102: Daily life is stressful too.
A blue sky, choked with smoke. A green meadow, drowned in mud. At the top of that hill, I see them. Corpses, piled one upon the other. How many times?
"Guaaah! Uooo!" He continues to rage. His axe splits my skull. A stray elbow breaks my neck. His white hair is already stained red. The corpse lodged on his horns finally dies at some point.
The tower grows higher. The hole at the top vomits out more mud. How many times have I died?
"Die!" He rages. "Die, die, dieeee!"
I die again. I die again. I die again.
He's up to his knees in mud now. How much longer can he last, I wonder?
The tower grows. The mud rises. He grows larger and paler. He bites me in half. The tower grows. The mud rises.
I wake up screaming.
"-So that's the situation," I conclude. "I know that the plan was to give us all some down time at Chaldea, but without my [Dreamcatcher], I'm just going to get worn down."
The nightmares haven't let up in the slightest. Professor Velvet gave me some rudimentary knowledge of Feng Shui, but that's not enough now that I'm not in one of the rooms he saw with his own eyes. I've been making do with a hug pillow, but if my loops reaching Chaldea are anything to go by, I'm just going to end up more worn down as time goes on, and next thing I know I'll be agreeing to an idiotic plan to rob Atlas again.
(I miss Beatrice.)
"...To be honest, prior to a few days ago I'd say lost sleep is no reason to blitz the next singularity in search of allies," Director Olga Marie says with a sigh. "But after realizing everything my own lost sleep was causing me to miss, I can't exactly say it's not a big deal."
"Siegfried's lullaby really worked wonders, huh?" I chuckle.
"...That's not it. It was…" She looks away, and I catch a dusting of pink on her cheeks. "I-it was your strangely persuasive words, okay!? You… were right. There was so much I was missing. Ever since you scolded me, it's been like… I keep realizing, 'I'm smarter than this'."
"You're smarter than that, Olga Marie," Professor Velvet said.
His [Discerning Eye], delivered secondhand through me… that couldn't be the case, right?
"A-anyway! It was thanks to that I was able to catch Prelati before he caused permanent damage, so… thank you." She falls to a mumble.
…That reminds me. "On that note, why did you summon Assassin in secret, anyway? Just to bait him out?"
She sighs, and a severe look falls upon her face. "The plan was to corner and blackmail him. After pressuring him into signing a Geas Scroll, Elron was to dispose of Assassin in secret."
I blink. "Wait, you mean-?"
"Correct. I had no intention of informing you or anyone else that Prelati was present," She explains, even as my jaw continues to drop lower and lower. "The summoning of the Servant Prelati was what forced my hand. Even if we killed him, his presence would remain in our records; I had no choice but to come clean at that point."
"Are you crazy!?" I shout. "Just what did we gain by-!?"
"Francois Prelati was a founding member of Chaldea," she says, cutting me off. "That alone means he had expertise greater than most of the rest of our staff. But beyond that - the combat simulator was his handiwork. And as John Marcus, he was one of the key developers for FATE's Shadow Servant summoning features."
"...The shadow what now?" I ask. Shadow Servants sound scary.
She groans. "You still haven't read the introductory pamphlets have you?"
"Mash has been helping me through them…" I give a nervous laugh.
"It's a system to allow Chaldea's Masters to summon weaker copies of the Servants here at Chaldea to the battlefield. Once defeated or unneeded, they return to Chaldea instead of the Throne of Heroes, and then you can just summon them again," She says. "A perfect answer to your hang-ups about losing allies, essentially."
"Th-that's-!" That sounds way too good to be true!
"-However, that system was damaged when Lev bombed Chaldea," She says. "The other Spiritron Engineers are looking at it, but most of the formulas were incredibly complex illusioncraft - Prelati's work. With him on ice…"
"Prelatiiii…!" I hiss. How dare you get my hopes up and then dash them like that! I wish I had walked over to watch you die now, forget being the bigger man!
"...Well, what's done is done. I don't really wager we'd get much help out of him now even if we were to defrost him," Olga says. "He's got no reason to hide his true nature now, after all. Regarding your request, I'll push up the timetable, but it will still take at least a week for the grail we got from France to be properly hooked up to the generator system. In the meantime… fine, I was going to wait for Da Vinci to finish the Mystic Code I ordered, but there's no reason not to start now. Follow me, Subaru."
She stands up from her desk and immediately starts towards the door to her office without a single additional word of explanation- wait, she called me by my first name!?
Slightly flustered, I fall in behind her as she begins aggressively walking down the hall. "Um, Director, where-?"
"My workshop. Your origin is [Star and Spirit], so you should have a good aptitude for Astromancy - I'll take you on as a disciple, so be grateful!" She answers, barely slowing down.
W-wait, calling me by first name… seeing her workshop… "S-sorry Director. I'm already in love with someone else, so-!"
Director Olga Marie Animusphere promptly polymorphs into a tomato. Or at least, that's what it looks like.
"J-j-just what are you implying, you idiot!?"
A blue sky, choked with smoke. A green meadow, drowned in mud. At the top of that hill, I see them. Corpses, piled one upon the other. How many times?
"-Tch, so that's how it is." She mutters. I grab her long red vest, trying to drag her down, and she discharges a pistol into my skull. The tower grows. The mud rises. "Your Noble Phantasm really is exactly what it says on the tin, huh?"
My blades aim for the scar on her face. My fire targets her long pink hair. My spells target her exposed chest.
Cannons fire. I die. I die. I die
The tower grows higher. The hole at the top vomits out more mud. How many times have I died?
Her cloak is beginning to be dyed black. A black-armored fist shatters my jaw. I die again. The tower grows. The mud rises.
I wake up screaming.
"HuuuUUUHH!? Just what were you saying about my performance in the last fight, Sir Mordred!?" Gareth shouts.
"I'm saying you only killed like, two of those goofy whales, idiot! I would have killed way more!" Mordred retorts, pressing her forehead against her sister's.
"I killed four! The one who calls people idiots is the idiot, idiot!" Gareth's lance begins to glow.
"Okay, to the simulator, you two." Georgios grabs both of them by the ear and drags them out of the cafeteria.
"Gareth and Mordred really are getting along well, aren't they Senpai?" Mash asks, and I just about drop my fork.
"What do you- actually, considering how things turned out at Camelot, maybe they are?" I say, slumping to rest my aching head on my hands. "I just wish they'd be a little more quiet…"
"Ah, are you feeling sick, Senpai…?" She asks.
"Sick of the Director's lectures, maybe…" I mutter. Just because I'm not getting much sleep already doesn't mean you can keep me up until two in the morning-!
"What was that, my disciple!?" A familiar shrill voice crosses the entire cafeteria to stab me directly in the ears.
"Nothing, Sensei, thank you for your time Sensei!" I cry out reflexively. It's only been three days…
"Hey, where's Saber and Lancer?" Cu Chulainn asks, poking his head into the room.
""Simulator."" Mash and I respond at the same time, and he grins, leaving immediately.
I take another bite of the real, genuine mashed potatoes on my plate.
"...Say, Mash, does it say something about me that I keep ending up making contracts with battle maniacs?" I ask.