That night, in a corner of the Matou residence.
In a room that had never been used—because the Matou line had always been thin—and which even Zouken hadn't bothered to infest with bugs, making it "clean" by Baiye's standards…
Sakura, still deeply shaken by being dragged into the worm pit on her first day as a Matou, slept heavily under the blanket.
By the bedside, Baiye sat in a chair, passing time with a book he'd found in the Matou library—something related to the Holy Grail of Fuyuki.
Heroic Spirits… Servants… Huh. So they kept this trick too?
Turning to a certain page, Baiye let out a soft sound of surprise—unexpected, but on reflection, it made perfect sense.
Over a century ago, the Einzbern family and Zouken—then still Makiri Zolgen—had come to Japan to avoid Church scrutiny and Association attention, persuading the local landowner, Nagato Tohsaka, to cooperate.
The three parties created the system known as the Holy Grail War to pursue their wishes.
The Tohsaka provided the land.
The Einzbern built the Grail system.
Zolgen completed the system that summoned Servants.
That was each house's contribution when the first Grail War began.
Besides the land-providing Tohsaka, the other two had both helped build the core system—meaning they possessed ways to tamper with it.
For example:
In the Third Grail War, the Einzbern illegally summoned Avenger—Angra Mainyu—leading to the Grail being tainted by "All the World's Evils."
And in the Fourth Grail War set to begin in one year, because the Matou's intended Master was abysmally poor quality, Zouken had them add an incantation during summoning to force the Servant into Berserker—trading sanity for raw stats. Afterward, he even used recovered Grail fragments to cultivate an incomplete Lesser Grail.
Baiye already knew all that.
What he hadn't expected—
Was that Zouken also possessed six other "class-designation" incantations matching the Berserker one, capable of designating each of the six orthodox classes.
Just the content on this single page made Baiye feel like—setting aside the satisfaction of saving Sakura—killing Zouken had more than paid for itself.
…Hm? Who's @'ing me?
He opened the group chat interface.
It was late, but the group was lively.
"Newbie": [Let's see who's awake at this hour and still @'ing people.jpg]
"Cancer of the Earth": Uh… Baiye-san, are you already in bed? [awkward.jpg]
"Newbie": Not really. Just firing a line. It is pretty late on my side. /side-eye grin
"Cancer of the Earth": Emmmm… it's late here too.
"Cancer of the Earth": Okay, business.
"Cancer of the Earth": Find the highlight, find the highlight~ [photo.jpg]
"Newbie": …?
Baiye opened the image.
It was Chika Fujiwara in pajamas—clearly a selfie.
But within her selfie, Baiye saw another member of the group…
Utaha Kasumigaoka—also in pajamas.
Then Chika explained what the group had discovered while Baiye was busy in the Matou library.
"Cancer of the Earth": We tested the "active request for help" part of [Tasks]. The system's judgment is ridiculously loose.
"Cancer of the Earth": Like, say I lift my foot to take a step, but I'm worried I might trip. I can post a help task asking someone to steady me. The reward can be just "thank you."
"Cancer of the Earth": After the task is posted, since the accepter obviously can't reach across worlds to hold me up, the system asks whether they want to teleport to the task world—my world.
"Newbie": Got it. Use "active help request" as a "world portal."
"Cancer of the Earth": Bingo~ exactly!
"Newbie": Nice.
"Newbie": I mean, once we knew it connected worlds, physical travel was always plausible. I just assumed it would be a paid feature separate from Enhancement—like 100 points per teleport or something.
"Cancer of the Earth": Gah…!
"Cancer of the Earth": I mean, crossing worlds is a miracle. Even 100 points—just three months of sign-ins—would still be cheap. But now that you say it…
"Cancer of the Earth": Being able to teleport for free is so good. [relieved.jpg]
"Youkai Sage": [Group Prompt: Bug report for "Tasks" received. Rules modified: "When posting a task, the poster must set the maximum number of participants in advance and pay a teleportation fee of 100 points per participant."]
"Cancer of the Earth": ?!
"Cancer of the Earth": Yu-ka-ri. Sa-n!!!
"Cancer of the Earth": Don't suddenly pop up like that and scare people!!!
"Youkai Sage": Ehehe☆~
"Cancer of the Earth": (.｀'?'.)
"Youkai Sage": Okay, okay. Joking aside.
"Youkai Sage": Now that we've found this, whether the system left an opening on purpose or will patch it later—at least right now we can use [Tasks] to go to other worlds.
"Youkai Sage": So while it's still free… how about we pick a time and meet offline?
"Kasumigaoka Utaha": Fine by me. School went on break a few days ago. I'm free for about a month—until April's new term starts. You decide.
"Cancer of the Earth": Same, same.
"Esdeath": Anytime works for me.
"Youkai Sage": Then… what do you say, little brother? @Newbie
"Newbie": There's a "me" in this?
"Youkai Sage": Why wouldn't there be? You're in the group too.
"Youkai Sage": Like Chika-chan said before: out of countless worlds and countless sapient beings, the fact that we were chosen by this group is a kind of fate. If it's fate, then—if you don't mind—think of everyone here as friends.
"Youkai Sage": If we're friends, how could we meet up and leave you out?
"Newbie": True, but… I just joined today.
"Newbie": If I'm not mistaken, even the most recent member before me—Esdeath—joined over half a year ago, right?
"Kasumigaoka Utaha": Uh… that's true.
"Kasumigaoka Utaha": We've known each other over a year, and Esdeath about half a year. If it were me right after joining, I probably wouldn't dare attend a cross-world meetup.
"Cancer of the Earth": Then how about we just start a live stream for Baiye-san so he can still feel involved?
"Newbie": That's not necessary. I'm mainly worried that a newcomer who doesn't know you yet might mess with the vibe.
"Newbie": If you don't mind that, count me in.
"Youkai Sage": Great~ unanimous vote.
"Youkai Sage": Since everyone's free right now… shall we do it without delay?
"Cancer of the Earth": Sure.
"Kasumigaoka Utaha": +1
"Esdeath": +1
"Newbie": +1
"Youkai Sage": Okay then… next agenda item: Baiye-kun's world is inconvenient in every possible sense. So out of the remaining four worlds, which one should be our first meetup location?
-------
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