Medea went very peacefully.
Of course, by that, I mean she fell fast asleep.
The sudden wave of relief allowed all her accumulated exhaustion to catch up to her at once, knocking her out cold in an instant.
Miss Surtr crouched in the middle of the secluded forest path.
Lævateinn hovered silently at her side while the unconscious Medea lay before her.
Under the friendly (forcible) guidance of a certain blond passerby, Surtr had quickly made her way to the vicinity.
Her luck was undeniably solid.
After wandering around the woods for a short while, she had spotted her target.
The moment her eyes landed on Medea, a system chime chimed inside her head.
[Client: Medea] [Quest: Wants to survive] [Reward: Primogems ×300] Quest triggered.
It wasn’t particularly surprising.
After all, virtually every Servant in the Holy Grail War harbored deep-seated wishes they desperately wanted to fulfill.
With Medea teetering on the brink of death, her desire to live was naturally off the charts.
Yet Surtr couldn’t celebrate just yet.
The woman was critically wounded the sharp stench of copper filled Miss Surtr’s nostrils, and crimson blood diluted into the rainwater, dyeing the puddles beneath them a vivid scarlet.
She looked entirely ready to kick the bucket at any given second.
A contract needed to be established immediately.
With that thought in mind, Surtr scooped the fallen witch into her arms, intending to find a nearby residence to settle her down.
Suddenly, as if picking up on a subtle shift in the air, the girl halted.
Rhythmic, deliberate footsteps echoed from behind her, the heavy raindrops torn apart by a sudden rush of razor-sharp wind.
Lævateinn hummed with a low vibration, prompting Miss Surtr to let out a soft sigh.
‘Well, maybe my luck isn’t completely spotless after all.’ The so-called Holy Grail War.
It was a grand magical ritual where seven Masters chosen by the Holy Grail and the ancient Heroic Spirits they summoned as Servants engaged in a lethal battle royale staged across Fuyuki City until only one remained standing.
Bound by the rules and limitations of the Grail system, summoned Servants were assigned to specific containers known as Classes.
Gently propping Medea against the trunk of a nearby tree, Surtr gripped the hilt of Lævateinn, turned around, and faced the uninvited guest.
It was a young man with cropped blue hair.
Clad in a skin-tight blue bodysuit that outlined his athletic, muscular build, he held a scarlet spear over two meters long in his right hand.
A pair of fierce, crimson eyes gleamed in the dark, radiating the bloodthirsty intensity of a predatory beast.
At the exact same moment, another quest notification popped up across Surtr’s field of vision.
[Client: Cú Chulainn] [Quest: Wishes to engage in an all-out life-and-death battle] [Reward: Primogems ×800, Random Reward ×1] ‘As expected of a battle maniac.
Even his wish is wildly unhinged.’ Miss Surtr wasn’t surprised in the slightest as she shifted her focus to appraise the blue hound standing before her.
Lancer.
True Name: Cú Chulainn.
In life, he was the peerless legendary hero of Ulster from Northern Ireland, the demigod son of the sun god Lugh.
While his win-loss track record in the original storyline had been underwhelming, that came down almost entirely to the misfortune of his Master—or rather, the cursed E-Rank luck inherent to the Lancer class.
Cú Chulainn’s personal combat prowess was unquestionably top-tier among the combatants of this Fifth Holy Grail War.
Furthermore, the man possessed an absolute sure-kill Noble Phantasm.
Frankly speaking, he was the absolute worst candidate for an opening matchup.
While Surtr was sizing up Lancer, Lancer was similarly evaluating this mysterious figure that had materialized out of thin air.
“With magical energy this absurd…
are you Saber?” Halting five paces away from Surtr, he refrained from charging in recklessly.
Her striking appearance and the overwhelming aura rolling off her frame naturally led him to believe she was the final unrevealed Servant of this war.
In this secluded spot, at this exact hour, it was impossible to imagine her being anything other than a Servant.
“Saber?
Not quite.” Surtr shook her head casually.
‘Not a Servant?’ A look of genuine perplexity flashed across Lancer’s face.
His instincts told him the girl wasn’t lying.
Yet the terrifying concentration of magical energy radiating from her body far exceeded anything achievable by modern magi.
And the colossal sword resting in her grip looked every bit like a genuine Noble Phantasm.
To think that aside from his own Master, this city harbored another monster of this caliber.
However, Lancer didn’t waste time pondering the mystery.
Much as his blood boiled for a proper duel, she wasn’t his designated target tonight.
Resting the shaft of his spear over his shoulder, he barked at Surtr.
“Hand over the woman behind you.
Do that, and I’ll let you walk away in one piece.” Arrogant words, though backed by the undisputed pedigree to make good on them.
Yet his ultimatum only caused a flicker of visible skepticism to cross Surtr’s gaze.
‘He’s actually offering to spare me?’ If her memory served her right, hadn’t Kirei Kotomine slapped him with strict orders to execute all witnesses on sight?
Was it because she clearly didn’t look like an innocent civilian, or had something else altered his behavior?
She couldn’t figure out the reason, but either way, it hardly mattered right now.
There would be plenty of time to dig for answers after surviving tonight.
As for packing up and walking away?
Not a chance in hell.
Brawling against legendary Servants was half the reason she was standing here in the first place, and compared to the divine carnage of Ragnarok, the spearman in front of her didn’t exude anywhere near the same suffocating pressure.
Besides…
There was no reason on earth to hand over a captured beauty that was already in her hands.
Tossing idle thoughts aside, Surtr hoisted Lævateinn.
The blade shivered softly—not out of terror, but from pure, unadulterated bloodlust.
A scorching wave of battle intent surged through the steel, practically begging to reduce the spearman into a pile of smoking ash.
“I refuse.” “Is that so?” Hearing her blunt rejection, the corners of Lancer’s lips peeled back into a savage grin, as if her defiance was the exact outcome he had been praying for.
Dropping into a low offensive crouch, he assumed his combat stance.
Every cord of muscle across his body coiled tight beneath his azure suit, resembling a predator locking onto prey.
‘What an absolute battle junkie.’ Surtr remarked inwardly.
Perhaps due to the latent instincts embedded within her new physique, facing the ravenous blue beast triggered zero panic.
Instead, an eerie, absolute calmness settled over her mind.
The downpour grew increasingly violent, the oppressive storm clouds hanging low over Fuyuki as serpentine lightning coiled through the dark sky.
A crack of thunder boomed overhead, sounding like the opening horn of war.
Clang!
Sparks erupted along the forest path.
Like a unleashed hunting hound, Lancer exploded forward, thrusting his spear forward like a striking viper.
A grotesque, suffocating mass of prana clung to the crimson tip had it struck the earth, the resulting detonation would easily rival a high-explosive grenade.
The scarlet lance bore straight for Surtr’s chest.
Reacting entirely on instinct, she snapped Lævateinn upward, parrying the lethal thrust before meeting the flurry of subsequent strikes head-on.
Her body moved a split second ahead of conscious thought.
The flaming greatsword felt like a seamless extension of her own limbs, effortlessly deflecting every lightning-fast blow.
The muscle memory of slaughtering gods proved invaluable, allowing her to unleash the full potential of Surtr’s monstrous vessel without a hitch.
Across the clash, Lancer was equally caught off guard.
She clearly wasn’t chanting spells or utilizing reinforcement magecraft, yet the physical stats packed into that slender frame allowed her to trade blows directly with a Servant.
In fact, she was actually overpowering him in raw strength.
Lancer was baffled, but the confusion was instantly swallowed by a surge of manic thrill.
He had written this off as a tedious clean-up chore he never dreamed he’d stumble across such a thrilling opponent.
A wild, manic grin spread across his face.
The blur of his spear accelerated, carving through the air at increasingly lethal, unpredictable angles.
Crimson and azure silhouettes collided relentlessly in the pitch-black woods.
The reality of this supernatural clash proved infinitely more brutal and overwhelming than any anime adaptation could ever portray.
The ferocious shockwaves kicked up by each clash of steel gouged deep trenches into the earth.
Any ordinary human caught within the blast radius would have been pulverized before their brain could register what happened.
Unbelievable as it seemed, Surtr was firmly dictating the pace of the duel.
If Lancer’s strikes hit with the force of grenade blasts, Surtr’s swings came crashing down like heavy artillery shells.
While her spear-deflecting technique might lack the finesse of a seasoned warrior, her overwhelming raw power completely tilted the scales.
Stepping forward, she brought the blade down in a crushing vertical cleave.
It was an utterly straightforward strike, easily readable by a veteran of a thousand battles like Lancer.
Bracing his spear horizontally, he locked the shaft in place to shield his neck.
He had already calculated his counterattack the instant after deflecting the blade.
Yet the moment the greatsword made contact, the sheer, catastrophic force slamming into the spear obliterated every follow-up plan from his mind.
Even though he had braced himself after seeing the sheer bulk of her weapon, the absurd, freakish brute strength exploding from that delicate frame caught Lancer completely flat-footed.
It felt like taking the full-speed impact of a runaway freight train.
The reinforced spear shaft bent almost double under the colossal strain, forcing Lancer’s knees to buckle downward as a choked grunt tore from his throat.
The burning blade sheared past his shoulder by a hair’s breadth.
The ground beneath his boots collapsed under the concussive force, spiderwebbing deep craters outward with him at the epicenter.
The impact unleashed a howling shockwave that shredded the curtain of rain, blasting sheets of water outward in all directions.
“Damn it all…
is this chick some kind of ancient giant reincarnated into modern times?” Lancer sneered through gritted teeth, thoroughly questioning what kind of monster he was dealing with.
Digging deep, he redirected the residual momentum, kicking off the shattered earth to vault backward and create distance.
Surtr moved to press the advantage, but his silhouette blurred like a phantom, instantly retreating five meters back.
Disengage.
It was Lancer’s personal class skill designed to safely break away from combat and reset the battle conditions.
Once an agile skirmisher like him decided to pull back, pinning him down was practically impossible.
However, running away was the furthest thing from his mind.
Brute strength had never been his forte anyway.
Summoned under the Lancer container, his true edge lay in abusing his A-Rank Agility and superior reach to dance circles around heavy opponents.
Unfortunately, a dense, cramped forest trail provided terrible footing for hit-and-run mobility.
Since close-quarters brawling wasn’t getting the job done, he had only one card left to play.
His expression hardened into pure savagery as he dropped into a deep lunge, channeling a spiraling vortex of blood-red prana around the barbed spearhead.
An ominous, sickening chill suddenly gripped Surtr’s heart!