"Lord Samael, your face!"
As the four Valkyries approached, Brynhildr at their head narrowed her eyes. A cold, imposing aura rose around her, her expression dark with guilt and self-reproach.
The three young Valkyries behind her, dressed in white cloaks with their hoods drawn up, immediately bristled in shared indignation. They tightened their grips on their spear-shields, killing intent flashing across their faces.
"Ahem. It was an accident… just an accident."
Samael reached out and caught Brynhildr before her temper could flare further, clearing his throat as he soothed the agitated Valkyrie. The bloody scratch Holo had left across his face healed in an instant, vanishing without a trace.
The Ancient Serpent then shifted his gaze to the three young Valkyries behind her, smoothly changing the subject.
"By the way, Ortlinde, Hildr, Thrúd—weren't you three on duty in the flagship's main control room? Why have you all come here together? Is there something you need from me?"
"Oh, that. The Magecraft array resonated, and a message came in from the Golden Palace. We don't have clearance to access it, so we need you to respond in person."
The lively, pink-haired Valkyrie Hildr answered first. Brimming with energy, she leaned in conspiratorially.
"Hehe~ Well, honestly, delivering the message only needed one of us. But the cabin was so stuffy, we figured we'd come out for some air—and to check on your condition, Lord Samael. Ortlinde approved it, Thrúd agreed too, and actually Thrúd, she…"
She grinned mischievously, waggling her brows at Samael and Brynhildr, clearly about to dig up some embarrassing story about her sisters.
Bang!
Before she could finish, the butt of a spear came crashing down with a faint rumble of thunder, smacking Hildr square on the head. A huge lump instantly swelled up, and she froze stiff as a board, body locked upright and unable to utter a sound.
"Your Highness, we do not yet know the Golden Palace's intentions, nor whether the matter is urgent. We should depart at once."
Thrúd, tall and long-haired in gold, swan-wing-shaped light wings spread behind her back, spoke respectfully. With effortless strength, she grabbed Hildr by the collar and dragged her along as if hauling luggage.
Only after the group had gone some distance did the last Valkyrie—Ortlinde, who had been leaning quietly against the railing, her gaze distant and cool—stir as though waking from a nap. She blinked, murmured softly, and then drifted after them at an unhurried pace.
"Finished already? That fast?"
Thrúd, leading the way, swayed and nearly tripped, looking utterly drained.
The energetic, pink-haired Hildr; the gentle and composed Thrúd with her long golden hair; and Ortlinde, who seemed aloof and cool yet was prone to zoning out at critical moments—today's Valkyrie shift was certainly lively.
Samael couldn't help but smile at the three of them. Their personalities were completely different, yet each was striking in her own way.
Valkyries—also known as the daughters of the God King Odin—are called the "Seekers of Heroic Spirits."
They ride heavenly steeds, clad in armor and bearing weapons, racing through the clouds or transforming into swans to descend upon battlefields. They gather the souls of fallen warriors for Valhalla, guiding them to the Golden Palace, where they are baptized in divine radiance and forged into Asgard's reserve forces. At Odin's command, they stand ready to confront the coming of Ragnarok.
As for their number, accounts vary—some say three, others sixteen. Ancient texts even record more than thirty distinct Valkyrie names. Generally, however, they are believed to originate from nine archetypes.
And that is indeed the truth.
Beyond the original nine, Odin used Runes and special materials to create countless derivatives—enough to form an entire army.
The three before him were among those nine original archetypes, responsible for overseeing the hundreds of mass-produced Valkyries aboard the ship.
Each of them bore a name with a distinct meaning.
Ortlinde means "sword's edge." She appears in Wagner's opera The Ring of the Nibelung, specifically in the second opera, Die Walküre. One of the nine Valkyries, she carries the cool sharpness of a blade's edge—though paired with a somewhat absent-minded streak that often leaves others at a loss between laughter and exasperation.
Hildr means "battle." Her name appears in works such as The Witch's Prophecy, The Song of the Masked One, and The Song of the Spear. Active in myth as in temperament, she has an unmistakably bold and carefree personality.
Thrúd signifies "strength," "power," and "might." Bearing the lineage factors of Thor and Sif, she is mentioned in The Song of the Masked One. Though she appears gentle and refined, her strength is terrifying. In theory, she is the strongest of the three in combat—and also the most steady and reliable.
At present, though, this squad was anything but easy to manage. If the two sisters with completely different temperaments could refrain from causing trouble, Thrúd would already be thanking the heavens.
On top of that, she had to monitor the emotional fluctuations of the mass-produced Valkyries, oversee their functional maintenance, and handle mission assignments. Even the one known as the [God of Strength] was overwhelmed, rushing about nonstop with barely a moment to breathe.
Of course, strictly in terms of capability, there was someone else aboard whom both the mass-produced Valkyries and the Nine Seats prototypes addressed as "Big Sister." As the very first Prototype Valkyrie ever created, she could easily shoulder the burden and ease Thrúd's pressure.
But when Samael's gaze landed on Brynhildr—walking with her head lowered, avoiding eye contact, looking shy and restrained, while that feverish, blazing stare of hers clung to him without pause, sending a faint chill down his spine—he decisively abandoned the idea.
This psychologically unstable, masochistic yandere had only grown worse lately. Best not to.
Along the way, the four Valkyries formed a protective ring around Samael, alert and battle-ready.
The Ancient Serpent was not surprised by the treatment of being surrounded like the moon among stars, nor by their sincere reverence and obedience.
In a sense, he was the true creator of the Valkyrie legion.
In fact, the Valkyries' real origin did not lie with Brynhildr, nor even with the nine prototypes, but with… the Alien Star Vanguard, Sefar.
After the war of the giants came to an end, Marduk, lurking to reap the spoils, attempted to seize Sefar's stellar core for his own hidden agenda.
Samael acted decisively. Using his authority over time and space, he shattered the core and scattered its fragments across the planet, preventing them from reuniting.
After drifting to the lands of the Norse and taking on the form of Jörmungandr, Samael was able to persuade Odin to join forces against Ragnarok despite inhabiting the body of a young serpent. His greatest bargaining chip was the intelligence he possessed regarding the white titan Sefar and the Tear Star.
Compared to the Fire Giant King Surtr, these swords of Damocles hanging over the gods' heads were the far more terrifying threat.
To prove his claim, Samael gathered the fragments of Sefar's star core scattered throughout the Norse Age of Gods. Working alongside Odin, he first created the experimental model Brynhildr, followed by the nine prototype units.
Merely inheriting fragments of Sefar's star core granted the Valkyries power capable of opposing Divine Spirits. Odin became utterly convinced of the threat posed by the Alien Star Vanguard Sefar and the Tear Star Velber.
Faced with such a watchful and overwhelming enemy, even if the Norse gods exhausted themselves to triumph in Ragnarok, they would likely end up reduced to dust beneath Sefar's iron tread.
It was for that reason that Odin and Samael reached a mutual understanding. The unfortunate Fire Giant King Surtr became the pledge of trust that sealed their cooperation.
Now, as the Valkyrie legion continued to grow, the only ones capable of commanding them were Odin and Samael himself.
And to guard against that so-called ally, Samael had quietly inserted certain private modifications into the original Valkyrie blueprint template. As a result, his true level of authority far exceeded Odin's.
After all, he was the Valkyries' master in the truest sense.
They were predisposed to trust and depend on him. If affection were measured on a scale of one hundred, their initial baseline toward him would already exceed eighty.
Odin, however, was not so easily deceived. With each successive generation, the mass-produced Valkyries had gradually been adjusted to close that loophole.
Yet in the prototype Brynhildr, that peculiar trait remained glaringly obvious.
To put it bluntly, that masochistic yandere was very likely, at this very moment, thinking about how to throw herself at her own creator.
And as for the other nine prototypes… perhaps they were no different.