Chapter 94: Bounty Quest in Another World

Hidden inside the paradise-like prison, an observer of fate trapped inside his prison caused by his own undoing. There he has been observing humanity since the day he was trapped till the very last moment of humanity.

"Something isn't right… what played out is different from the path I had foreseen. Something is bending fate from the correct path… but who? How can this slip my detection?"

Question and more questions yet no conclusion can be reached.

"Tch! Is there nothing I could do?" The observer biting his thumb trying his best thinking of a way. There has to be one.

"Going there isn't an option. There is no way for me to compete against Beast I in magecraft. Swordsmanship isn't gonna help either since his third noble phantasm is enough to exterminate me. Though, it's not a bad deal either…"

"Haah…"

There is nothing that came to his mind. Helpless he was imprisoned inside the tower surrounded by a utopia. All he could do is simply watch helplessly and hope, pray that Alaya can do something.

He chuckled at his own thoughts. Praying? To Alaya? Funniest joke he ever heard. However, he is really at his wits end. Alaya definitely isn't going to allow humanity to cease. If a Grand Assassin is summoned to fight Beast II, now that Beast I appears, the requirement for the Grand servant to take the field has already been reached.

But why? Why hasn't Alaya made its move?

"Please, if anyone is hearing my plea. Please help Fujimaru-san. I am willing to pay any price for it…" He chuckled at his own words again.

Any price? Since when did he become so attached to humanity that he is willing to do such a thing? He liked humanity as a whole but extremely rare when individually. He wondered when he changed. Since when did he become attached with the humanities last master.

Amidst of his own thoughts, something happened which surprised him.

"What's this? A contract?" He questioned as a virtual screen appeared, bearing a contract of hiring of sorts.

The contract stated that he can employ an agent to counter the interference of an otherworlder that affected his world. The price must be equivalent to the threat of the enemies which in the contract stated to be 'Rank C Reincarnator' which immediately made all the pieces click together and completed the puzzle.

Clairvoyance after all is an ability to peek into the swirl of root, the Akashic Record, the archive of all information of past, present and future. Thus it's a valid conclusion why he couldn't foresee the change in the future is because the instigator of the changes isn't from this universe at all and thus not confined by its rules and logic.

However, what should he offer now in exchange for the help? What does he possess? His prison is barren of any treasure of worth to be offered as payment.

No, wait. It didn't need to be an item. His knowledge of magecraft is sought after by many that it should be worth no less than a treasure or even more if he thinks about it properly. He tested his theory by offering his knowledge of magecraft to the contract and it worked.

He immediately finalizes the contract despite knowing the danger of dealing with the unknown. Now isn't the time for him to hesitate as he signed on the virtual screen before the screen indicated the transaction was completed with a generic 'Thank You' message.

Then he waited. He waited for a few minutes and nothing happened.

"Did I get scammed?" He asks himself while watching Beast I deal the final blow to crush Ritsuka's chance of victory by breaking the summoning ritual that allows servants to manifest.

All the servants start to vanish into golden motes of light, leaving only the Master and the shield demi-servant fending themselves against the Beast I, Goetia. The King of Demon Gods.

Goetia laughs sinisterly as it deploys its third noble phantasm. In fact, the one inside Goetia isn't actually Goetia itself but another person that reincarnated three thousand years ago and plotted against Goetia to hijack its body and steal all its power for itself.

Drunk in its newfound power, the reincarnator happily trying to kill the Last Master and forever disrupt the Chaldea's attempt to prevent the Humanity Incineration.

A strand of the light from the ring of light was manipulated by Goetia and turned into an attack. The light condensed into a beam attack that contained enough heat to penetrate through the Earth. The shield demi-servant responded with her own noble phantasm, Lord Camelot to defend her Master with the expense of her own life as the heat vaporized her body with extreme heat of the beam.

In utter defeat, the orange haired Master was in shock and denial of her cute kouhai's death. Her most faithful companion since the start to the end of her journey.

"Wallow in your own weakness, girl. Know that your defeat is caused by your own weaknesses. Just the same as me before. That's why I seek strength. Strength is the ultimate justice, the fate of the weak is to be trampled by the strong and to control your own destiny is only possible through overwhelming strength. Power strong enough to overcome all obstacles the world will put against you."

"I do not hate you nor do I wish to be your enemies but this is an unavoidable circumstance. Which is why I will show you mercy with a swift death, may you be able to reunite with your companion on the other side." Goetia said his parting words before preparing to deal the finishing blow to the defenseless and traumatized girl when a portal opened and something everyone thought was a golem walked out from the portal hefting a very modern weaponry, a gatling gun painted in black with circuit-like milky white glowing line decorating it.

———

"Reincarnator! Impossible! I make sure to cover all loose ends. Alaya and Gaia also wouldn't seek help from an outsider…" Goetia sounds panicked when it can feel the distinct difference between the newcomer and the human of this world.

It's panic however receded when he sensed the human and found no trace of magic power at all. Who is Goetia? It's the King of Demon Gods, The One Who Usurped Solomon's Throne. What can a human without magic do to him? Modern weaponry? That's even more laughable than having no magic whatsoever.

The newcomer didn't question or doubt after he exited the portal as its gatling gun was already aimed at Goetia before a beam of bullets exploded out from its rotating barrels. No question was asked to identify who is the good or evil. Such a thing is unnecessary after all.

———

When Ray accepted the Quest, he vanished into a tunnel through space and time. There he was further briefed who his target is and the reward for this bounty.

Ray looks at the bounty multiple times and unmistakably, the target is someone he knew. Beast I is definitely from Fate world and this is his enemies? How is he supposed to kill the Beast class opponent? Aren't they supposed to have haxx abilities?

A timer appeared, starting to do a countdown starting from ten. Ray didn't need to be a genius to guess what the countdown is for. He immediately double-checks himself and wonders if he should switch to his strongest gear but decides to keep his armor but change his weapon to Proposition.

Proposition is by far his strongest firearm and most heavily enchanted, modified and upgraded that there might be hidden features unknown to himself.

When the countdown reaches 0, the tunnel ends and shows the rocky terrain devoid of life. Immediately he saw his bounty target, looking at him in terror for a split second before morphing into amused expression. Beast I look like it's going to say something but Ray rather not take chance of it being an attack. Husk it may be, the dominion it possesses over magecraft is undisputed and who knows what it could do if Ray allows Goetia to prepare its magic.

Goetia expected the gatling gun to shoot out normal bullets made of metals or etc but he didn't expect this in a hundred years that the bullet would explode! An explosion of concentrated light energy!

Each and every bullet inside the magazine contains the all out attack power of Azazel's Light Spear. Just one magazine alone already cost Ray 200 million points, the old him would hesitate to use this bullet type but he now has literal billions of points to spend, halfway to trillion. 200 million points to Ray isn't a crippling amount.

He continues to bombard Goetia with light attribute attacks because of his title as King of Demon Gods. Goetia should have weakness against light attribute attacks.

Meanwhile, Goetia created a magic barrier to protect against the bombardment of light. The attack does hurt him but is not very effective as he still has Solomon's power over magecraft and defending himself is a child play. What he worries about is the other hidden cards a reincarnator has. They rarely will only have one trump card hidden. He knew this because he is the same too. Thus he is going to annihilate the reincarnator and the Last Master, the last two obstacles in his path before he could fully harvest his gain and flee this world.

———

"What is the situation now?"

"Very dire as far as I could tell. Fujimaru-kun lost her will to fight, all servants on the field had been unsummoned. Mash…"

"Died? Well, what else one could expect after resisting Goetia's third noble phantasm. A light beam that is strong enough to penetrate through the world. Despite that, she managed to protect Fujimaru-kun but was incinerated by the sheer heat of the attack."

A man and woman, converse with little care of the chaos below them as the other Chaldea's staff is trying their best to contain the breach.

"I… I think this is the time for my turn." Doctor Romani said while looking at his gripped fist.

Before Da Vinci could comment on Doctor Romani's statement, something happened outside their expectations.

"Doctor! Unknown enemy fluctuation detected! A human?" The staff choked a bit, thinking he went crazy after checking on the person exiting the portal. "A bonafide human appeared and by the look of it, it's a soldier but none of his equipment is familiar."

Unlike the staff, Da Vinci however is already able to tell that these pieces of equipment are futuristic. Her inventor and genius instinct already sold on her own theory and couldn't wait to examine every piece of those equipment to compare with her own.

On the massive holographic screen, the bulky armored human lifted his gun and shot out a beam of straight light which created multiple large explosions on impact but Goetia was faster to create a barrier and defended against the attack.

"Weren't the servants all unsummoned by Beast I Nega Summon? Why is there another one unaffected?" Doctor Romani asked in confusion but Da Vinci quickly explained that what they are seeing isn't a servant but a real human.

"I know this sounds ridiculous but he is a human and I wouldn't pin a target immediately but I am betting on Alaya." Da Vinci theorized.

"But, shouldn't Alaya be sending Grand servant instead of hu… Oh, Nega Summon. A Grand Servant is still a servant which could be negated." Romani immediately understands the reason but he still has one question in his mind.

"Who is this human?" Romani wondered and so did Da Vinci.

"Can we establish contact with the person?"

"It's possible, Doctor Romani. Upon his arrival, we also detected a space object appeared alongside him that we confirmed to be a satellite." The staff replied while rapidly inputting commands on their holographic keyboards.

However, to almost everyone's surprise except Romani, Goetia behind its barrier is deploying the third noble phantasm again. It hopes to quickly annihilate Ray and Ritsuka to eliminate obstacles for him to harvest all the energy gained from Incineration of Humanity for himself and flee this world to start anew in another world.

Alert once again flared up in the command room, reminding everyone that another big attack is about to be released by Goetia once again.

"Quick! Establish contact with The person and Fujimaru-kun!" Romani ordered while he became increasingly anxious on his seat.

By his expectations, he should already be in the Temple of Time, putting a stop on Goetia by sacrificing himself but something changed in Goetia. This isn't Goetia anymore but something else entirely that stole Goetia's body and robbed it's soul. Even sacrificing himself will do nothing which is why he is still in the Chaldea's command room instead of stopping Goetia.

"But, isn't Beast I goal is to use the Incineration of Humanity as fuel to reach Genesis? Why is it using the energy without care?" Da Vinci questioned with suspicion. Romani didn't need to explain because moments later Da Vinci gasped, telling him she already found her answer.

"Doctor! Contact established!" A staff report immediately caused Romani and Da Vinci to turn their focus back to their current task, to assure humanity's victory against Beast I.

———

Ray stops wasting his expensive ammunition when seeing his attack to be ineffective against Goetia's barrier. At the same time, Goetia is doing something that alarmed Ray enough that all his hairs are standing from the feeling of his death becoming closer. Not that it would last permanently.

"Then I shall show you. The end of your journey!"

Goetia starts his chant while Ray is a bit slow to understand the situation. However, he understands that his instinct is warning him about his certain death soon.

"The demise of human history that will recreate this world. The moment my great undertaking is completed! Third Noble Phantasm, deploy."

"Shit! Isn't it a noble phantasm that world destroying attack!" Ray panicked, finally caught the hint of the situation and trying to calm his mind while adrenaline was rushing into his brain.

"Please save the girl behind you!" Came a transmission from what Ray guessed is the Chaldea.

Saving the Last Master isn't an important part of his task here but he isn't that cruel to leave a defenseless girl die just like that.

"The Time of Birth has Come, He is the One who Masters All. Now, burn up into a cinder, reincarnator!"

"Ars Almadel Salomonis!"

"Reload On Fire!"

The noble phantasm deployed and a strand of light exit the ring under Goetia's will and turn into a light beam to annihilate Ray and the Last Master. However, Ray also used his time slowing skill to the maximum capacity. Everything slows to halt but the beam is the only exception.

Still moving albeit significantly slower but still fast enough to be noticeable.

Ray unsummoned his gears and summoned Ouroboros in its place while moving closer to the Last Master, affected by the time slowing. Here Ray decides to make his stand.

Unlike all previous opponents he fought against, Goetia is the first that has real capability to annihilate him till no speck of dust of him left. Even Ophis isn't a reassurance for him to survive.

Removing all excess thought from his mind, he focused it all into activating the defensive spell matrix of Ladon. A magic once belonged to the Evil Dragon Ladon, famed for his great proficiency in defensive ability, especially in barrier.

He isn't a real magus or practitioner of magical arts due to his nonexistent talent. It's already a miracle he could use magic in some manner with the assistance of his AI doing the calculation and formulation for him while he only needs to use his will to steer the spell.

Despite that, he still hasn't given up his pursuit in obtaining magic for himself. Not out of some dying will of his family or his destiny. But simply because of the novelty of the act of wielding a magic. A dream of many magicless earthlings. A wish that formed in his heart after delving into work of fantasy like novels, comics, anime and games.

Still after more than a decade into his transmigration, he only has one magic usable to him, accessible only through equipping Ouroboros. Even then, it rarely sees any need since his other equipment is enough for the threat he usually faces lately until now.

Energy drains from his body and enters the spell matrix his AI is forming. His energy obviously isn't enough which is rapidly replaced by Ophis's mana absorbed by Ouroboros and injected into Ray.

The pure and unadulterated mana is a poison to his feeble mortal flesh and blood. Yet he perseveres and allows more mana to flood into his body which converts into energy before filling the huge and complex spell matrix.

Ray aimed to create an even stronger barrier. Stronger than all he created before. Thus the spell matrix is grander than those he used before. A grand array of defensive barriers, where each cell of the barrier is itself a barrier. When one breaks, another is ready to replace it and also flexible unlike the traditional ones.

(Basically imagine a wall, if it's made from one singular large brick. It's not only fragile, but also hard to fix. If a normal wall is made of thousands of bricks, even if it broke, one only needs to replace the brick on the area instead of the entire wall. If one layer is not strong enough, the wall can be split into smaller walls and stack multiple wall layers to have a sturdier wall.)

A little something he cooked up in his brain to make use of his advantage with AI able to compensate his brain capacity through implanted cybernetics. Normally, this kind of complex spell is only possible to very high proficiency spell caster because it requires immense calculation capacity to calculate and formulate the spell matrix. Then controlling it later after the spell is completed requires the ability of extreme multitasking which makes even a higher end spell caster need to stand still while using all their mental capacity to control the spell.

Meanwhile, Ray has a supercomputer at his disposal, perfect for that kind of task. Its powerful calculation capacity can predict and effortlessly command the barrier array to block all the attacks while Ray can use his brain for something else.

The Reload On Fire almost expires and the spell matrix is nearing its completion. The spell will complete the moment the skill expires.

Weirdly, Ray is opposing Ophis' offer to help. He didn't do this because he didn't know how this universe would affect Ophis and another is he was afraid the reincarnator that stole Goetia's body has the soul ability to affect him clearly because Ophis is very tempting to anyone. Either her power or her utility that made any magus salivate an ocean.

(He assumes the reincarnator is a magus too since this is the type moon world.)

When the time resumed to its normal speed, Ritsuka awaked from her grief momentarily to see a stranger in weird armor and the similar attack that erased her most precious companion.

(Mash has been companion zoned. Or whatever that could mean.)

The same terror wrecked her mind again.

'Ah, someone is going to die again to make sure I can complete my task.' Ritsuka tells herself in her mind.

'Another person died for me, yet here am I wallowing in my grief and despair. She would be disappointed if her sacrifice was wasted by my inactions.'

Ritsuka gripped her fist and looked at the shield of her servant. There she once again found the strength to fight. She prayed to Mash to lend her strength so she can fight and seize victory for her survival that is only possible thanks to Mash's sacrifice. She isn't going to let her sacrifice be in vain.

Array of blue translucent barriers appeared and quickly envelope both Ray and Ritsuka a split second before the beam impacted the barrier array. True to its claim, the heat is so overbearing that his sweat evaporates upon secretion and his body is unaffected because of the energy that protects his body.

Ritsuka however has her Mystic Code that protects her from the heat that seeps into the barrier.

The individual barrier didn't last long under an attack capable of puncturing a world. However Ray isn't giving up yet. Energy didn't stop pouring into the barrier to regenerate its lost durability. Then the two orbs, one blue and another green start to pulse into life.

"Divide! Divide! Divide! …"

The blue one siphoning the energy contained in the attack and then,

"Boost! Boost! Boost! …"

The green one flashes and directs the energy siphoned by the blue orb to rapidly strengthen and multiply the durability of the barrier array, making it increasingly durable. This is Ray's trump card. The stronger the enemies or their attack, the sturdier his barrier will also become with the assistance from Divine Dividing and Boosted Gear's ability.

Sadly, the amount of energy siphoned couldn't keep up with the damage dealt to the barrier. The AI calculated the barrier would only last another five seconds at this rate and the barrier would break.

Ray isn't worried because he will survive this and he isn't desperate yet to reveal Ophis despite the latter keep requesting to assist Ray in battle and Ray keep rejecting her offer, saying that he will only do so if he is at his wits end. What he is worried about is Ritsuka behind him.

Thus Ray did the most 'logical' thing to his mind.

He summoned a medic operator and ordered him to sedate Ritsuka before sending her into his lobby along with the operator. The poor girl was confused and couldn't struggle when a syringe was put on her neck then pumped rapid reacting sedative straight into her bloodstream.

How safe is it? Ray didn't know but he put faith in his operator and other servant to heal her if this does have effect.

With Ritsuka away, he swapped Ouroboros back to his armor and waited for another two second before the array barrier unfortunately collapsed.

As if having his greatest barrier yet collapsed under the third noble phantasm, Goetia gloated over his 'victory'.

"Struggle all you want, reincarnator. In the end, all of it is for naught because I now control the strongest power. This ring of light, Ars Nova. What you tasted just now isn't even 1% of its true power. Just merely a tiny strand of light from this endless energy harnessed by Ars Nova!" Goetia boasted before bursting out laughing as if his victory was assured.

Then the barrier array totally collapsed. The beam then impacted Ray's Anti-magic barrier created by his ACE suit. It reduces the incoming attack by half. Even then, his durability literally vanished like water on a leaking cup. His Anti-magic barrier only lasted a second before all 15M durability points vanished.

"Hah, what else do you have? All is for naught!" Goetia bellows as it is momentarily shocked when another barrier appears. Now it is venting its emotional distress caused by the shock.

Hearing the taunt, Ray only smirks because he does indeed have another card under his sleeve. The Reactive Barrier that disperse 100% of the incoming damage when his armor's durability reaches 0.

Sure enough, it did. Immediately when the durability hit 0, the entire beam vanished like it never existed. This feat left Goetia speechless and its jaw dropped. The energy vanished into oblivion. There is no trace of it at all. Not even the residual heat is left. Only the crater in its path is proof the attack happened.

"Jokes on you, I am really stubborn to die." Ray said to the stunned Goetia before initiating his assault.

The wings on Ouroboros fold out to reveal six thrusters hidden inside it. While his opponent is still not putting on any resistance, Ray vanishes from his spot and activates Reload On Fire. It's time for Ray to initiate his counter attack against Goetia. Or rather, the other reincarnator.

—————

(For those who ask why Ray didn't just hide in his lobby? Well he can't enter himself if engaging enemies or it would be too convenient but sending others in is still possible.)

(Actually, my decision to suddenly jump head first into FGO is because I wanna test how Ray fares against stronger opponents since he is fighting against someone his level. He is actually really strong at surviving, which is what his skills and equipment are revolving around.

Offensively though, he is basically lv 10 against lv 100. All his attacks would be harmless unless he added Ophis's power into his attack. I tried incorporating counter type offensive ability since it complement his near bs defensive abilities.

Like, the Reactive Barrier skill literally makes him immune to one attack regardless of its power and after it's used. The cooldown is only 1 minutes and he literally can cheat death every 1 minutes. Then he still has the God Hand and in the future, the Medic skill tree to unlock.)