If he'd still had a flesh-and-blood body, he would already be dead.
Hearing Void Archives' words, he chose to believe her, because he too had felt that strange sense of death about to descend.
Things flashed through his head, like the last scattered memories before dying.
Fortunately, his face was thick enough that not even a bullet could punch through it.
But that shot also snapped the boy fully awake. Even though the Valkyries around him were all very strong, this was not an outing.
For the first time, the boy was facing a true brush with death.
But instead of sobering him, the experience sharpened his mind. His whole body slipped into an excited state, like the thrill of clashing blades in a fight to the death.
He was getting excited.
Otto scooped Anna up in a princess carry. His sudden move drew a startled cry from the girl, and he jumped down from the Titan wreckage holding her.
Then he landed steadily on the ground.
His feet sank slightly into the snow, like a stone smashing down. The rebound jarred Anna enough to make her uncomfortable, and her head nearly knocked against Otto's chin.
"There's someone there."
Otto set Anna down on the ground, casually ran a hand over the girl's hair, then took the phone back from the Valkyrie. He raised a hand and pointed toward the orphanage not far away.
"There's someone in there."
Someone capable of threatening his life.
But the Valkyrie only smiled. Her mission was to bring this rich-boy type over to capture Anti-Entropy's people. Of course there had to be people inside the destination, or else her squad would have made the trip for nothing.
But the moment Otto quickly fished a bullet out from the Titan wreckage, her expression changed.
She swiftly gave several hand signals to her teammates. The dozen or so Valkyries around them spread out, clearly beginning some kind of operation.
"My apologies." The Valkyrie actually apologized to Otto. But Otto only shook his head, not minding it, and pointed again at the orphanage standing in the snowfield.
"It came from there."
The Valkyrie's expression changed again. She'd thought the shot came from someone hidden nearby. She hadn't expected it to have come from inside that orphanage.
To land a shot from that distance, the sniper had to be extremely capable.
"That said, aren't you worried they'll run out?" Otto asked. In a snowfield this large, if the children inside ran, where exactly was he supposed to go look for them?
In weather this cold, if they ran into the snow, they might freeze stiff.
"If they run out, that just makes them ideal prey." A dangerous light flashed through the Valkyrie's eyes. Chasing down and capturing fleeing enemies was what they were trained to do.
But then she felt a strange gaze. Even though the man called Alpha was wearing goggles, as an A-rank Valkyrie, she could still feel his eyes on her.
"No. They're not prey. They're only children. We came here to bring them back to Headquarters."
Otto corrected her, but he noticed that the Valkyrie's gaze had turned somewhat contemptuous.
Anti-Entropy had always been in constant conflict with Schicksal. Now that they'd come to seize Anti-Entropy's people, even if those being taken were girls, very few people felt any resistance to it.
Because those children would grow into members of Anti-Entropy in the future too. Every extra member of Anti-Entropy meant people like these Valkyries might suffer more harm.
What a clueless rich boy. That was what the Valkyrie thought.
But Anna's eyes lit up as she looked at Otto. Since she knew his real identity, how could she possibly think the Lord Overseer was saying such things casually?
She took this as Overseer Otto teaching her something. After all, she felt that being brought along on this mission right after arriving at Headquarters couldn't possibly have been just to trail after him and run errands.
So this mission itself had been arranged by the Lord Overseer in order to educate her.
His words just now had been meant for her. He was teaching her that as a Valkyrie, even when facing Anti-Entropy's people, one still had to treat them equally. Everyone was human. Everyone was fighting to defeat Honkai.
It was just that Schicksal's path was the more correct one, so the Lord Overseer intended to pull those children — who had not yet truly gone astray — back onto the right path.
In her own mind, Anna rationalized Otto's words and actions, clasping her hands before her chest, her face full of admiration.
As expected of the Lord Overseer.
The Valkyrie looked at Anna and Otto and felt only that the two of them were hopeless.
And at that moment, in a dead corner of the orphanage roof, Bronya — wearing white camouflage that blended together with the snow — furrowed her brow.
In her hands she held a sniper rifle wrapped in white cloth. There was no scope mounted on it, because she was afraid reflected light would give her away.
But she was confused. With her ability, and with the feel of that shot, she had undoubtedly hit her target in the head.
So why hadn't the blond man died?
Bronya had originally wanted to kill one person with that shot. That way, the people surrounding the orphanage would become wary of the unknown sniper, which would slow the speed of the siege.
It would buy enough time for that woman to come back and reinforce them.
But the shot hadn't achieved the result she wanted. She'd even discovered that the special-ops squad had tightened the encirclement instead.
They could break into the orphanage at any moment.
What now?
Bronya let out a breath, and in the cold air it turned to white mist. She murmured the name of her dearest friend.
"Seele…"
It was as if strength returned to her body. Bronya came down from the blind corner of the roof and looked at the sniper rifle that had accompanied her for so long.
The tactical mech Project Bunny appeared behind her. Its left hand grabbed the sniper rifle, and its right hand turned into a pillar of fire, melting the rifle away.
The rifle was covered in traces of her use. She'd failed to kill her target, and the other side might already have recovered the bullet. If the sniper rifle were left behind too, they might discover she'd been the one doing the sniping.
Then Bronya looked at the wheelchair in the room. Back when her legs had first been injured, that wheelchair had accompanied her for a time.
And now it was useful again.
Bronya picked up the wheelchair and floated through the air, carrying it out of the room.
The children from the orphanage had all gathered in the main hall. Most of them were looking at Bronya uneasily. Even Rozaliya, who usually loved making noise, was quiet now.
"Bronya, are those bad people coming?" Rozaliya asked uneasily.
After gathering all the children here, Bronya had told them that bad people wanted to come and take them away.
The younger children became afraid, while the older ones comforted them.
"Should we give up this place and just run for the woods?"
Even Sin Mal, who usually liked arguing back at Bronya, was trying to come up with ideas now. But Bronya shook her head and rejected the suggestion.
"If we go out, they'll only find us more easily."
As she spoke, Bronya sat down in the wheelchair she'd brought.
She removed the exoskeleton armor from her legs, then took a pair of white stockings out of the pocket of her shorts.
She relied on the exoskeleton armor to float and move around. Without it, she was only a girl with disabled legs.
No one would pay attention to what a disabled girl might do.
But when Sin Mal saw that Bronya was actually putting on stockings at such an unhurried pace, she shouted impatiently.
"This won't work, that won't work — so what good idea do you have, Bronya? Don't tell me we're just going to fight them head-on?"
Bronya looked at her own legs in stockings and shook her head.
"No."
"We're not fighting them."
"We're going to surrender."