Chapter 1728: Victory Song - Frosttusk

It took about an hour for Hakon to recover from his ordeal and regain consciousness. Although, he wasn’t exactly in tip-top condition.

"Ow..." Hakon groaned as he held one of his hands to his head. "Why does my brain feel like it’s just been stomped on by a herd of rhinos? Also, are you holding me?"

At this moment in time, I was resting Hakon’s head against my lap. It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling in the world, but it was at least cooling. Also, it was significantly better than the alternative.

[We were originally going to use...one of the abandoned bed rolls, but they stinked of rot and dried blood,] I explained to Hakon. [Aside from that...we didn’t want to...separate you from the axe quite yet.]

"Separate me from—oh!"

I had seen in pieces of fiction from minn Jarl’s previous world that people tended to freak out when a personal belonging of theirs is suddenly misplaced or moved while they were unconscious. Not wanting to aggravate the boy more than necessary after his ordeal,I figured it would be better to leave him with it.

That turned out to be a good call, as Hakon managed to right himself and take proper stock of the axe in his hand.

"You know...I didn’t expect the axe to undergo such a transformation when I drew it," Hakon told me as he held the weapon in his hands.

[Yeah...I don’t think any of us did,] I told him as reassurance.

Looking at the axe made me feel...weird.

Not in a nostalgic way, or a regretful way, just...weird.

Like how someone runs into a teacher outside of a classroom, or an old friend they remembered being a bastard suddenly doing charity work for the elderly.

A part of me thought I would feel a deeper connection to the axe now that it was before my eyes, but...I didn’t feel a thing.

Was it because I wasn’t the one who drew it from the skull?

Was it because I had been its owner several lifetimes ago and I had since relinquished it?

Or...was it because I wasn’t even really...him...anymore?

As these thoughts played across my mind, I eventually moved to help Hakon to his feet and reconvened with the others.

"So...did you guys find anything valuable?" Terra asked the other kaijin and Zhen Clan warriors. "Because I found a lot of nothing."

"A couple of Bronze and Silver-grade aether treasures," Zhen Hai answered for himself and Hurricroak. "Nothing to write home about."

"Slug-at-arms and I did find the tents that the chieftains were using as their personal rest quarters," Zhen Long said. "And some decent aether medicines."

"Odd question on both of those discoveries, did any of what we found look remotely like something that these guys made themselves or nah?" Zhen Shi asked. "Because I swear I’ve seen the style on some of these treasures come from other continents."

"You’re not wrong," Zhen Xun Tian confirmed while holding up a dagger that was definitely not made by any of the tribes that were squatting here. "This blade here was made using techniques from the Dozing Salamander continent. Oh, which reminds me, how is Xiao Liu holding up over there? I know you guys have a real time connection with him."

[Uh...]

We had actually checked in on the jarl when Nepherage had assisted Hakon in his breakthrough.

The response we received wasn’t bad...but it wasn’t good either.

Honestly, it was a lot of screaming.

[He’s doing fine,] Nepherage answered. [He told us to make sure that Hakon and all of you were okay, though.]

"Awww, isn’t that sweet?"

[Y-yeah.]

With all of our business here settled, and Hakon gaining his energy back after we fed him some of the aether medicines, we decided to head back to the Storm Singers to show them the good news.

"Wait a minute..."Zhen Hai trailed off as a rather sad thought popped into his head. "Do you all think that the Collectrix might’ve sent more people to attack the Storm Singers while we were gone?"

"In the short amount of time since we took care of their spy and blunted their last assault? Nah," Zhen Xun Tian assured her great grand nephew. "We might see some motherfuckers tomorrow, though."

"Comforting..."

"She’s not wrong. If something has happened to the tribe, I would’ve been hearing their alarm songs by now" Hakon added.

"Huh...neat."

[Alarm songs?] I thought to myself.

Once again, I learned yet another thing that had changed since my death all those centuries ago.

...

The moment we returned with the axe in hand, the Storm Singers erupted in celebration.

•He did it! He actually did it! •

•Wait, didn’t the records say that the axe was...simpler than this? I thought it wasn’t even a full aether treasure! •

•Who cares? It’s back in our hands now, and the Collectrix can go and suck a dick!! •

Despite the bad reputation that Fraden...that I had brought to my people, they were still happy to recover the artifact that was a key part to their identity.

As such, in less than a day, the Storm Singers had another celebration.

However, I was the only kaijin at the festivities this time around...sort of.

There was still plenty of Lindwurm meat to be had, but there were a couple of the hunters who decided to supplement the feast by going out on a hunt with Hurricroak.

The thunderous frog woman didn’t get enough fighting back at the burial ground, and she wanted a little more exercise.

[We’ll be back before sunset! See ya! ]

As for Nepherage, she took a page from our jarl and went to go and keep on our camp’s perimeter to make sure none of the enemy tribes came back for a revenge match or something equally stupid.

Slug-at-Arms and Terra decided to join her on this endeavor, figuring that two and a half kaijin was better than a singular kaijin.

[Does it not bother you that we refer to you as half-kaijin and not full kaijin?] Nepherage asked Terra.

"Nah," Terra dismissed with a wave of her hand. "I’m proud of being a part of both worlds."

The party this time around was actually a touch more familiar to my sensibilities, as some of the elders dug through their memories sang old songs that hadn’t been used since the axe was originally lost.

I had originally thought such songs were lost due to generation and differences, and since they weren’t used at the previous party.

But I suppose they just chose not to use it because of the circumstances.

Hakon and the other Zhen Clan warriors regaled the Storm Singers with their tale of triumph and tribulation, taking care of highlighting that Hakon’s drawing of the axe was what truly brought the battle to an end and not just Zhen Xun Tian’s presence.

It was, apparently, their way of making sure the Storm Singers would maintain their pride and spines once the Zhen Clan returned home.

•...and once I transformed the ancestral axe into the [Frozen Blossoms Axe], I used it to slay the Rot Feather Chieftain! Sending that flock of vultures back to their squalor!•

•WOOOOO!•

•Hey! You said you came up with a new song during the battle, right? Can you share it with us?•

•Of course!•

•Fuck yeah!•

The technique Hakon had used to defeat Chief Lattom wasn’t actually a singular aether art, but a series of aether arts and [Chaos] arts connected via a song to help him get into the right mindset.

Without the axes in his hands, Hakon could share this song with the other tribesmen, without causing any wanton destruction in the process.

The song itself could best be described as a ballad dedicated to the creation of the world and was broken down into three parts.

The first part was about how the primordial flame of the sun goddess manifested in the darkness, and used her heat and light to burn it away and warm our aching bones.

The second part was about how the cold and darkness were concentrated into sense areas and forced to transform into solid blocks of ice and shadow.

The third and final part of it was how the sun goddess used her flames and combined it with the ice and shadows in order to create life as we know it today.

Overall, it was a good song, but it also tickled a part of my non-existent brain that I couldn’t rightfully identify no matter how hard I thought about it.

And, oddly enough, I wasn’t the only one.

•What a lovely song!•

•Sounds like something we passed down to our children and their children ages ago.•

•Why do I feel like I heard it before?•

•How nostalgic...•

Eventually, though, someone did pipe and said where they heard this song before...and it surprised even me.

•Ah! I know where I heard that melody before! It used to be sung by Fraden when he was trying to sing his children to sleep!•

"What?"

[Wait...]

As soon as this statement was made, something inside me just... clicked.