A delicate balance 1.36 - ING. VERSIÓN

The first rays of the sun appeared on the horizon and bathed the valley of Sparta with light. The sky was clear, with faint white clouds as a gentle spring breeze ran. Viggo was lying on some grasslands on a large hill. He sensed how the light rose on his face and this woke him up. He opened his eyelids with difficulty and the first thing he saw was a blue, clean, and peaceful sky. He also saw tree leaves, petals and filaments of dandelions sliding into the air. The mere sight of all these things in calm, seemed to him a miracle. So, he stared as the green and yellow leaves slipped into the air. He hears the wind howling and birds chirping in the distance.

After a minute, Viggo rested both hands on the grass and pushed himself to sit down. Then his view was covered by a sun rising on the horizon above the mountains. He looked magnificent and glorious, just seeing it he was pleased. Then he retracted his right leg and supported the sole of his foot on the grass, propelled himself with his whole body and stood up. Notice that he was almost naked, only covered by a kind of loincloth that covered his butt and crotch. However, even though he was almost naked, he never felt cold. On the contrary, this spring air produced a pleasant feeling of freshness.

Viggo looked up at the horizon and saw a valley, which was occupied almost entirely by a city. The streets were lit by torches and guards in bronze helmets were seen making their rounds. On the left, more than two thousand meters away, Viggo saw something like an open-air amphitheatre, with a circular plane. On one side was the stage, where surely the actors would play their roles. On the other side, there were large stands that rose in a series of ascending steps, where the audience would sit down to enjoy. Several hundred meters further, a rocky mountain was rising and at its top, they had built several long buildings whose stone roofs were being supported by thick stone columns. Viggo turned his gaze to the front, noticing how the city stretched to the bottom of the valley, while at the same time maintaining wide groves that separated the districts. In the center of the city there was a training camp with a dirt floor and in its center the statue of a warrior.

Viggo advanced up the hilltop until he reached the edge and climbed onto a stone that stretched like a walkway. He walks until stop at the tip and look down the hill. He saw a village of humble houses with all kinds of crops around him, mostly wheat, vegetables, and some flowers.

Viggo put his hands to his face and rubbed his face without understanding where he was. It was clear that this was not Muspelheim. Compared to the burning land, this place was a wonderful land, full of natural beauties. However, it remained a place totally unknown to him.

Suddenly, Viggo noticed something in his hands and pulled them away from his face. Then notice them smaller and test their own body in a gesture of amazement and nervousness. His eyes widened, full of disbelief. He looked at his arms, his legs, even the cloth that covered his crotch opened. Everything had shrunk.

-Xiao! Damn demon old man What did you do to me? Come out right now, I'm going to kill you-shout Viggo with all his fury. His cry was so loud that he reverberated all over the valley -go out now, don't be silly, damn old man. I will tear off your skin and use your body to feed the beasts of the field-

However, there was only an eternal silence. The wind howled, the birds standing on top of a tree behind him chirped and the breeze passed by freezing Viggo's head. Another thing that made him open his eyes like plates and put his hands to his head to check what he felt. Nothing, the hair was gone. It was as if he had cut it flush with the skin and only the roughness of the hair roots remained.

-Through the heavens, what is going on?- Viggo murmur full of disbelief and pain. His arms fell without force, and he froze for ten minutes, thinking about whether this was the punishment for having failed that challenge. Then Viggo remembered that he was fighting the ogre and... and... couldn't remember the outcome of that struggle. He put his hands to his face and covered his face, trying to concentrate on remembering. However, his memory was confused.

Once again, Viggo dropped his arms and sat on the edge of the stone. His feet hung from the edge as he looked uneerily at the bottom of the hill, where the village stood. It seems that, with the rays of the sun, people began their day, as they began to leave the houses. From the four largest houses in the village came some warriors wearing bronze helmets and breastplates. On the other hand, from the smaller houses, which hopefully must have had twenty square meters (5mts on each side), men and women of humble appearance came out, dressed in opaque one-piece robes. They were brown teas and dark brown hair. The women wore their hair long while the shoulders occupied it short.

The warriors walked out of town towards the big city in the center of the valley. While normal people went straight to the fields. Others, mostly women, children, and the elderly, were engaged in crafts for the maintenance of the village.

Viggo took a deep breath, walked back, and jumped from the stone into the grass. He then advanced on the right-hand side down a slope. The landscape was filled by grass, white daisies with their yellow center and lavender flowers with their intense lilac color. Viggo was descending slowly until 30 minutes later he reached the base of the hill.

From the front, a dirt road stretched along the hill and leading to the village. On its right there was a wall of natural stone that bordered the slope of the hill and on its left the pastures extended for more than two hundred meters until reaching a grove.

Viggo advanced along the way, with the grass on each side and the yellow and lilac wildflowers. From time to time a bush of short stature and one or another poppy of intense red color was seen. While at the end of the road Viggo could see the village had seen from the top of the hill. He kept advancing until he reached a wheat field on his left, where two women were carving a part of the land with wooden hoes. Viggo watched them lift the hoe and hit the earth to let go. Their movement was constant and from their gaze, it seems that they would spend all day in the same work.

Viggo reached the end of the road and stumbled upon a descending staircase of ten steps, with two walls on the sides. He looks under the steps feeling the cold and roughness of the stone through the soles of his feet. Once he reached the base of the staircase he looked straight ahead and saw many adults and children helping in all kinds of jobs. To begin with, the old women had made easels with thick branches and hung all kinds of herbs to dry and then season the meals. Children carried piles of firewood or moved vessels. Men were seen working on all kinds of furniture, repairing streets or houses.

Only one person was out of tune in that whole group. He was a warrior advancing in the direction of Viggo. Like the other warriors, he wore a bronze helmet, but he wore a bare torso and a red robe that covered him from the waist to the knee. His helmet had a T-shaped opening that only showed his eyes and a part of his mouth. His arms had the constitution of a warrior, with thin and defined muscles without fat.

Viggo moved forward looking at the warrior and his clothing, crossed glances and held his gaze. They both looked at each other as they crossed paths and passed by each other. Viggo went on his way, advancing to the center of the village, but the warrior was upset to be looked at in such a way by a child. He stopped, turned around and followed Viggo, rushing his pace and advancing him.

Viggo raised his gaze and could see the hostility in the warrior's eyes through the groove of the helmet. It was an intense and stern look, full of anger. Viggo stepped back and the warrior moved his hand and slapped him backhand. Viggo turned his face with a split lip. Then he felt furious and looked at the warrior with intense hatred. The warrior's smile surfaced behind the helmet and Viggo jumped up and punched him on the right cheekbone of the helmet leaving his knuckles marked. The warrior staggered and stepped back two steps. Viggo fell to the ground on his feet, his fists clenched and looking at him with an animal fury.

-Why are you beating me?- roared Viggo.

However, the guard recovered from the impact and instead of saying something, he threw a punch. Viggo moved to the side, dodging the punch almost feeling the rubbing of the knuckles. He jumped up and plugged a second punch in the cheek. This time the knuckles were sunk into the metal, and the guard fell on his back unconscious.

-Garbage- Viggo muttered in a biting tone as he pursed his nose and ran his hand to wipe the blood off his lip. He looked up and saw that all the villagers were looking at him with wide eyes and faces full of disbelief. Viggo snorted looked away and then kept moving forward. People turned away from him as if he had some illness and Viggo felt much more upset. So, to make things less uncomfortable, he goes down a street that overlooked the exit of the town.

Once he left the village, Viggo continued to advance along a dirt road that descended on a gentle slope, with a grove on his left and a small stream on the right. The water looked clean and shallow.

After walking for about 30 minutes, Viggo arrived at the entrance of the training ground and realized he was on top of a hill. To enter the training ground, you had to climb a reddish stone staircase with four breaks. At the top of that staircase was a beautiful portico, with a roof and thick pillars made of stone. At the top of the roof, there was a small viewpoint, where they had placed bronze sculptures, perhaps of warriors, perhaps of gods. The place looked beautiful, so Viggo wanted to take a closer look. However, he only gets to step on the first step when he hears someone shouting, "there it is!".

Viggo looked where he had come from and saw the guy he hit earlier along with two other warriors running in his direction. His eyes flashed an animal glow while his left cheekbone was swollen and deformed. Viggo frowned and waited for him. The guy pounced without having learned the previous lesson. Viggo passed under the hands and was left behind the warrior's back. The latter turned around to try to catch him and Viggo jumped to punch him in the same cheekbone.

-Damn- shouted one of the warriors who followed the guy.

Viggo looked back, dodged a fist that was heading to his face, and threw a punch that hit the warrior in the stomach against the force. The warrior immediately fell unconscious.

The other warrior left standing looked at the little bald man, it must be just an insolent child who was just starting the agoge, but he was hitting like a mountain. He thought about it a little, but anyway he threw himself into hitting Viggo and he was given the same dose as the others.

-Damn! what the fucking place this damn old man threw at me- Viggo said in an annoying state. He didn't want to see anything anymore, so he turned his back on the staircase and the training grounds and advanced across a bridge made of pieces of rectangular stones. All set up lengthwise and squeezed so that people, neither carts nor horses, would get trapped or have to pass through the stream that passed underneath.

Viggo saw a warrior on horseback on the other side of the road. He looked somewhat different than the others, his chaste had a kind of red and black hair, standing on his side like the mane of a horse. He wears a beautiful breastplate where the relief of the pectorals and abdominals was marked. The warrior rode at a slow pace, looking at Viggo with some intrigue. Viggo just looked down and tried to avoid more trouble. Once the warrior passed, he rushed his step and looked back every 5 meters to know that he was not being chased.

-Damn devil's old man- Viggo muttered, remembering the reason he was here. This was no coincidence, he thought -once I find you, I'll tear off your skin, I swear-