Past
Ereshkigal looked at the girl holding her hand in front of her, a stormy sea raging in her heart.
Just a moment ago, she had said to her, 'Do you want to go together? When the world is destroyed, let's go to that gloomy castle and rescue the imprisoned Princess...'
To be sure, Ereshkigal knew that she was saying this to Ishtar, but the Princess she mentioned was herself!!!
Her face instantly turned completely red. "P-Princess or whatever..."
"It's just a metaphor," Xia Yu waved her hand carelessly. "So what do you think, do you want to join forces?"
"I... I'll think about it," Ereshkigal didn't dare to agree, only able to flusterly pull her hand out of Xia Yu's grasp.
"Um, I have something to do right now, you eat by yourself!"
After saying that, she hastily fled out of the temple in a panic.
Seeing this, Xia Yu smiled to herself.
How should she put it? As expected of sisters, the first thing they thought of after getting shy was to escape.
These sisters were really fun.
On the other side, because it was getting late, the group from Chaldea had no choice but to camp in the forest.
"Alright, let's reintroduce ourselves," Merlin said with a smiling face by the campfire. "I am Merlin, and this young girl is Anna."
He turned his head to look at Anna and said, "She is a Servant. I hope you won't treat me as a stranger; just call me big brother Merlin."
"What about Anna? How would you like to be called?"
"It doesn't matter," Anna said with a face full of indifference. "Just call me Anna."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Just then, Chaldea's communications finally connected. "Did you say you are Merlin?!"
The Doctor on the other end appeared extremely agitated. "The great Magus of the island of Britain, a half-blood of a Nightzmare and Human, who crowned that Artoria Pendragon as King, the court Magus, one of the world's premier king-makers and the ultimate piece of trash?"
Hearing this, Anna, who was standing to the side, couldn't help but nod in agreement.
"And he's a Servant too?" The Doctor looked completely unable to accept it. "Even though he's a Grand Class Magus who won't die until the end of the world!"
Even Mash was startled by his continuous string of agitated words.
"Doctor..."
"He said a lot in one breath..." Fujimaru Ritsuka gave an awkward smile.
"Hahahaha, an expected introduction," Merlin came up to Fujimaru Ritsuka with a smile, reached out to pat her bracelet, and said to everyone at Chaldea, "Thank you very much, Romani Archaman."
He said meaningfully, "However, I actually only have the qualifications of a Grand Class. In essence, I am just an ordinary Magus."
"That's impossible!" As soon as his voice fell, the Doctor's sharp shrieks came through the bracelet.
The innocent Mash gave an apologetic smile to Merlin and Anna. She didn't know why the Doctor had lost his composure so much today.
Meanwhile, Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at her bracelet, deep in thought.
"You liar!" The Doctor acted very agitated. "If you're the real deal, reveal your true body!"
"Why is the Doctor so agitated?" Fujimaru Ritsuka asked, narrowing her eyes.
In the past, she had never doubted the Doctor, but after Miss Firefly's hints, she finally realized that the Doctor had a huge secret behind him...
"I'm afraid it contradicts Merlin's legend," Mash, who didn't overthink things as much, explained from the side. "The Magus Merlin built a tower in the utopia Avalon. He cannot die there, forever watching over this world."
"Therefore..."
"Living people cannot become Heroic Spirits?" Hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka rubbed her chin and said, "Is that really the case?"
Wasn't Miss Firefly also a living person? And during that Holy Grail War in Fuyuki... Miss Tohsaka Rin's Servant was even the future of Emiya Shirou.
"Under normal circumstances, that is indeed true," the Doctor said upon hearing this. "What you encountered was a special case; you can't generalize it! Besides, Miss Firefly... who is she? Breaking a few conventions is perfectly normal for her."
"Furthermore, this guy Merlin is absolutely useless in combat! Maguses possessing Grand Class qualifications all possess outstanding Clairvoyance."
The Doctor started talking eloquently, while Da Vinci-chan was right behind him, holding a coffee cup and giving him a side-eye.
"For example, King Solomon possesses eyes that can see through the past and future, and King Gilgamesh possesses eyes that can see into the future, but that piece of trash over there is the absolute worst!"
Even being disparaged like this, the smile on Merlin's face didn't diminish at all.
"Although he possesses eyes that can view the present, basically all he can do is look. It's just very convenient..."
"Uh... that's already amazing enough, isn't it?" Fujimaru Ritsuka said thoughtfully. "Viewing the entire present, what a great way to gather intelligence."
A thud could be heard from the other end of the comms.
"Excuse me for interjecting," Da Vinci-chan took over the conversation. "Merlin, first of all, I'd like to express our gratitude. Thank you for saving them in a moment of crisis."
The reliable Da Vinci-chan has appeared!
"It's nothing," Merlin still maintained his breezy attitude. "It was just a little bit of service."
"It's just that it's truly strange that you were able to manifest as a Heroic Spirit," Da Vinci-chan continued to ask.
"You should still be in Avalon right now, right?"
"To prevent any unnecessary suspicions, I might as well confess," Merlin said with a smile. "This Singularity is in an era before I was even born. In other words, my physical body does not exist here."
Mash's eyes lit up upon hearing this. "Does not exist... does that mean it can be defined as dead?"
"Did you exploit this point to become a Servant?"
"That's roughly the case," Merlin said with a smile. "Of course, it's also thanks to the summons of a powerful summoner."
"There's actually another Master in this era?" Mash asked curiously upon hearing this.
"Yes, of course there is," Merlin replied, holding his long staff while sitting by the campfire. "I was summoned by that man to serve him as a court Magus."
"As for Anna, she was summoned under the influence of the Holy Grail."
"She is a stray Servant without a Master."
"I met Merlin two days ago," Anna replied indifferently. "To achieve our respective goals, we forged a contract of cooperation."
"And then, I was deceived."
"Huh?" Hearing this, Mash and Fujimaru Ritsuka couldn't help but look at Anna.
The latter was currently giving Merlin a side-eye. "To put it conservatively, this Magus Merlin is the embodiment of all the dishonesty in the world!"
"Hehe, don't be like that," Merlin said with an embarrassed expression. "Why state the facts so bluntly?"
"Give it up, Romani," hearing this, Da Vinci-chan patted the Doctor's shoulder. "This Merlin is the real deal."
"Compared to that, I'm actually quite curious about what you meant earlier by 'special case'," Merlin asked with a smile upon hearing this. "Is there someone else like me?"
"This..." Hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mash looked at each other, then replied, "Not too long ago, Chaldea discovered a strange Singularity."
"No, rather than a Singularity, it would be better to call it a Parallel World," the Doctor added.
"There, we encountered the most powerful enemy we've faced to date!"
"Oh, is that so," Merlin touched his chin upon hearing this.
In truth, he had been constantly watching Fujimaru Ritsuka's journey to save the world through his selves in various eras. No Singularity lacked his gaze.
Only that one time, the world-saving duo in front of him completely vanished from his Clairvoyance.
"What an extraordinary adventure," Merlin smiled and said. "May I ask what kind of enemy it was?"
"Uh, as a Grand Class Magus, you should know about the Evils of Humanity, right?" Fujimaru Ritsuka asked tentatively.
"The Evils of Humanity?" Hearing this, Merlin instantly perked up. How could he not know? Right now, his main body as a Servant was actually above the Persian Gulf, maintaining Tiamat's Dreamscape.
If he let go, the Beast possessing the principle of Regression would immediately awaken and destroy this Singularity.
"Of course I know! Could it be that your mission that time was related to the Evils of Humanity?"
"Yeah, something went wrong with a Holy Grail War. Someone previously summoned Angra Mainyu of Zoroastrianism, the evil side of Zoroastrian dualism. His existence represents all the evils of humanity."
"Wait, can a chief god of that level be summoned through a Holy Grail War?" Merlin couldn't help but ask.
"Because what was summoned wasn't that evil god, but rather a young boy from an ignorant mountain village who was given the name Angra Mainyu, and whom everyone blamed for their everyday evil deeds."
"That boy was very weak and was eliminated on the first night. However, the All the World's Evil he represented contaminated the Holy Grail because of it, resulting in more and more malice accumulating inside as time passed."
Fujimaru Ritsuka recalled, "By the time we went to the Fifth Holy Grail War, that malice had already begun to erode reality, attempting to be born into the world."
"A Beast representing the Evils of Humanity," hearing this, Merlin's expression turned grave. "No matter where it appears, it will inevitably be a massive catastrophe. But based on what you're saying, when you arrived, it hadn't been born yet?"
"Yes," Fujimaru Ritsuka nodded. "Originally, we had a chance to stop it..."
"In other words, you ultimately failed to stop it?" Hearing this, Merlin suddenly started to look happy.
They failed to stop the birth of a Beast, yet they were still sitting perfectly fine in front of him. This meant they had already overcome such a hardship. That would make it much easier to deal with Tiamat and that Kiana whose motives were unknown next.
"It's because of Miss Firefly, which is the special case you just asked about, Merlin," Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed. "She repelled the alliance of Heroic Spirits with overwhelming strength, allowing the Beast to be born."
"Overwhelming strength?" Merlin was a little curious. "How strong?"
"Among the participants in that battle was King Arthur, whom you once served," the Doctor answered upon hearing this. "There was also Ireland's Child of Light, an assassin from the Old Man of the Mountain's order, a witch from Ancient Greece..."
"Quite a luxurious lineup," Merlin rubbed his chin upon hearing this and asked, "Then what is the background of this Miss Firefly?"
"She comes from the future," Fujimaru Ritsuka spread her hands. "From a future an unknown number of tens of thousands of years after humans have set foot in the starry sky."
"Born as the decisive weapon of an Interstellar Empire, her strength naturally goes without saying."
Fujimaru Ritsuka's eyes were full of light when she spoke of that battle.
"That Evil of Humanity was resolved by Miss Firefly alone! As a Beast representing human evil deeds, as long as there are people committing evil on Earth, it will never perish. You can see how troublesome it is."
"But after the Beast was born, it was directly blasted into outer space by Miss Firefly, and then beaten to death in a place far from Human Civilization."
"We didn't even help in the slightest. She finished the battle in less than ten minutes."
Hearing this, Merlin fell silent.
A Beast... If it were anywhere else, they would need to send at least one Grand Class to deal with it, and it would be an incredibly arduous fight at that.
But in their account, that lady named Firefly, alone with a sword, hacked to death that Beast—which would have been troublesome for anyone else—in less than ten minutes.
A Beast representing the Evils of Humanity; as long as evil deeds existed in the world, it would never perish... Anyone looking at this mechanism would shake their head.
As it turned out, she possessed true strength. Since it couldn't be killed on Earth, she just sent it straight to outer space, far away from humanity... It was so simple and crude, but something an ordinary person fundamentally couldn't achieve.
"Um, since this Miss Firefly is so special, do you have a way to contact her?" Thinking of this, and then considering the situation Uruk was currently facing, Merlin's eyes lit up.
"To tell you the truth, the current situation in Uruk is quite bad. The Three Goddess Alliance is pressing hard at every step, and there are unknown entities casting inexplicable gazes from the shadows..."
"We are truly out of options!"
"But... we can't contact Miss Firefly either," hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka helplessly shrugged. "The reason she participated in the Holy Grail War was because she needed The Third Magic to cure her illness."
"God knows where she is now, and even if we knew, it's hard to say whether she would have the time."
"Sigh, it was a lack of consideration on my part," Merlin shook his head regretfully upon hearing this. "It's mainly because of Uruk's current situation... sigh."
"Um, Merlin," Fujimaru Ritsuka asked curiously, "Is the situation in Uruk really that bad?"
"Just a few days ago, we almost lost a Heroic Spirit comrade fighting alongside us," Merlin shook his head. "And up until now, the entirety of Uruk only has five Heroic Spirits, and that's even counting Anna."
"But what we have to face are the Eleven Demonic Beasts from Mesopotamia legends, the offspring of Tiamat. Each of them possesses the strength to fight a Servant head-on."
"Coupled with an endless stream of ordinary Demonic Beasts, Uruk's combat power is already stretched to its limits."
There was also Kiana, whose goals remained unknown. Merlin and Gilgamesh's Clairvoyance fundamentally couldn't see anything regarding her situation, so they also had to be on guard against her.
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T/N: If you spot mistranslation, do tell me.
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Shilling time!
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