"What do you think?" Freya asked.
Ragna and his cousin were in the Royal Library, walking through the vast halls lined with manuscripts and books on every imaginable subject. The Library was enormous, its brown walls adorned with intricate runes and sigils. Thousands of shelves stretched in both horizontal and vertical rows, spanning across all nine floors of the grand building. Above them, a large golden orb floated, contained within a black, round cage. The Library was tended by Librarians, Volur dressed in brown robes with hoods that obscured their faces. While the Royal Library was open to all Vikings and Volva, it was eerily quiet. The only people Ragna had seen were Volur, who were likely studying various enchantments.
Ragna had woken up to breakfast with his cousins, and it was then that Freya had proposed showing him the Library if he was interested. He had agreed, eager to get to know his cousin better. Freya had seemed shy at first, but once they were alone in the Library, she revealed a different side of herself. Her eyes sparkled as she eagerly discussed magic. It was clear that magic was her passion, and she had dedicated her life to studying it.
Ragna couldn't help but feel a pang of nostalgia. Back in his former world, when he was younger, he had been deeply fascinated by magic. Learning about the arcane arts and the hidden secrets of the universe had been thrilling. But as he grew older and ascended in his cultivation, Ragna—now Salazar Ashtarmel—had lost that excitement. All that mattered to him now was accumulating power to survive, and later, for reasons he couldn't quite explain. Hearing Freya speak so passionately about the runes she was learning brought back fond memories.
"I think the Library is amazing," Ragna said, glancing around as they entered a section dedicated to history. "It's just a shame that not many people visit it." Despite its lack of visitors, the books were clearly well cared for—there wasn't a speck of dust on the shelves.
"Mother says that before the Conquest, Norsemen didn't care for papers or books," Freya said. "She says we were stubborn, so much so that our bias against books has been passed down through generations."
"The Conquest was the best thing that ever happened to Midgard," Ragna replied, finding the book he was searching for—the Heimskringla that the King had mentioned. It was a heavy tome, but Ragna had no trouble carrying it to a nearby table, where he could sit and read. Freya followed him.
"What makes you say that?" she asked, intrigued. From what she knew, aside from the Desolation, which had claimed 8.2 million lives, the Conquest had resulted in the loss of 1.5 million more lives. It was a brutal event that had lasted a decade, with each battle taking the lives of countless Vikings.
"The Conquest is why we survived the Desolation," Ragna said as he opened the heavy tome. "The Conqueror not only unified the world, but he also brought us together. It's the reason why, when Ragnarok came, humanity didn't fight among ourselves. We stood united against the forces of darkness. Thousands of tribes and clans, some who followed the Aesir, others who didn't, came together under one banner. It was that unity that allowed us to endure the dark ages and ultimately arrive here, on this land."
"And now we're all divided again," Freya said quietly.
Yes, the Norsemen were once again fragmented, just as they had been before the Conquest, with various kings and leaders vying for power among them. Ragna smiled faintly as he opened the book. He knew it was hard to suggest that the Conquest had been a good thing, considering the massive loss of life and the many atrocities committed. But despite the horrors, the end result of that event was one of the key reasons humanity had managed to survive.
Ragna continued to read, his eyes scanning the pages of Heimskringla, learning about the first royal dynasty in Norse society—the Yngling family. The first king of this line was Yngvi-Frey. Not much was known about him, except that he had been a mighty Viking, the son of a powerful being, and had traveled the vast world. He was the one who discovered Scandinavia and established the kingdom of Sweden. Upon his death, Frey was venerated by his people, and, much like his ancestor, was eventually deified.
Ragna paused, reflecting on what he had just read. He knew that in this world, death had been one of the paths to godhood, at least before Ragnarok, when Valhalla was still a reality. The god Frey was one of the many gods who continued to be worshipped in modern times. In Swedland, the Vanir gods, including Frey, were still honored, despite their absence from the world. The Vanir had not abandoned humanity like the other gods; they had simply died—killed by the Jotnars during the war of Ragnarok or by the Rune Walkers after Odin lost control of them.
Ragna sighed and returned to his book. As he flipped through the pages, he came across the lineage of his own family. It seemed that his ancestors had overthrown the Yngling dynasty. The first of the Lothbrok lineage was a Viking named Ivar Vidfamme, a man from Zealand who was rumored to be the son of Odin. Ivar's great-great-grandson was Ragnar Lothbrok, who had killed his cousin to take the kingdom of Sweden and also inherited Zealand, which would later become Denmark. Ragnar's children divided rule over Denmark and Sweden among themselves.
Ragna read further and came across the Fairhair dynasty, which had founded the Kingdom of Norway. He was surprised to learn that the Conqueror shared blood ties to the Fairhair dynasty. The Conqueror's ancestor, Rolf the Walker, was descended from Nor, the first king of Norway. Rolf was one of the Vikings who had ventured beyond Scandinavia in ancient times, raiding and pillaging across Europe. He conquered the land of Normandy and became its king. It didn't take long for Rolf's great-great-grandson, William, to set his sights on Scandinavia. Leading an army of Normans, William conquered Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, uniting the entire North under the Norman banner. From there, he sought to conquer all of Midgard that was not yet under Norse control. This event would come to be known as the Conquest—a bloody and brutal period where William, a powerful Cultivator, achieved the impossible: unifying an entire world under one ruler.
It should be noted that at that time, Midgard was divided into three major lands: the Northern continent, where the Norsemen lived; the Western continent, including the land of Normandy that Rolf had conquered; and the Southern continent. The East was covered by the World Sea. Despite the bloodshed, the Conquest led to the spread of Norse beliefs far beyond the North and introduced Norse society to new lands, ideas, and cultures.
As Ragna absorbed these details, he felt Freya's gaze upon him. He didn't feel anxious or uncomfortable by her stare, but his curiosity grew. Why was she watching him so intently?
He closed the book, raised an eyebrow, and met her gaze. "Is something on your mind?"
"Are you a Reincarnator, cousin," Freya asked.