Chapter 3: Stairway to Heaven
The Third Floor materialized before Thor like a fragment of home torn from the heavens themselves.
Golden meadows stretched endlessly beneath an eternal twilight sky, each blade of grass seeming to hum with residual divine energy. Ancient oak trees—their bark etched with runic inscriptions that glowed faintly in the gloom—stood sentinel across the landscape like forgotten warriors. The mountain range encircling the Floor wasn't merely stone and earth; it was Jotunheim's fury frozen in time, each peak crowned with perpetual snow that never melted, never yielded.
And there, rising from the heart of this manufactured Asgard like a golden nail driven into reality itself, stood Valhalla's echo—a Mansion that bore no resemblance to mortal architecture, all soaring spires and impossible angles that defied geometry the way Thor's hammer defied gravity.
The Thunder God's boots—silent despite their weight—touched down on soil that remembered divinity.
Above, the full moon hung like Odin's missing eye, watching. Always watching.
Thor's expression remained as impassive as carved stone, but something flickered behind those crimson eyes. Not quite happiness—Thor didn't do happiness in the conventional sense—but perhaps... satisfaction. The quiet contentment of a warrior returning to familiar battlegrounds.
"Acceptable," he murmured, the closest thing to praise that ever escaped his lips.
His stride was unhurried but inevitable, each step covering ground with the certainty of falling thunder. The Mansion's great doors—engraved with scenes of Ragnarok, of gods and giants locked in eternal combat—swung open without his touching them, as if the building itself recognized its master's approach.
Inside, golden candlelight danced across walls adorned with tapestries depicting the Supreme Beings of Ainz Ooal Gown in the style of Norse heroes—their NPCs arrayed beneath them like einherjar awaiting their final battle. The artistry was flawless, almost too perfect, the way divine craftsmanship always exceeded mortal effort without meaning to.
Thor paused before the grand portrait, his gaze lingering on his own rendered form for exactly three seconds—not out of vanity, but tactical assessment, the way one might study the edge of a blade.
Then he moved toward the staircase.
The steps were carved from a single piece of world-tree root, each one wide enough for three giants to walk abreast. Yet Thor climbed them with the casual grace of someone ascending a hill rather than a monument to excess. His fingers trailed along the bannister—lightning scars in the wood marked where his power had accidentally discharged during the Mansion's construction, the wood refusing to heal, wearing its wounds like medals.
I wonder if she'll be reasonable today, Thor mused, his internal monologue as sparse and efficient as his speech. Or if I'll need to remind her why I chose silence over servitude.
The answer came before he even reached the door.
CRACK.
Wood splintered. The door didn't so much open as explode inward, and suddenly Thor's vision was filled with silver hair, violet eyes blazing with accusations, and the considerable momentum of a Valkyrie who'd clearly been waiting behind that door like a coiled spring.
The Thunder God didn't fall—falling implied losing balance, which Thor hadn't done since the Cretaceous period—but he did allow himself to be displaced backward three steps, his boots scraping grooves in the ancient floor as Rossweisse's tackle-hug-interrogation collided with his chest like a very affectionate meteorite.
"LORD THOR!"
Her voice could've shattered windows if this Mansion possessed anything as pedestrian as glass.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT'S BEEN?! FORTY-THREE DAYS! FORTY-THREE! I've been counting! I even made a calendar! WITH ILLUSTRATIONS!"
Thor stared down at the silver-haired Valkyrie currently straddling his chest, her hands planted on either side of his head, her face hovering inches from his with an expression that somehow managed to be simultaneously furious, elated, and on the verge of tears.
A lesser god might have panicked.
Thor blinked once. Slowly.
"...You're sitting on me."
"I'M AWARE!" Rossweisse's voice cracked with emotion. "It's the only way to make sure you don't just walk away with that—that infuriating stoic face like nothing matters! Do you know what it's like waiting for someone who treats conversation like a finite resource?!"
"No."
The single syllable landed with the weight of Mjolnir.
Rossweisse's eye twitched. "That's—you can't just—ugh!" She threw her hands up, which was impressive considering she was still pinning him. "This is exactly what I'm talking about! Albedo gets head pats and gentle words, and I get monosyllables and—"
She stopped.
Thor's eyes had narrowed microscopically—a tectonic shift in his usual impassivity.
"You spoke with Albedo." Not a question. A statement carved from ice and ancient stone.
Rossweisse's righteous fury deflated slightly, replaced by something that looked suspiciously like a pout. Her fingers twisted in the fabric of Thor's coat—not quite childish, but definitely occupying the same neighborhood.
"I didn't speak with her so much as... smell you on her." The Valkyrie's cheeks colored pink, then red, then a shade approaching crimson that would've made mortals check for fever. "Your scent was all over her! And when I asked—very politely, I might add—she just smiled that insufferable smile and said you'd 'rewarded her dedication with appropriate affection!'"
Rossweisse's voice had climbed into ranges typically reserved for opera and dog whistles.
"APPROPRIATE AFFECTION, LORD THOR! AS IF AFFECTION OPERATES ON SOME KIND OF SLIDING SCALE BASED ON MERIT! I'VE BEEN DEDICATED! I'VE BEEN APPROPRIATELY DEDICATED! WHERE'S MY APPROPRIATE AFFECTION?!"
A moment of silence followed this outburst.
Somewhere in the Mansion, a candle flame guttered and died, unable to handle the emotional intensity.
Thor regarded his creation with the same expression he might use when studying an interesting cloud formation—mild curiosity wrapped in granite indifference. Then, with the careful precision of someone defusing a bomb made of feelings, he spoke.
"You're jealous."
It wasn't a question. Thor didn't ask questions to which he already knew the answer; that would be inefficient.
Rossweisse's blush deepened until it threatened to become a medical emergency. "I—that's—you can't just—" She sputtered like a kettle reaching critical pressure. "Yes! Obviously yes! What kind of question is that?! OF COURSE I'M JEALOUS!"
The admission seemed to rob her of whatever remained of her composure. She slumped forward slightly, forehead nearly touching Thor's, silver hair cascading around them like a curtain that separated this moment from the rest of existence.
"It's not fair," she whispered, and suddenly she wasn't a warrior or a creation or even a Valkyrie—just someone who'd been waiting too long for something as simple as acknowledgment. "You created me. You gave me purpose. You made me. And then you're just... everywhere else. With everyone else. Like I'm furniture in a room you used to visit."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was the kind of quiet that comes before thunder, heavy with potential energy.
Then Thor moved.
Not quickly—Thor never moved quickly unless he was killing something—but with deliberate intent. His hand rose, callused fingers still bearing the ghost-memory of ten thousand battles, and touched Rossweisse's cheek with the gentleness of someone handling butterfly wings.
"My Valkyrie is upset," he said, and those four words carried more warmth than most people managed in entire sonnets.
Rossweisse froze. Her violet eyes went wide, pupils dilating like a cat that had just spotted something interesting and possibly dangerous.
"I... what?"
"You. My Valkyrie. Upset." Thor's thumb traced a small circle on her cheekbone, his expression never changing, yet somehow the gesture contained entire conversations' worth of apology. "This displeases me."
"Oh," Rossweisse breathed, and the sound was barely audible.
"I was... distracted." Each word emerged like he was pulling it from deep storage, dusty from disuse. "The situation with Albedo was spontaneous. Tactical error. Should have considered secondary effects. Should have anticipated your reaction."
He paused, gathering words the way other people gathered ammunition.
"You are not furniture."
Rossweisse made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
"That's the lowest bar for reassurance I've ever heard, and somehow it's working," she said, but her voice had gone soft, trembling like a bowstring after release.
Thor's other hand rose to cup her face, framing it between his palms like he was holding something precious and potentially explosive—which, given Rossweisse's current emotional state, wasn't entirely inaccurate.
"My Silver Valkyrie," he said, and the epithet landed like a benediction. "You are not secondary. Not less. Not... overlooked."
"Then why—"
"I am not skilled at this." The admission came grudgingly, like extracting a tooth. "Words. Gestures. The small kindnesses that make existence bearable. I swing hammers. I break things. I stand in silence because silence is certain, and certainty is safe."
His crimson eyes met hers, and for just a moment, something ancient and vulnerable flickered in their depths.
"But you deserve better than my silence."
Rossweisse's breath hitched. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, balanced on the precipice of falling.
"You absolute... impossible... ridiculous..." Each word came out choked with emotion. "That's the most words I've heard you string together in years, and you chose now?! When I'm already emotionally compromised?! This is tactical brilliance or emotional warfare, I can't tell which!"
Thor's lips quirked. Not quite a smile—that would be asking too much—but definitely the architectural foundation upon which a smile might someday be built.
"Perhaps both."
Then, with the same careful precision he used when wielding Mjolnir, Thor leaned up and pressed his lips to Rossweisse's forehead. The kiss was brief, chaste, and somehow more devastating than any grand romantic gesture could ever be.
Rossweisse.exe stopped working.
Her face achieved colors that shouldn't exist outside of abstract art. Steam might have actually been rising from her head—thermodynamics were unclear on whether divine embarrassment could generate heat, but if so, Rossweisse was testing the upper limits.
"Ah... guh... wha... that's... you just..." Coherent speech had left the building and wasn't coming back anytime soon.
Thor, apparently satisfied that he'd successfully defused the emotional crisis, lifted Rossweisse—who was still frozen in shock—with the same ease one might lift a teacup. He carried her to the bed, which was less a piece of furniture and more a monument to excess, all silk sheets and pillows that probably cost more than small kingdoms.
He set her down with surprising gentleness, then stepped back, brushing invisible dust from his coat.
"I have business with Momonga." Back to standard operational vocabulary: brief, efficient, emotionally neutral. "Strategy. Planning. The usual."
Rossweisse, slowly rebooting from her system crash, managed to focus her eyes. "You're leaving? Now? After—after that?!"
"Yes."
"But you just—we were having a moment!"
"The moment is concluded." Thor turned toward the door, then paused, glancing back over his shoulder. "I will return. Soon. Not forty-three days."
"That's still not a specific timeframe! Lord Thor, you can't just drop emotional bombs and then leave! That's not how feelings work! There are protocols! Procedures! We need to discuss—"
"When I return," Thor interrupted, his voice carrying a weight that silenced her protests, "I will bring you something."
Rossweisse blinked. "Something?"
"A gift." He said it the way other people might say 'thermonuclear device.' "To commemorate your... patience. And my failure to recognize it."
"I... oh." Her blush, which had been fading, roared back with vengeance. "You don't have to—"
"I am aware." Thor's expression remained unchanged, but his tone carried something that might, in the right light, from the right angle, be interpreted as fondness. "I choose to anyway."
He paused at the threshold, one hand on the doorframe.
"Remain excellent, my Silver Valkyrie. Your dedication has been noted. Your worth is..." He seemed to struggle with the words. "...considerable."
Then, because Thor was nothing if not efficient, he simply vanished—not with flashy effects or dramatic exits, but with the straightforward utility of teleportation magic. One moment present, the next simply elsewhere, as if reality had edited him out of the frame.
Rossweisse sat on her bed, silver hair in disarray, face still flushed, mind racing through the last ten minutes at speeds that would make theoretical physicists weep.
Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face. Not her usual cheerful grin or her professional Valkyrie expression, but something soft and private and utterly devastating.
"He called me his Silver Valkyrie," she whispered to the empty room.
Then, because she was still Rossweisse and therefore constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone, she grabbed the nearest pillow and released a squeal that could've doubled as a sonic weapon.
"HE KISSED MY FOREHEAD! LORD THOR KISSED MY FOREHEAD! THIS IS HAPPENING! THIS IS REAL! I'M NOT DREAMING! I CHECKED, I'M DEFINITELY NOT DREAMING!"
She flopped backward onto the bed, clutching the pillow like a lifeline, her mind already racing ahead to what gift he might bring, what it might mean, and how she could survive the anticipation without experiencing cardiac arrest.
Meanwhile, Thor materialized in Momonga's chambers with his usual lack of ceremony. The Overlord looked up from whatever dark machinations he'd been plotting, skeletal face somehow managing to convey surprise despite lacking muscles for expressions.
"Thor. You're... smiling?"
Thor's hand rose to his face, touching the corner of his mouth where, sure enough, the faintest upward curve had taken residence.
"Am I?" he said, and the genuine confusion in his voice was almost comedic.
Momonga stared. "Did something good happen?"
Thor considered this question with the gravity it deserved, running through the last hour of events, weighing outcomes and emotional exchanges against his usual metrics for success.
Finally, he nodded once. Brief. Efficient. Final.
"Yes," Thor said. "I believe it did."
And for once, the Thunder God allowed himself that rarest of luxuries: the acknowledgment that perhaps, just perhaps, he'd done something right.
To Be Continued