Where exactly was she?
Valkyrie 04 gradually began to feel uneasy.
Just as she planned to wait until she had recovered a little strength, then unfasten her seat belt and look around, she faintly heard the sound of flowing water.
A river? Or a lake?
She recalled the terrain around the restricted zone. The area was all mountainous, and all of it consisted of bare rocky peaks. There were no streams or mountain springs anywhere.
There were two river valleys east of Chimera Seventeen, but both had dried up many years ago. All that remained now were riverbeds covered in pebbles and banks littered with jagged rocks.
Rainfall within the restricted zone had formed several shallow lakes in low-lying areas... but the problem was that it was not raining where she was now. That meant she was most likely on the outskirts of the restricted zone.
But... why... was the sound of water getting louder?
The area illuminated by the ejection seat's red signal light suddenly shimmered with rippling reflections. An unknown liquid was flooding in from all directions, quickly covering Valkyrie 04's feet.
Under the red light, the liquid looked like blood.
Feeling the chill creeping up from her feet, Valkyrie 04 immediately drew her legs up. But the water rose rapidly, and within mere seconds, the blood-like liquid had already reached nearly to her knees.
Valkyrie 04 was wearing a cutting-edge anti-G flight suit. Aside from helping pilots withstand the G-forces brought on by high-mobility maneuvers, the suit's basic four-protection functions were equally top-notch.
The so-called four protections naturally referred to cold protection, including wind resistance, waterproofing, gas protection, and radiation protection. This thin flight suit could keep a pilot alive in all kinds of extreme environments—there had once been a pilot wearing the previous-generation predecessor of this