Awakening for a new day, Ritsuka notices Castoria missing from the cave where they sleep. When he goes to search for her, both discover their first clue about the place in which they ended up.

Ritsuka slowly opened his eyes and tried to get up, but he felt somewhat heavy. As he looked down, he saw Mash clinging to him like a sloth would hug a tree. He simply laughed at this before noticing something else: Castoria was missing.

Feeling that something could be bad, he slowly moved away from Mash before leaving the cave in which they slept, searching for Castoria. Luckily for him, she wasn't far away, she was in the ocean, using a wooden spear to search for fishes.

"Hey, you got up early" -

"Oh, good morning Master! Yeah, when I woke up you and Mash were still asleep and I was hungy so I decided to come here and get fishes" -

"And how many have you catched?" -

The girl stayed silent, looking at Ritsuka directly while slowly blushing.

"... 3" -

Ritsuka lightly laughed before asking Castoria to give him the spear and managed to capture a fish relativly quickly.

"Those training with Cu and Scáthatch payed off" - he said to himself before giving the spear to Castoria - "I'm going to do one myself and we can fish together" -

"Y... Yes!" -

Castoria did so, and not soon after they started to fish together while telling stories about their time at Chaldea and most importantly, the Sixth Lostbelt, Avalon Le Fae.

"Please, can't you forget that Master!?" - Castoria said, blushed.

"No can't do. Sorry, but it was really funny" - Ritsuka kept laughing a bit, remembering Knocknarea's contest and how Castoria created the Chocolate Calamity when she tried to use her magic on a chocolate - "Ah, Knocknarea... She was really great" -

"She was... I feel sorry for what happened to her, I was hoping that we could bring her out from the Lostbelt, but the crowning..." - Castoria started to remember how she was poisoned during her crowning and how her friend died in her arms.

The memories quickly took a turn from happy to sad, so to avoid Castoria feeling down, Ritsuka decided to play a game with her.

"Hey, I think we got more than enough fishes, would you like to go for a swim?" -

"Oh, yes, that would be lovely" - the girl answered.

Leaving the spears on the sand next to the fishes and changing to their swuimsuit, both dived into the waters and started to see how deep they could reach.

The underwater part was exciting for both of them, as they never took dives like this before, but their game quickly took a serious turn when they noticed something shining under the sand, an emerald stone.

Picking it up, they carried it to the surface, where they saw Mash waiting for them.

"Senpai, why didn't you woke me up when you did?" - the pink haired kouhai asked.

"Sorry, you looked so cute asleep I couldn't wake you up" -

Mash blushed a bit, but regained her composure and asked them what they were doing. Castoria answered sincerily and showed her the emerald gem, surprising the girl.

"Does it do anything?" -

"We don't know yet, but it feels weirdly warm and..." - before Castoria continued to speak, Ritsuka stopped her - "Master?" -

"Give it to me for a second, there's something odd here" -

Fujimaru grabbed the gem and started to move it in all directions. As he pointed at the jungle, they noticed how it started to glow more intensly.

"Well, I guess that this is what we're doing for today" -

They each picked up their stuff, cooked the fishes Castoria and Ritsuka caught for food and started to head deeper into the jungle, guided by the strange glow of the emerald gem.

"Wonder what this will do and where are we going?" - Ritsuka asked himself while they walked.

"Maybe it opens some kind of door?" - Mash suggested.

"Probably, or it could be part of a puzzle and we need to figure out the rest" - Castoria followed with another theory.

"Oh, maybe it leads to the Holy Grail!" -

"Finding the Grail just two days after getting here? That... Would be pretty lucky, but I'm not sure" -

"Whatever it's going to do, I hope it might bring us closer to solving whatever mistery this place hides" -

While wandering through the place, Mash noticed something odd at the distance, there was a wood totem lying there in between the trees, it had the shape of what seemed to be the head of a wolf, albeit heavily distorted due to the wood being damaged.

"Senpai, Artoria, look at this" - the girl said to gain their attention.

When getting closer to the totem, Castoria found that there was something written in it, in an ancient language. Thankfully, her magic allowed her to decipher what it said.

"Here, in the land of begginings, where life and death came together, those who seek the secrets will meet" -

Everyone was confused about what it said, just another mistery to this alredy weird island.

"Where life and death come together... What could that mean?" -

"Maybe it's related to a myth of creation?" -

"But what exactly? There are a large ammount of them" -

While Castoria and Mash theorized, Ritsuka noticed something weird. The gem he held in his hands started to shine intensly when he got it closer to the totem.

"Wait, there's something more to this" -

"Senpai?" -

Fujimaru noticed that the statue had holes where the eyes should be. With care, he realized that the gem was exactly the same size as the hole, so, to test his theory, he put it in there.

Suddenly, the gem changed from emerald to golden and the ground shook for a few seconds, nearly throwing the boy off balance.

"Alright, so that's what it does" -

"If there are two empty spaces, all we need to do is find the second gem and put it there, right? That's surprisingly easy" - Castoria said with joy.

"A bit too easy for my liking" - Mash followed - There surely is more to this" -

"Maybe, but this is our best clue for the moment. Let's go back to the cave, we can think later of it" -

With that, all of them returned to the cave to sleep another night...