Hello, everyone!
This is another release of Fate Overlord. I hope you enjoy it. Please tell me if it is good, bad or meh.
Chapter Three "TRUE YGGDRASIL"
Shirou Emiya finally made his way back to the village after dealing with all the enemies that were surrounding it that could threaten the innocent villagers. He was relieved to see that in his short absence to hunt down the soldiers who had fled the village and the mages he had intercepted on the way, that the villagers were all safe.
As he reentered the village, Shirou was treated like a hero.
"Greetings," Said Shirou with a gentle smile. "My name is Shirou Emiya."
"Thank you, Sir, for coming to our rescue." Said an elderly man, who seemed like the leader of the village given how all the villagers seemed to defer to him.
"May I ask the name of this village?" Shirou asked for the sake of formality.
"This is Carne Village, Sir Emiya."
"Is there any reason for this village to be attacked? The ones that were attacking you were not simple bandits or slavers. They were too well-trained, equipped and experienced for that to be possible." Shirou inquired
"The attackers were likely from the Baharuth Empire."
Shirou frowned. He had never heard of a nation that called itself the 'Baharuth Empire', past or present. For a moment, Shirou closed his eyes as he searched his memories, just in case, and he still didn't find any empires or nations of such a name anywhere on Earth. But then again, he was not the best in regard to esoteric knowledge such as empires of the past. That was when he resorted to searching his Reality Marble as he had equipment created and used by just about the entire breadth of human civilization stored within Unlimited Blade Works. There was still no information.
His confusion must have shown on his face as the elder started speaking.
"You must come from a very far place, Sir Emiya, if you don't know about the Baharuth Empire." The village head said as he saw Shirou's confused look. "In this region, it is the second most powerful and largest human nation after the Slane Theocracy."
Shirou nodded his head, he had never heard of the Slane Theocracy either. For now, he decided that he would allow the other party to make assumptions, it would make it easier for him to fish for information if they treat him like a foreigner who didn't know anything.
"You are correct. I do come from very far away lands." Shirou replied, and if what he suspected happened was true, then what he said wasn't even a lie.
"I don't want to sound rude, Sir Emiya, but how did you reach this village?"
"I was brought here by unknown means," Shirou replied honestly, thinking up no plausible excuse that would likely be accepted by the villagers.
The villagers that had watched him talking with the elder began to gossip amongst each other. What Shirou heard seemed to start very rationally, it was when the topic of the conversation became outright bizarre that he began to worry about the mindless speculation that the villagers were making. One such example was the notion that he was in fact someone that had been sent down from the heavens to rescue them from the evil soldiers.
"Tell me more about this, 'Baharuth Empire', you mentioned before. I cannot understand why the second most powerful human nation in this region would target Carne Village. This looks simply like any farming village one could find anywhere." Shirou continued, suddenly a possibility came to mind, and he stared seriously at the village elder and asked, "Unless… You are hiding some sort of secret that makes you a target?"
"Did our village have some sort of hidden secret that is worth massacring everyone to hide it?" One of the villagers spoke up.
"I don't think our village itself might be hiding any secrets. Maybe it's the Great Forest of Tob that hides a great secret."
"Why attack our village? The Great Tob Forest is huge. Countless other villages like ours are nearby to it."
"Maybe it isn't just our village that was attacked? What if the secret was so great that all the villages near the Great Tob Forest were attacked?"
"What secret would be that great that the Baharuth Empire would do such a thing?" The elder finally joined in on the argument.
"Is it even possible to destroy every single village near the Great Tob Forest? We are looking at hundreds or thousands of villages just like ours."
Shirou continued to listen to the villagers arguing with much interest. He didn't know much about what was being said or how much of it was true, but it offered him a wealth of information to analyze.
The more he heard and analyzed, a greater and clearer picture he had about what could have led to Carne Village being attacked by a regional superpower. And, perhaps most importantly, he could gain more information about the new place he found himself in.
"Enough! There is no great secret that I know of, that is worth massacring an unimportant farming village such as ours!" The village elder shouted before turning to Shirou. "I'm sorry, but to my knowledge there is no great secret or such a thing to attract the Baharuth Empire to this village. Whatever their reasons are a mystery to me."
The village elder seemed to be telling the truth, so Shirou didn't really pay much attention to the matter anymore. Too many tragedies and atrocities happened for no apparent reason, sometimes it was just a matter of bad luck or being in the wrong place at the right time. With that over with, he now could pay full attention to the villagers in front of him.
His expression turned grim when he saw the wounded survivors in front of him and the sound of people crying in pain inside the village. Shirou had momentarily forgotten about the bloodbath and destruction that the Baharuth Empire soldiers had caused.
"Have you forgotten what just happened!? Tend to the wounded or search for those that have not been found!" Shirou shouted loudly at the crowd gathering idly around him.
The sudden and unexpected shouting from their savior quickly snapped them out of the hero-worship daze they had fallen into. They snapped out their daze and started to return to their jobs, tending to the wounded and looking for possible survivors.
As Shirou watched the villagers move, he debated on what he should do. Looking for survivors were good and all, but there was no telling if any more survivors beside corpses might be found. There were living people that could die or their injuries worsening if they were not tended to immediately. Tending to the wounded seemed to be the best thing for him to do given the lack of medical knowledge and expertise that the villagers had shown when treating the wounded.
"Village head, can you gather all the wounded here and have the other villagers gather these…"
- O -
"There," Said Shirou as he finished stitching what had once been a large open wound on a child. "You don't have to worry about blood loss anymore, but make sure to clean it once in a while with boiled water. If you don't do that, the wound might not heal or worse become infected."
"Thank you, Sir Emiya!" A woman, who was the mother of the child Shirou had stitched up, bowed gratefully.
"You are lucky to have such a caring mother, kid" said Shirou as he helped the child up who then immediately rushed up to his mother.
"Where are your manners?! Sir Emiya, saved your life!" The mother scolded her son and pushed her son's head down in a bow.
"Thank you, sir." The eight-year-old child said in an adorable voice.
"Off you go," Shirou smiled. "Though, please vacate the area. I have more people to treat."
The mother thanked Shirou again before grabbing her son's arm and walking off.
Shirou sighed as he looked around at the impromptu infirmary and the patients with various injuries that needed treatment strewn about it. He really wished that he could get his hands on some basic modern medicine, then he would be able to alleviate the pain of the patients, prevent bacterial infections and a host of other issues that basic modern drugs could address. Thankfully, he had been able to replicate some basic medical equipment by pushing the limits of Unlimited Blade Works to its limit. Otherwise, the number of patients left in a more serious situation or even dead would have been higher.
If only I could use healing magic, Shirou sighed wistfully.
[Would you like to learn Healing Magic?]
He nearly jumped when he heard the voice in his head. Shirou was about to investigate his surroundings for anyone out of the norm, when Shirou noticed something. It was not the source of the voice he heard or even someone trying to telepathically communicate with him, a small box of text had appeared in his vision. Something that looked exactly like the one he would see in YGGDRASIL. The question of why something from YGGDRASIL was appearing before him was quickly suppressed, he had more important things to do than pondering about something that might not have an answer.
He simply hoped for the best and pressed the 'yes' button.
As he pressed the button, a familiar sensation that Shirou had felt when he was playing the uncensored version of YGGDRASIL, known as TRUE YGGDRASIL by Chaldea, enveloped him. Knowledge, alien knowledge that he previously had no grounding in, flowed into his mind while a connection between his body and soul allowed him to coordinate them to use a skill he didn't actually possess. Shirou closed and opened his eyes.
The feeling was so intoxicating, he felt that anything short of death was now within his ability to cure.
"Greater Mass Healing." Shirou chanted and a wave of light blanketed the building.
The impromptu infirmary exploded with shouts and screams of surprise and disbelief. What had once been wounded villagers were now completely healthy and untouched by any medical issue. For several seconds no one believed their eyes. That didn't last long as it became apparent that they were not dreaming, when they didn't wake up and when their wounds were not reappearing again.
"Thank you, Sir Emiya!" One of the previously more seriously wounded villagers shouted as he bowed.
"The gods have not abandoned us. We have been blessed!" Yet another, who had been nursing a fatally wounded villager, burst out in praise.
Various voices then soon bombarded Shirou in gratitude. He didn't pay much attention to the voices, all that he cared about was how the villagers were no longer injured. Shirou smiled happily at his handiwork.
Shirou walked out of the impromptu infirmary as he thought of what more he could do with the newfound healing skill. Coming up with an idea, he walked towards the hastily created makeshift morgue.
In another time, the sight of dead people would have saddened him, but Shirou wanted to see if he could replicate the instance with the healing skill so that he might be able to access any of resurrection magic/skills.
"What brings you here, Sir Emiya?" A middle-aged woman, who looked like the one in charge of the morgue, asked.
"I might be able to help with the deceased," said Shirou. Before the diener could respond, Shirou asked about his idea in a cautious tone, "I was wondering if such a thing as resurrection magic exists in these lands?"
"It does." The woman nodded. "It's hard to say if they really exist or if the rumors were just talking about a greatly exaggerated form of healing magic. But, I have heard of stories about resurrection magic and it being offered in the largest and most prosperous cities."
He was surprised by the presence of resurrection magic. That got him thinking though, what was considered as ;resurrection magic'? The definition of resurrection magic changed depending on the group or place. Some might think bringing someone back from the brink of death was resurrection magic. While others might have thought that resurrection magic was restoring someone who had died recently back to life.
For example, what Shirou considered as the 'true resurrection magic' was something like Heaven's Feel, bringing the long dead back to life.
"I see," said Shirou as he thought about how to proceed. "Gather the deceased here, I have something in mind."
The chief diener didn't understand what Shirou was planning, but she didn't ask. He had more than earned her respect with his act of saving her life and the other villagers, there was no reason for her to doubt him. She got the other villagers to gather in the morgue to start bringing the deceased to Shirou.
"The first of the dead has been brought here as you asked," said the chief diener. "What do you intend to do with them?"
Ignoring the question, Shirou knelt down to inspect the dead body that was brought to him. It was the corpse of a young girl, the corpse was relatively untouched save for the hole that had been stabbed into her heart by what looked like a sword. It was a good specimen to test Shirou's theory.
[Would you like to learn the resurrection magic?]
"Yes," Shirou replied.
Just as before with learning healing magic, Shirou was inundated with arcane knowledge regarding anything that someone would need to know to resurrect the dead. What would have taken an average mage on Earth to learn in a decade was learned in an instant for Shirou, but not without a cost. Shirou clutched his head as a massive headache came to him. Knowledge and skill of healing and resurrection magic, which if Shirou had been capable of using, would take likely two decades to learn was taking a huge toll on his mind.
He pushed aside the headache as it was something he could deal with and carefully selected from his new knowledge of resurrection magic the magic spell he needed.
"I intend to bring forth a miracle," Shirou finally replied to the diener as he placed his hands on the chest of the deceased girl and he chanted a specific spell. "Resurrection."
A blue light of magical energy shone and enclosed the corpse. It started from his hand and began to envelop the entire body of the deceased girl.
The effects were not immediate. At first, it seemed like it was just a particularly great light show, but that soon changed when the wounds that had killed the girl began to disappear. After the wound was healed, color returned to the girl's pallor and soon her chest began rising and lowering. The previously dead girl then began opening her eyes.
"Welcome back," said Shirou with a warm smile as he lifted the previously deceased girl from the ground.
"Ummmhhmmm… what is going on? Is this heaven?" The girl asked as her eyes opened in confusion.
"Sasha!" A young woman shouted in happiness as she ran to grab what had turned out to be her daughter from Shirou. As she grabbed the now revived girl, she inspected her daughter for any injuries. "Are you alright!? Does anything hurt?"
"Is that you, mama? Did you also come to heaven?" The girl asked, clearly still lost.
"This is not heaven," said Shirou as he knelt before the girl so that she could see him. "Your mama never died, sadly you passed away. But I managed to bring you back."
"Is the savior a god?" One of the villagers in the morgue began to gossip.
"No, he might be a priest. I heard in the city that the most powerful and experienced priests can bring back the dead." Another villager replied.
"That doesn't make sense though… How is he so skilled in so many fields? Archery, swordsmanship and now magic?"
"The heroes of legend were supposed to be really skilled in many fields. He might be someone like them…"
"Are you saying that we are looking at a hero of legend? None of them are supposed to be alive anymore…"
"No… he might actually be one of them. There are supposed to be objects and magics that can prolong life or even grant immortality."
"Maybe he isn't a legendary hero, but someone that is on their way to become one. I think that a legendary hero would've been able to slay the bandits in one swoop."
Shirou ignored the voices around him and continued on working on resurrecting the deceased.
- O -
When Shirou had finished resurrecting the dead, and being hugged again and again by the grateful villagers, Shirou found himself a quiet and secluded area away from Carne Village. He had to find a place to sit down and organize his thoughts after the urgency left him. The shock of using magic that he shouldn't be able to call upon still echoed in his mind. The feats he had done in the village would have been impossible without the aid of specialized Mystic Codes prepared by Chaldea. Even then, it would still be very limited, only perhaps to those who had recently died, or only if the body was used as a medium of a powerful Servant. As an idea popped up in his head, he made a familiar mental command.
In a flash, the familiar layout of YGGDRASIL's status screen started to manifest itself in Shirou's vision. A complex feeling came to Shirou, the more answers he found, the more questions appeared.
He had strong doubts that he was in YGGDRASIL anymore. Too many things that he felt with his five senses were too realistic. YGGDRASIL, while being a Virtual Reality game, couldn't replicate everything to a realistic enough level that the players would mistake it for the real world.
Well there is TRUE YGGDRASIL… Shirou thought to himself as he laughed, but quickly dismissed such a thought.
He started to recall everything he could that had led to this current state of affair in an effort to piece this puzzle.
Shirou had been waiting for the countdown for the closing of YGGDRASIL's servers before everything went blank, and he found himself here. The YGGDRASIL's servers shutting down should have resulted in Shirou finding himself in his bedroom, not wherever this is supposed to be. Shirou raked his mind for any clues and internally debated on the possibilities of how he had ended in what seemed like another world.
A long time passed and Shirou only had a baseless hypothesis without any hard evidence to back it up. So with nothing to show for it, he gave up and pushed the matter for another time as there was more Shirou wanted to investigate.
Closing his eyes, Shirou cast Structural Analysis on himself.
"Unbelievable," Shirou muttered in disbelief. "I thought something had changed when I had felt much more powerful and less exhausted by all the fighting, healing and resurrection magic, but I had never expected something like this…"
If Shirou hadn't used Structural Analysis upon himself, then he would've never noticed the changes that had happened to himself. Even when his body and soul had undergone a significant change, it was so seamless that it almost seems as if it was always like that.
There's nothing that seemed negative from what he could see, though, the transformation itself did alarm him. The most important thing to him was that he was still human.
Shirou shook his head at such a silly worry when his whole self had changed so much. It wasn't too farfetched to say that he had achieved what many might consider the next step in human evolution.
What caught his attention the most as he was reviewing his body was his Magic Circuits and the Mana circulating inside him. The amount of Mana he was currently producing outmatched anything he should remotely be capable of.
Shirou Emiya was a little better than the average mage when it came to his Magic Circuits. The average mage had about 20 Magic Circuits, and for a first-generation mage, he had been lucky enough to be born with 27 Magic Circuits. The quality of his magic circuits was also similarly just above-average in terms of how much mana it could produce.
When he cast the spell on himself, he noted that while the number of his magic circuits had been unchanged, but the amount of mana being produced by his magic circuits was simply ridiculous. It was like his magic circuits had transformed, like a normal human suddenly becoming a superhuman.
With that shocking reveal over with, he started going through several windows and found himself staring at his Stats. His eyes gazed upon his Stats and their values that matched exactly the one in his memories.
The Stats listed and values he saw didn't match his YGGDRASIL account, but it did match another account that he had used in Chaldea in the past. This another account allowed him access to a version of YGGDRASIL, which was the uncensored version not publically available and accessible only to potential, current and retired Masters of Chaldea. A game and training simulator that replicated reality near flawlessly known as TRUE YGGDRASIL.
TRUE YGGDRASIL's appearance made him think that his present surroundings might be a result of someone from Chaldea playing a prank on him. It wouldn't be far-fetched when YGGDRASIL was developed and managed by one of Chaldea's many subsidiary companies. Shirou quickly shook his head and dismissed such a possibility. No one would have the guts to pull such a prank on someone of his reputation. He was after all the reason why humanity had managed to survive through Chaldea's darkest moments. Only someone with a death wish would do such a thing, and someone else from Chaldea such as Romani or Da Vinci would have stopped pranks directed at him.
Just as before guessing wouldn't help and he would eventually find the answer to what was going on eventually. Shirou turned to the Stats he had seen.
His eyes closed as he recalled how TRUE YGGDRASIL's game mechanics regarding Stats worked. A Player's Stats were divided into three categories; Mind, Body and Soul. With each group of Stats affecting the Player's Avatar in different ways. Mind, which influenced how the Player interacted with NPCs and monsters, were divided into Charisma, Intelligence and Wisdom. Body, affecting how a Player physically interacted with YGGDRASIL was divided into Vitality (aka HP), Strength, Agility and Physical Defense. And lastly the Soul category of Stats reflected what kind of magic that a player was capable of in the form of Mana and Magic Circuits, and Magical Defense.
"That might explain some abnormalities that had been annoying me for a while," Said Shirou as he recalled what it felt like fighting the soldiers and mages earlier. "I thought it was strange that I was more physically capable without using Reinforcement. And when I did use Reinforcement to enhance my body the increase was much more than usual. Or even why my Projections were much more powerful than before. I still need to confirm these things though."
His mind started to create an experiment where he could evaluate if he was truly stronger in as many ways as he had initially thought.
If a proper scientist was to peer into Shirou's mind right now, they would be surprised by just how meticulous his plans for the experiment were. A skill that he had unconsciously picked up in his days as a Chaldean Master, who had interacted with some of the most brilliant and decorated scientists that humanity had ever produced. Spend enough time with enough geniuses, and you'll be liable to pick up a skill or two.
It took some modifications from his original plans to allow the measurement devices he needed to be producible with his Reality Marble. Even then, Shirou let out a sigh, what he had been able to think of with great effort were more basic than Shirou would have liked. The amount of data he could collect, and its accuracy was going to be lower than he would have preferred, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
With a flash of light, what could charitably be called, gym sets appeared in the empty space around him.
"Ok. That should be it," Said Shirou as he surveyed his surroundings to make sure that he had set up the equipment correctly. "Let's begin."
He started with the usual physical tests that were used on average humans to test their physical abilities, then Shirou transitioned into physical tests more fitting for professional athletes. Before finally moving to the more exotic tests more suited to martial artists with near-superhuman abilities.
As a final test, Shirou started the physical training regime that he had originally used to keep himself in shape and his combat skills sharp back in Chaldea. He performed the movements at the limits of his physical ability. It took nearly an hour for him to stop. Not because he was exhausted, but it was simply when he couldn't move anymore in the past. Now? He was barely winded.
"This is absurd," Shirou muttered as he recalled doing the same routine in the past, and becoming exhausted. "I barely feel winded after all that…" He took a deep breath and found that each breath he took seemed to restore just a little more energy to his body. "Ok, let's look at what data was collected."
He sighed as he looked at the measurement devices and the more mechanical nature of it. If the measurement equipment were in their unmodified state, then it would have only been a matter of pressing a few buttons and looking at the screen to get the results. The modifications he had made, to allow his Reality Marble to produce the measurement equipment, made it so much more of a hassle.
Shirou pressed his hands against the magical runes that replaced the modern electronic components, and without much thinking, he manipulated the runic array like he had so many other times before when he had used similar magic runes. He got the information that had been collected from the data recorded on the measurement equipment and started leafing through it.
"I can't believe that I didn't notice it right away while I had been rescuing the villagers from those soldiers, or when I intercepted the mages that were their reinforcements." Shirou shook his head in disbelief.
"Well, it doesn't matter anymore, I know now." He closed his eyes as he sighed and continued inspecting the data. "So I have finally been able to match the physical abilities of Servants without the aid of others or equipment, I can't lie, that is quite exciting… The data I collected should match what a low-grade Servant would be able to do."
Shirou's eyes then started to glow in anticipation. "I wonder what I'm capable of if I went all out?"
His mind started to imagine all sorts of further experiments he could conduct to measure his abilities better, when something caught his attention. He looked down at the measuring device in his hand, and Shirou's eyes widened.
"That can't be right!" He shouted as he reached for another measurement device. "Again!" Shirou grabbed another measurement device. "Again!"
It was after he had checked all the measuring equipment several times that his mind caved in. He recalled the other times in the past when he had used specially modified items that had their electronic components switched out for their magical equivalent that Unlimited Blade Works was able to reproduce with some difficulty. Shirou compared those past events to what had just happened.
He immediately accessed his Stat Menu and stared at the Mind category of Stats. "Is this what it feels like to be a genius or prodigy? Someone with the mental abilities beyond the normal human being?"
Shirou tapped his chin as memories of the non-combat interaction he had with the villagers. It had been hard to notice anything unusual, never mind remember something like that, when he had been so busy trying to help the villagers with their wounded. Shirou only was able to recall the abnormalities with his undistracted mind focused on looking for any unusual abnormalities.
"I was able to learn healing magic faster, recall information more quickly and convince people better than I would have been capable of back on Earth." Shirou murmured as definitely thought his mental abilities were better thanks to TRUE YGGDRASIL's Mind category Stats.
He was going to continue his investigation of the impacts TRUE YGGDRASIL's Stats had on him when a text box popped up in his vision.
[Several prayers worshiping you have been detected. You have unlocked the Quest: Path to Godhood.]
If Shirou was still in either TRUE or uncensored YGGDRASIL, he would have been excited by this development. The Quest, Path to Godhood, was amongst the most sought after and most complicated quests in the game, so accepting it was a no-brainer. In the game, that is. One reason for that was the permanent boost to Stats and additional Job/Stat/Skill Points one would possess after completing the quest.
What's more amazing than that, was the fact that the boost in Stats and levels was just a cherry on top. Path of Godhood was a quest that shook the entire YGGDRASIL's landscape as it allowed the quest completer to possess an unfathomable amount of influence over YGGDRASIL's NPCs. On a game with as many esoteric details as YGGDRASIL, having a friendly relation with the NPC is wight its weight in gold.
But, now that it was going to affect his 'real' self, he was left stunned by the announcement.
Free from the paralysis, Shirou immediately started going through several menus before finally arriving at his Quest Log. And more specifically, the quest description displaying the Path to Godhood quest before him.
[You have taken the first steps to achieve Godhood. Spread your name throughout the land so that you are worshipped. The more worshipers and more intense their devotion, the stronger your divinity. Those that are devoted to you and swear themselves to your service may now call themselves as your Clerics.]
Shirou was about to check the Quest Log for more information when his vision flickered. He began panicking and wondering what was going on now of all times. But, all his questions had to wait as a flood of information smashed into his mind.
After a painful struggle to reign in the flood, it overwhelmed him, and the last thing he saw was the approaching ground before his vision went black.
Was this god, bad or meh? Please tell me what you think. I accept all criticism as long as it is no flaming.