Chapter 1

Prologue The Flight of the Valkyrie 1 —There was a rumor being whispered around the army. “Have you heard? Word is the brass has some new secret weapon they’re bringing to the front.” “” “You mean the rumor about them having some kind of ammo that will actually work on those monsters?” “” “Yeah, apparently there’s some new groundbreaking shit that’s supposed to turn the whole war around.” “” “Is it true there’s some crazy ace who took down one of those massive pillars of light?!” “” “Come on—don’t leave us hanging here, Rusalka.” Rusalka blinked as her colleague leaned in front of her, looking into her almond-shaped eyes. “…Hmm? Me?” She suddenly noticed that all her squadmates sitting at the same table in the mess hall were staring at her. Under their collective gaze, she reviewed everything she had heard so far. If I recall correctly, it was— “Let’s see. Am I understanding correctly that you’re asking what I think about your starry-eyed pipe dreams?” “Damn! You’re not wrong! And I get why you’d call it that, but still!” “Well, yes, it would certainly be a dream come true. In the end, they’re just dreams, though.” “Absolutely no mercy, this woman!” She had actually been trying to be considerate in her own way, but their reactions were not quite what she’d hoped for. There seems to be a morass of misunderstanding that is difficult to overcome between men and women. However, I cannot give up on trying to establish mutual understanding. My comrades in arms deserve nothing less. “I will continue my attempts to mingle with everyone.” “And what’s with that condescending tone…? Who died and made you God?” “Gettin’ all full of yourself just ’cause you’re good-lookin’…!” “And what’s this ‘attempt to mingle’ crap? I sure as hell didn’t hear you while we were shooting the shit just now.” “My apologies. It didn’t appear to be a conversation worth pursuing, so I focused on eating instead,” Rusalka said simply. “Why, you little…!” Her squadmates looked taken aback by the biting sarcasm. But her expression softened as she shook her head. “That was a joke.” “Oh… Wait. What part of that was supposed to be funny?” “If some new exotic weapon were actually developed, it would undoubtedly be wonderful. I wouldn’t mind if it were new ammunition that worked against the enemy, some groundbreaking equipment that will change everything, or even an ace pilot.” Counting on her fingers, she listed off all their examples of wishful thinking in a quiet voice. There was nothing wrong with giving voice to dreams. They were the manifestations of goals or wishes that people wanted to come true. “” Listening to Rusalka’s lyrical recitation, her colleagues fell silent as they grimaced. The silence wasn’t unpleasant. It was simply that everyone around the table was feeling the same thing. Their dream was shared by everyone who stood on the battlefield—even all the command staff and generals staring up at the skies hoped for the same thing. Whether it was a new secret weapon, some fruit of human wisdom that actually worked against their enemies, a devious strategy that could turn the whole war around, or some unbeatable ace pilot who had no need for trivial tactics— “” Because without a miracle, the fight against the pillars of light would have to go on. 2 In the year 2019, humanity confirmed the sudden appearance of inexplicable pillars of light, and they were forced into war against the mysterious hostile entities. Despite its beautiful, illusory appearance, the first pillar appeared on a mountain range in northern Europe and devastated the entire region. It absorbed the very life force of the land, an effect that came to be called “draining,” transforming the area into a barren wasteland in a gradually expanding radius centered around the pillar. Faced with an unknown presence that was scarring the mountain range and causing all nearby plant and animal life to wither away, humanity did not immediately respond. There was an initial delay in grasping what exactly was happening, and an overly optimistic view of the situation allowed the desolation to continue spreading freely until, finally, the team that had been dispatched to investigate the pillar became the first human casualties. That was when people began to recognize the real danger. And once humanity took decisive action to eliminate the pillar, the situation changed dramatically again. When the pillar of light came under attack, countless creatures poured out of it. This wave of hostility crashed into the advance force that had assembled to destroy the pillar of light, and they were annihilated instead, forcing humanity to rethink how they would deal with this new enemy that had appeared on their doorstep. However, after that flash point, the pillar of light’s sphere of influence began to grow faster and faster, accelerating dramatically. Before long, the draining effects encroached upon parts of northern Europe where many people lived, forcing the residents to either leave or perish. And then, as if mocking the refugees who had no choice but to flee their homes and abandon their homelands, more pillars started to appear all around the world, ravaging the lands wherever they emerged. Even when whole armies were deployed to stop the relentless advance, the hordes of monsters spawned by the pillars would easily crush whatever forces the humans had arrayed against them. Eventually, these hostile alien entities were collectively termed “pillars,” and it became common knowledge that the eponymous monoliths themselves were cloaked in some unknown energy field that was completely unaffected by all conventional ordinance, making them the ultimate enemy for humanity, which had focused much of their war-fighting capability around explosives and physical projectiles. Countless lives were thrown away as more and more land was contested and then ultimately ceded in a hopelessly lost cause that could barely be called a fight. Before long, more than half of the world’s standing armies were destroyed, and increasingly younger recruits were being sent to the front lines. —Humanity was unmistakably wending their way down the path to extinction. “—Please respond. Someone. Anyone.” She called out over the radio, but all she got in return was a crackling noise. The annoying, unending chatter that normally came from the rest of the squadron was gone. Their lame jokes and crude humor and the hints of concern for her had been swallowed up in a sandstorm of static, almost as if they had all just vanished into thin air. “” Sky-blue eyes scanned the battlefield from the cockpit. Here and there in the dark, overcast sky, she could see flashes of red—proof that some were still fighting. Proof that survivors were still trying to take down the heartless enemies filling the air even though their weapons didn’t work. It was also a display of futile resistance that would only end in more deaths. “—Ngh.” She bit her lip, the taste of blood quickly filling her mouth. The people she had shared meals with in the mess hall, people who had waved to say See you on the other side, people she trusted with her life and who had trusted her to watch their backs in the air…were nowhere to be found. Rusalka was flying all alone in an empty sky. Not a single word of regret or sympathy came out of her mouth. She was certain that crying out their names in grief now would only insult the memories of her brothers in arms. Paying no heed to what was crashing through Rusalka’s heart, her instrument panel lit up: The enemy was coming. Blood still dripping from her lip, Rusalka tilted the control stick and tore through the skies. In the blink of an eye, a bullet of light shot straight at her, just grazing her plane’s frame. The shock of its passing caused the wings to groan. Following quickly after, an alien silhouette cut across her field of view. “” That thing flying through the sky could only be called an anomaly. At a glance, its star-shaped body almost seemed to belong in the sky, but that was just a trick of the light. And just like the creature it resembled, the enemy’s true nature was that of a cold-blooded killer. The countless tubular limbs sprouting all over its body would never let go once it latched on to its prey. But if its quarry kept its distance, the flying oddity would spray its target with an unending stream of those inexplicable bullets of light. There was simply no way to escape being knocked out of the air. Frankly speaking, the creature’s mysterious defenses utterly nullified humanity’s conventional weapons—that was the implacable phenomenon that transformed a seemingly unwinnable situation into one that was truly hopeless. That was the essence of the unknown hostile entity known as a pillar. This implacable enemy currently had free rein in the air. The ones she had seen almost looked like flying starfish. They were about as large as a single fighter jet, and the gray sky was filled with dozens of them challenging the pilots who had taken flight in defense of their homes and loved ones. The starfish were cutting through the air and effortlessly downing planes one after another. It was practically death on an industrial scale—truly a nightmare come to life. “What is sea life doing this high up…?!” Her voice rang out, cursing the outrageousness of it all as she spun into a barrel roll, pushing her fighter to the limits to weave past the enemy, narrowly escaping certain death. But that would not be enough to guarantee she stayed alive. Her deft maneuver had merely been a short deferral—nothing more. She would be forced to keep going all in with her life on the line again and again to have any hope of surviving. “” Looking around as the combat area devolved further into chaos, Rusalka suddenly realized she could not see any more fighters in the sky. The scattered flashes of resistance that had been visible just seconds ago were all gone, and now Rusalka was truly alone. The world fell silent, and the color seemed to drain from her vision. It almost felt like she was collapsing in on herself, until all that remained was her heart and the turmoil that lay within. The things she saw and heard seemed meaningless, but she could still hear her heart beating. “” In that moment, Rusalka was little more than an organ dutifully pumping blood. She could not hear her instrumentation’s emotionless alerts, nor could she see the storm of light projectiles zipping all around her. Even if she had heard the warnings or seen the attacks, she had no way to control her plane, since she had no arms or legs. There was nothing more she could do. All that was left was to wait for the fatal blow to land, and then her pulse would finally sto— “—?” Just as she had accepted her impending doom, something clawed at the edges of her consciousness. A faint, tickling sensation pulled Rusalka back to reality. After staring death in the face and accepting it, only to be pulled back to a merciless reality, Rusalka struggled to breathe, barely able to keep her head above an unbearable deluge of emotions. But while enduring that hell, Rusalka realized something. She could hear a broken transmission crackling through the useless static coming from her radio. It was a voice, repeating the same word over and over. Before she even registered what the word meant, she unconsciously repeated it to herself. “—Valkyrie.” Immediately after that, light swept over the battlefield, bringing devastation in its wake. “” No natural phenomenon could have caused that. Light did not have mass. Without some very particular conditions, it could not destroy physical objects, either. And yet, that light had shattered everything in its path and punched right through those starfish that acted like they owned the skies. Reeling from the unbelievable sight, Rusalka could only moan weakly. Slicing through the storm of incoming rounds, that light broke through the implacable enemy head-on. Its machine gun roared as it passed the starfish, shooting bullets clad in shining light directly at the starfish’s body. An instant later, the bullets struck home, and the pillar exploded in a burst of light. The pillar’s shields, which nullified all conventional rounds, had been shattered, and the resulting devastation sent its body flying backward. A split second after that, another odd scene occurred: Something sprouted explosively from inside the pillar, revealing vibrant green leaves as a tree pushed out of it. The starfish lost its form, as if being devoured by a tree that had grown inside its body, quickly disappearing as the light faded. It was the annihilation effect that was rumored to happen when a pillar disappeared. That had been a rumor, though, barely on the level of an urban myth, since there was no official record of it ever happening before. Taking down a pillar was simply that miraculous a feat. Rusalka had never seen it before herself, but there was no mistaking it. After all, she wasn’t seeing it just once or twice. After watching it unfold dozens, maybe a hundred times, even the most hardheaded would understand. Both the truth of the annihilation effect rumor and just how singularly powerful that light’s power must be. “” Gulping as she became little more than a bystander, Rusalka realized another thing. That shining streak was not just light. It looked like a ball of light, but it actually had the shape of a plane. And when she recognized the shape of that plane, she was dumbfounded. Flying around in cutting-edge fighters, Rusalka and the others had never managed to achieve anything. If the plane that so badly outshone all their efforts had been the crystallization of humanity’s greatest minds working together on some brand-new machine, then that would have been easier to swallow. Instead, the light’s true form was an ancient propeller-driven fighter. “” Feeling like she was still in a nightmare, Rusalka was little more than a scarecrow gliding through the sky. A pebble resting impassively on the field of battle, staring out at the fighting going on around it. The streak of light charged through the sky, turning pillar after pillar into trees. She could see the trees plummeting to earth and taking root in the lands ravaged by the draining effect. It was as if life was returning to the withered landscape, like dry, cracked ground thirstily drinking drops of water. “—Valkyrie.” She heard someone’s voice through the radio. It was not just one person’s voice breaking through the static, either. “—Valkyrie. Valkyrie.” “Valkyrie. Valkyrie! Valkyrie…!” She could hear more and more from all around her. It sounded like it was coming from far off in the distance, as if it were not just one person or a group of people but the rumbling voice of all humanity. “—Valkyrie! Valkyrie! Valkyrie!” “” Her eyes grew damp as the voices pummeled her ears, and her heart stirred. The light arced across the sky, creating trees as it obliterated the hated pillars. Far and wide, a burning hope spread, bringing a brilliant light to the overcast battlefield. Seeing that, Rusalka’s sky-blue eyes were wide open. It was something the army had kept hidden— It was something capable of penetrating the loathsome pillars’ defenses— It was a display of tremendous combat prowess capable of turning the tide— It was an ace pilot capable of shattering the pillars one after the other— “” It was the dream her comrades had longed for, the wish of all the command officers peering up at the skies from the ground. That dream, and with it humanity’s hope of crushing the pillars and stealing back the skies, had come true. And the name of that hope was— “—Valkyrie.” In her role as observer, Rusalka murmured the word to herself just once. 3 On that day, humanity recorded what could be called their first victory against the pillars. It was a battle where many soldiers and officers had fallen, but their first hard-fought victory gave hope to a humanity that had been cowering in fear of the pillars’ menace and was an achievement to be commemorated as the opening shots of their counterattack. —Valkyrie, maid of the heavens, who would save humanity. That battle was the Valkyrie’s trial by fire. It was the first of what would become a glorious string of victories, a fresh page engraved in history and people’s memories. And it came to be memorialized and celebrated as the Ride of the Valkyrie, while the lives lost that day were ignored— And the name Rusalka Evereska was merely listed as one of the pilots who happened to make it back alive that day.