Hello everyone and welcome back to the start of chapter 64 of the story!
And as of right now of the moment I'm writing this, my vocal cords are screwed up because of a football game and now I'm unable to speak without being in a low tone. But nothing that worrisome, it will pass within a day.
And with that said, let's start it!
DISCLAIMER: All the Nasuverse characters belong to Nasu and are property of Type-Moon, with the exception of the OC's that belong to me, the author
"Did we really needed to do this early?" Ritsuka asked with a yawn to Mordred and Mash who walked in front of him.
They had been tasked with doing a surveillence at the first hours of dawn in the morning, making sure that there was no enemy in the surroundings of Jekyll's apartment.
"For what? So that you could still be in the bed scratching your ass?" Mordred replied to him. "As much as nice that would be for you, remember that our enemies don't waste time while we have some moments to recover our energies!"
"Mordred is right master." Mash speaked. "Now that we took down one of their key members, their urge to eliminate us must have increased."
"I know, I know. But waking up at 6AM feels criminal." Ritsuka replied back before turning his head around to look at Peko and Nala behind him. "Don't you two feel the same?"
"Eep!"
"Ah!"
The two siblings, who also had come alongside them for the surveillance, quickly hid their hands behind their backs, almost getting caught by Ritsuka's glance at them.
"Y-Yeah. I surely could have used one or two more hours of sleep." Peko responded, staring to the side.
"True! No respect for the working class here it seems." Nala also said, trying her best to sound normal.
Ritsuka found their reactions weird. "What are you two hiding?" He rised an eyebrow in suspicion.
"Nothing. Our brains are still taking sometime to get fully awake. That's all." Peko told him.
"Hm hm! That's totally it." Nala nodded, agreeing with her brother without hesitation.
"Okay." Ritsuka was not fully convinced. "Just make sure to not fall asleep." He said, getting a nod of the twins before turning his back to them.
"Quick! Let's eat all of it before Ritsuka notices it!"
"Hey! Don't eat it all at once! Leave something for me too!"
Catching some whispering happening behind him, Ritsuka quickly turned around, catching both Peko and Nala eating a piece of satsumaimo. "Ahah! Caught you two red handed!" He exclaimed.
Stoping chewing the sweet potato, Nala stared in shock to Ritsuka alongside Peko, swallowing the chunk of food in her mouth. "Crap. We were busted."
"How many times do I have to tell you that you can't eat it always? I know they're good but they're meant to be eaten during a specific time of the year." Ritsuka scolded the two kids. "If you end up eating the same thing, you eventually get tired and sick of it."
"We know..." Nala murmured, staring down at the floor with a look of regret.
"But we still had one of these with us and we couldn't resist to eat it." Peko explained to him.
"It also makes us feel more energetic!" Nala added.
"Wasn't the breakfast we had enough to make you feel energetic?" Mash asked to the two.
Nala shook her head in negative. "Nope. To have full energy at the beggining of the day I need eight hours of sleep, sleep torwards north, belly up, covered in half by the blanket, head turned left on the cool side of the pillow and do twenty squats when waking up and eat a piece of strawberry cake in order to feel truly active!"
Everyone looked at her kinda weirded out.
"...How specific." Mordred told her, right before they heard some noise up ahead. "And we just got company right on time!" She told them, seeing a big group of helter skelters approaching them.
"Now at least we didn't woke up early for nothing." Peko told, summoning his sword alongside the rest of the group.
"This will make a great excercise. Was needing a little bit of jogging." Nala speaked, ready for the fight.
"Was the patrol being that boring? I was liking the peaceful atmosphere of it." Mash commented, feeling like the only one who was enjoying the surveillence until now.
"It wouldn't be a normal trip to the outside without having to fight some monsters." Ritsuka replied to Mash. "But there's nothing we still don't know about this type of enemy. Let's make this quick!"
"Now you talked my language!" Mordred smiled while Mash, Peko and Nala all nodded to Ritsuka's command.
"Understood!"
"Understood!"
"Understood!"
The battle itself wasn't difficult as Ritsuka and the others had predicted. It only lasted a minute or two as they had eliminated all of the helter skelters that had appeared. Altough it was easy, they noticed something during that fight.
"These group was larger than any of the ones we faced before with the exception of the homunculi when we fought Paracelsus." Mash pointed out.
"Makes sense. We defeated one of their leaders and now know about the machine that is the reason behind all of this Demonic Fog." Peko replied. "They definetly have become more aware and cautious of us, sending more enemy power against us."
"I wonder why they didn't sent Artoria Alter after us then. She would give us more of a trouble than these helter skelters." Ritsuka thought about it.
"Maybe she's some kind of triumph card the enemy is saving for later I guess." Peko responded, not being quite sure.
"Who cares? Be it steel machines or that brute king, we will end up winning anyways!" Nala exclaimed, swinging her sword around. "We are already too strong for these helter skelters."
"Careful with what you say Shortie." Mordred told her, feeling that the girl was speaking too smugly. "I want to kick that jerk's ass as much as you, but I warn ya that she's no walk in the park."
"As if you wouldn't say or act the same." Nala called the knight out.
"Do what I say and not what I do." Mordred simply told her before smirking. "Plus, how many helter skelters you defeated just now?"
"Five! Better than last time. Doubt you could made it better than that." Nala responded her.
"Pfff, rookie numbers Shortie. I killed eight!" Mordred told her, having once again performed better than Nala.
"Stop with that! There's no way you defeated eight enemies all by yourself!" Nala yelled, thinking Mordred was trying to mess with her.
"But I did. So don't even think you are able to defeat my father if five helter skelters is the best you can do." Mordred stretched her smile a bit, mocking Nala.
"Ggrrr, why you..!" The girl angrily closed her hands into fists.
"What can I say? Do better next time Shortie." Mordred laughed as she poked Nala in the forhead.
"I wonder why Hans and Shakespeare couldn't come with us. I understand that they aren't exactly experts in fighting, but they could have at least aid us with their spells." Peko crossed his arms, thinking that the two writer servants should have also joined them on the surveillance instead of staying at the headquarters.
"And have my ears near bleeding from those two comments? No thanks." Mordred responded, liking the two's absence.
"I think the motive for why Hans-san and Shakespeare-san stayed was because they where in the middle of discovering something, or at least that's what Jekyll-san said to me." Mash speaked, revealing the reason, catching everyone's curiosity.
"A discovery like what?" Ritsuka asked her.
"I'm not quite sure. I've heard it's something envolving the Clock Tower's underground and something that could be inside of it." Mash responded, trying to remember correctly. "Didn't Jekyll-san told about it to you too?"
"Hum...He did?" Ritsuka replied, sounding oblivious.
"That's what I'm telling you. Our brains don't work well early in the morning." Nala commented, attributing the fact none of them heard what Jekyll said due to how early they woke up.
"Fou fu! (All of you are truly helpless...)" Fou appeard behind Mash, moving his head in disapproval from their attitude.
"I think we should head back to the apartment and see if they already reached to a conclusion about that." Ritsuka proposed to the group.
"Yeah. From what I'm seeing there's no enemy left around." Mordred looked to the surroundings, not detecting any hostilities nearby. "We can end the surveillance here."
"Mmm, back to bed for a short time..." Peko said, muttering and closing his eyes while imagining to lay his body on the soft surface of the bed.
And so, the group went back to Jekyll's apartment, having finished their matinal duty of checking the streets for any monsters that could be lurking nearby the base. Now, it was time to know what search Hans and Shakespeare were studying about.
"Important information about the Holy Grail War ritual?" Ritsuka said confused. "What makes you say that?"
"Think about it and use your brain." Hans told not only him but to the entire group minus Shakespeare. "This Singularities where you've been to so far, contain servants and the holy grails, correct?"
"Yeah. That's been the case for all of them so far." Peko told him.
"Well, according to what this chatterbox of an author told me of his previous experience in a Holy Grail War, seven servants are summoned by seven mages, all of different classes and the last pair of servant and their master standing wins the war and the grail." Hans explained to them, having got some information by Shakespeare.
Ritsuka looked at Mash for confirmation. "Is it true? I barely know anything about that type of thing."
"It is indeed master. That's the nature and ritual process of a Holy Grail War." Mash responded before thinking of another question. "Also, you participated in a Holy Grail War Shakespeare-san?"
"Altough my memories of that period feel dusty and fleeting on my mind, the concept of the Holy Grail War does not sound unfamiliar to me at all." Shakespeare told them, trying to remember of something more about that time in his brain. "I think it was rather the unique experience. I guess there was this japanese priest and everything."
Mordred put a thumb under her chin. "Now that you talked about this grail war stuff, the name rings in my ears for some reason."
"Where you in a Holy Grail War too Mordred-san?" Mash asked the knight.
"Hell if I know." Mordred responded in earnest.
"Was the Holy Grail War you participated occured in a city named Fuyuki?" Romani asked to the english writer, his hologram appearing amidst the living room.
"I cannot recall the name of the location of the war I was in. Could thou describe it for me what that Fuyuki looked like?"
"A modern japanese city with skyscrapers, cars, roads, bridges and etc." Romani gave the details of Fuyuki's scenario to Shakespeare.
"Hmmm, I would have to say you are wrong man of the spectrum. For the location of the Holy Grail War I remeber has little to no semblance at all with the city you just described." Shakespeare gave the answer to Romani.
"I see. Thanks for telling me anyways." Romani replied.
"Wait?! By Fuyuki you mean that hellish and destroyed landscape we found each other by the first time?" Nala asked, remembering the place that she and Peko had mysteriously ended up in with no memories of themselves as well as the location they encountered Ritsuka, Mash and Chaldea in general. "That Fuyuki?"
"I'm as shocked as you are. Fuyuki was the place of a Holy Grail War?" Peko asked to Romani, a bit astonished.
"And I thought I was the only one who didn't knew about it." Ritsuka commented, showing that he too wasn't aware of that fact.
"There was, altough I think is the most suited to tell you about that since I'm not well into Fuyuki's Holy Grail War myself." Mash said, staring at Romani, wanting him to be the one to explain that Holy Grail War to the rest of the group.
"Okay. I'll tell about the Fuyuki Holy Grail War to you." Romani said. "For start, you're thinking about the wrong Fuyuki. The one you were sent to and was engulfed in flames was Singularity F, which I assume to be a somewhat possible alternative version to the actual Fuyuki Holy Grail War that I was referring to." He started by stating that the Fuyuki they were thinking about was a different one. "The one that actually happened in our world also took place in the year of 2004, around January with the exception that the entire city didn't end up being destroyed and all humans killed as the end result."
"Okay, I'm still following it." Ritsuka responded, nodding with his head.
"So the only semblence of the Singularity F Fuyuki and the Fuyuki of the Holy Grail War doc is mentioning is that both just happened to occur in the same place." Peko added.
"And since this Holy Grail War is kinda of a mortal competition between mages and their servants, who ended up winning that one doc?" Nala asked Romani, wanting to know more about it like everyone else.
"That's a detail I don't know about." Romani said before looking to the side and scratching his head. "My knowledge about this Holy Grail War isn't much better than yours honestly since I didn't participated on it."
Hans then went back to speaking, bringing back the principal topic. "And with that explained, we reach to the essential problem of this Singularity."
"Which is?" Nala asked, rising an eyebrow. "I don't know what you want to mean by this."
"I already knew your slow brain wouldn't understand so I might as well make it simpler for you." Hans responded, ignoring Nala's huge face of indignation. "So, to start, you know how many servants are required to begun the Holy Grail War ritual, right?"
"Seven in total." Mash responded. "Once the grail gets full with the mana energy of six servants, the remaining and winning servants gets to make a wish to it as well as their master."
"Correct! And now, think on the number of servants you have seen on this Singularity in total." Hans instructed them.
"Hm, I'd bet is more than seven, that's for sure." Ritsuka replied.
"Well, there's you, Shakespeare and Mordred. Faust too." Peko started counting by his fingers. "Jack, Mephistopheles, Nursery Rhyme..."
"Artoria Alter and Paracelsus. That makes it nine servants that we saw in total on this Singularity." Mash concluded.
"And assuming that the other two leaders are also servants like Paracelsus was, that would raise it to eleven." Nala thought, theorizing the possibility of the other two leaders true identities.
"Being or not, it's clear that we have a problem of an excessive number of servants here." Hans continued to branch out the mystery. "If these Singularities were true Holy Grail Wars, why the system is summoning more servants than the necessary for the grail's ritual?"
"Humm, to think about it, the war I was in had more than seven servants but I could be mistaken." Shakespeare wondered, looking at the ceilling, completive and much to Hans annoyance.
"Don't try disproving my theory here with memories that might as well be just product of your witless imagination klovn!" He told to the bigger writer before recovering his posture. "But as I was saying, how there can be a grail in the first place if the ritual is not even being made correctly?"
"Actually, that's a great viewpoint of the entire Singularities nature." Romani complimented Hans theory. "We only knew so far that the holy grails were distributed to seven different points of humanity's history across time. Never got to stop and refelct about it. These holy grails must have been summoned by other means if it wasn't by the traditional Holy Grail War ritual."
"Are you implying that whoever is our enemy in all of this has used a different method to conjure the holy grails that would be the core of the Singularities?" Mash asked to Romani.
"It could be." Romani said, thinking that was the case. "Okay guys, this is actually more important than I initially thought when I heard the first words coming out from Andersen's mouth. We have to invistigate this!"
"Aaah! That's just too much information to keep track of!" Nala said, her eyes spinning in circles due to this entire conversation.
" I don't think so. The correlation between the grails and the Holy Grail War doesn't match up at all when put into context of these Singularities." Peko said, having been able to understand the problem Hans had showed to them.
"Since there is no Holy Grail Wars so far on these Singularities with the exception of Singularity F, the grails presence must have been created by other type of ritual system."
"Yes! And that's exactly what we want to know here!" Hans exclaimed with a smile. "To discover how the grails can exist in these Singularities who don't have any Holy Grail Wars to summon them!"
"A fine piece of mystery on this adventure. It certainly helps to diversify a story." Shakespeare said in a wise tone.
"Heh, a premise like that is way too intresting for us to say no to." Ritsuka told Hans. "You can count on us to investigate it!"
"We shall go look for an answer at the...Sorry, but what is the location we should search in?" Mash asked politely to Hans, not having an area to start looking for clues about this most recent mystery.
"The Clock Tower. That's where we will probably find important information about other forms of summoning a holy grail." Hans gave them the location. "More specifically undergound. I always heard rumours that the mage society from there used to keep plenty of secrets underneath the building. That must still be the case."
"Oh that giant tower with the big clock in it!? We're going there!?" Nala exclaimed excited. "I've seen it in some illustrations already! Can't wait to go!"
"Your job is not being a tourist!" Hans told her.
"And my job also isn't working for you!" Nala replied back.
"Well, the Clock Tower is quite the nice attraction to look at if you're a tourist." Romani told the girl. "But if you're a mage, I'd say the opinion would change a little."
"Why you say that doctor?" Peko asked him.
"The Clock Tower is the headquarters of the one of the most influential and powerful organizations of the magus world, know as Mage Association." Mash explained instead of Romani. "It can be considered the most famous and prestigious organization amongst the mage society, with many young mage and prodigees wanting to go there to learn more about the ways of the magecraft and become greater magus."
"Oh, so the Clock Tower is essentialy an university for magecraft folk!" Ritsuka exclaimed, seeing what the concept of the Clock Tower was.
"That and much more. Altough not many things about them are nice stuff." Romani clarified. "But focusing on more important aspects, we need to find an entrance that will lead us to the underground channels of the Clock Tower."
"Oh! I do know of one we could use it!" Shakespeare raised his voice, having comed with a solution. "The British Museum! During my lifetime, I've heard it used to have a secret passage that would gave us access to the Clock Tower's underground floors."
"Good luck with that. It's destroyed." Mordred finally speaked, having ignored major part of the conversation while staring to another direction. "Meaning that our entrance to the caves are most surely blocked. Also, why are you saying 'we' and 'our' when referring to this investigation?" Mordred asked, finding strange the choive of words from both writers before connecting the dots. "Oh no. Don't tell me you're..."
"Yes, we're coming along for this specific mission." Hans responded, confirming Mordred's suspicion. "Any problem with that?"
"Not at all. It was just a bit unexpected since I thought you would spent the rest of the Singularity sitting here." Nala told to Hans, also not believing the two were coming with them.
"That would be the case but this situation is too important in particular for us to just wait here. Being that we're going to search the Clock Tower's archives, I need to go there!" Hans told them.
"But if the only secret entrance to the underground of the Clock Tower is possibly destroyed now, how are we going there for start?" Peko asked, having heard about the British's Museum destruction.
"Isn't there other ways to reach to the underground of the Clock Tower? Like subway stations or something?" Ritsuka pondered.
"That could work." Peko replied.
"Yeah! If we enter in one of those stations and follow the trails, we must eventually reach to the Clock Tower's basement." Nala expanded the idea.
"That wouldn't be a bad if not only for two things." Hans said in disagreement.
"Like what?" Mash asked.
"First: You would be way too stupid to think the mages at the Clock Tower would be foolish enough to create an underground station that would give easy access to their most secret and important files to regular average folk. And second: the underground trails have become nest of all the monsters you've been foughting so far. Going there in hopes to find a passage to the Clock Tower's secret chambers would be not only pointless but also a suicide."
"Then what are we supposed to do if the secret passage is gone?" Nala asked, wanting to see if Hans had a better solution for this.
"I think we should still go to the location of the Brtitish Museum." Romani told them, much to their surprise. "Just because the building is destroyed and the passage blocked, it doesn't mean we can't force our way in by destroying whatever is blocking the entrance."
"Not bad thinking." Mordred commented on what Romani proposed. The location has been totally empty as of recently when I pass by. No monsters at all to guard the entrance or anything, so with those conditions, we could go there and try do that without much trouble."
"So we can still enter the underground of the Clock Tower via the British Museum." Peko said, happy to see the main way was still possible.
"Better start preparing to go out again then." Ritsuka told to the group, checking his Command Seals.
"Understood master! We will get ready shortly before going out." Mash responded him.
"Hey! Something is irking me here." Mordred told them all of a sudden.
"Why is that?" Peko asked her, confused.
Without saying, Ritsuka realized what Mordred meant by that. There was the absence of one person that would always be in the living room every time they where there. "Where's Jekyll?"
Right as he made that question, the door of the scientist's office opened, with Jekyll coming out of it, carrying a backpack and with an excited smile on his face. "Here and ready to go!"
"You sure it's safe for you to go with us?" Mordred questioned Jekyll as the scientist had decided to go along with the group on their way to the British Museum. Only Fran had stayed behind to secure the apartment against possible enemies.
"No worries Mordred. I know the dangers of a normal person like me going out and I'm aware of it. Besides, I have something up my sleeve if things go south." Jekyll told her, assuring the knight and the rest of the group that he had come prepared to this.
"Being aware isn't enough for these type of jobs." Ritsuka told Jekyll.
"Exactly! Don't you think this is going to play out like some sort of field trip." Hans also said to the scientist. "Remember that if you die, that will be on you for wanting to join."
"Was it really necessary to say that part?" Peko speaked to the short writer.
Jekyll however din't looked offended nor disturbed. "That's true. If I die I can only blame myself. Which is why I'll be as careful as possible to guarantee we don't suffer any casualities."
"Knowing the dangers of what we might face is already half a step taken." Nala said, seeing that Jekyll wasn't naive to this whole thing of going out in dangerous streets like these.
Mash nodded in agreement. "As long as you know that and are capable of fighting, I think your company on this mission will be very beneficial to us Jekyll-san."
"Thank you for the kind words Mash. It makes me sad thinking how of all the buildings here in London, the British Museum was the only one who was deliberatly destroyed." Jekyll lamented the condition of the building, telling details about it.
"The only one deliberatly destroyed?" Peko asked, puzzled.
"We weren't the only ones who knew about the secret passage Shortie N.2." Mordred said. "We originally thought about making the underground of the Clock Tower as our second base. But our enemies had thought ahead."
"And once we arrived to the museum, it was already beind destroyed, with full of monsters tearing down what little was left of it." Jekyll continued. "When Mordred got the area cleared, we saw the entrance to the secret passage had been demolished, and so we assumed the underground base of the Clock Tower was now out of reach for us."
"We at the time thought it wasn't worth the effort of forcing it opened again and went back to the apartment before any enemy could show up and attack us in surprise." Mordred recalled. "There was also only the two of us back then. But now with you guys, I'm sure we won't face much difficulty if monsters decide to appear near the entrance."
"The building really got that bad?" Ritsuka asked to the two.
"You're about to see it up ahead." Jekyll told him.
And within a minute they had reached to the British Museum. Or what was left of it. Almost all of the walls had crumbled down, with no traces of any ceilling that had been completely vaporized. A cracked column would still stand here and there in the middle of the huge broken wreckage. It was empty, demolished and abandoned. Their enemy truly wanted this place burned to the ground.
"It is really worse then what I expected. This place is entirely in ruins." Mash commented upon seeing the desolated place.
"Ah, entire centuries worth of history. Completely lost by man's cruel schemes." Shakespeare lamented with a frown on his face, staying in silent for a moment before having Hans bothering him right next to the taller writer.
"Yeah yeah. So incredibly sad that I need a tissue. Where's the secret passage anyways?" Hans asked to Jekyll and Mordred.
"If memory doesn't fail me, this way." Jekyll told, leading the group to a giant staircase that was connected to what was supposed to be an opening to a hall beneath the ground, now covered by huge amounts of rocks and other debris.
"It looks well blocked. They really speared no effort to prevent us from entering there." Nala said, ready to summon her sword.
"You were thinking on the same thing I was thinking?" Ritsuka said to Nala.
"I think we all did." Mordred said, putting her sword over the shoulder. "The thought of getting rid of these obstacles."
"We can open a way to the other side if we attack it at the same time." Peko expressed, grabbing his sword.
"Won't the noise from that attract any monsters?" Hans questioned, thinking that they weren't choicing the best approach.
"You want us to take out the rubbles one by one, nice and gently then?" Nala responded, thinking Hans was being contrarian for the sake of it.
"If that is how the narrative wants to go and the way to proceed, then I will land you my aid." Shakespeare said amused, opening his book and proceeding to stare at Hans. "Thou shouldst lend thy aid to them as well fellow coworker of mine. Or do you perhaps get ,more comfortable with the role of a background character?"
"You want to see me mad with that sort of provocation you washed excuse of a poetic drunktard? Because it's working apparently!" Hans said a bit agressively before opening his own book. "Me, a background character. What a bad joke..." He murmured.
"Alright! Everyone get into position!" Ritsuka told to his allies as he used his Command Seals to boost up the strenght of Mash, Peko, Nala and Mordred who were all about to direct an attack torwards the wreckage in front of them, with Ritsuka, Hans, Shakespeare and Jekyll standing on the back.
"Clear! We will hit the debris on three!" Mash exclaimed, starting to count as she stood next to the other three. "One...Two...Three!" And so she alongside the knight servant and the twins swinged their weapons torwards the large rocks of the entrance, obliterating them with their powered up attack, releasing a huge cloud of dust and smoke once they did it.
" T-That was loud!" Jekyll coughed, standing behind Ritsuka and amazed at the sheer combined power that was used to unblock the secret passage.
"And extremely effective!" Ritsuka said happily. "No amount of stones could resist to this."
"A performence really worthy of applauses if I say so." Shakespeare said, also pleased by what he had seen.
With the dust and smoke settling down, Mash lowered her weapon, with the rest doing the same. "Good job everyone! We created an opening!"
"Eh, easy-peasy!" Nala replied. "I thought we would have more of a- wooh!" The girl immediatly lowered her head as some objects came flowing extremely fast near her, catching her by surprise. "W-What was that!?"
"An enemy?" Peko raised back his sword, with his self-defense and caution going up just like everybody else. They would have to do some fighting after all.
Seeing some few flying silhouettes above her, Mordred slashed her sword at them. "Are these the things attacking us?" Cutting the cover of smoke, she got to see the appearence of their enemy. It was a group of magical books. "Eh?!"
"They're almost like the ones we fought at the library!" Peko exclaimed.
"But how? Wasn't Nursery Rhyme defeated for good?" Nala asked confused, wondering how there could be more magical posessed books if they had defeated a servant that was one.
"These ones here must be different!" Ritsuka responded, with him, Jekyll and the two writer servants taking a defensive posture.
"They are! None of them have the same cover as of Nursery Rhyme's book! They must be books from the Clock Tower itself!" Hans added.
"Sentient hostile books?! What an horror! I hope that at least none of this books that are attacking us is of a work I despise!" Shakespeare said.
"Were they alerted by the noise we made?" Jekyll thought.
"No, that can't be! If they where already here, we would have seen them!" Mash responded, using her shield to defend herself from one of the magical books atttacks. "They must have come out from the other side the moment we created an opening!"
"So we shot ourselves in the foot with this one!" Hans grunted frustrated. "Of course it couldn't have been that easily!"
"Easy or not, we have to defeat these books quickly before any more enemies show up!" Ritsuka said, knowing that if they weren't fast, the hostile books wouldn't be the only thing they would be fighting here sooner. The trio of Mash, Peko and Nala comprehended that and so they went head on into the fight.
It took some time but they were able to defeat the persistent group of magical posessed books, having found them slightly harder than the ones at the library when they had confronted Nursery Rhyme.
"Enemies in the area clear. No more signal of them." Mash reported, exiting her combat mode.
"If this were the first ones, I can't think of how many more there is up ahead." Peko said, unsummoning his weapon.
"What? You think we will have to fight more?" Nala asked him.
"The Clock Tower's facility must be heavily guarded, so I think we better start counting with having to fight a lot of enemies in the next minutes." Mash told to the two siblings.
"Great. We were really needing of more fights." Nala protested a bit.
"Why the whinning? Weren't you the one who said no matter who or how many enemies could come, you would kick all of their asses or somethin' like that?" Mordred asked to Nala, reminding the girl what she had said earlier.
"Hphm! Fights tend to get boring after fighting the same weak opponent several times, that's all." Nala responded to the knight, keeping up her slight haughty attitude.
"You really have no remedy for that, do you?" Peko told her with an embarassing smile.
"But those books surely appeard fast out of nowhere. Altough I think beating and cutting them to shredds is somewhat relieving." Ritsuka approached them.
"I can't deny the truth in that." Hans responded. "But let's enter the underground first before someone or something appeard to attack us or block the entrance again."
"Yeah, look." Jekyll pointed at the big hole they had caused in the middle of the giant debris. "We can now enter through there. Let's go!"
"Wow, these caverns and channel systems are so massive!" Peko said in awe, admiring the vast and huge aspect of the underground halls of the Clock Tower.
"The Clock Tower must have spent quite the resources building all of this." Ritsuka added, amazed at the halls as well.
"Echo!" Nala yelled to the vaccum, leaning her ear to ear the effect of her scream.
"Echo...Echo...Echo..."
"Heh." Nala smiled, hearing her voice ressonating through the giant hall.
"Quiet you dunce! You want to alert the enemies up ahead?" Hans secolded Nala, thinking what she just did was stupid.
"You must be fun at parties..." Nala told him, annoyed at Hans for being such a mood killer.
"ECHO!" Mordred yelled louder, also wanting to hear the echoing of her own voice.
"Not you too as well dammit! If it's to do this much noise, might as well bomb this entire place!" Hans said, unhappy to see Mordred doing the same thing.
"Stop complaining that is! Or do you obligatory have to be like that 24/7?" Mordred asked Hans, having the same opinion as Nala.
"Such construction. I can't believe I'm stepping and walking on it as of right now." Jekyll commented, joyful at what he was viewing.
Mash then remembered something. "Isn't there a known rumour that the entire Clock Tower building was constructed using the grave of a great dragon as its foundation?"
"Eh?! Built over a what?!" Ritsuka reacted in shock.
"A-A dragon!? You're saying we're walking on a dragon's tomb as of now?!" Peko also said in absolute bewilderment.
"Now I've heard of everything." Nala said, staring to the side. "Might as well find the dragon's skeleton right around the corner. And knowing our luck, it's probably alive and we will have to fight it."
"I hate how that sounds a reasonable thing to happen to us at this point." Peko replied.
"Happy to be the good news guy who has to tell you that won't be a problem. The dragon as been dead for thousands of years as of now." Romani's hologram appeard, telling the group that there wouldn't be no dragon to fight as it was truly deceased.
"Do you know about that story doctor?" Mash asked to Romani.
"I do. And it's no story or fairy tale. It is indeed true that the mages of Clock Tower built their organization using the corpse of the great dragon as foundation and created the entire underground channels on its enormous tomb." Romani explained the veridical legend to them. "The Dragon of Albion. A great mythical dragon and the last one of its special kind. Said to be as old as the planet itself."
"As old as the planet? Then, did it died of old age here or something?" Ritsuka asked, with his attention completely sold on this history about the dragon.
"It is theorized that it died rather due to its own hubris." Romani speaked. "When the Age of Gods ended and the Age of Man was about to begin, all of the dragons of Albion's species decided to refugee on another layer of existence of the planet known as the Reverse Side of the World, another plane of existence were majority of the mythical creatures went to at the end of the Age of Gods."
"..."
"..."
Both Peko and Nala heard it with fully attention, mesmerized at the aspects that were being told.
"Albion however, was the only dragon who decided to stay on this side of the world, convinced that it could withstand the Age of Man. How wrong it was. With the passage of time, the Mystery decreased and all magic creatures suffered from it, including Albion. Its body slowly aged and grew weaker and wither, fully gone from the apex state it once had. Regreting its mistake, the dragon desperatly tried to dig its way to the Reverse Side where it could be eternal forever. Unfortunately, its body couldn't continue any longer and so, Albion spent its last remaining days on the grave it had dig, perishing here, where many centuries later would become the basis to the entire building and headquarters of the Clock Tower." Romani completed his explanation, having by now everyone's complete curiosity by the time he ended.
"That's..." Mash tried to find the right words to describe it.
"Dramaticaly tragic! What a degrading end for such proudful creature!" Shakespeare exclaimed. "Not even I could have come with such depressing and thought provoking ending! The fact that a mighty dragon died due to its own arrogance and understimation of how mankind could affect it is brilliant! Brilliant I tell you!"
"Jeez! I only thought that it was cool." Mordred said, thinking Shakespeare was overreacting.
"Albion..." Peko murmured, closing his eyes and trying to visualize the great dragon he just heard about now. "Must have been a really huge and powerful dragon. I wondered what it was like to see it up close or meet it in person."
"Something that will remain a question forever I'm afraid." Nala replied.
"So this was basically the story of the Clock Tower's origion. Oh boy, I can't wait to see what other secrets they keep hidden here!" Jekyll said, barely containing his enthusiasm.
"Hm? Is this your first time actuslly visiting the Clock Tower?" Romani asked the scientist.
"Yeah actually. I've never stepped inside the Clock Tower, being the underground or the normal building." Jekyll told him.
"Then how did you knew about this secret passage?" Ritsuka asked Jekyll, confused about how he could of know of something if he never visited this place.
"It was my friend Victor who told it to me. He had spent sometime as a mage in the Clock Tower before, so the secret passage was something he knew and introduced its existence to me when this Demonic Fog first started to appear." Jekyll responded, sighing a bit sadly. "Has he ever got the opportunity and saw the things I'm about to see here?"
"I'm sure he did nerd. Why else would he tell you about its existence then?" Mordred told Jekyll, comforting him in some way. "He clearly wanted you to see it."
"Heh, that may be true Mordred." Jekyll replied before making a question to Mordred. "Also, was it my impression or did I saw you talking with Faust outside the apartment yesterday before he left?"
"Yeah. I talked with the other nerd. Why?" Mordred replied.
"Did he told you something? Something about why he want to stay alone? If something may be troubling him." Jekyll specified his question.
Thinking for a second, Mordred just dismissed his question. "Nothing at all. I just wished him the best and that if he was trying to turn on us, I would make sure to separate his head from the body right there. All in all, a great conversation."
"I see." Jekyll accepted the knnight's answer. "Hope that he is doing okay wherever he is."
"Did he sent a message while we did our patrol in the morning?" Mash asked, also wanting to know if everything was okay with the alchemist.
"Still not. Perhaps by the time we go back to the apartment he will already have sended one." Jekyll responded.
"Having one more servant like him here would be helpful for us." Nala commented.
"Yeah. I wonder if Faust has ever visited the Clock Tower too since he was a mage and alchemist." Ritsuka added.
"If you guys want, I could search for his location. It would take a while because of the Demonic Fog, but I, Leonardo and the staff could pull it off." Romani offered the possibility of having the group know Faust's current location.
"I think there is no need for that. He must be okay. Plus, I feel like spying on him like that would make us look bad." Peko said, refusing Romani's proposal.
"As long as that alchemist is incestigating something else that he is willing to share with us later, I do not care for where he is." Hans told them before spotting huge door at the end of the hall. "Oh! Could it be..." Hans immediatly runned torwards it, speeding up his steps.
"Hans-san! Where are you going with all that hurry?" Mash asked, seeing Hans take off in front of the entire group before they also started running behind him.
"Looks like someone isn't being careful now." Ritsuka said, thinking on how the smaller writer told them to be careful earlier.
Reaching to the door's entrance, Hans came to a halt, standing still as his eyes layed upon the amazing scenario in front of him. "This...This must be it." He muttered shortly before everyone else reached him.
"Hey! What about you wanr us next time you-...Wow." Nala was in the middle of insulting Hans before she stared at the enormous oval room full, with green lighted brick walls as well as big and tall endless shelves full of books on three different floors that were connected by a great and detailed staircase.
"So this is where the Clock Tower keeps all of the records and mysteries about magecraft?" Peko speaked, staring at the room in front of him.
"No doubt. This is the location." Romani speaked to them as the group had reached to their destination. "You have entered the great underground library of the Clock Tower."
To be continued...
And that was it for chapter 64!
Sorry if it came a little later than usual. Got occupied doing other things.
This was a chapter to focus more on the dialogue with few to almost no battle scene since I wanted to focus on the explanation of the Holy Grail War ritual, The difference between the two Fuyukis, the Dragon of Albion, the Clock Tower and etc. So it was more of a chaoter exposition of some Nasuverse subjects that some if not all of you are already well intregued into. (And also to have more banter between Hans and the rest of the group. He is such a sharp tongue gremlin) But next chapter...expect to meet the other side of ...
That's all I wanted to say and see you next time on chapter 65! Peace!
P.S:
Peko (Sees Ritsuka and Kadoc crying together): Uuh, are you two okay? What happened to make you cry?
Ritsuka (Cleaning his tears): Nothing Peko sobs nothing...
Kadoc: We just...didn't thought the day would finally come... (Shows the news of GTA6 Official Announcement to Peko)
Peko: W-What?! Is this true!?
Kadoc (Also cleaning his tears): Fujimaru...We have to play this...For Pepe, Kirsch and everyone else who didn't make it this far...
Peko: Buuuut, if the earth is currently bleached, how is the game even being devel-
Ritsuka, Kadoc and Osakabehime: DON'T RUIN OUR DREAM!
