Brynhildr

Brynhildr, or Hild as a companion, is a character from Monster Girl Quest: Paradox.

Biography
Brynhildr is first met in the Ancient Temple Ruins during the Pope of San Ilia’s quest.

Once Luka and the Pope reach the end of the temple, Luka notices a large capsule filled with liquid. Luka sees it contains what looks like a girl. The Pope tells Luka that the church calls her “Sleeping Beauty” and that even the churches most sophisticated equipment couldn’t activate her. Promestein is amazed that she’s an entirely mechanical organism and that no biological parts were used in her creation whatsoever.

As the Pope is healing his body, Ilias/Alice is surprised that he survived the explosion, but the Pope tells them that he lost more than half of his body in the bombing. Out of shock, Luka accidentally puts his hand on the Sleeping Beauty’s operation panel and unintentionally wakes up Brynhildr.

She leaves her capsule and stands up. She says that she shouldn’t have woken up as she is supposed to only wake up when the “world ends”. Brynhildr thinks that Luka and the party are going to destroy the world, so she initiates combat mode, where they discover she has both Holy and Dark powers fused into her body. The Pope notices this and becomes Robo-Pope to help them fight Brynhildr.

After the battle, Luka explains to Brynhildr that they don’t want to destroy the world, they want to save it. Brynhildr tells them that she was created to save the world, but isn’t sure who created her. She only refers to that person as Master. Brynhildr becomes distressed because she doesn’t know where Master is, but Luka suggests that she come with them, which she agrees to as her Master isn’t with her any more. Promestein then tries to remove her main memory unit, but Sonya confiscates her screwdriver.

Assuming you recruited Promestein, there is a side quest in the Ancient Temple Ruins devoted to Hild and Promestein.

The technology within the temple is several hundred years ahead of the technology of the Paradox world, much to the fascination of Promestein.

Within the temple, they come across a terminal. The group discover that when this research facility was abandoned, the previous owners erased all of their previous records, explaining why Hild possesses such little intelligence. They likely deleted most of her memory before leaving the lab. The only thing she remembers is that her Master was the most important person in the laboratory.

Ilias asks Hild whether or not there is a possibility of Promestein being her Master, one from another dimension. Hild confirms this is incorrect, as her Master was completely different compared to the description Ilias provided of Promestein. The fact it wasn’t Promestein disturbs Ilias, as one of the creatures, XX-7 is one of Promestein’s creations. But that’s not to say Promestein didn’t work with the scientists.

At the second terminal, they find information on apoptosis, confirming the scientists working there are aware of chaosisation. Like the previous terminal, what they discovered has been erased. The only information remaining is regarding Hild. It confirms that Hild was created to battle with apoptosis. She has a Holy and Dark fusion core, as well as the body tissue of apoptosis beings built into her. Hild confirms that she remembers her Master telling her that she would awaken when the world ends. They kept her in the pod in a hibernation mode, until that happened. Strangely enough, it was Luka who awoke her.

Despite her numerous combat functions, Promestein believes that Hild was not built exclusively for warfare; otherwise, she wouldn’t possess an advanced reproduction system or such advanced emotional processors. Also, she shouldn’t be so stupid to the point she answers 87+65 as 142.

At the third terminal, they discover the exact date, time and coordinates of where Promestein was sent to the eastern Tartarus. The same day she supposedly did the experiment. The fact the lab administrators had access to this information confirms that it wasn’t Promestein’s experiment which sent her back in time, but this device. While it was her experiment which created the crack in spacetime, it was the lab administrators who set the coordinates to Tartarus. If it hadn’t had been for the device, she never would have been pulled through the rift. But combining divine and dark energy is the key to creating these cracks in spacetime.

Ilias is confused why they would want to send her through one, but she has no idea. If they had just wanted her dead, throwing her into another world would have been a waste of resources. She hypothesises that they perhaps sent her through to join Luka when he passed through there. At a particular time on his adventure.

At the final terminal, is Hild’s capsule. Within the capsules data, Promestein finds that Luka’s biometric data had already been integrated into it, explaining why Hild woke up when Luka touched it. But only Luka’s data was integrated to wake her up. No one else. Ilias inquires whether Luka is familiar with the ruins at all, but he replies he’s never heard of it in his life.

Promestein brings up that Ilias has been referring to the laboratory as ruins for a while now, but that is incorrect as this scale of technology never existed in those times. However, compared to the technology in the Tartarus which appeared out of nowhere, they are very similar. Promestein believes that this laboratory came from a parallel world, and asks Hild what the date is according to her data. She responds that it should be 1543, but has configured it to 1455 since waking up. Meaning that Hild is 88 years ahead of them.

Monsterpedia
''“A mysterious humanoid machine that had been preserved in the depths of the underground ruins. Most of her body is mechanical and she uses an unidentifiable power. She boasts a very high combat ability, and in addition to the mechanical weapons her entire body is equipped with, she appears to have mastery over an unknown phenomenon known as “Chaos”.''

''While she is a machine, she has a will of her own and is pure and innocent, trying to learn many things. There are many unknown factors regarding her, such as who created her and for what purpose, shrouding her existence in mystery.”''

Attacks

 * Attack – Normal Attack, One Enemy, Physical Attribute
 * Dual Cannon – Certain Hit, One Enemy, Physical Attributes
 * Gatling Gun – Certain Hit, All Enemies, Physical Attribute
 * Beam Scythe – Certain Hit, Random Enemy, Attack 5 Times, Physical Attribute
 * Shock Wave – Physical Attack, All Enemies, Lightning Attribute
 * Necrosis – Certain Hit, One Enemy, Dark/Demise

Strategy
She can be a tough opponent. Three of her attacks hit multiple times, and they hit hard. The Dual Cannon and Necrosis deal even more damage, and Necrosis can’t be evaded, but they’re both single target. Evasion won’t help much here, so you should focus on solid defence. That will keep you alive longer. So try bringing a member of the Insect race, who can absorb a lot of the damage. A Guard can help too because they can reduce her stats by small amounts, but that can make all the difference.

She is weak to what you would expect a machine to be weak to, Water and Lightning. However, she resists everything else other than Physical, Wind, Earth and the other two mentioned very well. Including Holy and Dark. She’s also immune to Bio and Sound attacks.

Overall, she can be a difficult battle. Don’t be afraid to come back later on when you’re better prepared.

Evaluation
''“Error 245. Coordinates are underground near San Ilia…? How strange, what are you doing underground? The enemy is… A Sacred Monster Type!? It can’t be… …Brynhildr uses a variety of strong Physical attacks. Besides increasing your defence, there’s no mitigating it. Since she’s a machine, she appears to be weak to Lightning. Please prepare several ways to attack her with Lightning. Abnormal status effects rarely will work. But perhaps space-time magic…? Anyway, it’s obvious she’s a difficult enemy. Take full advantage of recovery and support magic, and fight on. Now go, oh brave Luka.”''

Trivia

 * Her creator can't have been someone of this world, as the temple ruins appeared out of nowhere and the technology in the temple is 88 years ahead of the Paradox world. It wasn’t Promestein, as confirmed by Hild. It was obviously someone from this supposed science faction.
 * The name "Sleeping Beauty" that was given to her as a nickname by King of San Ilias is a reference to the tale of Sleeping Beauty. Ironically, she's involuntarily awakened by Luka as the charming prince.
 * Brynhildr is named after Brynhildr, a valkyrie from the Völsunga saga in Norse mythology and other Eddic poems.
 * She shares another similarity with her legendary namesake as both characters had been put in a deep slumber (or stasis in Hild's case), and they could only be awakened by the main male character. Luka fulfills this role and awakens her (albeit accidentally), which parallels to Sigurðr in the mythology.
 * The blueprints that are seen in the second Paradox promotional video illustrate Hild's body, as well as some of her functions. They are similar in appearance to the illustrations that Leonardo Da Vinci did make when designing inventions or documenting the human body, the internal organs and their functions.
 * One of the blueprints seem to depict what appears to be a fetus in a womb. This might suggest that Hild could be capable of producing offspring. Alternatively, it could also be that the fetus depicted is Hild herself, and that the blueprints are showing how she was created in the first place.