2 The carve for silence, and the wish for hero.

(Ophis P.O.V)

She valued silence. It was only in absolute silence that she felt true comfort.

The Dimensional Gap, a void world between Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld was the only place capable of providing her with such a thing.

At least, that was the case until The Great Red decided to reside in it during the short time she had left the place to sate her curiosity regarding humanity.

She didn't care at first. She believed that she simply needed to find another place.

She had scoured the entire globe for a time.

From the spheres of Heaven to the depths of Hell, from the bustling cities of Earth to the most remote of its regions, she spent countless years finding another that could give her the same absolute silence she once had in the Dimensional Gap.

… But she failed.

She tried every place she found, no matter how strange, but even the locations that had been devoid of life held a hint of a noise that she could detect. A few places came close but never quite brought her the level of comfort she once had.

Slowly, she had come to understand that there was likely no other place that would compare to her old haven.

"Great Red must be defeated."

That was the conclusion she arrived at.

If she couldn't find another place to replace the dimensional gap, she had no choice but to confront The Great Red once again.

If Great Red were defeated and removed from the dimensional gap, she would surely reclaim her precious silence.

However, such a task was easier said than done. The power of her fellow Dragon God was equal to, if not greater than, hers. Though a winner between the two wouldn't truly be clear until she attempted to battle, the problem was that taking action would destroy the one place that she could truly call "home."

Hence, she searched for a different way. She had lived long, and she was patient. She knew she would eventually find something that would either allow her to remove Great Red or find a replacement for the Gap. It didn't matter how long it would take. She would spend centuries and millennia if necessary on this endeavour.

On this lonely endeavour, the only thing that comforted her was what these humans would call "food." It was the only thing she thought was well-made by humanity; food was truly divine, especially these things called sweets; it was the thing that made her see the value of humanity.

Thus food became her sole way to achieve solace in this noisy world, and at some point, it became her hobby to eat different types of food since, as humanity grew, they started discovering more types of food, each delectable in its way.

As time went on, her hope also started to diminish. Time is a cruel thing; it tends to destroy everything as it flows. Though a being such as herself was above the concept of time, she was still affected by its flow, more like her mind.

Until she was startled by a voice from nowhere.

"Do you want peace?" She heard an old raspy voice in her head and tried to locate the source only to discover that the presence of the voice was everywhere around her; it was as if the person speaking to her was omnipresent around her.

She was aware of the concept of higher beings; even though she is strong, she knows there are still beings who could crush her, so she merely thought it was someone of a higher order speaking to her.

But a question was asked of her, which she decided to answer nonetheless.

"Yes."

"Do you want food?" The voice asked again.

"Yes."

"Ok then, take this; it will make your wish come true; all you need to do is perform a summoning ritual with this as a catalyst," the voice said, and suddenly, out of thin air, a red robe materialised and fell near her, and the presence around her completely vanished.

Picking up the garment, she looked at it curiously, and as she did, a name and an image came to her mind.

[Unlimited Blade Works]

She could still see it vividly.

A world had been born from powerful words and a burst of flames.

It was a surreal world. She'd been to a lot of places before, but nothing had ever compared to this.

No, the dimensional gap could not match the world she had seen.

The ground was cracked and barren, unlikely to be capable of nurturing any life. Dust and iron forging covered the ground as if they were responsible for nurturing it. Countless human weapons seemed to serve as the inhabitants of the world.

They stood imposingly as they were planted vertically on the barren land. Some of them held power, some did not, and others simply remained incomprehensible.

Then there was the sky.

Unlike the ever-changing colours of the sky of the Dimensional Gap, the sky of the world of blades was completely blocked by the human-made contraptions whose names she couldn't recall. On top of that, a thick haze obscured the view further and made it seem like the sky was brewing up a storm.

Beyond all that, however, was the fact that the world of infinite blades held the one thing she craved.

….Silence.

Dimensional Gap felt tumultuous in comparison to the immaculate, pure silence.

She felt so peaceful in the silence that she could close her eyes and sleep for the rest of eternity.

It was perfect beyond all measure. It was a world where she could remain without complaining.

Right then and there, she decided that she would never allow herself to leave that world, as she had with the dimensional gap.

And it was held within the soul of this mortal, and his name was...

"Shirou Emiya."

=====

"What would you like to eat, master?" Emiya asked as she materialised a pair of kitchen utensils and necessities with his projection magic.

"Mapo Tofu." A monotonous voice was heard, but a hint of excitement could be heard in the voice.

While the ingredients were summoned by his master herself, he didn't know how, but this girl has summoned a metric tonne of spices that he asked her for out of nowhere; it nearly gave him a heart attack seeing this.

He was aware of storage magecraft, but it has serious limitations on how much you could store, and they would still feel degradation over time. But this seemed fresh as if they were just harvested, and this girl literally threw a metric tonne and asked if it was enough.

Doesn't that mean she has more of it? This is already on the level of true magic, and something on this level is used for something as mundane as storage. If the magi association ever heard of this, they would go extinct by coughing up blood.

???

"I guess it's better not to think about this." The hiss of the oil as he gently threw tofu on the pan resounded in the small room they were in, thought EMIYA and began cooking the food she had requested.

He lowered the heat just a bit before getting a pinch of salt and spices and sprinkling them on the tofu. Seeing that the white was already set on the bottom and was turning golden brown, he quickly and deftly took the spatula and flipped it over.

Before the minute was over, he took the tofu out and mixed it in with the gravy he already prepared, which was made of fermented bean paste, beef, plenty of red-hot roasted chilli oil, and a handful of Sichuan peppercorns.

Putting it in a bowl, he served the hungry girl; the prepared mapo tofu was enough for at least 10 people, but it was something that would barely satisfy this girl for a few hours before she annoyed him to make her a different dish.

The second he was done, the girl had begun eating with the speed and ferocity of a certain blonde king.

Emiya sighed to himself as she sat down on the makeshift stone sofa. He closed his eyes and thought that it had been a month since he was summoned into this world. And it was unlike any of his previous summons; this was a completely new world, unlike anything he had ever seen.

A place where the age of gods never ended, where gods, magical and phantasmal species still walk among humans There were many times EMIYA was summoned in the age of gods, but this was the first time he was ever summoned in the world where the age of gods was continuing with the age of man.

According to his theory, EMIYA suspects that this is a completely parallel world that has no connection to his previous world.

This is both good and bad, considering he is completely out of the influence of Alaya at this point, and speaking of Alaya, the influence of Gaia is almost non-existent on this planet; though the world does have some sort of will, it is enough to the point of categorising it as an entity.

His projection's degradation has been significantly reduced to the point where it is negligible; his projections would still vanish after some time, but that time period is practically infinite, so his projections can last indefinitely.

The second part is a bit interesting since all his skills received a direct rank up, both his personal skills and class skills, thus a lot of new memories entered his mind out of nowhere. It was so surprising to the point that it was concerning. EMIYA was a third-rate magus during his lifetime; he spent nearly all of his life learning magecraft yet barely learned anything. Now he suddenly feels like he would easily be placed at some point on the lower end of a first-rate, which is a colossal improvement.

His magecraft rank went from (C-) to (B+), and heck, even his magic resistance went from (D) to (C+). It means all his basic magic skills, such as reinforcement, alteration, and even projection, have been somewhat increased, though not much because he himself refined what little he had to the point where he couldn't perfect it anymore.

But still, now he feels like he could reinforce himself a little more and maybe even project better-quality noble phantasms, which would still be inferior to the original one but would be horrendous as a whole rank down.

This alone has shocked EMIYA beyond belief, but it didn't end here; his parameters also received a boost, by a rank.

EMIYA thinks there are two main factors that caused this: first, his current vessel is not like the usual vessel, which is made up of magic; rather, his current body is made of living flesh and blood, which means he is a literal living servant with all capabilities of a servant, and the second reason is the high density of mana in the atmosphere.

EMIYA sighed again as she watched the little girl eat like there was no tomorrow, to think she is a dragon god, the god of the strongest phantasmal species, who literally will not die and has infinite mana.

So to sum things up, he is bound to an OP little loli for eternity. This is truly a new chapter in his pathetic life.