Crime was always a subject I was iffy on. I always wondered if I would resort to it if I was desperate enough or if I'd try to stay in the straight and narrow. Still, every time the question popped up I thought that, if I could get away with it and it helped me overcome whatever drove me to that point, I'd go ahead and do whatever needed to be done.

It turned out I was right. I was quite unrepentant about it, too.

After the summoning, Doctor Roman directed us towards the Fishing Bridge General Store. There were several shelves full of groceries and camping supplies that we could take to help sustain ourselves and explore the Singularity until help came, and among the massive selection of souvenirs, there were all kinds of things that would make the wait easier on us. Clothes, blankets and such.

Thus we began to raid the shop. Mash and Martha were reluctant, but got to work in the end, finding some boxes and filling them what they could. Meanwhile I changed out of my janitor's uniform. It chafed and itched, so it was natural that I'd just toss it aside at the first opportunity.

Once done, I joined the two Servants in the looting. When we had filled out 4 boxes with a varied assortment of items, Roman asked us to head back to the visitor center to send the supplies to Chaldea, but I insisted on getting more things, arguing that it was better to have an excess of supplies than a shortage of them. Roman was a bit unsure, but accepted my logic in the end.

Best to harvest all that we could from the Singularity before we tore it down and locked ourselves out of those supplies.

Once we emptied the shop of anything that wasn't nailed down or useless to us, we stood outside with a large pile of boxes; two stacks nearly as big as I was.

"You know, I wasn't thinking about it when we started, but…where is everyone?" I inquired while looking back at the store's counter. "Sure, it's late at night, but the lights were on when we came in, and there's a lot of cars parked outside, so you'd think we'd see at least one person."

"I'm also curious about that, actually. We haven't detected any signs of life in your vicinity," Roman's disembodied voice noted as I walked around the lot. "It's like people just vanished all of a sudden."

"'Vanished' sounds about right, actually…" I affirmed after looking inside a van with a window wide open. "No one just leaves their car with the keys in the ignition and the locks off."

I shook my head and reached for the keys.

"We can ruminate on that later, though," I continued while heading towards the back to open the trunk. "The sooner we get back to the visitor center and send these supplies, the better. Best not to think too hard about it."

Seeing what I was doing, Mash grabbed some of the boxes and approached. Martha did the same, but she stared at me disapprovingly, making me feel a pang of guilt for the first time during this whole thing.

I wondered if she would take the fact that I'd have her drive badly.


Fortunately, she didn't complain about it. She didn't even comment on it, as a matter of fact, and instead she chose to remain silent. I wanted to talk to her and try to apologize, but I honestly couldn't do anything other than try to justify myself, so I opted to keep quiet as well. And of course, Mash wasn't exactly sure of what to say in this situation, so she didn't speak either.

All in all, the atmosphere was really awkward and there was little I could do to change that. I had already tried to turn on the radio, but we only got white noise. I didn't know if it was because I was dumb and Yellowstone didn't have reception or if there was a more nefarious reason for this, but I refrained from asking.

For me at least, awkwardness didn't take long to turn to anxiety.

All of a sudden, a feeling of unease ran through me. It came without warning, forcing me to grip the armrests on my seat so hard my knuckles went pale as my fight or flight instincts ran haywire. Out in the distance, in the middle of the road I saw a strange figure; it was large and bulky, its enormous arms almost like a gorilla's. Two gleaming lights shifted menacingly, I knew these were the creature's eyes because I was grasped by an almost primal sensation of dread, as though a predator had found me.

"Everyone get on your toes, we're detecting something!" Roman yelled. "This response...it's like a Servant, but something's different!"

As we drew closer, Martha slowed down the van, intent on leaving to fight. At that moment, the monstrosity threw back its head and let out a mighty howl, announcing its presence to the whole world.

In that position I was able to take in all of its other features, such as its unfurled wings, the numerous crooked horns on its head and the muscular tail behind it.

A word came unbidden by me in a yell of horror. The bestial form before us...it was without a single smidgeon of doubt…

"A Demon!"

It was then that Martha put the pedal to the metal.

The van accelerated at an incredible speed that forced me to lay my back into the seat and judging by the yelp from the back, Mash was also in the same position.

In less than two seconds we were in front of the impossible beast.

The whole vehicle shook as we crashed into the monster. The impact against it wasn't enough to halt our advance and instead lifted the creature off the ground and over the car, cracking the windshield along the way.

Martha slowed down as she took a deep breath with her eyes closed; the anger on her face was easy to see, and so was the fact that she was trying her hardest to reign it in.

Lowering the window on my side, I looked back at the horror-turned-roadkill and saw it slowly dissipate as if it was smoke.

"It's dead, the signature is gone," Roman said flatly. "Umm...I really don't know what it was, though."

"Yeah?" I replied weakly. "I mean...yeah, I got nothing."

"Ah, wait, I don't think it's over yet!" The doc alerted us. "We're getting signs of magical energy to your right, off the road. They're too far away to properly pinpoint if it's anything like that thing, but you should stay on guard even so!"

I grunted noncommittally, trying to properly process the shift in the mood. I cast one more look at the saint and saw she now had a completely neutral expression, with her eyes closed and lips pressed into thin line.

"O...kay. Do we investigate? I'd rather go and do that now to avoid getting snuck up on," I supplied while taking off my glasses and rubbing my eyes.

"That might be a good idea, Master." Martha nodded in agreement. "Ignoring this would be remiss of us."

"Shouldn't we secure the supplies first, though?" Mash questioned. "Director Olga ordered us to focus on that and finding out the source of the distortion."

"She didn't give any orders about hostiles, though," I pointed out. "I think that gives us carte blanche right now."

"I'm with Alphonse on this one. It'd be disastrous if you got attacked while carrying all the things you requisitioned already," Roman supplied. "That being said...be careful, alright? If things look bad, run away immediately, got it?"

"Aye, aye. Got it, got it," I droned and turned to the purple haired lady. "Martha, you said you mainly fight at range, right?"

"That is correct, Master," she replied with a small pause. "However, I am unable to attack from very far like an Archer could, so please keep this in mind if we encounter a Servant of such a class."

"I hope we don't," I sighed. "I seriously hope we don't."


We delved into the forest in a single file, with Mash at the front, Martha at the rear and me between them. Although the approach was full of tension, I at least had two Servants protecting me, and the fact began to feel all the more reassuring.

However, the air grew uneasy when we heard a loud booming noise.

"This is bad..." Roman spoke quietly. "We're seeing more things like the one from before, whole dozens of them."

"Aw, shit," I muttered. "Can they see us too?"

"As long as you do not let your presence be known, you should be alright, but even so, be very careful," the doc answered. "Judging from the one you met, these things are pretty weak, but you could get overwhelmed by their sheer numbers so try not to engage them,"

Nodding at his words, we silently continued to trek deeper inside, approaching on an incline. As we climbed up we heard more loud sounds; sometimes it was an explosion, others it was the inhuman howls of the demon-like creatures. Mash and I were deeply disturbed when we heard a whole chorus of roaring monsters, while Martha's expression hardened.

When we were nearly at the top, Roman spoke up again.

"Wait a sec, there's a—!"

At that moment, we heard the beasts scream once more, but this time in pain.

"Servant! There's a Servant up there!" he yelled. "They're engaging those things and killing them in droves!"

"What!?" I hissed. "How? Why didn't you say so sooner!?"

"They must have been fighting at the edge of our range!" he defended himself. "Either way, those demon things are heading towards the Servant, so now's your chance to get closer and observe while they're distracted!"

Wasting no time, we walked on. The treeline stopped a bit further from the top of the incline, but even from the edge, we could see a battle raging on, however, I couldn't make out the details.

Hiding between the trees, I took out a pair of binoculars I'd pulled from the looted supplies earlier and peered through them.

Several of the demons were killed with extreme efficiency, arrows firmly lodged on their heads and bodies vanishing as they fell to the ground. Although I was able to pinpoint the shooter's location, I couldn't catch a good enough glimpse of them to figure out their identity as they darted around the battlefield at incredible speeds. The only thing I could see was an orange blur.

Though they were monsters, the creatures were well coordinated, attempting to surround the Servant and attacking one after the other. Despite this, they were shot down one after the other.

After a few moments, there was a lull in the battle. The Servant stopped moving, allowing me to take a good look at them. A petite girl, possibly no older than Mash. Her orange hair was done in a pair of long pigtails that reached down to her thighs and she wore little aside from what could only be described as lingerie and a pair of long gauntlets. Recognition didn't take long to set in, though it took me a moment to fully process the fact and draw out her name from my memory.

At first I thought of her husband...but seeing her clothing and bow, there was no doubt she was Sita, Rama's wife.

Despite how well she was fighting, I could tell by her posture and heavy breathing that she was having difficulties. She was killing the demons with ease, but even so there were tons of them and more were showing up all the time.

"I think we should help out that Servant," I spoke aloud.

"W-wait a moment! That's too dangerous!" Romani yelled out. "You should run away while you still have the chance!"

"We need as much help as we can get here, we'd be passing up the chance to get an ally if we did," I countered. "How many of those things are there?"

"Fifty fou—" He was interrupted by the Archer resuming combat and continuing to fire off arrow after arrow. "Forty nine, but that's still—!"

"With how weak they are, we can take them on," Martha cut him off heatedly. "I'm certain of it."

"Eh!? But how are you going to go about this!? There's so many of them!"

I pushed my glasses up and pinched the bridge of my nose. The Doctor was right about them having a numerical advantage, and since they were so coordinated, it wouldn't surprise me if they could see that I'm a Master and try to kill me first.

As I thought about our course of action, a plan began to form. Although it was probably...no, definitely not the best one, I didn't have enough time to think of a better one.

"I have an idea. Help me hash it out as quickly as possibly," I declared, looking at both of my Servants. Martha was clearly angered and eager to fight off the demons while Mash seemed somewhat hesitant but eventually nodded and waited to hear what I had to say.

"Alright, here's what we're gonna do..."