The midday sun was as generous as ever, pouring over adventurers who were red-faced from haggling with vendors over a few dozen valis.
That ordinary, bustling street-life—so stubbornly human—was shattered at noon by a tremor from deep beneath the earth.
It wasn't an earthquake.
It was something with rhythm.
As though the entire city had begun to resonate with a heartbeat.
At the base of Babel Tower, the massive stone gate and the suppression formation used to restrain the Dungeon's mana let out a shriek like a pig being slaughtered.
"What the hell is that?!"
"Did the dark faction rats blow up a toilet again?"
"Don't be stupid—this pressure… that's a Floor Boss trying to break out!"
"Run! Go get the Ganesha Familia!"
The square erupted into chaos—people scrambling, shouting, sprinting—
And then, from the forbidden zone beneath Babel Tower known as the Great Hole, a pillar of golden light detonated upward, piercing the sky like a divine spear.
Within that golden flood, several figures descended like travelers who had stepped across time itself, landing steadily on the spotless white marble floor.
At the front stood a red-haired boy in a torn red-and-white coat so shredded it was almost decorative.
His gaze carried the weathered emptiness of someone who'd just crawled out of a brutal overtime shift.
But what drew every eye was his right hand.
It gleamed—clear and crystalline. Even under the noon sun, that warm, jade-like gold could not be ignored.
"Hah…" Emiya Shirou exhaled long and deep. "Surface air really is better."
"It's full of sweat stink and scammer stink, sure… but at least I don't have to worry about getting forcibly uninstalled by the world's will."
He flexed his right hand out of habit.
He'd expected the old sensation—passing through air like mist.
Instead, he felt it.
Dense. Heavy. Real. A quiet reservoir of explosive strength.
The unmistakable certainty settled into his bones:
He had taken root in this world at last.
"Emiya! Quit spacing out!" Bete's irritated voice snapped from behind. "Put that glow away—Guild MPs already have spears up my damn nose!"
The werewolf looked like he'd been smoked black, but his mouth still worked just fine.
In the square, after a beat of stunned silence, the crowd exploded into cheers like a tidal wave.
"Finn! It's Finn!"
"The Loki Familia expedition is back!"
"Wait—how did they come out of the Great Hole?! Isn't that supposed to lead to the abyss?!"
Finn Deimne stood beside Shirou, wiping down a spear that didn't have so much as a smear of blood on it, smiling like the hero he was.
"Mission accomplished, everyone," Finn's voice, carried by mana, spread across the entire square with ease. "We conquered Floor 59… and went even deeper…"
"…to perform a little environmental maintenance."
Shirou rolled his eyes internally.
If turning the Floor 60 Executioner into pixelated debris counted as "maintenance," then he deserved Orario's Outstanding Sanitation Worker medal.
Loki Familia's headquarters had become a boiling vat of oil.
Not because of the expedition's haul—though those Void crystals were worth a fortune—
But because of the red-haired monster currently sitting in the dining hall, calmly gnawing on fried potato balls while his right hand emitted a gentle gold glow.
Loki crouched on a stool, her usual squint blown wide open into two headlamps.
Her clownish face wore an expression of pure philosophical crisis: Who am I? Where am I? What is reality?
"So… let me get this straight," she said, voice trembling. "Your right hand got rejected by the Dungeon… so you went 'fine' and projected yourself a brand-new physical one? And you fused in Artemis's blessing, star-metal, and whatever the hell that Void energy was?"
"More or less," Shirou replied through a mouthful, then casually handed Haruhime a fried potato ball. The fox-girl took it like it was a holy relic. "It feels like my computer died and I hand-built a better piece of hardware to replace it. Same OS… but the GPU performance is insane now."
"What the hell is a GPU?!" Loki screamed. "Can you say something gods can understand?!"
She whipped around to Riveria like a drowning person reaching for a lifeline.
"Mom! Is this in any of your spellbooks?!"
Riveria Ljos Alf—Orario's elegant elven royal—was holding a delicate set of tweezers, trying to scrape a sample off the gold patterns on Shirou's arm.
The tweezers bent instantly the moment they touched his skin.
Riveria sighed, abandoned the "researcher's dream," and folded her arms.
"No," she said softly. "This is beyond magecraft. Beyond magic. This is a miracle—or a construction that does not belong to the Lower World."
She looked at Shirou with a rare heaviness in her eyes.
"Emiya… what flows in your right arm is no longer simple blood."
"It's starlight," Aiz Wallenstein added matter-of-factly.
She was seated directly across from Shirou, golden eyes locked on his glowing hand as though it might vanish if she blinked. The little tuft of hair atop her head had curled into an excited loop.
"It's warm. Like the sun."
"Aiz…" Finn pinched the bridge of his nose with a weary smile. "Now is not the time for romantic commentary."
He set a freshly-imprinted parchment in the center of the table.
It was Shirou's first proper status update after officially becoming Level 4.
A battlefield breakthrough. A Void reconstruction. A walking violation of common sense.
The sheet was… inevitable disaster for Orario's "normal people."
Name: Emiya ShirouLevel: 4Alias: Senji Muramasa
Stats:
Strength: I (0) → SSS (1310)
Endurance: I (0) → SSS (1552) (qualitative leap via Void reconstruction)
Dexterity: I (0) → SSS (1115)
Agility: I (0) → SSS (1194)
Magic: I (0) → SSS (1601) (breakthrough via expanded soul core)
Development Abilities:
Mystery (G)
Magecraft (G)
Metallurgy (H)
Healing (H)
Void Resistance (I)
Magic:
Unlimited Blade Works (fully unlocked)
Body of Steel (full-body armament state)
Skills:
Mind's Eye — Extreme: predicts causality three seconds ahead
Clairvoyance — Hawk: enhanced range; locks onto higher-dimensional coordinates
Unbroken Smith: near-death triggers forced reconstruction
Bone of the Star: due to conceptual physicalization of the right arm, right-side defense/output increases without an upper limit; forcibly endures partial strain of divine-forged armaments
The dining hall fell into a silence stranger than Floor 60.
After a long beat, Bete finally exploded like a cat getting stepped on.
"Magic sixteen hundred?!" he yelped. "Are you screwing with us?! Even Riveria barely cracked a thousand at Level 4! You show up and start rewriting records?!"
"And endurance fifteen hundred?!" Gareth stared down at his own proud chest, suddenly looking a little… bleak. "Are kids these days turning into fortresses now?"
Loki's expression flickered wildly—shock, greed, disbelief—
Then she threw her head back and cackled.
"HAHAHAHA! We hit the jackpot!"
"This isn't finding treasure—this is finding a nuclear launch platform!"
"Freya? Ottar? From now on they can all get the hell out of my way!"
"Loki." Finn rapped the table, eyes sharp. "Stop laughing."
"This status cannot be made public. If the Guild—or any Familia—learns the truth, Emiya will be dragged into immediate human experimentation."
"We fabricate a 'normal' Level 4 sheet. Now."
"Agreed," Riveria said calmly. "A sheet that reads as exceptional… but still within human comprehension."
Shirou lifted his glowing hand, deadpan.
"Are you all forgetting I'm right here eating?"
"How exactly do you plan to fake a status sheet when my arm looks like a high-output streetlamp?"
He pointed at himself.
"I walk outside and attract moths. Everyone will know something's wrong."
In the end, Riveria wrapped Shirou's right arm in an elven glamour robe—an illusion so intricate it looked like ordinary bandages.
At least he wouldn't light up alleyways at night.
But the days that followed reminded Shirou what it meant to be called a "hero."
Not glory.
Not songs.
But unavoidable trouble.
"Shirou-sama!" Haruhime bowed so low her tail trembled. "The bath is prepared…! Please allow me to scrub your back!"
Her face screamed two words: repay恩 (repay恩)—without needing to say them.
"Haruhime… you really don't need to—" Shirou tried, sweat forming instantly.
Because at the doorway, Aiz stood with her sword, radiating black pressure like a storm cloud.
"My right hand is strong," Shirou blurted, survival instinct overriding dignity. "I can handle it myself!"
"I will," Aiz said, walking in.
Two words.
Absolute authority.
Riveria said you must adapt to your new body. I am the best sparring partner."
"Aiz… what does scrubbing someone's back have to do with sparring?" Shirou asked weakly.
"It does," she said solemnly, hair tuft spinning like a helicopter rotor. "I observe your mana flow at close range."
Shirou fled.
He would rather return to Floor 60 and fight the Executioner again than face two earnest girls during bath time.
The quiet didn't last.
On the third evening after the expedition's return, an unexpected guest arrived.
No marching troops.
No divine pressure.
Only a single man in a gray cloak—tall, immovable, carrying a presence like bedrock.
Ottar.
Captain of Freya Familia.
Orario's strongest.
He stood calmly before Twilight Manor's gates.
Loki Familia's guards were drenched in cold sweat. Even with the expedition home, the instinctive terror of facing this man didn't vanish.
"Do not be alarmed," Ottar rumbled. "I am not here to fight."
He withdrew a letter infused with a faint, sweet perfume and placed it on the stone pillar by the gate.
"Deliver this to him."
"Tell him… the goddess awaits him at the highest floor of Babel Tower."
"To watch tonight's moon together."
The guard swallowed hard.
"'Him'… you mean Emiya Shirou?"
Ottar did not answer.
He only looked once—deep into the manor, as if his eyes could pierce walls to find the boy hiding in a kitchen, sneaking extra food.
Then he turned and left.
Arriving like a shadow.
Departing like a shadow.
Leaving behind a single object that could trigger a city-wide earthquake.
When Shirou received the letter, his first reaction was to throw the chicken leg in his hand straight into the firepit—destroy evidence, destroy fate, destroy the route flag.
"A goddess's invitation?" he muttered, staring at handwriting that was luxurious to the point of illness. His reconstructed right arm throbbed faintly.
"Is this a dinner invite… or a solo raid?"
"I've read this plot before. Accepting this kind of quest triggers forced affection branches… or war."
"Emiya." Finn appeared behind him, face severe. "If you don't want to go, we can refuse."
"Freya isn't hiding it anymore. She watched you reconstruct your body in the Deep Floors through the divine mirror."
"To her, you are no longer raw ore."
"You are a completed Holy Grail."
Shirou's eyes narrowed.
"And if we refuse?"
Finn's smile was bitter.
"I don't know. But she'll probably march her entire Familia here."
"At this point, she's on the edge of… rational collapse."
Shirou looked out toward the tower's spire cutting into the sky.
He remembered the voice in the deep—the will that called him an anomaly.
And to that goddess, perhaps he truly was nothing more than a toy that could be painted, displayed, owned.
"…But I'm not a toy," Shirou said softly.
His right hand tightened.
Gold light churned beneath the bandages—something he had paid for in blood.
"I'll go."
Finn's gaze sharpened. "Emiya—"
"I need to say it to her face," Shirou cut in, calm and absolute. "If I don't, this endless entanglement will only drag everyone down."
"She's the goddess of beauty."
"Then I'll see whether her heart can be cut by a sword."
This was the place closest to the moon.
Silver moonlight poured through massive windows, turning the palace into an ice-fairytale city.
Freya wore a near-transparent silk robe, barefoot, wineglass in hand, standing by the window.
Her long silver hair danced in the breeze.
When she sensed the door open behind her, her eyes—those eyes that seemed to hold a sky full of stars—brightened with a radiance that could intoxicate gods.
"You came," Freya said without turning.
Her voice was tender in a way that felt… sick.
A lover's whisper.
A killer's curse.
"Emiya Shirou."
"No…"
"My hero."
"That title makes me feel like vomiting," Shirou said flatly.
He remained at the doorway, not stepping closer.
There was no blade drawn, no battle stance—
Yet the pressure pressing into his Mind's Eye felt heavier than facing ten Ottars at once.
Not hostility.
Something worse:
Love so pure, so total, it became a spiritual assault from every angle.
"Goddess," Shirou said coldly. "You didn't call me up here for a late-night snack, did you?"
"If you wish," Freya replied, turning with a smile that was almost obscene in its beauty, "I can be your snack."
She walked toward him.
Each step carried a strange rhythm.
Under moonlight, her beauty exceeded physics itself—an absolute, a final song that could make heroes offer their lives with gratitude.
Shirou felt his circuits screaming.
Not because of danger.
Because this was mental pressure—an immaculate, overwhelming invasion.
His right hand lit faintly on its own, resisting by instinct.
"You've changed," Freya murmured, stopping before him. Her icy finger glided over the bandages on his right hand.
"You're harder."
"No longer a projection that could shatter at any time."
"Now… you can bear my love."
"Can't you?"
"A god's love is too heavy," Shirou said, meeting her gaze without flinching.
"I belong neither to Loki—nor to you."
"I belong to myself."
"And to the people I choose to protect."
"Protect?" Freya laughed softly, the sound filled with disdain for mortal sentiment.
"I've watched countless people try to protect something."
"Some became ash."
"Some became mad."
"You think your power can protect anything?"
"The Dungeon has already noticed you."
"The will beneath the abyss will tear you apart piece by piece."
"Then I'll become stronger," Shirou said, stepping back once.
His right hand rested on the hilt of Kanshou's reinforced imitation form.
"I didn't come here to hear prophecies."
"I came to tell you: stop targeting Loki Familia."
"If you harm them—"
"You will kill me?" Freya leaned close to his ear, breath like perfume.
"Please do it here."
"To die under your blade would be the greatest ecstasy for a goddess."
She's broken, Shirou cursed silently.
Freya didn't care about war.
Didn't care about ruin.
She only cared about that light that made her soul tremble.
"I can agree," Freya said suddenly, turning away and returning to the window.
"I will not strike Loki Familia."
"But I have a condition."
"What?" Shirou asked, voice sharp.
"Three months from now," Freya said, pointing toward the moon. "Orario will hold a grand festival."
"On that stage, I will issue a challenge to the entire city."
"If, within that great play, you can keep your color—keep who you are—"
"Then I will let go."
"Completely."
"And I will even become your shield."
Shirou's breath caught.
Freya's voice softened like velvet on a blade.
"But if you lose…"
"You will leave Twilight Manor."
"You will come to the top of Babel Tower."
"And become my only collection."
A gamble.
A divine cat-and-mouse game.
Shirou didn't hesitate.
"I accept."
Because he knew the truth:
He didn't have the right to refuse.
Three months was the largest breathing space he could seize.
Freya looked back once, eyes shining with cruel satisfaction.
"Good."
"Now go."
"My hero."
"Before I change my mind… and keep you here forever."
When Shirou left Babel Tower, he felt like he'd been hauled out of water—soaked through, shaking.
The exhaustion gnawed at his soul more than the battle with the Executioner ever had.
"Emiya!"
Aiz's voice cut the darkness.
She leaned against a stone pillar by the entrance, sword in her arms, worry written plainly across her face.
"Are you okay?" she rushed up, checking him like she was verifying he still existed.
"I'm fine," Shirou said, lifting a hand to pat her head, grounding himself in her warmth.
"I just negotiated severance pay with a boss."
"It was… complicated."
"But I bought us three months."
"Three months?" Aiz tilted her head, not following the political minefield.
"In three months," Shirou said, eyes lifting to the night sky, "we'll have something big."
"Before then, I have to get stronger."
"Not just Level 4."
"I have to forge a sword…"
"A true End-Sword…"
"One that can sever a god's obsession."
In another corner of the city, silver compound eyes watched the returning hero from the shadow of a sewer grate.
"Heh… three months?"
The black-robed man rasped a laugh.
"If the goddess grants time…"
"Then we'll use it."
"To prepare a very special gift."
....
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