"Eh? Looking for the whereabouts of my other self?"
Just as Rei and Angelica over there reached some sort of consensus and awareness to confront the three Fairy Knights and Artoria Caster.
To swiftly halt Naoki's actions, Aoko and the others also quickly launched their plan. After Ayaka returned, they sent representatives to ask Naoki—Atalanta and Gray.
"Yes, you should know."
"I can, but why are you looking for him?"
Hearing Naoki's counter-question, Atalanta conveyed the previously agreed-upon reason: "He disappeared after using Displacement Magecraft to send us all here. Now we find it suspicious, so we want to bring him back and question him properly."
"Is that so..."
Naoki raised an eyebrow, and his eyes quickly scanned the two.
(Not lying, but not the whole reason either. No other thoughts in their hearts, purely for this purpose...)
"Wait a moment."
After saying that, Naoki waved his hand and opened a large projected map in the air. It seemed similar to the technology used by Chaldea. Judging by the outline, what was displayed in the projection was the entirety of Britain, the Fairy Nation.
"This is?"
"A terminal for the surveillance Magecraft I use—after all, this is Magecraft for monitoring the whole of Britain. If I were on the throne, it would be fine. But when I'm not on the throne, I can't grasp all information at once, so I need an auxiliary Mystic Code like this."
(Eh? That means...)
(Brother can only manage the entire Britain in a unified way when he's on the throne?)
"Yes, just as you thought."
Atalanta and Gray were slightly surprised to hear Naoki suddenly utter that sentence, then immediately reacted—their minds were being read again.
"Hey, stop reading our minds all the time! It makes us uncomfortable."
"The me now cannot trust you. Reading minds is necessary. Besides, this is essentially a semi-automatically used Magecraft. Once activated, unless I turn it off, it will keep operating."
Naoki's explanation left the two somewhat speechless.
Gray let out a small sigh: "Brother has truly become an incredible Magus. I remember before, Brother only knew a few simple Magecrafts, only Summoning Magecraft was exceptionally powerful."
"Summoning Magecraft...." Naoki's fingers paused for a moment. "I rarely use it now. If you hadn't mentioned it, I almost forgot."
"Eh? Why?"
"Because it's not needed."
Naoki pointed outside: "The targets of my Summoning Magecraft are fairies and Elementals. But in this Fairy Nation, usable fairies are everywhere. I don't need Summoning Magecraft to make them submit... Moreover, there's no situation that requires me to summon conceptual Elementals."
Conceptual Elementals.
That is, the Elementals summoned by Naoki in the battles against Tiamat and Goetia. Because it was unknown if they existed, he established the concept of their existence, then forcibly materialized that assumption. The Elementals born from that process.
For example, the Solar Star Elemental during the fight against Goddess Tiamat, and the Time Elemental during the fight against Goetia—both were conceptual Elementals, Elementals imagined by Naoki.
(The Summoning Magecraft that was so helpful to Brother before has now become a nearly forgotten Magecraft? In a way, he hasn't changed, but in another way, he has changed, Brother.)
Gray felt a little sad.
"..."
After reading Gray's thoughts, Naoki's hand movements paused again for a moment. He stared at his hand for quite a while, as if hesitant, then placed his hand on Gray's head and gently stroked it.
"Eh?"
"The me from before did this." Naoki withdrew his hand. "Even though I have no real emotions, my memories tell me that when you look sad, it's best to pat your head like this. But I only knew you were a little sad after reading your mind. If I was presumptuous, I apologize."
"No, not at all."
Gray's cheeks flushed slightly, she lowered her head with a smile: "Thank you, Brother. You really haven't changed."
"Perhaps. I myself don't know if I've changed or not—I've found him, my other self."
Enlarging the map image in front and focusing on southwestern Britain, Naoki pointed to a city on the map and said: "Here is Salisbury, the headquarters of the Wind Clan. My other self is here."
The Wind Clan.
One of the six great clans of the Fairy Nation. All clan members are fairies with beautiful appearances. Their clan leader, Aurora, is also a rare, beautiful fairy.
If judged solely by beauty, within all of Britain, Aurora's appearance should rank within the top ten.
Even so—
"That place is probably the most disgusting place in Britain." said Naoki. "Perhaps the saying 'a bad leader leads to bad followers' applies. To outsiders who don't know, that place does look beautiful, but fundamentally, it's gold on the outside, trash on the inside."
"Brother says that... Is it that bad?"
Naoki nodded: "You probably already know that every year I gather a thousand fairies from across Britain to extract their Mana. Actually, those thousand fairies are the thousand most deserving of death that I filter out after observing through surveillance Magecraft."
"And Aurora, the leader of the Wind Clan, I select every year, torture and kill her thousands of times before releasing her, letting her revive."
One could call it a grudge. Among the six great clan leaders, Aurora is the one Naoki hates the most.
Beheading, poison, burning, drowning, dismemberment, decay, slicing, disembowelment... Every year he would use every method he could think of on Aurora—this lasted for about fifteen hundred years.
After all, no matter how great the hatred, after lasting that long, it no longer held much feeling. So, since five hundred years ago, even though Aurora was still on the list, Naoki no longer used methods like before, instead letting her undergo the unified extraction process like the other fairies.
"By the way, do you want to go capture him yourselves, or should I have someone bring him back? If you want to go yourselves, I can arrange escorts."
"Regarding that... we'll go ourselves." said Atalanta after a moment's thought. "It's not good to linger here too long. Besides, we also want to see the Fairy Nation under your rule with our own eyes. After all, we only heard descriptions from your other self, perhaps not very realistic—Sorry for disturbing you. We'll take our leave, Gray."
"Alright. Then we'll be going, Brother. Hope we meet again."
After saying that, Gray and Atalanta left together.
Watching them leave, Naoki put away the map terminal.
(Reality, huh... The content told by my other self is one hundred percent real, Atalanta, Gray.)
(Perhaps not a single fairy in all of Britain doesn't hate me.)
(Rather, I didn't expect my other self to seek them out—)
Naoki recalled the situation in Salisbury he had just seen through surveillance Magecraft.
It was a scene of Naoki Number Two talking with two women dressed like warriors on the streets.
(So, you will also join the forces opposing me?)
(Miyamoto Musashi, Tomoe Gozen.)