"Guardian, can you hear me?"
I sent a telepathic message to the Guardian.
"Yeah, I can hear you."
"Listen carefully from here on out. I think something is seriously wrong with this Chaldea situation.
To be blunt, Chaldea is not normal right now. The central area blew up out of nowhere, important people are all dead, and I only survived because I got lucky. If I’d been there, I would’ve died too. I think there’s someone behind this. I think that mastermind will show up once this Singularity is over. Because if things had gone according to the original plan, Chaldea should have been wiped out. But since it somehow survived through all this, I think they’ll make their move after the Singularity is resolved. When that happens, I’m planning to screw them over with Heracles. No matter how powerful the enemy is, they won’t be able to shake off Heracles that easily. So until then, keep drawing their aggro. If you do that, I think I can handle this the way I’m planning."
"Got it, Master. I’ll do what you say."
I turned my telepathy toward Cu Chulainn.
"Did you find Cu Chulainn’s body?"
"Yeah, kid, I just finished it. On top of that, I found a Mystic Code that can take souls. It looks like a cage, and if you mentally designate the target you want to put in it, it can trap their soul. Man, this is a nasty little thing.
If you want, it can even trap the soul of a living person. Anyway, if things go south, just toss them in right away, so don’t worry."
"Got it. Then we’ll set up a separate base camp, explain the situation to Doctor, and send that body back to Chaldea. We’ll build our own base camp, get resupplied, and then you, Okita, and I will settle things with King Arthur. The plan is simple. We’ll use Okita’s speed to force a decision. We’ll wait for the right timing, and when the moment comes, I’ll swap Okita and the Guardian. After that, we’ll use the Guardian’s sword to stab Saber through the back and kill him."
"Kid, you’re more devious than I expected."
"If I want to live, I’ll do anything."
"Yeah. Fair enough."
"Man, if that kid had been my Master, this Holy Grail War might have been more manageable than I thought."
Unlike other Masters, who treated Servants like pieces on a board, Damascus clearly valued each one and regarded them as comrades. Cu Chulainn could see that much. In fact, the other Servants probably felt the same way.
That was why, even though they had only known each other for a short time, they could joke, laugh, and banter so easily.
Cu Chulainn set up the base camp a little ways away, and that was when an unwelcome guest arrived.
"Ah... so it won’t be that easy after all. Come out, Assassin. Let’s fight."
Assassin revealed herself. A tall woman with long purple hair and a large scythe appeared.
"It’s been a while, Caster."
"Man, if you weren’t an enemy, I’d be tempted to hit on you. What a shame."
Cu Chulainn said with a laugh.
The enemy Assassin was Medusa. At the very least, Cu Chulainn knew Medusa.
In the previous battle, just before he killed Medusa, she cast a petrification spell and escaped.
So it was easy to tell that the enemy Assassin was Medusa.
Back then, he’d been able to fight without worrying about anything, but not now. The thing Damascus had asked for was now working against him in this fight.
"Come on, let’s do this again, Medusa."
"Very well. I shall repay you for that humiliation."
Explosions erupted from the leyline where the base camp was supposed to be set up.
"Director, the base camp setup is complete. As planned, I’ll ask Doctor to modify the Mystic Code."
"Got it. Okita and I will keep watch around the area."
"Thank you."
I finished speaking and quickly connected to Doctor.
"Doctor, can you hear me? Please say yes."
"Damascus, huh? How’s the situation?"
"Not bad. We haven’t found anything major, but we did recover one thing: a cloth infused with Mana. I’m calling to request a modification.
There’s a Servant there, right? No matter how I look at it, Chaldea is blown apart all over the place. Even if there are only capable people left, they’d all be specialized in different fields, so it doesn’t make sense that they could all coordinate and shut down Chaldea’s systems together. There has to be someone competent in that area at least. If Doctor, the top medical expert, is the one in charge, then the only thing left is a Servant, I think. You have a Caster, right?"
Doctor Romani was visibly shocked by what I said. From his perspective, a fifteen-year-old boy had instantly pieced together something he hadn’t told anyone. He must have thought it was absurd. I hadn’t even mentioned Da Vinci, but at this point, I figured I couldn’t keep quiet about it any longer.
"Your expression says I’m right. I’d like that Caster to make a Mystic Code out of this Mana-infused cloth.
I want four functions: [Order Change], recovery, [Gandr], and one more function that can gather nearby Mana and charge itself. If possible, I’d like it to be able to recharge on its own. If we use it together with Chaldea’s standard Mystic Codes, that would make sixteen Mystic Codes in total, but I don’t think we can keep supplying Mana to a Servant while carrying that many. So if you can add a self-charging function, please do.
I’m not planning to run away the moment this Singularity is over. If you can make it, tell me right away. I’ll head straight for Saber without delay.
If charging isn’t possible, then please make it so we can insert Mana like swapping batteries. When it comes to me, I’d like you to send it over with enough power for at least four uses. If there’s a Servant capable of keeping Chaldea from shutting down, then that shouldn’t be too much to ask. Please. I said the situation isn’t bad, but for now the Guardian is being chased by Heracles, and Cu Chulainn is occupied for other reasons. We’re in a hurry. Please make it fast."
"Ah, got it. I’ll make it right away. Just wait a little."
"Thank you, Doctor Romani. And Caster, I’m ending the communication."
And with that, I cut the line.
Now then, Da Vinci, take the bait I just set.
"Is that boy really an ordinary human?"
Da Vinci, sipping coffee while watching the situation unfold, asked.
"Yes. On paper, he is. But the fact that he can analyze things that well is incredible.
That level of analytical ability is absurd. He’s been on the brink of death so many times, and yet he still makes judgments like that..."
"Maybe that’s exactly why he can do it in a crisis."
Da Vinci kept turning the problem over in her head as she drank her coffee.
A fifteen-year-old boy was calmly accepting this desperate situation and executing near-perfect strategies at exactly the right moments? This was an extraordinary talent. If he were on their side, that is.
"All right, I’ll make the Mystic Code just like that boy asked. I can finish it in five minutes. I’ll make it able to gather Mana from the surrounding environment and charge directly, and if necessary, I’ll even make it so batteries can be inserted! I’ll let myself be baited by that boy’s cheap provocation."
Da Vinci hurried off to her workshop.
Bang bang!
After dodging the stone Heracles threw, the Guardian fired explosive rounds straight at Heracles’ eyes.
Heracles was furious. If he got caught now, the Guardian would probably die on the spot.
"That looks like it’d hurt, so I’m not getting hit."
But the Guardian, maxed out in evasion, dodged every attack. Heracles was undeniably strong, but in the Guardian’s logic, if he didn’t get hit, the damage was zero. That principle was now being put into practice.
Any normal Servant would have been caught and killed by now.
Especially when the Guardian moved at high speed, he was so fast that even Heracles’ eyes seemed unable to track him properly. Catching something like that was absurd.
If the Guardian’s Strength were not E+, but even D or C, he would have shown terrifyingly broken stats. But the only things truly high on his status sheet were Agility and Luck.
The rest were D or D+.
Heracles let out a roar. By now, the Guardian was used to it, so whenever Heracles roared, he fired a shot straight into his mouth.
Bang!
It was a piercing round, so even Heracles, no matter how hard his exterior was, would take serious damage from a shot fired into the inside of his body.
Heracles suddenly froze, coughed a couple of times, and then roared again.
"Damn it, I could’ve fired one more!"
Even in this situation, the Guardian had been thinking about shooting Heracles in the mouth. He had deliberately changed one round into a piercing round.
He’d only tested it with one shot, thinking that if Heracles charged in while roaring, maybe shooting him in the mouth would do some real damage.
But the effect had been better than expected, and seeing that made him think he should’ve loaded two rounds instead.
He really was an obsessive little lunatic.
Heracles came charging in, swinging his sword wildly.
"A toast to your eyes."
Even in that situation, the Guardian predicted the direction of Heracles’ sword, switched to an explosive round, and fired a bullet into his forehead.
Boom!
Heracles charged again.
"Right here! Woo-hoo!"
The Guardian’s attacks weren’t doing anything at all, but they were so irritating and persistent that no one could ignore them. They kept gnawing away at the enemy’s nerves.
Even Cu Chulainn looked exhausted just watching it.
"Yeah, keep chasing me like that. You’re going to keep chasing me until this Singularity disappears, and then you’ll die."
The Guardian was faithfully carrying out his Master’s orders.
Cu Chulainn was in a straight-up clash with Medusa.
He was drawing runes on the ground and continuously firing flames to burn away the surrounding cover.
That way, Medusa would have nowhere to hide.
And if necessary, he would burn everything around them to inflict a fatal wound on Medusa.
But Medusa had remembered what happened last time, so she wasn’t just going to sit there and take it.
"This really isn’t my style."
Cu Chulainn had always been the type to throw himself into battle head-on. He was a Heroic Spirit who fought in a rough, primal way, but his current class and situation wouldn’t allow that.
"That brat... once this fight is over, I’m going to make him suffer."
Cu Chulainn ground his teeth as he spoke.
"My, how relaxed you are, to be thinking of other things."
Whenever Medusa spotted an opening, she rushed in to attack. But even in a fight that didn’t suit him, Cu Chulainn still fought better than most Servants.
"Don’t be disappointed. I’m not spacing out. I’m just grateful to the guy who set this up so I could fight you one-on-one. To think I’d get to face such a beauty alone!"
Boom!
The area became a sea of fire. No matter how fast Medusa was, an explosion like that would leave at least a minor injury.
One of her legs was lightly singed, leaving her with a burn.
Medusa let out a small groan. Cu Chulainn, on the other hand, was completely unharmed.
"I need to think this through. Maybe I should deliberately show a weakness and lure that guy in..."
Cu Chulainn acted on the idea immediately. He concealed himself so Medusa couldn’t detect him, and at the same time created a clone, deliberately leaving openings here and there to make it easy for her to come in.
Normally, another Servant would have seen through the trick, but the goddess who had never really been suited to battle took the bait without hesitation. The moment she did, the clone vanished, and countless runes spread across the surrounding area from within it. Medusa was caught by the runes and immobilized.
"!!!!!!!!!"
Medusa had been caught. She was bound so tightly she couldn’t do anything, and Cu Chulainn pressed his staff down on the back of her head from behind.
"Phew... I need to finish this quickly and rejoin the others. I don’t want to fight like this either, but it can’t be helped right now.
Just understand that."
Cu Chulainn spoke in a voice that sounded completely emotionless.
"How irritating."
As soon as Medusa spat out those short words, a powerful explosion erupted behind her.
"Now then, I guess I should send this over like the kid said. After that, I’ll join him right away."
Cu Chulainn drew a circle with a rune-inscribed stone and contacted Chaldea.
"You’re the Doctor the kid mentioned, right? The kid asked me to deliver this to Chaldea."
Cu Chulainn showed Doctor the homunculus doll.
"The kid figured that the reason the Director could perform a Rayshift might be because the Director was already dead. If that was true, then the conclusion he reached was that her soul might be wandering around with us right now. But the kid wants to save the Director too, so he asked me to bring this. His guess might not be one hundred percent right, but it never hurts to be careful, does it? So just take it for now."
Cu Chulainn said this to Doctor.
Doctor’s expression had gone very stiff.
Come to think of it, if Olga Marie Animusphere had been able to perform a Rayshift, that really would have been the only explanation.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register