One day in 2026, I lived what you’d call an ordinary family life... except I didn’t have a father. Still, it was normal enough.
School life was more or less ordinary too, and one day I got fooled by the promise of movie tickets and was kidnapped like that.
“Am I about to get my organs harvested?”
I had a bit of visceral fat, but I didn’t smoke or drink, so I’d probably sell well, damn it...
“I even brought back pork trotters for Mom...”
It was just a small act of self-satisfaction, but still... still... I had so much left to do...
“””””
“I was kidnapped in roughly that way and brought here, Doctor.”
“Th-that... pork trotters thing, is it tasty? The staff who brought it asked for the recipe because they said it was good...”
“When I asked where it went, they said they ate it?”
“I understand that you feel wronged, but there won’t be a shortage of food here either. The previous director was good at that sort of thing. But...”
The man who looked like a chicken scratched his cheek and glared at me and the orange-haired girl beside me, who was stuffing her face with snacks.
“How did you two end up here?”
The orange-haired girl answered first.
“That Rayshift thing? I did that, got sleepy, dozed off during the assembly earlier, got slapped by the person called the director, and got kicked out, so I was heading to my My Room...”
“Some dog...? No, a rabbit? Some animal about the size of a retriever kept biting and attacking me, so I ran away, and then I came here because the door happened to be open...”
“Really? There was such an animal in Chaldea...”
Boom!!!
“Kyaaah!!!”
“Eek!!! What is it, mister?! You startled me even more because of you!!”
“I’m not even thirty yet!!!”
At the huge explosion, the doctor ran off somewhere, and I and the little kid beside me reflexively followed.
“What on earth... You two! This is an emergency, so evacuate at once!!!”
“Yes!! You there, orange hair!! Hurry up and come too!!”
“...You go first, mister!!”
“Hey!! Where are you going?!”
What we saw as we ran with the orange-haired girl was a girl with purple hair I’d never seen before, and the problem was...
“Mash...”
“Damn it...”
She was pinned under a huge boulder...
“...You go first, mister.”
“You’ll die if you stay like that...”
“Even so!!!”
Leaving her behind and running would’ve been possible, but...
“Fine, damn it, I don’t know!!!”
I quickly tore my sleeves in two, soaked the floor around us with water, and handed it to the orange-haired girl.
“If I leave her behind, even a perfectly healthy girl like her will die...”
No matter how much of a stranger she was, it was hard to just leave someone who might die right in front of me.
“If it really looks like we’re screwed, I’ll run too, so hurry up!!!”
“And yet you still end up helping anyway!!”
Just as we approached the collapsed Mash...
[[Entrance Sealed]]
“You damn son of a...”
“Senpai... and... you too, the one I’ve never met before... I’m sorry. This is my fault...”
“Ha... we’re so screwed, lol.”
“Sorry... mister...”
“Forget it... it’s already too late to argue about it here...”
The nightmare from before, growling amid the blazing flames.
“Damn it, that bastard was here...”
“P-Paw...? Was it always that... big...?”
“Ha... Mom... I wonder if she’s doing okay...”
“Mister... my hands are shaking...”
“Damn it, I may not have lived hard, but I sure as hell didn’t live badly...”
Maybe she misunderstood the moisture gathering at the corners of my eyes from the smoke, because Mash tried to apologize again.
“I’m s...”
“It’s fine. It’s not your fault... If I’m going to die, I’d at least like it to be painless... Hey, kid, before we die, let’s at least ask each other’s names. What’s yours?”
“Fujimaru Ritsuka. I’ll be a high schooler next year.”
“I’m Albus. It’s not my real name, just a pseudonym, but my real name is...”
[[Rayshift will commence in 3. 2. 1.]]
“Damn it, what now...”
And so our consciousness was transferred to the battlefield.
“It’s nice to be out of that burning building, but...”
Ritsuka, who had just regained consciousness, got up and spoke.
“Where... are we...?”
But as if not even that brief moment of relief would be allowed, countless bombardments came raining down.
Whoooosh~!!
“Wait, is this hell? ...No, it isn’t!!!”
“Kyaaah!!!”
Just before death, some shield appeared before our eyes and blocked the view.
Boom! Boom!
“What is that...?”
“Are you all right, Senpai? And...”
“Albus.”
“Yes, Mr. Albus.”
“Mash, that outfit...”
As Ritsuka, who had just properly gotten to his feet, said, Mash’s current outfit was, no matter how you looked at it, that...
“Um... Mash, maybe you could borrow my outer coat or something...”
“I appreciate the kindness, but it would interfere with combat, so I’ll have to decline, Mr. Albus. For now...”
Then came a scream from far away, but still clearly audible.
“Kyaaah, save me, Lev!!!”
“What should we do? Master? I am your Servant now, so if you command me...”
“We should go, right?”
“Yes!”
“Ha, so I have to go too...”
When we arrived, the director was surrounded by a horde of skeletons, and we rescued her in the most obvious, predictable...
story possible, if only that were the case...
“Damn it, why are these skeletons so damn tough...”
“By the way, mister, you’re good at fighting. Where did you learn that?”
“I just stuffed rocks inside my coat and swung it around. If Mash hadn’t stepped in halfway through, I’d have been dead.”
“You two!! Shut up, I need to make a call right now!!”
““Yes...””
The one who answered the call was...
“Doctor?!”
“Shut up!!!”
“I’m sorry...”
I thought, ‘She’s like a sister in her thirties throwing a fit.’
And so the doctor began the briefing.
“First, the current Masters are the two of you, right?”
“Yeah, somehow there are two... no, one, I guess... Hey, both of you, show me the backs of your hands!”
“Yes!”
On the back of Fujimaru’s hand was a red tattoo-like mark...
“This guy... doesn’t have one... I guess that’s obvious?”
There was none on my hand...
“Should I be relieved about that, or what...”
“You’re a mana tank we barely managed to secure from the East. Every so often, a mutant shows up whose mana is on the level of a high-ranking magus or above. You’re basically a pricey homunculus with comparatively better fuel efficiency, so we brought you in.”
“That’s a pretty awful way to put it...”
“If we’re going to use homunculi as mana tanks, they need a certain level of intelligence, but we didn’t have time to educate them and there were all sorts of problems. So even though you don’t have Master aptitude, we brought you anyway.”
“Ha... damn it...”
“If we hadn’t brought you, you’d be cheap prey for magi, so keep that in mind. If you see this through properly, we’ll protect your safety even after retirement, so behave and obey.”
“Understood...”
“Mister, that’s rough...”
As the briefing was drawing to a close...
“Enemy reaction!! It’s a Servant, run!!”
“Follow me, everyone!!”
At Mash’s shout, we followed her from the road to the riverbank on the outskirts.
“Ha... ha... no, I get that Mash is a Servant, but why is everyone else so... energetic...”
I can understand Ritsuka, since she’s a young middle school girl, but even the director, who seems like a noble young lady...
“Once this is over, I’m going to work you to death in the training room, so be prepared.”
“What crime did I commit in my past life...?”
“With a face this ugly...”
“Ritsuka, do you want to get hit?”
“If you’re going to assault the Master, I’ll stop you.”
Mash pointed her shield at my stomach.
“I’m the only one being left out. This is bullshit...”
But the heavens seemed unwilling to permit even this much leisurely banter...
“Master, Director... and Mr. Albus...”
Before her words could even finish, a woman appeared before us.
“Oh my... there are three... no, four of you, all looking delicious...”
“Mash, can you buy us time so we can escape?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen...”
We backed away first, only to find ourselves in a hell of chains...
“No choice then... Mash!! Let’s fight!!”
“Yes!! Master!!”
“Hey!! Number 49!! You need to provide mana, so get behind us and stay there!!”
“Thank you for taking care of me!!”
But for Mash, who had only just begun fighting as a Servant, her first battle seemed too much.
“Damn it... Director, can’t you support us with one of those red laser cannon things?”
“Do you think my Gandr would work on a Servant?!”
“Then we can’t all just die here...”
No sooner had I said that than a man fell from the sky...
“Exactly so!!!”
The man wore a hood, a blue bodysuit, and carried a staff—someone who looked, at a glance, like a magician through and through...
“But why do I feel like he’s going to use a spear really well...”
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