Chapter 230: A Deal With Odin
Inside the great hall, the air itself seemed to go still.
No one could say how much time passed before Odin, seated on his throne, finally spoke. "Bring a chair for our guest from Midgard."
The words had barely settled when a figure stepped out from a side chamber and set a chair of grey-gold metal down behind Matthew.
Matthew, seeing no reason to stand on ceremony, sat down without hesitation.
A vast wave of psychic energy swept through the air, only to be blocked before it ever reached Odin.
Oh? Blocked. Matthew's expression didn't change, but he was genuinely caught off guard.
So the Odin in front of him wasn't Loki in disguise, then.
His attention shifted to Frigga.
Frigga was still alive. And judging by Thor's reaction, that wasn't a surprise to him either.
So—
Had "Thor 2" simply not happened yet?
A flicker of confusion crossed Matthew's mind.
By rights, the events of "Thor 2" should have already taken place before "Captain America 2." But right now, that timeline clearly hadn't played out the way it was supposed to.
A butterfly effect, maybe?
Or had whatever the Ancient One mentioned before disrupted the current timeline enough that certain events simply hadn't happened as they should have?
After a moment's thought, Matthew tucked the question away for later.
He looked Odin directly in the eye, his tone neither servile nor arrogant, and stated his purpose plainly. "King of the Gods, I've come to Asgard hoping to borrow the use of your Bifröst."
"What would you say to that?"
Hearing him out, Odin slowly straightened in his seat, his single eye sweeping over Matthew. But instead of answering directly, he asked a question of his own. "Matthew Lawrence, are you the one the Ancient One has chosen as the next Sorcerer Supreme?"
"What makes you say that?" Matthew blinked, caught slightly off guard.
Odin rose slowly, leaning on Gungnir, and made his way down the steps. "I can sense the depth of your command over magic."
"When it comes to magic alone, there's likely no one left in Midgard, save the Ancient One herself, who could stand as your equal."
"So... once the Ancient One is gone, do you intend to take her place, and go on guarding Midgard yourself?" He came to a stop beside Matthew, his gaze sweeping over this powerful stranger from Midgard.
Hearing Odin's guess, Matthew let out a short laugh and shook his head. "The idea of guarding Midgard, sure, I won't deny that's crossed my mind. But as for the position of Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One already has someone else in mind for that."
"I'm really just someone with decent talent who picked up a bit of magic on his own, self-taught, nothing more."
"Is that so..." Odin murmured.
He hadn't expected someone with this level of magical skill to not be the Ancient One's chosen successor.
After a moment of silence, Odin spoke again. "Matthew Lawrence... I understand you claim to have come from the future?"
I don't think I ever told him that.
"Have you been watching me through one of your familiars?" Matthew asked, meeting Odin's gaze evenly.
Ignoring the question, Odin went on. "I wouldn't call it watching. I've simply been keeping an eye on recent events in Midgard."
Hearing that, Matthew became absolutely certain of something: Odin had been spying on him this entire time he'd been busy making up a cover story.
This old man... what is he, some cousin of that peeping old geezer with the double-barreled name, always sneaking looks at people?
Matthew grumbled silently to himself, while Odin continued on, unbothered. "I can agree to lend you the use of the Bifröst, but before I do, you'll need to answer a few questions of mine."
"...Go ahead." Matthew paused for two seconds before answering.
Odin didn't bother hiding his intent, asking flatly, "This business of you coming from the future. Is it true, or false?"
"False."
Odin: "..."
He hadn't expected Matthew to lay his cards on the table quite so directly.
Until that moment, he'd fully expected Matthew to keep working to hold up the lie.
"So Ragnarök, Loki's death, and the universe losing half its life to Thanos, all of that is false too?" Odin studied him sidelong.
"Oh, that. You're asking about that." Matthew nodded, understanding, then shifted gears.
"That part's true."
Odin: "???"
"But you just told me the part about coming from the future was false." Odin's brow furrowed.
Matthew nodded. "That's right. I really didn't come from the future. But everything else I told you is true."
"Meaning you have the ability to see the future?"
"That's right." Matthew nodded again.
Hearing that, Odin fell into silence.
Before long, he spoke again. "If you've seen everything the future holds, then is there any way to stop Ragnarök?"
Before Matthew could answer, Odin went on. "Perhaps I wasn't clear enough a moment ago."
"What I mean is: if the whole of Asgard, before its destruction, followed exactly what you told them to do, could that keep the prophesied Ragnarök from ever happening?"
With that, his single eye locked onto Matthew, unwavering.
Ever since taking the throne, the prophecy of Ragnarök had been lodged in Odin's heart like a splinter, never letting him rest easy.
That was exactly why he'd spent his entire life trying to push Ragnarök further and further away.
And now, hearing an outsider like Matthew lay out the whole sequence of events leading up to it, that drive had only grown stronger in him.
Hearing Odin's question, Matthew thought it over briefly before offering something that wasn't really a solution at all.
"The Infinity Gauntlet."
He looked at Odin. "Since the King of the Gods keeps a replica of the Infinity Gauntlet in his vault, I assume you already know exactly what the real one is capable of."
"Gather all six Infinity Stones, and stopping Ragnarök should be a fairly simple matter."
Facing Matthew's gaze and the solution he'd just laid out, Odin pressed his lips together and said nothing.
In his younger days, Odin had been an ambitious conqueror in his own right.
Back then, he'd used the Space Stone to conquer the Nine Realms, and, much like Thanos, had once tried to collect every Infinity Stone for himself.
That is, until he discovered that claiming the Soul Stone required sacrificing someone he truly loved. Weighing that cost, he'd chosen to give it up.
Hearing the words "Infinity Gauntlet" again now brought all of that back to him, memories of what he'd done in his youth.
"...Besides that, is there really no other way?"
"Of course—" Matthew drew the word out. "There's more."
Odin: "..."
Wait, is this kid messing with me?
If there's more, why didn't you just say so from the start!
Does he genuinely think I'm too old and worn out to bother taking seriously, some has-been King of the Gods?
"Since you're the one directly responsible for triggering Ragnarök in the first place... if you were somehow able to live forever, then the Goddess of Death, Hela, would never be released, and Ragnarök could be pushed off indefinitely." Matthew looked at Odin.
He didn't have much confidence in his own ability to stop Ragnarök, honestly. But if Odin was willing to actively help, things would get a lot simpler.
Hearing Matthew's words, "live forever," Odin let out a helpless laugh and explained, "Asgardians aren't immortal. Even I only have a lifespan of about five thousand years."
"What you're describing, this 'living forever,' might actually be harder to manage than gathering all six Infinity Stones."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that." A faint smile crossed Matthew's face. "The universe's a big place. Extending a life span shouldn't be that complicated."
At that, Odin raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"You have a method?"
"Of course." Matthew nodded. "I wouldn't have said it otherwise."
Hearing that, Odin's curiosity was well and truly piqued. "Go on, then."
The moment Odin finished speaking, Matthew answered, unhurried. "The first method: the Time Stone."
"If you could borrow the Eye of Agamotto, you could use the power of time within it to reverse the aging in your own body, and combined with Asgard's own natural lifespan cap, living another few thousand years wouldn't be difficult at all."
Hearing that, whatever flicker of interest had just crossed Odin's face sank right back down.
He shook his head. "And here I thought you had some real method..."
"The Time Stone is guarded closely by the Sorcerer Supreme. Borrowing it isn't even on the table, and even if I went and asked for it myself, the Ancient One would never break the Sorcerer Supreme's own rules just to extend my life."
"After all, the Sorcerer Supreme's duty is to protect the balance of the entire dimension. She'd never let anyone use the Eye of Agamotto for something this personal."
He looked at Matthew. "Besides the Time Stone, is there any other way?"
"Of course—"
"There's more."
"The second method is a lot simpler. Just take some medicine."
With that, Matthew rose from his chair, his tone almost offhand. "As it happens, I've got a life-extension serum on me."
"One injection won't make you immortal, exactly, but it should be more than enough to give you a real second wind."
Hearing that, Odin's single eye narrowed slightly.
He looked Matthew up and down, clear suspicion in his gaze.
He knew exactly what Midgard was. The people there hadn't even fully worked out the diseases native to their own planet yet, and their lifespans capped out at around a century.
For someone straight out of Midgard to walk in and offer to extend the life of the King of Asgard himself sounded, no matter how you looked at it, like nonsense.
Still, given how unusual Matthew clearly was, Odin pushed his disbelief back down.
"Can I see it?" Odin asked, his tone giving nothing away.
Faced with Odin's request to inspect the goods, Matthew shook his head.
Odin studied him for a moment, then said slowly, "All right, then."
"If you can genuinely produce a serum that extends life, then for as long as I remain on Asgard, the Bifröst is yours to use freely."
"Whenever you come, wherever you need to go, Heimdall won't stand in your way." He said it with real gravity.
But hearing that, Matthew shook his head again.
Odin's brow furrowed.
The terms he'd just offered were already the most valuable thing he had to give at the moment.
And even so, the man in front of him still wasn't satisfied.
Seeing that, Odin fell silent, simply fixing Matthew with that single unblinking eye, as if trying to work out exactly what Matthew actually wanted.
Under that gaze, Matthew didn't flinch. A few seconds later, he finally laid out his true request.
"I understand Asgardian magic is completely different from the Midgardian magic the Ancient One teaches."
"Beyond the right to use the Bifröst, I'd like to learn some of Asgard's native magic as well, and take a small amount of Uru metal with me." He paused there, the corner of his mouth curving into just the right shape.
"What does the King of the Gods say to that?"
Beside him, hearing Matthew finally state what he truly wanted, Odin thought it over for a moment, then nodded. "Agreed."
As long as it saved Asgard, no request was too much to ask.
After all, if Asgard were truly destroyed, everything Matthew had just asked for would cease to exist right along with it.
Weighed against each other, it wasn't hard to see which mattered more.
With Odin's agreement secured, Matthew slipped a hand into his pocket.
A vial, sealed inside a case of sub-Adamantium alloy, containing the DX-1120 Blacklight Virus, was silently pulled up on the System panel.
The DX-1120 Blacklight Virus was a strain purpose-built for creating super soldiers, its every trait pointed squarely at strength and agility. Life extension was, if anything, one of its weaker points.
Not that it mattered much to Matthew.
As long as the System was around, even a weak point could be turned into a specialty.
Dropping the virus into the "Custom Modification" tab, Matthew glanced at his System point total, which had quietly climbed to three hundred thousand without him noticing, and rattled off his customization request with practiced ease.
"I need this virus modified specifically to extend the user's lifespan. And note: the target group needs to include Asgardians."
The words settled, and the System's light screen began to flicker.
About three seconds later, several traits matching Matthew's request appeared on the display.
His eyes scanned across the screen.
Before long, he settled on one, reasonably priced (the cheapest of the bunch).
[Advanced Genetic Modification: Lifespan (Tier 5): Without altering any other traits, extends the lifespan of a naturally long-lived target by one thousand years.
Can be customized for 50,000 System points.]
A single thought.
Fifty thousand System points drained away in an instant, and the trait was added to the serum.
That wasn't quite everything, either.
To prevent any rejection response, Matthew added one more compatibility buff to the serum for good measure.
With all of that done, Matthew pulled the serum from his pocket and set it down in front of Odin.
"Just inject it, and you're done."
Odin looked at the serum in front of him, then back at Matthew.
After weighing it for a moment, he snatched it up and drove the needle straight into his own skin.
His other hand kept Gungnir trained silently on Matthew.
If the injection turned out to be anything less than beneficial, he'd wipe Matthew off the face of existence with his own divine power without a second thought.
The serum flowed into him.
Almost immediately, Odin felt his body begin to change.
His once-withered cells seemed to burst back to life, like an old, dying tree suddenly sprouting fresh new branches.
Even the strength that had gradually slipped away from him with age came flooding back, right along with the change in his body.
He wasn't fully restored to his youth, not completely, but he was, without question, a great deal better off than he'd been a moment ago.
Feeling the change take hold, Odin slowly lowered the spear he'd raised, a flicker of real surprise crossing his eyes as he looked at Matthew.
He'd only expected to take a gamble on this. He hadn't actually expected Matthew to have a real means of extending life in hand.
"How does it feel, King of the Gods?"
"Still think I was lying to you?" A faint smile curved at the corner of Matthew's mouth.
Hearing that, a trace of a smile crossed Odin's normally stern face as well. "Since you've genuinely delivered, I'll honor the agreement between us, just as promised."
He cleared his throat twice, the smile fading from his face, replaced by solemn gravity. "In the name of the King of the Gods! I grant Matthew Lawrence full use of the Bifröst, along with Asgardian magic, and a small quantity of Uru metal!"
"Now, go use the Bifröst for whatever it is you need to do."
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