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Ronin sat down with these two women both showing great power over ice and had tea with them.

“I have heard of your great feats, Lady Freja. You used to be a war goddess.”

“Indeed. Your brother is very well-read as you told me, Donna.” Freja told the little girl in front of her. “Rarely anyone knows this fact, even my priestesses.”

Freja appears in the form of a woman in her late 60s or early 70s. Her hair was stark white and she was wearing furs and winter attire over her dress. She has purplish glowing skin, with swirling patterns that can be tantalizing to look at.

Ronin did not focus on the beauty of this purple skin, but rather on the fact that she has a Charoite Heartstone from the traits he observed.

Charoite was a very rare stone found in only one location in the real world, in the Aldan Shield near the Chara River in Siberia. But since the river was 70 kilometers away, it was believed to be named after the Russian word chary instead.

Which means ‘charms’ or ‘magic’.

Now, almost everyone in Magecia has magic. But this goddess, Freja…. There was a sort of strange mysticism to her that made Ronin feel that being a Charoite suits her very well.

He felt that the creators of this game Stone Mage pay attention to the Heartstones of gods very well. After all, her daughter has the Heartstone Baetalus that was associated with worship and prophecies.

Freja has a Heartstone that had a bewitching sense of beauty, also found in one of the coldest places on Earth, and Charoite also has some radioactivity, which brings a dangerous edge to it._.

Fitting for a former goddess of war.

But the problem was, she’s no longer one.

“How did you change from being a war goddess to… a bit more domesticated?” Ronin wondered.

Freja just smiled at him for a while and sipped her tea like the fine lady she was.

Belladonna was the one who answered him. “It was the men’s fault, brother. They kept her restrained.”

“Restrained? How do you restrain a goddess?” He asked in bewilderment.

“When your followers deplete, so do your domain and powers.” Freja then spoke. “Tell me, Ronin. How old are you now?”

“Eleven years.” Ronin answered.

“Eleven.” She smiled. “And if you were born a woman, you would have been told about how to be a snowflake lady.”

Ronin was familiar with that term. “This means how growing girls are expected to be prim and proper, right?”

“And frail and fragile. Like a snowflake.” Freja sipped her tea with a raised pinky. “You cannot talk too loud, stomp your foot too hard when you walk, and…..”

“You cannot do something so unladylike,” Belladonna added. “Like fighting wars and leading people, brother.”

He knew this very well due to real-life sexism. But in a world where both male and female gods can have an equal amount of power, as well as male and female mages sharing the same Heartstone…

What was the purpose of it?

“And who started that mentality?”

“Not who, Ronin. What.” Freja corrected. “You see, women are exceptional in many ways. One of that is our ability to bear children and carry them in our womb, not to mention suffer immense pain while in labor.”

“Like how Mother suffered with me.” Belladonna frowned.

“And when you are carrying a child with you all the time, of course, it would be difficult to keep up with warfare. But I still managed to do so.” Freja said.

“However, this kind of example was viewed as dangerous by many people. It was mostly men at first but…”

“The more these men pointed out the dangers to them, and the more women received proof of these dangers….. Well, they soon believed in their incapacity. After all, women during pregnancy are more susceptible to diseases and injuries.”

She sighed. “Many of them wanted to have the comfort of just being left behind in the household and given protection. It gives them stability, and to their children as well. That is how…..”

“The snowflake maiden is made. In order to secure personal greed for comfort and a luxurious, lazy life….. as well as for the benefit of mankind itself. Men do not want to lose their children and women start to be overly reliant on their protection. That is also why I must step down from war.”

Ronin nodded. “So people will keep believing in you. If they saw you as a bad example, they might stop praying to you, and your powers will deplete. That was what you meant earlier, yes?”

“Correct. But there was also one thing.” She dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief.

“The domain of Winter is already mine, and it is also a tough one to manage. Not to mention people quite dislike winter compared to summer, for it takes away life and gives out the cold instead.”

“But it was the domain I first received before becoming the Goddess of Beauty and Womanhood as well. I only received these after having my daughter.”

Ronin knew who it was. “Goddess Bezirze.”

“Yes. My daughter had power over nature. She too, was an exception.” Freja seemed to smile proudly. “Her father and I were of the sky, ruling over the seasons. But she was much closer to the mortal and terrestrial plane; ruling over flowers, fruits, and prophecies.”

“My dear friend Freja told me she was the one who asked the gods to curse you, brother.” Belladonna frowned, gritting her teeth. “I won’t forgive her for that.”

“When she brought out the curse, I was actually one of the few who went against it.” The goddess said. “But then I remembered something important about Bezirze.”

“And that is?” Ronin raised an eyebrow.

“Going against the fate she had foreseen….. The one she prophesized…” She set her cup down with a somber tone. “Is futile. It would only bring you disappointment the more you fight against it.”

Ronin furrowed his brows. “You have experienced something like that before?”

“She had foreseen exactly this, my boy.” She raised a finger to the sky.

“That one day, women would be seen as weak and meek. And the more they believed it, the more it becomes true.”

“They would seek refuge from a goddess who appears frail and delicate like them. Someone who they can aspire to be in terms of domestication and ‘fairness’. Someone who is beautiful and can live a good life just being a beautiful creature by a man’s side.”

“And they chose you.” Ronin concluded.

“I did not want to be, of course. But I was left with no choice. It was up to my followers, not me.” Freja smiled sadly. “And I have also begun to think like them.”

Her face then darkened as she said:

“After all the things I have experienced and witnessed in the war… Getting to retire to domestic life was not so awful as it may sound.”

Ronin rubbed his chin over this. So the reason why a war goddess had stepped down from being one was for the sake of peace…

But that also begs the question:

“What exactly is this war? Who were you fighting against? The textbooks never specified.”

The goddess Freja chuckled lightly. “Do they need to specify? There was only one war among gods for them to speak about.”

“The Celesto-Abyssal war.”