Being a Viking Isn’t Fun – Chapter 29

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Shio
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866 AD, the third month of summer, Freya’s Day (Friday), Mid-month.

Helgi felt like he was about to lose his mind.

He wanted to mount the fallen Aella and smash that worthless face with his fists over and over again, to completely destroy it.

Aella’s face, revealed beneath the roughly torn face guard, was a mess of brown beard and hair soaked in sweat and blood. There was nothing of a Konungr favored by God. Just a disgusting, fat man about to die.

Soon he would be able to end this one’s life and achieve his revenge.

He should have felt elated, but instead his anger only grew stronger.

To think his father had fallen to such a man.

How dare someone like you.

To see such a sight, so many people had…

As the flames of anger raging in his chest burned more fiercely, conversely, Helgi’s mind became clearer. He restrained his brothers who wanted to immediately open Aella’s back and offer it as a sacrifice to Odin, reminding them that Aella had insulted their gods and way of life with their father’s death, and argued that they must kill Aella’s soul in the same manner.

Only then could their father’s soul rest peacefully in Valhalla.

Sigurd’s eyes seemed about to roll back in rage.

Ivarr’s face was stained with blood that might have come from his tightly clenched mouth or his torn head.

Bjorn’s face was full of deep fatigue, but his eyes shone like steel.

Even Ubba and Halfdan glared at Aella with expressions that looked like they might burst into tears at any moment.

The brothers respected Helgi’s words and followed behind him as he lightly lifted the fallen Aella and moved to the edge of the forest stretching to the west of the battlefield under the increasingly cloudy sky.

There, Helgi ordered something to be brought to bind Aella, whether chains or ropes, and then securely tied Aella to a large tree.

As the brothers silently looked down at Aella’s face, Helgi gave the now conscious Aella, who was letting out faint groans, a choice.

“Where is my father buried?”

“…Ugh. I don’t know, infidel…!”

For that brave answer, Aella had to lose one of his fingers.

Helgi tightly bound Aella’s severed finger to slightly reduce the amount of blood flowing out, and repeated the process.

“Where is my father buried?”

“I don’t know… huu-huk… I said I don’t know! Aah- Aaaagh!”

Three from the left. Four from the right. Finally, with his initial courage completely gone, drooling and crying from every visible orifice on his face and having wet himself, he begged Helgi, but Helgi did not listen.

“I really can’t remember…! All the trees look the same, how could I possibly remember that..! Huu-huk..! I’m certain it’s somewhere in this forest…! Kuu-huk… Please kill me! Aaargh! Kill me!”

“I can’t do that, Aella.”

This time, one of his right ears.

“Aaaaargh-!”

“Next will be your eyes. Aella, before that, I’ll give you a chance to choose.”

“Anything…!! Huu-huuuh-! I’ll give you anything! I’ll do anything! What do you want!”

No matter how much he struggled, the thick ropes showed no sign of loosening. As Aella wailed and the brothers silently watched it all, raindrops began to fall one by one above Helgi’s head.

“Take your own life.”

“Aaaagh-! Huu-huuhuk… Wha.. What!? You dare…! You dare!”

Helgi didn’t like the gaze full of vicious resentment glaring at him.

“Aaaaargh-! Aaaagh!”

Having lost both eyes as well, Aella could no longer endure and had no choice but to accept Helgi’s demand.

“Alright… Please, please stop…”

Aella’s voice was hoarse from screaming in continuous pain. That feeble voice, like the sound of metal, had now lost its intense will to live.

“I’ll kill myself, so untie these ropes…”

“No.”

“Then how am I supposed to…”

“I didn’t tie your mouth. Aella. I didn’t cut out your tongue either.”

“Huu-huh- Huu-huhuhuh. Huu-huhuhuhuh!”

Aella, who had been laughing madly with a hoarse voice, finally stuck out his tongue and bit it hard. After shaking violently and spewing blood for a while, his body finally stopped moving.

“You took your own life, so you won’t enter heaven.”

The blood of their enemy had been spilled, and revenge had been achieved.

But Helgi’s heart knew no satisfaction, and instead burned even more with anger, so much so that even as his body became soaked by the suddenly falling rain, it seemed to steam.

“Throw Aella’s corpse into the fields for the beasts to tear apart. One who was not honorable in life shall not be honorable in death.”

“Yes! Jarl Helgi!”

A terrified voice answered his words.

As Helgi turned his back on the large tree and walked away, the warriors gathered in front split in half, making a path for him.

Helgi walked along that path.

With no destination in mind, he walked, endlessly.

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Battlefield cleanup, assessing the results of the battle, evacuating the wounded, recording the fallen, deciding whether to form pursuit units—Helgi postponed all of these tasks.

In the steadily falling rain, he just walked and walked endlessly.

Entering his tent at the camp set up a little away from the battlefield, north of Eoforwic, Helgi collapsed right there.

It seemed he just wanted to throw everything away because it was all so tiring and exhausting.

Falling into a deep sleep the moment his head touched the ground, Helgi opened his eyes in a space that was not of this world.

“Where is this place?”

Red light flowed from beyond the distant horizon, dyeing the whole world, and dark clouds flowed beneath his feet.

Above his head, instead of sky, a vast sea flowed, and in an instant, countless human skulls filled the space around him.

“Save me, Helgi Ragnarsson.”

“Bring me back to life, Helgi Ragnarsson.”

“I don’t want to die. I wanted to live.”

“What about my mother, my younger sibling? Bring me back to life, Helgi.”

He could hear the cries of the souls bound within that mountain of countless skulls, piled up like a massive mountain.

“I’m sorry. It couldn’t be helped. I’m sorry.”

Without realizing it, words buried deep in his chest flowed out, but his mouth did not open.

Instead, tears that Helgi Ragnarsson had never shed in his life flowed down his cheeks. They were tears as red as blood.

“I said bring me back to life, Helgi!”

“Why do you live while I must die!”

“Didn’t you kill me! Then can’t you bring me back to life! It’s unfair! It’s frustrating! You should die too, Helgi!”

“Let’s be together, Helgi. Come with us, Helgi.”

The bright red light from beyond the horizon grew stronger, dyeing the clouds below and the waves above a deep red. The skulls drew closer, and the cries of the souls echoing in his head grew more and more like those of beasts.

As the blood flowing from one eye grew stronger, a soft woman’s hand touched his cheek.

“-!!!”

A woman wearing a golden mask. The eyes beyond the mask with only eye holes were too heavy to dare meet, and Helgi felt a strong pressure he had never experienced before in his life.

A force he dared not resist.

It felt as if his entire body was submerged deep in the sea, enduring the enormous pressure of the water with his whole body.

His body, which should have shattered long ago, was able to endure thanks to the refreshing energy that flowed in through the woman’s touch on his cheek, and her faint voice, as if conveying some message, sounded like distant thunder, once again confusing his mind.

“-!!!”

Unlike the beautiful touch on his face, when she swung her other hand made entirely of bones, the skulls spinning madly around them turned to dust in an instant and vanished into thin air. The resentful spirits bound there, and the voices of grudge that had constantly rung in his ears.

They all became one and disappeared beyond the red light.

As the light beyond the horizon that had dyed the whole world blood-red calmed again, and the world slowly sank into the silence of gloomy darkness. Helgi finally felt all the tension, sadness, and strength leaving his body as he collapsed into the arms of the woman caressing his cheek.

A touch wiped away the now stopped bloody tears. As the eyes beyond the golden mask gently curved, and the sea beyond them rippled and a waterspout came down to swallow his body, at last the woman’s voice reached his ears.

“I shall walk with you.”

Finally, his consciousness was dyed in darkness once more.

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Helgi opened his eyes in the same position he had fallen, with his head touching the ground in the tent.

His whole body was soaked in cold sweat, and seeing that his hair and equipment were still wet with rain and blood, it seemed not much time had passed.

“Was it a dream?”

What was that world, and who were the skulls and the woman in the golden mask? Was it perhaps Hel? Had she come to protect him? Or had he entered her realm?

His complicated mind could not give a clear answer to any of these questions, but somehow Helgi felt that unlike before, his chest was no longer pounding with directionless anger.

“Thank you, Hel.”

It might have been an illusion. It could have been PTSD manifesting in a different way. Nevertheless, Helgi placed his palms on the ground and offered thanks.

Then, an image he had never seen before appeared in his mind. Another space in the forest where he had executed Aella. A place following a path made by beasts. A place where water doesn’t collect, and wolves avoid.

Even shaking his head again, the image of that place did not disappear.

“It can’t be. Surely not…”

His reason denied it could be possible, but his body was already moving.

As he hurriedly left the tent, he found his brothers and many warriors gathered together, blankly staring at the sky above his tent.

“Roooooar—”

A massive storm was raging exactly above his tent.

A shape like a giant snake coiled in the clouds.

“Bjorn, Ivarr, Halfdan, Sigurd, Ubba. There’s a place we need to go.”

After shaking his dazed brothers’ shoulders to wake them, Helgi soon grabbed a shovel and ran madly towards the place his mind was pointing to.

“Helgi—! Wait! Helgi—! Refil! Follow him!”

“Oh no! Come on, Guthrum!”

“Attend to the Jarl!”

Ignoring the commotion behind him, Helgi ran past the Norse warriors and Eoforwic warriors showing various expressions, the now surrendered Uhtred and his Bernician warriors, and entered the forest path. He ran and ran through the trees where one wouldn’t know it was a path unless looking carefully,

Finally reaching that place.

The place that kept appearing in his mind.

“It can’t be, surely not.”

Thud! Thud!

He frantically swung the shovel, digging up the earth. Moderately soft ground. Ground softened further by moisture.

“Helgi…!”

“What’s…?”

His brothers, who had run until they were out of breath behind him, soon saw what he was doing and began to join in one by one.

Rumble— Boom!

The rain gradually lessened, and the swirling clouds collided with each other, making a huge sound.

The earth quickly gave way to Helgi’s tremendous strength, and finally, something long and thin appeared in his sight.

“Brothers, stop.”

His brothers, who had been frantically digging the ground following him, all stopped their movements, and Helgi threw aside the shovel and carefully brushed away the soil.

“That’s…”

“Snakes. They’re snakes. Snake corpses.”

“Then…”

As the soil was cleared away by Helgi’s large hands, dried and twisted snake skins scattered here and there.

Thud.

And finally, something dull collided with his hand beneath.

Suppressing his urgent feelings, he brushed away the soil more carefully, revealing familiar objects. Thor’s hammer necklace, and beneath it, the symbol of Hel.

“Here… Father is here, brothers. Father is here.”

Sweat and raindrops mixed and flowed down Helgi’s eyes, and tears flowed from the eyes of his brothers who had knelt down one by one.

“We have come, Father. We have come, I say.”

“We’re too late, aren’t we? We’re sorry, Father.”

Starting with Bjorn and Ivarr, the sounds of wailing from the brothers, which had seemed like they would never be heard, filled the pit.

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…Well, I didn’t expect to cry. How about you?

Thanks for reading. Same shenanigans as usual, if you find any errors ping Oihs in the Arcane Translations discord.