Within the crowded barn, Vivi found herself taking on the role as a shepherd to those who her brother had managed to rescue. Surrounded by those she had called her neighbor, Vivi was doing her best to stay preoccupied in order to not succumb to the overwhelming amount of despair from the crying women and children on her property. Traveling throughout the nearby ruined cottages and farmhouses within her property's nearby vicinity, the sixteen year-old girl felt oddly both satisfied and uncomfortable from all the mutilated goblins that she encountered while scavenging for supplies to bring back to her barn.
Pulling a small wagon behind her on the dirt road, one that she had filled with healing herbs, food and blankets, Vivi stood in the middle of an eerily quiet intersection; surrounded by dying fires and macabre sights, as she stared off past the fading smoke and out toward the direction of the village's main entrance. '… I don't understand how or why that spirit is fighting for you… But then again, you made it blatantly obvious that neither did you…'
'… There's nothing more right now that I hate right now than the cruel fact that you're the one who's having to put yourself in danger like this; even just the thought of losing you shudders me to my core,' Vivi lamented, as she lowered her head down with tears softly dripping down from the corners of her watery eyes. "Ren… Wherever you are… Please… Please, just… Just don't die; p-please…"
Outside the crumbling walls of the devastated village, two of the forty goblins who were posted outside its main gate; both small creatures were screaming profanities at each other, while standing over the slaughtered sheep that they were arguing over. Pulling out their small knives and threatening to slay one another, the green humanoid creatures were moments away from lunging at one another. That's when the two of them froze in fear, as they heard the lumbering steps of their superior coming toward them.
Screeching in fear, both goblins tried abandoning the sheep for the sake of protecting their own lives, but that's when one of them was lifted up by their neck. Cowering, the surviving goblin fled the scene; leaving the other impish creature at the mercy of the annoyed and hungry hobgoblin. Standing at six feet tall, the muscular and fatty monster sneered at the screaming goblin whose throat he had in his hand. "… You annoying little shit… I'm gonna give you something to scream about, whelp," the hobgoblin said in his native tongue, before opening his vile mouth as wide as his jaw could manage.
Knowing what was to come, the goblin pleaded for its pathetic life as the larger creature shoved the top of its head into his gaping maw. Like a feral creature, the goblin could only helplessly kick and claw at the hobgoblin's massive hand, as it felt his jagged and rotting teeth crushing its forehead. Soon enough, the goblin's screams came to a sudden halt as the hobgoblin then chomped down on its forehead, biting off its entire frontal lobe, before spitting it out on the ground.
Cackling sadistically, the hobgoblin grinned a bloody smile at the seizing creature in its hand; shaking it back-and-forth like a doll before tossing it aside like a piece of trash. "Haha! Ah! There, much better! Now, now, now…! Where did that other little shit g-GUWAH?!?" The hobgoblin shouted out with more surprise in his voice than pain, as he stumbled back from how hard the sudden arrow had penetrated his left eyeball.
Rolling back with the momentum, the veteran war chief instinctively got low to the ground to grab the mutilated sheep. Using the slaughtered lamb as a makeshift shield, the hobgoblin began barking out orders to his small army of three-foot pillagers; alerting them that they were under attack, and that they were to find where the archer had shot the arrow from within the burning village. Using his one good eye while taking cover behind their large wagon full of supplies and armaments, the hobgoblin managed to protect himself from where the second arrow was fired using the wool and flesh of his makeshift shield.
"Gotcha, fodder… NORTHWEST!!! THE ARCHER IS NORTHWEST!!!" The hobgoblin shouted from the top of his lungs, as he threw the dead sheep aside to begin rummaging for what he needed from their own previously gathered supplies. As his small army of reinforcements flooded through the main gate to begin searching for their hidden assailant, the war chief ripped the arrow out of his eye socket; howling furiously as his optic nerve made a loud snap, the moment his eye came out with the arrow still embedded through its obsidian tip.
"Damn humans… There's always one that tries to be a hero… No matter, they'll die just like the rest of their soft-tender kin," the hobgoblin muttered cynically to himself, as he popped the cork of a minor health potion before gulping down its red-substance. Letting out a sigh of relief as the pain from his eye socket slowly disappeared, the hobgoblin could feel his missing eye growing back slowly as he began arming himself with his own personal gear that he had brought along.
"… And here I thought we were only up against a pathetic lot of spineless farmers, ripped for the picking," the hobgoblin mused to himself, as his frustration slowly grew into excitement. Arming himself with a large rectangular shield, a durable black falchion, and makeshift suit of crimson-steel armor that he had fashioned from the unfortunate adventurer who had underestimated the strength of his clan of goblins.
Firing the second to last arrow he had left in his quiver blindly into the direction that his servant had ordered him to, the boy felt his body sweating purposely as he heard the battle cries of the remaining thirty goblins spinning toward his location. "They're coming… Are you sure this plan will work, Dame Knight…?" The boy asked quietly with an unnerved expression on his face, as he got up from the haystack he had been taking cover behind, before sneaking off into the deceased village chief's bloodied two-story home.
"Have faith in me, child. Has my strength and sense of battle direction not proven itself worthy to you?" The white-haired knight asked rhetorically within the boy's consciousness, as the many small footsteps of the incoming goblins drew closer, and closer. Waiting until they were on the other side of the dirt road that separated the village elder's ransacked home and the burned down cottage where the goblins were swarming through, the servant ordered the boy to draw his last arrow and take aim at the closest goblin within their vicinity.
'This has to work… Please let this work,' the boy thought with his heart racing, as he held his breath before firing the arrow at an unsuspecting goblin, who like every other one had been investigating the wrong property. Remaining still as his sweaty fingers held the grip of his scavenged bow, the boy swallowed back the lump in his throat as all of the goblins across the street turned their attention away from the deceased creature, and all directly on him. There was a moment of calmness that was shattered with a collective shrill cry from the goblins, as they immediately began sprinting toward what they figured to be easy prey.
Following the voice in his head, the boy was scrambling back into the two-story home of their village elder, who lay dead next to his mutilated family within their bloodied-defiled living room. Careful not to trip on any of their dismembered limbs or parts, the boy walked through the thick piles of dry compost that his servant had ordered him to pour through out the floors of the home; an act that was only made doable, due to the village elder having been stockpiling the previous fertilizing material for their crops.
Picking up a decorative boat-in-a-bottle from where the elder's living room table was at, the boy chucked it at first goblin who stormed into house; enraging it, so as to cause the vile creature to rally up the forces of its kin to chase up through the compost, and up the stairs leading to second story. Having a difficult time treading upstairs with the sounds of cackling several feet behind him, the boy narrowly avoided being grappled by the hordes of goblins as he tossed himself into the mostly clean bedroom that once housed the elder and his wives.
Skidding across the wooden floorboards, the boy immediately scrambled up on his feet toward the window; a sight that swayed the attention of the goblins away from the lit candle that had been resting loosely on the edge of the opened door that had been kicked upon the boy diving through the door frame. With how carelessly the goblins had been rampaging through the dried compost, none of them had even thought of anything suspicious due to having been tunnel-visioned on getting their hands on the boy; and planned oversight that cost all thirty creatures' their lives, as their nitrate-oxide covered bodies were all engulfed in an inferno.
Feeling the heat of the flames from within the burning home blowing against his back, the boy dived out of the opened window and felt his stomach turning as he descended down onto the haystack that his servant had earlier commanded him to strategically move near the front of the two-story cottage; letting out a grunt, as he safely landed onto the soft pile of dry pile of straws. Rolling over on his back, the boy got up onto his feet while basking in the orange light of the blazing fire within the village elder's home; watching with his heart racing and his fingers tightened around the handle of his dagger as goblins who were engulfed in flames scurried out of the inferno.
"The use of improvised explosives, such as this "dust bomb" I've shown you how to utilize, aren't normally used by those who've taken to the code of chivalry; such methods would be seen as too underhanded and destructive for most knights to use, especially those who are members of the legendary "Round Table"," the servant explained in a stoic voice, as the boy watched as each goblin who had managed to escape the initial blast of fire dropped dead onto the front yard; one-by-one, they felt. "… Fortunately for us, a child such as yourself in such a desperate situation isn't hindered by any code of honor. Now… Let's see what you can from their bodies to help us prepare for the final stretch; the fire is a beacon that will surely call upon the hobgoblin."
"Yes, Dame Knight…" The boy muttered with a shaken look on his cut-up and dirty face, as he cautiously yet swiftly approached each and every scorched goblin corpse that had managed to escape the destructive fire within the house before him. 'There's a chance that they could either just be in shock, or are pretending to be dead… I better ensure that they're really dead, before I got searching them,' the boy thought to himself, while doing his best to desensitize himself to the gruesome act of repeatedly scrambling the melted brains of each corpse; reminding himself of what dirty deed done by the dead goblins around him.
With the hobgoblin still within her two-hundred meter radius of detection, the white-haired knight instructed the boy what to take with him, and what to leave behind; centering his limited arsenal around the strategy of battling against an already durable-tanky monster who was dawning high-defense gear. Due to the lack of invisible strength that goblins had, none of them carried any two-handed weapons that would have been able to combat an armor-plated opponent; something that the servant figured to not be too much of a loss, as she herself doubted that the ten year-old boy would have been able to use such weaponry efficiently, even with his enhanced strength and abilities that her presence alone was providing him.
"The hobgoblin is the last enemy you must face… He's closing in, and is armed with a basic long-shield, suit of modified armor made out of a material I'm unfamiliar with, and is carrying a sturdy falchion. He will undoubtedly be your most formidable opponent… And it seems as though none of the gear laid out for us would do anything against him," the servant said with a mildly frustrated tone in her voice, after realizing that the goblins who had came after there were only equipped with iron daggers, wooden clubs and jury-rigged bows with brittle-obsidian arrowheads.
Disheartened while already being in an extremely stressful situation, the boy disappointingly dropped the blacksmith-hammer that he had looted from the goblin corpse by his feet, as he began scanning his clouded surroundings for any strategic vantage points. "Tch, ngnhh…! Damn it…! It's not like I can run away from that thing; not without risking the possibility of him running into the barn…! Is there even anything that I can do against something that hobgoblin, if he's got good gear?!" The boy asked with an exasperated tone, while tensing up as he heard the distant sound of heavy footsteps rapidly approaching him, over the creaking sounds that the burning house was making behind him.
"Anything is possible, child; don't be disheartened… But with that being said… The odds certainly are stacked against you in such a match up. However, we still have one option that we have up our sleeves," the servant said with an unphased voice, which seemed to somewhat ease the boy's mind. "Go grab that bow and quiver of arrows over there, I have an idea," the white-haired servant instructed; much to the confusion of the boy, who regardless of his own reservations still made his way over to where she wanted him to go.
"I… I thought I heard you mention that none of the weapons here would be able to penetrate his defenses," the boy mentioned nervously, as he immediately slung the quiver over his small chest; equipping the makeshift wooden bow in his right hand, as he sprinted around the burning house to take cover from behind the blazing structure's blinding light.
"You heard correctly, boy. But you're not going to use that bow to kill him; you're going to use it to lead the hobgoblin away from the refugees… Back to where their war wagon is parked, just outside the village's entrance," the white-haired servant instructed, before beginning to feed more commands to the young boy, who was completely trusting his life within her guiding hands.
Storming closer toward the stacking black smoke that his nocturnal vision had spotted since his sensitive ears had first heard the sound of sudden combustion taking place where he had ordered his goblin army to search. From behind his elongated visor that was built into his crimson-metal helmet, the hobgoblin inhaled the crispy-aroma of blistered and scorched goblin flesh; causing the enraged creature to drool hungrily, while growling in disdain. "Smells like dried cow shit and cooked meat… Must have been a trap devised by the archer," the war chief guessed to himself, before finding himself coming to a slow stop once he reached the ruined house that was across the dirt-road from the burning house that had led him there in the first place.
Raising his large shield in front of him, the hobgoblin cautiously approached the front yard of the crumbling structure in flames; unable to detect the smell of humans nearby, over the overwhelming stretches in the immediate vicinity. "Fools… All of you… I knew you were all pathetic excuses for soldiers; always prioritizing getting your little dicks wet, over what was truly important," the hobgoblin muttered bitterly, as he raised his armored foot over the head of one burned goblin, before stomping down at turning its skull into a pile of disintegrating ashes.
"Heh… No matter. I'll slay the rest of the humans here myself; including that archer… Man, woman, child; it makes no difference. I'll take the spoils for myself, and find more humans to breed with later," the battle-hungry goblin mused to himself, as he tightened his grip around the leather handle of his falchion; a smirk growing behind his helmet, as his ears detected the sound of footsteps from the ruined house he had passed by behind him. "… Found you," the hobgoblin muttered triumphantly under his foul breath, as he spun around on one heel just in time to block the arrow that he knew was coming for him; after hearing the pluck of the draw string when it was released.
Parrying the arrow by bashing it with his large shield, the hobgoblin let out a war cry as he looked through the eye-slits of his helmet; glaring vengefully at the ten-year old boy who was staring back at him with an anxious expression on his blood and dirt stained face. "RAGH!!! That's the last mistake you'll ever make, HUMAN!!!" The hobgoblin roared out, before using his powerful legs to carry him quickly toward the retreating child.
Having expected the chase to be extremely short-lived, the hobgoblin was genuinely surprised to see how fast the child he was chasing was able to run ahead of him; always just a few meters out of reach of his black-steel blade. 'Is this even a human child that I'm chasing?! I don't see pointy ears, or anything like that! Is this some sort of spell it's casting?!' The hobgoblin thought suspiciously to himself, as the two of them ran through the burned-down ruins of one cottage.
Chasing the child through what had once been a living room, the hobgoblin stumbled after the boy had suddenly spun around to throw fire a perfectly aimed arrow directly into the small slit of his helmet; the arrowhead blocking his few, which gave the boy an opportune time to run slightly more ahead of the enraged hobgoblin. "That little fucker…! I'm gonna kill it… I'M GONNA KILL THAT LITTLE SHIT!!!" The rampaging hobgoblin thought, as he snapped the arrow's wooden base off in his armored hand, failing to remove the piece of sharpened obsidian that his fingers were too big to properly pull out from where it had gotten lodged.
Lunging forward with his falchion in hand, the hobgoblin was moments away from cleaving his blade into the skull of the boy, but was foiled when the ten-year old suddenly slammed the front door shut behind him; causing the armored hobgoblin to be covered in splintered soot, as he stumbled out onto the burned grass of the abandoned front yard. The brief moment of losing his balance was all the boy needed to fire three arrows into the eye-slit of the hobgoblin's helmet; causing the furious creature to scream in annoyance, while obscuring more of his already limited vision.
'One hit… All I need to do is get one hit in, and it'll all be over for that little human…! No matter how skilled it is, it's still a weak-little child; so breakable,' the hobgoblin thought with determination in his head, as he tried to regain his composure while raising his shield up to protect him, as he began chasing the boy out through the large-stone archway that served as the village's only entrance and exit. Assuming that the child was going to try to run away from him, the hobgoblin dropped the shield and falchion in his hand.
'Your luck runs out, human… And look at that! It's heading straight for the wagon; where my light ballista is… Good luck trying to lift it, human,' the hobgoblin thought victoriously to himself; a crooked smile spreading across its vile lips, as he watched as the boy tried his best to pick up the aforementioned artillery.
With how heavy the two-handed projectile weapon weighed, which didn't even include how much strength it took to reload it with one of the many bolts that were stored within the leather straps attached to the base of its stock, the boy quickly gave up on trying to use the armor-piercing weapon as he heard the metal plating of the hobgoblin's armor clanging against one another. "Crap…!" The boy muttered under heavy breath, as he quickly began desperately searching for an alternative item he could use.
With seconds left to spare, the boy used his dagger to tear through the massive burlap sack that was closest to him, and grabbed a handful of random consumables before leaping off of the wagon; just in time to avoid being grabbed by the lunging hobgoblin.
Determined to skewer the child and leave him to die a painful death, the hobgoblin only gave chase once he had retrieved his ballista from where the boy had been digging around through his deceased army's assorted goods. "That's right, human… Run away from me! RUN, AND DIE LIKE A COWARD!!!" The hobgoblin roared out through his helmet, as he loaded a bolt before taking aim through the weapon's iron sights; locking onto the boy, who had stopped in the middle of the field to take aim at him, using the last arrow he had left from his quiver.
What was meant to be a quick process to align the shot ended up becoming nearly impossible with the four arrowheads obscuring his vision. Frustrated to the point that he was growing increasingly less concerned with his own sense of preservation, the hobgoblin swore in his native tongue as he swiftly pulled his crimson helmet off before throwing it on the ground near his boots. 'Enough of this… It ends here,' the war chief thought cynically to himself, before quickly taking aim and firing a bolt straight into the boy's center of mass; impaling him in the side of his abdomen, while flinching as he heard the drawstring of the boy's bow pluck one last time.
'… Eh? With how well that boy's been firing his shots, I thought he'd land his shot… And yet here I am, unharmed,' the hobgoblin thought to himself with a sense of relief, after having checked his ugly face for any wounds that he might have sustained. Grinning victoriously, the war chief chuckled sinisterly as he began loading another bolt while marching over to where he had last seen the boy's body, before it fell into the obscuring tall grass. "Hehehehe…! The same will not be said for you, human child… Far be it," the hobgoblin spoke sinisterly out loud, while thinking of spots where he could shoot the ten year-old, just to prolong his suffering.
Drawing closer, the hobgoblin savored the sickly smell of copper in the air as looked over the boy's bleeding body; cackling to himself, as he used his leg to part the tall blades of grass, so as to allow him a better visual of where he could shoot the boy. Thinking that he had already won, the hobgoblin's arrogance was what the boy had been counting on.
Quickly with stamina and agility that the lumbering creature wouldn't have thought possible from someone like him, the boy rolled backwards from the blood-soaked mud he had been laying on; throwing his dagger skillfully mid-roll toward the flinching hobgoblin. Clenching his jaw shut tightly, the boy felt his heart skipping a beat the moment he heard the firing mechanism of his opponent's rifle-ballista going off; sighing in relief, as the bolt never left from the hobgoblin's heavy weapon.
Confused as to why his bolt never shot, it was then that the hobgoblin realized that the boy hadn't been aiming for his body when he threw the knife at him. Instead, the ten-year old had managed to successfully cut the draw-string of the ballista before the firing mechanism could allow the tension to launch the bolt out. 'Sneaky little bastard! How the hell did that human even… I-Impossible…!' The hobgoblin's thought with a gasp escaping his parted lips, as his eyes drew away from the empty glass vial on the grass that laid next to an eaten apple core; gazing up in confusion and shock at the boy, who was standing up right with a menacing arm-sword attached to his forearm.
Taking a practice swing, the boy watched with a cold look on his dusty-rose eyes as the hobgoblin took a fearful step back away from him, as soon as the arm-sword's silver blade became enveloped in a bright cyan-light. "… I never knew that apples could replenish mana before, but then again, I never knew I had mana in me to begin with… I guess that makes sense why witches are obsessed with them, even though the effect they have is minor…" The boy spoke out loud for his servant to hear, before narrowing his eyelids as he raised his servant's powerful sword up toward the intimated hobgoblin. "Your kind wouldn't have use for mana-potions, so it would have been wishful thinking hoping that you'd have what I'd need to end you…"
"… Three-hundred and forty-six. That's the number of goblins that your army was made up of, and now they're all gone. So that only begs the question, huh jerk?" The boy asked rhetorically in a voice that sounded menacing for what a ten year-old was capable of producing. "… Who's left to save you from what I'm about to do to you?" The boy asked in a vengeful tone, before leaping forward into the air; thrusting the sword straight into the hobgoblin's head, before he had a chance to counter the boy's attack by grabbing him mid-air.
Screeching in agony as the left side of his brain was pierced with the energy-infused blade, the hobgoblin managed to shoulder bash the boy away. Howling ferally, the hobgoblin immediately went into "flight-or-fight" mode, and with his remaining brain cells his body chose to flee towards where he had dropped his helmet. 'Braaaainnn hurrrrrtttttt… Meeetal on muh heaaaddduhhh…' The hobgoblin's damaged brain thought to itself, as he limped as quickly as he could toward where he last remembered dropping the helmet; completely flabbergasted and panicked upon discovering that it had moved.
With a slowed reaction speed, it didn't dawn on the hobgoblin that the boy had shot his arrow at his helmet earlier; purposely making it roll underneath the nearby wagon, as it was all a part of the servant's grand scheme. Due to the apple only having provided enough mana for the boy to use his servant's weapon for a few brief moments, he took advantage of the hobgoblin's slowed movements and caused by his brain damage.
Too exhausted to give a long-winded speech, all the strength that the boy had left inside of his aching muscles and sore body was reserved for his finishing move for the night. Wielding the hobgoblin's dropped falchion with both of his hands, the boy let out a defiant battle cry as he sprinted toward the incoherent monster. Sliding underneath the hobgoblin's massive arm, as the monster attempted to use what reflexes he had left to defend himself, the boy dodged the attack before springing up from the ground.
Leaping up six feet into the air with his black-sturdy blade held over his shoulders and behind his upper back, the boy let out another battle cry as he swung the falchion down as hard as he could; using his downward momentum and enhanced abilities to bury the blade deep into the top of the hobgoblin's head. Having cleaved the hobgoblin's entire skull and jawbone into two, similar to the way someone with an axe would chop a wooden log, the boy released his grip from the handle in order to free his hands.
Diving downward to roll along the ground to break his fall, the boy stumbled up to his feet and spun around with his heart racing inside of his heavy-breathing chest; his dusty-rose eyes gazing as the still body of the armored hobgoblin seized up, before plopping down onto the ground like a rag-doll. "We… Ngh…! W-We did it…! We a-actually did it, ahhh…!" The boy gasped out with sweat pouring down every inch of his body, as he hunched over with his hands gripping his burning thighs; his mouth and throat were both dried, as the thought of drinking a cool cup of water sounded divine to the exhausted youth.
"I… I have to admit, child: you exceeded my expectations. But it takes a certain kind of talent to accomplish the orders I've been giving you; perhaps there's more to you than I thought," the white-haired knight mused with a intrigued tone in her voice, as she watched from a third-person ominent view as the boy tried taking a step forward, before suddenly collapsing underneath his fatigued legs. "Your sister and the rest of the survivors will undoubtedly search for you and the rest of the village once they feel safe enough to do so… In the meantime, I understand that you're tired, and you certainly have earned your right to rest…"
"… But not yet, child. There's a chance that they won't be able to find you out in the tall grass. Your last order is to crawl for me, boy; crawl towards the main archway, so that they may find you and administer care to you as swiftly as possible," the white-haired servant commanded with some empathy in her voice, as she watched with anticipation as the boy reached out with one hand.
Digging his fingertips into the dirt, the boy could only whimper in pain and discomfort as he pulled himself over twenty meters out of the tall grass; the muscles in his arms feeling as though they were on fire throughout the entire ten-minute endeavor. It was only once he had dragged himself through the dirt did the boy's body finally give out to absolute exhaustion; succumbing to it, as he laid face-down on the ground, as the last raging fire within the village began dying out.
Having given every ounce of strength in his body, the ten year-old boy skin was covered in a cold sweat, as his abdomen where he had gotten shot radiated with sore-pain; the minor healing potion had only done so much, and with his adrenaline running dry it wouldn't be long until the agony of his somewhat healed injuries forced him into unconsciousness.
Closing his heavy eyelids shut as his mind began to drift, the boy couldn't help but to wonder why he was suddenly hallucinating the sight of a young petite woman with long-auburn hair, sinking down into an endless ocean with oxygen and light fleeting from her limp body. Not being able to stay lucid long enough to come up with his own conclusion, the boy fell into a dream-like state as he became unconscious within several seconds.
"…Before me stands the "Holy Grail". I slowly extend my hand and place it on the core of the "Moon Cell"."
"… The instant I make contact with it, I am drawn inside the Holy Grail… To be more accurate, I am absorbed into it like water being absorbed into a sponge."
"… In the short time before I'm erased from existence, my consciousness is immersed into the Moon Cell… I can see everything that exists within it: every day piece of information, every observation, every conclusion."
"… The sheer volume of information and ideas stored in the Moon Cell forms an intricate collage that no human could decipher, though I sense a pattern… And throughout humanity's peaceful stagnation and wars that bring forth its eventual destruction, the Moon Cell will continuously and silently record what it sees; all without ever taking action."
"… But now is not the time to get emotional; I must tell the Holy Grail what my wish is."
"… "Input Complete"."
"… "Corrupt system data: Unable To Process Input"? "Error: System Failure. Execution Override. Restarting System"? That… That cannot be correct… Why didn't that work? Was this… Was this all for naught? A cruel ending to wipe the slate clean? Were all my struggles truly meaningless in the end?"
"… I can feel myself breaking apart into virtual particles; scattered into a bleak empty void around me, as the bright water-like environment I found myself in is deleted within an instant. Complete annihilation, and yet I remain slowly breaking apart, piece-by-piece…"
"… It's cold. I'm so cold… Is this what it's like to die? I thought I would have been more accepting of my sacrifice, but as I see my consciousness fragmenting into photonics particles, my memories begin to die with them."
"… I wanted to die remembering them during my final moments… Nero… Tamamo… Archer… Gilgamesh… BB… It's getting harder and harder with each passing moment to remember their faces. What… What relation did I even have with them? Who are they, and… Where am I? What is this…?"
"… "Searching Directory"…? "No Host Found: Searching Multiversal Database"…? "Host Located: Connecting to Host"…? "Peer-To-Peer Connection Established: Data Transfer Initiated"…?!"
"What…? What does any of that mean? W-Why is my head hurting?! It hurts so much…! Is there anyone there?! W-Why isn't anyone answering me…? Please, I'm… I'm scared; I don't know where I am! It's so hard to think with all this static in my head!"
"… Such despair."
"… If anyone can hear me… Please… Please help me if you can."