Medical supplies—this is indeed a big problem.

Aphelia can heal every Valkyrie, but there’s a hard limit, like a lock on a spring. She must cast it herself, and to avoid draining the air’s Aether, she has to pour from her own well. On today’s Earth, only Aphelia can refill faster than she spends, like a lone fountain in a drying valley.

Earth’s Aether is the last stitch holding a torn cloak together. Each draw frays the fabric, and the planet edges closer to collapse like a cracked bowl under strain. If we want the Valkyries to live, the ambient Aether is a jar we open as little as possible.

That’s why Violet and the others insist the healer-type Valkyries save Aether, and lean on their own threads to mend their sisters. But without the room’s Aether, their healing crawls like frost on glass, while it burns through their reserves like candles at noon. Each session needs a long lull to breathe.

So the Valkyries must learn to use ordinary medicine, cold vials and gauze like winter snow wrapping wounds.

Before, Earth’s Aether could carry their steps like wind in sails. Now the planet creaks toward ruin, and burning Aether like before would be suicide, a moth to a bonfire. Even if we say “use drugs instead,” we need enough to fill the shelves; after treating nearly a thousand today, Violet’s stock is scraped bare like an emptied pantry.

“Today’s medicine came from a field hospital’s ruins we dug up,” Shilwen said, her voice thin as smoke. “In the fight with Origin—no blame to Lady Sigdrifa—the clash swept across most buildings like a storm. Without heavy gear, we move rubble a bit better than regular folks, but our pace is still mud-slow.”

Shilwen pushed up her glasses, lenses catching dust like a fine film. Valkyries don’t get nearsighted; those frames do other work. Even so, worry clouded her face like a low sky.

Without Aether, a Valkyrie is just a stronger human, a wave without wind. With Earth almost a wasteland, what they can do is narrow, a road choked by stones. They haul debris faster than people, but it’s still arm and back against a mountain. Clearing ruins becomes a peril, a sea of loose rock. Without Shilwen and Violet—two of the sturdier Valkyries—helping, today’s medicine would have fallen short, and some lives would have slipped away like sand through fingers.

The sight made Aphelia frown, a thorn of frustration pricking her calm. She bit her fingertip, then let her thoughts settle like silt, and finally spoke to Shilwen.

“Keep going. I’ve got a rough plan,” she said, like laying stones across a stream. “At dawn, I’ll need your help. Besides medicine, what about food? I saw you gave Hrok some compressed energy rations. Do we have enough bricks in that wall?”

“Of course not,” Violet said, sigh heavy as a stone dropped in a well.

Shilwen flipped her notebook. Pages fluttered like pale wings, and her small face darkened with gloom, night gathering under her brow. Truth be told, this is the worst storm the Valkyries have seen; even past despairing battles felt no kinder.

Back then it was just Brynhildr against Sigdrifa, two tempests colliding and shaking the sky. Aether was plentiful, like full cisterns. None had slept for ages, none had rebuilt their bodies; their strength was whole cloth. Now the weave is different.

Nearly an epoch of sleep blunted their power like blades kept in scabbards. What they can muster is under a tenth of what they had, candles cut to stubs. For original-born Valkyries like Violet and Shilwen, the long sleep and the thinning Aether forced them to decompose their bodies in pods, clockwork taken apart to save the spring, so they wouldn’t shatter in form and soul.

“Food is still manageable,” Shilwen said, tapping the page like a drum. “Collectively, our standard compressed rations can keep everyone going for about a week, a dry bread line under one roof. Tech here isn’t cutting-edge, but their compressed food is solid. There are several mid-sized military bases nearby, hulks of steel on the map; pulling more food from them shouldn’t be hard.”

Her notebook held a hand-drawn map, charcoal lines flowing like rivers. Her memory is keen, a bright lamp. She used to handle paperwork for Violet, noting useful threads one by one; now those maps shine like lanterns in the rubble.

“Break me a small piece of that compressed food. I want to taste this era,” Aphelia said, voice light as a breeze through reeds.

At her words, Shilwen and Violet both reached for their pockets, a reflex bowing like grass to wind. They didn’t even notice it—ever since Aphelia “returned” to strength, they already treat her like the Valkyries’ leader, a hearth to gather around.

It’s no surprise. Brynhildr was once their spine and star, a matriarch at the center of a ring of fire. That civilization bloomed around her like a mother-tree. Back then, Brynhildr neatly sidestepped the problem by pairing gifted male warriors and Valkyries as partners, twin blades crossing the same path.

Shilwen’s fingers found only emptiness, and her cheeks flushed red like apples. Violet pulled out half a bar, a brick of brown, and offered it. Under Sigdrifa’s shelter, she hadn’t taken heavy wounds, but she ate half earlier to keep a comm system running, a spark fed by rations. Shilwen had eaten more because Aether was scarce, winter pressing the body; she had given her remainder to others during the rescue. Her pockets were now bare, a hollow gourd.

Seeing Shilwen’s embarrassed, downcast look, Aphelia smiled and rubbed her head, a palm warm as sunlight. “It’s okay, Shilwen. I get it. You gave your rations to our sisters, right? I just want a taste.”

Shilwen’s blush faded like a cloud thinning, though her head still dipped in shy apology. Aphelia took Violet’s half bar, pinched off a corner from the tip, and brought it to her mouth, chewing slow, patience flowing like a quiet stream.

Shilwen quickly offered a canteen, metal cap glinting with a small star, as if to make up for not having food herself. It made Aphelia both amused and helpless, a smile soft as water.

The taste hit, chalky and tired, and Aphelia sighed inside like wind through an empty house. These compressed rations taste like her days as a Hero, hard bread on dusty roads; they fill the stomach, but they grind at the mind like grit.

She kept her face even, a porcelain mask, and chewed and swallowed so the two watching like wary cats wouldn’t be hurt.

“We need to find better food soon,” Aphelia said, voice steady as a beam. “We can choke this down, but the wounded can’t, and morale is damp ash. Special cases need special handling. Shilwen, is there a food-processing factory near those bases? A region this big can’t run only on rear-line supply, right?”

“There is one nearby,” Shilwen said, worry lining her words like cracks in clay. “But it’s one of the worst-hit zones. Hard to say if anything inside stayed whole. There’s another key thing—water. We sit above a dam, and the river below is still fairly clean, a silver thread in gray earth. But the Valkyrie who can operate the dam is gravely injured and unconscious. If the shutdown drags on, water quality will turn sour.”

“Water is solvable,” Aphelia said, resolve drawing like a blade at dawn. “Tomorrow, bring the gravely wounded to me. I’ll treat them, because the basics must keep running. As for that factory, prepare me a detailed map. I’ll go with Uroboros to walk that ruin.”