"Actually, before I forget, I wanted to ask you something."
Whatever it was Johnathan was thinking about, the notion I was going to ask a question seemed to bring him back to the current situation.
"Mind if I crash here overnight for the duration of the war?"
"…You want- Wait, what?"
"I want to stay here with you all from the evening, till morning. For the rest of the war."
"…Why?"
"Matter of safety. I don't know how long my threa-… promise… of the info drop is going to work as a deterrent, if at all; especially for your friend or Assassin's master, who has yet to reveal themselves. That, and if I'm careless enough to just be out on my own at night, who's to say Archer won't just kill me on a whim, or Rider won't just take me out with his assassins? Their masters seem to have some modicum of respect for this whole war thing; if I blatantly disrespect it, well… there's only so long disrespect of the revered goes without being punished, consequences to the deliverer of the punishment be damned."
"But you… Right… You don't have a servant" Johnathan finally seemed to catch the main issue at hand. "Now I see; yeah, this request makes sense…"
"…But" I raised the question, sensing the hesitation in Johnathan.
"Well, this house doesn't really have any other rooms…"
"…Really? A house of this size only has two bedrooms" I raised an eyebrow before smirking. "At least, I presume you and Sortiara aren't shar-"
"Of course we're not" Johnathan quickly snapped at me, shutting me up.
Y'know… Kid didn't look all that bad while flustered. Color me impressed…
"So, then what's the issue?"
"Lancer and Saber took the two other guest rooms not being used by Sortiara."
"…Huh" it was my turn to be confused. "Why would Heroic Spirits need bedrooms? Aren't they basically ghosts?"
"They are, but sleeping reduces their mana consumption. That, and, while it is true that as servants they are basically ghosts, they were once still human; the familiarity of the routine of sleeping at night is comforting to them. Or so I'd imagine…"
"So, they actually sleep…" I muttered, more so to myself. "Wait… then does that mean they also eat and stuff too?"
"They can, yes."
"Does eating provide any benefit?"
"A very small about of magical energy is replenished, according to Sortiara. Not enough to make it a viable strategy to maintaining the presence of a servant, mind you, but every little bit can help."
"…And here I thought I was just being kind, offering those beers to Lancer" I mused. "I honestly didn't think they could drink those; I was kinda miffed about him taking them deep down. Glad to hear they weren't just being covertly confiscated after all… That said, if servants can drink… can servants also get drunk?"
"…If they want to. Most typic-"
"Wait, wait, wait! So, they can simply choose not to get drunk?! Man, this shit just keeps on getting wilder and wilder…"
Johnathan seemed a bit annoyed at me cutting him off.
"Yes, well, point being there are no other bedrooms available. Not that I mind if you wish to simply crash out on a couch somewhere or something."
"That works; I can basically sleep anywhere. Not that I really sleep much at all to begin with."
"…By which you mean…?"
"Oh, I'd say on average I sleep… two to three hours a day. Day being a period of twenty-four hours, mind you; not a calendar day specifically."
Johnathan stared at me, his… that was his left eye twitching slightly. I noticed his gaze kept jumping back and forth from my eyes to my hands. They were still mostly out of my control, but the pain was beginning to die down; slowly, mind you, but there was progress happening nonetheless. Given about… say fifteen minutes or so, and they would be back to their normal, barely-visible-to-the-point-you-need-to-strain-and-deliberately-look-for-it-to-see-it shakiness.
"You scare me man…" he muttered eventually. "But yeah, sure, I guess; knock yourself out. Better you're around to help with digging up info on Archer, Caster and Assassin than you dead."
"Glad to hear it" I chuckled slightly. "That said though, I'd need a computer to really start doing any digging for that stuff. Is this the only one in the house, or…?"
"There's my mother's study on the main floor; computer is fairly old, but it can handle the internet no problem. It isn't password protected or anything, so feel free to make that your office for now I guess…"
"Great! I'll go see if I can find it and get to work then" I smiled as I made my way to the door. "See ya in the morning then."
"Night" Johnathan called out as I exited the room.
…That had been a bit too easy, no? Either Johnathan was way more tired than I'd thought he was, or the show I'd just put on had completely mesmerized him and he simply wasn't focused.
Safety from the other masters, and a means to dig into the identity of both Saber and Lancer… That thing he had mentioned as well, back when we were talking about sleeping: 'they were once still human'. They, huh… so neither of them is a demon, shade or anything of that sort. Good to know, good to know…
It didn't take long to grab my backpack where I'd left it and find the study. It was small, but also cozy. Nice décor too; Johnathan's mother had good taste. True to his word though, the computer was old. Depressingly old, if the time to boot the damn thing was anything to go by…
And I'm giving my laptop to Caster tomorrow… No way to drag my whole setup back home here. Nor would I want to; I may go to great lengths to safeguard all my shit, but…
The weakest link in any system was always, without fail, the human link. One slipup, and these kids and their servants could learn far more about me than I'd ever want them too. …To say nothing of the fact I'd be putting tens of thousands of dollars of equipment in peril!
"Suppose I could always buy a cheap laptop" I mused as the computer finally finished booting. "Hate fucking tablets, so…"
I gave the mouse a few shacks to see if it was working. Thankfully, it was working rather nicely. Far nicer than I'd have expected, considering the look of this shit. Clearly, none of this stuff had ever been properly cleaned. The amount of dirt and dried sweat on the mouse and keyboard…
"Actually, Johnathan's computer and shit was just as bad…" I grimace.
Seeing neglected equipment, from monitors and PCs to tangled wires, always made me die a little inside when I noticed it. As a gamer, it was just beyond me how people could leave their expensive shit in such a gross condition. Sure, my apartment as a whole was a mess, but my computer stuff? Spotless, I tell you. Absolutely spotless; not even a single wire tangled or knotted.
"Well then" I sighed, opening up the web browser. "Let's take a look at Lancer first, shall we?"
I spent the next couple of hours tapping away at the keyboard, slowly so as to not aggravate my fingers any more for the night. Thankfully, it hadn't been all too long since I'd last used to book thing, so I could remember Lancer's character page clearly.
Class: Lancer
True Name: -
AKA: -
Parameters
Strength: C+ Mana: C
Endurance: A- Luck: C-
Agility: B- NP: -
Skills
Instinct: D+
Magic Resistance: B-
Mind's Eye (True): D-
The Fool's Journey: -
1 Unknown Skill
Noble Phantasms
3 Unknown Noble Phantasms
It wasn't much to go off of in all reality. Only five skills total; four of them visible but only three had a description. The one lacking a description felt like a clue too: The Fool's Journey. It didn't have a rank tied to it, just like Caster's Brand of Athena skill.
"So, it's like the skill is always in effect, always on, but I'm not allowed to know what it is or how it works based on just meeting Lancer alone. Would it show me the description after I figure out his proper identity…?"
Though, the skill name alone points me towards a specific knight… But so much else doesn't match!
…That was my issue with Lancer. Half of what I knew of him added up to one knight in particular, but then everything else was so off it just didn't make sense for it to be him!
The knight in question was Sir Percival: a famous knight of the Round Table of Camelot. I was by no means an expert on Arthurian legend; in fact, I actually despised it as a whole; way too many versions of the stories that no one could agree what was the 'correct' version, to the point I just couldn't be bothered remembering most any of it! …The Battle of Camlann was cool though, I'll give the tales that.
From what I dug up on Percival over the hours tapping away, the red armor matched; killed a red armored knight in his story and took the armor for himself, thus becoming the 'Red Knight'. The more… laid back attitude… would seem to check out as well.
The final piece that led me to believe it was him was that skill of his: The Fool's Journey. See, when it came to the idea of 'The Fool's Journey' in storytelling and with tarot cards, well… there was arguably no better example than Percival; man went from living in the woods with his mother to being the damn Grail Knight!
…Except he also arguably didn't. As I said, there were too many versions of the tales! Come the later tellings, Galahad is the 'true' Grail Knight; Percival and Bors are relegated to being his companions! At which point, King Arthur himself becomes a better example of 'The Fool's Journey', arguably…
The other flaw with that original line of thinking on that skill is that, in life, everyone is the 'Fool' of their own life; their own story. Theoretically speaking, from that one line of thought alone, anyone and everyone should have this skill!
…Then came all the other issues. For one, Lancer was… weak; at the very least, on paper he was. I mean, his strength was lower than Rider's! As were both his luck and mana stats, which, I don't even know how that works; Percival was around in the time of magical artifacts and shit; surely, he'd have come into contact with more mana and shit and be better 'attuned', so to speak, than Rider… right?
His skill ranks? Sure, one skill was hidden, but the only thing visible at rank B was the damn class skill Magic Resistance; even then it was a B-! A knight of the round would be stronger than this on paper, I'd hope!
Lastly, the weapon… Since when did Percival wield a lance, or a spear, or whatever that thing was technically called? Every story of his I can remember or came across now has him using a sword! Hell, there's stories of him breaking his sword and getting a new sword and shit! How would he be summoned as a Lancer?! Ok, sure, the Bleeding Lance comes up in his part of the total collection of the legends, but it's not his; it belongs to the Fisher King! While the spear looked nice, and definitely fitting of a Noble Phantasm, it sure as fuck hadn't been dripping blood all over the damn place either!
I definitely couldn't cross Percival from the list; hell, I had him tied for the top spot. But there was too much mismatch for me, that I couldn't explain, to be able to confidently say it's him.
The other knight I had tied Percival with after all this time was Roland. Or should I say paladin, considering Roland was a part of Charlemagne's group of paladins? I knew even less about these guys, but some things made me lean towards him over Percival.
First off was Sortiara herself. When Saber had called her by her last name earlier, it sounded really… weird? In English, that is. Levesque… When I pronounced in with a more… French accent, or 'slant', though… that sounded far more natural. To me, at least. Assuming her family was French in ancestry from that, though admittedly flimsy a reason to do so, it would make more sense, I'd think, to take a French knight, or paladin in this case, over an English one.
As for the personality… well, I wouldn't say it was a direct match, but… I mean, Lancer was clearly the oldest looking guy around besides maybe Rider. Maybe the man mellowed out later in life, who knows?
The armor was a blank; no matter where I looked, I couldn't find anything on the color of Roland's armor. Maybe I was just blind, or bad at searching armor colors, but… well, that was a dead end for me.
Skills and stats… I couldn't say here, honestly. I didn't know any of his stories to any remote level of subjective 'well', so trying to gauge anything on that part would be so skewed it would actually cause more harm than benefit, I say.
But the weapon… that was where it maybe made more sense as well? Maybe. It depended on how the grail worked and did things though.
"Roland also used a sword, but his sword was Durandal specifically. One'd think that'd rule him out, same as Percival, on the weapon metric, but… Durandal is a derivative."
…Yes, a derivative. Or, at the very least, an inherited weapon. The different form of another, famous weapon. One that was a lance, or a spear… whatever.
"Durindana… The spear of the great Hector of Troy himself… Considering Durandal is literally just Durindana converted back into its blade form… Could Roland also have access to the spear version as well, even though his stories don't even seem to mention him using it as a spear anywhere, due to it being an inherited weapon? If he does, then him being a Lancer would make sense… But do inherited weapons work like that? Hell, does the grail even allow for inherited weapons?"
…It was most likely one of those two, though other options did remain open in my mind. Ultimately, I just didn't have enough to go on; if only I could see Lancer's Noble Phantasms! Then I'd know for sure! …Though then I also wouldn't be needed in this ragtag alliance, now would I, if that was what I was also reliant on to discern identities of servants…
"You know, you'd think that spear has to be a Noble Phantasm with how fancy it is… Does seeing it with my eyes not count as knowing it though, for the character sheet to reveal it to me? Assuming it is indeed a Noble Phantasm to begin with, that is… but surely it is… Ugh, forget it for now; this is going nowhere!"
I closed all the tabs and put a pin in this, for now. Lancer would just have to show a bit more of himself in action; then I'd have enough info. I hope… Checking the computer's clock, it was just about to hit midnight. Still had plenty of gas in the tank, so…
"Suppose I can get to work on Saber's identity then…"
I sighed, reaching into my backpack for a bottle of Dr. Pepper. It was only as I began taking a drink that a thought crossed my mind. A thought someone like myself truly should have considered far earlier…
"…Didn't Johnathan say Saber had been doing research on things? …There's no way I'm that lucky, right? Or that they're that careless? But computers would be new to Saber, and if Johnathan wasn't expecting anyone like me to use this, then…"
…Then maybe Saber doesn't know about browser history, or incognito mode…
In a flash I had the web browser open again. I had just filled the history with a lot of garbage, sadly, and Saber had been looking today, so I couldn't go clearing today's searches. After a few minutes though, I finally scrolled down to search entries from this morning and early afternoon…
"They didn't… Oh my god…" I couldn't stop the grin from forming on my face as I slowly read though the history. "Johnathan, you're actually an idiot. I love you kid, but you're a damn idiot…"
The entries closest to my own were mostly about modern day shit about America. Yes, including drinking laws… Saber had actually dug into it specifically; couldn't help but laugh a little at that overprotectiveness of his.
After that, or before that, technically speaking… came background searches on the world itself, politically speaking. Government structures, nature of democracy, stuff like that.
But the earlier searches… were all about China. I mean, that was fitting, considering… Saber was Saber. Still though, the time periods of the earliest searches…
"…Saber is from the Three Kingdoms era…"
That much became very obvious to me. Most of the earliest searches were from right when the kingdoms began to fall; starting with Shu, then Wei, because Jin, obviously. Then finally Wu… The pieces were rapidly beginning to click together.
Green armor… probably from Shu then… Saber class… rules out the likes of Huang Zhong, I'd think…? Aversion to drink rules out Zhang Fei. Guan Yu is considered to be a god of war, so… probably not summonable as a Heroic Spirit? Not Zhuge Liang… Top three: Zhao Yun, Ma Chao and-
The end of the search history… A search on a single person: Liu Shan.
…Bingo…
There was only one person I could see having their first search be on Liu Shan, the second, and final, emperor of Shu Han. The first emperor of Shu Han, and the father to the son widely considered to be an incompetent, bumbling fool of a ruler in the modern day.
"Well, uh…" I couldn't suppress a nervous chuckle. "That… that would explain a lot, actually…"
"A lot, perhaps, but not on Archer. Yet here I was told by master it was Archer you were looking into."
The sudden voice behind me caused me to jump up in my seat.
"Christ, I'm not used to be on the receiving end of this shit" I laughed nervously. "Have I told you just how much I hate how you Heroic Spirits can do that shit?"
"I don't believe you have. However, that is not the issue at hand here, now is it?"
"Come now, Saber… Surely you must have known I was going to do some digging onto both you and Lancer."
"Indeed, I did… I just didn't expect master to be so reckless as to give you access to one of these… computers... That also looks very similar to what I saw this morning; a perfect match, even."
"…How long have you been standing there anyways?"
"Does it matter?"
"Well… that depends, I guess. What do you know about browser search history?"
"…Nothing at all, it would seem, considering I just understood none of that."
"It's a record, of sort. Everything anyone has searched for is stored here, in order of the searches. I know you checked this site out, down to the minute of the day."
"I see… Master never informed me of such a thing."
"I'm sure Johnathan was acting with only the best of intentions to assist you in… whatever you were looking for… but-"
"But he moves far too quickly for his own good, and is thus always a few steps behind the others. Same could be said for Lady Levesque as well."
"Remind you of someone, Saber" I raised the question, along with an eyebrow.
"Yes, unfortunately" I had yet to turn around, but it sounded as though even Saber couldn't help but smile slightly. "Though perhaps that is why I am so worried about your influence on him."
"Speaking of… The person I reminded you of… Is that-"
"I'm sure you've pieced it all together yourself. You need not me to explain it."
"Surely that's a bit much though?"
"Do not misunderstand here. Your tendency to scheme and reveal things only when it works to your advantage is similar. That is all; you are not even a tenth the man he was."
The air turned very, very cold as Saber spoke that warning.
"…Makes sense" I admitted. "Sounds like you respect him though; surprising to me."
"We may stand at odds, but while I disagree with him on plenty, I do not lack respect for him. Were we able to find a way to walk the path together instead, I would have gladly done so."
The room filled with silence in the aftermath. I was unwilling to move, for multiple reasons. Yet, all the same, Saber also didn't feel the need to move, apparently. It would seem there was no way of getting out of this…
"You really are going to make me do this" I sighed.
"If you truly do know who I am, I want to know."
"I suppose it is only fair" I smirked, finally standing and turning around to face Saber. "I hope you do believe me when I say this, because I hold you in very high regard, being a fan of Shu myself."
Saber actually raised an eyebrow as I bowed to him.
"It is a great honor to be standing before you, Saber. Or should I say First Emperor of Shu Han, and the King of Hanzhong: Lord Liu Bei."
