43: Forget heroes, just let me summon Patrasche already.

"So, off to Orleans, huh?" I ask.

"To Orleans." Jeanne nods, a serious look on her face.

…

"To Orleans." I repeat.

"...To Orleans?" She asks, a somewhat strained smile on her face.

Hey, do I have to spell it out for her?

"That's right, we're going to Orleans. And none of us actually know the way there, so we're kind of all going to be following you." I say with a strained smile. "But you went there while you were alive so-"

"Ah hahaha… Well, about that…"Jeanne says, going red. "Um, I'm not sure if it was the incomplete summoning or what, but I don't actually... know how to get there from here."

What.

"D-d-don't get me wrong! It's not that I don't know how to get there, but the route I took in life was probably not the fastest way, that's all!" She nods, attempting to regain her composure. "I went all the way to Bourges first, after all, and there's gotta be a faster way, but I don't know it. I mean, I'm just a peasant girl after all, I can't read books, let alone read maps."

I blink, mind reeling. "C-couldn't you just approximate? Make a triangle in your mind, and...?"

"No, math is no good either, unfortunately." She replies. "And since France is so big, if I mess up we could end up in Paris or something."

"Ugh… Doctor, did you get all that?" I ask.

"Yeah. I could try to route you, but it's not like we've got road maps of 1400s France just lying around…" He trails off, and lets out a small sigh. "There's no helping it, huh? Leonardo! You're a genius, right? Figure it out!"

The blue display fizzles for a second, and then the Doctor is replaced by Da Vinci.

"Please, this isn't something you ought to need my help for." The woman scoffs, waving her strange robotic gauntlet in the air dismissively. "But since you went and called me by my proper title, I'll humor you. The answer iiiiis!~" She winks. "Just follow Jeanne's original route!"

"What kind of answer is that!? Didn't we just say how that will take a ton of extra time?" I protest. With things how they are, every minute we waste is another chance for something awful to happen, so-!

"That's right. Following Jeanne's route it's gonna take you almost two weeks to get to Orleans, as opposed to something like a single week if you just made a beeline straight there." Da Vinci smiles.

"Then if our first goal is to reach Orleans, shouldn't we take the route that gets us there as fast as-!" I start.

"Naive!" She cuts me off. "You're being naive, Subaru-kun! 'If I finish each individual step as quickly as possible, then the final result will be the fastest possible course of action' - that way of thinking is naive!"

I sigh. "So what, you've got some secret reason why this will save us time in the long run?"

She sighs. "Subaru-kun, you're the type of guy who just wastes his entire life chasing whatever happens to be right in front of him, aren't you?"

"Geh! A personal attack out of nowhere!?" I yell. She's not wrong, but-!

"It won't save time, but it's not like time is our only concern here. Your goal for now is to head to Orleans, yes. And your naive intuition suggests the best approach is to directly run there as fast as possible - but if the only thing you had to do to solve the singularity was get to the grail as fast as possible, we'd be summoning racecars, not servants." The woman smiles and taps her temple with a finger. "We've also got to take every opportunity to eke out a combat advantage, after all."

"We-!" I stop myself.

We don't need to. Our odds of victory are one hundred percent, thanks to [Return by Death].

Again, I find myself almost saying something absurd like that.

How many times am I going to end up slipping back into this mindset? I know already, don't I?

"...Sorry. I'm just panicking, I guess." I say, scratching at my arm a bit. "This whole scenario is…"

"I guess it's a bit harsh on you to expect you to juggle all this stuff given the circumstances." Da Vinci says, her face softening a bit. "Luckily, you've got a genius like me here! My ability to juggle hundreds of competing criteria could get me the starring role in any circus!"

"You're the greatest clown I know, Leonardo." Roman interjects in a deadpan.

"Hush, you." She holds up a fist. "Alright, so taking this path gives us two major benefits!"

Her index finger is extended. "One! It minimizes our time spent in English territory! Since the rumored Dark Jeanne is motivated by a grudge against those responsible for her death, or is at the very least acting like she is, the bulk of her focus is bound to be on Burgundian and English lands. By staying out of them as much as possible, we get better odds of avoiding hostile encounters until we get our feet under us."

A second finger is raised. "Two! It should increase Jeanne d'Arc's effectiveness a bit. Since you started in Domremy, you're already en route to repeat Jeanne's historical march on Orleans, and we really don't want to mess that up if we can help it!"

"I see! As expected of Da Vinci-chan! I wouldn't have thought of that part at all!" Mash nods happily.

Huh? "The first part makes sense, but I think I'm missing something here. I mean, repeating her historical route is kind of neat, I guess, but aren't there more important things to deal with?"

Da Vinci shakes her head. "The Director would pitch a fit if she heard you just now, you know?"

"Oh, so it's something from the Fuyuki briefing then?"

"At this point that gag's getting kind of old…" Mordred sighs.

"This information is actually from the 'Servants and You' pamphlet, Senpai." Mash says helpfully.

"Oh right, that thing!" The three-hundred page 'pamphlet' filled with enough magibabble to give me a headache. Naturally, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. "Sorry, I used it as a coaster and it got ruined, so I threw it away."

Disappointed stares all around. Phooey. Everyone liked that excuse the last time I used it, you know?

Da Vinci sighs. "Subaru-kun, we're trying to save the world here. Please at least take learning about our primary weapon a bit more seriously."

Now I feel a bit guilty. "...Sorry, I guess that was the wrong time for a joke. I've still got the thing, but I had to pull out like three reference books to make it through the first two pages, so…"

"Please ask for help next time, Senpai. I'd be glad to read it to you later." Mash offers, sighing disappointedly. "The rayshifting pamphlet too."

"That one wasn't so bad for me, actually - I actually know a kind of stupid amount about Theoretical Physics, so I could parse most of it." I say, rubbing the back of my head.

"Moving back to the subject at hand-!" Da Vinci starts, but Mordred cuts her off.

"Servants get stronger when they do stuff that lines up with what they did in their legends. That's why I could keep pace with Father before." She says tersely followed by a mutter that I barely pick up. "Two sentences. Was that so hard?"

"That's right! By emulating Jeanne's journey, we can maximize the odds of 'a miracle occurs at Orleans'. Hopefully it can offset whatever's up with her summoning." Da Vinci says. I see Jeanne begin to stand up from where she had taken a seat on the ground, only to sigh heavily as the Caster launches into another lecture. "Ah, for reference, Mordred's explanation was a bit of an oversimplification-"

"Right, that's enough for now, Leonardo." Roman says, and the self-proclaimed genius vanishes from the communicator. "You guys get the idea. Just don't do anything too dangerous, and remember to keep an eye out for leylines."

And with that, a two week march to Orleans begins.

"...By the way, Doctor, I probably should have asked this earlier, but did you cram some kind of tiny tent in this uniform or something?" I ask, rummaging through my pockets.

"Ah." He freezes like a deer in the headlights of a car. "Gaaah! I knew we were forgetting something in the rayshift prep!"

Alright, so it's a two week march with no shelter or bedrolls. Fun.

"...Da Vinci mentioned summoning racecars, right?" I mutter.

"Sorry, Senpai. I think that was just a rhetorical device."

Damn.

A/N:

Oh boy what a fun and interesting chapter where so much happened guys haha this isn't filler I swear.

Anyway, things should start picking up again next chapter, so there's that. See you whenever that's done.