Because I Am Surtr Author: Jiu Yin
Synopsis:
Hello, I'm Surtr, a professional tool person for five years... or maybe many years. My services include, but are not limited to, passing on the flame, destroying the world, saving fallen maidens, playing cards with Slaanesh, slacking off, building ships, driving, spending money on gacha, repairing the laws of humanity, and so on.
If you need me, just post a notice in any tavern in Terra—the weaker Terra, that is—where bounty hunters frequent.
Of course, I personally recommend contacting me through a dream. Our shop is short-staffed, and I'm also terribly busy with matters in Terra. I have no time to act as a customer manager.
What? You want me to prove my abilities? Come, Laevateinn. Put on a Ragnarök performance for this gentleman! Tell it why I dare take on this kind of job!
No particular reason. Simply because I am Surtr!
Section One: Kidnapping Frostnova First
The sky was a gloomy gray. Dark clouds rolled overhead, while lightning and rumbling thunder flowed through their depths. High pressure and scorching winds swept in every direction. As far as the eye could see stood a magnificent, abandoned city filled with an alien atmosphere.
A Catastrophe was coming—
The red-haired Sarkaz stood atop a building, watching the wind and dust rising from the distant horizon. The fierce wind whipped around her, making the tips of her hair dance like golden snakes.
"I... am Surtr."
She reached a hand toward the sky. Her slender, long, fair fingers bore clean, glossy nails, and beneath the glow of Twilight, they reflected a lovely face—a cold expression, indifferent eyes, impatience and the arrogance inherent to a transmigrator between her brows, and finally, the black horns extending upward from behind her ears like blades or halberds.
It had been five years since she had come to this world and become her.
Five years—five years more eventful than playing Legend of Blue Moon. She had spent some of that time adapting to this world, some of it getting to know this world, and some of it trying to interfere with this world.
The past, and her previous life, were irrelevant. In the end, she had merely been a failure with no family or friends, bedridden for years and too weak to escape even when fire rose around her bed. She had been nothing but useless trash, society's dregs, unable to create value and no longer held dear by anyone. In that case, dying alone in the flames had not been an undignified end.
Yet death had not clung to her.
She had died in the flames.
Then she had awakened from the flames.
When she opened her eyes again, she had become a character from a mobile game she had often played in her previous life—a wanderinger based on the world-ending Fire Giant King of Norse Mythology. A female swordswoman wielding the Flame Sword. A Sarkaz with multiple memories, multiple experiences, multiple bodies of knowledge, and multiple lives, who had looked like a transmigrator even in the original game.
"I am Surtr."
The second declaration came with blood heating and boiling through the process of emphasizing it. A sense of power filled her entire body, transforming into a hot current that flowed through every limb and bone. When she parted her lips slightly, a faintly warm breath escaped them. Then—
—the breath turned into Sulfur.
She still remembered the day she had transmigrated. The lonely girl had opened her eyes among volcanoes and lava, with nothing beside her but the dark-red Flame Sword. Even she could not determine whether the transmigrator had replaced Surtr or Surtr had absorbed the transmigrator's memories. She only knew that this body had never resisted her, and the sword called Laevateinn had never rejected her either.
Thus, she had been able to grow, to slaughter, and to fight.
And then, at this point in time, she had arrived here.
Her gaze shifted upward toward another part of the ruined city. She clearly saw a black square the size of a fingernail at the edge of the horizon. Smoke rose above it, while waves of air stirred beneath it. That was a mobile city-state. And that city-state was called Chernobog.
After all the twists and turns, everything had ultimately arrived at this place of destiny—the origin of this story.
And now she stood atop an abandoned city along Chernobog's route. Looking down at that gathering point of storms, she knew that the Ursus army had withdrawn twelve hours ago. The smoke and dust approaching from another direction belonged to an early-game antagonist: a squad of the Reunion Movement.
A Catastrophe was coming.
And now she had to continue what she had left unfinished—the things she had been trying to do throughout these five years, yet had never achieved enough with.
"I am Surtr."
The third declaration. This was a habit that the transmigrator within her had developed over the years. Whenever she intended to accomplish something, she habitually announced her name three times. It was like a ritual. Once completed, it gave her sufficient resolve and strength—even though she had possessed enough of both from the start.
And so, the visitors from afar reached the edge of the town.
—The time had come.
She dropped from the top of the building, giant sword in hand, red hair streaming in the wind.
Like a fiery scarlet bird soaring through the sky.
Ravenously hungry. And—
—eager to devour the locked-on prey.
"We'll make camp in these ruins tonight."
The Reunion Movement—literally, a movement that organized and unified the strength of the Infected in order to seize their rights. Most of its members were infected with Originium Infection. These clearly cynical and resentful Infected displayed different faces after gaining power, depending on their leader's style of command.
Faces... Perhaps "faces" was not quite the right word.
The Infected usually needed to conceal their identities, and not all Infected could remain at the Reunion Movement's base at all times. Thus, most members of the Reunion Movement wore masks. Only a small number—those who needed to reveal their faces to demonstrate their identities—would remove them and show their faces to their fellow members.
Such people usually served as high-ranking officers within the Reunion Movement.
The officer here was called "Frostnova" and "the Princess of the Yeti" by her compatriots. She led a unit called the Yetis, an Infected force renowned throughout Ursus—or, in the eyes of its rulers, infamous.
And at this point in time, they had arrived here.
"We came too early, Big Sis." The Yetis were not numerous. They usually wore white cloaks and carried weapons of finer quality and greater uniformity than those of ordinary Reunion troops. Most of them were surrounded by cold air, signifying that they had mastered Originium Arts related to the cold.
"I know." Frostnova pressed down on her long ears. There seemed to be a strange smell in the air, and it made her feel awkward and out of place.
She gently shook her head, and the tips of her white hair brushed across her cheek.
"Go prepare. The main force will arrive soon, and this operation is crucial to us Infected."
"Understood, Big Sis." The Yetis obeyed her. Several strong Icebreakers swung their ice blades and cleared an open area in just a few strikes. The casters gathered cold currents and shaped an outer wall around the camp to defend against any groups of infected creatures that might attack during the night. The ordinary combat members went to carry heavy objects, erect tents, and set up places to rest for the night.
Their movements were swift and orderly.
"Big Sis." The Yeti member who had spoken to her earlier approached her hesitantly. He seemed to glance left and right out of habit, then immediately remembered there was no need. "You said..." he asked uncertainly, "is this operation really necessary for us Infected? The brothers aren't questioning you, but taking a mobile city head-on is a little too..."
He struggled to choose his words.
"...too grandiose." He used a term unique to Yan.
"This is the leader's decision." Frostnova gathered her hair. That strange feeling in her heart was growing increasingly intense. "Besides, we Infected need a fixed piece of land. We need roots before we can sprout, grow, and become stronger."
"But young shoots will call down a storm." The Yeti shook his head. Even with the mask on, Frostnova could see the confusion and helplessness hidden behind the pale false face. "I don't understand anything about strategy or the greater situation. But I can feel that there are... more and more bad people in the ranks."
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