I glance down at the back of my hand, and then raise it while turning it towards this new Servant so that she can see. Now that I think about it, even her voice is the same as Lily's, just more mature-sounding, lower-pitched, and with the same British accent.
"I suppose I am," I say, albeit a little dryly, since I'm not sure if I'm supposed to considering myself lucky or not for pulling a Servant on the very last summon...whatever those individual summoning circles are called. I'll just call them rolls, since, well, this is starting to seem somewhat like a lottery roll, or like playing roulette...without even being able to see red or black.
With a curt nod, this new Servant steps down from the platform, which shimmers away out of sight the moment she's off it, and stands before me gallantly. As gallantly as a girl who's exactly Lily's height...and thus a little over a full foot shorter than myself. Despite this, I leave human judgments and first impressions out of the way and take a step towards her, a hand raised in an anticipatory handshake, though I do have to wonder if this new Servant who looks exactly like Lily understands the modern concept of handshakes. To my quiet relief, though, she does, and she returns it immediately with her armored hand that's fitted with a gauntlet, just like Lily's, except hers is thicker and stronger, as I can easily tell just from the strength of her handshake.
"I'm Augustus Il," I introduce myself to her, "but just August is fine too. I'll be your Master for the time being, and you've been summoned to help us deal with an imminent singularity that we are expecting to have in this area very soon."
"The pleasure is mine, Master. For what service and duty lies ahead, my sword shall always be by your side," she returns, strongly and confidently. She's got quite a kingly air about her, though the only way I'd know what a "kingly air" would feel like is from what TV shows and movies I've watched, so I could, for all I know, be quite mistaken, since Hollywood tends to fuck up historical accuracy in favor of mass entertainment.
I notice that she then slowly turns her eyes to her right, over to Lily next to me. I also follow her gaze, and it's then that I realize that Lily, for very obvious reasons, is looking tremendously confused and stumped, and when the new Servant glances over at her, she takes a subconscious step back, stepping a little closer to me. Why she feels the need to lean towards me for protection is something I'm not sure I can answer, because it's obvious that she possesses way more raw mana and strength than a puny human like me does.
"So...I've noticed you two have the same face..." I say after clearing my throat politely. "Are you, uh, twins or something? 'Cause, like, I don't recall that King Arthur had a twin...unless there's something to the legend that I don't remember reading about...or..."
"Nay, Master. We are not twins," my new Servant clad in blue armor shakes her head, facing me again. "We are the same person. It appears that you have also somehow managed to summon forth my past self...when I had first pulled my first sword from the Stone."
Same person?
"Then you're also...King Arthur," I narrow my eyes at my new Servant.
"That is correct, Master. I am known as King Arthur, or the King of Knights." Arthur sets her invisible sword (I'm presuming that it is indeed a sword, given the fact that she mentioned a sword just before) into the grass, and it stands on its own, but she holds it against the bottom of the handle with her palm to her side. "But, as it has come to my attention that the name 'Arthur' is a name that is traditionally used in a male connotation, you may also call me 'Artoria' if you wish."
How considerate of a king to cover such nomenclature in a modern-day setting. Maybe it's that whole FATE configuration kicking in that ensures that summoned Servants are familiar with modern-day mannerisms and whatnot.
But now that Artoria's introduced herself as essentially the future version of Lily, I turn to Lily.
"Do you know that she's your future self?" I ask her, but to my surprise, she shakes her head.
"W-Well, I - I get the feeling that I should know her..." Lily stammers, incredibly nervous at the fact that she's facing her future self. "But I...don't...think I do...but at the same time, she...she looks exactly like me, so..."
"Worry not, Princess Knight," Artoria declares softly, turning to her fully to give her the utmost attention. "I pose no danger to you. If it should suit you, you do not have to think of me as your future self, because the experiences that we possess are too different to make us the same person."
Not knowing what to say back, Lily shyly glances back at her future self, but she can't hold eye contact for long and she drops it almost immediately. So Artoria simply turns back to me instead.
"Master, please inform me of this singularity you have spoken of," Artoria requests.
"Basically, there's going to be some sort of reality marble that's supposed to appear anywhere in our local area, within, I'd say, about a hundred mile radius of this location," I point straight down at the ground. "Anywhere on land, that is. When it appears, we're tasked to discover the cause of the singularity and track down its origin point to defuse it and eliminate it."
"Understood. Then I take it that we must wait until this singularity reveals itself to us?"
"Yeah. Until it actually shows up, there's not much we can do about it at the moment."
"I see."
I turn then to Matthew to introduce her, since she's just kind of been standing here on my right awkwardly.
"This is Matthew Kyrielight. She's come here specifically from overseas to help us resolve the singularity, and she's actually a Demi-Servant, or a human fused with a Heroic Spirit."
"Uh - um, y-yes, it's - it's my honor to meet you, Miss - er, I mean, King Artoria!" Matthew stammers even harder than Lily does as she raises her trembling hands up at Artoria, who returns it. But the moment their hands connect, I notice Artoria's brows furrow hard, and the handshake itself lasts noticeably longer than the one she had with me.
"Something wrong, Artoria?" I ask my new Servant, but she slowly shakes her head.
"Nay. I thought I sensed something, but...please ignore it. It must have simply been my imagination..."
This naturally doesn't sit well with Matthew, who ends up looking even more nervous than before because of what Artoria's said.
"Then for now, this's what our team'll look like," I nod at everyone, but I let myself frown just a little. "But it doesn't seem like we've got much ranged support outside of myself..."
"Do you specialize in ranged magic combat, Master?" Artoria asks me quite solemnly. "As in, like an Archer-Class Servant?"
"I specialize in whatever the team needs. In this case, it'd be ranged support, since Matthew is a defensive, close-ranged support who can help back the two of you up in combat, which means that preferably, we'd need someone who can cover the rest of you from afar," I reason. "So that means that I'm the one who'll cover that for you three."
"But do know that should the fighting become dangerous, you need only to leave the brunt of the fighting to us," Artoria declares, with the conviction of a king as usual. "Although this may be unlike the usual Holy Grail Wars into which I am normally summoned, I cannot assume that the lethality and the danger of this singularity is any less potent."
"Thanks, but even though I've only ever heard of the Holy Grail War, it's not like I don't know what fighting in a war's like," I give my newest Servant a quick grin. "But that being said, don't worry, I won't get myself in trouble, and if I do, I'll be sure to rely on the rest of you to back me up."
Artoria nods, as do the others.
"Well...that should be it for now. Let's go back home, since it's already pretty late at night..." I murmur, checking the time by raising my hand up in front of myself and tapping the air, releasing a set of small blue ripples, as if I've just broken the surface of a still pond, and the ripples swiftly snap together to form a small rectangular panel that displays the time in digital format: 2314 hours. "Oh, geez, it's late. Yeah, let's go back. Artoria, I don't know if you are, but if you're hungry, I can make something quick and simple for you when we - "
A massive growl lurches from Artoria's direction, and for a full three seconds, Matthew, Lily, and I all just stare at Artoria, who slowly but surely starts to cringe.
"Hm," I say with a small shrug, the first one to speak after that huge stomach growl. "I guess if I had any doubts as to whether or not you and Lily are the same person, then I don't anymore."
Both Matthew and Lily burst into stifled giggles, much to the chagrin of the King, who is trying her very best to maintain her kingly composure.
"...I-I wish to apologize, Master. I...all my life, I have always had a...an admittedly large appetite..." Artoria mumbles, practically refusing to make eye contact with me. "So...please forgive me, but I think I will accept your generosity."
"Please don't worry, King Artoria. Lily was like that when Senpai first summoned her too," Matthew smiles benignly, much to Lily's own chagrin.
"L-Lady Matthew, you really didn't need to tell her that, I don't think!" she protests in embarrassment, and to my own surprise, Artoria actually seems quite quietly relieved to hear this. As much as it's hard for me to believe it, I suppose Lily and Artoria are, in the end, the same person.
Thirty minutes later, Artoria is sitting with Lily on the same side of the table, staring down at the large tray that I've brought for her and put before her. On it sit a large plate loaded with carefully cut bite-sized Korean sausages, eggs done easy over and dashed with the perfect amount of salt, three medium-sized slabs of golden honey ham, grilled onions sauteed in honey ham juice, and some reheated, leftover sliced potato and carrot stir fry, a bowl of miso soup that I'd made for dinner before heading out to Meridian Park earlier in the evening, a bowl of fluffy white rice, and even a side dish of freshly cut kimchi. It actually seems more of like a breakfast, but personally, since I'm a fan of stereotypical American-style breakfast foods at any time of the day, personally this meal doesn't seem strange to me at all. In fact, I've never really let the concept of time interfere with what I want to eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner at any point - I am an adamant believer in the freedom of eating whatever you want, whenever you want.
"Ah, if that's too much food, it's alright if you leave some," I tell her, trying to read past the look of surprise on Artoria's face. "I just figured, since you and Lily are the same person, since Lily eats a lot, you'd eat a lot too."
"M-Master...!" Lily protests again, blushing in embarrassment.
"What?" I shrug back at Lily, but she simply pouts and turns away a little, her lips trembling as she purses them away from me. "Aw c'mon, you two're supposed to be the same person, right? How's that embarrassing?"
"But - but she said that we have different enough experiences to make us two different people!" Lily argues a little bit hotly. "So...so...th-that's a little bit...!"
"Alright, alright, my bad, my bad."
In the meantime, Artoria has dug into her food and is stuffing herself already. I'm surprised she's gorging on the rice immediately; Lily herself isn't too huge a fan of rice, and while she doesn't mind eating it, it's not like she's ate it like Artoria's going after her own now.
"You really like rice, huh," I can't help but comment, and just as I say that, she turns and asks me:
"Do you happen to have a pair of chopsticks, Master?"
I point down at her tray, and she leans a little and finds a pair of metal chopsticks already hiding underneath the side of the plate; the fork was more visible since it doesn't have room to slide underneath the plate like the chopsticks can. She immediately picks them up and starts wielding them like a natural - it's like Artoria is a bona fide Asian with how well she can use chopsticks. Somehow, it's a little scary and intimidating - because I think she can use chopsticks better than I can.
"Sorry for asking, but...someone taught you how to use chopsticks, right?" I ask a little hesitantly, since I don't want to be rude talking to someone who's eating, since I'd sometimes get a little annoyed if I get spoken to while I'm eating, depending on the situation and the context. Artoria makes sure to swallow the food in her mouth first before speaking.
"That is correct. In two of the Holy Grail Wars in which I was summoned, I was situated in Japan, and that was when I learned the art of chopstick usage for eating," Artoria explains, glancing over at me briefly. "Why, is it strange to you that someone like me who is not of Oriental descent is proficient in the art of chopsticks, Master?"
"Uhhh..." I scratch the side of my neck, having been put on the spot. "I mean...yeah, I guess it is. Can't say I know too many people who aren't Asian who know how to use chopsticks. Well, as well as you can, anyway. I actually have a few friends who know how to use chopsticks, but since they don't use them as their, like, primary utensil whenever they eat, they're normally not that good with them."
I go to wash my hands off with soap in the nearby restroom that's right behind the dining table (one of the few complaints I do have about this house - it's a little ridiculous to have the bathroom shoved up right next to the dining room, and I've never understood this particular aspect of architecture inside this place, but at least a thick wall separates the two rooms), and when I return, I hit the kitchen first to go through the pantry so that I can bring over a few snacks for everyone to enjoy, including Artoria, presumably after she finishes eating her late dinner.
"Would you girls like some?" I ask Lily and Matthew, offering the snacks to them, and Lily's face brightens at the sight of them as I set them down on the middle of the table.
"Y-You're really too kind, Master..." she says in a decreasing tone while she shyly and hesitantly takes a box of seasoned thin rice snack called "Go-Rae-Bab", which literally means "Whale Food" in Korean. "What's this...?"
"Oh, that's a kind of...seasoned snack. If you open up the box, there's like another little plastic bag inside, and then you open that up and pour it into the box," I instruct Lily, and she follows said instructions and carefully pours the snack into the container box. "Yeah, just like that. And you eat it right out of the box with your fingers."
"Oooh...I see..." Lily nods and gingerly picks up one of the crackers - or pieces - or whatever, I really don't know what each one of that snack would be called in English, because it'd be awkward to call it a "cracker". Each individual piece is very small, like the size of a jelly bean, perhaps larger, and they're all shaped like little whales and covered with seasoning. The seasoning itself isn't sweet, exactly, but it'd be incorrect to call it spicy, either, but what I do know is that it's a very good-tasting seasoning...unique, some might say, but in a very good way. In any case, she holds the piece she's picked up and smiles rather cutely. "It's shaped like this thing on the box. How cute...!"
"It's supposed to be a whale," I explain, opening up my own bag of spicy Saeoo-Kang, another Korean snack that means simply "Shrimp Cracker", while Matthew helps herself to a box of Oh!Gamja, another - you guessed it - Korean snack that's more like traditional American potato chips, but rather than chips, they're big seasoned hollow potato wedges that make a satisfying crunch when you bite into them, probably due to their hollowed insides.
"Whale? Oh...I-I think...it's an animal...? An animal from the sea, right?" Lily guesses. "I'm sorry, we...er, I - I'd never heard of them back in my own time, so...it was just a little bit unfamiliar..."
"Yeah, no, it's fine. That snack, it literally means 'Whale Food' in Korean."
"D-Does it? That's...that's very cute..." Lily smiles before putting the piece she's holding into her mouth. I can still hear the tiny crunch of the piece as it gets crushed between Lily's teeth, even over the munching of Artoria next to her and the crunching coming from my own mouth and Matthew's, and I enjoy the show as Lily's green eyes widen as she experiences a taste she's never experienced before. "...i-it's delicious...! Such a strange taste...but it's...it is so tasty..."
Captivated by the taste of the snack, Lily immediately tosses another piece into her mouth and savors the flavor of that one too, now that she's broken the ice. I see that she instinctively prefers to eat that snack one piece at a time - I know a few friends who prefer shoving handfuls of the snack into their mouths all at once, but personally I like how Lily eats it because it's the same thing that I do - it makes the snack last a lot longer, and you get to indulge in the taste more.
"Not only can you make great food, but you also keep such great snacks," Matthew giggles to me, back in her normal hoodie, tie, and glasses again as she makes sure to give a potato wedge to Fou, who nibbles it rapidly, almost like a hamster working on a big lettuce leaf. "At this rate, you'll just end up concentrating more on feeding us rather than having us actually fight."
"Oh, the fighting'll come on its own, we don't need to worry about that," I roll my eyes a little bit, but not necessarily at Matthew. "But I happen to believe firmly that you fight better on a full stomach, or at least one that isn't yelling at you to eat. If I can do that, then you girls can fight at your maximum performances. Or that's how my train of thought goes..."
"Maybe...Master likes watching us eat...?" Lily adds with a giggle of her own. I swear, Lily's giggles could bring dead people back to life, which is easier to say than you'd think, especially when there's a random lily flower sprouting on the edge of the table all on its own, seemingly.
"I mean, one of the greatest complements to a person's cooking skill is whether or not people like it enough to eat all of it," I reason. "I think I've done a pretty good job so far."
"Do you have seconds, Master?" Artoria almost shoves her empty rice bowl into my face, prompting me to point a finger at her casually and say,
"...like such," and cause the other two to laugh as I take her rice bowl and go back into the kitchen to refill it with white rice. I only notice that the rest of her plate is completely cleaned off, not a single morsel of food left to be seen, and as I give her back the second bowl of rice, I ask, "you only wanted rice? I can make more food for you if you'd like."
Artoria's face lights up even brighter, and I didn't think that was possible, especially when she's sitting right next to her already luminescent younger self.
"Yes, please!" she demands. Well, then, if a King has placed her demand, I surely can't refuse, can I?
"A-Artoria, please, that's...you shouldn't make Master make more food for you, it's already so late..." I can hear Lily whisper a little more loudly than she should as I open up the fridge to grab more food to make; it'll just be second servings of what I'd given her.
"Well...he was the one to offer..." Artoria mutters back, but the hesitation and clear tone of guilt make clear her awkward afterthoughts.
"I'm fine with making another serving, but it'll have to be the last one, simply because we just don't have enough food in the fridge left to make any more proper meals," I call over through the window in the kitchen; the kitchen is connected to the dining room through a big open section that's cut out, providing space for a countertop to be used as a morning patio of sorts, so that food can be made in the kitchen and served quickly to those sitting on the other side.
"Yes, of course, Master," Artoria calls back, and I get to cooking again. As I cook, I listen to the girls' conversations, which are just casual side conversations, one of which entails Lily telling her future self all about the Go-Rae-Bab that I've given her and offering her some, and I think I can hear Artoria start munching on them too at some point.
Indeed, when I walk out of the kitchen to give Artoria her freshly cooked second helping of rice, miso soup, eggs, Korean sausages, ham, and grilled onion (I'd already given Artoria the rest of the sliced potato and carrot stir-fry leftovers), I find Artoria nibbling on the seasoned Whale Food, eating them together with her younger past self, which in itself is a rather adorable scene. Fou is sitting in Matthew's lap munching on her own piece of potato wedge that it's holding with its small paws and licking them after she eats it in full, and I resume my seat and begin to watch Artoria start demolishing the food as before.
"Senpai, is it alright if I ask you some questions about...um, your combat ability? Because...from what I'd seen earlier tonight, um...your fighting style is, uh, really interesting, to say the least..." Matthew quietly murmurs to me, like she's trying to keep this conversation private from the other Servants, which defeats itself since I know that the two Artoria's can easily hear her when we're sitting right across the table from them. At the mention of this, expectedly, Lily subconsciously glances over at me too, but since I just so happen to be glancing back at her, she ends up looking straight into my eyes, making eye contact with me, which spooks her and cause her to quickly glance away.
"Yeah, sure. Ask me anything," I shrug, returning to my spicy Shrimp Crackers and popping a few of them at a time into my mouth, crunching on them quite loudly, though I mitigate the noise I produce by keeping my lips shut as I chew.
"So...when we first met King Artoria, you told us that you would assume a ranged support role for the three of us because our current party is lacking someone who can fight enemies at a distance," Matthew begins. "But contrary to that, you were sparring with Miss Lily very well, especially when you consider the fact that you actually fought her unarmed while she was using a sword - and not just any sword, but Caliburn..."
"I wasn't fighting unarmed, that's...you can't say that," I shake my head. "You saw those runes I had slapped over my arms. I make those to protect my arms from Caliburn's magic. I don't know exactly what it is, but I got the sense that it's strong enough to rip my arms off if Lily really focused on doing that."
"I-I'd - I'd never want to do something like that to you, Master!" Lily protests in horror, making me feel pretty bad for mentioning that.
"I'm just saying hypothetically, if you were fighting another regular human like me and you put enough power behind your sword, you could do some serious damage just with the mana you put into Caliburn," I elaborate quickly. "But yes, those runes're my weapons; they keep my arms safe from other magics when I'm fighting against people who have enchanted weapons or weapons like Caliburn that possess their own mana flow that they take from their owners. I mean, you've also seen me attack Lily with that big rune that shot off all those beams, right? The little laser things?"
"Well, yes, but that's not what you used primarily to fight Miss Lily with," Matthew replies. "And I'd like to ask, which school did you learn to produce these runes? Because...usually the more mainstream runes aren't developed for the purpose of physical defense, at least not to the degree that yours clearly were designed for..."
"School?" I ask Matthew, making my facial expression clear that I never even knew about the existence of "schools" of magic.
"Er...wait, Senpai, are you, by any chance, self-taught?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"S-Self-taught, and - and your proficiency over runes is this good?" Matthew gawks at me. "Surely you didn't receive any kind of instruction from, like, a mentor or teacher or something like that?"
"I mean...my late foster father used to be a mage, but then he retired, and I just stumbled upon what few books about magic he had lying around the house, and then he decided to teach me a few things. I just kinda built off from there because I was so interested."
Matthew gives me that look that clearly replies in kind that she doesn't believe me.
"I'm not lying," I murmur with a simple shrug, popping a few more shrimp crackers into my mouth.
"I-I never said you were, but...it's...it's just so hard to imagine that...that someone with no formal education in magics or rune construction can fight someone like the King of Britain who's armed with a holy sword like Caliburn - and very well, at that."
"Why, do most mages these days qualify to be a mage by attending school and whatnot? Magic school?" I ask back.
"Yes. The Mages' Association we spoke of the other night, many mages attend it or other schools around the world to receive their training and education. Of course, the fact that there are people who really do end up teaching themselves magic somehow certainly isn't a novel one, but even then, the vast majority of them do receive some kind of instruction or higher education at some point if they wish to pursue magic as a career choice or incorporate it as a major part of their lives. And the ones who don't, well, they...they eventually vanish into obscurity, for the most part, and they stop being magically active. But you're active enough to the point where you're the local Resident Guardian, and...personally, I think you're a lot stronger than you care to let off, Senpai."
I chuckle a little. "That's flattering," is all I have to say to that.
"I-It's not meant to be flattering, I think it's the truth, I really do," Matthew insists. "Plus, even you told King Artoria that you've seen your own fair share of war and combat, so...even if you call it 'flattering', you're obviously hiding some real talent."
I laugh a little. "I guess we'll see for sure if I've got that 'real talent' you're referring to once the singularity hits," I point a shrimp cracker at Matthew before tossing it into my mouth. I also notice Fou glance up at me, and then down at my shrimp cracker bag, so I take one out and offer it to her, watching her take it from my fingers with her own mouth and start chomping on it bit by bit, which causes me to look up at the other Artoria's and say,
"Since we'll be goin' grocery shopping tomorrow, you two don't mind tagging along? Since I get the feeling that I'll have to buy a lot of food to feed you all."
Lily giggles very awkwardly, scratching the back of her head shyly and with a fair degree of chagrin while Artoria, for her part, adopts a little bit of a painful expression as she humbly chews on another chopstickful of white rice.