Charging out of the forest, Muramasa spots the vestige of a crumbling village. standing what little remains of its wooden walls standing over 6 meters tall encompassing the entire village, with the entrance gate nowhere in sight from where he came from.

Looming in the skies is the calamity ridden swirls, mixes of colors consisting of blue as the nucleus of the cluster, green as the outline of the visible swirl and purple as the exterior radiating off the swirl. Creatures spawning from it endlessly.

Running towards the village, He decided on the fastest solution to enter the village, without wasting any more time or thinking twice. "I'm going to throw you over the wall, you fine with that?" He exclaimed.

"NO!" She yelped instantly.

He grunted at the sheer volume of that shout that was really close to his ear. "You're not leaving me much of a choice here! But fine, hold on tight!" Artoria fastens her hold around Muramasa's neck. Muramasa removes his hold on her with his left hand, Leaping towards the wall with his left hand reaching outward.

Reaching over halfway across the wall, he grabs onto a sticking gap in-between the wall he made himself. He leaps upward again, over the wall this time.

Landing inside the village, Muramasa safety plops down Artoria. Scanning around the area, he immediately rushes off. "I'll need you to support me if you can, I ain't sure how I'll hold up this time around!"

"I'll do my best!" She exclaimed determinedly, following his lead.

Looking around the destruction of the area around her, the invasion has already massively crippled the village's defenses, with residential buildings being put to ruin as well. Corpses littered across everywhere, majority of them were the creatures spawned from the calamity while the rest being humans, or with characteristics of humans. The few remaining that are currently fighting, are dwindling in numbers quickly, either retreating or fending off the impossible odds of undeads.

She grimaces upon the sight. While she has already encountered and fought her fair shares of battle, it never ever gets easier on her, no matter how many times she has experienced it, especially her heart. Fighting has always been scary to her, even when there are moments where she finds herself enjoying it, it doesn't change the fact it gets any less scary. But even so, she will fight, no matter how many times she laments it. After all, not just someone is counting on her, it's Muramasa. A special someone who had accompanied her through thick and thin on her journey, a special someone who she doesn't want to disappoint. Thus she resolves herself, running faster than before.

In a span of a second, multiple skeletons wearing heavy body armor were cut clean horizontally in one strike with a katana. Muramasa then throws his katana at a twice the size larger undead with the appearance of an undead zombie, pinning it to the ground. Saving a villager's life in the process that's moments away from getting his head bitten off.

He stretches out his hands and projects a brand new katana. From an outsider perspective it looks brand new, fresh straight out of a blacksmith's workshop recently, only its hilt is left to be fit. He throws it, saving a guard from getting ambushed from behind.

"Trace, on." Muramasa begins injecting himself with mana, he starts to glow with cyan greenish lines across his entire body that highlights the location of his nerves, reinforcing his entire body harder than steel. He then catapults himself with another new katana in hand to the nearest crowd of enemies. With a loud battlecry that attracts their attention, he smashed into the center of the crowd and caused the area around him to crack into a crater. Throwing the surrounding area into disarray resulted in many of the creatures in the crowd to tumble to the ground.

Muramasa quickly slashes the nearest undead in front of him with one hand and continues to do the same to the others, mowing all of them down, while blocking attacks left and right with the other.

Artoria faces the growing swarm of enemies trying to get to Muramasa, she launches multiple magically infused pill size bombs into the hordes of enemies and denotes them, sending them flying or disembodied altogether. Running towards Muramasa, she smacked away a skeleton that tried to attack her, and many that were blocking her way to him.

Once she is near enough to Muramasa, she tightens the hold of her staff and Invokes one of her skills with an aria, which the Staff of Selection glows in response. Muramasa in turn also muttered an aria in response, loud enough that she was able to hear it. "Ignition, commence."

Flooding mana into the katana he's welding, it begins radiating a glow with such burning intensity that it might not be wrong to say it was still being tempered in the forge.

In one fell swoop, He strikes into the heart of the oncoming swarm.

In an instant, the direction he had swung turned into devastation. Lashed out waves of composed magical energy that came from the blade, it annihilated large hordes of enemies with nothing left but disembodied remains.

In repeated succession, he eliminated the surrounding horde, at the cost of his stamina including his mana supply and his weapon shattering into particles.

Breathing heavily with wounds littered across his body, he scans the area around him, noticing more of those undead are forming into massive groups like the one he just dealt.

'Tsk, Just taking one out is already wearing me out, What does it take to end this quickly?' He grunted heavily before running towards Artoria to help her fend off the growing amount of undead creatures going after her.

Artoria batting away an undead, "We'll take it from here! Get to safety that way!" She shouted out loud at the group of villagers that she just protected, still alive, pointing towards the area that was cleared by them.

Looking behind her, she finds that another type of species are after her, Wasp that are way larger and with massive stingers that would definitely hurt. Throwing another pill sized bomb, Artoria then aims with the butt of her staff and shoots out a magecraft condensed bomb at the thrown object. "Burst, Chastiefol!" Causing it to denote into a large explosion that wipes out everything in a three meter radius. With Muramasa in tow throwing another katana, saving yet another life with the thrown blade.

Casting another spell, she points her staff towards her target and utters an aria that makes her staff glow brighter, winds envelops around her, throwing her hair into disarray if it hadn't already. As a result Muramasa breathing became softer, regaining some of his strength. "Thanks Artoria." He said between breaths, wiping the sweat off his forehead, stretching his right arm with his left before projecting a new one, preparing himself to jump into another horde.

Before he could, A loud roar was heard, before the walls of the village was smashed wide open, revealing a much bigger horde, in the midst of it all was a large humanoid figure with the size that rivals the village's walls, with its appearance that of a Cyclops, with blue skin and a massive eye in the middle of its face, swinging wildly back and forth with in his left hand is a massive club that can easily demolish a building in a single swing.

Surprising the both of them was Oberon in tow, in the lead of the massive swarm of enemies that are now pouring into the village. "Muramasa I need your help to take the big guy out!" He called out. Running as if he was skipping, Oberon starts casting his magecraft aiming towards his target, and with a snap of his finger his magical energy depletes a considerable amount.

Upon receiving Oberon's support, Muramasa nods at him and charges towards the Cyclops. Dismissing his current weapon, he utters another aria. "Projection, Start." His arms began to glow again, reinforcing it as a result before projecting a blade that's a much more magically potent construct akin to a noble phantasm, "Limit break." Glowing lines spread scattering across the entire blade, as if it's a warning that it'll break after a swing. Muramasa throws the blade as hard as he can towards its eye, causing a shockwave in the process.

The Cyclopes eyeing the blacksmith made an attempt to block the incoming projectile with his club, only to be fell short, as the blade penetrated through the weapon and its skull. The Cyclops tried to react but only for the weapon to explode at that very moment, obliterating its entire head, the Cyclops falls and dies.

Once the Cyclops fell to the ground, in a flash the skies above them revert back to their original state. No longer was the atmosphere tainted, as if the calamity never happened. Though that didn't mean the creatures spawned from the waves disappear along with it.

Finishing off the last remnant of the calamity, with the help of reinforcement of the army of guards that soon arrived. The survivors roared a cheer in celebration. "Huh, that ended better than I expected," Oberon mused out loud. "That was way too close to comfort though, thanks for the hand Muramasa!" Oberon smiled, giving him a thumbs up.

Muramasa huffed, "Where were you anyway before that happened?" he asked while dismissing all of his multitude of weapons that's scattered across the now ruined village. Trying to catch his breath after expending a considerable amount of magical energy after that attack that's no different from a broken phantasm.

"Evacuating the villagers of course, well… majority of them anyway," He replied, looking around him, there were still survivors trying to recover themselves, or in the process of grieving for their loved ones. "While I was leading them away from the conflict, that big guy over there," He points towards the Cyclops. "Came right after us, so like the hero I am, I became the bait and led him to the right person for the job in taking him out," Muramasa scoffs. "Though it was really a close call, they really had me concerned there. So I had to unfortunately sacrifice the village walls." Mourning for what was lost. Including the villagers of course.

"Count yourself… No ourselves lucky, if it hadn't stop, we'll all be dead sooner or later." Muramasa sighed, shaking his head.

"Artoria, Did-" Muramasa called out only to stop himself, standing aloof to the world, looking up at the blue ridden rising sun is Artoria, reaching her hand out to that burning star.

Muramasa walks up to her and instead of interrupting, he decides to watch it with her. "So… This is the sky of human history? It's… really beautiful." She mutters out loud. No longer the raging storm hinders her view, or the tolling of bells rings in her ears. Instead, clarity, pure unadulterated clarity in both vision and mind, experiencing something like the moment a star is born. Or something along that line that helps describe the emotion that's stirring in her.

"Albeit a different one, but same sky nonetheless." He replied alongside her. "Is that so… Yes, it is still pretty nevertheless." She smiles genuinely.

"...Ah! Your bleeding still, let me cast healing magecraft on you." broken out of her revere, holding her staff aloof once more, converting her magical energy to healing, using her staff as the medium of transport. Muramasa wounds begin to close. "Thanks kiddo." He nods once more in gratitude.

Rematerializing his cape on his left hand, he slings it behind him as it flutters in the wind. "Sorry for draggin' you into my whim, normally I wouldn't so much as cared when I'm currently taking care of you, but seems like the influence of my vessel is stronger on me this life around, it does goes in hand of what I wanna do as well, I ain't denyin' that, and it helps a lot too, so I decided what the hell." He explained, without her needing to ask why.

She nods. "Is that really something to apologize for though? I don't think it's wrong to help others."

"..." Staring at her for a moment or two, he shrugs with a smirk on his face. Though circumstances made her common sense a bit screwed that asking for help is a matter of choice, not an obligation. Keeping his thoughts to himself, he'll talk to her about it later.

Oberon who has gone off hogging all the attention till now, leading a group of people to the both of them, some are human with the rest having various animal like appendages.

"I present to you all, the heroes who slain down the calamity." Oberon directed them towards his lovely companions.

Being surrounded by everyone 'Not again!'Artoria lamented, while Muramasa just sighs. Receiving thankful gratitude for saving them, Muramasa replies with a simple "No problem." while directing most of the credit to Artoria with a smug look on his face, before they decided to leave him alone.

First came a woman with dog-like appendages replacing where assuming where her ears should be. If one were to assume her to be faerie from the Fang clan, she wouldn't be seem out of place.

"Thank you for saving my Father! Thank you so much!" She bowed repeatedly. And soon came another individual, a father holding his kid who barely looked a year older. "Thank you for saving us, I wouldn't know how I'll ever properly repay you but if you ever come around to my store, I promise you I will offer you my best goods at a low price." Expressing his gratitude the only way he knows.

The conversation between Artoria and the villagers were mostly positive, but it ranged between nervousness, embarrassment, or flustered at times for her. 'Memories of Londinium' A past memory popped up, a situation where similar happened before, a situation where she was shown not everything is an addon to the malice that is the storm, but instead a glimpse of burning stardust.

After saying their goodbyes, The three depart from the village with Oberon in the lead.

"What's the matter Oberon? Why the sudden insistence of leaving?" Artoria asks, worried for his happy-go-lucky friend.

Moving along towards the forest from whence they came, settling towards a nearby pond with rocks surrounding it.

"Right, this should be far enough," He mused, after leading them a considerable distance from the village. "Well… From the "thickness" of the mana of this world's inhabitants, and the strength of our mystics when using them, you probably already have an idea on what that means right?"

Thinking to herself for a few seconds, she responded. "The age where humanity dominates as the prime species," She hypothesized the cause to be the sense of the human order. After the battle when she had the free time to start replenishing her explosive gadgets by condensing massive amounts of mana and also gunpowder, into a pill size container. She noticed that the process had become much more tricker. Especially the gunpowder, where she usually had to use some materials and mana to make it; as compared to now, where the mana had become more difficult to manage for in the creation of the bomb, almost like it's rejecting. thus requiring more materials to compensate. But the explosion of her bombs was way bigger than she was used to. "And the chances of faeries still existing in this world are slim." Normally the atmosphere would be permeated with the abundance of mana due to faerie's fae core being able to output huge amounts of mana. But it doesn't seem to be the case here.

Oberon hums while expressing mild surprise at her answer. "I can see where you get that idea, you might've been right on that, but it's still too early to make absolute assumptions. And I'll like to point out that the overall "emptiness" of the corrective force or lack thereof of the world's Counter Force response to the waves are deeply concerning as well," he frowns. "We only just started our journey and there's already so many questions that needs answering." Oberon explained his point mainly to Muramasa as unlike them being "special" kind of faeries where they have somewhat of a third sense or instinctive hint to phenomenons, he would barely be able to tell.

"Hang on, what did you mean by waves?" Muramasa interruptus.

"From what I gathered from the villagers, the Waves of Calamity as they are called, are disasters that occurs once in a while throughout the world. We may have stopped this one, but there's still others out there, and more difficult to tackle than the last."

Anxiety seeps into Artoria's heart.

"Not only that, It is said that Four Heroes were summoned into this world to combat those waves, were they the response of the Counter Force? We don't know, but they have been around a few days now give or take; all of them are currently located in a kingdom called "Melromarc" which is about south-west from where we are. That said, where we are is another kingdom called "Silivelt" though currently, we are at the nearest village where the border is situated at." Oberon continues; while Muramasa moves to sit on a rock.

Relief turns gloomy in the mind of Artoria, while she is glad that she doesn't have to be the one to be dependent on to bring salvation. At the same time she knows the full weight and burden of being that person, to basically force it upon someone to martyr themselves is just too cruel. Though despite her inner turmoil, she wouldn't show it on her face on how she actually feels.

"That said, going back to my original point, I think it would be best to hide what we truly are. While the mana is measly compared to that of Faerie Britain; it's something to be cautious about. A normal fae's magical energy could very well suffocate a human of this age just being around them, so compared to us; we are essentially inviting unwanted attention with the sheer amount of magical energy our spirit origin contains and outputs, even when lowered."

"And how do we do that?" Artoria asks.

"Camouflage. Or simply, Illusion magecraft. And by yours truly, will be teaching you how to use it." Oberon prides himself.

Bringing out a handful of fairy dust from his coat from his left hand, he clenches it with a mutter of an aria. Surprise then overtakes Artoria's face as soon as she notices that his spirit origin signature had become a mere fraction to what it was before.

"Eh… You are actually going to use magecraft? I thought we were going to rely on special disguises or something." Artoria replied with skepticism.

"That hurts my heart, for you to say that. I'll have you know that not everything I do is considered fraud," He jested in fake hurt.

"We are going to use some kind of disguise though, only to hide some of our unique features," Oberon points towards his wings. "We can head back to the village if you want, we also do need to find a place to stay for the time being."

"I'm fine with that, though I would much rather have an actual residence of our own than a motel. I'll build it my own self If I have to." Muramasa grunted, swiping off the sweat off his forehead.

"What's wrong Muramasa?" Artoria asks, now worried for the old man of the group.

"I'm fine, just dead-shit tired for some reason." He sighed.

"That would be on me. The mystic I used could be accurately described as an Adrenaline boost. A "when in the moment" power up you could say, to get that something done as fast as possible, it's a great boost but its consequence is that the exhaustion rushes back at you all at once, when it's over." Oberon apologizes.

Muramasa grunted, "in any case, Are we all done here," Standing up. "Before we head back?"

The two nods back.

"Well then, Let's get going."

After returning to the village, Muramasa and Artoria went off to help, the former using his strength and the latter using her restoration magecraft to help with the repair efforts; Oberon went off to gather more intel.

"Get me more nails! This ain't sturdy enough." Muramasa shouted while making a makeshift repair on the roof. 'This hammer ain't half bad, but needs to be on the heavier side.' Given a spare hammer, he got to work right away.

"Are you sure you don't want to rest?" Artoria asked while moving bunks of wooden planks with magecraft.

A local handing a box of nails to him.

"Normally it should be the old man asking but, It's fine. Fatigue like this is the norm in this trade of work." He starts nailing with his hammer onto the roof.

"...If you say so, Grandpa." Walking away from the old-timer.

Muramasa sputtered for a moment before narrowing his eyes at Artoria, opening his mouth to speak before deciding against it a second later, sighing dismissively to himself, resuming back in his work.

Unaware of what had happened, Artoria meets up with one of the workers rebuilding a section of the wall near the main entrance.

"Right, where do you want to put it?"

"Over here miss savior!" One of the workers, a heavily built man in his thirties with a tail appendage on his back. Carrying a bundle of rope.

"Thank you for your help" He bowed.

"It-its fine, you don't need to bow. You can just call me Artoria. Mister Longcal" She flushed with the enormous gesture of gratitude.

"Alright then, thank you once again, Miss Artoria." The now named worker Longcal smiled.

This carried on until sunset, which then Oberon came back with someone of importance.

"Muramasa I need you for this!" Oberon called out to him high up on a guard tower.

"At least you didn't call when I'm in the middle of somethin'." He mumbles under his breath, wiping off the sweat off his forehead, Muramasa jumps down from the guard tower's roof. "Alright, what is it?"

"Since you did plan for a residence, well we're in luck!" Directing attention towards the person he had been leading. "This is the lord who oversees the village, and I had struck a deal of sorts with him." Oberon said.

The lord of the village, named Silmon Miltorn. Was apparently in the neighboring village, discussing relation trade between the two village when the calamity struck. Oberon explained to him.

Standing by him were multiple guards with various animal like appendages like the person they encountered in the village. "On behalf of our village Haven Sent, I Silmon Miltorn, thank you heroes for saving our village." He bowed, and the others soon followed.

"My pleasure," Muramasa responded back simply and did a short bow back, cutting it short he asked. "Anyways, what do you mean by that Oberon?"

"He's willing to give us a residence but it's an abandoned house for free." Short selling how much it is, Oberon cheerfully expresses it as a sales-person on his hayday.

Muramasa raised an eyebrow. "And where exactly is it located?" Seemingly unbothered by his antics.

"Near the outskirts of the village, it's to the north from here, it's also near to the forest." The lord Silmon interjected.

Oberon hummed at the last part.

"Are you sure you're willing to let us have it? Don't get me wrong, it ain't cuz I'm ungrateful or bothered of its condition, it's just that even though we did what we did, we're still considered outsiders." Muramasa asked with skepticism

"We're already more than grateful for what you've done, and giving you that run down house is the very least we could do. And I doubt anyone here would be against having you lot join the village after all the help you've given us." The lord of the village declared.

Muramasa looked towards Oberon, which he received a nod from. Thinking to himself for a few seconds, "Alright, then." he decides to forgo with the decision of acquiring the run down house. After-all, he gets to remake it however he wants.

Muramasa and Oberon began discussing various other details and things before shaking his hand, finalizing the decision.

"For a calamity to be this easy to be dealt with, it's almost an insult to its name-sake." Walking through a forest the person snarking out loud, while trying to find something. "Really, I don't know what's more hilarious, My circumstances or this world in general." gazing at the darkening sky.

A large silk moth the size of a head, lands on his hand, the person humming while petting its soft white fur on its back.

"Is that so?" Seemingly talking to the moth with a frown on his face. "I guess it is to be expected. A split off from the main calamity is it? No wonder it's so pathetically easy to deal with."

"..."

"Hmph. A stage with no audience is pointless, the players had already ended their act with their purpose fulfilled, there is no need to drag it out of the grave." Scoffing mockingly.

"..."

"Which I find utterly repulsive. The only good it'll ever come out after it, will and always be a fake happy ending." leaving the last part without any of its usual mocking undertone.

"..."

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I do not care for what happens to this world, I won't bother. Until the last act of course."

"Hmm… This spot isn't too bad." Laying down under the shade of a tree that he found wanting, The person begins sleeping with the moth in his arms, with the sound of insects heard throughout the forest.