"You are an outsider."
In a snow covered forest, Jacob opened his eyes and looked at an elderly man who was wearing a black cloak and possessed both blind eyes, but one detail that made jacob recognize the man, was that the man possessed a raven on his shoulder.
"Are you odin?!"
In this world, there are important gods from other mythologies like Zeus, asura, thánatos etc... But the strongest of them all is the goddess freya, the protector of humanity. In the human kingdom, humans pray in the name of goddess freya, kill in the name of goddess freya and wage wars in the name of goddess freya, she is undoubtedly God to humans.
Odin being a god known and praised only by Vikings, they are usually called heathens, but something few know, is that odin is the only one who can use time magic freely, this easily places him as the second strongest god in this world.
"I am odin and I imagine you are from another world, am I correct?"
"Yes, but how did you know that?"
"That is not important, but tell me jacob voss, how did someone like you, come to be in this end of the world?"
Jacob was hesitant to tell the truth, but after thinking for a while, he decided to trust odin, why he might be the only one who would help him in the future.
"It's complicated, but long story short, I made the god of this world angry, so he sent me to this world to die."
"Hm... You speak of the god who created this world, just as he created me, freya and the other gods?"
"Yes..."
After mulling over what jacob had said, odin suddenly began to laugh as he spoke:
"Haha, so I reallymenre raised by someone, pfffff."
Jacob looked surprised at odin, but did not let that show on his face and asked:
"Where are we?"
"Haha, it's been a long time since I laughed like that.... Really long time... cough-cough, we are inside your mind and you are asleep right now."
Jacob was shocked by that information, but odin said:
"Don't worry about it, the elves don't seem to want to kill you anymore and you will wake up when we finish talking."
"Okay... So what do you want with me?"
"Let's see... As a thank you for giving me the truth, I want to give you a gift."
"Gift?!"
Odin smiled as he saw Jacob's surprised and joyful face and replied:
"Yes, I will give you a guardian who will protect you at all costs."
Suddenly, odin made a hissing sound and jacob began to hear someone running at an abnormal speed and when he turned to see who it was, he was surprised to see that it was a huge white wolf.
The wolf quickly came up to them and stopped in front of Jacob while staring him in the eyes.
Odin quickly reassured the wolf and said:
"Freki, this will be your new owner and jacob, this will be your new guardian."
At the same time, freki knelt down to jacob and bowed to his new master.
Jacob was a little surprised by those events, why from the moment he was in this world, everything for him used to go wrong and seeing that now he was getting gifts, he felt welcomed somehow.
Regaining his composure, jacob quickly placed his palm on freki's head to acknowledge her as his guardian and after doing so, freki started wagging his tail in happiness and odin said to jacob:
"I am a horrible owner and used to leave her alone for years, so now that she has a new owner, she should be happy that her life can improve."
Jacob began stroking the freki's head as he replied:
"I understand and thank you, I will take good care of her."
"I know you will... But before I go, I want you to do something for me."
Jacob stopped stroking freki and paid full attention to odin's words:
"My faithful followers, they are a small people who live in a village between the border of the dwarven kingdom and the human kingdom and all I ask of you is to save them from death..."
As Jacob was about to answer, his vision darkened and he opened his eyes and saw a wooden ceiling and began to blink a few times to find out if it was real or fake.
After blinking for a few moments, he finally realized that he was back to reality and sank his body down on the mattress with a bit of discouragement, until suddenly, Freki appeared beside him and started licking his face.
Being caught off-guard, Jacob couldn't stop her from leaving his face completely honeyed.
"I think I need to wash my face..."
Jacob sighed and glanced around only to find that he was in a hospital room.
He placed his palm over his heart and remembered that horrible sharp pain he had felt and was thankful that he didn't feel anything else.
Then with a sigh to cleanse his soul, he stood up and decided to move on without caring about everything that was happening to him.
Jacob looked at Freki who was sitting down while wagging her tail rapidly and spoke:
"Can you downsize? You were much bigger in that dream, if you can even call that a dream."
After jacob finished speaking, freki began to increase his size to please him, but this only began to make jacob desperate as he spoke:
"You're not supposed to increase the size here!"
Freki stopped increasing her size and began to get afraid that jacob would hate her, but all jacob did was sigh with relief and lay down on the bed again.
As he looked up at the wooden ceiling, jacob reflected on odin's words:
'I think I already have an idea of why odin wants me to save his faithful, but leaving that aside now, I need to find a way to steal the sword and leave...'
Before Jacob could continue reflecting, he heard the door of the room open and noticed that a medical elf had entered the room.
As he entered, the elf looked surprised at the mythical beast beside jacob, but like a good professional, he hid this perfectly and closed the door behind him and said:
"Good morning, mister voss."
"Who are you?!"
"Your doctor." He finished speaking and sat down in a chair next to Jacob's bed.
"My doctor? I thought you elves wanted me dead."
"Sigh, the queen is sorry for your actions and she is interested in talking to you, so she has forgiven all your murders and crimes in the kingdom."
Jacob didn't like being treated like someone who was an enemy one day and an ally the next, but with no options, he decided to forget for now what had happened to him and asked curiously:
"Since you are my doctor, you must know what is happening to me, right?"
"Yes... but before we talk about it, allow me to tell you something that I tell all the terminally ill patients I take care of."
Jacob upon hearing the doctor's words, already knew what was waiting for him, but for some reason, that news didn't shake him up too much and he replied:
"Go ahead."
"The conceptualization of a terminally ill patient is not something simple to establish, although we often come across consensus assessments from different professionals. Perhaps, the greater difficulty lies in objectifying this moment, not in recognizing it. With that in mind I want you to know that even though your death is near, we don't know exactly when you will die, so there may be unforeseen events that can help or doom you."
"Okay, now tell me why I am going to die."
The doctor hesitated a bit, but answered anyway:
"On this planet, there is radiation that we call 'mana', a form of magical energy that in its specialty, modifies everything for the better, but mana only modifies that which is compatible with it."
"Tell me why I am dying and be simple and direct."
"Okay... You are sick, mister voss. Your body is not compatible with mana and right now, your body is fighting for survival at every moment to not die, it's something like a disability, just like someone is born with a missing limb, you were born without compatibility with mana."
"So I'm going to die because the mana in the atmosphere is eroding my body?"
"That's basically it, the radiation is trying to enhance your body in a forced method and since your body is something of a miracle to say the least, it instinctively knows that the method will kill you, so it prevents that from happening, Because of that, you have several internal hemorrhages."
Jacob stood pondering the doctor's words for a while and asked something else:
"Who else knows about this?"
"Just me, a few other doctors and you, but don't worry mister voss, we have a rule that we never divulge anything about the patient without their consent."
"Good, then give me an estimate of how long I will live."
The doctor hesitated again, but said:
"As I said before, we can't predict with 100% accuracy when it will happen..."
Jacob interrupted the doctor and said angrily:
"Give me a number."
"1 year... maybe less if your body can't take it to keep fighting, or maybe more if your body can take it, but at most up to two years."
"Sigh, that's enough...you can go now, and don't tell anyone about this."
The doctor got up and started walking towards the door and opened it and before leaving he said:
"I'd like to tell you to live like someone who knows he's going to die someday, and to die like someone who knew how to live right, but I see that it wouldn't do to say that to someone who is ambitious and objective."
After saying that, the doctor left the room and closed the door.
Jacob just stared at the door with a cold expression as he thought:
'My life has so many problems that it makes death seem like the least of the problems...'
After thinking that, he looked at freki who had a sad look on her face and gave her a smile and said:
"Don't worry about me, I have enough time to do what I need to do."
Freki growled sadly, but jacob ignored that and decided to get up, he knew that now his time was numbered in this world, so every minute, needed to be well spent...