Alex woke up to excruciating pain in his body, an agony he had never felt before. There was a burning sensation throughout his entire body, and he couldn't feel his limbs. He slowly opened his eyes, but it hurt to do so. There was a roof above him. He was inside a structure. He was laying on a bed. "A house?" he thought to himself. He screamed in agony when he tried to get up. The pain was agonizing. "You still need to rest, child," he heard a voice say.
Alex turned his head to the side to notice an elderly woman sitting on a chair. "You are in terrible condition, although you are better now than when I found you," she said. "Who are you? Where am I?" Alex groaned. It hurt to speak.
"I'm Gullveig, and you're in my home," the woman replied. "What are you?" Alex asked in a low voice. "The better question would be what are you? I mean, clearly you are a human, but it's commendable how you were able to make it to Jotunheim alive."
"Jotunheim?" Alex asked in shock, then groaned as it hurt again. "Yes child, we are in the wastelands of Jotunheim, and to answer your earlier question, I'm a Jotun. I found you lying in the Northern Swamps. That part is notoriously known for being the habitat of the Nixies. You're lucky I found you before they did."
"Nixies?"
"Yes, they are shapeshifting creatures that lurk underwater."
"It was probably these Nixies that attacked me back on Earth."
"No, those were probably just water trolls. Nixies like to play with their prey; they wouldn't outright brutalize you like this."
"Is that supposed to be comforting?"
"What are you here for, child? I've never seen a human visitor before. It hasn't been long since the coalition decided to invade Midgard. I figured it was about time, since the core has almost run out here."
"Core? There's a core here too?"
"Yes. There are three natural cores. The one in Midgard was artificially planted eons ago by the Allfather. Its function was to absorb dark matter over the ages and convert it into energy. It's similar to how fossil fuel works on your planet. It was supposed to be a reserve core solely for the gods, but the coalition also has a planet to run. They need that core just as much as the gods do."
"Allfather? Coalition?"
"Jotunheim is divided into two parts, the wastelands and the coalition. The coalition is well, a coalition of the six major Jotun tribes. They are the effective governing body of Jotunheim. The coalition is led by the Jotun king, the current one being Thrym. As for the Allfather, you will surely find who that is by yourself."
"That's a lot of information for my brain to handle," Alex would have said more, but he found himself unable to make his quips. He was still shaken by the incident in Antarctica. "Wait, how do you know about fossil fuels?"
"Midgard is a very interesting planet to study. It might be the weakest, but some of the most fascinating natural phenomena occur exclusively in your planet."
"What are the wastelands?"
"I just answered one of your questions, and you immediately move to another without a proper response." "And they call us Jotnar rude" Gullveig grumbled. "The wastelands are where the so-called monsters reside. The wastelands are savage. They do not have a government. Its residents are all subspecies of us Jotnar, but they lack our intelligence. The Aesir consider us Jotnar to be mindless brutes, but the reality is that we are no different from them in intelligence."
"You seem pretty nice, not really the image I had in mind."
"Do not be so trustful of your eyes, child. Humans are the weakest of all living beings in Yggdrasil. You have no idea how many things there are out there that you are simply incapable of comprehending. I personally do not care about the politics of neither the Jotnar nor the gods. I live in the wastelands, far from the lands of the coalition. I know how to survive out here."
"Damn, I guess I should know better than to mess with you then."
"What will you do now, child? It will take you at least a month to recover. You are missing an arm and a leg, but that can be easily fixed using artificial dwarven arms. We Jotnar are competent engineers ourselves, but the dwarves are the best of the best. The dwarves of Nidavelir are forced to be loyal to Asgard, but they export to Jotunheim in secret. Trade relations between the two planets are surprisingly amicable."
"Why are you helping me?"
"Entertainment, if I am to be honest. It's not everyday I encounter a human, after all. I'm curious how far you will go, but you don't have a goal, do you?"
"I'm here to eradicate your species, i suppose." Gullveig laughed out loud at his answer. "Well, good luck with that. That would be fascinating to witness."
"Are all Jotnar as nice as you?"
"Nice? Haha, it's not in the nature of the gods and the Jotnar to be nice or rude, good or evil. We are simply what we are, and we despise change. So our nature remains constant for millennia. You must have realized by now that you humans have a life span equal to a mere fraction of ours."
"What should I do now?"
"That's a question for you yourself to answer, what do you want to do?"
"I want to get stronger. I don't want to feel weak ever again, and I want to hunt. And these wastelands sound like the perfect hunting grounds for me."
"Ha! You are weak, child. You barely survived water trolls on your own. They are some of the weakest of all creatures inhabiting the wastelands."
"I know. That's why I will get stronger. Help me."
"Very well, child. You continue to entertain me further. But you must rest for now. You are in no shape to do anything right now. You cannot even move a muscle. Sleep, I will be be outside picking some herbs."
Alex closed his eyes as he heard Gullveig get up, followed by the sounds of a metal door open, her footsteps, and then the door being closed. "Did I really survive back there by myself? What was that green flash of light? Well, who cares, I guess. It's no time to think about useless things," he thought to himself. "I'm gonna get stronger, I'm gonna become the strongest, and I'm gonna annihilate the gods and the Jotnar, as well as anything else out there."