Chapter 38: Return to Kattegat
The harbor of Kattegat spread before them like a theater stage, and Paul watched it with eyes that had seen impossible things hidden beneath North African ruins. Every familiar face in the crowd felt like a potential mask, every warrior's stance like a performance designed to fool watchers who might not exist.
"Three confirmed players. Maybe more. How many others wear human faces while playing gods with history?"
Their fleet entered to thunderous celebration—thirty ships laden with Mediterranean silk, Byzantine gold, and treasures that would make Kattegat wealthy enough to challenge kingdoms. Paul stood beside Lagertha at the bow of their lead vessel, watching Vikings surge toward the docks with the hunger of people who'd tasted victory and wanted more.
But beneath the cheers, his system hummed with paranoid calculations.
[SUCCESS RATE ANALYSIS: IS RAGNAR COMPROMISED BY ANOTHER SYSTEM USER?]
[RESULT: 2% PROBABILITY - BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS CONSISTENT]
[SUCCESS RATE ANALYSIS: IS ASLAUG COMPROMISED BY ANOTHER SYSTEM USER?]
[RESULT: 4% PROBABILITY - INSUFFICIENT DEVIATION MARKERS]
[SUCCESS RATE ANALYSIS: IS FLOKI COMPROMISED BY ANOTHER SYSTEM USER?]
[RESULT: 1% PROBABILITY - ERRATIC BEHAVIOR BASELINE NORMAL]
Paul forced himself to stop before his paranoia consumed every interaction. The device hidden in his system inventory pressed against his consciousness like a weight, its revelation still burning through his certainty about everything he thought he knew.
Ragnar awaited them on the dock, his arms spread wide in greeting that felt different now—performance or genuine pleasure? The crowd surged around their king as he embraced Paul like a brother returned from death itself.
"The prophet returns! What visions did the southern gods show you?"
Paul's smile felt brittle as glass. "Wealth beyond imagining. And warnings about the nature of fate itself."
"Always cryptic." Ragnar's eyes glittered with something that might have been suspicion or simple amusement. "Come. We have much to discuss."
The great hall of Kattegat buzzed with energy as warriors displayed treasures and recounted exploits to audiences that grew with each telling. Paul moved through the celebration like a ghost at his own funeral, watching familiar faces for signs that weren't there.
Near the high table, a small figure caught his attention with unsettling intensity. Ivar, Ragnar's youngest son, stared at Paul with eyes too knowing for a child barely past toddling. The boy's gaze tracked Paul's movement with predatory focus that sent ice down his spine.
[SUCCESS RATE ANALYSIS: IS IVAR'S INTELLIGENCE NATURAL?]
[RESULT: 0.8% PROBABILITY OF SUPERNATURAL INFLUENCE]
[WARNING: ANOMALOUS PROBABILITY FLUX DETECTED AROUND SUBJECT]
Paul's breath caught. "Even the children aren't safe from whatever's happening here."
Aslaug noticed his stare and approached with that ethereal grace that had always unsettled him. "He watches you often. My son sees things others miss."
"What kind of things?"
"Threads. Patterns. The shape of futures yet unborn." Her voice carried prophetic weight that made Paul's system interface flicker. "He says you taste of tomorrow, seer. What flavor does tomorrow hold?"
The device in Paul's inventory pulsed once—too brief for anyone else to notice, but enough to remind him that reality had more layers than anyone suspected. He looked into Ivar's ancient eyes and saw something that might have been recognition.
"If that child is what I think he is, then we're all playing someone else's game."
King Horik's presence at the feast felt like poison in wine—sweet on the surface but deadly beneath. Paul watched the king move through conversations with the practiced ease of a predator selecting prey, and his Premonition Sense screamed warnings that had nothing to do with the betrayal he'd already prevented.
[PREMONITION SENSE ACTIVE - THREAT ASSESSMENT]
[KING HORIK: 47% IMMEDIATE DANGER - ELEVATED FROM BASELINE]
[ANOMALY: THREAT PATTERN DOESN'T MATCH HISTORICAL BETRAYAL MODEL]
"He's planning something different. Something my knowledge can't predict."
Paul excused himself from the celebration and retreated to a storage chamber where he could activate the device without observation. Its screen lit with familiar text and maps that showed three markers across the world—his own position pulsing steadily in Scandinavia, Sophia's marker holding position in Byzantine territory, and the third user's icon moving closer with purpose that felt like inevitability.
[CONVERGENCE UPDATE: 19 DAYS, 14 HOURS, 23 MINUTES]
[THIRD USER TRAJECTORY: NORTHWEST - ESTIMATED ARRIVAL KATTEGAT]
[WARNING: AGGRESSIVE USER BEHAVIOR ESCALATING]
Paul's hands trembled as he read the implications. Marcus—the conquest-focused system user from the Far East—was coming here. To Kattegat. To him.
Lagertha found him there, her warrior's instincts detecting distress with the precision of a blade finding weakness.
"What troubles you?"
Paul closed the device and met her eyes, seeing reflection of torchlight in irises that had never looked away from hard truths. The weight of secrets pressed against his throat like a garrote, and for a moment he teetered on the edge of telling her everything.
"She deserves to know. But knowledge like this is a weapon that cuts the wielder."
"The visions in the Mediterranean showed me that our enemies aren't all visible. There are forces moving against us that wear familiar faces and speak with trusted voices." He chose truth wrapped in metaphor. "Someone is coming who will challenge everything we've built. Someone dangerous."
Her hand found the axe at her hip—a gesture so automatic it betrayed years of survival in a world where death wore a thousand masks.
"How dangerous?"
"The kind that ends kingdoms." Paul's voice carried weight that made her eyes narrow. "And we have nineteen days to prepare."
That night, Paul lay awake beside Lagertha in their shared bed, listening to her breathing while the device displayed countdown timers and probability calculations. Somewhere across the dark waters, a ship approached carrying another player in a game whose rules no one understood and whose stakes encompassed more than kingdoms or gods or the fate of individual lives.
"Sophia warned me. Marcus wants to consolidate systems—eliminate the competition and absorb their power. Winner takes all."
The thought of facing another system user in direct confrontation sent Paul reaching for Success Rate Analysis with desperate need for certainty in an uncertain world.
[QUERY: SURVIVAL PROBABILITY AGAINST AGGRESSIVE SYSTEM USER]
[RESULT: 54% - FACTORS UNKNOWN, VARIABLES INSUFFICIENT]
[RECOMMENDATION: PREPARE FOR COMBAT, SEEK ALLIES, OPTIMIZE EQUIPMENT]
Fifty-four percent. Better than a coin flip, but not by much. Paul closed his eyes and began planning for war against an enemy who might be everything he was and more—precognition against conquest, foresight against raw power, careful timeline management against aggressive reality manipulation.
In the distance, wind carried the scent of sea and storm, as if even the weather knew that change was coming like a blade drawn in darkness.
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