Homurahara Academy, Main Academic Building.
After completing a wide loop around the campus perimeter, Surtr and Medea stealthily slipped back through the side entrance of the school.
“Class 2-C.
This should be the place.” After asking a few unsuspecting students for directions, Surtr successfully located the classroom of a certain future Hero of Justice.
Even though Matou Sakura was absent from this timeline, she wasn’t the only pivotal VIP walking the halls of Homurahara Academy.
Emiya Shirou—a monstrous anomaly who would evolve from a third-rate magical novice into a warrior capable of severing Heroic Spirit limbs in barely two weeks.
Now that she knew he was right here, ignoring his existence was out of the question.
Taking proactive counter-measures was an absolute necessity.
What she was about to pull off couldn’t be exposed to Tohsaka Rin’s prying eyes, which was why Surtr had deliberately staged an exit before looping right back around.
Peering through the frosted glass of the sliding door, she confirmed there was only a single student left inside, making their covert extraction remarkably convenient.
“Medea, when we breach the room, don’t give him a window to react.
But don’t inflict any real harm either just knock him out cold.” Surtr actually held a fairly positive opinion of the stubborn red-headed idealist, so even if they ended up on opposing sides, she had zero desire to take his life.
“Understood, Master.” Inside the quiet classroom, Emiya Shirou tossed the final dustpan of sweepings into the wastebin, neatly arranged the cleaning brooms against the wall, straightened his back, and let out a long, weary sigh.
“Finally wrapped up.” His cleaning partner for the day had bailed due to an unexpected family emergency, leaving him with no choice but to tackle the entire classroom cleanup solo.
Fortunately, he had been running household chores and yard maintenance since childhood, so a bit of sweeping was second nature.
All that remained was hauling the garbage bags down to the incinerator behind the gymnasium.
Bending over, Shirou grabbed the trash bags by the handles.
Just as he turned toward the hallway, his heart nearly stopped.
Standing silently by the sliding door was a slender, ethereal woman in modern winter attire.
Across her strikingly beautiful, porcelain face, a pair of piercing blue-violet eyes glowed with an otherworldly magical radiance.
Every hair on Shirou’s body stood on end as a shrill alarm bell echoed through his brain.
His instincts screamed that an apex predator was standing in front of him.
He desperately wanted to brace for an attack, but the only “weapons” in his hands were two plastic bags of classroom trash.
Before he could even raise his arms, a single, absolute command resonated right beside his eardrum.
“Sleep.” It felt as though a massive velvet hammer had slammed into his skull.
His vision instantly dissolved into pitch black, and Shirou’s limp body collapsed toward the floor before his nervous system could even register the fall.
Before his head could make violent contact with the hardwood floor, Miss Surtr darted forward and caught him cleanly by the collar, hoisting him up with effortless strength.
“Master, what is so extraordinary about this boy that warranted an infiltration?” Medea leaned over the wooden desk where Surtr had laid the unconscious teenager, inspecting him with a skeptical frown.
No matter how she analyzed his spiritual signature, he was nothing more than a pitiful, third-rate novice who barely understood the basics of structural reinforcement.
“His Magic Circuits are an unusual breed, but that’s not why we’re here.
We came specifically for the sacred relic slumbering inside his flesh.
If history holds true, the scabbard of the holy sword of the stars is sealed within his torso.
See if you can surgically extract it.” “Though if it’s not there, just pretend I never said anything.” Surtr added a cautious disclaimer at the end, her voice lacking its usual supreme confidence.
After all, the Sakura situation had already proven that this timeline possessed unexpected deviations.
“A scabbard?” Medea’s voice instantly spiked several octaves higher.
“Are you telling me that Avalon…
the Everdistant Utopia, resides inside a boy who doesn’t even qualify as a third-rate magus?” “Barring catastrophic timeline butterfly effects, yes.” “What absurd, god-tier luck.” Medea clicked her tongue in genuine disbelief.
To put it bluntly, sealing a supreme Divine Construct inside an untrained novice was no different from handing a priceless divine scepter to a beggar on the street.
Even though the conceptual invulnerability of the scabbard required King Arthur’s prana to fully activate, as an apex Divine Construct forged by the planet itself, its research value to an Age of Gods witch was literally incalculable.
“Can you pull it out without killing him?” “Child’s play.” Medea gave a confident nod, stepping toward the desk with visible excitement dancing in her eyes.
Surtr took the opportunity to pull out a wooden chair, plopping down to catch her breath while glancing at her holographic interface.
[Client: Emiya Shirou] [Quest: Wants to become an absolute Hero of Justice] [Rewards: Primogems ×2000, Random Reward ×5] A massive quest materialized across her vision.
The offered rewards were staggeringly lucrative, yet Surtr merely skimmed the text before tossing it straight into the mental trash can.
‘An absolute Hero of Justice?’ ‘That’s even more unhinged than Rin’s infinite gem wish!
Go ask the Counter Force to fulfill that suicidal fantasy for you!’ No matter how tantalizing the Primogems were, an impossible quest was an impossible quest.
Speaking of payouts, Surtr had spotted a few minor quests floating over ordinary pedestrians on the street earlier, but compared to “main characters” like Tohsaka Rin and Shirou, regular NPCs offered tiny rewards of barely ten or twenty Primogems.
The wishes themselves weren’t drastically different in difficulty.
Why was there such a colossal disparity in payout?
[Aside from raw quest difficulty, the greater an individual’s personal destiny and karmic impact upon the world line, the richer the rewards generated upon fulfilling their desire.] The system chimed in to clarify the mechanics.
Surtr nodded in understanding.
It made total sense from an anime perspective.
The divine surgery didn’t take long.
In less than two minutes, Medea’s breathless, ecstatic voice echoed from the front of the room.
“Found it, Master!” As she spoke, Medea submerged her pale, slender hand directly into Emiya Shirou’s abdomen.
The description was completely literal.
Her hand sank seamlessly past skin, muscle, and bone without spilling a single drop of blood, looking exactly like someone dipping their fingers into a basin of crystal-clear water.
From an outside perspective, the spatial manipulation looked mesmerizingly surreal.
Fumbling delicately for a brief moment, Medea withdrew her arm, pulling a breathtaking, half-human-sized armament straight out of his spiritual core.
The scabbard was forged from immaculate, shimmering gold, accented by intricate engravings of lustrous blue enamel.
Its majestic, ethereal presence made it look less like an instrument of warfare and more like a sacred regalia symbolizing the absolute sovereignty of a divine monarch.
Carved across the central golden fuller were long-lost, primordial fairy runes, irrefutably proving that this sacred construct was no mortal craftsmanship, but a miracle birthed by the inner sea of the planet.
The Everdistant Utopia—Avalon.
“Magnificent…
it is truly a work of divine art.” Medea gently traced her fingertips across the ancient fairy script.
Even for a high sorceress of Colchis, standing before a Conceptual Armament woven from the world’s breath was an overwhelming experience.
“Yeah.
It really is something else.” Surtr’s gaze remained transfixed upon the golden relic.
The scabbard before her eyes surpassed any piece of human artwork she had ever witnessed.
Even though Matou Sakura was missing from the board, their secondary objective at Homurahara Academy was a roaring success.
Extracting the scabbard in advance eliminated the catastrophic scenario of Artoria unlocking total invulnerability.
King Arthur plus Avalon equaled an absolute, unbeatable cheat code Surtr held zero doubts regarding that Nasuverse law.
With Saber’s ridiculously high luck stat, retrieving the scabbard in the eleventh hour was practically guaranteed by plot armor.
Dealing with an invincible holy swordswoman later would be an absolute nightmare, so confiscating the catalyst early was the smartest tactical play.
As for whether Shirou would still end up summoning Saber down the line?
Surtr looked down at the back of Emiya Shirou’s right hand.
Faint, glowing red contours were steadily etching themselves into his skin.
The unmistakable birthmarks of Command Spells preparing to awaken.
“Medea, can you…”