Since ancient times, seeking excitement, the gods came to the Lower World where humans reside.
Subsequently, the gods decided—
To be with you forever.
They sealed their divine powers, and despite a certain degree of inconvenience and lack of freedom, they intended to live happily, seeking the exciting life that the Upper World did not have.
[Familia], [favor]
The gods brought these two things to humanity. From this moment on, ordinary lives possessed the capital to become stronger and could fight like the heroes of legend.
The arrival of favor and the gods gave them the power to resist monsters.
This is the God's Familia!
———
———
A crystalline light shone from the pitch-black walls. Deep in the quiet cave, a girl in tattered clothes lay on the ground.
The surroundings were excessively quiet. In the ultra-deep underground where there was no sign of human presence, steady and weak breathing sounds came from Emiya Ritsuka.
She was still alive.
Waking up, Ritsuka barely managed to sit up from the ground, leaning against the wall to observe her surroundings.
Was she... blasted into a hole by that divine sword?
"It really wasn't easy. I remember my body clearly shattering completely."
At that final moment, her consciousness was incredibly clear.
With the extra mana gathered by squeezing out every bit of life force and applying Phantasm Collapse to herself, the Noble Phantasm successfully reached its maximum output in that instant, while she also completely shattered because her body could not withstand it.
Whether that punch hit or not, she didn't know, but she was aware of the fact that Miyu had been sent to another world.
That's... great... Having successfully achieved her goal and sent Miyu to a safe world, it was enough for Ritsuka. It didn't matter what happened to her.
"Sakura."
The only regret might be Sakura.
If there were a chance, she really wanted to save Sakura too. If it were a true Holy Grail, would it be possible?
"Hmm, this is..."
Ritsuka stared blankly at her palm as strands of light surged from the suddenly appearing crystal dice, slightly different from the images that had appeared before.
——
[Identity write successful...]
[You have become a native of this world. Identity: An outsider who came to Orario.]
——
??
The child had many question marks over her head.
Orario? Where is this?
Ritsuka looked bewildered, staring blankly at the crystal dice in her hand.
This was the first time she had seen the crystal dice react like this. Had she been reborn into another world again?
In other words, she still died?
But thinking about it, it made sense; after all, she had squeezed out mana by disintegrating her body. Death was inevitable, and she was bound to be finished in the end anyway.
"—What on earth is all this?"
Her fingers brushed through a lock of hair; the familiar orange-red entered her eyes, and her body felt familiar too. It didn't seem like a case of possessing someone else's corpse.
Suddenly, an anomaly appeared.
Under Ritsuka's stunned gaze, the wall opposite her suddenly cracked open, and a crimson eye stared straight at her through the gap.
A chill surged up her spine.
It was a murderous intent more bizarre and irrational than that of a beast, a feeling that it would attack anything that moved, as if a monster like a demonic beast was crawling out of the wall.
Although it wasn't a huge threat—at least the monster didn't give Ritsuka a sense of impending death at its birth—she couldn't help but exclaim, "What's with this number?!"
The walls were trembling. Ritsuka leaped from the ground, a flash of electricity in her hand as she gripped the projected demonic blade, 'Murasame'.
Monsters crawled out of the walls one after another. In this passage alone, Ritsuka conservatively estimated there were at least twenty to start with, and the cave suddenly became crowded.
Successive roars exploded, and Ritsuka solemnly changed her attire.
The Future Heroic Spirit armament constructed from the sacred cloth should be able to reduce some damage, right? It should, right?
Looking at the large clubs in the monsters' hands, Ritsuka swallowed hard.
"These things look a lot more disgusting than those dolls."
The Einzberns felt offended.
Accompanied by earthquake-like footsteps, trampling the desolate ground, a large swarm of bull-headed monsters charged toward Ritsuka.
They had two hard, large horns on their heads, and their ugly faces looked like elongated donkey faces. Their tough skin was a reddish-copper color, and their successive snorts echoed each other. Every single one of them looked deathly ugly.
Their crimson eyes twitched, staring at Ritsuka, who was very petite compared to the bull-headed monsters, like prey.
With bodies no less massive than the Avenger-class Alcides, they launched their attack, raising thick arms holding blunt weapons high above their heads.
"..."
Ritsuka remained silent and raised the long blade in her hand.
Nine Lives!
Testing the monsters' strength with a Noble Phantasm, Ritsuka gave these ferocious-looking creatures plenty of respect. Her agile figure flashed through the gaps between them, and sharp blade light swept through the cave.
In a flash, Ritsuka unleashed nine consecutive strikes at god-like speed.
The slashes passed through the monster swarm, the blade light slowly dissipated, and the intimidating screeches came to an abrupt halt.
The next moment, the group of monsters suddenly exploded, turning into gray smoke and dissipating, as countless small items fell toward the ground.
"This sense of déjà vu... an RPG adventure game?"
Killing monsters to drop items. Ritsuka looked at the crystals and materials all over the ground and fell into a brief silence.
At least twenty monsters had been wiped out, with only a few scattered individuals remaining in the corners. Like chickens with their necks squeezed, they didn't make a sound.
After a second of silence, as Ritsuka prepared to continue fighting, she was surprised to find that the bull-headed monsters were all running away in a panic.
In a flash, Ritsuka was the only one left in the cave, along with the materials and crystals scattered on the ground.
"..."
What a waste of effort.
Feeling the mana consumption in her body, Ritsuka suddenly felt that using a Noble Phantasm seemed a bit wasteful, even though Nine Lives didn't consume much.
But she no longer had infinite mana.
The demonic blade in her hand shattered, turning into mana that was absorbed back into her body, and Ritsuka began to collect the items on the ground.
According to common RPG games, these things can be exchanged for money. Since they are monster drops, it's at least not a loss to take them. Moreover, among these dozen or so crystals on the ground—
There is a fairly rich amount of energy.
Ritsuka gripped a crystal dropped by a monster, stared at the patterns on its surface for a while, and then crushed the crystal directly.
"Mana restored. Interesting."
The amount wasn't much, but these crystals did indeed contain a certain amount of energy.
Quite miraculous.
Feeling light and unburdened, Ritsuka tapped the crystal dice and checked Alcides' status panel. As expected, the immortality [Until Transferred to Prometheus] had disappeared.
That section had turned gray.
The scalp-numbing pain in her body was gone, but Ritsuka's eyes were still somewhat numb.
Because suddenly, she didn't know what she should do.
Should she continue hunting bull-headed monsters like she was playing a game, or look for a human settlement and spend the rest of her time peacefully... Aside from school, she had always been with Miyu and Sakura. When she suddenly had nothing around her, a massive void swept in, completely filling Ritsuka's heart.
A terrifying numbness had already begun to erode her soul at some point.