The stench was almost unbearable.
"Destroy this place, Ruler."
"Okay."
For the Caster class, the workshop and the lair were uniquely important—most Casters weren't the frontline-combat type, after all.
Which was why, even while he was out, Caster had stationed a considerable number of sea-demons here on guard. An ordinary Servant would have had a real fight on their hands.
Compared to Armament Haki and Supreme King Haki infusion, the Prana Burst she'd converted that energy into was, if anything, more destructive. One sweep of the long spear and the entire sewer was fated to collapse.
"Some are still alive."
Yimi crouched, staring at the child on the ground—roughly her own apparent age—and went briefly still.
Before the sewer was wrecked, the place had looked almost like a general store.
Furniture, clothing, instruments, tableware. And every single item had been pieced together from human bodies. The most arresting were the several heads tied together in a cluster...
None of this tragedy had befallen adults.
The few surviving children near Yimi's hand had vacant eyes and could only make small "mm, mm" noises. Perhaps they were trying to move, but with their limbs—and in some cases their tongues and eyes—already gone, it was impossible to tell.
Other little kittens who, like her, had only just become big-big cats had been treated like this.
"Throw up if you need to, Fujimaru." El-Melloi's voice fuzzed out again. Signal seemed to degrade in the evenings.
"I'm not that bad off..." As humanity's final Master, Ritsuka's psychological fortitude was genuinely considerable. It was just that seeing brutalized corpses—and children, on top of that—was another matter entirely.
How to describe it? More than fear, it was the kind of fury that set her hands shaking.
Even having learned about Gilles de Rais from that First Singularity, and spent some time with his younger self...
"You're stronger than I was..." El-Melloi sighed, then told Yimi wearily: "Kill them. Even if they survive, it would only be to live in suffering."
That had been his group's choice at the time. The difference was that they'd found this place later, and by then the state of things had been even worse than what was in front of Yimi now.
Aside from Ritsuka, who had no choice but to face this, the young-looking little Servant girl clearly wasn't in good spirits either. Her ears were flattened back airplane-style.
This little Apocalypse Knight... was unexpectedly as simple as she looked.
Yimi didn't raise the spear. Her small hand reached toward the worst of the devastated children.
"What—?" Roman's pupils contracted.
[Miracle]
...
Matou residence.
Kariya kept his eyes tightly shut, enduring the agony of worms moving beneath his skin, and forced a faint smile for the girl in front of him.
"Sakura... Little Sakura, just wait a little longer. Just a little longer..."
"Wait for what?" The small girl stared at the man in front of her with empty eyes.
Kariya's heart ached as he brushed her cheek. "I promise you. One day, Uncle Kariya, and Mom, and Rin—cough cough—we'll all play at the park together again. Just like before."
He coughed out a mouthful of blood along with one of the revolting worms.
"Little Sakura doesn't have a mom or a sister. Little Sakura only has Grandfather." The small girl recited the line in a flat tone, as though repeating someone else's words.
"Kariya! Did you do this?! You and which one of your Servants?!" The old man's furious roar rang out, strangely hollow and distant.
Kariya frowned. Knowing nothing good could come of it, he limped toward the room the voice had come from anyway.
"What are you shouting about, old man..."
What greeted him was a swarm of repulsive worms trying over and over to patch something together, only to dissolve again and again. In the center of the room lay an old man who looked at least eighty, sprawled on the floor, his limbs steadily crumbling. He was frantically trying to repair himself with magecraft, with no effect whatsoever. Other parts of his body were failing too.
"Old bastard, what's wrong with you? You're not about to die, are you?" Kariya's face broke into open delight as he hurried to support him, the picture of concern.
The kitty's "Miracle" was not creating something from nothing, nor turning something into nothing.
"Ruler, may I be so bold as to ask you something?" Roman suddenly addressed Yimi directly.
"Meow?"
"You were summoned by Fujimaru, but—aside from this Holy Grail War—do you have any... other objectives?"
"No."
"Mm..." Roman looked at her, conflicted.
However you sliced it, there was no mistaking what he'd just witnessed. Ritsuka's group could write that off as divine power granted via the Apocalypse, but he couldn't pretend he hadn't seen it. At the end of the day, the power of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse shouldn't have been that beautiful to begin with...
So why could Ritsuka summon this kind of thing too?!
"Doctor, your voice is starting to get garbled already. While I can still talk, have Professor Kongming give me the rest of the details about this Holy Grail War." Ritsuka pulled out a small notebook.
"Right. I'll start with this Caster, then..."
Per what Lord El-Melloi had said, destroying the lair wasn't the wrong call. The Rider group in the original timeline of this War had done the same thing. With nowhere left to go, Caster would be forced out into the open.
Caster wasn't here, and they couldn't just leave the children who had, against all odds, survived. They spent a long time escorting the kids home, hoping that after a good night's sleep they could treat it all as a nightmare... though the shadow of it would probably follow them for the rest of their lives.
There was nothing more to be done. Ritsuka was only a third-rate magus. If only Lord El-Melloi had been on site.
By the time they'd finished dropping the children off, it was too late for small kids to be out—which also meant Caster probably wouldn't act again tonight.
When El-Melloi's voice finally dissolved into static, Ritsuka closed the notebook with a sigh. "Let's head back for now, Ruler."
"Mm."
The kitty tried to recall what Lord El-Melloi had just been explaining.
Practically none of it had stuck. Listening to that male voice coming out of her Master was like being carried to school by Origami—she'd get sleepy all over.
She reached over and grabbed Ritsuka's little notebook to look at what the other had written.
Only keywords. The cat couldn't make any sense of it.
"Congratulations, Host, you've earned the achievement [I Don't Want the Enemy to Be Able to Use My Notebook Right After I Die]. Reward: Portal ability +5%."
This was the first achievement she'd unlocked since arriving in this world.
Climbing onto the black horse, Yimi took the front, Ritsuka the back. Even though Yimi was the one steering, it looked for all the world like Ritsuka was riding with a small child.
"Master."
"What?"
"Hold on."
Galloping down the road, Yimi abruptly yanked out the Spear of Longinus and used a Prana Burst to blow apart the pavement in front of them, breaking the "Noble Phantasms don't damage the terrain" rule. A sea-demon that had just been surfacing was vaporized by the shockwave.
Besides Mana, she had another stat at EX: Luck.
"Good evening, hound of God!"
Caster, eyes bright with the smug glee of a self-styled mastermind, threw his hands wide. He'd come to her.
"Caster, huh. He actually came to us." Ritsuka's expression went tight. Not with the tension of facing a major threat, but because this despicable little man was holding a child.
At this time of night, there was no telling where he'd scraped one up. A red-haired boy who, oddly enough, bore a faint resemblance to her.
"After our greetings, I have a question I'd like to ask you." Caster fixed his unfocused gaze on Yimi—and then saw a long spear looming larger in his vision.
"Pgh—!"