"Hahahaha! Who would've thought the goddess Ereshkigal was still alive!"
"Exactly! Hahahaha! And who would've thought she was one of the Three Goddess Alliance, the very culprit behind Kutha's destruction!"
"Hahahahahaha! As expected of my prized disciple! She possesses a vitality every bit as tenacious as my own!"
"Hahahahahaha! Shirou, you've worked hard on your journey through the Underworld! Someone, take his coffin away! Hurry up and get it out of here!"
The awkward laughter of the two men who claimed to possess the highest-ranking Clairvoyance, the Sage and the Wise King, echoed throughout the Divine Tower.
Their laughter sounded conspicuously forced, as though they were trying to cover their embarrassment by laughing as loudly as possible.
After clearing up the misunderstanding, Shirou told everyone about the two and a half months he had spent trapped in the Underworld.
A goddess had once again descended upon Mesopotamia.
She was none other than Ereshkigal, Mistress of the Underworld and one of the Three Goddess Alliance.
She had formally declared war on Uruk, proclaiming that she intended to claim the souls of all humanity as her personal property.
"My Lord, you encountered one of the enemy leaders in the Underworld...!?"
Tomoe Gozen paled at the revelation, her eyes filled with lingering fear and concern.
"King Gilgamesh, why did you never tell us about this?
We had never heard anything about the goddess Ereshkigal!
Had we known a goddess was waiting at our destination, we never would have accepted such a mission in the first place!"
"..."
Faced with the female warrior's relentless questioning, cold sweat poured down Gilgamesh's forehead.
He had only just learned about this himself...
So the source of that strange feeling he had sensed all this time had actually been Ereshkigal!?
"Hmph! Stop making such a fuss over every little thing!
Naturally, this situation was also visible to these all-seeing eyes of mine...
I simply saw that Shirou would be perfectly fine, so I forgot about it immediately after looking into the future."
"...Really?"
"Of course it's true. Isn't that right, Mer... Hey! Get back here! Merlin!"
Gilgamesh grabbed the Magus of Flowers by the back of his robe, stopping Merlin just as he sensed danger and tried to slip away.
Ushiwakamaru sighed.
"These two are completely unreliable, Brother."
Shirou nodded.
"Yeah, you're right... Wait, who are you calling Brother?"
As satisfying as it was to watch Gilgamesh and Merlin squirm, things could become troublesome if this continued long enough to undermine the group's unity and the authority of its leaders.
Shirou decided to bail them out.
"Gilgamesh, there's something else I need to report."
"Oh... Oh! What is it? Let's hear it."
"Enkidu's remains are gone. Just as you suspected, they weren't in the graveyard."
At Shirou's report, an almost imperceptible trace of complicated emotion flashed through Gilgamesh's eyes.
"So that means the Enkidu we've been seeing really is the genuine article?"
During the more than two months Shirou had been away from Uruk, Enkidu had become far more active than before.
Ushiwakamaru, Musashibō Benkei, and Leonidas I had all encountered him by now.
An androgynous, natural beauty, Mana rivaling that of Divine Spirits, and the Authority to command the earth.
Since Enkidu's remains in the Underworld had disappeared, surely they could now conclude that the person they had encountered was truly Enkidu himself.
"..."
Gilgamesh said nothing.
Until he saw that Enkidu with his own eyes, he had no intention of drawing a definite conclusion.
Still, this narrowed the possibilities considerably.
Either Enkidu had truly returned from the dead.
Or something had been born from Enkidu's remains...
"But... how did the goddess Ereshkigal undergo an Awakening?"
Head Priestess Siduri, who had remained silent until now, finally voiced her question.
The goddess Ishtar had been secretly summoned by Uruk's shrine while Gilgamesh was occupied with constructing the Magical Beast Front.
To make the Sky-Soaring Goddess of old rule over this land once more, the priestesses had gone to extraordinary lengths, even sacrificing the life of their High Priestess.
Could the shrine in Kutha have heard about Ishtar and performed a similar Summoning Ritual?
Kutha had been destroyed shortly after the goddess Ishtar was summoned. The timing matched perfectly.
"No. The goddess Ereshkigal wasn't summoned in Kutha."
"What?" Siduri exclaimed in surprise.
Other than Kutha, which worshipped her as its city goddess, what city would willingly summon the terrifying Queen of the Underworld?
"What is it, my Lord?"
Tomoe Gozen noticed Shirou's displeased expression.
The boy frowned.
"This unpleasant feeling... Merlin! Gilgamesh! You two already know the truth, don't you?"
Gilgamesh and Merlin nodded.
Now that they understood the sequence of events, and given their knowledge of Magecraft and the Age of Gods, both had already realized what must have happened.
The Magus of Flowers spoke first.
"The goddess Ereshkigal didn't awaken somewhere else. She awakened right here in Uruk."
"What?"
Siduri stared at him dumbfounded.
Gilgamesh continued.
"Hmph... That is exactly what happened.
When Ishtar was summoned, Ereshkigal was summoned as well. What occurred was a chain summoning."
Thus began the Sage and Wise King's back-and-forth routine.
Merlin said, "I always thought it was strange. Why would the High Priestess who successfully completed the Summoning Ritual suddenly die?
Most likely, Ereshkigal killed her to keep her quiet.
The truth she wanted hidden was simple. The shrine didn't summon one goddess. It summoned two."
Gilgamesh said, "The girl serving as their vessel must possess quite the amusing personality.
Her good and evil aspects were perfectly divided as well. One became the Sky-Soaring Goddess, while the other became the Queen of the Underworld."
Merlin said, "As a goddess of plentiful harvests, Ishtar can be considered an Earth Mother Goddess representing human life.
By contrast, Ereshkigal, who represents human death, is a Mother of Fear.
The two goddesses are two sides of the same coin. They may even have originated from the same Divinity.
A goddess who gives birth to life eventually becoming a goddess who symbolizes death has precedent. Izanami in Japanese mythology is one such example."
Gilgamesh said, "Thus, summoning Ishtar automatically triggers the summoning of Ereshkigal as well.
The two goddesses possessing the same Divinity share a single body.
And conveniently enough, since Ereshkigal is a goddess of the Underworld, she can maintain her existence without a physical body.
That woman has been hiding underground this entire time. That is why she escaped this King's Clairvoyance!"
So he finally admitted he failed to notice Ereshkigal, everyone thought.
"But, my King, that creates another problem."
Exactly.
Ereshkigal had declared herself a member of the Three Goddess Alliance.
Which meant the Three Goddess Alliance now consisted of four goddesses.
How did that make any sense?
"..."
Shirou already had a vague theory.
The idea came from Gilgamesh's earlier explanation that Ishtar and Ereshkigal shared the same body.
In other words...
...
...
After leaving the Divine Tower and returning to the Heroic Spirits' Dormitory, everyone held a grand welcome banquet for Shirou.
It was the first piece of good news they had received in nearly two months.
The Servants had accumulated far too much exhaustion over that time, so for this night alone, they allowed themselves to indulge freely in fine food and drink.
The celebration continued well past midnight.
After putting the completely drunk Ushiwakamaru and Leonidas I to bed and returning Tomoe Gozen, who had stubbornly planted herself on his bed, to her own room, Shirou climbed onto the roof to sober up in the night breeze.
The rooftop terrace of the Heroic Spirits' Dormitory was one of the better viewpoints Shirou had discovered.
It could not compare to the towering grandeur of the Divine Tower, but from here he could take in Uruk's lively nightscape at close range.
Since the Magical Beasts automatically withdrew north to rest after dark, Uruk remained extremely busy even late into the night.
From the rooftop, Shirou could see caravans loaded with weapons leaving the city.
He had expected to enjoy a brief moment alone, but it wasn't long before a familiar voice shattered the peace.
"Hey there, Shirou."
It belonged to the noisiest man in Uruk.
Merlin walked over and stood beside Shirou, joining him in gazing at the nighttime scenery of the ancient fortress city.
"How many days off did King Gilgamesh give you?"
"He said I can rest for as long as I like and still receive my usual pay... Hmm. I'll start with a week."
Merlin looked toward the armory, where white smoke rose into the sky.
"I see... Since we have the opportunity, come outside the city with me tomorrow."
Shirou frowned.
"You bastard, were you even listening to what I just said?"
"You only have yourself to blame, Shirou. Seeing you return alive from the Underworld inspired and moved me so deeply that I've decided to start working seriously tomorrow!"
"Don't pin that on me!" Shirou protested.
Merlin rather awkwardly changed the subject.
"Shirou, do you know about Chaldea?"
"What's that?"
"It's an organization from the twenty-first century you live in, founded by the Lord of the Astronomy Division of the Mage's Association's Clock Tower. Does that make things a little clearer?"
"The Astronomy Division... You mean Animusphere?"
Olga Marie's face appeared in Shirou's mind.
"Exactly."
Merlin nodded solemnly.
"I imagine you've already begun to suspect it yourself.
This era, this Mesopotamia, is not part of the world you and I originally came from. It is a parallel world with a slightly different Human Order."
Cold sweat ran down Shirou's face.
"...Right. I noticed."
Merlin continued.
"In this world, you and I are both outsiders in the truest sense.
And I suspect it isn't just us. That girl who became the vessel for a Divine Spirit is probably from our world as well."
Tohsaka...!?
Shirou's eyes widened.
"Let's call the world where Shirou was born World A. We can also call it Merlin-nii's World.
Then the world where you were active as King Arthur is World B, or Avalon-imouto's World."
Why are you naming worlds after yourself?
Shirou frowned.
He would rather die than say such embarrassing world names aloud in front of anyone else.
"And the world we're currently in is World C, otherwise known as the Chaldea World.
Perhaps Worlds A and C occupy similar phases, which is why everyone summoned into this world seems to come from Merlin-nii's World... Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. Back to Chaldea."
Merlin took a sip of ale.
"In any case, Chaldea is an organization that doesn't exist in Merlin-nii's World.
Officially, their purpose is to resolve a crisis known as the Incineration of Humanity."
Merlin spent the next five minutes explaining the Incineration of Humanity to Shirou.
Unreliable though the man was, he was still Shirou's teacher from another world.
As reluctant as Shirou was to admit it, Merlin's teaching ability and compatibility with him were both excellent.
"So the King of Magecraft is behind everything? He spent three thousand years burning away the entirety of human history..."
Shirou processed the information Merlin had given him.
He had actually learned about Singularities from Aoko and Alice long ago.
However, the Singularities created by the King of Magecraft existed on a vastly greater scale than anything they had encountered before.
With only seven Singularities, the King of Magecraft had wiped out all human life on Earth and erased the entire history of humanity.
And Mesopotamia, now under invasion by the goddesses, was the final and largest Singularity created by the King of Magecraft.
"To stop the King of Magecraft's ambitions and reclaim humanity's future, the final human Magus remaining in this world, the Master of Chaldea, has already crossed six Singularities."
Merlin's voice gradually grew more animated.
Noticing this, Shirou asked curiously, "Don't tell me you've already met them?"
"Hehe. Nothing gets past you."
Merlin nodded.
"In the previous one, the Sixth Singularity, the Holy City of Jerusalem, I had the opportunity to encounter Chaldea's Master and her half-Servant."
The Magus of Flowers launched into an enthusiastic account of the Sixth Singularity.
There, Chaldea's group had encountered a demon calling himself Richard I, a Pharaoh who ruled the scorching desert, and an order of Assassins hidden deep within the mountains.
"Looking back, it was quite the thrilling adventure. Just remembering it gets my blood pumping!
Although, admittedly, I spent most of it quietly watching from the sidelines!"
Chaldea's group encountered danger again and again.
Even so, humanity's final Master and her companions never gave up.
Ultimately, through sheer tenacity, perseverance, and courage, they overcame the Sixth Singularity.
And in only a few days, they would officially arrive in this era.
Realization dawned on Shirou.
"I see. So that's why you asked me to leave the city with you tomorrow..."
"Exactly. Let's get there before our enemies do and greet the saviors from the future first, Shirou."
Merlin waved and left the rooftop terrace.
Early the next morning, Shirou and Merlin departed Uruk.
When they told the others at the dormitory that they would be gone for several days, Tomoe Gozen immediately announced that she intended to accompany her Lord.
Perhaps because she had fully transformed into an oni, she was even harder to reason with than usual.
There were benefits and drawbacks to everything. As a consequence, Tomoe Gozen's mental resistance had weakened.
So Merlin used just a tiny bit of Illusion Arts.
In the dream he wove for her, the female warrior was currently in the kitchen with Shirou, preparing lunch together like a newlywed couple.
It was a wonderful dream.
Unfortunately, even the sweetest dream eventually came to an end.
By the time Tomoe Gozen came back to her senses, Shirou and Merlin had already left the dormitory.
"Merlin...! I will not forgive you!"
Tiny flames flickered around Tomoe Gozen's voluptuous body, and the surrounding air distorted from the intense heat.
"Achoo!"
The Magus walking down the street suddenly sneezed.
"What's wrong?"
"Hm? Did I catch a cold from standing in the night breeze on the rooftop?"
"..."
Though Merlin himself remained blissfully unaware, Shirou's intuition told him one thing with absolute certainty.
When they returned, Tomoe Gozen was going to beat Merlin into a pulp.
...
...
"That bastard Merlin..."
The silver-white blade traced a graceful arc through the sunlight, scattering a trail of dark red blood.
Shirou severed the final Magical Beast's head, then let his weapon dissolve into particles of light.
Ten minutes earlier, Shirou and Merlin had been traveling through the forest when a pack of Magical Beasts attacked them.
"I never imagined the Magical Beasts' territory had already expanded this far! Oh my, how terrifying!
Well then, since Merlin-nii needs to conserve his Mana to fight the goddess, I'll leave the rest to you, Shirou!"
After saying that, the Magus was suddenly enveloped by a swirl of flowers and disappeared.
He had abandoned Shirou alone against an entire horde of Magical Beasts.
"Tsk. Where the hell did he go...?"
After dealing with the attacking Magical Beasts, Shirou wandered through the forest while using his Mystic Eyes to search for any trace of the Magus of Flowers.
Merlin really is useless...
Maybe bringing Tomoe Gozen would've been the right decision after all.
"...Come to think of it, there really aren't many Magical Beasts around here."
Shirou quickened his pace through the forest.
The Mystic Eyes of Detection he was currently using allowed him to sense traces of Mana.
In a way, they functioned as a form of vision into the past, allowing him to perceive residual Mana left behind within the previous twenty-four hours.
Yet strangely enough, the forest Shirou had entered contained almost no traces of Mana at all.
"Hmm...?"
Shirou stopped.
Amid the dense greenery, a girl in a black robe lay motionless on the ground.
She was small, looking no more than ten years old.
Had she been attacked by Magical Beasts!?
Shirou immediately rushed over, lifted the girl into his arms, and turned her over.
Purple hair spilled out from beneath her black hood, framing an adorable face.
She appeared to be around eleven or twelve years old.
The girl was covered in wounds, and her breathing was faint, but at least she was still alive.
"Hey, are you all right? Where are your parents?"
Shirou gently shook her shoulder.
Why was such a young girl alone in a forest infested with Magical Beasts?
Suspicion rose within him, but his instinct to help someone in danger ultimately won out.
At the sound of his voice, the purple-haired girl slowly forced her eyes open.
They were beautiful violet eyes, almost too perfect to be real, reminding Shirou of polished amethysts.
"You're safe now."
Shirou spoke in a calm, reassuring voice.
"I'll treat your wounds. They're mostly superficial, so there's nothing to worry about..."
The girl lying in his arms completely ignored his reassurance and folded both hands over her stomach.
Right on cue, her stomach gave a loud rumble.
"I'm so hungry... I haven't eaten anything for two days..."
The petite purple-haired girl, Medusa, clutched Shirou's clothes tightly and looked up at him with a pitiful expression.