Interlude
A Mercenary is a Free Man I
The Ward-world, the Kuruoka Residence
A short while earlier.
“Oh . . . thank goodness. My daughter seems safe. She’s sleeping peacefully,” Kuruoka Yūkaku stated, watching his daughter through the window from the courtyard.
Sigma, who had followed him back, considered the situation.
Assassin had declared that she would investigate the giant, three-headed dog and was acting independently.
Sigma had followed Tsubaki’s father Yūkaku in order to obtain more information, but the all-important Tsubaki appeared to be taking an afternoon nap, and he could learn nothing definite.
In that case, why don’t I try getting to the heart of the Kuruokas’ magecraft? The child Tsubaki must be rooted in it.
“What type of magecraft do you study?”
The expression vanished from Kuruoka’s face as he answered.
“You expect me to tell an outsider that?”
It was what any mage would say.
At the Clock Tower, you could tell the direction of a mage’s interests by the school they belonged to, and many announced their work to gain influence. Even so, few would disclose the specifics of their magecraft. That practice was not limited to the world of magecraft; ordinary businesses and researchers did the same thing.
Nevertheless, Sigma deliberately pushed ahead to confirm his guess.
“I want to know so that I can secure Tsubaki’s safety.”
He did not lie.
Sigma’s current objective was to escape from this ward-world, but before being sent there, it had been to accompany Assassin and secure Kuruoka Tsubaki’s safety.
He did not know what kind of abilities that pitch-black Servant possessed, but if it had the power to detect lies or hostility, deceiving Yūkaku could prove to be fatal.
More importantly, his question was also intended to confirm something.
Kuruoka Yūkaku’s eyes glazed over for a moment, then, after a few seconds, he broke into a placid smile.
“I see. If it’s for Tsubaki, then I guess I’ve got no choice.”
With that, Sigma was certain.
As I thought, this world, including the personalities of the people being controlled, exists to protect its Master. That pause must have been the time it took for the Servant controlling Kuruoka Yūkaku’s mind to make a decision and guide him.
And it’s probably not the type to doubt what I say, as long as I don’t lie.
He said that it’s probably a conceptional entity related to death and disease, but . . .
As Sigma speculated about the Servant that had produced this world, he remembered Mystic Codes made with pseudo-personalities.
He had both fought them as enemies and worked alongside them to complete missions.
Among magecraft-users, the woman-shaped, liquid mercury Mystic Code used by the heir to the El-Melloi family was particularly famous. They were essentially like loyal robots that carried out their users’ orders, but many were capable of more adaptive autonomous thought than current AI.
Still, this is a Servant we’re talking about. Maybe I should assume it thinks more like a human than the El-Mellois’ mercury Mystic Code.
. . . I pray it doesn’t think like a mage.
While Sigma was lost in thought, his own face resembled that of an emotionless android.
He remained oblivious to that as he continued solemnly questioning Yūkaku.
“What does your family’s magecraft specialized for? I’d like you to tell me if you’re using it to perform any special treatment on Tsubaki.”
“Oh, treatment . . . Treatment . . .? That’s right. Of course I am.”
The girl’s father did not hesitate to admit it. He began to explain before Sigma could even ask a follow-up question.
“I . . . Yes, I found a guidepost.”
Ecstasy tinged Yūkaku’s expression despite his brainwashed state.
His words to Sigma were charged with emotion, as if he were proud of what he had accomplished.
“I couldn’t beat the Makiris by being decent. Their actual bloodline is basically a swarm of insects at this point. . . . Their perfect use of insects is beautiful. . . . But my objective was symbiosis with the magecraft I use. A more natural form of symbiosis than parasitic insects. . . . I know—how many bacteria do you think a human body hosts? More than several hundred different types of bacteria function alongside human cells to form an intelligent lifeform. Compared with the number of bacteria, the number of human cells is half at best.”
Sigma recognized the family name Makiri.
They were a family of mages in the Far East and one of the three families that created the original Holy Grail War.
He recalled Francesca saying that they employed an efficient but heretical technique of implanting Crest Worms and other insects in their bodies and merging them with their internal organs to create pseudo-Magic Circuits.
Sigma had personally had other things implanted in him as a child, although never insects, so he decided it must be similar.
Both methods shared the fact that, from the perspective of a non-mage, they were inhumane.
The mage continued to expound his life’s accomplishments, even while his listener was busy dwelling on the past.
Being a mage, he had not announced them publicly, but he must at least have the desire to show the world what he had done.
“I shivered when I saw those microorganisms I collected near some ruins in South America. I never imagined any bacteria could be so mystically compatible with humans. I don’t know if they’re a remnant of evolution that took place in the Age of Gods, or if those microorganisms have a completely different origin from normal Earth species. . . . I couldn’t develop them from scratch, but I was able to modify those bacteria and adapt them to our magecraft.”
It sounded as though he had mixed the magecraft of the Makiri family with peculiar microorganisms he had discovered in South America to create something that might be called a “bacterial familiar.”
It could also be a virus, even smaller than bacteria, but the effect that difference would have was outside Sigma’s area of expertise, so he decided to disregard it for the moment.
“I caused the microorganisms I’d modified using magecraft the enter a symbiotic relationship with Tsubaki’s Magic Circuits. I didn’t anticipate that they would spread to her brain, but Tsubaki’s Magic Circuits showed major changes for a single generation. Do you realize how valuable this is in magecraft?!”
“. . . That’s true.”
Magic Circuits, the source of mages’ power, like blood vessels for circulating magical energy, ordinarily took many generations to develop. The number of Magic Circuits a mage possessed was set in stone—it was possible to open dormant circuits, but not to add more.
With the exception of methods like the Makiris’ technique of implanting insects as substitute circuits.
But Kuruoka claimed that he had done it.
That’s impossible.
“Yes, it is.”
It was like Yūkaku had read Sigma’s mind.
“I can’t give her more Magic Circuits. I changed their quality and capacity. The microorganisms I created automatically awaken Magic Circuits and utilize them in the most efficient way. All to make their habitat as comfortable as possible.”
“. . .”
“As a benefit, Tsubaki is able to circulate magical energy through her body far more efficiently someone else with the same number of Magic Circuits. Those revitalized Magic Circuits should make Tsubaki an excellent mother in the future. The actual number of Magic Circuits will probably increase dramatically in her children’s generation.”
Yūkaku sounded much more like a mage than when he had been speaking as a “father” earlier, but Sigma was mostly unmoved by the change.
He was a magecraft-user who had been born as a result of government experiments.
Since childhood, he had been subjected to numerous experiments with little concern for his life. He had not known about the concept of human rights until after the fall of his country.
So, when Sigma heard how Tsubaki’s parents had used her as a test subject, he felt neither sympathy for her nor anger at Yūkaku.
But, although he did not feel anything, he still thought and asked more questions.
“Are those bacteria in your bodies as well?”
“Yes, but only at the trial phase. The latest version we infected Tsubaki with will only take root in infants whose organs haven’t fully developed yet. It was hell to tune. We were frantic when she lost consciousness, but relieved to hear that her ability to leave descendants was intact. . . . Hmm . . . No, Tsubaki is awake now. . . . Isn’t that the best we could hope for? Who cares about her children . . .? Yes, Tsubaki is perfect. . . .”
Yūkaku gradually descended into muttering to himself. Sigma decided that he must be confused by the contradictions between his past actions and current mental state.
If this were the worst his confusion got, he really must not have any negative feelings about experimenting with his own child’s body.
That train of thought suddenly reminded Sigma of his own parents.
He had never seen his parents’ faces.
His father had never been identified, and Francesca had told him that his mother died in a distant country.
She had had a boy’s body and called herself Francois then. Still, why had Francesca already known about his mother when she had only just met him?
He had asked her, but,
“D-Don’t get the wrong idea! Just because I was interested in your ancestry doesn’t mean I’m interested in you! . . . Would you like it if I said that? You don’t feel anything? Oh, OK then. That’s all I’ve got to say about that!”
Had been the only answer he got, and it made no sense to him.
Sigma, who did not know what his parents looked like, did not know how to act in front of Tsubaki, who was being raised by hers, but he was able to grasp one thing from his conversation with Yūkaku—being raised by your parents did not necessarily mean a higher standard of “happiness” than being raised by a government agency like he had been.
There was probably a difference in percentages, but mages were far removed from human sentiment to begin with.
When he thought what it would be like to be in Tsubaki’s place, would he welcome the loss of freedom, or being treated as a “factory” for Magic Circuits, always asleep and unable to even carry out orders?
Not long before, he had reached the vague conclusion that he “didn’t think it would be much different.”
In that sense, Kuruoka Tsubaki was probably similar to him, Sigma thought.
In this fake world, she might have found the “sound sleep” he wanted.
Defeating her Servant would mean destroying her peace.
What should I do, then?
He had no orders about this situation, and unless he escaped from this world, he would not receive any.
He remembered what Francesca had told him right before the start of the Fake Holy Grail War.
“Once you’ve called up a Heroic Spirit, do whatever you feel like.”
Whatever I feel like, huh?
Cut off from Francesca and Faldeus and forced to think and act on his own, Sigma stared at his hands as he began to seriously consider the question.
At that moment, there was nothing he could do but think.
What should I do?
X X
While Sigma was busy questioning himself, Assassin activated one of her Noble Phantasms.
“Sink into a dark prison . . . Meditative Sensitivity: Zabaniya.”
A perception-type Noble Phantasm that attuned her to the surrounding space as if she were the world’s shadow and sensed nearby currents of magical energy and wind.
Using those currents, she attempted to locate either the “giant black shadow” that seemed to be controlling the giant, three-headed dog, or the hematophage who must be connected to this world.
“. . .?”
What she found, however, was a different current of magical energy.
It was giving off a strange current, as if to disturb the balance of magical energy throughout the entire city.
It was an infinitesimal current. Without her Noble Phantasm, she would not have been able to detect it.
Is this . . . magical energy leaking out?
No, leaking in? Or is it . . .
The flow was like the whole world was breathing magical energy through that one airhole.
She paused briefly, wondering whether to pursue the giant, three-headed dog, but ultimately decided to follow fluctuation of magical energy.
She thought that where it led was simply too symbolic and might even offer a hint to escape that world.
She headed toward the source of the strange current of magical energy in that balanced world.
Toward the top of Crystal Hill.
Originally Posted by Comun
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