"Artoria, Artoria, wake up, Artoria..."
"Who..."
The repeated calls within her consciousness brought Artoria back to her senses, her mind previously a void. The scene she was in now was not a hospital, nor any place she knew. She felt she wasn't lying on the ground, so she looked up and saw a black-red sphere hanging in the sky, emitting an ominous aura of Death.
"Where is this? Did I transmigrate again?"
Seeing such a bizarre scene, Artoria's heart was filled with confusion. There was no such scene in her Remembrance. Artoria looked around again; bare hillsides and dark ground—this scene completely implied that this place was a wasteland.
"Artoria~!"
Suddenly, the voice she had just heard rang out again. This voice seemed to come from a very distant place, and it filled Artoria with curiosity. She placed her right hand on her chest—well, she couldn't feel her own heartbeat. Confirming it was her own body, Artoria began to walk toward the source of the voice. Her steps were very slow because it was too dark around her; even her Dragon Eyes could only see that there was a road, but not very far. What kind of ghostly place was this?
Artoria walked slowly. One blue, dumpling-like thing after another floated across the sky, looking like mochi balls—they seemed quite delicious. But strangely, Artoria hadn't felt hungry until now, and she didn't know why. She just followed the direction of the voice calling her.
"What is this place? A city?"
As she got closer to the voice, the scenery before Artoria's eyes changed. Although that black-red sphere still hung in the sky, the surroundings were no longer desolate. Before Artoria was a dilapidated city. In front of the city was a bottomless abyss, with a dilapidated bridge connecting the city to Artoria's side. Not far from the bridge stood something like a pole vault, except it was very high, about several tens of meters.
"Interesting."
Those calls were coming from within the city. Filled with interest, Artoria walked toward the bridge, but she quickly took a step back. Her intuition told her that taking another step would be dangerous. Sure enough, a crimson light arrived before Artoria in an instant; it was so fast she couldn't dodge it at all. The crimson light receded, and a familiar red spear was quietly plunged into the ground.
"This is Pur... Master's spear. So, is this the world of the dead in the Land of Shadows? Am I dead?"
Looking at this spear, Artoria immediately understood who was inside the city. Wasn't it that Purple BBA? How did she end up here? The Land of Shadows was the kingdom of the dead, and the Shadow Kingdom within it only had Scáthach herself. Did she come here because she died? Now she desperately needed someone to answer her doubts.
"If you want to see the woman of the Land of Shadows, then you must complete her trial."
Thinking of Scáthach's deeds, Artoria looked at the spear in front of her and then at the dozens-of-meters-high pole vault-like hurdle. Artoria flashed a confident smile. A height of dozens of meters was too much of a child's play for her now. "Purple BBA, you really underestimate me too much."
"I'm coming."
Crouching on the ground, magical energy surged into her slender legs. With a confident smile, Artoria used Scáthach's spearmanship techniques, preparing to flip in the air. However, she felt something was wrong; her body was very heavy, and the higher she went, the greater the weight became. Someone had tampered with this thing.
Just as she was about to flip over the very top, Artoria's body stopped rising. A massive force pressed down on Artoria, causing her previous momentum to vanish completely. In Artoria's unwilling and terrified eyes, her body began to fall.
"Thud!"
"You old hag~~!"
A huge crater formed in the ground. Artoria was stuck head-first like a planted onion, her upper body buried in the dirt, revealing her snow-white thighs and blue panties. Her calves trembled slightly as Artoria slowly pulled herself out of the ground. She stood up silently, patted the dirt off her body, and looked at the distant city. Furious, Artoria roared toward the city.
Finally, she shouted the name she had never dared to shout. Artoria, whose heart was in immense pain, was momentarily stunned. Her intuition told her that her life was in danger and she couldn't dodge it. The ahoge on her head was also swaying wildly. Crimson light bloomed in the sky like flowers, filling the entire sky in an instant, flying toward Artoria in parabolic paths.
"Holy crap~~!"
"If you play like this, the Master will die, Miss Scáthach."
At the top of the city, a silver-haired beautiful girl dressed in a kimono, as lovely as a Yamato Nadeshiko, looked on with some dissatisfaction. She held an exquisite folding fan and wore pure white stockings on her feet. If one ignored the pair of white jade-like horns on her head, she would be a pure and cute human girl.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Always using other powers without summoning us out... such a Master needs to be dis... well-disciplined, to let her know her own true power."
The woman called Miss Scáthach by the girl was dressed in a purple tight-fitting leather armor that perfectly highlighted her enchanting figure. She didn't look at the girl; she looked toward the bridge, speaking without any fluctuation in her tone.
"But doesn't Master not have 'that' right now? If she had 'that', wouldn't we be able to manifest in the world again with Heroic Spirit bodies, instead of being possessed within the Master?"
Kiyohime said somewhat dejectedly. She watched Scáthach sit back on her throne again. She couldn't compete with that queenly, overbearing strength, but she now longed even more to get out of here and be in love with the Master. Watching from here as one or two women outside had designs on her Master, Kiyohime felt a fire of anger surge from her stomach, wanting to burn those shameless people to ashes.
"That's why I pulled her over. This is truly a good opportunity. Otherwise, even in a dream, I wouldn't be able to make her hear my voice. This brat has some ability. If she's trained well in the future, she might actually be able to kill me. I'm looking forward to her growth."
Scáthach didn't say much in response to Kiyohime's words. She was only looking forward to Artoria's potential. If she could be summoned out by this brat and challenge her when the brat was at her strongest, then how high would the chance of her own Death be? This was what she looked forward to, and it was also the reason why she took advantage of Artoria's deep coma to pull her into her own world. Both she and Kiyohime wanted to get out.
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