now.
"Enough. There is no point thinking about something without an answer. This is even better! I can teach you face-to-face."
Donar seemed to have reached a conclusion on his own.
He slipped a finger into the ring at the end of his hammer and began spinning it around.
"Come at me, kid."
"Pardon?"
Come at him?
But I hadn't learned a thing yet!
Wasn't he supposed to teach me?!
"No, thank you!"
"Hm? Why not?"
"What's the point of charging at you when I haven't learned anything? All I'd be able to do is get beaten half to death."
"......!"
Donar's eyes widened so much they looked ready to pop out of his head.
He stared at me as if he'd discovered some astonishing oddity....
Wasn't what I'd said perfectly obvious?
"Are you really a Barbarian?"
"Don't I look like one?"
Unless there was some secret surrounding my birth, I was definitely a Barbarian.
One look at me was enough to see that I had the perfect Barbarian physique.
I'd combined the Barbarians' insane combat exercises with modern gym workouts, so even among Barbarians, my physique stood out.
"That is true, but... normally, you should rush at me without a thought for the consequences...."
"Then should I charge at you?"
"........"
My confidence left Donar speechless.
I'd defeated an opponent I couldn't beat with martial strength by using the power of words!
"Besides, what's the point of getting beaten when you haven't learned anything?"
"The usual way is to learn faster by taking blows...."
"What kind of nonsense is that? If you just get beaten without knowing anything, you're merely being subjected to violence."
"You learn by watching with your eyes and mastering it with your body!"
Donar's words suddenly made my blood boil.
Back when I was a carpenter, the foreman had never taught me a single technique. Instead, he'd kept gaslighting me, saying I should learn by watching and that hard physical work would make me learn faster.
For a moment, Donar and that foreman seemed to overlap in my mind.
"If you just beat someone who doesn't know anything, the only thing they'll improve is their ability to take a beating! Be honest, Lord Donar. You've never taught anyone before, have you?"
"W-well... no, I have not."
I poured out all the resentment that had built up inside me over the years.
"I'd understand if you taught me the basics first and then told me to learn by taking hits. But telling someone you've only just met to learn by getting beaten? Do you even know my name?"
"No...."
"And did I ever say I'd become your disciple, Lord Donar?"
"Y-you will not become my disciple?"
"That's not what I'm saying! I'm saying there's a proper order to these things."
Donar nodded, looking bewildered.
I wasn't sure what to make of it.
He hadn't actually done anything terribly wrong, but perhaps the stubborn old-timer mentality of ages past had simply been passed down into the modern era.
'Still, he's more than a thousand years older than me. I feel bad about that.'
I was suddenly embarrassed that I'd lost my temper and shouted at him.
"I'm sorry. I've always wanted to learn, but instead of being properly taught, I've only been made to suffer. I guess everything I'd bottled up finally came bursting out."
"I see. I am sorry as well. I said I would make you my disciple without even asking your name."
"It's all right."
"Very well. What is your name?"
"Uldar."
Like true Barbarians, the two of us settled the matter quickly and simply.
And before we began learning by getting beaten(?), we had a conversation first.
"Where exactly are we?"
"Valhalla. More precisely, its deepest region, where the greatest warriors gather."
"Where is everyone else?"
Donar suddenly let out a heavy sigh.
"Not just anyone can enter the deepest region of Valhalla. So there are only about five Barbarians here in total."
"And the other four?"
"They are probably resting or fighting in their own areas. Sigh...."
Every emotion Donar felt showed on his face.
Right now, he seemed filled with dissatisfaction and sadness.
"Is something wrong?"
As if he'd been waiting for me to ask, Donar immediately began talking.
"You see... it has been nearly a thousand years since I entered Valhalla, and in all that time, not a single other warrior has made it this far."
Was Donar really that strong?
Well, whenever someone named the five greatest warriors, Donar was always among them.
"So I have no choice but to fight the same fellows every day. By now, I can dodge their attacks with my eyes closed. The others are the same. What in the world are our descendants doing? Are they really that lacking in talent?"
Donar sighed so deeply that it seemed the ground itself might sink beneath him.
There was something pitiful about the sight.
He'd spent a whole thousand years stuck with the same five people.
Just imagining it was horrifying.
"What does another warrior have to do to get here?"
"Be strong, of course."
"But the other warriors are strong, too, aren't they?"
"Nowhere near strong enough. One must be at least as strong as I am to enter this place. Anything less is out of the question."
Wait, was it even possible for anyone to get here, then?
He was called the God of Thunder.
Was he saying you had to become a god to enter this place?
"That is why I intend to take you as my disciple and train you. If I teach you personally, you might someday reach a level comparable to ours."
Even after death, they were willing to teach someone just so they could have a new opponent to fight.
Once again, I was struck by how extraordinary the Barbarian race was.
"And the reason I told you to learn by getting beaten is that it is training to overcome the fear of death. There is an enormous difference between a warrior who has conquered that fear and one who has not. And the younger a warrior overcomes it, the faster he can grow stronger."
So that was why he'd simply told me to learn by getting hit?
If he'd explained that from the start, I would've understood.
I nodded.
"But how long can I stay here?"
"Probably not very long. Even now, I can see your soul trying to return."
Huh? Didn't that mean we needed to start training immediately?
"Please start right away! We don't have much time!"
"This training cannot be completed quickly anyway. Even a talented warrior would need several years."
"Then isn't there no point in doing it right now?"
"That would normally be true. But Valhalla is different. Here, death is a new beginning."
"Pardon?"
"Even if you die in Valhalla, you come back to life. In other words, you need not worry about dying, even if you are killed."
"Does that mean there's no pain, either?"
"No. You feel the pain with perfect clarity."
That sounds like a pretty terrible deal, doesn't it?
Still, I had no choice.
I didn't have much time left.
There was no telling when I'd be thrown out of Valhalla.
So I made up my mind.
"Let's begin!"
Donar saw my expression and broke into a grin.
"That is a fine look in your eyes!"
Donar simply stood there, staring at me.
But the pressure I felt from that single gaze was no joke.
"Do not just stand there. Come at me."
I gripped my hammer and charged at Donar.
"For Valhalla!"
CRUNCH—!
Huh?
Why has everything gone black?
"Actually, in Valhalla, you do not learn by getting beaten. You learn by dying."
I couldn't see a thing, but I could practically picture Donar's face as he spoke.
That smug grin as he looked at me!