Fimbulwinter had already descended, and even Asgard was affected.
Villages beyond the city walls, unprotected by Asgardian power, suffered constant attacks from large numbers of wild beasts. Unseen epidemics and insect infestations spread through the fields. The Golden Palace dispatched Thor to lead a research team into the countryside to collect samples, hunt the beasts lurking deep in the mountains, and escort diseased crop samples back behind the walls for study and analysis. This had been standard practice for years, and under normal circumstances, few problems arose. With the abilities of Frigga's attendants in the Golden Palace, most crop diseases in the universe could be resolved through targeted medicines, antagonistic viruses, genetic modification, and other technological or magical methods. Disasters that ordinary people could not resist could also be handled by Thor's martial strength.
However, this time, Thor encountered the largest boar he had ever seen in his life.
It was a terrifying beast, already so old that its fur had faded to grayish white. Its short coat was mingled with dried mud, and the brown fur commonly found along an ordinary boar's raised spine was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it briefly gave off a golden gleam like sunlight beneath the sun. But that gold vanished in an instant. Thor saw only filthy gray-white fur. The boar's horrifying upward-curving tusks were yellow from end to end, each as tall as a man. Sharp, sickle-like bony spurs bore rotten black spots. The beast's foul breath could blow from one end of the field to the other, flinging mud, wheat stalks, and insects into the air like a gale sweeping through low ground.
"Gullinbursti?"
Thor cautiously called out a name. He had seen the boar's fur briefly gleam gold in the sunlight, while beside its enormous hooves, an entire field of