Deep beneath the Matou estate—so far down that no detector could ever find it—was the place where Ritsuka now worked.
Inside a damp, lightless insect den, the boy's figure moved constantly, never pausing for even a breath.
He didn't even have time to feel happy about the "old worm" getting humiliated. The moment he'd recovered a little stamina and mana, Ritsuka immediately returned to the deepest reaches of the Matou mansion and began stripping the place clean—gathering every last magical asset he could, making final preparations for the coming Holy Grail War.
"Veil-wing beetle—useful. Take it."
"Gold-eating bugs… blade-wing insects… these two can still be put to work. Take them."
"And this is… the spirit-devouring bugs that old worm painstakingly raised?"
He glanced at a strange, writhing swarm below and started calculating like a miser.
"Perfect as fuel to feed mana. Take all of them."
"This, this, and this…"
Anything that might be useful—take it. No need to conserve. This was his last all-in bet.
If he lost, it would be death, plain and simple. There was no reason to spare a thought for this rotten family.
If anything, even if he died, he wanted to drag the Matou line down into hell with him—at least then he'd have done the world a final good deed.
Under the dim yellow lamplight, Ritsuka's hands moved faster and faster as he "fished" for familiars and stored them away. The high-grade stock Zouken had cultivated so carefully visibly dwindled by the minute.
Rustle…
A moment of inattention, and a few peculiar insect familiars tried to slip away from his grasp. In the next instant, Ritsuka caught them with practiced ease and shoved them into a storage pouch he carried on his person.
Whether he would actually need every single insect later didn't matter.
Pack them first.
Leaving them here unused was wasteful—and leaving them for Matou Zouken was worse than wasteful. That was planting landmines under his own feet.
Even if he had to haul them out and burn them as mana fuel, he wasn't leaving anything behind for that old monster.
They were destined to fight eventually. If he got careless now, he'd be the one bleeding later.
Zouken wasn't dead yet—but after Morgan had beaten one of his insect bodies into paste, he probably wouldn't dare come back anytime soon.
So Ritsuka's looting proceeded without a hint of resistance.
A true "zero-yen shopping spree."
While thinking that, Ritsuka found another batch of interesting little creatures below.
"Fireburst ants."
Those were useful too. Later, he could quietly send them out and blow up the Tohsaka estate—deliver a terrorist's "surprise gift" to the head of the Tohsaka household.
Click-clack, click-clack…
Just as Ritsuka was mapping out how each bug could be deployed, a crisp sound came from behind him.
It sounded like heels scraping and tapping against the ground.
The noise was so distinct—and there were no other women in the Matou household—that Ritsuka didn't even need to think to know who it was.
He turned back, mildly surprised.
Sure enough, Morgan stood not far away, her exquisite face openly written with disgust for the surroundings. The revulsion in her eyes was nearly overflowing.
Yesterday, when she crushed one of Zouken's insect bodies, she'd already been able to guess what the Matou workshop would look like.
But actually stepping into the core of it with Ritsuka?
Even for her, it was still unbearable.
What era's magus would turn their workshop into this? If she hadn't known better, she might've believed she'd fallen into some legendary worm-hell.
Remembering yesterday's scene, Ritsuka couldn't help feeling a chill of lingering fear.
He'd almost "gone bankrupt."
When they returned together and Morgan saw the place, her emotions detonated. If Ritsuka hadn't grabbed her hand at the last second, she might've unleashed a few Age of Gods-scale spells and turned the entire Matou estate into a natural gas explosion.
After a long stretch of persuasion, Morgan had finally left the area with a look of intense discomfort—planning to rest in Ritsuka's room while waiting for him.
But before she left, she'd seized his arm with a grave expression and warned him in an unusually stern tone:
"Ritsuka. For the sake of magecraft, I can accept you using insects in battle."
"But remember this."
"No matter what happens, you must never become an insect—like that disgusting old monster did."
Ritsuka didn't fully understand why she was so intense about it, but he didn't argue.
Because if the alternative was ending up as a creature like Zouken, he would rather die.
Only after Ritsuka repeated his promise did Morgan seem to relax—just a little.
Still, what surprised him today was that Morgan—who hated insects so much—had voluntarily entered the den again.
Ritsuka's body tensed. He was genuinely afraid that if Morgan's mood slipped even slightly, she'd drop an ancient taboo curse and erase his entire "magical asset inventory" in one blast.
"Uh… didn't we agree you'd wait outside?" he asked carefully. "You almost demolished this place yesterday, Your Majesty."
Driven by the instinct to protect his precious loot, Ritsuka spoke first.
Morgan frowned, recalling that miserable memory, and answered with pure disdain:
"Who would've guessed your workshop was a hell like this?"
"Turning an insect nest into a workshop… in my era, this would've been burned down as an ominous plague site."
"Sorry," Ritsuka scratched his head, looking a little helpless. "The Matou magecraft was warped beyond recognition by that old worm."
Then he added—unable to resist:
"But I didn't expect the Witch of the Isle, Morgan le Fay herself… to be scared of bugs."
He vaguely remembered something about Morgan not being great with caterpillars—Oberon included—but yesterday he'd been too rushed and had forgotten. That near-disaster was the result.
Still, with Morgan here, Ritsuka quickly packed up the bugs he'd selected, snapped his fingers, and ordered the swarms below to hide.
In the next second, the insects in the pools surged like they'd received a command, burrowing into corners and cracks.
The moment that dense black mass rippled, Morgan's brows knit hard. She suddenly regretted coming in at all.
To be fair, Ritsuka's method worked: the scene was terrifying at first, but the insects vanished quickly. She still knew the floor and walls were probably full of bugs, but out of sight was out of mind—and her discomfort eased a little.
Morgan didn't deny his tease.
It wasn't fear, exactly—more an instinctive revulsion toward ugly crawling things. One careless moment and she might reflexively vaporize everything with a wide-area spell.
But she hadn't come here just because of insects.
She had something else she wanted to ask.
"By the way…" Morgan said, looking at him directly, her expression suddenly serious. "What is your wish, Master?"
"My wish…" Ritsuka hesitated for a beat.
But he didn't hide it. Calmly, frankly, he gave the answer that lived deepest in his chest:
"If I say it, you might laugh at me, Your Majesty."
"But if I had to put it into words…"
"I want freedom."
He lowered his gaze to his own palm and continued.
"For a long time, the only thing that kept me going was the idea that one day I'd kill that old worm—revenge. That was my reason to survive."
"But what I truly crave… has always been real freedom."
"Freedom?" Morgan repeated, studying him, thoughtful.
"Yes." Ritsuka nodded.
"Like you, Your Majesty—at the beginning, I was afraid of these insects too. I wanted to run."
"But what does fear matter? Under fate's control, I had no choice but to accept reality and endure it… waiting for a chance."
"If I keep going—then what I truly want is—"
"To defy fate."
"Defy fate…" Morgan echoed softly.
She didn't answer immediately. She lowered her head and thought for a long moment. Those lake-deep eyes rippled faintly—moved, perhaps—but still unreadable.
After a while, she exhaled slowly, and the emotion in her gaze subtly shifted.
Ritsuka still couldn't tell what she was thinking, but he took the opening to ask something he wanted to know.
"Then what about you, Your Majesty?" he asked. "What is your wish?"
"My wish…" Morgan narrowed her eyes.
"If it were the me of the past, I would've said without hesitation: 'Return to the past and take revenge on those who betrayed me,' or 'Prove to my foolish little sister that I was superior.'"
"But now…"
"My wish is, without question, to break a fate that disgusts me."
"I see…" Ritsuka murmured.
He fell silent.
He didn't pry further. With someone like Morgan, he had no intention of forcing closeness or cultivating feelings that didn't belong here—and he certainly didn't want to overestimate his own importance.
Those tactics were child's play to a witch of her caliber.
He wasn't arrogant enough to think his shallow life experience could outmaneuver her, or that romantic fantasies would mean anything. With Morgan, all he could do was trust her and cooperate.
As long as they both had wishes—and could fight side by side to win the Grail—that was enough.
Morgan clearly noticed the deliberate distance he kept, that careful sense of boundaries.
She didn't push.
Instead, she turned the conversation practical:
"Right. I drove away the old monster you hate. He likely won't return for a while."
"So what's your plan for the Grail War, Master?"
"My plan?" Ritsuka blinked, unexpectedly flustered.
He hadn't expected a great witch from the Age of Gods to ask the thoughts of someone as small as him.
But since she asked, he answered seriously—laying out the rough strategy he'd already formed:
"As the magecraft faction—the 'Group C'—we're weaker in direct confrontations."
"Your Class is Caster. And while I'm confident I can handle most Masters using my Mystic Eyes and familiars… I'm still not on the level of ancient heroes."
"So I think our approach should be to play to our strengths and avoid our weaknesses."
"Harass. Accumulate. Enter later, slowly build advantage—then take the win."
"That's a solid analysis," Morgan said, nodding in satisfaction. "Your strategic eye is quite good, Master."
Then she covered part of her face with one hand and added bluntly:
"So by your logic, our top priority is establishing a workshop, yes?"
"That's correct."
"But let's be clear: I can build a workshop… but I will not build it in a place where the floor is hiding countless insects."
Her eyes swept the nauseating environment, disgust undisguised. If Ritsuka weren't here, she'd likely have annihilated it on principle.
Ritsuka understood—so he didn't force the issue.
"Then where do you think is best, Your Majesty?"
He also couldn't help noticing: Morgan felt… different from what he expected.
Still proud, still dangerous—yes—but strangely easier to deal with than the "evil consort" of legends.
He'd been prepared to treat her the way Tokiomi treated Gilgamesh—play the loyal retainer for a while, trade sincerity for instruction and support.
But so far, it wasn't as grim as he'd imagined.
Maybe the "history books" in the Nasuverse really did lie.
Maybe even the infamous witch wasn't as terrifying as the stories claimed.
"Of course we build it atop a new leyline," Morgan answered immediately, without hesitation.
"A proper workshop needs a powerful mana source."
"So we select a place rich in magical energy—ideally a leyline node."
"The Matou estate is a branch with decent mana, but I dislike it. So we choose elsewhere."
"Do you have a recommended location?"
"I do." Ritsuka thought briefly, then pointed out several directions in the air as if mapping the city.
"Fuyuki's leylines are plentiful, but most key points are already occupied—by the Tohsaka, the Matou, and the Church."
"If those are excluded, we're left with two: the city center's sports arena, and Mt. Enzō—where I summoned you."
"Both are leyline nodes," he explained. "But the arena is downtown—high foot traffic, expensive land, nobody's taken it."
"Mt. Enzō is remote, and it's been 'owned' since ancient times."
"Which do you think is better, Your Majesty?"
Morgan glanced at him, speaking as if the answer were obvious:
"Do you really need to ask?"
"Any magus with a functioning brain would know which one to pick."
"Yeah," Ritsuka nodded. "So the final answer is Ryūdō Temple."
He understood her point immediately.
And by common sense, strategic planning in a Grail War was the Master's responsibility. That was one of the few areas where a Master could truly matter.
As for things like "punching the King of Heroes head-on" or "ripping Servants apart barehanded"—that was just cheating. Ritsuka wasn't delusional enough to compare himself to that.
"Good." Ritsuka straightened. "If we've decided, then we move immediately."
"Let's win this Grail War together—break that so-called fate with our own hands."
"Wait, Master." Morgan suddenly stopped him.
Ritsuka turned back. "What is it, Your Majesty?"
"It's nothing big." Morgan narrowed her eyes, studying him.
"I can make the workshop—but building a workshop requires one very important thing first."
"Something important?" Ritsuka's expression hardened instantly.
"Is it difficult?"
"No." Morgan blinked lightly, and her tone turned brisk—almost practiced.
"In fact, it's very simple."
She extended her pale hand, palm up, as if issuing a royal decree:
"Give me money. Now."
"…Huh?"
Join here to read ahead.
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