Rin's visit today came with some surprising news. Usually, she spends most of her time with us, mostly to avoid her guardian. But today she went home directly to handle some work as a Second Owner.
When she visited me, Sakura had already gone back to her home. This time, we didn't talk about magecraft.
We sat on the porch under a full moon. Normally, it would be a romantic occasion. But instead, it is heavy with thick tension.
She started telling me about a man who would do anything to achieve his goal. That man was Kiritsugu Emiya, my adopted father.
"Emiya-kun, did you know what your father used to do for a living?" she asked me.
"I ...", I started.
"No, don't talk. You will only listen," she began narrating. "In the moonlit world, the name Kiritsugu Emiya holds a particular value. He was an assassin who had a 100% success rate. If you wanted someone dead, he is the man to look for. He was a magus killer. No, He was the Magus Killer. He was the first person to receive that title."
"You know, I should be mad at you."
What did I do?
"When you told me about your magecraft training, I thought your father was an incompetent teacher. But after learning about him, I realized he was only trying to protect you. He has made many enemies during his work; if they knew he had a son, even if adopted, they would try everything to kill you", she looks at me grimly.
Is she trying to kill me? While I can't win against her barehanded, my magecraft can overpower her easily.
"Don't worry, I won't kill you. You had made me reevaluate some things in my life. Do you know, he came to Fuyuki in the first place to join in a ritual called The Holy Grail War. It was the fourth war. Both of our fathers, along with five other mages, joined the ritual. In this ritual, mages summon powerful heroic spirits from history in a container called a servant, and the mage master. Then they fight until the last servant is alive, and then his master gets to make a wish. A single omnipotent wish," she describes the war.
"During the war, my father was killed. Your father may be a suspect. But I won't hold you accountable for that. My father knew there was a chance of his death, and his preparation fell short of others. Well, only three people survived: my guardian, who was my father's apprentice, a clock tower student who became a lord there, and your father," she tells me.
"The next grail war should happen after 50 years. You have great combat potential, so I want you to secretly support me during the war. Now, do you have any questions?"
I took a moment to process the information. It helps me to understand the events I witness by analyzing Avalon. I ask the question that came to my mind,
"Who was the winner of the previous war?" If Kiritsugu won, he wouldn't be in that bad health; he could have wished for a cure.
"Nobody won. Its physical manifestation was destroyed, which caused the great fire," she replied grimly, knowing that it's a bitter subject for me.
"Then, how about the previous ones, who won those wars?" I asked with curiosity.
"Nobody did. Almost everyone dies in this war. The fourth one may have had the most survivors," she replied.
I thought for a while and asked,
"If nobody won a single war, then is the Prize even real? Can the Grail really grant a wish?"
My question shakes her for a moment, but she regains her resolve again.
"I don't seek the grail for its wish; I desire it because, as of now, no one has truly emerged victorious in this ongoing battle," she replies. "Will you help me win the war?"
[Ding~ You have completed a quest]
Main Quest:
-> Find what is the Holy Grail War. {rewards: 2000XP, Command spell set(Will activate before the war starts)}
["Host, do you want to receive the rewards now?"]
[Ding~ New quest received]
Side Quest:
-> Find Tohsaka Tokomi's killer. {rewards: 10,000XP, 1000 points}
"Don't worry, I will support you," I tell her with resolve.
"Stupid, don't say something like that. People will misunderstand," she said.
"But there is no one except us here," I point out.
"Ugh.. Never mind, see you tomorrow," she says and then leaves.
----
It has been quite some time since I received character quest rewards. So I ask the system to start calculating. Then I decided to visit the side quest for Immunity to Mystic Eye of Death Perception.
Once again, I find myself at the arena. This time, I activate all of my magic circuits, reinforce my body to the limit, and keep my projected swords at standby. After my preparation is through. I start the timer.
I feel chill at the back of my neck and throw myself at the other side while bombarding his general area with my projected sword.
This time, I managed to take a good look at my assailant. His main outfit consists of a thick, purple and black helmet with a skull-shaped visor, allowing you to see only his empty, blue eyes. He wears a heavy purple and black chest plate with a skull on it, and there are eerie blue flames coming from its eyes. The part that covers his waist looks like a skeleton's ribs.
I analyze his sword unconsciously and realize how out of my league I am right now. Now my goal is not to win but to survive for as long as I can.
I try to create distance between us while keeping the offense. At my current level, it's impossible to fight him head-on.
He shrugs off my attack like nothing and claims my head again.
[You died in 4 seconds: Quest failed]
[You received 4000XP for survival]
[This quest will go to a cooldown for 6 days, 23 hours, 59 mins]
--------
I woke up with a gasp. This time, I had the foresight to lie down on a futon before starting the quest.
Now that I have properly taken a look at him, I have a good idea how to do this quest. While it's going to a cooldown was unexpected. I won't try again until I make any significant progress.
The countdown to midnight ends, and the system completes its analytics.
[Ding~ Character Reward calculation complete]
[Rewards:
45000XP,
200,000 Yen,
40 UC-tickets,
500 points,
Skill: Eye of Mind True(E)]
"System, receive the rewards."
[Accumulated xp-> 2000+4000+45000=51000
Absorbing For Level Up:
10[51294/10000]->
11[41294/15000]->
12[26294/20000]->
13[6294/25000]
Adding Skill to Spirit Origin: Eye of Mind True(E)... Complete
Placing 200,000 Yen and 40UC-tickets in inventory...Complete]
The system absorbs my accumulated rewards, and I feel my Spirit Origin grow. So I check it.
[Spirit Origin:
Name: Shirou Emiya
Title: The Gamer
Level: 13[6294/25000]
Class: Foreigner
Alignment: Neutral ・ Evil
HP: 20000->23000 [regen 2300 per min]
MP: 3570 -> 4170
SP: 3000 -> 3300[regen 1800 per min]
ATK: 1000-> 1300
Points:610]
Skill:
[Eye of The Mind(E)]:
It heightens capacity for observation, refined through training, discipline, and experience. A danger-avoidance ability that utilizes the intelligence collected up to the current time as the basis to predict the opponent's activity and change the current situation.
So basically, The Old man scared a Skill into me.
"System, is there any reward for partially completing the Enuma Elish Nullification Quest?"
["No, Host. But you won't die there, and you can cancel anytime."]
I decide to bite the bullet and start the quest.
It takes me to a Green plain with mountains at the edge. I see five knights with swords and five with spears in front of me. With only a hint being the blue floating text "Wave 1: Defeat Enforcer Knights(0/10)"
I trace a medieval sword from King Arthur's time. It was a practice sword used by her when she didn't use Excalibur. I could probably trace a hollow shell of Excalibur using the dimensions provided by Avalon. But without proper data from the structure analysis, it will be useless. I can't create data for the existence of that caliber using Imaginary numbers yet.
I start the quest and fight them using her fighting style. While imitating may help me in this quest, I want more. I want to create my own sword style. We have different body structures and magecraft, even though her use of prana is hard to call magecraft. If I want to survive the old man for more than 60 seconds, I have to make use of everything I have.
I began analyzing their fighting pattern and watched them slowly encircle me in a formation. I break the formation by blasting a knight with multi-projection and escaping from the gap. I use Mana Burst and almost kill one. If it were her, then she could have killed him with that mana burst. But I couldn't do it, and my sword got stuck in his body. Others are coming to take advantage of this moment. I leave the sword in his body and project another one. There is no point in wasting time removing it. I kick the sword deeper into his body and start engaging the other knights.
I check the current status ["Wave 1: Defeat Enforcer Knights(1/10)"]
Fighting nine enemies at the same time is hard, so I disengage them and project a bow and arrows. Then I shoot them in the eyes and successfully kill two of them.
Again, I engage them in close quarters to improve my swordfighting. Disengage and shoot with arrows if it gets overwhelming.
-----
In wave two, it's just a giant boar and four medium-sized boars. While I was able to kill the small boars, I didn't have enough power to kill the big one, so I left the quest. It didn't go to cooldown like the other one.
While this quest didn't give me any rewards. I managed to improve my fighting style.
I decided to check the last doable quest: Upgrade Skill: Type ORT
-----
This time it takes me to my inner world. The quest requirement is being
"Defeat Arctype-ORT".
I ask the system to start the quest. The quest starts, but nothing happens for a moment.
Then the glowing disk, which was lighting up the space, descends. It is a colossal Flying disc-like object. Once close to the ground, it starts morphing. It grows crystalline legs, which makes it look like a giant spider. As it crawls on the ground, it changes the terrain around it into crystal.
I know I am no match for it, so I quit the quest.
I realized the Old man is not that big of a problem anymore.
-------
The next day goes as usual, combat during training with Rin, this time I managed to defeat her unarmed, so she increased the difficulty by using her favorite curse, Gandr, against me. At least it upgrades my STR parameter to D. Originally, it was supposed to upgrade from F to E, but I managed to upgrade my value before completing the quest, and my STR was at the edge of being D rank, so it became D rank after the upgrade.
The relation between Rin and Sakura eased a bit. Enough for Sakura not to glare at her all the time.
I gifted the Sapphires I got from Gacha to Rin and a Motorola Razr V3 mobile phone to Sakura for easier communication. I did give one to each of them, but somehow Rin managed to break hers in a minute, so I had to make amends with the sapphires.
I fought the Enuma Elish Nullifications Quest every night to increase my fighting skills, and I managed to reach wave three, where archer, saber, and lancer enforcer knights work together with a shadow servant. It made me realize that I need a better weapon to fight a servant. I hoped to get a better quest so I could collect points for the Muramasa blade in the shop.
During one of the flash sales, I got the Void Space travel manual for 100 Points. While I am not ready to travel in void space yet. The knowledge it brought gave me ideas to improve my other crafts.
----------
Soon, school will be closed for the fall season. I wanted to visit some famous museums, so I proposed it to Tiga, Rin, and Sakura. Sakura was on board with the idea, Tiga decided to join for the food, and she bullied Rin into joining us. So we made the necessary preparations and waited for the fall vacation to arrive.
==================================================================
[A\N: Is anyone surprised that Rin didn't go ballistic on Shirou after she learned about Kiritsugu from Kirei?]
[Spirit Origin:
Name: Shirou Emiya
Title: The Gamer
Level: 13[6394/25000]
Class: Foreigner
Alignment: Neutral ・ Evil
HP: 20000->23000 [regen 2300 per min]
MP: 3570 -> 4170
SP: 3000 -> 3300[regen 1800 per min]
ATK: 1000-> 1300
Points:510
Params:
STR: D
END: A
VIT: A
AGI: E
MP: EX
LUK: E-
NP: ??]
[Skills:
[Gamers Mind-EX]
[Gamers Body-EX]
[Sword of Void-EX]
[Type ORT-EX]
[One Radiant Thing-EX]
[Imaginary Number Magecraft-A++]
[Seven Deadly Sins-A++]
[Perpetual Puberty-A+++]
[Kama Sutra-EX]
[Observe-EX]
[Pain Tolerance-EX]
[Avalon-EX]
[??????????????-E~EX]
[Archery-A]
[Cooking-A+]
[Technician-C]
[Magecraft-D]
Spells:
[Tracing]
[Reinforcement-E]
[Refresh]
[Flash Air]
[Clone Jutsu]
]
[Quests]:
World Quest:
->10 months and 14 days left
Main Quest:
-> Help Sakura and Rin Reconcile. {Rewards: exp +10000, 90% off voucher for system mall, 2 SSR-tokens, points +5000, Advanced healing magecraft knowledge.}
-> Kill Zouken Matou. {Rewards: 500,000xp, 10,000 points, skill: Anti Evil(passive), SSR-ticket *2}
-> End Sakura's suffering. {Rewards: 100,000xp, 25,000 points, Expert Level knowledge of Imaginary Number magecraft, SSR-ticket *1, Unknown(Depends on how you end her suffering)}
Character Quest:
->Increase your physical fitness
->Increase your magical fitness
->Increase your knowledge of the world and beings living there {knowledge about powerful beings yields better results}
->Learn/Improve skills
->Learn more about people you already have a relationship with {friends and foes, both are counted}
Side Quests:
->Unlock Immunity to Mystic Eye Of Death Perception
->Unlock Enuma Elish Nullification
->Upgrade Skill: Type ORT
->Find what happened during the Fourth Holy Grail War. {reward: 25,000XP, ???}
->Find what happened to Irisviel von Einzbern and her daughter. {reward: 25,000XP, ???}
-> Find Tohsaka Tokomi's killer. {rewards: 10,000XP, 1000 points}