In the Japanese-style room of the Fujimura house, the warm yellow light slightly softened the cold atmosphere.
Seven people crowded around the low table. The heat from the tea rose, and no one except Fujimaru Ritsuka took a sip of the tea or the refreshments on the table.
The people who had narrowly escaped death on the streets of Fuyuki either had vacant eyes or dull expressions, still frantically digesting the unbelievable information about the "Galactic Empire," the "Emperor of Mankind," and the "Future Heroic Spirits."
For Matou Shinji, who hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, after hearing what had just happened from the others, his entire being was in a state of shattered disbelief. It was like reading a novel where the first chapter was "I want to make friends at my new school," and the Nth chapter was "I am the Master of Humanity and the Emperor of the Universe."
This couldn't even be called a contrast anymore. It was as if the author hadn't woken up and had mixed up the contents of two books.
Therefore, he slapped the low table with a "smack," suspecting they were joking: "Hey, Emperor of the Universe?? Locke?? You must be joking, right? This joke isn't funny, you say! Don't look at me like that! I'm scared!"
Ilya quietly knelt to the side, holding a warm cup of tea in both hands, her small head lowered. The appearance of the female demon who had previously bared her teeth and claws had vanished, leaving only a slightly dazed yet unrelaxed demeanor. She quietly asked:
"Then... do we continue our Holy Grail War?"
"There's no point in winning, Ilya-chan."
Fujimaru Ritsuka kicked her legs and ate the refreshments, her tone that of someone who had things under control.
"The Holy Grail of your timeline has been corrupted. Whatever you wish for will come true in a very bad way. There's no need for it. If you like the Holy Grail that much, I'll give you one another day."
Matthew: "Senior! You can't do that! It's forbidden!"
"I can't take this anymore!" Rin Tohsaka suddenly slapped the low table, making the cups clatter. She pointed at Fujimaru Ritsuka with a frantic face. "Who the hell are you?! A golden flash suddenly burst from the sky, and you just logically sat down at our tea party?!"
"Huh? Didn't the armored old man who seemed to be predicting just now report my arrival?" Fujimaru Ritsuka patted her chest with a confident, proud face. "I am the Master of Humanity, Fujimaru Ritsuka! I'm here especially to wipe your butts and solve the problems in this world!"
Matou Shinji immediately stood up, his eyes wide. "Wait? Our world? Are there other worlds? No, my headache is getting worse!"
Matou Sakura, who had been silently huddled in the corner, gently tugged on Shinji's sleeve, a hint of shyness and anxiety at the corners of her eyes, and quietly asked: "Then, Shinji-nii... what happened to Senior Locke?"
"No! What are you focusing on?!" Rin Tohsaka looked at the group, who had automatically accepted the setting and completely ignored her inner turmoil. The blue veins at the corners of her forehead twitched violently. "Why aren't you on guard against this person of unknown origin at all?! Could you be a little more normal?!"
"Alright, alright, don't argue." Fujimaru Ritsuka cleared her throat and finally assumed a serious posture. "Since you're all confused, the Last Master will show great mercy and explain everything to you from beginning to end!"
Over the next half hour, Fujimaru Ritsuka, relying on real-time synchronized information from the Chaldea background and the precise data of the wise king Gilgamesh, who was leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed, clearly explained the rules of singularities and the pruning mechanism of human reason to everyone.
The entire room was dizzy from the sheer volume of information. Shirou Emiya held his cup and said solemnly: "So... originally, Locke had nothing to do with us, and this Fuyuki...?"
"Theoretically, yes." Fujimaru Ritsuka collapsed onto a cushion, scratching her head in frustration. "We don't understand what went wrong with the connection. Among the hundreds of normal world lines recorded in Chaldea, we've never heard of the person 'Fujimura Locke.'"
The wise king Gilgamesh, leaning against the pillar with his arms crossed, added unhurriedly:
"However, there are only two ways to summon future Servants across time and space."
"Either it was an anomaly caused by this singularity itself. Or these guys originally came from other parallel universes. That is, this child himself may not be the cause of this singularity's formation."
"But the future in which this future Servant resides is too far away. So far that it is completely beyond the control of human reason."
As soon as these words fell, Red A, who had been standing by the kitchen sliding door and silently listening, finally frowned and said in a cold voice:
"Indeed. If such a human empire spanning half the galaxy truly exists, why have I, as a guardian of the Counter Force, never seen or even perceived such a time and space?"
"And we live in this era, not the future, which shows that this very era is wrong. Perhaps the future itself is a non-existent possibility."
Faced with his doubts, Gilgamesh looked up and glanced around. Based on the clues received from his other "self," he put forward a hypothesis that shook everyone's hearts:
"Then let me ask, what if this future is a world that humanity should recognize and is absolutely correct?"
Red A's face instantly darkened, his brows furrowed, and he couldn't imagine such a possibility at all.
"The concept of human reason—I don't need to go into detail, do I?" The wise king Gilgamesh glanced at him, his tone calm but touching the core. "Humanity will prune unnecessary parallel worlds and erase incorrect developmental paths so that the history of human civilization can continue with the greatest probability."
"And those temporal nodes deemed necessary will be fixed as fixed quantum record strips. But the fixation of the human foundation is a hundred years from now."
"Their future, however, spans a full forty thousand years."
Recalling the images of the future that his "self" in this world had transmitted to him through clairvoyance, Gilgamesh was always inclined to believe in that future.
As soon as these words fell, the intelligent people at the table instantly grasped the deeper meaning of his words, but felt a chill run down their spines—this had long since transcended the ordinary logic of human reason and was completely unreasonable.
Red A, on the contrary, thought further and almost immediately understood what Gilgamesh was trying to express. His Adam's apple bobbed, and his voice was very tense:
"You mean..."
"Correct." Gilgamesh decisively interrupted him, his crimson eyes flashing with a sharp light that could see through everything. "If their future is real, then looking at all the boundaries of the world, which human civilization could go further than this future? Perhaps the people of that world have already broken free from the shackles of the primate seat, abandoned planetary prohibitions and human reason, and established their own unique 'Humanity Principle.'"
The more he thought about it, the more he felt this was the only answer that could make sense. So that was it. Only this could explain why humanity could suddenly conquer the Star Sea—because they had long since ceased to be bound by the planet's rules and used their own Humanity Principle to firmly establish the rules of the entire world.
He paused, and his voice was full of certainty, confirmed by his other "self" on the banks of the Fuyuki River:
"If my other half guesses correctly, this Humanity Principle, which has spanned the Star Sea for forty thousand years, is what they believe in—the 'Imperial Truth.'"
Although Gilgamesh's statement was very bold and even a bit absurd, they still wanted to hear this romantic story belonging to the future—humanity conquering the galaxy.
"If we follow the original, normal trajectory of human reason, perhaps this Fuyuki Holy Grail War would not have caused any waves."
"It would not summon Servants. You would simply follow your predetermined fate and complete this battle belonging to magi. And we would not appear here."
Gilgamesh's voice gradually grew deeper, and he word for word laid out his conjectures to everyone.
"But this Holy Grail changed him. He wanted to fulfill an absolutely unattainable dream. He wanted to end all the suffering in the world. And he thought the way to do all of this was to go with time—he forged himself into an immortal."
"Immortal?"
"Almost. But no one knows what means he used to achieve it. I only know the memories of those Space Marines, but their history is completely different from ours, and it may not even be true. I can only be incomplete."
"A hundred years later, under someone's leadership, human science and technology made an explosive leap and shattered the mysterious barrier with absolute power."
"Countless miracles, once considered magic, were reduced to commonplace sorcery. People broke free from the gravity of their home planet and first stepped into the Star Sea, making interstellar voyages."
"Another hundred years, and human footprints had circled every planet in the solar system. Along with this came desperate battles with the wills of the major planets and the highest life forms of the planets—the UOs."
"And under the protection of the Immortal, it took humanity a full ten thousand years to break the shackles of every planet in the galaxy and defeat the wills of all the planets and their UOs. The rules belonging to humanity surpassed the original laws of the stars themselves for the first time."
"At this point, humanity had completely conquered the stars and firmly held the fate of their race in their own hands. Immediately after, they embarked on a powerful journey across the entire galaxy."
"Over the next ten thousand years, humanity conquered planet after planet using 'subspace' faster-than-light navigation technology. The banner of humanity was planted across the galaxy, and a human federation was established across the Star Sea."
"This was the golden age of humanity. Technology reached unprecedented levels, with powerful artificial intelligence, miraculous genetic engineering, and even the creation of a mechanical race called the 'Iron Men.' But suddenly, a disaster struck—the Iron Men Rebellion, which shattered all of human civilization."
"As if a leak in the roof coincided with a night rain, the subspace that had once supported humanity's navigation of the Star Sea suddenly caused a terrifying storm that swept across the galaxy. Human colonies scattered across the galaxy were instantly plunged into desperate isolation and helplessness. The federation across the Star Sea collapsed, and the golden age completely ended."
"But the Dark Age was the true beginning of everything. The subspace storm tore apart the connections between people. The local laws of the planets once again suppressed human authority. Countless colonized planets turned into wastelands, and the world became a purgatory."
"And... and... and..."
He suddenly stopped, frowning, and realized he couldn't remember the name that ran through the entire forty-thousand-year history. It seemed he had always used "he" as a pronoun, until Fujimaru Ritsuka saw his strangeness and helped him come up with the name:
"Locke."
"Yes." Gilgamesh instantly came to, a heavy resolve in his voice. "And Locke, it was during this dark period that he laid all the foundations for his final plan."
"By the fortieth millennium, Locke, who had remained on Terra, led his Thunder Warriors to destroy all the warlords on Earth and reunite humanity's home planet over decades. The rules of human beings were once again strengthened by him and re-laid in all corners of the galaxy."
"Subsequently, he reclaimed the solar system, created the Geneseed and the Space Marines, and after full preparation, embarked on the 'Great Crusade' that spanned the entire galaxy."
"He wanted to reunite all the scattered human colonies, restore the glory of humanity, and create a human empire across the galaxy."
"And in the Great Crusade, it was the Astartes Legion that helped him destroy the will of the planets, kill the UOs, and travel across the Star Sea, revered by all humanity as the 'Angels of the Emperor.'"
He raised his eyes and swept his gaze over everyone present, and his voice suddenly paused:
"—That is, the heroes who fought you just now are future heroes from forty thousand years hence."
Gilgamesh's words cut off, and an absolute dead silence instantly fell over the room. Even the Chaldea command room, which should have been noisy and bustling at the other end of Fujimaru Ritsuka's wrist device, fell into a long silence.
Because everyone clearly realized at this moment:
Regardless of the truth of this story, the inheritance rules of primates, the iron laws of human reason, and whether this power recognizes these rules—this future, which would allow humanity to break free from the shackles of its home planet and the stars, firmly hold the fate of the race in its own hands, and span a forty-thousand-year Star Sea, might be the most complete and most suitable future for the human race.
At the same time, Gilgamesh was even more curious: what kind of deal had his other "self" made with this man (he could no longer remember the name), and what did the so-called best future mean?
Could he truly do what even the gods could not? Turn the impossible into reality?