Chapter 525 - Additional : The Tale Of Mjolnir's Theft (Part 1)

Mjolnir, one of if not the strongest weapons ever made for a Norse god. A weapon that had destroyed countless worlds and bathed in the blood of innumerable foes. It would be a shame to leave a weapon reeking of such power and might, to bite the dust in a wreck of a destroyed city. 

However, there was a tale regarding who can wield the hammer. It was said that since the hammer was a godly weapon, thus not every being, god or mortal could wield it. One had to be worthy according to the hammer itself. If not, then it would forever stay in its spot till someone worthy to wield it arrived and lifted it up, restoring it to its glory.

"There's a reason why one should not believe in what movies tell you." Arnold calmly walked up to the hammer and wrapped his fingers around the handle, "Because none of them tells you the unadulterated truth about mythology."

The thing about Mjolnir recognising his master was true. But the fact that only those who were 'worthy' enough to wield it could move the hammer was nothing but a hoax spread after a certain movie related to Thor was made. Arnold was not going to lie, the movie did a great job at manipulating the truth. If he had not studied mythology, he would have been fooled by it as well. 

Thankfully, that was not the case. He knew pretty much the only tale about Mjolnir's second owner who ultimately led to the demise of his entire kind through the hands of Asgardians. 

***

This happened long before the gods decided to play around with the lives of mortals for their entertainment. Even before Loki decided to betray the pantheon. 

The giants always shared animosity with the Asgardians as in their eyes they, the giants, should have been responsible for overseeing the universe as they had been looking after their own world before the gods appeared out of nowhere.

But they knew it would not be easy to fight with them considering the strength and weapons these gods had.  Thus they decided to approach the matter in a weird way.

To this day, no Asgardian knows what had transpired there, but one day, Thor woke up from his bed and found out that there was something wrong in the cosmos. It wasn't something that could be taken lightly either as it was something that would definitely affect the destiny of all beings.

The Mjolnir hammer was missing. Worried about the safety of the beings that they were supposed to protect sent Thor into a frenzy. He must have dug up the entirety of Asgard to search for Mjolnir but he could not see any trace of it. Thor quickly assumed that only Loki dared to think of this prank and off he went to find Loki. 

However, when Thor angrily asked Loki about the Mjolnir, Loki insisted he didn't know where Thor put Mjolnir before, let alone stealing it. Actually, Loki knew who the hammer thief was but he didn't constantly tell Thor because he had some plans. Loki did not confess about 'accidentally' opening a portal leading into an unknown location within the nine realms, allowing the hammer to freefall into Jotunheim. 

Loki wanted the giants to die for a personal reason. But he knew Odin would not condone such behaviour and if someone tried to kill an entire race just because they wanted to, they would not live long enough either. That was the time when Loki decided to kill two birds with one stone. He made Mjolnir disappear so that it would throw Thor into a fit of rage and kill the giants.

This would then lead Odin to exile Thor, if not kill him. Which then, in turn, would have cleared Loki's path to the throne. Everything was going according to his plan as he successfully managed to fool everyone around him. 

Odin got to know about the disappearance of Mjolnir and immediately a search party was formed consisting of 8 gods. Each of them was sent to a realm to look for the hammer, while he stayed behind and looked over Asgard. Since Loki knew where the hammer was, he decided to visit Jotunheim. 

However, all he knew was that the hammer was in Jotunheim, but not where. The land of the giants was quite vast and it could have taken him years to look for the hammer on his own. After aimlessly roaming around for days, Loki came across a giant called Thrym.

Loki was easily able to trick this foolish giant into confessing that he was the one who found and hammer and kept it safe. However, despite Loki's constant attempts, he was not able to get the giant to divulge the location of where the hammer was hidden. In the end, Loki tried to bribe him. 

He asked the giant what would he want in exchange for the Hammer, to which the giant replied he wanted to marry the goddess, Freya. Loki was dumbfounded when he heard the giant's absurd demand. Seeing no other way to persuade the giant, he flew back to Asgard and informed them about what had transpired. 

As expected, Freya immediately declined the offer and said he would rather marry a dog than marry a giant. By this time Thor was seething with rage and wanted to lash out. However, killing the giants would not get his hammer back to him. A plan entered Loki's mind which would further humiliate Thor and hence force him to act irrationally. 

Loki proposed the idea of Thor being portrayed as Freya to marry the giant. Just hearing the proposal made Thor want to rip Loki's head off, but Odin stopped his son and gave Loki a chance to explain what he was planning. 

As the Giants had never seen a goddess before, they wouldn't know the difference between Thor and Freya. Thus helping him get Mjolnir back.. It was a solid plan and thus Thor begrudgingly agreed to do it, even though his rage was crossing a limit and so wedding preparations in Asgard began.