"You're not crying, are you?"
From a distance, Mario spotted Skye kneeling on the ground, staring blankly at Mjolnir lying in the grass. He walked right up to her, and she didn't even notice his approach.
That wasn't like her at all. Normally, she was sharp, the slightest creak of a door would wake her from a dead sleep. But right now, still shaken by what she'd just witnessed, she was completely out of it.
When she finally heard his voice and looked up, she jumped up from the ground and threw her arms around him.
"Mario! I thought you were—"
Mario chuckled and patted her back. "Hey, relax. Takes more than a little hammer to take me out."
He gently pulled away from her embrace and reached out to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
He glanced over at Mjolnir, still sitting in the grass. "Let's figure out what to do with Thor's hammer first. When morning comes, we can sell this information to S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm sure Fury will be very interested."
That's how favors worked, give and take. If it was all one-sided, even the deepest relationships would eventually wear thin.
After hearing "Thor's hammer," Skye looked curiously at the hammer on the ground.
"Thor? You mean that hammer is from Norse mythology?"
"Yes. The hammer used by the Norse God of Thunder. Though it's a bit different from the legends, kind of like vampires, you know."
As Mario explained, he walked over to Mjolnir. Maybe because he'd blocked its initial impact, the hammer was now standing steadily on the grass instead of creating a giant crater like in the movies.
"Right now, he has been stripped of his powers by his father, Odin, and exiled to Earth. And the All-Father set a new enchantment on this hammer."
He stood in front of Mjolnir and placed his hand on the handle. This time, there was no lightning crackling around it.
"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor!"
He gripped the handle with both hands. "Up you go!"
He used all his strength, but the hammer didn't budge. Not even a millimeter. He pulled so hard that his feet started digging trenches in the soil.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat. "This hammer was forged with a dying star's core. It's... a little heavy. Heh."
Skye wasn't really paying attention to whether Mario could lift the hammer or not.
Before meeting Mario, just reading about hidden supernatural incidents online had made the world feel unreal. After meeting him, she'd discovered that these "supernatural" events were everywhere. She honestly didn't know if she was dreaming or awake anymore.
"Skye, want to give it a try?"
"Me?"
She walked over and looked at Mjolnir.
"Go ahead. It's free to try."
Mario had a teasing grin on his face. Skye, eager to give it a shot, placed her hand on the hammer. As expected, it didn't move an inch.
"Nope, too heavy." She immediately gave up on trying to lift Mjolnir.
"Step aside a bit. Let me try something else."
Right now, Mjolnir was just sitting on the ground. According to Mario's understanding of Minecraft logic, it was no longer classified as a "weapon" but as a "decorative block."
And if it was a decorative block... then it could be mined.
He switched to his netherite pickaxe and began striking the hammer. But unlike what he expected, cracks did appear on Mjolnir, just very, very slowly.
"It won't budge? No way. This is a netherite pickaxe. Don't tell me I need an even stronger tool?"
In Minecraft, every material had its own hardness level. Without the right tool, you couldn't mine certain blocks at all, and even if you could break them, they'd disappear without dropping anything.
To avoid losing Mjolnir, he stopped attacking it.
"This is a problem."
Luckily, it was late at night and no one was around. Otherwise, some curious jogger might've wandered over to see what was going on.
"Maybe I should just dig out the dirt beneath it and bury it somewhere..."
Wait. He couldn't mine the hammer directly, but he could mine the dirt underneath it.
And he didn't believe Mjolnir had "floating block" properties. If it behaved like sand or gravel and obeyed gravity...
He took out a shovel and started digging under Mjolnir. Although the hammer possessed immense divine power that seemed to anchor it in place, that was nothing compared to the laws of Minecraft itself.
With the hand-eye coordination honed by years of gaming, he slipped a torch beneath the hammer before physics could fully catch up.
The darkness was immediately illuminated. He held his breath, watching as Mjolnir dropped onto the torch under the pull of gravity.
Suddenly, lightning crackled violently around the hammer. But the instant the electricity touched the torch, it vanished as if it had never existed.
BANG.
Mjolnir shrank down and dropped to the side of the torch as an item pickup.
Seeing this, a huge grin spread across his face.
He approached the hammer. Now that it was just an item drop, it didn't resist at all. It flew straight into his inventory, and he quickly removed the torch and filled the hole back in.
Opening his inventory interface, he saw Mjolnir lying there quietly among his cobblestone and torches. When he equipped it to his hand, though, there were no special effects or dramatic lightning.
"Shame I still can't wield you properly... Wait, what's this? Attributes?"
When he examined Mjolnir more carefully, he realized it had stats, just like modded equipment in Minecraft.
[Mjolnir:
Attack: 25
Lightning Strike
Knockback V
Efficiency VIII
Unbreaking V]
Mario stared at the stats. They were honestly nerfed compared to the mythological weapon's true power. But still...
"Lightning and knockback make sense. But Efficiency? What the hell?"
Then it hit him. Some Minecraft mod hammers were configured exactly like this, optimized for mining rather than pure combat. Could it be that Mjolnir had been converted into...
He raised the hammer and swung it at the ground. Instantly, a 3×3 area beneath his feet was excavated, turning into dirt blocks that popped into his inventory.
"This... Mjolnir is a mining tool?!"
Mjolnir's material tier was clearly extremely high, and with Efficiency VIII, digging tunnels in the Nether would be ridiculously convenient. Unlike his old pickaxe, which could only mine one block at a time, this thing cleared entire sections with each swing.
"I just turned one of the most powerful weapons in Norse mythology into a goddamn super pickaxe."
---
In the underground base, Mario was still playing with Mjolnir, rotating it in his hands. But he was very careful not to set it down on any surface, he'd already tested that once it was placed anywhere, he couldn't pick it back up without using the torch exploit.
"You think I look cool holding this hammer?"
Skye carefully and seriously observed Mario striking various heroic poses. After a few seconds, she said, "Not really."
Mario felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over his head. He looked at Skye, who burst out laughing. "You're wearing shorts and a tank top. That hammer totally doesn't match your outfit. Besides, a hammer doesn't suit your style. I think an axe fits your image way better."
Mario glanced down at his clothes and said nothing, shoving the hammer back into his inventory. He'd decided that unless he was excavating massive tunnels, Mjolnir could just stay in storage gathering dust.
But Skye did have a point. Other superheroes had their iconic outfits, Iron Man's armor, Captain America's uniform, Thor's cape and armor. Meanwhile, he ran around in shorts and a tank top like he was on vacation. When he "dressed up," it was just jeans and a T-shirt.
Not exactly an intimidating look for someone called the "Butcher of the Night."
He remembered the wizard robes from the Twilight Forest were pretty stylish. Next time he went chest hunting in that dimension, he'd collect a few complete sets.
At that moment, Skye suddenly asked, "I saw the hammer hit you earlier. Where did you go?"
Mario snapped out of his thoughts about fashion and sat down next to her without hesitation. "Nothing much. I used an ender pearl to avoid the impact."
"Ender pearl?"
"It's an item I got from... Hell."
He wasn't lying. As every Minecraft gamer knew, the Nether was basically Hell, full of hellstone, lava, and hostile mobs everywhere.
Of course, Skye didn't believe his explanation. She'd rather assume he had some kind of teleportation ability.
"If you don't want to tell me, fine."
"I've never lied to you. If mythical Mjolnir exists and just fell from the sky, then Hell existing isn't that far-fetched, right?"
Skye paused, considering his logic. She had clearly seen the hammer falling from the sky, the sudden lightning, and the way it stayed rooted to the ground afterward. All of that proved he wasn't lying about the supernatural elements. In the end, she could only nod in reluctant agreement.
At first, her goals had been simple, uncover the truths the government was hiding and make them public, because she believed everyone had the right to know. But now she realized how naive she'd been.
Forget gods and hell, even just the existence of vampires would throw the world into chaos if it were made public. People would panic. Governments would fall. Society would fracture.
Maybe some truths were meant to stay hidden.
Suddenly, she remembered what Mario had said before the hammer fell, something about her not being human.
"What did you mean earlier when you said I'm not human?"
"You're an Inhuman."
"Even though you look just like a regular person, once your genes are activated through Terrigenesis, you'll gain special abilities and extraordinary powers."
"Inhuman?" Skye repeated the word.
"Inhumans are—"
Mario looked at Skye with a smile and cut her off. "I'll explain everything later when we have more time. Dawn's only a few hours away. Don't you want to... do something else first?"
Skye's eyes turned a little hazy as she nodded softly.
"Then... let's talk about it later."
---
By late morning, the autumn sun no longer had the harsh, scorching intensity of summer.
The trees in Central Park that had been lush and green were now turning golden and amber. A breeze passed by, and leaves drifted away from the trees.
Mario sat on a sofa by the lake, fishing rod in hand, idly casting his line.
"Coulson, how did Fury let you come here? Don't tell me S.H.I.E.L.D. suddenly isn't busy anymore?"
Coulson mimicked Mario's relaxed posture, leaning back with a wry smile. "Busy? How could we not be? Ever since we confirmed Hydra's infiltration, I haven't had a proper day off. Honestly, I'm starting to think maybe I should quit and join your Association."
"When you called me about Thor, I specifically volunteered to take this assignment. It's a good excuse to relax for a bit."
Mario studied him. After getting up this morning, he'd called Coulson to report about Thor's arrival. But when the agent arrived, he hadn't asked a single question about the situation, acting like he just wanted to slack off.
Clearly, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been overwhelmed lately dealing with the Hydra crisis.
"Coulson, stop squinting at the water like that. Pay attention. The prince of Asgard, Thor Odinson, has been exiled to Earth."
A thought suddenly occurred to Mario. Since Mjolnir had fallen in Central Park, could Thor himself have landed here too?
"Hey, can you get in touch with your people in New Mexico? Have them look for a professor named Erik Selvig, an astrophysicist. He's currently doing research in Puente Antiguo with two assistants. Thor is with them right now."
Coulson straightened up immediately. He stared at Mario, who glared back. "What are you looking at?"
"I'm just curious how you know about events happening in New Mexico while sitting here fishing. Are you certain you don't have some form of precognitive ability?"
"I told you already, no prophecy powers. I just happened to find something that reminded me of Thor." He tugged the fishing rod, and a fish flew out of the water, landing straight into his inventory.
"You need to bring him back to New York. Even though he's been exiled to Earth by Odin, he's still the All-Father's son. Sooner or later, he'll be summoned back to Asgard. Right now, his divine power is stripped away and he's vulnerable. This is the perfect time to build a relationship with him. I'm sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is good at that kind of thing."
"Actually, you might want to bring Captain Rogers with you. Even without his godly powers, Thor is still superhumanly strong. And if possible, maybe help Cap work on that impulsive streak of his while you're at it."
Coulson pulled out his phone, already typing. "You realize you're describing a diplomatic mission to contact a foreign royal who happens to be a literal god, right?"
"Yeah, well." Mario grinned. "Consider it job security. Things are only going to get weirder from here."