A/N:
Frenzy307: If I recall correctly, I think the guaranteed gold card can apply to both Craft Essences and Servants, because the 10-rolls guarantee you an SR, but it can be a 4-star Craft Essence. But maybe you're right, but I unfortunately forgot which 4-stars I received during my initial rolls. I'll have to dig through my account and try to remember which ones they were - and also remember that this story is only loosely based on the game, I may take liberties here and there with representation of the game's mechanics and, of course, my own recollections of playing the game.
-Akyuu no Joshu
Monotonous typing fills my head as my fingers fly and drill the keys of my Razer Blackwidow. Sometimes I wonder to myself if getting a gaming keyboard for my work computer was really necessary, but then the moment I begin typing on it, I forget all my doubts, because I realize just how much I love the sound of loud cherry keys.
This is your cue, as the reader, to call me weird.
While typing data into my data logging software for my business, I glance quickly down at the lower-right corner of my computer monitor. April 21st, half past ten in the morning...and I'm already almost done with work. Well, not that that's a big surprise...in the shipping and freight-forwarding business, like many other standardized, internationalized business where weekends are typically work-free, Fridays tend to be a little slow, since everyone's looking forward to the weekend and overall productivity levels plummet as a result. Not that I fault anyone in particular, I myself can be pretty guilty of this too. After all, it's the weekend...that's more than enough of a reason to slack off on work, and that's a universal mentality across all first-world cultures. Or, so I'd like to think.
As I hit enter on my keyboard and my printer begins to hum and rumble electronically, warming up to print out two copies of the invoice I've made for the shipment I'm working on, the door to my room lets me know that someone is outside by giving me two crisp, polite knocks. I sense my visitor well before she performs those knocks; by this point, as my two house guests have been staying with me for the past two days, I now have a solid grasp over their respective signatures and can tell them apart from one another - and this time, my visitor is Saber Lily.
"Yes, come in," I call over, reaching down to grab my invoice copies. Other than the big fax/scanner/printer all-in-one machine that I've got that I use for primarily copying and faxing purposes, I also have a smaller, black and white inkjet that does nothing but print, and it's quite fast and efficient at it too, compared to the relative monster of a machine that the all-in-one is, and I have it sitting underneath my desk to save space up top. The door opens shyly, and in peeks Saber Lily, whom I turn around in my chair to greet once I place the invoices on my desk, on top of the manila folder that contains the paperwork for this particular piece of work of mine. "Good morning, is there anything I can do for you?"
"Ah..." Lily smiles with a healthy mixture of shyness and nervousness as she slips into my room, closing the door behind me for courtesy's sake. "I - I would like to ask - er, yes, ask if, um...there is anything you would like me to do..."
I tilt my head a little to the side, making it clear that I'm a little bit puzzled over this kind of request. "Have anything for you to do..." I repeat after her. "As in...?"
"Well..you see, Lady Matthew explained to me the situation..." Lily gestures a little. What's also clear is the fact that she's not totally acclimated to the environment here, given her nervousness when talking to me. I like to think of myself as someone who's easy to approach and talk to, and I've made all the efforts I can to convey that image. "...so I wish to know if there is no assignment you would like me to undertake. Uh, for example...patrolling, or...guarding, or...?"
Crossing my arms and leaning back a little in my chair, I ponder a little.
"I don't particularly need you to be out patrolling..." I tell her slowly. "Because if anything, I'd rather have everyone stick together."
"Wh-Why's that, Master?"
"Because that way, when the singularity appears, we can attack as a cohesive unit. I'd rather not risk the chance of sending you and Matthew out to patrol random areas and then have the singularity appear right on top of you. That won't be good at all."
"It's alright, Master. This Artoria Pendragon shall not fall to the likes of petty foes! I may not look it, and I may have introduced myself to you as a knight and a king in training, but I am confident in my abilities to fight!" Lily announces quite proudly, certainly having the air of a confident teenager who's eager to show off what she can do to back up her words. The confidence is quite refreshing, frankly, and I appreciate it dearly.
"I'm sure that you are, but I'd still like to stick to my plan of waiting until the singularity hits so that we can react appropriately."
"Huh...well...if you say so, Master..." Lily sounds quite disheartened and let down, and her facial expression morphs in accordance with the heaviness of her words. "But...I must ask, how will you know when the singularity will appear, Master?"
"Well...you see, I'm what they call a Resident Guardian," I explain, leaning a bit forward in my chair. "Are you familiar with the term?"
Lily shakes her head slowly, so I clear my throat a little.
"Okay. Basically, a Resident Guardian is a mage like me who's settled into a particular region as a permanent resident, with no plans on moving out of that region for the majority of his or her life; that mage is then responsible for handling all magic-related incidents in his or her respective regions, making sure that magic isn't leaked to the general public, correcting magical flaws and inconsistencies, so on and so forth. This isn't a regulated system at all, though - it's very hard for organized magic associations like the Mages' Association to enforce any kind of system for this due to the independence and general lack of cooperation from Resident Mages like myself, and not to mention there are thousands of them spread out around the world. And, of course, there are entire regions around the world that aren't being overseen by Resident Guardians to begin with, so those areas typically become free-for-all stages for anything magic-related. The term can also apply to magic families who've historically lived in a certain area or to magic individuals or families who own their own pieces of land and/or property, so it only makes sense for them to be Resident Guardians by default. In my case, I preside over a couple of towns: this one, called Tierra del Illamas, and the surrounding towns of Nelson, Archibrod, and Watson Estates. The big city up north, Los Angeles, is also technically under my supervision, but that's such a huge city and region that several other Resident Guardians have staked claims there too and are messing around there."
Lily looks concerned. "Are you not worried about those other Resident Guardians who are intruding on your turf? I think Merlin told me before that generally speaking, mages do not like it when others trespass on their designated lands..."
I smile a little, shrugging nonchalantly. "Not really, they don't worry me at all. I don't have a reason to go after them, so long as they don't do anything that I personally object to; besides, they don't even know that I'm the Resident Guardian of this region anyway."
"Eh? They don't?" Lily seems surprised. "Er...well, is there a...a reason for this, um...anonymity, Master?"
"I like not being known. I find it a lot more convenient to be incognito, undercover. I can go places and do things without having to worry about getting recognized." I gaze at Lily for a moment, pausing. "I guess for someone like yourself, it's a little bit difficult to understand that, maybe. But I'd like to assure you that I'm quite knowledgeable in this field."
Lily nods slowly. "If Master decrees it..." she says quietly.
"By the way, you called yourself 'Artoria'," I mention. "But on the Summoning Ticket that had your Heroic Spirit within it, it said that your name was 'Altria'. Is there a name that you prefer? Other than me calling you Lily, of course."
Blinking with even more puzzlement, Lily stares at me briefly.
"A-Altria...?" she balks somewhat. "Er...I...I've never heard of my name being pronounced that way..."
I rub my chin. "Interesting. Then I'll assume Artoria is the proper pronunciation?"
"That was my name in my life, yes. M-Maybe...maybe modern translations from the records of my life have assigned my name to be spelt and pronounced in that way?"
"Hm, maybe, I can definitely see that happening."
"But...um..." Lily begins to fidget a little, pressing her index fingertips together as she squirms lightly in place. "L...'Lily'...is perfectly fine..."
I smile. How cute.
"You've taken a liking to it?" I ask, causing the floodgates in Lily's cheeks trying desperately to hold back the blood in her face to finally break, and she averts her gaze completely to the carpeted floor as she nods a tiny nod. "That's good, I'm glad you like it. But in case you'd like me to call you something else instead, since, y'know, you're in your whole knight training process, then feel free to let me know anytime."
Saber Lily nods, trying hard to push aside her sense of embarrassment, but I get the sense that if I turn her away now to finish up my work, she'll leave unsatisfied. And wow, that sounds lewd as hell.
"If you'd like to train, I can make time for you this evening," I tell her. "Actually, tell you what: today's a Friday, which means my work here'll end pretty early, and after that, I'd like to take you around the local area here, specifically the shopping mall and the supermarket that's nearby. So for that, would you like to eat lunch outside, or have lunch at home here?"
"E-Ehh..." Lily frets a little, tempted very much by both of her choices. "Um...w-will the food outside be as good as yours, Master?"
I snort immediately in response to Lily's innocent question.
"You must really like my cooking, huh," I chortle just a bit, causing Lily to blush even harder.
"P-Please, Master, it's - it was very embarrassing for me to say that out loud...!" Lily mumbles, her voice strained and muffled, an obvious sign that Lily wants to raise her voice but can't, because she feels that she'll start being rude.
"I mean, I have no problem cooking lunch for us today again," I shrug. "But it's not like I'm the only one in the world who can make good food. Restaurants and other food places outside have perfectly good meals too that you can try. As a matter of fact, there's one particular place I'd like to show you, and I think you'll love it."
"Really?" Lily sure gets swayed easily by the prospect of food. "Th-Then, if Master personally recommends it, I would love to try!"
"Then wait for me to get this last piece of work done, and we'll get a move on. Oh, and tell Matthew too, since we'll be going together."
"Yes, right away, Master!"
And with that, Lily scampers out of my room to go tell Matthew the plans for today, and I turn around in my chair to finish up these last few shipments.
I've both heard and read, during my time at Chaldea, that the dispositions of Servants can fluctuate hard on the personality spectrum. Cold, calm, reserved, and calculating to personalities that can only be described as batshit insane. I suppose having Saber Lily, who's a perfectly reasonable and unfailingly good-natured Servant, in this retrospect, is a total godsend. Because even if I don't look it or act like it, I can be a serious Debbie Downer sometimes...letting pessimistic thoughts run through my head and becoming all dark and brooding and edgy. I thought that perhaps growing up a little would help me grow out of it, but there come times when I definitely have my moments, and sometimes I have to wonder if growing up alone's shaped me out to be like that. Well...then again, there really can't be anything else that would explain it, can there.
And, now that I think about it, depending on how long this singularity lasts, I may have to expect to spend an extended period of time with these girls and whichever Servants follow. That would essentially mean that I'll start actually living with people, something I haven't done in...I want to say three years, ever since my foster father's death. I'm not sure what to feel about it. Does that mean that I can start calling them family? What even is my definition of a family? Because of all the people on this planet, I am the least qualified to tell anyone, much less myself, what a "family" is. Of course, it would be really easy for me to go ahead and say that I've got a new family living with me now. But that's only if the word, the concept of "family" allows for a unit that only includes friends and comrades, rather than blood-related individuals. I'm not sure if that really applies, at least not in the magic world - I'm aware of the recent trends of English colloquialism these days, where the young'uns are starting to call their friends "fam" and stuff like that.
As I scan the invoices and send them via email attachments to their respective clients, I close out of my browsers and applications and shut down my work computer, getting out of my chair to put on some clothes to head outside. I suppose I'll figure out for myself if what I've got now in my hands is something I feel worthy enough to call a family. Even now, as I exit my room and head down the stairs to meet with Matthew and Lily, I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to being able to call them family. It's a little scary, honestly.
Because what if I lose them, just like I lost everyone else?
Even after all these years, that still is a nightmarishly hard question for me to answer.
"Here we are."
I pull the Mercedes into a space in the parking lot outside the Vons supermarket that I frequently come by to buy groceries. It's either this supermarket or another one down in Nelson, a Korean supermarket that sells Korean food products that I like to stock my fridge with, since, y'know, I'm part Korean and all that. This Vons easily takes care of everything else, though. In the meantime, once I shut off the engine of my car, we climb out, everyone in their casual clothes and all, as we're in public. I am definitely worried about Lily's clothing - even though she's been getting around just fine in that dress and getup, now we're entering the realm of the youthful public, as I like to call it - where young teens with raging hormones are out and about like zombies that walk during the day. It doesn't help that there's a high school that's right around the corner from here, and that now is about the time for kids who don't have a sixth period to be walking out of class and dispersing into the small mall complex here to grab food or just hang out after school.
I'd definitely know, because I graduated from that same school.
"Master? Is there something...?" Lily asks hesitantly, and I find myself staring at Lily on accident while absorbed in my own thoughts.
"Shit, sorry, no, there's - " but I cut myself off - her clothes definitely concern me. "Actually, after we eat lunch, I'd like to buy some clothes for you."
"Huh? C-Clothes...?" Lily shyly glances down at herself, immediately and correctly sensing that I'm taking fault with her current outfit. "...is this choice of attire...considered inappropriate for modern-day public outing?"
"Not inappropriate, but..." I scratch my head a little. "It's definitely not common for people to wear a one-piece dress, black thighhighs, and a ribbon on the back of your head. And besides that, I need to warn you that, since there's a high school nearby with a lot of teenagers, you're gonna get a whole lotta stares from the boys if they start showing up. They should be getting out of class by now..."
"Boys..." Lily's shy smile falters somewhat.
"Not good around them, huh," I take a quick guess.
"Erm...well...it's...it's just that...I prefer to...make company with other girls and women," Lily murmurs.
"Oh, I see. But you can talk to me just fine, though?"
"Th-That's because you are my Master! And...well...I cannot bring myself to be rude to you, especially...especially not after cooking for me...and Lady Matthew..."
At this, I let out a brief and cheery chuckle. "So it's true what they say, the quickest way to everyone's hearts is through their stomachs," I joke around, and Lily fidgets even harder. "Well, enough with that, let's head inside, I'm sure you two're pretty hungry."
"How about you, Senpai? Aren't you hungry too?" Matthew asks as we cross the small street that divides the supermarket from the parking lot next to it.
"A little bit."
We head inside, into the sliding automatic doors. At the sight of an automatic door, Lily flinches slightly in surprise, walking quickly through while looking back at it in marvel. But once we're inside and Lily gets over the whole sliding automatic door thing, she takes one look around and gasps.
"Th-This is a s-supermarket...?" Lily exclaims almost hoarsely, trying to keep her voice down, and she can't help but step briskly towards the nearest fruit stand that carries oranges, tangerines, apples, and bananas, so Matthew and I follow after her.
"I thought Servants were supposed to be summoned with a general knowledge about the era into which they've been summoned?" I murmur quietly out of the corner of my lips to Matthew.
"Well...yes, but I think it's because of Miss Lily's overall innocent and explorative nature," she says back. "Remember that she's called herself a knight in training."
"She just looks really young. I was mentioning high school kids and all that, but she looks like she's gotta be that age, right?"
"I think so too...perhaps seventeen, eighteen?" Matthew takes a look up at me. "Um...I don't mean to be rude, Senpai, but...how old are you?"
"Twenty-two."
Blinking at me, Matthew takes a step back in surprise.
"What?" I ask casually, raising an eyebrow over at her.
"T-Twenty-two...? But...but you look so much younger than that..." Matthew stutters, looking me down from head to toe.
"What, did you think I was in high school?" I grin with just a smidge of sarcasm.
"Erm...well, I did think that you at least graduated high school...seeing that it's obvious you are working and all..."
"Excellent deductive skills, Watson. Now let's go grab Lily before she takes three hours to tour the whole supermarket..."
We head over to Lily, who's just standing in front of the watermelon counter and staring at all the ripe and succulent watermelons sitting out on display for purchase.
"Hey, Lily, let's go have lunch," I call out to her, stepping near her, and she jolts a little, like I'm snapping her out of a daze or something.
"Ah! Y-Yes, of course..." Lily quickly turns to me, like she's trying to act innocent from her captivation by a fruit stand. "S-Supermarkets are...very amazing, yes!"
"They are. It's one of the many reasons why people like me can afford to sit around home all day doing just one job, rather than having to make and grow food for myself," I remark as we swing around over to the small Panda Express restaurant that's situated inside the supermarket; rather than a full-blown restaurant like the one that Matthew and I went to, this one is set up somewhat like a bar, with people lining up right outside the counter to be served. "Here it is. Matthew's already been by here last time - I hope you don't mind having this again?"
"No, it was very good the last time," Matthew shakes her head with a smile, and before we know it, Lily's already staring deeply into the food that sits behind the glass counter.
"Hello, welcome to Panda, would you like to try a sample?" the employee behind the counter greets us as usual, and I step forward to handle the situation, since Lily is unfamiliar with it, I'd imagine.
"Yes, uh, could you let her try the orange chicken?" I ask, and the employee sticks a toothpick in a piece of orange chicken and hands it to me, and I give it to Lily. "Here, it's a sample. Try it."
Lily slowly closes her lips over the piece of orange chicken, and sure enough, her eyes brighten up, and she starts cradling her right cheek with her hand and closes her eyes as she chews to savor the tasty chicken. And sure enough, as I feared, lily flowers begin to spring up around the floor on which she's standing.
"Lily, uh, your flowers, your flowers..." I remind her hastily, and Lily snaps out of her foodgasm trance too, hurriedly looking around at the floor at her feet, hastily stooping down to gather the flowers up while I turn to the employee and put in our orders for everyone. Once we get our food in plastic bags, I give the girls their own orders and take them over to a designated rest area, where there are tables and chairs and couches, even, for public use for the supermarket customers.
"Mmmnn..." Lily remarks while chewing, swallowing her mouthful of food first before resuming. "Food in this day and age...from homemade to restaurant-made, I'm so glad that I was summoned into this era..."
"You really love food, huh," I make an obvious remark, as if I couldn't tell that food is one of Lily's passions.
"Yes! It always has been," she smiles brightly back, but when I look back up at her from my food, her smile's faded somewhat. "Because...during my travels with Kay and Merlin, I...good food was not always easy to find. And sometimes, even when we did have food, it was not always the best. Merlin always made sure that our needs were provided for in the end, but...admittedly, when it came to things like food, the quality that he found was...not always the greatest..."
"Sounds tough."
"A-Ah, but - but I like to think of that as part of my training to become King," Lily says quickly. "I think there's a saying in this era, 'what does not kill you makes you stronger'...?"
I smile at Lily.
"Well, now that you're with us, you don't need to worry about starvation as a tool of building character," I assure her.
As we eat, I sense people coming into the supermarket. This public rest area, which isn't that big to begin with, happens to sit right next to the two entrances into the supermarket, so it's very easy for me to pick up on people coming in and out, at least through this entrance. And sure enough, several groups of high school boys and girls, spaced out about a minute from each other, start heading inside, most likely to pick up their own lunches. Lily happens to be sitting on the side of our table that causes her to face the entrance, meaning that when those boys walk in, if they happen to glance to their right, they'll be able to feast their eyes on Lily.
And oh boy, do they do just that. One of the boys happens to glance right, and the first person he sees, I can tell, is Lily, and that's all it takes for the chain reaction to be set off.
"...Master?" Lily mumbles towards me, her plate about two-thirds eaten.
"...yeah, I know," I grumble back. Looking up from my own food discretely, I can easily see quite a number of kids looking our way, specifically at Lily. "You can feel them starin' at you?"
Lily nods uncomfortably.
"Yeah, sorry about that. That's why I mentioned that I wanted to get you some new clothes..."
"Ah, I see..."
"It also doesn't help that both of you are extremely attractive, according to modern standards..." I sigh a little bit. "You two're probably the best-lookin' girls these kids've seen in person all their lives."
"I-Is that so..." Matthew sounds more unsure than flattered. "I always thought that I was quite average..."
"Now that's just selling yourself short."
We finish up our food, tossing our garbage away in a nearby trash can. By that point, the boys have moved on, but now that school's out for the weekend for those who don't have sixth periods or beyond, I know that we'll encounter many more instances like this. But for now, I take the two of them over to the nearby clothing store, a TJ Max's, so that we can pick out a few clothes for Lily to wear for starters. I entrust the clothing picking to Matthew, since it'd be a little awkward for a guy like me to be helping a girl pick out clothes, so in the meantime, while those two are browsing through clothes to see what Lily likes, I stand by in the aisle, checking my email through the phone for anything work-related that might've come in after I've gotten off work. A few emails regarding shipment information coming in from Xiamen, Ningbo, and Shanghai...but it's a chain email, and they aren't addressed to me specifically, so I don't have to respond to them.
After closing my email application, I hold my right hand over the screen of my phone and hold it there. A small blue rune appears briefly over it, and the screen warps to show me a top-down map of Tierra del Illamas and the adjacent towns of which I'm the Resident Guardian, as I've explained earlier to Lily in the morning. The map shows me about half a dozen locations that are denoted by green, yellow, or red runes situated over specific areas in the towns; most of them are green, but there's a yellow one down in Nelson, near one of the major intersections that sits right in the middle of the town. That means it's time for a little bit of tuning, so I make a mental note to myself to head down there sometime at night to tune that rune. I'm usually on top of making sure that my surveillance runes are in tip-top condition, but it's even more important, now that we're expecting an S-Class singularity to get dropped right on top of us at any moment.
I exit out of my magical map, but before I can click the power button to turn off the screen and pocket the phone, my phone buzzes with vibration, indicating that I've gotten some kind of text message or email, and the icon on the top of the screen shows that I've gotten an email just now, so I bite and check it, pulling my email app back up. It's an email from Dr. Archaman - and when he sends emails, it's always something important. So I open it up and read it.
We've received notification from Mash that you need more saint quartz for another summoning, and we've sent them by international priority mail. Look for it to arrive within a day. -Roman
I guess Matthew pulled through in the end, after all. But then again, that begs the question - did Dr. Archaman send that by nabbing them from Da Vinci, or did he legitimately convince Olga to cough up more? I guess I'll have something to ask him once I pay another visit to Chaldea.
