Gordolf, unable to wait, had his subordinates undo the case with specialized magecraft, and after only a cursory flip through a few pages of the table of contents, his breathing quickened!
Greed blazed in those small eyes of his!
"A... a genius! This... this is practically divine revelation! This spiritron supply optimization theory alone is enough to raise the Mage's Association's overall combat strength by an entire tier!"
The look he turned on Waver instantly filled with naked envy.
"El-Melloi II, you really did... strike incredible luck! To think you could take on a student like this! This achievement is enough to carry your family for another five hundred years!"
Waver said nothing, only silently clenched his fist, his nails digging deep into his palm.
Yes, I'm very lucky.
Lucky enough to have personally led a "treasure" who would surely have changed the entire magical world into his grave.
This "research" would, over the coming decades, become the Clock Tower's hottest, most cutting-edge subject of study.
The name "Seiji Fujiwara" would be praised by countless magi to come, becoming a legend, a byword for a "fallen genius who gave his life in pursuit of the Root."
They would lament for him, marvel at his talent, and uphold his theories as gospel.
Yet no one would ever know.
That the true "demon," at this very moment, sat on the other side of the world, leisurely sipping black tea, watching them, this crowd of "clever people" kept entirely in the dark, perform this farce of a play called "mourning."
...
...
Einzbern Castle, inside the study.
Before Seiji floated an enormous water mirror. Its frame was woven from pure magic, flickering with an ominous dark-red glow.
In the mirror played out, clear and in real time, the whole process of Waver handing over that case of "effects" to Gordolf at the London airport. Even the most minute shifts in their expressions were captured with perfect clarity.
"Heh heh, what an adorable expression, my dear teacher."
Watching Waver's face, full of grief, self-reproach, and pain, Seiji's mouth curled into a pleased arc.
He picked up a small biscuit with interest, tossed it into his mouth, and savored it slowly.
This was exactly what he liked to watch.
To watch these self-important "clever people," these figures who stood at the summit of some field of the world, be toyed with in the palm of his hand, and still feel grateful to him, even grieve sincerely over his "death."
This pleasure of looking down on the joys and sorrows of all living things from a higher dimension, of holding everything in play within his mind, was even more captivating than the growth of magic itself.
Those so-called "research notes" were nothing more than things he'd had the system copy and paste at random from this world's "database," then dressed up a little with knowledge from a higher dimension, adding a bit of leading theory to give the garbage some color.
Their purpose was to put a perfect period on his "fallen genius" identity, and incidentally to give that pack of old fossils at the Clock Tower something to do, so they wouldn't have idle time to investigate the truth of Fuyuki City.
He hadn't expected they'd treat it as a priceless treasure.
"What a... pack of adorable monkeys."
He waved a hand, and the water mirror dispersed.
The world had gone on running smoothly, just as he'd written the script.
The Clock Tower got the "knowledge" they wanted, Waver got the "tragic hero student" he wanted, and he himself got everything.
Perfect.
It was time to test the most important "result" of this trip.
"Come."
He spoke softly into the empty room.
In the center of the room, the enormous magic circle he'd transplanted whole from beneath Ryuudou Temple using spatial magecraft began to glow faintly.
It was no longer the original "Fuyuki City summoning circle." It was the "Fujiwara Grail Summoning System," which he'd thoroughly altered, fused, and privatized with his "authority" and his "Grail" privileges.
Immense magic was drawn from the Spiritual Veins beneath the castle and poured frenzied into the magic circle, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea!
Seiji was about to conduct a summoning experiment.
He wanted to see with his own eyes whether that "backdoor" he'd installed with his own hands actually worked.
He needed no Holy Relic.
Because the entire summoning system was his finest "medium"!
He was the rules themselves!
He thrust his will, like a command of the highest privilege, into that "line" connecting to the Throne of Heroes.
Countless heroic legends shone in his perception like a vast sea of stars.
Scáthach, Jack the Ripper, Nightingale, Tamamo-no-Mae... the data of countless powerful, interesting female Heroic Spirits swept past before him one by one.
He began to "screen" them.
Ordinary heroes didn't interest him.
Male Heroic Spirits interested him even less.
What he wanted was the kind of top-tier female spoil that brimmed with "narrative," that was powerful, beautiful, and ideally carried a hint of "twisted" properties.
He soon locked onto a target. A soul brimming with "flame" and "hatred," violent, one that ought never to have existed.
"You're the one."
He issued the "command," as easy and unhurried as placing an order on an online shopping platform.
"In the name of the Fujiwara Grail, answer my summoning!"
"Descend here, witch of vengeance!"
A thunderous roar erupted!
The light of the magic circle instantly surged to its limit!
Black flames steeped in the meaning of curses shot up to the heavens from the circle, carrying a hatred enough to burn the whole world to ash!
A tall figure of a girl, clad in revealing, ferocious pitch-black armor, gripping an ominous banner, with long platinum-blond hair, slowly coalesced within the flames.
On her face was a neurotic, mad sneer, as if she were filled with malice toward all things in the world.
In those golden eyes burned an unquenchable flame of vengeance against France, against God, against everything.
"Hahahaha! Good! Very good!"
"I've come in answer to the summons! I am Avenger, Jeanne d'Arc (Alter)!"
Her voice, brimming with madness and power, set the whole study buzzing.
"Speak your wish, incompetent Master! Do you want to burn down a country, or to destroy the entire world?! Whatever kind of hell it is, I'll make it real for you! Come! Let's take vengeance together on this damnable world!"
She raised the demonic banner high, her posture arrogant to the extreme, as if she were the one leading the summoning.
However...
Just as she was about to enjoy the sight of this newly arrived Master's expression, terrified witless by her own aura...
A kind of absolute "command" she couldn't comprehend at all, coming from the very, very deepest part of her Saint Graph, like a "factory setting," suddenly activated!
It was like a piece of "code" hardwired into the "system's lowest layer," holding the highest priority!
[Host Seiji Fujiwara detected!]
[Activating Absolute Authority brand!]
[Overwriting current personality...]
[Obedience protocol, activated!]
"Uh... huh? This... this is... what...?"
The mad laughter on Jeanne Alter's face froze in an instant.
She felt her body, her magic, her will... even that hatred she took such pride in, the very foundation of her existence, all lose control in a single instant!
A higher, more unreasonable will forcibly took over everything of hers!
This will didn't come from any external magical compulsion, nor was it mesmerism or control on the mental level. It was more like a... "lower-layer protocol."
As if it had been written into the most core, unalterable source code before she, "Jeanne d'Arc (Alter)," this "program," was even created!
[Obey Seiji Fujiwara].
The priority of this command was even higher than the foundation of her existence: "vengeance"!
"Uh... huh? This... is... what's... going on...?"
The mad laughter on Jeanne Alter's face froze in an instant.
In its place came extreme horror and an incomprehensible bewilderment.
She felt her body, her magic, her will... even that hatred she took such pride in, enough to burn the world, all lose control in a single instant!
She wanted to raise her banner and burn this Master who didn't know his place to ashes.
But her arm, as if filled with lead, didn't budge a hair.
She wanted to open her mouth and curse, to insult him with the most venomous language.
But her throat felt as though an invisible hand were clamped tight around it, and she couldn't get out a single syllable.
Her body, beyond her control, moved on its own.
There came a heavy thump.
This dragon witch, who only moments ago had been so overweening, laughing madly about burning the world, just like that... in an extremely proper, extremely humiliating posture, dropped both knees hard to the ground before that man.
The pitch-black armor on her body struck the cold floor with a crisp, ringing clang that sounded especially jarring in the silent study.
Her head, pressed down hard by an invisible force, was forced to bow low, her line of sight able to take in only that man's spotless leather shoes.
This... is... what's... going on...?
My body... my power... why... won't they obey my command?!
She forced a few words out through her teeth, her voice full of disbelief, of utter horror and confusion.
"It's nothing."
Seiji walked slowly up before her and looked down from on high at this new spoil kneeling at his feet.
He reached out and, like stroking a pet cat just brought home and not yet quite obedient, patted that platinum-blond, haughty head of hers.
"I'm just welcoming my new collectible."
His voice was flat and gentle, yet it carried an unquestionable, absolute authority that belonged to an "owner."
"You seem a little confused. Then let me explain it to you."
He crouched down, level with the kneeling Jeanne Alter, a demonic, patiently coaxing smile on his face.
"The reason you could be summoned isn't because of any so-called Grail, nor because of any Human Order."
"It's because I wanted you to appear."
"This summoning system is a stage I built. And you are merely one of the actors I've personally chosen to come and perform."
"So, isn't it only natural for an actor to follow the director's arrangements?"
"Welcome to my collection room, number two."
Beside him, Saber Alter, who knelt in a row with her and attended at the side of the throne like a ghost, now also sank to one knee in sync, as if giving a "demonstration" for the new companion.
Looking at the two of them, one cold and hollow, the other horrified and unwilling, Seiji's face broke into an utterly satisfied smile.
He figured he would break in number two while the iron was hot.
He did not have to say much. The protocol did the talking. A thought from him and she was on her feet, then between his knees, the platinum-blond witch who had sworn to burn the world standing where he put her, shaking with a rage that had nowhere to go.
"I'll burn you," she got out anyway, the mad grin clawing back onto her face by pure spite, golden dragon eyes all hate. "I'll burn you to the bone."
He did not answer. He looked her over, unhurried, the way you would look at a horse you just bought, and let her own hands strip the black armor off piece by piece while she hated every clasp they opened.
Then he took his time. He cupped a breast, weighed it, rolled the nipple hard between two fingers and watched her jaw clench. Mapped the rest of her like inventory, her waist, the curve of her ass, while she trembled and cursed and could not stop him. When his hand slid between her thighs she clamped them shut on reflex, and the protocol opened them back for him, and his fingers found her wet and went to work, slow and patient, until the creature made of nothing but hatred was dripping on a stranger's hand.
He pulled her face down and kissed her. She kissed back with murder in her eyes and her body melting into it, the furious little sounds going off her tongue into his mouth while two fingers kept working her open.
Only when she was shaking and half out of her mind with it did he pull her down into his lap and let her sink onto his cock.
She rode him because the protocol made her, at first. Then her hips kept going on their own. Her cunt gripped him greedy and wet, and every time the hate flared hottest the pleasure flared right beside it until she could not tell them apart, and the worst part, the part she would never forgive, was that she wanted it.
"M-master." A snarl and a moan at once. She would have died before choosing the word.
"Burn for me, then," he said, lazy, like she was barely worth the effort.
She came on his cock cursing his name, dragon eyes wet with furious tears, the Avenger who was going to end the world reduced to one more thing kneeling in his collection.
[Main mission "Usurpation of the World Core" complete!]
[Calculating rewards...]
[Congratulations, Host. You have successfully converted the Fuyuki City Greater Grail system into your personal exclusive organ, successfully installed the Throne of Heroes backdoor, and inflicted an irreversible, permanent alteration upon this world's core rules!]
[Overall evaluation: S++ (Beyond Perfect)]
[Final reward: Acquired the special-privilege Heroic Spirit Armament, and unlocked the Mythology Zone of the system shop.]
[Privilege description: Heroic Spirit Armament... the Host may, at any time and at no cost, convert a Servant in his possession into a conceptual armament and equip it on his person. Once equipped, the Host inherits 100% of that Servant's skills, Noble Phantasms (True Name release consumes the Host's own magic), and combat experience, and may switch forms at any time.]
[Shop unlocked: Mythology Zone... you may now use points to exchange for items and bloodlines from higher-tier mythological worlds.]
[Next transferable world coordinate detected...]
[World type: a large-scale mythological world where gods and demons coexist, the law tier is higher, and human faith is directly tied to the power of the gods.]
[This world contains multiple goddess-class conquest targets, with extremely high conquest value.]
[Depart immediately?]
"So it's finally coming?"
Seiji's gaze seemed to pierce through the castle ceiling, casting toward that deep, boundless starry sky.
This tiny island nation, this tiny "starter village," every hidden quest and every final boss, he'd already cleared them all completely.
Staying here any longer could no longer bring him even the slightest shred of pleasure.
His targets were the true ones... those high above, toying with the fates of mortals.
The ones who walked upon the earth...
"Goddesses."
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