(Hrolf’s POV)

(Hrolf): “He… is the falling star?”

I utter in disbelief.

(Skuld): “Yes, he is.”

Skuld answered instead of my daughter. She’s looking at the boy’s sleeping face.

(Skuld): “I can feel a clear and great power coming from him. However, he is not a Giant, that I can say for sure.”

(Ullr): “Are you certain that he is no giant?”

She shook her head with confidence.

(Skuld): “He has an aura about him that you cannot even start to fathom. I have seen giants before, and he is no giant in any way, but he isn’t less powerful than that.”

(Hrolf): “Then what is he?”

I ask curious. Skuld looks at me with an empty face, saying with a deadpan tone.

(Skuld): “A god?”

(Jokul’s POV)

I groggily open my eyes from my deep sleep. Umm, so warm! And comfy as well. I yawn and turn in this soft place, feeling a goofy smile forming on my face.

(???): “He moved?!”

(???): “So he is alive.”

Ah, shut up will you? I’m feeling tired, I spent a lot of energy on my last fight… wait, what did I fight again? My head is a bit muddy from exerting myself… it was a… dragon, wasn’t it? she had a cute voice… she wasn’t a good fighter too.

Wait, what happened at the end? I was winning after all, why I don’t remember defeating her? Well, I just had finished a big attack… when something hit my back! Now I remember! That bitch! She called a subordinate to sneak attack me before she slapped me with her tail!

(Jokul): “That biiiiiiitch! I’m gonna pull of her scales! How dare she make a sneak attack on me?!”

My sleepiness immediately goes away and I get up on the fluffy place and start screaming for revenge. Don’t fault me, my head isn’t working right at the moment, I can barely recognize my surroundings and that are actual people around me at the moment.

I turn around when I hear the sound of something falling and the sound of steps on wood with blood in my eyes, seeking the dragoness or the wyvern that hit my back. But what I see are people, humans.

Two guys with big muscles, two woman that are fairly pretty with red and black hair, a little girl with blonde hair, two boys that look a lot like each other and one thin boy. I raise an eyebrow, confused.

The kids are sitting on the ground, as if they fell on their buts, the blonde guy is standing in front of the black-haired woman and blonde girl as if to protect them. the other man with greying black hair is standing in front of the rest as if to protect them too.

All of them are looking at me with fully open eyes, and most of them reek of fear. Yes, I can literally smell far. Two of them, however, don’t have that smell. Those ones being the blonde little girl and the red-haired woman.

I look around for a moment, identifying where I am. A cabin of sorts? It smells like medicine. The alternative kind, meaning smells like drugs. Uh, this isn’t the top of a mountain in the middle of a snowstorm with a raging dragon.

My anger subsides. Why did I pass out? well, I spent a lot of my power to defend myself from her last strike out of panic. A tail whip from a gigantic creature could actually kill me. Therefore, I released all the frost magic that I could and now discovered that I survived a cowardly attack.

Anyway, I am standing on a fur bed surrounded by people right now inside a wooden shack. First, assess the situation. Even if I haven’t met a human in a long time and lived like a savage for a long time and longed for human warmth, doesn’t mean that ‘ill run to their arms.

I’ll do that after threatening them! what can I say, even when I was alive in my previously life the latter part of my life was set alone in a hospital room. Therefore, my communication skills are bad. I point my axe to the red-head woman.

(Jokul): “You, fire-hair, how did I get here?”

She looks surprised at me for a moment. I know that I understand their language, after all, I heard them talking before.

(fire-hair): “This is my house, that girl found you crashed on the snow outside this village.”

(Jokul): “Oh, so this is a village then.”

I say. I hang my axe on my back and clear my throat.

(Jokul): “Hello, um, humans? I’m Jokul, I’m a… uh… warrior? Well, nice to meet you.”

I introduce myself in the best way possible… at least in the best way that I can. They look at me confused for a moment. And what surprises me is the little blonde girl, the first one to speak.

(Hilda): “Hi! I’m Hilda! I was the one that found you in the forest! What are you?”

She asked innocently and straightforwardly. I like her, she seems a good kid! However, that is a hard question to answer. Am I human? My body was made from zero by the goddess, so I don’t have any parents. I really don’t know how to answer that.

(Jokul): “I pass on that. Next question.”

I say, pointing at her. She tilts her head cutely, asking:

(Hilda): “From where you fell?”

She asks. Well, I was in the top of a mountain, so kind off obvious I guess.

(Jokul): “From a really tall mountain.”

(Hilda): “Why?”

She asks cutely again. Own, so moe!

(Jokul): “I pass on that.”

I won’t go around telling that this eight years old fought to death… almost to death a Ice dragoness. Before Hilda could continue asking, fire-hair interrupts.

(Skuld): “Mister Jokul, I’m Skuld, the healer of this village.”

I nod to her with my hands on my waist.

(Jokul): “Hello Skuld, nice to meet you.”

She bows lightly, touching the shoulder of the grey hair dude and approaching a little more. Since the bed is on a taller place and I’m standing on that, I crouch on the edge to stay on her eye level. She indicates the greying old man.

(Skuld): “This is the village chief, Ullr.” She points to the blonde man. “That one is the village’s head hunter and the son-in-law of Ullr, Hrolf and his wife Hulda, as well their daughter Hilda, as you know, the one that brought you here.”

(Jokul): “Alright, what’s the point?”

I ask without thinking much. She looks at me at lost for a second before answering:

(Skuld): “Well… what you wish to do from now on? Do you wish to return to where you came or something else?”

Oh, that. I don’t see the reason to introduce me to the village chief at all just to ask me what I want to do. After all, I didn’t fall in a glowing meteor. But well, they see me as an eight years old. A dangerous eight years old with an axe that they probably weren’t possible to take off from me and is obviously magic but still.

(Jokul): “Well, mid if I stick around in this village for a while?”

(Ullr): “Well… I don’t mind, but I don’t think that there is someone that can take care of you…”

I smile and wave my hand with the other one still hugging my knees.

(Jokul): “I can take care of myself well enough. I bet I can help around more than you imagine!”

Skuld smiles, saying as she holds Hilda’s shoulders.

(Skuld): “Then let Hilda and the boys guide you around to show you the village! We can discuss the details later! You can get familiar with the village before settling down!”

(Hrolf): “What?!”

(Hilda): “Alright!”

(Hrolf): “Hilda?!”

Her father tried to protest before being swiftly silenced by a heavy stomp that made a disgusting sound making me question if these people are in any way normal or allies at all. The father proceeded to crouch without a sound and hold his damage feet, and most likely cry in the cold alone later due the pain.

(Skuld): “Now Hilda, take him around the village and show him how things are here and be nice ok?”

She says, smiling to the little girl that is oblivious to her father’s pain behind her back. Hilda nods cheerfully, the other boys not showing that much of a happy face. Alright Skuld, I’ll play your game of trying to get me out of the room.

I am not a stupid protagonist of a Japanese novel, I am aware of the tricks of other people, and will only play the expected part because one, they can’t do anything dangerous against me since I have an regenerating body with extremely high resistance and physical strength and a magic frost and fire axe.

Also, Skuld is hot and has red hair and blue eyes, totally my type. Therefore, I’ll play her game as a freebie and see how it goes. After all, I’m not dense to not feel the palpable wariness that they have of me save for Skuld herself and the innocent and cute Hilda.

(Jokul): “Ok! Let’s go, Hilda!”

I say, jumping off the bed.

(Skuld’s POV)

As Jokul, Hilda and the three boys leave my house, Hrolf recovers from my stomp, getting up and yelling:

(Hrolf): “Why did you sent my daughter with that dangerous monster?! Even the kids felt his aura when he woke up screaming!”

He complains. Indeed, when he woke up screaming something that I couldn’t really piece up, he released such an intense bloodlust that the animals of the village will be constipated for some time.

And yet, I sent the little girl with him anyway. The reason? He saw right through us, he made it quite clear and even played along with my suggestion to let him out of the room. His aura of bloodlust was intense enough that children that don’t fight for their lives can feel death looming about.

(Skuld): “Don’t worry, he won’t do anything. You actually should be grateful that he left and let us talk in private.”

(Hulda): “She’s right Hrolf.”

His wife agrees with me.

(Ullr): “Although I worry for granddaughter’s safety, but I trust Skuld’s choice.”

Hrolf glared at me for a second before sighing, defeated.

(Hrolf): “Alright, what’s your plan?”

(Skuld): “He clearly isn’t human, not only because of the way that he avoided answering Hilda’s question, but from here he fell from.”

(Ullr): “The mountain?”

(Skuld): “Yes. You remember the storm a few minutes ago, right?”

(Hrolf): “Yes.”

He said. Of course he remembers, the tremors and roars coming out from the top of the mountains was hard to miss to say the minimum.

(Skuld): “The only creature that could have caused such a storm is the fabled dragoness Astrid. And the battle ending as soon as Jokul falls isn’t a coincidence.”

(Hulda): “Do you think that he is a good?”

I shake my head.

(Skuld): “I can tell that he is no Frost Giant, but I can’t tell if he is a god either. In any way, having him around can be dangerous, but we do not know if his coming is an omen of some kind. He is clearly smarter than his age, which makes me believe that he is some kind of disguised being…”

Ullr sighs heavily.

(Ullr): “I don’t believe that I can get rid of him even I want. Just that murderous auras was enough to let me trembling…”

I pat his shoulder with sympathy. After all, I feel the same, even in my whole life experience.

(Skuld): “At least he seems to be on our side for now. For now, let’s try to stay on his good side and he might even lead us to something good.”

(Hulda): “Why do you think so?”

I smile.

(Skuld): “Who knows? The gods work in mysterious ways…”