“Hahahaha! I didn’t expect that in this era, there would still be a foolishly brave warrior barging into the battlefield and making an enemy of an irrelevant deity… My dear friend, this Holy Grail War is even more interesting than you and I anticipated!”
Crystal Hill, the tallest building in all of Snowfield City.
Inside the top-floor suite, the Archer Servant—the blond man in casual wear, Gilgamesh—held a glass of red wine and laughed heartily as he looked at the void projection.
The dark-skinned little girl Master beside him, Tine Chelc, asked cautiously:
“King, that deity seems to be a major god from Norse mythology… Are you saying they are outsiders who didn’t participate in the Holy Grail War?”
Gilgamesh drained his red wine and put down the cup, “Hmph, of course. Are you questioning this king’s judgment?”
“Forgive me, King! I…”
“Lift your head, Tine. This king has no interest in reprimanding a confused child.”
“Listen well, so-called lofty deities have no interest in mere Holy Grail rituals and the Third Magic. Furthermore, the Holy Grail is something that rightfully belongs to this king in the first place, understand?”
His words were filled with the confidence of having victory firmly in his grasp.
“Understood…”
Snowfield City’s suburban forest.
The dear friend muttered about by someone, Lancer, the green-haired, white-robed Enkidu, was currently holding his Master—a synthetic wolf with a dazzlingly bright mane that was trembling all over—and looking up into the void with lingering anxiety.
“To actually engage in such fierce combat with a major god to this extent—what a truly peerless and brave warrior! Gil would likely agree as well, but…”
White hands stroked the earth.
“The aura of the land has become chaotic… Someone used some medium and magecraft to lure over the aura of that otherworld.”
Enkidu leaned down and sniffed again, a shock jolting through its heart.
“…The scent of the Age of Gods’ remnants; although the amount spreading over isn’t much, the nature is unprecedentedly complex… That ‘otherworld’ over there, what kind of place is it really?”
There were vaguely a few familiar auras mixed inside as well.
Is, is it an illusion…?
“Ooh ooh ooh! Mr. Jack, did you see that? Super awesome cross-world image projection! That kind of atmospheric phenomenon must only exist in mythological battles!”
“And, and, could that rune of theirs be the legendary Primal Runes? I remember it being mentioned in the textbooks of the General Fundamentals Department! Whoa, that man’s self-healing magecraft is so amazing, I completely don’t understand it…”
“To be able to witness so many things with my own eyes, the Holy Grail War is truly so interesting!”
Inside a cheap motel, the blond youth Flat was dancing with excitement, chattering endlessly to a watch on his wrist.
[Master, calm down. I understand your excitement, but please maintain some restraint and don’t arbitrarily shout out my true name, alright.]
[If I remember correctly, Master, you came to America to participate in the Holy Grail War without your teacher’s permission, right? If an incident like the one happening tonight gets transmitted back as well…]
“That’s right! Mr. Jack, you really reminded me of that!”
Flat remained high-spirited, as if his ears automatically blocked out the persuasion, “Before setting off, I promised my teacher that I would find Senior Tohsaka, who disappeared near the city! I absolutely cannot go back before finding her!”
This was a legitimate reason for traveling to America outside of participating in the Holy Grail War!
That way he could continue messing around with a clear conscience!
Though his teacher, Lord El-Melloi II, hadn’t agreed to a single one of these reasons.
“Thinking about it now, Senior Tohsaka’s abnormal disappearance should be related to this manifested ‘otherworld battlefield’. If we want to gather clues, we need to make use of spiritual veins, land…”
“…Hmm, the workload seems a bit big. If there were ready-made equipment and props for me to hack and modify, that would be great.”
[So, you only remember to do this now? You wouldn’t have forgotten because you got too excited over the Holy Grail War, right?]
“Hehe.”
Crackle!
The lightning extinguished.
The duel between Grimm and Odin was interrupted halfway through.
The intense atmosphere of battle on the battlefield thus came to an abrupt halt.
He actually didn’t know why Odin stopped fighting, nor did he know that an extremely absurd ‘city-wide viewing event’ had occurred in the outside world.
Grimm only saw Odin suddenly freeze on the spot as if it had jammed, like a program crashing when encountering an unmanageable emergency.
If it were anyone else, they might not be able to help probing with a couple of sentences, or taking the opportunity to rest, stabilize their breathing, and stealthily heal their own injuries.
But with such a rare opportunity to execute a decades-long enemy right before his eyes, how could Grimm tolerate letting it slip by?
Before the battle started, he had said he would take Odin’s dog head.
Now, taking advantage of his illness to kill him, chopping off that dog head wouldn’t be ambiguous at all!
The swift saber slashed down rapidly, bypassing Odin’s exquisitely gleaming full-body armor and aiming straight for the neck.
Clang!
As if this triggered some emergency countermeasure, a rune suddenly blazed with light, and spatial-distorting fluctuations abruptly tore apart the surface of the earth, covering the battlefield.
Grimm’s blade was also torn off-center from the neck position, instead hitting Odin squarely in the face—or to be precise, the mask on his face—causing the latter’s head to vibrate violently from the immense force, and the silver mask covering his face fell off as a result!
“Fuck!”
Rather take a slap to the face than have his head cut off?
Assassinating him successfully was out of the question now.
Acting on the principle of never suffering a loss, he reached out and grabbed Odin’s mask, stuffing it into his jacket pocket.
The spatial shattering phenomenon grew increasingly severe.
When he raised his eyes again, Odin’s figure had already vanished.
Sensing a tearing force similar to spatial teleportation, Grimm cursed under his breath, truly wondering what kind of madness Odin had suddenly gone into.
He had no choice but to give up searching for the other party’s whereabouts and head back to find Ereshkigal and the others, lest he accidentally stumble into some spatial channel and cause the team to scatter.
“Ouch!”
Ishtar staggered and almost took a tumble, feeling a sharp pain from bumping her head, and her expression instantly distorted a bit.
She began pondering whether she should separate the lesser grail from within her body; this useless gadget acted up from time to time.
Earlier as well, it had caused her to lose focus mid-fight and almost get hit by the enemy.
Holding her head and raising her eyes to look again, a dim, old corridor presented itself before her.
This place looked like a research facility, but the main entrance didn’t have a full name, only a string of English letters and numerical codes, plus an address footnote—”Area 51″.
This was another temporary base found by Grimm and the others after their battle ended.
At the end of the previous battle, everyone hadn’t been separated due to the spatial turbulence, but after leaving, they realized they had all been collectively teleported a very long distance.
There was no time to delve deeply into the reasons; they needed to rest and regroup, so they chose this place nearby.
“Haven’t you rested yet? What are you starting to write again?”
At a glance, Ishtar saw Grimm writing furiously in the small room.
Are you overflowing with energy?
Seeing you heavily wounded after fighting Odin, and charred almost inside and out by lightning, you really don’t need rest…
The goddess looked closely; although he was covered in scars, his breathing was steady and his pen flew across the paper.
Forget it, it seems he really doesn’t need it.
“You don’t understand.”
Grimm shook his head, “What I am writing is the realization gained after this battle, the key to completely toppling Odin!”
Ishtar: “…”
What heaven-defying nonsense have you figured out again?
No matter how absurd it is, can it be more absurd than your “Alchemy”?