"Hey, long time no see!" a cheerful voice called. "I'm just your everyday Lancer, popping up everywhere. Sounds like things are getting wild in other Chaldeas. You guys too? …Oh, sorry, that's probably my hometown buddy's fault. Let me apologize on his behalf. What? Fix it? Haha!"
"Just give up," he said with a bright smile.
"Anyway, I'm here to share one thing," Lancer continued. "A tidbit from my friend's sharp insight."
"What happens if you let him ramble freely?" he asked. "Don't know?"
"It'd make the Pee King irrelevant," he grinned.
"Okay, one, two, one, two!" Marie counted.
"Spats and a tank top? You're prepared," Jeanne d'Arc Alter said, impressed.
"Now, turn! Spin gracefully~" Marie instructed.
"Spin gracefully…" Jeanne echoed, trying.
"Sparkle, sparkle, shine bright!" Marie cheered.
"No way I'm sparkling!" Jeanne protested.
"Well… dancing makes everyone shine, doesn't it?" Marie said gently.
"Shining's not that kind of literal glow!" Jeanne groaned.
"One more time! One, two, one, two!" Marie called.
"No questions allowed?!" Jeanne yelped. "This is why royalty's so…!"
"Here's some mapo tofu as a snack!" someone announced.
"Nnnnnnngh!!" Jeanne recoiled.
"Master punched out a Servant?! For real?!" Cú Chulainn whooped. "As her senior, I'm proud as hell!"
"Magnificent… a modern Hippolyta reborn…" someone mused.
"They're calling her a female Heracles," another added.
"What?! No way!" Cú exclaimed. "That's bad news, Master! Don't get tangled with Hera!"
"That's your issue?!" Rikka laughed. "But compared to Marie, my strikes are meh… Guess I stepped up! …Wait, Sensei?"
"We must restore her girl power at once…" a voice muttered gravely.
Grand Servants and the Ultimate Evil
"Everyone's here? Good," Andersen said, pushing up his glasses in the apartment's lounge. "Time to indulge in some pointless talk."
"What, the fairy tale writer's got a hot story?" the King teased. "Didn't know you had a sense of humor."
"I need you for fact-checking, Gilgamesh," Andersen replied. "With an all-knowing insider, I'd be a fool not to use you."
"Oh?" the King said, intrigued. "Fine, I allow it. Speak. If it's interesting, I'll grade it."
"Don't get it wrong, Gilgamesh," Andersen warned.
"What were you doing on that boys' trip?" Mordred cut in. "All dudes? Kinda stuffy, huh?"
"We're all girls here, Mordred," Rikka shot back.
"…Special exception!" Mordred barked. "Only you get to treat me like a girl, gender-Rikka!"
"Guhhh!" Rikka crumpled, struck by the verbal blow.
"You're always getting wrecked, Master," the King chuckled.
"It stings…" Rikka groaned. "But it's fine! The worst would be not caring about being called gender-Rikka!"
I find it charming… Why's Master so worried about it?
"Forget Female Heracles," Andersen said, steering the conversation. "I looked into the Holy Grail War in the Far East—its system."
His clear, resonant voice silenced the room, everyone listening intently.
"Seven Servants summoned to fight for one Holy Grail, battling it out… That's the Holy Grail War, right, backstage guy?" Andersen asked.
"Right," Romani replied. "The Holy Grail, a wish-granting device, summons seven Servants. Seven mages, their Masters, fight for it. That's the Fuyuki Holy Grail War."
"Pretty detailed, Romani," Rikka noted.
"Just did some research!" he protested.
"Holy Grail War, huh…" Rikka mused. "I'd love to summon Mash and Gil and go all out."
"That's against the rules, Senpai," Mash said.
"Rules are meant to be broken," the King said. "My old Master was like that. The next one was… odd, shielding me at her own expense. Got sent to the dojo too many times."
Dojo?
"The one I joined had seven Servants against seven others," Cú said. "A one-on-one setup sounds simpler."
"You had zero teamwork," Artoria quipped. "This format suits you better."
"Yeah, but you could say it nicer!" Cú grumbled.
"Enough tangents," Andersen said. "Is that right, Gilgamesh?"
"Hm, that's the general understanding," the King confirmed, sipping wine. "For clarity, from the mages' perspective, only one claims the wish. One speaks their desire to the Greater Grail, sacrificing six Masters and seven Servants to activate it. Got that? Seven Servants."
"Wait, doesn't that include your own Servant?" Rikka asked.
"Exactly," the King said. "Mages aim to pierce the world, reaching the Root. To achieve omnipotence, the Grail needs fuel. Think: seven Servants, seven Masters. Where's the fuel?"
…No way…
"The souls of all seven Servants, including your own…?" Olga Marie whispered.
"Precisely," the King said. "Servants are lured as bait for the wish-granting vessel, unaware they're sacrifices. A laughably pathetic ritual."
"Defeat six Masters and Servants, then use your own as the final fuel to complete the Greater Grail and reach the Root…"
"Kill your own Servant?!" Rikka gasped. "How?!"
"That mark on your hand," the King said. "Command Seals make Servants obey. They're just familiars, after all. The plan's trivial, but whoever devised the Holy Grail War was a divine genius."
That's… the Holy Grail War's truth.
The Hero King's experience let him see through it instantly. Incredible. He's truly 'the one who saw all,' piercing hidden truths!
"The Third Magic, 'Heaven's Feel'…" the King mused. "I'm filled with the world's entirety, so I care little for external matters."
"…Mages are monsters," Rikka said, clenching her fist. "Treating heroes who lend their strength like that…!"
Her human sensibilities couldn't accept sacrifice.
I admire that humanity. Don't lose it, Master.
"So, the Heroic Spirit summoning in the Holy Grail War is a degraded, 'lesser' version crafted by humans," Andersen concluded.
"Oh? Sounds like you've dug deeper," the King said, intrigued.
The deepest truth of the Holy Grail War and Heroic Spirit summoning…?
"I'm certain now, thanks to your facts," Andersen said.
"Go on, then," the King urged, swirling his glass. "Make it a fine appetizer."
"Of course," Andersen said. "I pored over the Mage's Association's records, chasing that anomaly. A ritual summoning seven heroes for one Grail… As Gilgamesh said, the well-known version is a scaled-down, 'lesser' one for human use."
"We're lesser?!" Mordred snapped. "As Heroic Spirits, we're top-tier, right?!"
"Being controlled by humans makes us smaller-scale," Andersen explained. "We Servants are low-cost replicas of the original ritual's Heroic Spirits."
"…Unexpected," Mash said. "My contract's different, so I hadn't thought much about it…"
Everyone here… lesser Heroic Spirits?
"Don't misunderstand," Andersen clarified. "It's about the Spirit Origin, not the hero's worth. And there lies the truth."
The King narrowed his eyes, urging him on.
"The true Heroic Spirit summoning is a 'world'-conducted final battle ritual," Andersen continued. "To counter a singular 'something' ensuring ruin, the world summons humanity's strongest seven. That's the original 'Heroic Spirit summoning.' A massive Spirit Origin granted by the world to save humanity—the archetype of Fuyuki's Holy Grail War."
"Seven to save the world…" Arthur murmured, absorbing the words.
"That's, like, the ultimate seven-man team!" Rikka exclaimed. "The coolest seven ever!"
"Seven classes, right?" Mash asked. "Saber to Berserker?"
"Exactly," Andersen confirmed. "Those seven classes, granted absolute privilege to save the world, are the basis for the vessels we're given in the Holy Grail War."
"Well done," the King praised. "Your insight's no fluke, fairy tale writer."
"It's what writers do—dig deep," Andersen said. "Is that correct, Gilgamesh?"
"Mostly," the King replied, downing his wine. "I don't care about summoning mechanics. Vessel or ritual, the equation of me versus the rabble never wavers. But since you touched a sliver of the world's truth, I'll grace you with what you missed."
The King spoke, revealing the truth of Heroic Spirit summoning.
"Against 'one' enemy, seven Heroic Spirits fight in a final battle ritual," he said. "They have a title, a name. I'll share it now."
"For real?!" Mordred blurted. "You know it, Goldie?!"
"Naturally," the King said. "The seven trump cards to save the world, ultimate hopes against ruin. The strongest seven, shaped by the world to slay its own 'evil'—named 'Grand.' The pinnacle of each class, the world's final pieces. Those are the Grand Servants."
Grand Servants… the mightiest seven, willed by the world itself…
"So cool!!" Rikka shouted.
"Senpai?!" Mash gasped.
"That's the ultimate Servants, right?!" Rikka said. "Grand Saber's Artoria, Grand Archer's Gil, Grand Lancer's Bro…"
"Hold it!" Mordred interrupted. "Grand Saber's me, right?!"
"Stand down, Mordred," Artoria said. "No Saber surpasses me. If the world summons the ultimate Saber, it's only logical it's me."
"I'm too splendid for Grand status," the King scoffed. "Serve the world? Never. …Though I qualify for Grand Caster."
Of course! The Hero King had to be among them!
He's incredible!
"Caster?!" Rikka exclaimed. "You?!"
"Fuhahahaha!" the King laughed. "Unfitting, I know! I'd refuse it outright!"
"Merlin probably qualifies too…" Romani muttered. "He's a jerk, but his skill's undeniable…"
(The worse they are, the stronger. Sad truth.)
Fou…!
(So, what's the enemy those seven tackle? Let's hear it.)
"The Grand Servants are clear," Andersen said. "Now, what they unite to destroy…"
"I know," the King interrupted, pouring more wine. "I'm irked letting anyone but me explain this grandly. I'll tell you first."
He spoke of the Heroic Spirit summoning's truth.
"The 'evil' the seven Grands destroy is humanity's stain," he said. "The dregs amassed in human history, inseparable as long as humanity exists. Like wisdom humanity can't discard, it's a 'cancer' they can't shed."
An evil inseparable from humanity's existence…?
"Its name: 'Beast,'" the King continued. "Growing stronger with humanity's history, a self-destructive mechanism eating humanity from within. Not an evil that destroys humanity, but one humanity creates—the final I to VII. The seven great calamities are the enemies the Grand Servants are summoned to defeat."
Beasts… evils born of the world, inseparable from humanity…
"Sounds intense," Rikka said, unfazed.
"Like kaiju or something? Super bad news…" Mordred muttered.
"Coming from beyond, devouring all…" Arthur whispered.
"Got a lead, Arthur?" the King asked.
"I… feel like I'm remembering something," Arthur replied.
"Wait, is that safe to say?!" Romani panicked.
"No matter," the King said. "It's just bar talk. Take it or leave it."
"You wouldn't lie," Andersen said. "I meant to fact-check, but you taught me the core instead."
"What I shared is surface-level," the King replied. "The Beasts' true nature? Find it yourselves."
(Hmph. He's dodging the crux.)
Fou?
(Nothing. You'll understand someday, I'm sure.)
Fou's expression was unusually stern.
What's wrong…?
"Bet it's huge, like Godzilla!" Rikka exclaimed.
"Could be giants!" Mordred added. "Like those in Britain!"
"Such a colossal evil would make a gripping tale!" Shakespeare said.
"A tragedy, no doubt," the King muttered, standing.
"I've said too much," he said. "I'm off to bed. You'll be slaving away tomorrow, right? Rest up."
"Okay!" Rikka chirped.
"Fuh," the King smirked. "The far-seers must be scrambling. But I don't care for your worries. I act as I please! Fuhahahaha!"
The all-knowing King laughed, retreating to his room.
"Aaaa—(I'm expected to step up…)"
"Aaaa—(Alright, Mama's getting serious!)"
"Stay, Tiamat, stay!" Fou barked.
"Saber! Oh, my Saber!" a voice cried.
"Know my deeds, the truth of my birth!!" another proclaimed.
"Your lines got cut hard, man. Your smug face too," someone teased.
"OOOOHHHH!!" a roar echoed.
"Oh… innocent soul!" another gushed. "I can't hold back! I must teach our heroic princess a Zepa-whatever-style mesuiki! She'll be no mere hero princess but a heroic fem-princess—!"
"No way… this is cruel…" a voice whimpered. "Too much… don't abandon me… I didn't do anything wrong…"
"Burning the world and ruining a life, yet claiming innocence? That's a stretch," another said. "Self-inflicted, Manaka. Lesson learned."
"I'll murder you, harlot!! Don't touch my princess!!" a voice raged.
"Step aside, Fou! I'm the perfect therapist…!" another declared.
"Expose your corpse to ruin—!!"
"Aaaa!! (Nooo, Grand Assassin—!!)"
"We did it! A Grand's here!" someone cheered.
"I'm here too!" another announced. "Grand Caster Merlin! The heroic princess's future is mine—"
"Merlin, you—!!"
"Gahhh!! It's not fair, Caspar, getting all the hugs—!!"
"Come quick, pierce me, Saber! Saber!"
"Don't abandon me, Kiarasama…"
"Who?" someone asked.
"(Even as a Demon King!) I've lost my mind—!!"
-------------------------------
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