FATE/PARALLEL COLORS

Chapter 1: Shells of Former Selves

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This and any future stories involving Connla will assume that you have read all previous stories, so some details already covered there will not be explained here. If you haven't read those, I recommend you do so before this one so you aren't too confused. In particular, this story has some heavy spoilers for Fate/Catbox Fiction, so reader discretion is advised.

It was yet another cold night at the Chaldea Security Organization. Of course, every night would be freezing since all of humanity's only remaining facility was located deep in the Antarctic. It wasn't cold in the literal sense though, since the building operated with state of the art heating units that allowed its occupants to forget about the harsh environment they lived within. This was more of a metaphorical 'cold', as if any attempt to be warm and pleasant would immediately be snuffed out by horrible blasts of unrelenting chill.

That was the collective mood experienced by everyone who had been involved in the Akakor incident. Not a week had passed yet, so the pain and horror were still quite fresh on everyone's minds. The 'bitter cold' was more of a lingering emotion, something akin to disgust at how Chaldea witnessed how Mages in a parallel world could be so cruel, and that the organization had to step in to mitigate the consequences. After seeing such things, it was easy for Fujimaru Ritsuka, humanity's last Master tasked with saving the world, to question if the Mages in this timeline had the potential to be as equally heartless. Of course she wasn't going to give up on saving all of humanity itself just because of a few rogue Mages. It was more of a doubt that festered within her, and would not relent after the Akakor world subjected her and her Servants to such a harsh experience the likes of which the six Singularities they resolved had never demonstrated.

More than that though, everyone was worried for the youngest Servant who took part in resolving that conflict. If Ritsuka had trouble coping with the aftermath, one could imagine how devastated the child Lancer known as Connla was. She was the one who triggered Chaldea's investigation into that world, and the end result was simply too difficult for her to come to terms with. Although everyone was worried for her, they agreed to give her plenty of space when she wanted to be alone, and that turned out to be practically all the time. After being discharged from a check-up at the infirmary, she immediately went to her room and buried herself beneath a mish-mash of blankets that passed off as a tent. She brought along an assortment of textbooks, cassette tapes, headphones, and writing materials so that she could distract herself with a wide variety of subjects to study.

This evening was just like the previous few nights. The flow of time barely affected Connla as the afternoon hours gave way to nighttime, with her absorbed in another advanced mathematical equation.

"Here's a paradox. There are two sealed envelopes, both containing money. We only know that the amount in one envelope is ten times than in the other one, but we don't know which is which, nor do we know their amounts. Suppose somebody shows you the two envelopes and asks you to pick one and keep the money in it. You pick one envelope at random, but before you go, you are given the option to switch and actually take the other envelope. So, should you switch?

"On the one hand, the situation is completely symmetrical with respect to the two envelopes. There seems to be no reason to think you'll be better off with the other one. But on the other hand, we can argue the follows; suppose you are allowed to open the envelope you originally picked before deciding whether to switch or not, and see how much money it is. You open it and see that it has $40. That means that the other envelope is either $4 or $400, and on average it has $202, which is certainly more than $40. So it seems that, yeah, you are better off switching in this case, at least in some average sense.

"But there is nothing special about…"

The door to the room slid open. Two young girls around the occupant's age bounded in and spotted their friend hiding within her makeshift blanket tent.

"Good morning, Connla," Jack the Ripper said. "Do you want to go do something fun?"

The lavender-haired child didn't respond. She barely even acknowledged their presence. She just stared ahead blankly, listening to the audio tape and losing herself to the problem being presented to her. Multiple tapes were strewn about on the floor, and there were plenty of more cassettes that she hadn't listened to yet. The heavy headphones covering her ears also served to drown out Jack's question.

"Connla?" Jack murmured.

The Assassin tried to approach her, but her friend Nursery Rhyme suddenly grabbed her shoulder and uttered, "Let's not bother her. She still looks really tired."

Although Jack didn't like Connla being so fatigued, she understood. They slowly backed out of the room to avoid disturbing her any further, then headed for the simulator with forlorn expressions.

"I don't like this," Jack moaned. "It's been almost a week since Mommy came back from that Akakor incident, and Connla still hasn't gotten better. Is there anything we can do to cheer her up?"

Nursery assured with a feigned smile, "Don't worry. Master and Mr. Cu said that Connla did so much to help out that she's super exhausted, and that we shouldn't strain her too much."

"Yeah, but why does she look so sad all the time? You remember the fight that Mr. Edison and Mr. Tesla got into the other day, right?"

"Which one? They've had so many arguments that it's impossible to pick one out."

"You know, the really funny one about whether or not Granny Helena should wear a purple or a black swimsuit. We were there with Connla, remember?"

"Oh yeah, that made me laugh so much, I thought my sides were going to split!"

"Well…" Jack murmured. "I happened to take a glance at Connla back then. She barely even cracked a smile, even though we were on the floor laughing. I don't think she was even paying attention to the conversation at all. It was almost like… Hmm… How do you describe it when someone who's standing next to you seems really, really far away at the same time?"

Nursery pondered that question for a moment. "Maybe like Urashima Taro?"

"Who's that?"

"The Fisher Lad who was whisked away to the Dragon King's Palace for three days, and returned home only to realize that 300 years had passed. Maybe it's something like that."

"You think so?"

"Connla left on an adventure, and came back as someone totally different. It's not entirely the same, but it's pretty close."

Jack considered Nursery's analogy, though didn't feel completely sure about it. Nevertheless, both girls knew that something was seriously wrong with their best friend. Everyone who was involved in the Akakor incident refused to explain what had happened to them, fearing they were too young to understand. Jack grew frustrated as she exclaimed, "Mmmgh! I hate it when Mommy keeps secrets from me! What could have happened to make Connla so sad!?"

"Don't be angry. If you do, you'll get wrinkles," Nursery said. "I'm sure Master has her reasons. All we can do is let Mr. Cu and Ms. Medb take care of Connla until she feels better. I bet we could do something nice for her in the meantime, like gathering materials to boost her skills."

"That's boring! I wanna have a cake party with her!"

"You silly goose! Have you forgotten that Connla doesn't like sweet things?"

"Oh, um… Then we can pick pumpkins in the basement greenhouse and dismember them into jack-o-'lanterns! We could even make pumpkin pies and share them with everyone!"

"Good idea! It's almost Halloween, after all! Let's go ask Mr. Emiya how much we need to make enough pies for everyone!"

With that, the two child Servants gleefully ran off to the kitchen. Back in her room, Connla was completely oblivious to what her friends were planning as she continued listening to the monotonous audio tape.

"The smallest possible amount you may observe is $1. Should you switch if you see $1? Well, there's only one option of where this $1 came from – it must be the smaller amount in the 1-and-10 pair. If you see $1 in your envelope, the other envelope must have $10, so you are better off switching. Saying that $10 is better than $1 is the equivalent of saying that the profit from switching is positive, and therefore you should switch. But the case of observing $1 was special, because that amount only appears once in our tables, whereas all other amounts appear twice.

"What should you do if you observe $10 in your envelope? We just saw that 10 is either the larger amount in the 1-and-10 pair, and in this case has a probability of 1/4, or the smaller amount in the 10-and-100 pair, with a probability of 1/8. So there are two options, and given the information of observing $10 in your envelope, and it is given that we are in one of these two cases, the conditional probability of the first case is just a fraction of its probability, which is 1/4, out of the total probability of the two cases, which is 1/4 + 1/8. This fraction equals 2/3, so that is the conditional probability of the first case. In a similar way, the conditional probability of the second case is 1/8 over 1/4 + 1/8, which is 1/3.

"In the first case…"

As she listened to the droning of the audio tape, Connla's eyelids kept growing heavier and heavier. She was so distressed that she had a lot of trouble sleeping, which was the reason she borrowed so many of Chaldea's recorded mathematical and statistical problems to help her fall asleep. However, the problems she heard were so interesting that she actually wound up staying awake to solve them. She didn't have the energy to move around too much, and she just wanted to lose herself in hours upon hours of arithmetic like this.

Maybe it was Connla's way of keeping herself grounded during these dark times. If she didn't have something logical to latch on to, her mind would fly off in all sorts of insane directions, causing her to become even more depressed than she already was. Roman said that having a distraction like this was important for her, especially if she wanted to recover enough to function as a Servant for Chaldea again. Her heart was just too wounded to embark on any missions at the moment though, and Roman barred Ritsuka from bringing Connla even to simulated battles until he determined she had recovered enough.

Everyone who was involved in the Akakor incident knew why Connla had become so distressed. Even though she made a conscious decision to help kill her counterpart Cliste, the responsibility was too overwhelming for her to come to terms with. Not only that, Connla had been forced to stay behind as the Akakor world was being cut off and erased from the Greater History of Man. She barely managed to escape her demise thanks to Antonio Salieri guiding her back to the Chaldea world. Despite returning home safely, the terror of watching the world come to its end disturbed her so deeply that she couldn't think straight. For the following 24 hours, Connla was confined to the sick bay vomiting up anything that Medb tried to feed her. Needless to say, she was an emotional wreck during those precarious hours.

At least now, five days after Roman released her from the sick bay, Connla was not throwing up everything she consumed. Her physical condition was more stable compared to then, so he suggested she take this time to rest in her room. Sigurd also examined her eyes to make sure her Imbas Forosnai wasn't affecting her vision. Although it didn't appear to be active, he still told her to wear the glasses he made for her whenever she walked around, just to be on the safe side. She always kept the spectacles close to her in case she decided to go for a short walk.

And yet, for some reason… Connla felt like she was already walking.

Why was that? She was sitting snugly beneath her blankets listening to boring math problems. Why did she feel like her legs were carrying her forward? Her mind seemed to pull itself in two directions at sporadic intervals. Sometimes she would fight the sensation and bring herself back to reality. Sometimes she would give in and allow her imagination to take over… At least, she thought it was her imagination. Yet somehow, her motions seemed incredibly real.

Was she experiencing another Imbas Forosnai vision? For some reason, she didn't think that was it. Whenever she was having one of her dreams, her mind fully disconnected from her body, and she would never respond to any external stimuli. This time though, she experienced every step she took, even though she was sitting perfectly still. Instead of a disconnect between dreaming and wakefulness, it was more like a disconnect between reality and imagination, with both being real simultaneously.

Connla was getting tired of trying to keep her eyes open. She decided to let the sensations carry her away to this foreign universe she was gradually finding herself in.

Massachusetts, 1932

Among the sleepy hills of central Massachusetts, moss-covered cottages dotted the approximately 300-year old farms – ancient relics of the bygone days of America's Thirteen Colonies. The scenery seemed lonely and out of place, for the many homes that once housed families, the countless acres of stretching farms, and even the untouched forests had long since been vacated. The very concept of 'life' no longer existed. From the smallest of carrots, to the largest of pumpkins, to the happiest of families, nothing was allowed to grow in this desolate modern wasteland. That wasn't to say that death had taken life's place. After all, life and death were inexorably intertwined. If life turned its back on this place, then death was sure to follow close by. Yes, even death was unwelcome in this abandoned countryside. Why was that so? What made this wilderness so tragic that its survivors had left out of fear of being sucked into this indescribable quagmire of mystery and decay?

That was the question a young woman from Boston was tasked with finding out. Her black Ford V8 rolled along the dusty and neglected farm roads, billowing chalky plumes around its wheels. This was probably the first activity these roads had seen in roughly five years, after the last of the town's rural families packed up and left to seek a better life. The driver's eyes gazed around the landscape, trying desperately to keep themselves open after suffering hours upon hours of boredom. It had been a long trip west, and all she kept seeing were trees, grass, wild flowers, trees, grass, wild flowers, abandoned silos, trees, dilapidated sheds, grass, wild flowers, withered horse ranch signs, trees, grass, on and on and on. With nothing to stimulate her senses, the monotony was beginning to affect her.

The V8's tires crackled and popped some tiny pebbles aside as the young woman parked to the side and got out to take a short walk. She covered her mouth and waved off some of the dust curling before her face before departing. Even though she was miles away from civilization, she couldn't tolerate the tedium any longer and needed to stretch her legs for a while. She hoped she wasn't too far away from her destination either – the pangs of hunger were starting to creep up on her as well. Just to be sure, she unfurled her heavily marked map and reexamined her path, confident that she was on the correct road. After confirming with the map, she set it back in the car and began walking up the shallow hill so she could get a better look at her surroundings.

It was a beautiful and warm April afternoon. Not even the tiniest of clouds dotted the perfect blue sky, allowing the sun to radiate as much of its heat as possible without interference. Easter had just passed on March 27, which was now two and a half weeks ago. The young woman lived among family and friends, enjoying a successful career as a surveyor for one of Boston's engineering colleges. In fact, work was the only reason she would leave the safety of the city behind and come to this silent land of melancholy. It was such a somber place that not even the tiny buds trying to blossom on the dead trees could hold tight to the branches, and they dropped to the ground like tears.

She exhaled a despondent sigh. It was obvious that there would be no one around to ask for directions. The nearest house she came upon just off the side of the road was in no condition to be lived in. Its wooden foundations and siding were rotted beyond repair, the white paint was about 80% peeled off, one of the pillars holding up the second floor balcony had long fallen off, and the untreated bushes grew out of control around the front porch. Since she was an engineering student, she couldn't help but ponder what happy memories this house held on to from its days when it was a 'home' for some farming family. To her, the building felt personified as some ancient old man wasting away on a rocking chair, waiting for the day when he could finally cast off his useless shell and go to some better place in the afterlife.

Alas, no one from any city was willing to travel this far just to assist with demolition efforts… Certainly without hefty compensation, that was. Despite this, the young woman immediately felt a connection with the dilapidated house, silently praising how sturdy its foundation was – proof that whoever built it had done so with great care, professionalism, and love. Curiosity overcame her, as she couldn't resist taking a quick peek inside. She turned the front door's knob, which turned out to be pointless since it no longer functioned properly, allowing her access to what was supposedly the dining room. There were only a small round table, three chairs with matted upholstery, a withered bouquet of stalks that were once flowers inside a vase over the sink, an oven that no longer worked, and a blanched spot in the corner where a 1920s-styled refrigerator once stood.

There was an entrance to the living quarters where the stairs to the second floor were, but there was also a peculiar door next to the oven. She shoved it open, revealing a sloped chamber that was situated directly beneath the stairs, giving the wall opposite the door a strange and sharp 45 degree angle. This had once been a storage space, with several hooks affixed to the walls and boxes lining up beneath the angled stairway. Nothing remained except for a line of coiled rope and a broken horse saddle. She proceeded to the former living room, only occupied by a single mustard-colored armchair, some tiling that popped out of the floor, and a shabby floral print curtain draped over the surprisingly intact window.

The young woman carefully guided herself up the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor, which could only fit two small bedrooms. The sights in these two rooms plus the hallway that divided them was in just as sorry of a state as what she saw on the first floor. Only the beds, small tables, chairs, a desk lamp, garishly-colored wallpaper, and windows survived the passage of time. She even spotted the first signs of a tree growing directly beneath the house and crawling its way up into one of the bedrooms, puncturing its branches through the delicate drywall.

During her journey through the house, she took numerous photos to bring back with her to Boston. If she couldn't convince her colleagues to do something about demolishing abandoned structures such as this, she could at least keep their memories alive as a souvenir of her time here. Seeing how neglected these small foundations of American history were deeply saddened her, and she wished they could at least be given a proper 'funeral' the same way human beings were put to rest. If she had the capital, she would have gladly hired a moving company to transport this entire house back to a museum in Boston, in a perhaps vain attempt to spread awareness and foster curiosity. Since she couldn't afford something so outrageous, the photographs would have to suffice.

Satisfied with her exploration, the young woman offered a silent good-bye to the house and returned to her car, ready to continue her trip further west. It would take another two hours for her to reach her destination. It would have been shorter had the roads been paved and maintained, but she had to struggle with senselessly winding paths and uneven terrain. At least it gave her a reason to remain alert, rather than bored out of her mind like she was back on the main roads.

Eventually though, she came upon an old sign leading her into the town she was looking for. Her concerns over being lost immediately subsided once she read the sign;

WELCOME TO ARKHAM

"…nt."

"…"

"Hey…"

"…"

"How long… ignore me, runt?"

"…?"

"Open your eyes already, girl. I know you can hear me."

Connla's head nearly fell to the floor, and the motion caused her to snap awake. She was back in her room, safely hiding beneath the mountain of blankets. Confusion overwhelmed her senses for a few moments. Her eyes immediately fell upon the numerous scribbles of numbers and mathematical signs she couldn't remember writing. Somehow, she had worked on incredibly problems like an + bn = cn, the inscribed square problem, and the Riemann hypothesis, although it didn't mean she had actually solved them. They were just doodles and notes she somehow wrote down while her mind was off in some strange alternate universe. The sight spooked Connla, especially since the handwriting was too neat and precise to be her own, yet the pencil was still in her hand hovering over the paper.

"Have you come to your senses, runt?" a man's terse voice demanded.

The young Lancer glanced up to find a pair of gold-armored legs standing in front of her blanket tent's entrance. She crawled out of the space and found Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes and ruler of Uruk, standing before her with an impatient glare in his red eyes.

"L-Lord Gilgamesh… How long were you there?" she mumbled.

"Far too long for my liking! Honestly! I was in the mood for an evening sojourn, and I expected you to accompany me. Your ignorance of my summons has left me in quite an unpleasant mood. How do you expect to make up for such an unforgivable blunder?"

She quietly sighed and stared at the floor, offering a moaned, "I'm sorry," as her apology.

"Tch. Stop looking so pathetic, girl," Gilgamesh grumbled. "Your hunched position on the floor is acceptable, but that's not good enough for me. If you want your apology to be sincere, then raise your head and look me in the eye."

Connla timidly did so. Before she could utter anything though, he appeared a little taken aback when he saw her irises shining with multiple colors like a soap bubble for just a passing second. He narrowed his eyes, then raised his hand and blurted, "I see. So you were having an Imbas Forosnai episode."

"Um… Was I?"

"Your eyes glimmered – the sign that you must be returning from yet another dream of a different world."

She gulped hard and immediately snatched the glasses that Sigurd made for her. Once she put them on, the throbbing headache pounding in her cranium rapidly subsided. It was a symptom of the Runes inscribed on her brain being overworked from connecting her mind with another Connla's cranial Runes. She rubbed her temples and groaned, "Ungh… I guess I was…"

"According to what the Norse Dragon Slayer told me, your mind is completely shut off from this world during such an episode. Perhaps I should exercise some lenience with your blatant indiscretion, especially since my own Sha Naqba Imuru operates on a similar principle."

"I don't know…" Connla whispered and clenched the front of her night gown. "Something didn't feel 'right' with this particular dream."

"In what way?"

"It wasn't another 'me' that I was witnessing. It was some random woman driving along some rural American roads in the early 1930s."

"Oh? Sounds interesting," Gilgamesh smirked. "Come, then. We shall return to my chambers, and we can discuss the particulars."

Although she didn't feel like going anywhere, she suspected that she would invoke the king's ire if she tried to refuse his offer. She carefully hobbled onto her feet, but wound up teetering so badly that she needed to grab the nearest chair. He visibly frowned, then said, "Perhaps commuting is not an option for you. Very well. Although I am more comfortable when surrounded by gold and velvet, it would be uncouth of me to expect my guest to enjoy such luxuries while suffering from such severe fatigue. Thus, I will be generous and remain here with you. Come, rest in your bed and tell me what you saw."

"I don't think it will be very interesting for you," Connla admitted as he guided her to her bed and helped her lie down.

"I will be the judge of that. Now speak."

She did so, explaining everything that had happened when she was essentially role-playing as a random woman she had never seen before. She hadn't even learned the lady's name, but she knew she was a surveyor from Boston who had a peculiar fascination with architecture from colonial America, and that she was going to some town named Arkham.

After listening to Connla's tale, Gilgamesh's face scrunched with disapproval as he muttered, "Well, I do declare, that was the most frightfully mundane thing I have ever heard in my life."

"I had a feeling it would be boring for you," the Lancer glanced away shamefully.

"Come now, spare me that pitiful expression. At least you had the foresight to warn me ahead of time. Besides, it's not as though it was a complete waste of time to listen to your story. There were a few things that caught my curiosity."

"Like what?"

"That town named Arkham, for one. That is not a location which exists on this world."

"But the woman clearly had it marked on her map."

"I don't doubt that for a moment. What I am suggesting is that this world is something plucked out of fiction, like your mind is constructing a coherent story and playing it out in your head. Usually, dreams are jumbles of information one accrues in their lifetime, which then become nonsensical images and stories that can scarcely be recalled. This particular dream of yours appears to be much more robust and logical, which therein itself makes no sense. Not only that, but you are clearly taking an active role in this fictional dimension of yours."

"…"

"Come now, I would not take it so seriously. I cannot guarantee if you will or will not experience that woman's life again, but do not take it so close to heart. It is important that you hold on to your sense of self as tightly as I do with mine."

Gilgamesh noticed how nervous Connla appeared as she listened to him. He grinned once again and assured, "Well, that's my take on things. I have plenty of experience with seeing my own counterparts in dreams of my own, though those visions are completely under my control, whereas yours are not."

She shifted her eyes back to him, then asked, "Can I ask you something then?"

"Hm? Very well."

"How do you feel when any one of your counterparts does something so unbelievable that you can hardly believe they are the same person as you?"

"Well, well. An intriguing question, to be sure. I never imagined I would be asked such a grave question from a runt such as yourself," Gilgamesh replied, looking so pleased that he probably could have laughed. His jovial demeanor subsided as his expression became harsh. "It's simple; I don't 'feel' anything for them."

"You don't?"

"If another version of me decides to drench himself in the mud of the Holy Grail and plot the destruction of humanity, then I laugh at his weakness. If yet another version of me decides to undertake another quest for the elixir of immortality, then I laugh at his inability to learn from his lessons. If another version of me decides to stake the future of humanity on a weak Master who cannot fend for themselves, then I laugh at his pettiness."

Connla could barely look him in the eye after listening to that last scenario. Did it mean that Gilgamesh was laughing at himself for siding with Chaldea? That was probably something she should not ask him to elaborate on.

"The point is that everything which happens in parallel worlds should be considered as nonsensical and irrelevant to what happens in this world," he continued. "The only thing humans are capable of is concentrating on what is before them. Humans are greatly limited when it comes to handling wide-scale issues, yet become especially powerful when they focus their energies towards a singular goal. Alas, your mind is clouded with the worries of what occurred in the Akakor world. You must cease with such trifling concerns. Akakor is no more, and you still have your duty as one of my citizens."

"But… if you say that we shouldn't concern ourselves with what happens in other worlds… does that mean I shouldn't have dragged Chaldea into Akakor? Was that whole exercise a complete waste of time?"

"Hmph," Gilgamesh scoffed. "Even if it had been, disposing of the Beast of Akakor and her ability to jump across parallel worlds proved to be beneficial for the Chaldean mongrels in the long run."

"I… guess so…" Connla somberly closed her eyes.

"Besides, knowing your character, you would not have ignored Cliste's pleas. My contractor supported your decision, and the rest is history. In all honesty, one who is willing to jump to a completely different world that is falling into Hell itself just to help their friend is worthy of my praise. If I knew that my own friend was being converted into a tool for the Mages to use at their own behest, I would do everything in my power to show them what true terror is."

She became silent. She had completely forgotten that Gilgamesh once had a partner whom he could fully trust in both life and combat, yet had lost in an unbelievably cruel way. For one of humanity's greatest kings like Gilgamesh, having a trusted friend he could consider his equal must have been an incredibly rare novelty for him. Of course, everyone knew how Gilgamesh tried to deal with the loss of Enkidu; by seeking out a method to achieve immortality, only to gain great wisdom after a snake consumed the elixir he sought for so long.

Was he trying to console her? Did he not want her to do something irrational as a result of Cliste's death like he did with Enkidu's? She wasn't sure anymore. Her mind raced everywhere, unable to latch onto a coherent thought.

Gilgamesh frowned, then said, "Be more confident in your decision. Whether it was 'right' or 'wrong' is irrelevant. You follow your instinct, and not let the consequences burden you. That is the mark of a true survivor who can gaze upon the fires of Hell and smile at the end. Those are the only types of people I will allow into my kingdom as full-fledged Urukians. Thus, I refuse to grant you citizenship until you demonstrate the ability to look forward and not fear anything. Persist in such useless wallowing, and you will be doing Cliste a tremendous injustice after she vested so much upon you."

"…"

Satisfied that he said his piece, the king stood up and glanced over at the scribbled papers. After a long, uncomfortable pause between them, he snatched the papers and said, "I will be taking these with me."

"Mm," she nodded lightly.

Without another word, Gilgamesh flicked off the light and left Connla to fall asleep properly. As he walked back to his own chamber, he panned his eyes upon each doodle and equation that she wrote. He especially compared what her handwriting was like before she fell asleep, and what it was during her dream. The difference was too jarring for him to ignore. He flicked the papers onto his table and sat upon his sofa in a pondering stance. Silence overcame him – an unusual occurrence for someone as loquacious as him. The only sound he heard was his own breathing.

If my instinct is correct, and I know it is… there will soon come a challenge that may prove insurmountable for the runt to overcome. But she must persevere. She must not disappoint the many people who have invested much in her growth as a Servant. At the very least, she knows I am watching her, so I'm sure my attention will inspire her to get up and face the coming days… Perhaps not with a smile, but certainly with the necessary courage.

He gazed ahead blankly as he thought of the mystery Connla he encountered just that one time, and of the deal he made with her. Although he wasn't entirely fond of it, he still made a promise to look after Chaldea Connla on her behalf. That was the one thing which kept him interested in her; if he couldn't ensure her safety, then he wouldn't be able to earn a loyal retainer that he could order around at his leisure. The mystery Connla was going to be Gilgamesh's slave, no questions asked. Her attitude toward him was unbecoming of a peasant addressing her king, and he ultimately wanted her to understand that.

For now, all he could do was be patient.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The audio that Connla is listening to is partially transcribed from the YouTube video The Two Envelope Problem – a Mystifying Probability Paradox by Formant. I only wrote out part of the very beginning, so if you're curious to know the rest, you'll have to watch the video yourself.

AUTHOR'S NOTE #2: Hello again, everyone. I know I posted this new story a bit later than I would have liked, but I've had an incredibly rough start to 2022. Some of my family members had sudden medical issues between February and now, and I had to attend another's funeral in the middle of all that chaos. That made it impossible for me to focus on writing, although I did some brainstorming in the meantime. Now that things are looking better, I can finally concentrate on this without much worry.