Meanwhile, in Greece, at the Acropolis of Athens.
Bang!
Amid a loud, exuberant pounding at the gate, the pink-haired, rabbit-eared Valkyrie Hildr burst into the courtyard of the residence, overflowing with energy as she shouted at the top of her lungs,
"News! We've got news!"
Whoosh!
But the instant she darted in and opened her mouth, a sharp tearing sound split the air, followed by a string of explosive cracks. A purple-red barbed spear shot past Hildr's head and nailed itself through the gate behind her.
The energetic girl dropped flat onto her backside like a little white rabbit that had just run into a starving wolf. She instinctively shrank her neck, then stiffly turned her head to look back at the spear, its barbs still snagged with a few strands of golden hair. Her scalp prickled at once, and cold sweat broke out down her neck.
"I told you already, don't come barging in like that. I almost couldn't stop my hand in time."
Scáthach, Queen of the Land of Shadows, strode forward, pulled out her beloved spear, and yanked the badly frightened Hildr up from the ground while scolding her irritably.
The dress she wore blended Doric and Ionic styles, and with every gesture, it softened some of a warrior's wildness, making her seem graceful and elegant instead.
"Idiot Hildr. That's what you get for not waiting for us."
The black-haired, absent-minded Valkyrie Ortlinde stepped into the courtyard after her and poked Hildr in the cheek, muttering with a stiff little pout.
"And whose fault is that for dawdling so much? You can get lost three times just buying bread!"
Hildr slapped away the finger jabbing her face and shot back indignantly, glaring at Ortlinde like a fighting rooster.
Thunk! Thunk!
But the next moment, two dull impacts rang out as a pair of pink fists dropped from above and smacked both squabbling Valkyries on the head.
Crackle…
With a faint peal of thunder in the air, the long hair of those two, one scatterbrained and one perpetually displeased, instantly stood on end and exploded into a frizzy mess.
"Lady Scáthach, I sincerely apologize for disturbing your seclusion. I'll make sure to discipline them properly when we get back!"
As Thor's daughter, graceful when still and ferocious when in motion, the blonde Thrúd had inherited immense strength. Like an eagle snatching up chicks, she grabbed one sister in each hand, pressed down on the backs of their necks, and bowed to Scáthach in apology.
Even Holo, who was gnawing on an apple at the stone table, could hear the bitterness in her voice.
Ever since Brynhildr and Samael were no longer around to keep them in line, Thrúd, the only one the Ancient Serpent considered dependable among the three Valkyries, had become the poor soul stuck trailing after her sisters and cleaning up their messes.
Especially after moving into Athens, the pink-haired and black-haired troublemaking duo had only let themselves go more and more. They had even built up a tolerance for getting hit, becoming tougher and more incorrigible by the day.
Tsk, tsk. See? Compared to them, I really am a good wolf.
The wise divine wolf felt rather pleased with herself. As a reward, she took a big, satisfied bite of apple, then sprawled lazily across the table in the warm sunlight.
"Don't be too hard on them. This is just the kind of liveliness girls ought to have. I imagine being shut up in the Golden Palace must have stifled you all badly."
Scáthach, for her part, was quite easygoing. Like a teacher, she chuckled and patted the three Valkyries on the head. Then, after repairing the gate and warning barrier with Rune Magecraft, her expression turned serious.
"Enough of that. Let's talk business. What exactly did you find out?"
"Here's what happened. We went to the market earlier and saw a lot of Athenians out in the streets celebrating. We quietly asked around and found out it seems to be because Athens won the first naval clash against Persia!"
Thrúd, steady in action, organization, and explanation alike, took the initiative to explain, recounting what the three sisters had discovered while gathering information.
Half a month ago, more than 300,000 Persian troops and over 1,000 ocean-going warships broke through the Sea of Chaos and appeared along the coastlines of the Athenian city-states.
The army was jointly commanded by the two Persian kings, Darius I and Xerxes. Landing from Thrace, they smashed through Macedon and more than ten other city-states of the Pan-Hellenic alliance. For a time, all of Greece was thrown into fear, gripped by the oppressive sense that everything might collapse at any moment.
But midway through the campaign, Egypt, which had originally been supposed to join forces with Persia, suddenly tore up the alliance and wiped out one of the Persian fleets.
As a result, the Persian army's overland offensive was blunted. To keep the Egyptians from severing their retreat, their fleet had to maneuver around by sea across Oceanus and advance from the flank instead.
As a result, the Athenians seized the chance to form a naval alliance. Under the command of the Athenian admiral Themistocles, they lured the Persian fleet into the Bay of Salamis. Taking advantage of the terrain and the speed of their smaller ships, the Athenian fleet launched diagonal wolf-pack assaults against the Persians, and a few days ago, they ultimately won the Battle of Salamis.
After those two successive naval battles against Egypt and Athens, the Persians had lost more than two hundred warships. It was a heavy blow.
With their own fleet returning and such exhilarating news arriving, the gloom that had hung over Athens was naturally swept away, so the citywide celebrations made perfect sense.
Scáthach listened in silence, deeply impressed by the victory at Salamis.
As far as she knew, given the gap in scale and population between Greece and Persia, the Athenians had only managed to hastily assemble a combined fleet of roughly three to four hundred warships by taking advantage of Egypt's betrayal and rallying the city-states together.
And yet Athens had faced more than a thousand Persian warships in that battle, lost only thirty or forty ships of its own, and destroyed over two hundred Persian vessels. It was a textbook example of the few defeating the many.
Besides, the Egyptians… betrayed them?
Scáthach turned those words over in her mind, as if realizing something. The crease between her brows gradually eased, and a trace of relief appeared on her sharp, heroic face.
Before parting, someone had told her to keep an eye on Egypt's movements.
Tsk. Looks like that was probably his doing. If he could pull something like that off from so far away, then he was probably fine.
And if even Egypt had been turned, then the situation in Rome was likely no longer deteriorating, but stabilizing and improving.
Maybe it would not be long before he reached Greece and reunited with her.
The more the Queen of the Land of Shadows thought about it, the more certain she became, and her mood immediately improved.
"However, Lady Scáthach, we also found out something else. It's about what happened after that naval battle…"
Thrúd's expression turned troubled, and after a brief hesitation, she spoke softly.
"It seems the Athenians are planning to exile that Themi who won the Battle of Salamis…"
"The admiral Themistocles?"
Scáthach had already committed the name of that commander who had created such a miracle at sea to memory.
"Yes, him! I heard it too! Sounds like they decided it through some kind of vote!"
Hildr nodded repeatedly as she jumped in, but since she had not really been paying attention to that part at the time, the information she had gathered was vague and incomplete.
"It was a vote by the citizen assembly. The reason was that although that general won the naval battle, sea winds delayed the rescue, so many Athenian citizens who fell into the water were left to die at sea. See? I wrote it all down."
Fortunately, Ortlinde had a habit of reading and taking notes, so she immediately handed Scáthach the page where she had written down the key points.
After discussing it back and forth a few times and finally piecing together the whole story, the Queen of the Land of Shadows went dark in the face, her eyes full of disbelief.
You've got to be kidding.
Since when does war not kill people? Just because the rescue failed, this so-called citizen assembly is going to exile a battle-hardened general with such outstanding achievements? And at a critical point in the war between the two sides?
Had the Athenians eaten so many olives their brains had started sprouting?