Disaster-Level Player Is Too Good at Broadcasting-Chapter 80: « I Ask For Your Hands In Marriage [1] »

As the expedition went through a massive gate, the metallic tang of the first floor’s blood was replaced by the overwhelming scent of wet moss, ancient pine, and a sharp, biting ozone that made the hair on the players’ arms stand upright.

They reached the base and stepped out onto a floor that was no longer stone.

It was a vast, sprawling bed of thick, glowing roots that glowed with a sapphire light.

In the center of this subterranean grove stood a behemoth.

A tree, easily fifty meters tall, reached toward the dark ceiling of the sinkhole.

Its bark was white as bleached bone, but its leaves were the color of a deep, twilight ocean.

Entwined within the very trunk of the tree was a figure.

A woman, her body seamlessly integrated into the white wood, appeared trapped from the neck down.

Her skin was the color of moonlight, and her long, sapphire hair cascaded down the trunk like a frozen waterfall.

Her eyes were closed, her expression one of serene, eternal sleep.

But she was not alone.

Surrounding the base of the tree was a battalion of warriors.

These were not the twisted, monstrous angels of the first floor.

These were women of towering stature, their muscles carved like granite, their skin bronzed and scarred by a thousand battles.

They wore furs of white wolves and plates of runic iron that barely covered their powerful frames.

Each held a weapon that looked too heavy for a human to lift.

Massive double-headed greataxes, jagged claymores, and hammers etched with glowing blue symbols.

They stood in perfect, terrifying silence, their eyes fixed on the intruders with a predatory hunger.

The Rankers halted.

The air was already filled with the threat of immediate, violent death.

Then, a laugh broke the tension.

It was a deep, guttural sound that seemed to rumble from the earth itself.

A man stepped forward from the European contingent.

He was a giant, standing a full head taller than even the largest Siberian warriors.

His hair was a wild mane of blonde, almost white, and his beard was braided with silver rings.

He wore a heavy leather coat lined with bear fur, and despite the humidity of the Abyss, he looked perfectly at home.

"Look at them!"

The man said, his voice a rolling thunder.

His English was accented with a thick, Germanic burr.

"The purity of the forge.

The gods did not make these creatures with pixels and mana-water.

They were carved from the very concept of the Struggle."

He walked toward the line of warrior women, ignoring the spears that were leveled at his throat.

He stopped ten paces away, his eyes scanning the muscular forms with a look that could only be described as transcendental appreciation.

"To be strong is to be beautiful."

The man mused, almost to himself.

"And to be beautiful is to be dangerous.

Do you see the symmetry, my friends?

The way the muscle corded beneath the skin reflects the lightning in the sky?

To me thus is but a boss fight...

...it is a wedding of iron."

Behind the front lines, the porters watched in a mix of awe and confusion.

One of the Iron Aegis porters, a man who had spent the last hour hauling crates of mana-crystals, nudged a European ranker standing near him.

"Who the hell is that?"

the porter whispered.

"He’s acting like he’s at a museum."

The European player, a high-ranking Frenchman from the same guild, didn’t take his eyes off the blonde giant.

"That is Gunnar.

In Europe, we don’t call him a Ranker.

We call him the ’Storm-Herald of the North.’

He is arguably the strongest player on our continent, second perhaps only to the Saint of the Vatican."

"Gannar?"

"German-Denmark blood."

The player replied.

"But he doesn’t identify with countries.

He identifies with the Narrative. He is a Viking. A true one.

He was recruited into the Tower while he was living in the mountains of the Black Forest, hunting boars with nothing but a spear."

The Korean porters huddled closer.

"A Viking? Like... the Norse guys? Like Odin?" one asked, his knowledge of mythology limited to blockbuster movies.

The European player nodded slowly.

"Yes. He is supported by a Norse Constellation. But the Star has chosen to keep its identity hidden behind a ’Mythological Veil.’

I don’t think even Gunnar knows the true name of the god who watches him."

"What? That’s absurd," the porter hissed.

"How can you take power from a god and not know which one it is? Isn’t that dangerous?"

"For us, maybe..."

The player responded, his voice dropping to a respectful whisper.

"But look at him.

Even though he’s a muscle-head who speaks in riddles, he isn’t a fool.

If he agreed to a sponsorship without a name, it means he recognized the nature of the power.

He didn’t need a label.

He felt the lightning in his marrow and knew it was home.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Odin, Thor, or Tyr.

To Gunnar, the power is the god."

"Wow..."

the porter breathed, watching Gunnar take another step forward.

Gunnar stopped and turned his head slightly, his gaze moving over the Korean, Russian and even his fellow European rankers behind him.

His eyes were a piercing, electric blue so bright they seemed to emit their own light.

"If you understand the tongue of the world..."

Gunnar said, referring to English.

"...then listen well.

You have done your part with the angels of the first floor.

You have bled, you have mourned, and you have survived.

But this grove... this sanctum... it belongs to me now."

He raised a finger, pointing it toward the ceiling.

"Leave these generals and the woman in the tree to me.

I do not want your magic.

I do not want your red ghosts or your emerald cannons.

Anyone who dares or tries to intervene will have their head chopped off.

It does not matter who you are.

It does not matter if we share a guild or a banner."

The threat wasn’t delivered with malice.

It was delivered with the flat, undeniable certainty of a weather report.

The look in his eyes said he wasn’t bullshitting.

He would turn his blade on his own allies the moment a stray spell touched his battlefield.

"I will fight these bosses until the air is gone from my lungs!"

Gunnar roared, his voice shaking the blue leaves of the massive tree.

"I will fight until the iron breaks or the flesh fails!

I will fight until I am finally sent to Valhalla!"

"Valhalla?"

the Iron Aegis porter asked, looking at his companion.

"What’s that? Some kind of hidden floor?"

The European player went to answer, but another porter, a man from the Iron Aegis as well who had been quiet until now, spoke up first.

"Valhalla isn’t a floor..."

The other porter said, his eyes fixed on Gunnar’s back.

"In Norse mythology, it is the Hall of the Slain.

It is the afterlife for those who die a warrior’s death in battle.

It is a place of eternal conflict and eternal feasting.

For someone like Gunnar, it is the ultimate ’Story.’

To him, the Tower isn’t a game to be won.

He believes that if he fights with enough intensity, his Narrative Energy will become so dense that the System will have no choice but to let him enter the Hall of the Gods."

"So he wants to die?"

His fellow porter asked, horrified.

"No."

He replied.

"He wants to deserve the death.

There is a difference."

Gunnar reached into the air.

The space in his grip didn’t just pixelate; it shattered like glass under the pressure of a descending mountain.

A massive, double-sided battle axe manifested.

The handle was carved from a dark, obsidian-like wood, but the blades were a blinding white-and-gold, etched with runes that pulsed with a bright, golden light.

He slammed the butt of the axe into the glowing roots.

BOOM!

A shockwave of yellow lightning erupted from the point of impact, snaking through the roots of the tree and causing the warrior women to brace themselves.

The lightning hissed and crackled, smelling of ozone and ozone before it ceased, leaving a faint glow on the blades of the axe.

Gunnar looked at the warrior women.

He looked at their scars, their heavy weapons, and the way their eyes held the weight of a thousand years of guarding the blue-leafed giant.

A slow, terrifyingly wide smile spread across his face.

He lifted the massive axe and rested it over his shoulder, the muscles in his arm bulging like coils of steel.

"You are the finest things this Abyss has shown me."

Gunnar said, his voice dropping into a low, predatory purr.

"If I defeat every one of you...

...if I prove that my iron is stronger than your resolve..."

He paused, the golden light of the axe reflecting in his eyes.

"I ask for your hands in marriage... keke!"