Freyya's Cake

The instant the barrier goes down, Haalfrin feels a powerful rush of cool air. His dizziness finally catches up to him, and he is so lightheaded that he topples to the ground, gasping for air. After a few seconds, his vision returns, and he crawls back onto his feet.

After getting his bearings again, Haalfrin looks up.

Normally, levitation spells are pretty taxing on the mana reserves, but Haalfrin had used almost none of his own mana in the fight – it was all the mana inside his Wills and the innate abilities of his soul.

So, despite coming out of a taxing battle, Haalfrin just floats right to the top and looks over the carnage without an ounce of concern for his mana.

Seeing the dozens of odd weapons impaled in Lornal, Haalfrin considers taking all the blades with him… but decides against it. He doesn't have room for all these random bandit Wills on his back.

Besides, all these random Wills can still be carried in his soul, so if he needs them, he can always find little bodies for them to inhabit when the time comes – no point in carrying around weapons for them.

Despite finding a small spatial bag on the bandit lord, there's only enough room for a few weapons. So, Haalfrin decides to take only the fallen weapons of the Lornal and his 3 mages.

Haalfrin steps over a few bodies and gets close to Lornal. "Which part of the body was I supposed to bring back as proof?" Haalfrin scratches his head and wonders. "Oh well. I'll just take the head. You can't go wrong with that body part."

Haalfrin swings his sword down and chops Lornal's head off without hesitation.

In a moment of contemplation, Haalfrin bends down and picks up Lornal's head. He holds it up by the hair and looks the man right in the eyes. "That face," Haalfrin mutters, "You've got one angry scowl on that face."

Haalfrin looks up and remembers the raving lunatic Das showed him in the dungeons of the Death Realm. He mutters under his breath, "Are you going to end up like them soon, Mr. Bandit Lord?"

"Am I going to end up like that one day?" Haalfrin thinks to himself as he plops the bloody head into a bag and ties it up thoroughly.

"Is he going to end up like what, Haalfrin?" comes a feminine voice from behind him.

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Haalfrin turns around and sees Freyya standing there with her silver spear and black lantern. "It's been a while," he remarks sarcastically.

"What, yesterday? The day before? We see each other way too often, even by mortal standards." Freyya banters back.

"...Girl..., it was a joke."

"...Oh, sorry..." Freyya gets embarrassed and goes quiet for a moment.

Now that he's seen her true body just the other day back in the Death Realm, he can't help but compare her real body with the soul fragment he's talking to right now. They're perfectly identical in every way, except the fragment here doesn't have dark circles under her eyes, she looks cleaner. Last of all, her clothes and hair are more formal, well-kept, and shiny. She even has makeup on to cover her freckles.

"Anyway, hi Freyya!" Haalfrin greets more jovially while he gets back to packing up the battlefield.

"It's good to see you've FINALLY gotten back to work, Haalfrin." She pulls something out from behind her back and holds it out to him. "Here. You've worked hard."

In her hand is a chocolate cake and a jug of ice-cold milk.

Haalfrin raises his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Freyya looks down. "D-don't think anything of it. If we're going to keep meeting each other like this, then mind as well keep things friendly."

Haalfrin thinks carefully before saying, "I don't think I can accept any more favors. I haven't done anything to work for it."

Deep inside her heart, Freyya feels her stone-cold heart feel a little touched. 'Did he not count the time when he cleaned my house?' she thinks. 'Is he so good-natured that he just helps people without wanting anything in return? Oh, how come I didn't know he was like this? I thought he was just a stupid bandit.'

Out loud, Freyya awkwardly blurts out, 'Idiot! I'm just trying to say thank you for cleaning my house. I didn't do anything to deserve that.'

Meanwhile, Haalfrin hears these words, and he thinks to himself, 'Did she not count the time when she gave me a precious body-reinforcement technique? Is she so good-natured that she just helps people without wanting anything in return?'

Instead of getting flustered like Freyya, Haalfrin just feels awkward and unsettled. He coughs a little bit and obediently takes his portion of the dessert.

As he's munching away, Freyya sits down on one of the corpses next to him. "So...," she asks, "how was the battle? Who did you kill?"

Haalfrin pokes one of the corpses with his scabbard. "They were all bandits. They were making trouble at the border, and their leader was apparently a powerful mage or something, so the king sent me after him."

"I see… Was it fun?"

Haalfrin thinks about this for a moment. "I don't know. It's just my job - it's something I do. I mean... It's not really fun unless it's challenging."

'When I put it that way, I guess it was a little fun when that bandit boss was almost suffocating me.'

Freyya looks up and says softly, "I can't say I understand that. I wish everything were easy."

They spend a few minutes relishing the delicious cake and drinking cold milk. By the time they finish the last bite, the bandit souls have all finished being transformed by Felkawyn.

Knowing it is time now, Freyya opens up her lantern and makes a beckoning motion at the floating silver whisps that had emerged from the corpses.

All the whisps unanimously ignore her; some even try scattering away.

Freyya sighs and commands, "Get back here, filth!" She then looks at Lornal's soul and remarks, "Ah. They're all rebellious because of you; you riled them up!"

In a single, swift motion, Freyya chucks her spear at the Lornal's spirit whisp… and all the silver spirit threads tying him to his body are cut.

Haalfrin looks at the spirit as it noticeably writhes in pain. Unperturbed, he watches as Freyya walks up to Lornal's spirit, which is recoiling in fear. She then grabs the spirit with one hand, slams open her lantern's gate, then throws Lornal inside.

Once Lornal is sorted out, all the other spirits get intimidated and untie their spiritual knots to their bodies – obediently following her command to enter the lantern on their own.

With that done, Freyya slams the lantern shut again, then looks over to Haalfrin in embarrassment. "Sorry you had to see me work."

"Are you… torturing them or something?" Haalfrin asks in a monotone voice.

"Not really," she fumbles, "I mean, I have to bring a blade to work because souls who die violently are usually irritable and… uncooperative. Spirit threads tie you to the things you're attached to, like the things you loved, or the things you want to do, or places you had a lot of memories in. I just cut those threads. That's all."

"…Oh. Well, whatever works."

"Yeah… whatever works." Freyya tips her head at him, and bids farewell. "Bye, Haalfrin."

"Wait!" Haalfrin calls out before she disappears.

"…What?"

"Did you know... about what Das was planning for me this whole time?" Haalfrin asks.

"…What are you talking about, Haalfrin?"

Haalfrin explains, "When Das took me to the Death Realm, he explained what the Death Reapers do… and he told me he was preparing to retire, and that he needed me to replace him after he's gone."

Freyya goes a little wide-eyed hearing this, and she mutters, "It's that time already?" She coughs, "Ehem. So… are you WANTING to take his place?"

"…No…," Haalfrin looks down and says dejectedly, "I don't want to. However… Doesn't the Death Realm need a reaper? Rather, if the Death Realm is short a reaper, won't it cause a lot of problems? What if a lot of ghosts can't move on because there's nobody to pick them up?"

Freyya rolls her eyes at this. "Where'd you get THAT idea?" She huffs, then sits down. "Listen. It's almost time for me to go, so I have to be quick with this explanation."

She takes a deep breath and explains, "Whenever a Death god retires or is destroyed, it may take hundreds of thousands or millions of years for a replacement to be born in the mortal plane. However, when one IS found, the Death King just arranges for the replacement to be brought back through time as soon as they get their 7th Name."

"…Brought back in time?" Haalfrin asks, shocked. "You mean…"

"Yes," Freyya nods, "There's NEVER a time when the King is short a Reaper since as soon as one reaper is gone, the next immediately appears... no matter how far in the future they're born."

Noting Haalfrin's shocked expression, Freyya thinks it's because he's amazed. So, she adds, "What? With my King's connections, of course, he knows a couple of gods who can walk across time. Did you think the King didn't have a solution to such an obvious problem?"

What Freyya misunderstood is that Haalfrin was really shocked because Freyya's words proved Das lied to him (told a half-truth, more specifically). Das made his retirement sound like a much more pressing issue than it really was - probably in an attempt to guilt-trip him into following him!

Seeing that Haalfrin is still silent, Freyya says, "Bye for real this time, Haalfrin." With that said, she abruptly disappears in a puff of black aura.

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After Freyya's fragment left that world, it turns into a ball of energy and zips across space.

As soon as the ball enters a certain world and shoots into a certain forest, it flows invisibly into Freyya as she's reading yet another book.

Freyya pauses for a moment to digest these new memories. Then she starts thinking to herself, 'Goodness. That unsettling…'

She then thinks of the cake she gave Haalfrin. '…but at least it went well. I can now forget about my little debt to Haalfrin.'

She looks around her house, which is still sparkling clean. 'That's a weight off my chest!'

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After Freyya left, Haalfrin slings the bandit lord's head into an enchanted sack that would preserve it long enough to present before the king. 'Well, I guess it's time to head back.'

He finishes looting the corpses, then he goes back to the inn to retrieve his horse for his journey back to the capital.