Chapter 80: Before the Destruction of the Meat Processing Plant
Time returns to several hours ago, at the meat processing plant.
A cold room, holding stagnant underground air that hadn't been properly ventilated. The walls, radiating a chill, were stained red with fresh blood.
The blood came from a man's body. Specifically, it seeped from the numerous bullet holes riddling his frame. His eyes were wide open, his limbs sprawled in paralysis, and he was as cold as the basement itself.
He was dead.
However, the true cause of death was not the bullet holes, but his neck, which was twisted sharply to the right. Curiously, there were no bruises on the neck indicating external force had lunged his head aside—it looked as though he had snapped his own spine by wrenching his head to the right himself. Even if presented to the public, this would remain an unsolved mystery.
But the one who had taken his life stood right beside him.
The Magus of "Dominant System," Buzzdilot, stood with a gloomy face facing the wall. His gaze was not on the stiffened man, but seemed to be fixed on the wall itself.
"You killed him."
Alcides' voice came from behind. The gaunt giant descended the only staircase leading to this room and entered. He saw the state of the corpse at a glance, but his expression did not change.
"Naturally," Buzzdilot replied calmly. "Had he been recovered intact, his skills with firearms might have been marginally worth continuing to use. But for this fellow to be shot by Faldeus's sniper to the point where even healing magecraft is a waste... then being refined into a mana crystal is his only remaining value."
"He was never going to complete the task you expected of him," Alcides said.
It wasn't that he was indifferent, but for an act of speaking up for the wronged, his attention lingered for too short a time. His words contained neither belittlement nor praise; it seemed he was merely providing a just evaluation of the man who was once alive, out of habit.
Immediately, he stopped looking at the corpse.
"You made your move after all."
Hearing this, the Master, Buzzdilot, turned to face his Servant. Both he and Alcides remained expressionless; for a moment, the scene became a farcical spectacle of seeing who could maintain their poker face longer.
At the end of the confrontation, Buzzdilot pulled his gloves back on and replied, "I have no reason not to act."
"But you did not defeat him."
"And what of it? The first step in killing a man is to test his measure."
Buzzdilot spoke with a gaze far colder and harsher than that of a professional assassin:
"If normal methods cannot kill the target, switch to the abnormal. If abnormal methods cannot kill, switch to the heretical. There must eventually be a material that can cause a crack in a glass bottle, and once the bottle shatters, the water within will spill everywhere."
As if stating the accumulated experience of a killer, his entire being was shrouded in an aura of death far more intense than usual—one that felt almost physical.
Yet, under the powerful pressure naturally released by Alcides in a mere breath, this aura appeared insignificant.
Alcides looked down silently at his Master for a moment, and then he understood—his Master was completely blind to what he himself could see.
"...No."
"..."
Hearing the Heroic Spirit negate him, Buzzdilot did not show any sign of resistance. Although he had reached a transcendent level in regulating his own heart, he fundamentally lacked the right to resist. To obtain the Avenger, Alcides, he had already exhausted all three of his Command Spells.
"Respectable humans are not the most dangerous. He is merely the signpost guiding karmic bonds to this place."
Since the encounter that day, his intuition, his reason, and even his flesh had been sounding alarms; with every passing day, the sense of pain deepened.
The most dangerous person was not Shirou Emiya.
"Though toxins are mixed within, the lethal element is someone else. That person..."
She was—
Reddish-black patterns spread from the blind spots. A rustling, despairing sound. It was not a scene from reality. Then, it must be a dream from somewhere. A sense of déjà vu that Alcides should not be seeing.
Alcides spoke with absolute certainty: "We can no longer allow their attention to be directed toward us."
Countless lines extended through the void. Even with the Command Spell "Recall the [Humans] you have witnessed," Alcides could not perceive this phantom.
However, the reality of the Black Mud continued to remind Alcides, allowing him to identify the traces of things, much like confirming the existence of light-devouring nothingness by observing the indirect effects of a black hole. The Black Mud was indicating—We like 'her' more than you. Always.
"It is merely an intuition. The ones holding the initiative and the right to hunt have not been us from the very beginning."
The useless dregs that violated the rules of the Holy Grail War had long ago been sealed at the bottom of the sea. Even if this Holy Grail War itself was an anomaly, and an "anomaly of anomalies" was theoretically possible, Alcides had no right to dig it up.
—Even if her arrival itself was stimulating the records of this solution within Alcides, intending to complete the duplication of those memories.
Regardless... that sense of déjà vu remained.
Black Mud flowed through the veins—making it easy to control. A roar. It belonged to ■■■■. There were things required. Until the very end.
The content of the speech was irrelevant to Alcides. But since there was a roar, there was likely someone who killed it, and the person who wanted to.
Alcides woke from the phantom without expression, searching for "those two," attempting to snipe from beyond visual range, but they were without flaws; he actually couldn't find their location. Alcides knew the situation should be the same for them, but with each passing day, the signs of the shifting situation began to tilt further.
Even the reason was unclear.
Alcides' instinctive understanding was... if there ever came a day of battle, the "toxic" her and the "lethal" her would likely not take the field. However, even without deploying those two, it seemed they still believed the victory conditions could be met.
Regarding their terrifying nature, Alcides did not harbor the slightest bit of contempt; on the contrary, he took it very seriously. The reaction of his alertness was at an all-time high.
"A piece of the puzzle is still missing. They lack a person who can provide them with my location and the information to swap out my Noble Phantasm, [King's Order/Reincarnation Pandora]. If they gather both simultaneously and are then targeted by their entire group..."
Alcides calmly stated the conclusion:
"—At the very least, I will use all my trump cards to ensure we are not the first to exit."
In a rare display, Buzzdilot looked up with an expression of disbelief, his brow furrowed. "Your evaluation of the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh, was that you were evenly matched."
The sentence had an underlying meaning.
And the monster Heroic Spirit understood that meaning, responding flatly: "Therefore, they are a group of terrifying individuals who must be killed in a single strike."
As always, the monster Heroic Spirit would only give a just and humble evaluation. He then fell silent and spoke no more. Like an arrow already nocked and ready to pierce the opponent at any moment. Even if he didn't understand the enemy's schemes, the battle-hardened monster was already prepared to welcome them—and to pierce the center of their brow the instant they were welcomed.
Outside the loop of the situation, Buzzdilot, feeling Alcides' attitude lacked foundation, wanted to say something, but he was interrupted by another voice.
"Is that so? You think they are more terrifying than me?"
Someone was entering the room. The sound of footsteps on the hard concrete—tap, tap—rang out. Even though Alcides could not see the figure, when he heard the rhythmic, melodic sound, he realized: this melody was "beautiful."
Alcides turned to look.
A beautiful woman with snow-colored hair stood behind him, her strands floating in mid-air like silver threads. Even further behind her, a timid girl followed her step-for-step.
"It seems quite interesting, but as expected, there is only one answer I want to hear. After all, I am actually very jealous."
"Are you saying 'a goddess is jealous'?"
Alcides let out a breath. He cast aside distracting thoughts, the corner of his mouth hooking upward as he said:
"Then, go and compare your jealousy with the goddess Hera; thereafter, you shall be jealous of her jealousy, until you can no longer feel envy at all."
Read ahead (60 chapters) by supporting me on buymeacoffee com/varietl or ko-fi edwriting