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"What an unfamiliar ceiling..."
Except it wasn’t some unfamiliar ceiling at all. I woke up in the middle of a collapsed ruin where the ceiling had been blown open. Around me, old household items were scattered everywhere, and after taking stock of the situation for a moment, I sat down on the sofa right there in the rubble. The scene was eerily similar to the one from Fate/stay night where Archer was summoned. In a situation like that, I could feel the kind of excitement that only a true Fate fan would understand rising in my chest.
-...I’ll confirm this, but are you really my Servant?
The scene I had seen in my mind began to replay. The face of a black-haired girl with her hair tied up in two side buns came to mind. I was muttering the line by myself in the exact pose Archer had struck when he was summoned, right there in the rubble.
"No one’s around, right...?"
"That’s what I’d like to ask. Are you my Master? This is the first time I’ve ever been summoned so violently, so honestly, I can’t make sense of the situation."
-Ah... finally connected... This is the Chaldea control room. Can you hear me!? Juhwan!?"
"D-Doctor!?"
When I panicked, he looked over my face with a "Did something happen?" expression. After silently checking me over for a moment, Doctor Roman seemed relieved that nothing was wrong and said,
-Haa... your head seems fine... Thank goodness...
He let out a sigh of relief, then immediately sent me a map. The map was neatly drawn in simple lines. While I was checking it, he hurriedly began explaining the current situation.
-Right now, this is a town in Japan called Fuyuki. A Holy Grail War took place here a long time ago. This city is the stage where that Holy Grail War happened.
"Then what should I do first?"
As I spoke like a complete newbie who knew nothing, Romani marked a point on the coordinates and continued.
-The place I marked is where Mash, Ritsuka, and Director Olga are. Get there while avoiding the enemies around you...!
"Yes, got it, Romani."
-Beep.
I ended the call right away, then immediately started moving toward the spot marked on the map. While I was looking around for something I could use as a weapon, a broken steel pipe caught my eye.
"Oh, this’ll do. I need to protect myself with whatever I can..."
I picked up the steel pipe lying on the ground and walked out of the collapsed ruins onto the main road. There was no smell of blood in the streets, nor the smell of burned flesh. It was as if everyone had vanished in an instant.
"No one’s here..."
Singularity F: Fuyuki was the first Singularity you tackled when you first started FGO. The story here had ended without even resolving its setup, so I didn’t know exactly what had happened here, but there was one thing I did know right now...
-Kieeeeeek~~!!
"Damn it..."
...I was screwed.
I prayed that this miserable situation was just a dream, but when I pinched my cheek, it wasn’t. As the skull-faced things screamed again, I finally faced reality. I needed help, so I contacted Romani, but...
"Romani... I think I’m screwed right now... Could I request backup...?"
-...krrt...
(I’m... regretting it... that day we fought...)
"What the hell..."
It sounded like singing was drifting from somewhere, but that had to be an auditory hallucination. I let out a satisfying curse, raised the steel pipe over my head to smash the skulls in, and brought it down on the head of the skeleton charging at me, sending one flying.
-Crack!
A bright, crisp impact rang out around me. But only for a moment—another skeleton got behind me, and I ended up giving it my back.
-Kieeeeeek!!!
"Damn it...!"
(Why did I do that when I knew it wouldn’t work~ Now even if I regret it...)
"I can’t help it... damn it..."
In my panic, I dropped the steel pipe.
And just like that, the skeleton was about to leap up and smash my head in.
-Whoosh~~!
-Bang bang bang~~!!
"What? Who is it!"
Someone’s arrows flew in and blew the skeletons’ heads clean off. I turned toward the direction the arrows had come from, and there, I could see the silhouette of a man. That man was...
"Why is he saving me...?"
White hair, bronze skin, and that signature red. Yes, it was Archer EMIYA. The only difference was that he didn’t look like the version from FGO, but more like the Alter-style appearance from First Order. Maybe he noticed my gaze, because he stared in my direction for a moment before disappearing somewhere. While I was still stunned, I heard someone calling my name.
"Juhwan~~!!"
The owner of that thin, birdlike voice was Ritsuka. She hurried over to me, checking all over my body to see if I was hurt, and behind her came Mash and Director Olga, running after her.
"Are you all right, Juhwan-senpai?"
"It’s Ritsuka and Mash. I’m not hurt."
After checking my condition, Mash let out a relieved sigh, and the Director, who had arrived right after, was still gasping for breath as she continued lamenting the current situation.
"I mean... huff... huff... why... where did all the competent Masters go, and why are there only two Master candidates!?"
To smooth things over for her, I gave an awkward smile and answered lightly.
"Ahaha... yeah, I guess so. Sorry, Director."
At my words, she regained her composure, caught her breath, and then looked at me and Ritsuka with an expression that said she had misspoken.
"Ahem... No, that’s not what I meant. Still, for now, you two are Chaldea’s only fighting force. I spoke too harshly..."
"No way... was she always this good at apologizing...? In the game she was complaining all the time..."
That was true. In the game, she kept complaining at first, but later on she gradually opened her heart to Mash and Ritsuka.
"But... later on..."
As I was thinking that, a face appeared beyond the mechanical device on her wrist—Romani’s face, flustered at first, but now relieved.
-So you were there!! I was worried because I couldn’t reach you... I’m really glad...
As soon as she saw him, Director Olga’s face turned sharp again, and she started scolding him with obvious disbelief.
"What is this... why are you in the control room, Doctor Romani?"
Hearing that, Romani looked flustered and kept glancing at her face as he continued speaking.
-Di... Director!? There was an explosion... and you don’t have a single injury!?"
Ignoring Romani’s reaction, the Director turned on him again with a sharp expression.
"What are you talking about!? Enough with the jokes. I need an explanation!"
At her words, he answered her question with a still-panicked expression.
-I... well... I’m the only one who can control the command room right now...
Hearing that, Olga’s expression changed as if something was wrong. Going pale, she asked Romani about that man’s survival.
"Then... what about Professor Lev...?"
-Professor Lev may have...
His signal cut out, and when Olga realized there was no way to confirm whether he was alive or dead, she sank to the ground and burst into tears. Those tears must have been the despair she was sending to the man who had died.
"Oh, Director... that professor is the one who’s going to kill you... this is really frustrating..."
Of course, he’d end up killing Olga later. Anyway, I only thought that to myself. It didn’t take long for her crying to stop. After about five minutes, she steadied herself, wiped away her tears, and looked at him through the screen before continuing.
"...Doctor Romani..."
Hearing her, Romani answered her call in a fluster.
-Yes?
"...We’ll talk about Professor Lev later. For now, what happened to the other 46 Masters?"
He broke into a cold sweat for a moment, then answered her question again with a flustered but composed expression.
-Ah... well... all 46 of them are in critical condition. We’re short on medical equipment, and even if we can save a few people, all of them...
Hearing his chicken-hearted answer, Director Olga immediately shouted at him to stop talking nonsense and ordered him to put the others into cryopreservation.
"Enough with the excuses. Move them into cryopreservation immediately! Survival comes first right now!"
-Ah... yes!!
"And next, finding a ley line is the priority. Where is the ley line?"
He hurriedly began cryopreserving the other Masters while transmitting the coordinates of the ley line to the device on my wrist. I opened the map and showed it to Director Olga. While she was looking at it, Romani continued speaking.
-It’s about 2 kilometers from those coordinates. I’ll send the exact location!
So we kept walking down the main road to find the ley line on the map. From everything we’d seen so far, there wasn’t even a single ant in sight. Around us were abandoned cars scattered all over the road, shop windows along the boulevard smashed to pieces, and a long, straight slash carved into the ground at the coordinates. This place was like hell—except without people.
When we finally reached the area around the ley line, we immediately tried to find it. Huh? You’re asking why we were looking for it if we already had the coordinates? That was because...
"Doctor Romani, what’s going on? We came here according to the coordinates, but I don’t see any ley line."
-Th... that’s...
As you can see, Romani had given us the coordinates in the most half-baked way possible. After about three minutes of being lectured by her, we were wandering around again, searching every direction for the ley line. Then Director Olga called us over and, as if showing off her own survival skills, began lecturing us in a confident voice.
"First... we need to set up a base camp... understand? In a situation like this, we need to find where magical energy gathers. In a city like this..."
Just as she was about to continue, Mash told Director Olga with a blank expression that the ley line was right beneath her feet.
"This is the spot, Director. Reporting that the ray point is directly under your feet."
Hearing that, Director Olga’s face turned as red as a tomato. She turned her face away from us, crossed her arms, and said,
"W-Well... yes... that seems to be the case. I knew that. Of course I knew that...!"
As I was thinking that she was overflowing with heroine energy, Mash placed her shield on the ley line, and it transformed like a summoning circle. Seeing that, I struggled to control my rising dopamine as my excitement over the gacha began to swell.
"So this is the gacha now..."
Heroic Spirit Summoning System: Fate. Put simply, summoning. Even more simply, gacha. Yes, it was gacha time. The indispensable system in FGO, the terrifying machine that legally robbed people of their wallets... Anyway, once the summoning circle had been set up, Director Olga showed us 33 Saint Quartz and began explaining the summoning system.
"First, we need to summon Servants to reinforce our forces. Since we have 33 Saint Quartz here, each of you should split them up and call a Servant from the summoning circle."
After finishing her brief explanation, she handed us the pouch containing the 33 Saint Quartz. I thought for a moment about how to divide them, then simply handed 30 of the Saint Quartz to Ritsuka.
"If you want... do you want to use 30 of them?"
"Really!? Is that okay?"
When I handed her the Saint Quartz so readily, she took the pouch with a delighted expression, like a puppy being given a snack. She stared blankly at the Saint Quartz as if bewitched by them, then immediately threw 30 into the summoning circle.
"Okay, let’s go...!"
"Spin, O star of gacha!!"
? Something about that summoning chant is weird...? Apparently thinking the same thing, Director Olga’s face went pale blue, and she grabbed Ritsuka’s arm while shouting,
"Hey!? Is it really okay to use a summoning chant like that!?"
"Ahaha..."
The Saint Quartz that had already left her hands vanished from sight, and soon Craft Essences began popping out of the summoning circle instead. Black Keys, Mapo Tofu, all kinds of three-star Craft Essences, and so on. The expressions on the Director’s face and Ritsuka’s face while watching that were beyond words... Anyway, when the last roll came around...
"Huh? There are three lines?"
"That light is... a Servant!"
Just as Director Olga said, that light was the light of a Servant. Then, with a burst of brilliant radiance, a Servant emerged from the summoning circle.
"Ushiwakamaru, reporting as ordered. I shall do my utmost as a warrior."
The Servant who appeared was Ushiwakamaru, otherwise known as Minamoto no Yoshitsune. She was famous for the legendary story of leaping across eight ships at Dan-no-ura to cut down an enemy commander, and for another tale—probably a rumor—that Yoshitsune crossed the continent and somehow became Genghis Khan or something. Anyway, after being summoned, Ushiwakamaru saw that her new master was nearly in tears and approached her with a worried expression to ask after her well-being.
"My lord? Has something unpleasant happened?"
"No... please take care of me... Ushiwakamaru..."
Ritsuka, who had burned through 30 Saint Quartz in an instant, stepped back crying, and Mash and Ushiwakamaru also stepped away to comfort her.
"Sob..."
"My lord..."
"Senpai... next time, wonderful Servants will appear!"
"Really...?"
That was Mash and Ushiwakamaru, cheering Ritsuka up from behind... Then it was my turn, and the moment I threw 3 Saint Quartz into the summoning circle...
-Whoooosh!
"A rainbow!! Holy shit, here we go~~!!"
Rainbow-colored, dazzling light swirled within the summoning circle, and the Servant who appeared was...
"Hello. You’re my summoner, right? I’m Tonelico. Tonelico, the Savior. My class is Saber. I’m not very good at plant-based magecraft, but I’m confident in magecraft for defeating enemies, magecraft for preparing for battle, and magecraft for destroying obstacles. I’m not very familiar with the world outside the Fairy Kingdom, but please take care of me."
In front of me appeared a Servant with a white witch’s hat, cute glasses, a witch’s cloak, and a staff and magic book in both hands—basically someone whose whole look screamed, "I am a mage." But...
"...Why are you... here...?"
This... is a jackpot... right...?
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