I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 384: Is Director Matou Actually Jeanne's Hater?
By the time Mordred came to her senses, she realized she was standing before a massive slab of solid rock.
Embedded within it was a knight's sword—brilliantly radiant, dazzlingly ornate, gleaming with golden light.
As if drawn in by that glow, Mordred slowly stepped forward and reached out toward the hilt.
At that moment, a mage cloaked entirely in white suddenly appeared behind her.
In a calm, even tone, he spoke:
"Before you grasp that sword, you would do well to think things through carefully."
Those words struck a nerve. Almost out of spite, Mordred quickly grabbed the hilt.
"What's there to think about? I've been ready for this for a long time!"
Hearing the impatience and resentment in her voice, the mage let out a quiet sigh.
"If that is the case, then what oath will you swear to this sword?"
"Obviously—to become a good king!"
Muttering the most correct answer imaginable, Mordred pulled upward on the hilt.
Her lifelong wish was finally about to be fulfilled.
At last, she would become king.
"This is—wait, what?"
Mordred froze.
No matter how much strength she put into it, the knight's sword didn't budge in the slightest, as if it had taken root deep within the stone.
"How is that possible?!"
Unable to accept this, Mordred shouted at the mage at the top of her lungs.
"I'm Mordred, the legitimate child of King Arthur! I shouldn't lose to anyone—I should become a king who surpasses my father—!"
"—Don't you understand yet?"
A hazy voice echoed by her ear.
It belonged to the person Mordred admired most.
"Mordred… you do not possess the qualifications to be king."
Those words struck like a bolt from a clear sky, completely shattering the dream.
Mordred jolted awake.
"Assassin——!!"
She roared in fury.
Yet the Empress she called out to sat calmly upon her throne, smiling sweetly at her, clearly savoring the murderous intent pouring from Mordred.
It wasn't the smile of victory, rather, it was the playful smile of a cat toying with a mouse.
"Bi—tch!"
Mordred expressed her evaluation of the high-and-mighty woman in the simplest, most straightforward language possible.
Of course, she didn't stop at crude insults.
She attacked.
Twice.
Yet both times, Semiramis remained seated on her throne, effortlessly neutralizing Saber's ferocious assaults.
In the Empress's eyes, Mordred's attacks were nothing more than a waste of time.
"Your killing intent is as weak as a passing breeze. At this level, all that awaits you is being slowly tortured to death."
The Empress wore the cruel expression of a predator.
"Shut… up…!!"
Mordred charged forward.
She wasn't some helpless mouse waiting to be played with, she was a feral cat that would challenge lions and tigers alike.
Using the rebound from kicking off a wall, Mordred shot forward like a bullet, accelerating to supersonic speed.
She left herself no room for retreat.
All for the sake of taking the Empress's head.
Yet Semiramis moved only a single finger, as if bored.
That was the end of Mordred's assault.
From the depths of the darkness, deep-green chains burst forth, instantly coiling toward Mordred.
The valiant rebel knight slashed down the approaching chains one after another, but a single chain looping around from behind caught her ankle, slowing her movements.
"Ugh…! Damn it!"
"Let the game begin~"
The Empress moved another finger.
The chain wrapped around Mordred's leg violently flung her backward.
The high-speed distortion of space threw her senses into chaos. She slammed hard into a stone floor—only to be hurled into the air once more, then plunged into a lake embedded in the ceiling.
'I was thrown toward the ceiling… so why did I fall into a lake?'
Before Mordred could process what was happening, a massive, vicious fish suddenly emerged from the water.
With its jaws wide open, it swam straight toward her—intent on crushing her and her armor in a single bite.
This was an ancient divine fish summoned by the Empress for combat—a ferocious magical beast that only Semiramis, born of the Fish Goddess, could call forth.
"So damn annoying!"
Mordred's rage had already hit the limit, and she expressed her agitation through action rather than words.
Crack
With an extremely crude and savage motion, Mordred drove her steel-armored arm straight into the divine fish's skull.
Ignoring the creature's frantic struggles born of intense pain, she raised her knight's sword with her other hand and cleanly severed the fish's head.
Blood exploded everywhere, splashing across Mordred's armor. Combined with the spiked design of her gear, the rebel knight now looked less like a Heroic Spirit and more like a monster that had crawled straight out of hell.
"…Are you sure you're not a Berserker?"
Perhaps Mordred's method was simply too barbaric—this time, the Empress didn't even laugh. Her face was filled only with helpless exasperation.
Who's her mother? Why did this girl end up like this?
That thought wasn't exclusive to Semiramis.
The audience outside the screen felt much the same way.
"Arturia's kid really doesn't resemble her at all…"
Even watching from the big screen, this was the first time Shibamatsu had ever seen a girl this wildly untamed.
'Aside from the face… where exactly do Mordred and Arturia resemble each other as parent and child?'
Based on portrayals in Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero, King Arthur—Arturia—was an exceptionally elegant noble.
Of course, that elegance was measured by the standards of male nobility. By the etiquette expected of aristocratic women, Arturia still fell quite short.
That said, her masculine mannerisms were actually one of her greatest charms, so no one ever really complained.
But Mordred on the screen?
She went completely in the opposite direction.
Forget being a lady, there wasn't even a trace of knightly decorum on this rebel knight.
Even though the audience had already been introduced to Mordred's tomboyish persona earlier in the story, seeing her impale a divine fish's skull with her arm was still a bit much to process.
This kid's fighting style was really this savage?!
That sense of shock was shared by most of the audience.
As a representative of the magi-viewer demographic, Shibamatsu felt even more stunned than the average person.
Because he knew that the major Servants in Fate/Apocrypha were portrayed by the Heroic Spirits themselves, with character settings closely aligned to their real historical personalities.
Which meant—
The historical Mordred really was this much of a feral brat.
'No wonder Saber didn't want to pass the throne to her. If it were me, I wouldn't either. This kid is way too unhinged.'
Mordred's wildness genuinely scared Shibamatsu. It even gave him a vague fear that maybe he should never have kids in this lifetime.
But as he watched the flashback scenes of Morgan on the big screen, a question suddenly occurred to him.
'Come to think of it… Mordred absolutely worships King Arthur, but she doesn't treat the other Knights of the Round Table very well at all.'
That thought reminded him of another Round Table knight who had appeared in Fate/Zero—Lancelot.
'Lancelot also worshiped Arturia… and felt so guilty toward her that he even begged for her forgiveness…'
If Mordred and Lancelot were locked in the same room, would they end up fighting over who admired King Arthur more?
And if that logic were expanded to the entire Round Table—
'Wait a second… was the Battle of Camlann basically a holy war between "orthodox Arturia stans" and "twisted Arturia stans"?!'
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On the screen, Mordred was in no mood to be as relaxed as the audience.
She kicked away the already lifeless divine fish, the gaze hidden behind her helmet sharp and deadly serious.
If she weren't wearing that helmet, Mordred would've really wanted to spit straight at that true, late-night-poison-spreading hag of an Empress.
Unfortunately, Mordred could only barely block out the poisonous miasma outside thanks to her helmet. It even prevented her from comfortably hurling insults the way she liked.
'My body's starting to ache… Has the poison already seeped in?'
Her charge had grown slightly sluggish. A faint numbness crept into her legs, her steps feeling light and unsteady.
Sensing the changes in her body, Mordred tightened her grip on her knight's sword once more.
Her nerves were being eroded. If this dragged on any longer, the situation would only worsen for her.
This time, Mordred even skipped her favorite trash-talk segment, silently raising her sword instead.
She had to finish this woman quickly. The longer the fight lasted, the more disadvantageous it would become.
'If only I had my Master's support… Why can't I reach him at all?'
From the start of the battle until now, the connection between Mordred and Sisigou seemed to have been completely severed.
If she could communicate with her Master, Mordred would've made him use a Command Spell without hesitation—just to let her fire off a boosted Noble Phantasm.
Still, there was one upside to Sisigou not being on the battlefield. At least Mordred didn't have to keep worrying about her Master's safety while fighting.
The poison saturating this chamber was far too potent. Even she, a Servant, could barely endure it. If an ordinary magus like Sisigou showed up, he'd probably drop dead on the spot.
Seeing Mordred fall uncharacteristically silent, Semiramis's smile only grew brighter.
"What's wrong? Don't tell me you don't even have the strength to talk anymore. Honestly, you're not very durable at all."
"Tch, your constant yapping is annoying as hell, you poison hag who sets up a tent over a latrine just to put on airs!"
Even though she knew she should conserve her strength, Mordred simply couldn't hold it in and fired off a taunt at Semiramis anyway.
"You've made the whole room smell like death. What, did you rip a fart after eating durian or something?"
"Y-you…!"
The Empress was momentarily left speechless. To someone who prided herself on being a refined lady, Mordred's crude language was unbearably vulgar.
Even engaging in conversation with her felt beneath her dignity.
"You really do have a sharp tongue. No wonder you managed to deceive so many nobles into rebelling against the Knight King. I've decided, I'll cut off your arms and legs, burn out your throat, and keep you as a little caterpillar. Then you can writhe around to your heart's content right in front of me."
The Empress's gaze brimmed with icy malice.
"Spoken like a legendary poison witch, what wonderfully disgusting taste!"
Mordred launched her attack once again.
This time, she didn't charge straight at the Empress. Instead, she changed tactics.
A direct rush wouldn't make it in time. Those chains were far too fast— even with Mana Burst, she'd still be a beat too slow.
If that was the case, then there was only one answer.
Mordred decided to pledge her loyalty—
No, screw that!
She chose a far more aggressive, all-or-nothing approach.
If retreat wasn't an option, and stalling meant death, then the only choice left was to gamble everything!
Even so, the distance to the throne was still too great.
Ten meters.
She needed to close at least ten more meters—the minimum range required to unleash her Noble Phantasm.
"Alright! One last push—I'll split you in two!"
Mordred took a deep breath, then retracted her helmet into her armor, exposing her face to the open air.
The instant she did, her body began to convulse violently from the poison.
This wasn't a matter of holding her breath. The poison seeped in through skin contact alone.
But this level of pain wouldn't stop her advance.
Here I go!
Mordred's crimson form became a reckless scarlet bullet, charging straight toward the Empress seated upon the throne.
Nine meters.
The chains summoned by Semiramis lashed out, but Mordred easily knocked them all aside.
Six meters.
Semiramis summoned the same massive divine fish once more, only for it to be sliced into sashimi with a single sword stroke.
Three meters.
"King of Water!"
Sensing the danger, the Empress projected a shield before herself, shaped like overlapping fish scales.
Its material came from the scales of ferocious fish that swam gracefully through the most perilous primordial seas, the hardest shield Semiramis was capable of summoning.
One meter.
Mordred narrowed her eyes, rapidly calculating how much the fish-scale shield would weaken her Noble Phantasm.
Zero meters.
I'm in range!
The instant she reached her mark, Mordred poured her magical energy into the knight's sword without the slightest hesitation.
The blade that once existed to prove royal authority now resonated with the girl's hatred, transforming into a cursed sword.
Space began to warp. A deafening roar, like distant thunder, echoed throughout the chamber.
Mordred curled her lips into a grin. She had absolute confidence in her Noble Phantasm.
Back on the battlefield of Camlann Hill, it was this very sword she had wielded—sacrificing her own life to inflict a fatal wound upon her father, King Arthur.
In Mordred's worldview, there was no king stronger than her old man.
"Clarent Blood Arthur!"
Summoned by her call, crimson lightning surged forth, carrying despairing destructive power as it rushed toward the throne.
The Empress's last line of defense—the supposedly hardest fish-scale shield—was shredded like corrugated paper before the red lightning.
"I've won!!"
Mordred broke into a victorious smile.
She refused to believe that the Empress, who had chosen to defend head-on, hadn't misjudged the strength of her defense.
If the Empress had chosen to evade instead, Mordred wouldn't have been so certain of the outcome.
But instead, the Empress had decided to play the expert—imitating some pitch-black emperor, standing still like a statue, feet and backside glued firmly to the throne.
In that case, she had only herself to blame.
"Your arrogance is the reason for your defeat, you old hag!"
And yet, that certainty of victory was instantly overturned by a sudden, bone-chilling sense of dread.
Her perception flipped. What she saw became distorted, as though shrouded in fog.
'I've been poisoned? How is that possible?!'
That was the last thought that crossed Mordred's mind before she collapsed to the ground.
Her fall drew a collective gasp from the audience.
But Shinji, ever the sly director, didn't immediately reveal why Mordred had been done in. Instead, he treated her collapse as a temporary endpoint of the Red Faction's internal conflict—and cut the scene back to Jeanne's stage play.
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"If you are a saint, then why did you kill us?"
"Holding the holy banner… and yet you harm us?"
"We are not criminals, just ordinary people who happened to stand on the opposite side."
"You may be a saint, but you are only France's saint! I curse you! May you die a wretched death!"
...
All kinds of curses echoed around her ears.
Jeanne stood at the center of the battlefield, gripping her holy banner. The stench of blood assaulted her senses, her expression dark as ink.
Under the influence of that English writer's Noble Phantasm, Jeanne had just relived yet another war from her past.
The curses drifting across the battlefield were accusations hurled at her by British soldiers who should have already been dead.
Yet Jeanne had no intention of refuting them.
She was a saint—yet she fought on the battlefield.
She was a saint—yet she tacitly allowed her army to slaughter soldiers who had already surrendered.
This was "history" that Jeanne herself had lived through, but it was never a sight she wished to see again.
Jeanne had answered the Lord's call and gone to war so that her homeland could be spared from conflict. She had raised the fleur-de-lis holy banner to protect her people, to lead France's armies and drive the invaders from her land.
But were her actions truly just?
A look of confusion surfaced on Jeanne's face.
Even in life, she had struggled with the same doubts—but had forcefully suppressed them with reasons such as:
If I do not fight, these English soldiers will massacre the people of France.
The sins they committed on French soil must be repaid.
Now, however, after receiving the Holy Grail and Laeticia's gift of humanity's thousands of years of history…
After learning the full scope of Anglo-French history, both during and after her lifetime…
That confusion resurfaced once more.
And so, Jeanne quietly accepted those curses.
Because she did not believe they were wrong.
She had never truly been a saint, only an executioner whose hands were soaked in blood.
No matter how devout her faith, no matter how earnestly she prayed to the Lord each day, the sins she had committed would not simply vanish because of belief or prayer.
Jeanne's inner turmoil wasn't confined to the silver screen.
Outside the film, she too felt a faint sense of confusion about the life she had once lived.
Almost unconsciously, Jeanne's hand tightened.
Unfortunately for her, Shinji—having learned his lesson the hard way—had already anticipated her reaction and swiftly pulled his hand back.
Holding the soft hand of a blonde saint was certainly pleasant, even thrilling, but Shinji wasn't about to sacrifice his hand just for a bit of hand-holding.
"You dodged?"
'Of course I did,' Shinji thought, rolling his eyes. 'Was I supposed to just sit there and obediently lost an arm?'
"Master, I think you owe me an explanation."
Still displeased, Jeanne suddenly reached out and grabbed Shinji's hand instead, her tone tinged with emotion.
"Throughout this entire movie, you keep putting me in humiliating situations. First I get tricked by Amakusa, and now you're going straight for psychological execution. Master… you're actually my anti-fan, aren't you?"
"How could that be—"
"—Please. Tell me the truth."
Jeanne stared straight at Shinji with those crystal-clear, sky-blue eyes, clearly trying to create an interrogation-like atmosphere to force a confession.
Unfortunately for her, Shinji had far more experience with this sort of thing. Her little tactic didn't faze him in the slightest.
"Jeanne, I understand what you're getting at."
Shinji deliberately clenched his teeth, putting on the expression of someone making a painful decision.
"You think that although I made you the female lead, I've been finding ways to torment you the whole time. Is that it?"
"Obviously."
To be honest, Jeanne had already felt this way during filming, just not as strongly.
Now that she was sitting in the theater, able to clearly sense the audience's real-time reactions, the suspicion that her Master was secretly dunking on her only grew stronger.
Seeing her nod, Shinji gave a wry smile.
"You're overthinking it. This is all for the sake of the story. In adventure tales, the protagonist always starts out imperfect. They have to go through trials and suffering before they can become complete."
"The you in the story has many flaws and takes many hits, but all of that is groundwork for the perfect you at the end."
"Groundwork, like for New Orleans barbecue skewers?"
Faced with the saint's disdainful glare, Shinji hurriedly corrected himself.
"I mean a thematic elevation of your character! Jeanne, you really shouldn't be so shallow."
"I'm not shallow. I'm just unconvinced."
"Jeanne, if I really wanted to smear you, I'd deliberately use that to threaten you and demand compensation."
Shinji looked her up and down with an openly aggressive gaze.
"Yes, that kind of compensation. Physical compensation. If it came to that… would you give it, or not?"
"Master, you really are—"
Shinji's bluntness made Jeanne's face flush red in a way rarely seen.
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"But even so!"
On the big screen, Jeanne cried out loudly:
"I still firmly believe that this path leads to what is right!"
This was not the release of anger, it was the manifestation of unwavering resolve.
Jeanne was not King Arthur.
She would never regret the choices she made in life simply because she learned more after death.
At that moment in history, she had made the best decisions possible with the knowledge she possessed at the time.
Jeanne felt guilt toward the fallen soldiers.
She felt shaken by their accusations.
She felt a renewed sense of sin when forced to relive that battlefield again.
But regret—that was the one emotion she would never allow herself to have.
To regret would be to betray the soldiers and commanders who had once followed her.
To regret would be to deny the country and people she had sworn to protect.
And yet—
'If there truly is an absolutely correct path… then what is it?'
With countless emotions tangled together, Jeanne desperately sought an answer.
Was there truly a road that could bring happiness to both the people of England and France?
In life, she had stood solely from France's perspective.
But now, as a guardian of humanity, she was obligated to think from the standpoint of all mankind.
And precisely because Jeanne's "love" had grown broader, her disdain for Shakespeare only deepened.
A petty writer who stood only on England's side while condemning her—did someone like that truly deserve to be called a Heroic Spirit?
"Caster! You still have a third act, don't you?!" Jeanne shouted.
"Then start it already! Let's end this ridiculous farce as soon as possible!"
Her voice was still loud and clear, yet hesitation had crept into her tone.
Shakespeare, who had been carefully observing Jeanne all along, immediately caught that subtle shift in her emotions.
"Hahaha! Very well, very well!"
He laughed heartily, convinced that he had finally grasped the French saint's weakness.
"My play exists to question whether your life was a mistake. And if it was a mistake, whether it should have been corrected."
"A ridiculous farce, you say?"
"Then, since the Saint herself insists…"
"Let us now enter—the third act!"
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 429: Another Poor Kid Who Gets Sold and Still Says Thanks[1]
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