Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria - Volume 21 - Chapter 3

ACT 3

Caught in a barrage of tetsuhau explosions, the attacking Flame Clan forces shrank back in fear, leading them to retreat soon after. However, Haugspori looked far from pleased at the outcome.

“Gods, they really did get one over on us, huh...” Haugspori said as he let out a long sigh of frustration. A second look at the events unfolding showed him that none of the Flame Clan soldiers had been injured by the explosions. After all, they knew from bitter experience that the Steel Clan made extensive use of tetsuhau. That was why they were trying to bait the Steel Clan forces into wasting their tetsuhau. If they succeeded in doing so, they could then attempt to wipe out the Steel Clan Army, who would find their position greatly weakened without their explosives.

Tetsuhau were powerful—a single one exploding within the assembled ranks of a spear wall would injure around ten soldiers at a time. Even though the Flame Clan enjoyed a massive numerical advantage, the threat of tetsuhau bombardments was still greatly concerning to them. Haugspori had to admit it was an appropriate tactic for the circumstances.

“Looks like they saw right through us...” Haugspori muttered. Had he been the enemy commander, he would have used a similar tactic. Up until this point, the Steel Clan had made extensive use of gunpowder. Two recent examples of this included setting southern Glaðsheimr on fire, as well as the tetsuhau used against the northern Flame Clan forces. Gunpowder was a difficult item to manufacture and was particularly challenging to store in large quantities. Furthermore, the Steel Clan was currently surrounded and under siege. Their remaining stock of gunpowder was low—things were dire.

“I really drew the short straw, didn’t I? Holding the enemy here is going to be quite the task.”

Haugspori’s assignment was to prevent the Flame Clan’s eastern army from advancing farther into the city, so as to keep them from intervening in the battle between the two Clans’ main armies in southern Glaðsheimr. That said, he was facing off against an enemy force of twenty thousand with a little over two thousand soldiers of his own. Obviously, he wasn’t going to do anything as foolish as clash head-on with their forces, but with a ten-to-one disadvantage, the situation was still grim. As Haugspori considered his options, a powerful battle cry erupted from the Flame Clan lines.

“Tch, more already? Fine. The next bunch are empty anyways!”

The arbalests sang out again, and scores of balls sailed through the air. The advancing Flame Clan army suddenly stopped and retreated backward in good order. Haugspori couldn’t help but find it irritating.

“Hah! Seems they’ve fallen for our tricks this time,” Haugspori said with a smugly triumphant smile. The projectiles landed on the ground, and all of them shattered without a single explosion among them. They weren’t duds; they simply hadn’t been filled with gunpowder.

“‘All warfare is deception,’ right?”

It was a lesson from Sun Tzu’s Art of War that Linnea often referred to—one she had learned from Yuuto. The specific tactic they were using in this battle was one that had been developed by Hveðrungr before the recent Battle of Northern Glaðsheimr. The Flame Clan’s soldiers had repeatedly dealt with the Steel Clan’s use of tetsuhau against them, so Hveðrungr proposed that they would mistake empty pottery for tetsuhau. As he had predicted, it had worked like a charm. The Flame Clan had no choice but to worry about the Steel Clan’s use of tetsuhau and slow their advance in order to reduce casualties.

“Let’s make the next two volleys blanks too,” Haugspori ordered. Fortunately, there was a practically endless supply of empty pottery in the now-abandoned city. There was no need to worry about wasting ammunition.

“A-Are you certain that’s a good idea, sir?!” his Second asked incredulously. Haugspori knew from his Second’s expression what had prompted that question.

“You’re thinking that if we keep doing this, they’ll realize we’re bluffing, am I right?” Haugspori asked his Second.

“Y-Yes,” the Second responded meekly.

“Don’t worry about that. If anything, we’d like them to think that way. Oh, here they come,” Haugspori replied.

The Flame Clan’s eastern division surged forward again, and when the arbalests fired, they shrank back like a retreating wave. The same series of events repeated twice over, but then, a change in their behavior occurred...

Unusually, the Flame Clan soldiers accelerated their charge when Haugspori’s forces fired on them. The pottery being launched pelted at the Flame Clan soldiers’ shields, and what was left of the pottery clattered to the ground. None of them had exploded. The Flame Clan Army’s advance hadn’t stopped either.

“Got you. Now give them a taste of the real thing!” Haugspori ordered. Shortly after, blasts echoed through the air.

“Ahhhh!”

“What the?!”

“Hot! Hot!”

The Flame Clan soldiers who had assumed the next volley would also be empty were caught up in the salvo of explosives and began to panic.

“Finish them off! Give them another full salvo!” Haugspori yelled to his men once more. More explosions rang across the battlefield.

“Ahhhhh!”

“Aaack!”

“Dammit! They were supposed to be out of gunpowder!”

The Flame Clan Army fell into a disorganized panic, and their men began withdrawing as frightened screams could be heard throughout its ranks. They certainly didn’t seem like the professional soldiers that the Flame Clan was known for. It was very likely that these units were made up of conscripted farmers. They had been sent in to act as sacrificial lambs to find out if the Steel Clan forces truly had run out of tetsuhau.

“I suppose it’s only natural that they’d be cautious about us doing something like this,” the Second observed.

They had not only been able to confirm what state the Steel Clan Army was in while only sacrificing their least effective units, but they had also baited the Steel Clan into using tetsuhau on those men. The eastern division’s commander was quite the tactician, combining a cautious personality with the ruthlessness to throw his men to the wolves when necessary.

“Little do they know that their actions have already been accounted for...” Haugspori muttered to himself, chuckling all the while. As noted earlier, Haugspori’s forces weren’t looking to claim a victory; they were there to keep the eastern division from interfering in the clash between the Flame and Steel Clan Armies’ main bodies. All they needed to do was to buy time. The more cautious the enemy became, the easier it became for Haugspori to achieve that goal.

It was all going according to Hveðrungr’s plan. Right now, the forces under Narfi’s command in western Glaðsheimr were using the same tactics to slow down the western division of the Flame Clan Army. Narfi had been Hveðrungr’s subordinate since Hveðrungr’s days as the Panther Clan’s patriarch, and had also served as the Second of the Independent Cavalry Regiment. He was well versed in hit-and-run tactics and was an Einherjar himself. There was no doubt he’d be doing his job of stopping the enemy in their tracks there as well.

“His Majesty really is a hell of a man. I suppose that bastard in the mask is too,” Haugspori said to himself.

When Haugspori had seen the tactic used in the battle against the northern division, he had only considered it a bluff that might be useful once, but he had been mistaken. If anything, it was a tactic that showed its true effectiveness when they were on the defensive and needed to slow the enemy even as they were short on both manpower and ammunition. It was clear why Yuuto had been unstinting in his praise of Hveðrungr’s proposal. They had both foreseen that this would be how it would play out.

“Just how many steps ahead have they been planning?” Haugspori murmured as he felt a cold shiver run up his spine. Those two were frightening men to deal with. “That said, how long can we maintain this?”

The fact of the matter was that his forces were, in fact, running short on tetsuhau. Even with the use of the empty pottery, there was a limit to how much longer they could hold out. It was clear the Steel Clan didn’t have much time left.

“Such overwhelming ásmegin... Just being in her presence makes me feel as though I’m going to be crushed by it,” Thír said nervously, swallowing the lump she suddenly felt in her throat. The opponent before her was still just a child. Even so, simply looking at this child made her body tense in fear. It was as though she were facing off against the legendary great wolves, the garmrs that were said to live in the Himinbjörg Mountains.

“One, two, three, four, five, six... Huh, six Einherjar? That’s a lot.” Homura pointed at each of the Einherjar with her index finger before nodding with admiration. There was perhaps one Einherjar out of every ten thousand people. Given their rarity, it was pretty much impossible to run into six individuals together at once as an enemy.

“This is sooooo boring! I’ve gotta go find that masked Hvesomething guy. I can’t let someone else get him.” Homura pouted with displeasure. It seemed she was wrapped up in her own thoughts, and she had left herself so open that Thír and the others were caught by surprise.

One of the Maidens of the Waves saw the opening and charged in toward Homura to take advantage of it. No, it was more accurate to say that her fear had forced her into looking for any opportunity to find a way to win.

“U-Uðr, wait!” Thír hurriedly tried to stop her—but the warning came far too late. Homura’s lightning-quick strike sent Uðr’s head flying through the air.

“Huh? You can’t even block that? What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you an Einherjar?” Homura, who had just killed Uðr, seemed most surprised by the outcome. For Uðr’s sake, it needed to be said that she wasn’t weak. While there were plenty of Einherjar who simply relied on their natural talent and didn’t bother to train, Uðr, as a member of the Maidens of the Waves, had undergone harsh training under Thír from a young age. She was at least equal to Haugspori of the Brísingamen of the Horn Clan, or Yuuto’s adjutant and bodyguard Felicia. Despite that, Homura had still dispatched her with a single blow.

“That can’t... No... Uðr!” Thír honestly wasn’t able to fully process what had happened in front of her. She had just lost one of her beloved daughters, but it had happened so quickly—so easily—that it didn’t feel real. She couldn’t believe it. She simply wasn’t able to believe it.

“U-Uðr! We’ll avenge you!”

“Ah! Hold!” When she heard the shout of rage from another of the Maidens of the Waves, Thír snapped back into the present and hurriedly stopped them from attacking. “That girl is a twin-runed Einherjar. Reckless attacks will only get you killed!”

Thír had never faced him directly, but during a victory party, Haugspori, the Assistant Second of the Horn Clan, had told her stories of the monstrous strength of the Lightning Clan patriarch Steinþórr. According to Haugspori, even when seven Einherjar had surrounded him and attacked him in tandem, Steinþórr had still brushed them aside with ease. Among those seven had been the late Skáviðr, a man who had been reputed to be equal, perhaps even superior, to Sigrún, the Mánagarmr—and still, he had pulled through. Though the young girl in front of her was probably not at that level yet, she still remained an opponent against whom even the most cautious approaches could be considered reckless.

“We’ll attack together. Don’t underestimate her just because she’s a child. There’s no need to feel any guilt. Use any means at your disposal!” Thír rapidly shot out the orders. She kept her eyes glued on Homura. She remained focused on the girl to make certain she caught every movement. It quickly paid off. She caught Homura’s motions as she made her move. However, Homura accelerated far faster than Thír had thought possible.

With a powerful roar, Hildegard exchanged blows with the enemy Einherjar. What had his name been? Ryusai? He seemed a frivolous sort—a man in his midtwenties whose every remark seemed to be some lighthearted comment.

Despite the man’s mannerisms, Hildegard was the one who lost the test of strength and flinched backward with her upper body. The shock from her impact numbed her fingers. While it was by the smallest margin, his blows were more powerful than her own—despite the fact that Hildegard’s physical abilities had been amplified by Gjallarhorn. She quickly realized that, on even terms, he was stronger than she was.

“Raaaah!”

Ryusai brought his spear downward to follow up on his previous blow. Still off-balance, Hildegard wasn’t going to be able to block it in time.

“Tch!”

Hildegard spurred her horse and had her beloved mount charge forward. The horses butted heads and shoved the enemy soldiers backward.

“Phew, thanks, Skuld.” Hildegard let out a breath of relief and gently patted the mane of her beloved horse. She had escaped danger at the last moment, but the exchange had been enough to make her crotch tingle.

“Oh my, you’re quite good for being so cute. I’d love to take you as my bride,” Ryusai said casually as he bounced his spear on his shoulder. Hildegard felt a strong surge of irritation at his attitude, but she somehow managed to keep it controlled. She was already at a disadvantage. If she lost her calm here, she’d lose any chance of winning.

“How’s Mother Rún doing...?” she thought to herself. Hildegard kept most of her attention on Ryusai, but she glanced sideward at her mentor. Sigrún, too, was in the midst of a savage exchange against the remaining two enemy Einherjar. They were clearly holding the advantage. That, too, was perhaps unavoidable. Sigrún’s dominant hand wasn’t working properly, and she was facing two enemies at once.

“She’s impressive too. It takes something special to hold up in a fight against those two simultaneously. I can see why she was able to take out Uncle Shiba,” Ryusai said, making his admiration clear as he noticed Hildegard’s glance. Hildegard felt her brows twitch.

“Don’t be—Mrrrgph!”

She bit back on the shout that threatened to explode from her mouth.

“Don’t be ridiculous! If Mother Rún were in perfect shape, they’d be long dead, you dumbass!” she screamed internally. The Flame Clan should still be unaware of Sigrún’s injury. There was no need to inform the enemy of an ally’s vulnerability.

“And there are few women as beautiful. I wish I could’ve fought her instead,” Ryusai said with a disappointed sigh.

“Then why’d you let those two pass so easily?” Hildegard asked.

“Well, it’d be totally embarrassing to be seen fighting two on one against a slender little thing like her,” Ryusai replied and winked with an impish grin. Hildegard felt an immediate shiver of revulsion. There was something about him she had disliked from the start, but this had settled her impression of him.

“Hrmph! I’m a ‘slender little thing’ too, you know,” she rebutted.

“Hah! Well, if you wanna run, you can run. I won’t chase. Since we’re on the battlefield, I’ll deal with inconveniences when I run into them, but honestly, I’m not a big fan of killing women,” Ryusai explained.

“I-Is that so?” she replied. She knew her voice was quivering from her pent-up rage. That latest comment had really pissed her off. Part of it was the fact that he looked down on her for being a woman, but the most annoying thing he’d done was suggest that she was little more than a mere inconvenience. That wasn’t something she could let pass.

“Oh, or do you want to surrender? Why don’t you become my bride?” Ryusai said mockingly.

Snap!

“Hell no!” she screamed. With that roar, their battle resumed.

“She better not be losing her temper...” Sigrún couldn’t help but furrow her brow as she heard a familiar shout behind her. Her protégé and apprentice Hildegard’s greatest weakness was her cockiness. Hildegard had made a habit of letting her emotions get the better of her in the moment, which would result in her losing her cool and making a serious mistake. Ordinarily, Sigrún would be there to back her up, but this time, that wasn’t so easy to do...

“Worrying about someone else, are you? You keeping some of your strength back in reserve?”

“Heh, that’s what makes you such a worthy challenge.”

The scruffily bearded Arako and the densely built Gatu thinned their lips in concentration and glared in her direction. It seemed she had inadvertently taunted them. Truthfully, Sigrún was running on fumes. She had already entered the Realm of Godspeed to deal with the pair’s intense rush of attacks.

“Here we go!”

“Graaaah!”

“Tch! Hrmph!”

She deflected Arako’s spear thrust upward, then used the Willow Technique to avoid Gatu’s downward slash. Not a moment later, she managed to avoid Arako’s follow-up attack by a hair’s breadth, and also somehow managed to block Gatu’s sweeping slash before he was able to put his strength behind it. The whole exchange had been over in an instant. Her almost divine ability to defend against their attacks was due entirely to the fact she was in the Realm of Godspeed.

“How much longer will my body hold up...?” she wondered with great worry.

More than anything, using the Realm of Godspeed was extremely physically draining. Worse, she was just managing to keep the two at bay despite using her trump card. She had no physical or mental bandwidth to attack. While her stamina was still holding up fine, it was clear that the longer this went, the worse things would get.

“If only I could use the Realm of the Water Mirror...”

What she was mulling over in her mind was a technique she had developed during her duel with Shiba that allowed her to read the enemy’s intentions before they attacked, but with this many enemies around her, she wasn’t able to tell the intentions of those she was facing apart from the countless soldiers around her.

“No point in wishing for something I don’t...have!”

She switched over her thought process and continued to defend against the onslaught of enemy strikes. Dodge. Deflect. Block. Hold off the enemy with a feint. She used the full extent of her skills to avoid their attacks.

“Too slow. You’re making me sleepy,” Sigrún said mockingly.

“Grrr!”

“Know your place, girl!”

The pair’s glares intensified as Sigrún continued to taunt them. The more desperate the situation, the more important it was to show confidence and suggest she had strength in reserve. That had been the ultimate technique that her mentor Skáviðr had taught her to escape perilous situations. It was having its intended effect. Caution had made her opponents hesitant to commit too heavily to an attack, and their anger had made their attacks less refined.

“Far too slow!” she said as she chuckled at them. “What is that fool doing?!” she added mentally at the end of her laughter. The fool, it went without saying, was Hildegard. She was fighting two opponents with an injured right hand. Hildegard was fighting one-on-one. It was beyond obvious who had the higher chance of winning. If Hildegard got on with defeating the enemy she was fighting and came to her aid, they’d then be back to one-on-one and stood a chance of victory.

“As if I actually need someone to help me. Seems I’m getting old...”

She couldn’t help but let out a self-deprecating chuckle. It had always been her ethos to cut open the path to victory with her own hand. Still, she felt no discomfort over her realization. If anything, it felt right. Sigrún had never told Hildegard directly and had no intention of telling her in the future, but she had the greatest confidence in Hildegard’s skill. She even considered Hildegard to be a hugely promising warrior that would eventually surpass her.

Certainly, the Five Blades of the Flame Clan were challenging opponents, but Hildegard had the skill to win. Sigrún held a steadfast faith in that fact and had entrusted her life to it. She had no hesitation about doing so. She knew it provided the highest chance of survival. The reason was simple: Hildegard was the beloved apprentice she had trained herself.

“They’ve broken through our second formation!” a Flame Clan scout reported in a panic.

“Ah, I’d heard stories about them, but it’s almost overwhelming when witnessing it in person,” Old Man Salk responded, his deeply wrinkled features furrowing further as he frowned. He was the oldest of the Flame Clan’s generals, and he had seen his fair share of conflict over the years. In the time since his first battle—a long sixty years ago—he had never seen anything like the momentum the Steel Clan was putting on display.

The Flame Clan based their infantry tactics around pike squares formed by concentrated formations of soldiers equipped with long spears. These formations were essentially walls of spears. By all accounts, they should have been difficult to overcome, but...

“The enemy’s broken through the third formation! We can’t stop them!”

The Steel Clan attackers continued to break through the Flame Clan’s formations with little difficulty. Gjallarhorn’s nickname, the Rune of Kings, was well-earned, clearly. Salk, with his vast battlefield experience, was certain there were few abilities that were this deadly in a clash of armies. It was a power that, by all rights, belonged in a place far beyond the realm of ordinary men. It was something that was more aptly expected from the gods themselves.

“So I can see...” Nobunaga replied, holding his composure as he watched the situation unfold. There was no trace of anxiety in his voice. It was reassuring to see.

“What shall we do, My Great Lord? At this rate, they’ll take us with their momentum,” Salk asked despite his certainty that it wouldn’t happen. He was simply curious as to how Nobunaga intended to deal with the enemy attack.

“We’ll stay the course,” Nobunaga replied.

“Pardon?” Salk blurted out, clearly confused.

“I’ve seen this ability multiple times. I’ve made the necessary preparations to deal with it.” Nobunaga calmly explained. Soon after, his lips curled into a feral grin. His thought process was perfectly reasonable: the rune’s power was one of the Steel Clan’s most powerful weapons, meaning that the Flame Clan needed to overcome it to have any chance of victory. Nobunaga, being a man to choose to fight only when he was certain he could win, had long since prepared a method for dealing with it.

“And those preparations are?” Salk asked.

“Hrmph. Keep watching and I’m sure you’ll notice,” Nobunaga replied curtly.

“Is that so? I’ll be sure to observe closely.” Salk had no choice but to sit back and watch, given Nobunaga’s immense confidence. Any further questions would only irritate his liege.

He had decided to wait and watch, however...

“They’ve broken through our fourth formation!”

“Our fifth formation reports the enemy has broken through!”

A stream of bad news continued to come down from the front lines. Surely this was a problem. Old Man Salk couldn’t contain his anxiety and looked over at Nobunaga, who, to his surprise, still appeared perfectly calm. It was at that moment Salk’s brain made the connection.

“Surely not... Is this the infinite spiral formation?!” Salk exclaimed.

“Ah, so you’ve noticed,” Nobunaga said with an amused chuckle. The infinite spiral formation—a defensive formation that Vassarfall, one of the Five Division Commanders of the Flame Clan, had developed. It relied upon using almost-countless layers of defensive formations to stifle the enemy’s advance. It was much easier to describe than it was to actually execute. That was because it was extremely difficult to maintain an army’s morale as the enemy continually broke through their successive defensive lines. This was why, even among the Flame Clan’s numerous skilled generals, Vassarfall had been the only one who had been able to pull it off. For Nobunaga to be managing to do so with such ease came as a shock to Old Man Salk. Once again, he was forced to admit Nobunaga was a monstrously talented commander.

“Well, it’s not quite the same thing,” Nobunaga said with a dry laugh, as though he had read Salk’s mind.

“How so?” Salk replied.

“The infinite spiral formation is a tactic that’s only possible by notifying the troops beforehand and drilling them over a long period of time to understand their role. Even I can’t use it without some long-term preparation,” Nobunaga explained.

“That makes sense. Being able to pull something like that off with no prior setup would require nothing short of a miracle,” Salk said in apparent agreement.

“As such, I made the decision to divide the forces in two. A ragtag force that consists of conscripts, and a second, more disciplined force filled with highly trained soldiers who are dedicated to fighting.”

“I see! So the ones who are fighting on the vanguard right now are the conscripts?!”

“Precisely! As a result, it won’t matter how many men we lose, since our main fighting force will remain unscathed.”

Salk felt a shiver run up his spine as Nobunaga stated the situation so baldly. Given that the conscripts had received, at most, a month and a half of training, they had no chance against the reinforced soldiers of the Steel Clan. The battles currently occurring on the front lines must have been something close to a one-sided slaughter.

Nobunaga had sacrificed twenty thousand conscripts to buy time against the Steel Clan. It was a ruthless and coldly calculated tactic worthy of his moniker of demon lord. Brutal though it was, the fact of the matter was that it was effective. The Flame Clan Army’s highly trained career soldiers had naturally developed a sense of superiority over their conscripted peers. Their belief that they were better must have been strengthened by the fact they had seen just how poorly the conscripts did in their training over the last month. They would likely dismiss the defeat of the conscripted units as the natural outcome of sending farmers into battle, coldly regarding them as inferior warriors to themselves. They had, after all, put in years of training to reach their current positions—meaning that even if the twenty thousand conscripts were routed and fled, it wouldn’t impact the morale of the twenty thousand professional soldiers stationed behind them. Nobunaga’s plan was to preserve his trained elites as a reserve force and send them against the Steel Clan Army when they were on the verge of defeat. It was a tactic that showed Nobunaga’s willingness to pay a price in blood to finish the enemy.

“I had no illusions things would go as planned, but still... An army led by Oda Nobunaga himself is one hell of an opponent,” Yuuto murmured to himself, his expression set in a frown as he commanded the Steel Clan forces from the rear.

Though the Flame Clan forces had been on the offensive when he had ordered the use of Gjallarhorn, they had quickly switched to a defensive posture. The crimson-armored unit that had forced the armies into a melee had also immediately withdrawn and moved to the flanks to serve as reinforcements. Most impressively, Nobunaga had done all this without the omniscience that was granted to Yuuto by his runes that allowed him to detect the enemy’s location and movements. Nobunaga’s ability to read the battlefield was practically unrivaled. There was a reason he had been able to take a small clan in the Warring States Period and elevate them to such a mighty position that they had gotten to the cusp of conquering the country as a whole.

“Trying to come up with any underhanded schemes at this point would likely end up backfiring,” Yuuto remarked. Trickery in battle was only useful if it caught the enemy by surprise. If they were ready for the planned deception, it was more likely they’d be able to use any such ruses to their advantage.

“This was perhaps a bit reckless?” Kristina coolly pointed out. She remained one of the retainers who was willing to state the truth without artifice. Of course, that was why she was so valuable...

“I knew that going into this. However, this is the only way we can win,” Yuuto replied.

Yes, he knew this was a long shot from the start. Even with the power of Gjallarhorn, a frontal assault against an enemy army twice the size of his own was madness. But the die had been cast. Any uncertainty from him now would make his soldiers anxious and create panic among them.

“We need to throw everything we can into this. Send all our forces forward. I’ll step up to the front as well,” Yuuto ordered.

“No! That would be too dangerous!” Kristina protested.

“If anything, staying back now is a bigger risk,” he responded.

Because Gjallarhorn was still in effect, it was unlikely that Yuuto’s presence on the front lines would improve morale. Even so, he wanted to get a closer look at the enemy’s movements. There were still things he was going to miss from the audio-only reports he was receiving over the radio. The only way to truly feel the flow of battle was to be close to the fighting itself. After all, he was fighting against Oda Nobunaga. A single mistake might end up surrendering the battle to him. He couldn’t afford to miss a single change.

“Though I say this much, a frontal assault is probably not going to work out,” Yuuto conceded.

That was where the enemy’s numbers were greatest, and they were now in a defensive formation. Not to mention that the feeling of being stuck in an infinite loop was familiar. It was the same defensive formation Vassarfall had employed in their recent battle. It wasn’t realistic to hope that they could break through it in the time they had left. He needed something that would tip the scales in his favor.

“I’m counting on you, Rún, Thír,” he said hopefully to nobody in particular.

The only ones he could think of who could do such a thing were those two. Sigrún’s Múspell Unit and Thír’s Maidens of the Waves were head and shoulders above the rest of the Steel Clan forces in terms of offensive power and penetrative strength. Yuuto’s only remaining option was to trust them to create the necessary opening.

“Hyah, hyah, hyah!”

With a loud roar, Hildegard let loose with a series of thrusts. She was moving so quickly that an average soldier would have seen the three thrusts as a single thrust. However...

“Aha! That was a little close.”

Although Ryusai let out a note of surprise, he easily blocked all three blows. And unlike his words, his expression showed that it hadn’t been particularly challenging for him. Hildegard felt her brow twitch in irritation.

“Screw you!”

With that shout, Hildegard swung her spear downward in a diagonal slash. Ryusai responded with a swing of his own and deflected her blow. They then began exchanging spear blows on horseback. Ten. Twenty. Thirty blows. The duel seemed far from a conclusion. Hildegard was the only one attacking. At a glance, it appeared she had the advantage, but the reality was the opposite.

“Agh! Blast it! Stop defending and attack already! You been gelded, you eunuch?!”

“Ha ha, it’s precisely because I’m not a eunuch that I won’t attack a girl,” Ryusai said with a laugh as he defended against Hildegard’s assault. Yes, the only reason Hildegard was the only one attacking was that Ryusai was focused on defense and wasn’t bothering to counterattack.

“Liar! You were attacking me at first!” she yelled.

“Oh? I don’t remember that,” he replied mockingly.

“Grrr!”

Hildegard felt a fresh surge of irritation at Ryusai’s nonchalance. His easy confidence forced her to confront reality. He was reading her attacks with great precision. It was because he was absolutely certain she couldn’t kill him that Ryusai was now prioritizing his philosophy of not killing women. Hildegard couldn’t imagine a greater insult.

“Don’t get so mad. Smile more. You’re so cute when you do, Hilda,” Ryusai stated.

“Hraaagh! Don’t you dare call me Hilda!” she replied in a fit of rage.

“That’s quite enough, Hilda!” An angry shout cut off Hildegard’s roar of anger. The clear, ringing voice that cut through the sounds of battle wiped all traces of anger from Hildegard’s mind. It was practically a Pavlovian response. Just the sound of that voice reflexively made Hildegard’s mind and body shrink back. That voice, after all, had lectured her day in and day out. “Stop playing around and finish him! How much longer are you going to make me wait?!”

Sigrún shouted at her even as she faced off against two opponents of her own. Sigrún’s face was drenched with sweat. She was breathing heavily, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath. With her injured right hand, she was far from full strength. Yet despite that, she was holding her own against two of the Five Blades of the Flame Clan. The beautifully refined movements of her mentor triggered a memory in Hildegard’s mind.

The following events occurred a year ago, shortly after Hildegard had joined the Múspell Unit.

“Yeow!”

On that particular day, Hildegard, as usual, was busily training under Sigrún’s tutelage. Hildegard was doubled over in pain after Sigrún had landed a thrust against her head. Sigrún was skilled enough to have stopped the attack before making contact, but because she valued the feel of actual combat, she often made a point to let her blows connect. Of course, she was still probably holding back, but it still hurt.

“Not good enough. You need more training. Next!”

Sigrún turned away from Hildegard and held out her wooden sword to face her next opponent. She was neither sweating nor breathing particularly heavily. It was clear she wasn’t fighting at anything close to full strength.

“How can she do that when I’m putting everything into it?!” Hildegard thought to herself, a surge of anger rising within her at that realization. She gripped her wooden sword tightly, and slowly stood up without making a sound.

“Now!”

She attacked Sigrún from behind. She knew she was just taking out her anger on her, but she didn’t care. Given Sigrún valued training that was as close to actual combat as possible, a sneak attack was perfectly fair.

“I’m going to break your neck!”

Hildegard put all her strength behind the blow and brought down her sword—

“Huh?! Guuh!”

Sigrún dodged by rotating her body, as though she had eyes on the back of her head, and landed a side swing into Hildegard’s torso.

“Urrgh...”

“I’ll give you credit for trying to wrest a point from me at all costs. But you don’t have the basics down. First, get your basics right before trying to rely on ruses,” Sigrún said coolly as Hildegard was doubled over in pain, holding her flank. Sigrún showed no sign of being bothered by the sneak attack.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Come at me.”

She had turned away from Hildegard as though she held no further interest for her and gestured for her next opponent to fight her. It was humiliating. Hildegard had never lost to the men in her hometown—usually defeating them handily—and she had maintained her winning streak even when she was part of Jörgen’s group, easily defeating the supposedly elite members of the Múspell Unit in training matches. Against Sigrún, however, she couldn’t even manage to put up a decent fight. Sigrún dealt with her as easily as she would a toddler. Hildegard’s pride was in tatters. Even as she had tried to break Sigrún’s neck, she had, instead, had her ego shattered. It was pathetic.

“D-Dammit! I’ll make you regret this!” Overwhelmed by anger and embarrassment, Hildegard ran off from the training ground. She felt nothing but rage welling up from within.

“I’ll kill her! Kill her! Kill her dammit!” As though animated by the dark resentment welling up from inside her, Hildegard began swinging her wooden sword inside the woods she had run into. “Die! Die! Die! Diiiieee!”

She hated everything. It went without saying she despised Sigrún for so easily defeating her, but the pitying glances from those around her had also been utterly humiliating. She also resented the fates for being born in the same era as a monster like Sigrún. But what irritated her the most was her own weakness.

“I’ll get stronger!”

With renewed determination, Hildegard continued swinging her wooden sword. She did it over and over again. Hildegard was a slacker at heart. In fact, when she had first joined the Múspell Unit, she had pushed her duties onto others and slacked off. If she didn’t have to train, she’d be happy just spending every day sleeping.

“I’ll win, no matter what!”

She hated losing more than she loved being lazy, however. Her pride wouldn’t let her remain a doormat for Sigrún. Why had she let her talent go to her head? Why hadn’t she put in the time to train properly? Her anger at herself drove her as she kept moving. She swung, and she swung, and she kept swinging.

“Oh? I thought you’d run back home, but I’m impressed to see otherwise.”

Suddenly Hildegard heard the voice she least wanted to hear in the world behind her. When she looked around her, she realized the sun had gone down and it was pitch black. The blisters on her hands had burst. She felt a stinging pain coming from her hands. But what hurt more than anything was her heart.

“What do you want...?” Hildegard asked bluntly, keeping her back to Sigrún. If she didn’t try to put up a front, she knew she’d burst into tears of frustration. And the woman behind her was the last person she wanted seeing those tears.

“Oh, I was just taking a walk and saw you. So I thought I’d come to chat,” Sigrún replied.

Hildegard bit down, grinding her teeth. Sigrún once again made clear how little she cared about her.

“That said... If I were to offer you some critique, if you just randomly swing a sword like that, you’ll never catch up to me,” Sigrún explained.

“Wha?!” Hildegard’s eyes went wide. She couldn’t stay quiet when Sigrún had declared she’d never catch up. “Th-There’s no way you can know that! I’ll train and train and train and someday I’ll eaaasily beat you!” Hildegard proclaimed proudly.

“Oh? You’ve got spirit, I’ll grant you that,” Sigrún said with a note of admiration. While Hildegard had thought she was mocking her at the time, Sigrún later revealed that she had been impressed by Hildegard and had seen a promising protégé at that moment. According to Sigrún, the fact that Hildegard hadn’t simply given up and accepted never besting her like the others had been a pleasant surprise. It was after this exchange that Sigrún took Hildegard under her wing and paid special attention to her, but at the time, Hildegard found Sigrún to be an irritatingly smug figure.

“Hrmph! Just keep looking down on me. I’ll get you eventually.” With that remark, Hildegard resumed her practice swings, as though to indicate the conversation was over. It was hardly the attitude to take with someone she had accepted the Chalice from, but she was in no mood to care. If Sigrún wanted to cut off that relationship, then so be it. An Einherjar like Hildegard would have plenty of opportunities for employment. In fact, if it meant she could get away from a smug bitch like Sigrún, she would be happy to leave.

“Hm... Hold on one moment.”

The moment Hildegard tried to lift the wooden sword she had swung, Sigrún held it down with the sheath of her sword.

“What?”

“Swing far, far more slowly,” Sigrún explained.

“Wha?! But that wouldn’t be training!”

“It will. Try it for a year at least.”

“Whaaat?! A year?!” Hildegard couldn’t help but say with a cry of surprise. It made no sense to her. If she did that for a whole year, she was sure her muscles would wither away.

“Mother Sigrún. Are you sure you’re not lying to me to protect your title of Mánagarmr?”

Sigrún snorted in laughter. While she had become more expressive in the last few months, back then it was rare to see any sign of emotion from her. “Don’t nitpick and just try it. It’s what Brother Ská made me do, and I make the other Múspells do the same thing,” Sigrún said.

“Huh...” Hildegard fell quietly into thought. It would be easy enough to ask around and check if Sigrún was telling the truth. While she hadn’t known Sigrún long, Hildegard knew right away that Sigrún was honest to a fault—she wouldn’t tell such an obvious lie. “Why slowly though?” she asked.

“That’s for you to notice on your own,” Sigrún replied.

“Say what?!” Hildegard had to restrain herself from lashing out. She knew Sigrún would easily put her down, but her irritation kept building. To tell her what to do but not explain why—surely she was joking...

“Think about it with that clever little head of yours. If you spend the next year giving it some real consideration, you might be able to take a point from me,” Sigrún said smugly.

“Wow... It’s already been a year, huh? Time sure flies,” Hildegard murmured softly to herself.

Indeed, only a bit over a year had gone by since those events, but it felt like much more time had passed in her mind, likely because the year had been particularly intense for her. In all that time, Hildegard had yet to score a proper point against Sigrún. She had done so a few times in practice, but she had yet to manage it when Sigrún was fighting at full strength. Still, she felt she was now able to put up a decent fight against her.

“Stop playing around, she says...” Hildegard repeated the words her mentor had shouted at her a moment ago. Having spent nearly every day over the last year training with Hildegard, Sigrún knew better than anyone just how capable the girl was. Sigrún wasn’t one to lie either. She truly believed that a focused Hildegard would be able to take on the Five Blades of the Flame Clan—that she should easily win any duel. Hildegard felt a warmth flutter in her chest.

“Well, if she’s willing to go that far, I can’t let her down.” Hildegard slowly returned to her fighting stance. She relaxed her shoulders and loosened her grip on her spear. Her spear point lashed out as a blur and crossed spears with Ryusai.

“Whoa there! That was close. You almost did me in!” Ryusai’s features paled, the cockiness he’d been displaying a moment earlier all but gone. It was too early for him to relax, however.

“Raaaah!”

Hildegard let out a powerful shout and followed up with a series of rapid spear thrusts.

“G-Grrr!”

Ryusai quickly wound up entirely on the defensive. At first glance, this situation was no different from the start of their battle, but upon closer observation, it was clear that his expression had completely changed. His previous cockiness was nowhere to be seen, and his brow was furrowed in concentration.

“H-How did you suddenly...?! This is completely different from earlier!” a bewildered Ryusai yelled out.

“I just remembered who I usually am,” Hildegard replied with an unusually calm demeanor about her. Hildegard’s anger created unnecessary tension that often caused her to overswing her blows, an act that blunted the effectiveness of her attacks and practically told her opponent she was about to attack. Now that she had regained her composure, however, she had removed any signs of tension from her stance and was once again focusing on the basics of making the most effective motions for her attacks.

“Ryusai, was it? You’re definitely strong. But you’re not even fit to lick Mother Rún’s boots.”

She wasn’t taunting him. It was her honest appraisal after exchanging blows with him. Even if she had yet to win a duel with Sigrún, she still managed to put up a good fight against her, meaning she was but a hair’s breadth short of Sigrún in terms of skill. Now that Hildegard was able to make use of her skills, there was no way she was going to lose to an inferior fighter like Ryusai.

“Guh!”

Hildegard’s spear finally caught Ryusai, splitting his cheek. In that instant, Ryusai let out a feral shout and loosed his spear at Hildegard’s chest. Unfortunately for him, his blow appeared as though it was moving in slow motion to Hildegard. She easily brushed it aside.

“Hey now. I thought you didn’t want to kill girls, no?” she quipped at him.

“Sure, I don’t want to. But if I have no other choice, I’ll do it. I’ll kill a girl,” Ryusai said with a deadly serious expression. His playfulness had been wiped off his features. Hildegard couldn’t hold back a dry laugh at his response. Not at his change, but herself.

“Sheesh. To think I let a small fry that goes back on his word get to me so easily,” Hildegard said teasingly.

“Shut up!” Ryusai shrieked as he unleashed a flurry of blows against Hildegard. It was a storm of spear thrusts, but Hildegard handily deflected every one of them. Certainly, the attacks were fast and strong, but they were totally unrefined—they relied entirely on Ryusai’s innate talent. Each of the blows had buckets of wasted effort behind them.

“You swing far too slow!” Hildegard teased. She swiftly exploited a momentary delay between Ryusai’s strike and switched to the offensive—an act Sigrún often leveraged against Hildegard in their training matches. She had pointed it out to Hildegard as a common cause of her losses. Each time she lost, Hildegard had done as Sigrún had instructed: practiced slow, relaxed swings with her wooden sword. Although at first she had thought it a bother and couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the action, as she sought the deeper meaning behind it, she slowly came to understand why it was necessary.

It was simple: powerful, full-strength swings merely provided the illusion of improvement—they weren’t actually helping her learn anything. The things she couldn’t notice when she was swinging quickly were obvious when she slowed down. There was no way to ignore the flaws in her own technique. After she came to this realization, Hildegard had carefully thought through each swing, trying new variations to come up with a better form. She had spent over a year doing exactly that. Eventually, she realized that instead of simply relying on instinct, she was now constantly thinking about the logic behind her movements—questioning the whys and hows of every last action. Even in her practice duels with Sigrún, she carefully observed her mentor’s movements and worked to incorporate the techniques that had impressed her.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t been using her head while fighting. However, there was a clear difference now. Until this point, she had just been vaguely thinking during her battles. Because of that, she had been completely oblivious of the things that had gone on around her. Despite her best intentions, she had essentially stopped thinking when she fought.

“Hah. So this is what I looked like back then...”

She began to understand as she exchanged blows with Ryusai. She saw her past self in his motions—the very same girl that had relied entirely on her instincts and physical abilities. Oh, how defenseless and raw she once had been!

Hildegard began deftly exploiting Ryusai’s various small flaws—each of which were ones that Sigrún had once pointed out in Hildegard herself. She knew exactly what she needed to do to break him down. It had been thoroughly drilled into her.

“Heh, there’s so little of you in your technique,” Hildegard remarked as they continued to exchange blows. Ryusai’s attacks weren’t taking advantage of his well-built physique. He was tied down by his preconceptions as to how he was supposed to use his spear—he couldn’t find it in him to question them.

Every person had a unique body the gods had given them. There were fighting techniques that were best suited for that individual’s physique. Ryusai had clearly not explored what was best suited to him. There was no way for him to refine his skills to unlock his full potential. Hildegard took advantage of the vulnerabilities that his lack of refinement left open, and she was gradually pushing him toward defeat as a result.

“Guh!”

Then, as though she were following a series of steps, her spear pierced Ryusai’s chest. It was clearly a mortal wound. Ryusai’s body wobbled and fell from his horse.

“Yes! I got him, Mother Rún!” Hildegard yelled with great pride. This was Hildegard’s first notable kill. She turned to her mentor with a bright smile spread across her face.

“...What?!”

As she looked over at Sigrún, she witnessed something she never thought she would see. It was unbelievable. It shouldn’t have been possible. There was no way a warrior as great as Sigrún should be taking a blow from an enemy spear and falling from her horse!

The moment Homura vanished, Thír quickly turned her head to her right. She had lost sight of Homura—her superhuman burst of speed coming completely by surprise—but she had been able to read her movements to some extent because Homura had telegraphed it. Of course, it had only been possible for Thír to do so thanks to her extensive combat experience.

“Huh?! Oh...” Seemingly out of nowhere, blood sprayed from the chest of Kólga, one of the Maidens of the Waves. She had been stabbed by Homura’s dagger. The sheer speed had caught her off guard, and her mind had yet to process what had happened as she stared down at the spraying blood with a look of shock.

“K-Kólga?!” Thír instinctively called her name.

“M-Mother...” Kólga reached out to her mentor with a trembling hand before she fell forward. Her body lay still, all surrounding motion ceasing except the slowly spreading pool of blood.

“You...!” Thír glared daggers at Homura, her steely eyes narrowed in hatred. The other Maidens of the Waves also bristled with anger. They had grown up with the two slain maidens—raised as sisters. They were practically family.

“O, this feeling... I wanted to experience this again,” Homura said, smiling as she absorbed the hatred in the looks from her opponents. She immediately furrowed her brow in annoyance, however. “Hmm... It’s not quite the same though. His was a lot sharper and blacker. A lot scarier, really.”

She began to talk about an opponent who wasn’t present. Thír gripped her hand tightly into a fist, trembling with rage. Thír had spent her life raising the Maidens of the Waves. They were her beloved daughters—her pride and joy. Despite that, this young girl was treating them with utter contempt. There was no way Thír could forgive an insult of that magnitude. However, the only thing that awaited her if she recklessly charged at Homura was a fate much the same as the other two.

“Maidens! Hold your positions! She’s faster than Erna!” Thír warned the remaining three Maidens of the Waves. Erna was a leg-strength-specialized Einherjar, and she was by far the fastest of the Maidens of the Waves. Despite being used to sparring with Erna in their training sessions, they hadn’t been able to react to Homura’s movements. While even Thír herself found her own words hard to believe, there was no denying what she was seeing before her.

“Knees and shoulders!” Thír barked. Upon hearing this, the trio of Maidens nodded in understanding.

Homura, on the other hand, appeared puzzled. “Knees? Shoulders?” she parroted in confusion. It seemed she hadn’t quite understood what Thír was trying to say. She couldn’t help but look down at her own knees, turning her gaze away from Thír and the others. Noticing this, Thír immediately made eye contact with the others and the four of them charged in unison. In the end, Homura was just a child—she clearly hadn’t learned the dangers of taking her eye off her enemies in battle. As someone who had raised countless apprentices herself, Thír felt a pang of guilt at attacking a young child, but now wasn’t the time for such qualms. The creature in front of the remaining Maidens was deadlier than a garmr. The only choice they had was either to kill her now or die themselves.

“Oopsie...”

Unfortunately for the Maidens, all four of their attacks cut through empty space. Having noticed their impending attack in the nick of time, Homura had leaped safely away from them. Homura kicked off the ground the moment she landed and darted toward them once more at a speed rivaling a bullet from an arquebus. Thír’s sword and Homura’s dagger crossed paths, and the sharp clang of metal on metal rang through the air.

“Oh?” Homura’s eyes widened in surprise. It seemed it hadn’t even occurred to her that Thír would block the attack.

“Don’t underestimate me!” Thír deflected Homura’s dagger and slashed downward. Homura had already vanished, and Thír glanced sharply to her left. There she was, much as Thír had expected. Her dagger was locked against Dúfa’s own weapon.

“Huh, you too?” Homura sounded impressed. A heartbeat later, another maiden who looked identical to Dúfa attacked from Homura’s rear. The attack had come from Homura’s blind spot, but she easily blocked the blow by bringing her dagger around to protect her back. Dúfa followed up on that attack, and soon Homura was exchanging blows with the pair. Dúfa and Læva were twins, and their specialty was their perfectly synchronized coordination. It was no exaggeration to say that they were probably superior to the powerful combination of Erna and Hrönn.

“Wow, you two are good!” However, Homura breezily dealt with the rush of blows that they unleashed against her. In fact, matters only took a turn for the worse...

“Grah!”

“No...!”

The odds quickly moved in Homura’s favor, and she began to overwhelm the two Maidens. There was simply too wide of a gap in strength and speed between the two parties. Each time they exchanged blows, the taller Dúfa and Læva were the ones thrown backward, an eerily unnatural sight.

“Tch!”

Thír knew it was only a matter of time before Homura killed them. She intervened with a thrusting lunge. As the instructor to the Maidens of the Waves, Thír was known for having a large number of advanced combat techniques at her disposal, but this particular lunge was her specialty—the trump card she reserved for emergencies.

“Yipes!”

Even Homura let out a note of surprise at the attack. The timing was perfect: it was impossible to avoid, and there was nowhere for Homura to run. Thír was certain she had her, but Homura leaped high into the air to avoid the blow at the last moment. The girl had used her supernaturally strong legs to leap higher than the height of a grown adult. It was proof of how ruthlessly powerful a twin-runed Einherjar was.

“Hev!”

But that, too, was well within Thír’s expectations. After all, their fellow Maiden of the Waves, Erna, was capable of the same feat. Hearing Thír’s call, Hev, the last Maiden, swept her axe with a roar. There was no way for Homura to dodge it as she was suspended in midair. The twin-runed girl somehow still managed to block the blow with her dagger, but she was tossed backward toward the ground. Hev was the largest of the Maidens of the Waves and had the strength to match her size.

Though Homura had been thrown to the ground, she managed to flip her body around before impact, ultimately landing without incident. She had the dexterity of an ape. “You ladies are really good! You can actually follow my movements!” Homura smiled happily as though nothing had happened. It might have seemed she was impressed, but her tone was that of an adult praising a child. She was clearly simply stating that they weren’t bad for mere single-runed Einherjar.

“Your physical abilities are remarkable. But your movements are those of an amateur,” Thír dropped back into her stance and said with a dismissive snort. By watching Homura’s shoulders and knees, it was possible to read her movements. So long as they knew when she planned to strike, warriors of Thír’s skill could react with little difficulty—no matter how fast her attacks were.

“Oh, I see. Okay. I get it now,” Homura said aloud in some apparent gesture of understanding. As she spoke, the tension visibly drained from her limbs. The moment Thír narrowed her eyes warily, Homura disappeared from view. Almost instantaneously, a grunt of pain could be heard nearby.

“Guh!”

When Thír turned to face the source of the sound, she saw Hev’s flank split open by Homura’s blade, blood spraying from the gash. To Thír’s chagrin, however, the slaughter had only just started. Homura vanished a second time.

“Ahhh!”

“Urgh!”

By the time Thír had reacted to the screams of pain, Dúfa and Læva had collapsed, sinking into pools of their own blood.

“How?! N-No... She couldn’t have adapted this quickly!” Thír murmured in shocked disbelief. Tells weren’t that easy to correct. Thír, as a fighting instructor, knew that better than anyone.

“Well, I had good examples to learn from,” Homura responded smugly.

“Tch! You mimicked our techniques, huh?!” Thír replied angrily, teeth chattering from the shock that ran up her spine. The Maidens of the Waves, under Thír’s guidance, had mastered the art of using their center of gravity to conceal any movement in their knees before an attack. They also concealed any tells from their shoulders by skillfully making use of the opposite arm. However, these were skills they had acquired after years of training.

“Thanks. You helped me get stronger. This’ll let me beat him too.”

With that, Homura vanished once again. Thír felt a sharp pain stab through her chest the next moment. When she glanced down, she saw a dagger sticking out of her chest near her heart.

“Not...like...this...”

Sputtering out what little speech she could still manage, Thír coughed up a pool of blood and fell backward. She saw the faces of her apprentices, the Maidens of the Waves, and Fagrahvél, her patriarch. She couldn’t die yet. At the very least, she wanted to take the killer of her beloved daughters to the underworld with her, but her body wouldn’t respond. Her consciousness soon slipped away.

“Hmm... This is pretty hard. I guess I can’t do it as well as they did...”

Those were the last words Thír ever heard. The monster was still evolving.

“I-I bring dire news, Your Majesty! Th-They’ve been wiped out!”

“What?!”

Yuuto’s expression stiffened at the news coming over his radio. Currently, his forces had been, at worst, stalemated against the enemy on all fronts. It should have been impossible for any unit to be wiped out.

“Lady Thír and the rest of the Maidens of the Waves on the left flank have all been slain!”

“What?! How?!”

Even Yuuto couldn’t believe his ears. The Maidens of the Waves were the Sword Clan’s elite Einherjar. He had assigned six of them to the left flank. It would take a twin-runed monster like Steinþórr—

“...Was it Homura?” Yuuto asked warily.

“Yes. It happened in the blink of an eye,” the voice on the radio replied.

“I...see.”

That was the most Yuuto could muster. While the Maidens of the Waves had only joined the Steel Clan relatively recently, he still knew all of their faces and names. They were precious companions to Fagrahvél and Bára, now two of his most trusted advisors, and he had also heard they had been friends with Sigrún and Hildegard. Of course, this was war—he had been prepared for the death of his acquaintances. Even so, he was only human. It wasn’t a simple matter to process when it happened, and he felt a dull throb in his chest.

“The left flank has collapsed after losing their commanders. The troops have scattered and are fleeing the field,” the report from the radio continued.

However, reality wasn’t going to give him time to process the news. This had broken the stalemate to the Steel Clan’s disadvantage.

“A cheer from the enemy right flank! They’re claiming they’ve slain Sigrún!”

“Wha?!”

An even more shocking bit of news came as a follow-up blow. There was no way that could possibly be true, even with her existing injuries. Yuuto felt the blood drain from his face and his body began to tremble. Unfortunately for him, bad news often came in waves.

“...Huh?”

He suddenly felt the strength drain from his body. He also felt a sudden lethargy. At first, he’d thought it was due to the sheer shock of the news he’d received, but the same thing had happened to his royal guard. That must mean...

“Gjallarhorn’s run out...” Yuuto bit down on his lower lip and sighed. Its effects had fallen off much quicker than he had expected. Thinking back, they had used Gjallarhorn repeatedly over the last several days. It was easy to imagine that he had simply pushed Fagrahvél past her limit. Alternatively, the deaths of the Maidens of the Waves might have delivered too much of a shock to Fagrahvél. Either way, this seiðr had been the lifeline the Steel Clan Army had been clinging to. It was only because they had this “Rune of Kings” that they were able to fight an army three times their size. With that gone, it took little time for the Steel Clan Army’s ranks to completely collapse.