Archer, wrapped in his green cloak, watched the arrival of the ranks of mechanical soldiers moving along rails laid out in the bare steppe. The sight of the unstoppable stream of trains that is completely out of place, moving at a speed that would be hard to expect even of a high-speed train of the twenty-first century, was quite anachronistic. Archer watched yet another of Edison's inventions that would make any historian collapse in a tizzy.
It would be funny, though, watching the hoity-toity academics lose their minds.
Edison's creation, however, like all of his 'inventions', was not entirely Edison's creation. Although he tried to present himself as the inventor of everything, including railroads, but, as in other cases, Edison merely improved upon what had already been created before him.
Did such a creation deserve Archer's praise? Of course, it did, it was still an engineering marvel. Did it make Edison the sole inventor of the railroad itself?
Well, Archer had an opinion on that, but the less he crossed his boss, the less likely he was to be noticed and dragged into something very stressful. Edison would probably proclaim that since it was before the original invention of the thing, then he was rightfully the first that created it. Probably hoping that if he repeats the claim enough, that the Proper History would be changed.
Keeping quiet and pretending he was very busy, trying his best to hide from problems or work, that was more Archer's thing.
To be honest, though, Archer wasn't even quite sure why they needed an army, robots or otherwise. I mean, of course, he understood that the robots were Edison's plan to divide the Servants in Cu Chulainn's army and take them out one by one. Even Servants would still need time to deal with a few thousand mechanical dummies. Ones perfected by Tesla, might even put up a decent fight, might even get one if they were stupid enough to face the entire army alone.
Still, the tactic was foreign to him.
Archer was more used to acting alone against an army, and was definitely not used to finding himself on the other side of that situation. A hunter, hunting an escaping deer, was closer to Archer's preference than actual combat.
"Hey," A voice, instantly snapped Archer out before he could get to any distracting tangent, surprising Archer out of his comfy idleness. "I'm hungry."
The huge figure of the Servant, whose two large horns remained one of her most prominent features, and whose name Archer never catches, distracted him from his thoughts. Turning around, Archer had to look upward to see her bored amber eyes. "You, Hunter, go out and hunt for someone."
"Someone? Not...? Ah." Archer didn't even want to know who usually fell prey to this outstanding, in every sense of the word, girl's 'hunt'.
"I'm not a hunter, and I'm b... " Archer tried to sound indignant, and was about to use the 'important order' Edison assigned to him as an excuse, before hastily pausing. When he met her eyes, he quickly remembered that the speaker most likely thought of Edison's orders as nothing more than the squeak of a mosquito, something equally annoying, and useless in its essence. Or, at worse, as a reason to start swinging.
Archer, as expected, quickly nodded. "Sure, I'll just be going now."
Then with absolute certainty and a need to rapidly disappear from the girl's sight and not in any way be seen by her again, Archer tried as quickly as possible to disappear from the sight of the girl. Without hesitation, Archer discarded the duties of watching over the pack of automatons.
Angrboda, watching Archer's disappearance, only looked around irritably. She was really hungry! All she got to eat so far was a few skinny men and women from Edison's army.
She was practically starving!
Although, she was forced to admit, this was still a much better position than the one she had found herself in, in the past.
Technically, as Angrboda was not a human, then the act of eating a human was not cannibalism, but that does not mean that Angrboda was not cannibalistic. Unfortunately, in the darkest pages of her history, even her children were not completely immune to her hunger, or anger, or both.
Yes, Angrboda loved her children, quite genuinely and with no small amount of obsession. She was ecstatic to rejoice in their successes, almost human in her mannerism. But, in the end, Angrboda was still not human. Her offsprings were so many and varied, that it was inherently impossible to make all her offsprings friendly with each other.
And Angrboda herself, after all, was a monster.
Eventually someone would die, and then get eaten, that was the law of the jungle. If you are the ancestor of the entire animal kingdom, you can't cry that one of your children, for example, a lion kills an antelope. You just accept the cruel rules of this world.
To live, means the death of another.
In the wild, mothers kill the runt of their litters, all for the sake of survival.
Alas, that's how cruel and beautiful natural selection is.
Of course, this does not mean that Angrboda felt nothing from it, and she did not cross the line unless by necessity or by pure chance. She was disgusted by the very idea of purposeful extermination of her own kind.
But death and life have always gone hand in hand.
And sometimes, even Angrboda herself had to stain her hands with the blood of her kin.
"But," her gaze shifted to the silhouettes of the city in the distance, "there's hardly anyone in this Singularity who would or could make her break her own vows."
But someone tasty, Angrboda licked her lips, anticipating her next meal, might exist here...
Cu Chulainn Alter sighed for the umpteenth time, glancing boredly at a distant dot on the ceiling. As usual, Medb was chirping something or other, not that he paid any attention to her, never realizing how uninterested he was in her, or more probably, ignoring it.
Still, Cu kept staring at the ceiling, as if trying to see in the high ceilings and whitewashed walls the signs of an impending battle.
Cu Chulainn Alter didn't need to eat, sleep, or anything like that, nor did he want to do anything other than battle. Which is why, he was bored out of his mind, so he spent his time lounging around, where the number of times he even moved could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And they would all, one way or another, boil down to his attempts to keep Medb away. Either roughly shoving her back to her seat or trying to drive her back into her own personal space every time she got some strange idea or another.
Even Cu Chulainn Alter's steely will would cease to protect his mind from the queen's encroachments if he doesn't make his boundaries clear. Mostly by annoying him enough to make him actually do something about Medb, though what he would do, he still doesn't know.
That is, if he even bothers to do anything.
To think that Cu Chulainn Alter was unreasonable would be wrong, Cu Chulainn Alter was in fact very reasonable, his desire for battle was simply the entire reason for his existence.
Colorful battle with the enemy or killing from ambush and from behind, enemy or ally, Servant or human, man or woman, child or old man, to kill or to die, Cu Chulainn Alter did not care about that.
All Cu Chulainn Alter wanted was to fight, he doesn't really care for the unimportant things like a justification or a consequence, or even a concrete goal.
Cu Chulainn Alter was the Altered version of the legendary hero Cu Chulainn, a companionable, approachable, loud, brash and always ready to fight or duel kind of guy, eager to act according to his purpose and his moral code. As far as he himself understood it at least.
As is often the case with the Alter versions of the Servants, Cu Chulainn Alter was literally like a mirror image of Cu Chulainn.
Cu Chulainn Alter was not loud, he saw no point in getting into conversations other than answering someone else's questions. He was not the kind of person to seek out battles, or even challenge someone to a duel. He saw no point in moving out of his seat until the fight itself had already begun, not wanting to inflict a new battle on himself by his actions. And he had no moral compulsion to do anything or other motivations whatsoever.
In the end, one could even say that Cu Chulainn Alter's life was so sad that even he himself could not appreciate how sad his current situation was.
If he doesn't aspire to anything, not even combat, what is the point of him shifting and doing anything? Waiting for a situation that forces him to act according to the Berserker program embedded within him? And if he felt no emotions and saw no goals in front of him, what was the point in enjoying situations he was already thrust into?
Cu Chulainn Alter felt no satisfaction in killing an enemy, he neither had Cu Chulainn's zeal, not even a Berserker's twisted pleasure. He felt nothing in getting wounded in battles, neither the pain of a soldier, nor the pleasure of a masochist.
You could almost say that Cu Chulainn Alter was nothing more than an automaton, even Edison's robots had more personality to them.
Certainly, he feels distaste at Medb's actions, her creeping toward him annoys him to no end, not that he could be bothered enough to do more than just toss her back to her side. And, if one tried to make sense of his personality and draw out his emotions, which perhaps only the most first-rate of all Masters could do, they would find a Servant bereft of emotions.
Sitting on his throne, Cu Chulainn Alter felt neither fear of the impending battle, and he knew it was coming, or anticipatory pleasure.
He did not care whether the battle began in a minute or a year from now, as long as it did not start yet, he continued to sit in his seat. Once the battle begins, with an equally senseless lack of purpose, he would then fight, because that was his duty as King. Nothing more and nothing less.
After all, fighting itself was not something he pursued, not a goal nor something he enjoys, just something that he has to do. Once he started fighting, he couldn't stop, continuing to kill his opponents until they were finished, or until his body was destroyed.
One might say that Cu Chulainn Alter was bored, but even that would not be close to the marks. Boredom implies an understanding that one had something else that they wanted to do, something that excited them, for a pastime to be more positively colored than another, and for Cu Chulainn Alter there was no such distinction.
So all Cu Chulainn Alter thought about, as he looked somewhere in the distance, as if he could see the incoming convoys of Edison's soldiers, was that he had to move again soon. Without emotion, just enumerating a fact to himself.
Scáthach will fight for sure. To meet her on the battlefield again, though one could hardly see, a shadow of emotion slipped through Cuchulain Alter's mind, it would be interesting.
Cu Chulainn Alter was not excitedly anticipating his battle against Scáthach. It was simply something that he noted.
Cu Chulainn had made his name killing monsters, but his Alter-version had not gone backwards, and became a human-killer, and so Cu Chulainn Alter had no anticipation of killing the Scáthach.
All Cu Chulainn Alter thought about was the approaching battle. It was a strange sense of ennui, trying to catch the minutes remaining before the start of another meaningless turn in his meaningless life, watching the light of the sun slowly streaming through the large windows.
Karna looked at the departing metal dummies without anticipation or fear. He was accustomed to battle and did not worry about its approach, ready to kill as well as to die if necessary. He neither sought nor avoided battle. As he was told to fight, he would fight. As he would be told to kill, he would kill. Because he was the Master's Servant, his function was to obey orders, even if the orders given to him might be inhumane or outright impossible.
Such a fact did not mean that he had no opinion or consciousness of his own, that he could not react to what was happening to him and around him. It's just that in his value system, his personal reactions stood infinitely lower than the orders he has received.
But, still, neither was he an unfeeling robot. Right now, he was grasped by a strange emotion as he looked to the ranks of Edison's robots for his 'mother', failing that, among the other Servants of Edison.
How did he feel about his self-proclaimed 'mother'? Mostly, confusion. Who was this Servant? Where had she come from? Why was she acting this way? What powers did she really possess? What role would she play in the ensuing battle?
Would there be a situation in which Karna would come to her mother's defense, fight side by side with her, perhaps save her life, or even be saved in return?
Even if his mother would always be Kunti, he couldn't help but worry about the Servant that had called him her son.
The battle was going to be a large and chaotic one as powerful Servants existed on all sides of the battle. What if he were to face Scáthach in battle? Cu Chulainn Alter? Karna was modest, but not stupid, and he maintained his modesty not out of his ignorance of his own power, but in spite of his absolute understanding of his level of strength.
There were very few Servants equal to him, compared to the number of all Servants in existence it could be counted in one hand. But in the current Singularity, it was only ironic that Karna himself faced an entirely disproportionate concentration of them.
Scáthach, also a Lancer, was the first one worth thinking about. In power and destructiveness that one was considerably inferior to him, but in spearmanship, even the great Karna was no match for the Witch of Dun Scaith.
On Cu Chulainn Alter... It would have been not much easier to break through his defenses than Karna's own armor. And, contrary to other Berserkers, who can only rush forward in madness at the most obvious traps, a Berserker like Cu Alter, whose madness doesn't preclude them from fighting normally, was a tough opponent to the point of disgust.
Of course, he had Edison on his side. Though perhaps someone one would see as a seemingly insignificant Servant who was to perish along with his entire era, he held on his shoulders not mystical armor or great magic, but the mighty power of humanity. And as easy as his condition was to be mocked, his powers could not be underestimated.
Even with Edison as his ally, the number of Servants that still poses a threat just kept piling on. Overpowering Servants, the appearance of just one of them in a Holy Grail War would instantly have led to an early victory, with two or more at once to the destruction of the host country.
And potentially has to face them all in the chaotic battlefield.
Who would he ultimately have to face? The legendary hero of ancient India, Rama, perhaps? Could he rely on the help of Tesla?
The only thing he knows, was that in the chaotic battlefield, all things are equally possible, in the end Karna was left guessing...
Medea watched the Berserker move. And, as one might expect, of an army led by a Berserker, there were many of them in Cu Chulainn Alter's army. And if their classes are different, then they would actually look better among Berserkers than among their current classes.
Watching the Servant popping up, as if she were counting down the seconds until her opponent approached.
Unlike with Mashu or even the other Servants, she was, loathe as she is to admit, less accustomed to battle and death. But then, there was no room nor need for worry, the battle would happen one way or another, was it worth torturing herself with thoughts about it now?
Medea was as ready as she could be. Every spell in place, every possible detail calculated and was accounted for. Unfortunately, contrary to her outstanding ability in Magecraft, she can't foresee the future, and therefore could only take into account what she thought possible.
But, at the very least, at least Medea hoped that her Master, Ainz, would not decide to get rid of her, at least needing her to continue to teach Olga-Maria. Whatever confidence or capability she might have, there was no going back from that.
Medea could also hope that she had gotten closer to Mashu, another one of Master's favored Servants. Though Medea's own words towards her were, for the most part, were more like a barely effective verbal pat on the shoulder, it should be good for something, right!?
In either case, in the oncoming battle, Mashu could withstand at least a few blows and cover Medea from the occasional arrow or sword. Hopefully, her increased rapport with her would also confer some benefit when interacting with Ainz, never mind the one she already had with Olga.
After all, when it came to family relations, and Medea regarded Ainz and Olga-Maria's relationship as odd, but still moving toward becoming a family, Medea's position should be safe. Not close enough to be considered abnormal, but also not too far to be estranged. Under the auspices of 'a teacher important to the person who is important to you', her protection was far more assured. She also has not acted outside the bounds of Ainz's orders, even while acting according to her own desire and understanding.
In the end, all she could rely on in the future battle was her magic, Mashu's shield, and her Master's intellect... And there was no doubt about the latter.
As he tried to act as inconspicuous as possible, unfortunately and ironically, Archer stood out the most. Compared to the mechanical soldiers rushing about their business, his figure, as if trying his best to stay out of the way of the many soldiers, was so incongruous with the people rushing about their business, looked most eye-catching. Which was in some ways an insult to his true identity as a Servant, but was the essence of his identity as a person.
He would have loved to be able to nestle somewhere higher up in the nearest branch of the trees right now and watch from above what was going on below. But unfortunately, even Archer himself knew that was no more than a pipe dream for him. The fact that there were no trees remaining for miles was simply another facet to his situation.
Whatever the reason for his participation be, one way or another, he would find himself... not exactly on the front lines of the battle, as Archer was best positioned a little farther back in the vanguard. But still on the battlefield anyway.
Archer just felt that in the coming battle, all three Servant camps would be going all out, there's no way Archer himself would be allowed not to join the battle. In other words, the place he wanted to be in the least.
This wasn't what Archer wanted, but what he was trying to prepare himself for anyway.
Otherwise...
Right now, some sort of unpleasant surprise could spoil Angrboda's mood, for sure. Well, sour it more than the sour mood she's already in, anyway.
Though she had the ability to tell her child from among a throng of creatures at a glance, Angrboda's gaze was not as sharp as one would assume. For such a powerful being, it could even be said that she possessed a remarkable amount of myopia. No, her eyesight wasn't bad, she simply has trouble seeing things that are not 'significant' in her eyes.
But, the very understanding of what is 'significant' for Angrboda was so great that, relative to the Servants of this world, one might even say that she was practically blind.
That was the terms that she had to abide when she was summoned, though. The 'shell' was simply too small to contain all of Angrboda, and so she had to make concessions. Of course, the 'terms' were not written in stone, and Angrboda could unleash all of her strength at any time if she wanted to risk being unsummoned, she simply chose not to.
Considering that, for a 'monster', Angrboda had quite considerable willpower and self-control, one could say that this world had drawn a relatively lucky ticket when she was summoned. Something that could not be said of her 'adversaries', though Angrboda wouldn't call them that.
Angrboda was hungry, bored, and, frankly, already tired of this Singularity. Sure, she had met a couple of the cutest of her children, but other than that, nothing more. She can't even enjoy doting on them! Busy with the war, they say!
She wanted to get back to Chaldea sooner. Jack, for one, was clearly waiting for some new story from her.
And what child wouldn't expect a mother to come back with something tasty from her hike outside?
Although, Angrboda would be sad to abandon her children in this Singularity completely to their fate, like Karna. But, alas, the cruel reality was that her children sometimes killed each other and there was nothing she could do about it. She could only watch the weaker children die, unable to win a place under the unforgiving sky and sun of this world. She could only hope that next time they would be luckier than to face someone stronger...
Thomas Edison, who is not a furry by the way, was trying to organize the plan for the oncoming battle. The right flank and the left, the center and reserve, Edison analyzed again and again the expected balance of power. If some monstrously strong Servant appeared behind him for some reason, and he had to defend the other Servants, what would he do? What contingencies should he put into place?
Or, what if his opponents decide to concentrate several powerful Servants at one point at once, and gun for him? In this case, Edison did not estimate his chances of survival to be so high either...
Thomas Edison was a Servant, a Caster, and because of the unique conditions of his emergence could be considered a significant fighting force. But, for all his love of ranking himself with the great heroes of antiquity, he was still starkly aware of his power. Or his lack of one.
Rama against him? Instant defeat.
Cu Chulainn Alter against him? Not even funny.
Scáthach against him? It was easier for Edison to save time and just jump into a dragon's jaws.
He wasn't defenseless, and there were still some aces in his sleeves, but against the sort of Servants he'd expected to encounter in battle, he'd only be effective if numerous conditions were met. And Edison, though an opportunist by nature, was an opportunist who took chances rather than an idiot who jumped blindly where there were no chances at all.
Karna? With the skill of his spear and the power of his Noble Phantasms he could subdue any beast, whether it had formidable strength, ferocity, or inexhaustible stamina.
Tesla? A modern thunderer, unafraid even of encroaching upon the symbol of divinity itself, the blade of Zeus.
There were many Servants, terrifying and powerful, none Edison himself could equal. If his enemies could bring the terror and power of their myth to this world, one of those legendary conquerors and warriors, the kind who are not afraid of death and who break through even the lines outlined by fate itself, then Edison himself could only boast a long list of his patents and inventions.
Decent, but not enough.
Perhaps all Edison himself could hope for in the battle ahead was that he would get close to Tesla or Karna and, should the battle come to him immediately, immediately apply his trump card, his Noble Phantasm.
And if that's not enough either...
Mashu continued to examine her shield for chips or scratches, even knowing in her mind that it was a Servant's weapon, which could not suffer from such a thing. All the more so as the shield of Galahad, who held all of Camelot on his shoulders, an ancient relic from Arthurian times. The Servants' weapons required no special care at all, something as simple as Mashu's shield, created from a solid monolith, all the more so.
And yet Mashu couldn't help but worry and continued, though Medea's words had managed to soothe a part of her troubled mind, it was still only a part. Mashu's head was still full of questions, doubts, and thanks to Galahad's strange words, confusion as well.
How to the end the mechanism of the Guardians of Counter Force worked, and how it would work in the current situation, when Galahad had made a deal with Alaya after her 'request' to wake up and watch over Ainz. And while Mashu had not made that deal, as she was right now using Galahad's powers, it still affects her.
What was she to face in battle? And what would she face after?
Mashu understood that in a fight, she just had to hold her shield high, covering her allies from any attack. Her duty was to allow her allies the opportunity to act freely, the particulars didn't change much on who her opponent was and who she was protecting.
Were it to be an Archer, Lancer, Caster behind her, she just has her shield in front of her. Were it to be a Berserker, Archer, Rider, Lancer, Caster, or even all of them against her, she just has to block their attacks.
The composition of the fighting and the attacks they could throw were secondary. Whether covering an Archer from an arrow, a Caster from a fist, or a Lancer from a spear, as long as her mission simply consisted of covering someone from something, her basic actions were simple and straightforward enough. Raise her shield, cover herself and her ally with it, and face the enemy. The plan is as simple as it is proven and ingenious.
The problems started from the moment it wasn't enough.
Servants by their very nature were not a one-trick pony. Even excluding the possibilities that were clearly no longer applicable, like trying to poison someone before the battle began or using some sort of charisma to convince everyone to calm down and stop killing each other, the possibilities were endless.
Heh, Mashu would have been interested to see how Medea would have reacted to such a thing.
And no, it wasn't just about destructive beams from outer space, destroying everything in their path with an unlockable spear, and... what else did a good portion of the Servants' Noble Phantasms usually boil down to? Summoning monsters, perhaps?
It didn't matter. It was more important that, so far, it had come down to simple attacks or even summoning monsters, Mashu could at least understand the principle on how to defend against such things.
'You're worrying too much.' Galahad's voice distracted Mashu from continuing to spiral downward, more and more entangled in her worries. 'Ninety percent of Noble Phantasms are simply a much stronger strike, self-reinforcement or summoning monsters, the exceptions can be counted on the fingers of one hand, leaving four fingers free.'
Well, thank you Galahad for your nugget of wisdom, exceptions are rare. What's next? Water is wet?
"I don't know how to respond to the bomb you just unloaded about becoming a Counter Guardian, so be quiet?" Mashu replied to Galahad, still reluctant to take his advice.
Okay, she wasn't bothered by just more blows or explosions, but at least it seemed to her that the ensuing battle was supposed to consist solely of that sort of thing, Mashu herself wasn't particularly worried about that. At least during her journey with Ainz she had learned how to defend people properly, and that was all she was required to do.
Medea was right, though, she wasn't superfluous, and no one required her to save this whole Singularity on her own. She could rely on the wisdom of the surrounding Servants, take control of her unbridled imagination, use her Noble Phantasm at the right time and in the right way as needed, and everything would resolve itself.
However, Mashu sighed, the absence of Ainz made her a little nervous...
But Mashu knew for sure that whatever Ainz was waiting for and doing right now, he believed in her. She just needed to do her duties and Ainz would be doing the rest...
She did wonder what he was doing...
"I never thought that I'd be taking so many pictures of everything." Ainz made himself comfortable on the bench, trying to choose the prettiest one out of all the pictures he'd taken himself. "Blurry, a pigeon flew in, and the way the light fell here... No."
Ten photos of Ainz, or rather, of the Eiffel Tower, were stored on the 'Camera'. One of the in-game items that essentially served as a crutch for the creators of Yggdrasil, who never fully implemented the screenshot function in the game. Right now, he was selecting from them the ones he liked best.
Over the past few days, after dealing with the Clock Tower vault, Ainz suddenly remembered that there was still a world beyond the previously outlined Singularity coordinates, a full-fledged and living one even. In past Singularities, Ainz, who had been crammed into one location all the time, had never been able to interact with the world of the past. Never had the chance to enjoy the sights as it were, unmarred by the World War. The third one, at least, Ainz wasn't quite sure what year this Singularity is in.
And given the conditions outside of Chaldea, he also couldn't enjoy it outside of the Singularity either. So, having escaped the confines of America, it was as if Ainz had awoken from a dream. And so, armed with his teleportation spells, he sought, right now, to visit as many places and sights of this world that he had never had the chance to see in his past life as he could.
He hadn't forgotten about the Singularity, of course. But, given that, so far, none of the Servants had ever called on him, they were probably doing just fine on their own.
Which meant that... Ainz was already fulfilling his function as boss, not preventing his subordinates from performing their functions!
Although, on the other hand, the boss being in another state on vacation while his employees were working didn't make for quite the pretty picture...
Huh, if only his subordinates knew what he was doing right now...
Their work would definitely have turned into chaos, Ainz had seen similar instances at work before.
But, if his employees didn't know, Ainz could afford to rest and relax.
At least for a couple of days more.
A's personal diary entries:
... I'm not sure exactly what happened to her, but her development, which seemed to have stopped, at a high level, almost on the verge of acquiring True Magic, unexpectedly still continued.
Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for all of us, she still couldn't reach True Magic, but her greatly increased paranoia and secrecy about her own research can only lead to the saddest of endings.
Besides, I have managed to filter out most of the rumors, converging only on the most probable causes of what had happened. But, unfortunately, I still have not been able to narrow down the possibility or probability into something concrete.
While it is quite difficult for me to deny her radical changes, and in a very unorthodox way, coinciding together with her increased power.
And yet I have a question, where could Lorelei have found such a book, and what does it mean in a fuller picture of this world?
...