-65- Stay strong and keep living! Director!

"Don't... don't come any closer!!!"

As this scream echoed through the control room, everyone, except Rozen, was startled.

"What... what happened!?"

"What's going on!?"

Mash and Roman both panicked and quickly looked in the direction of the voice.

In the next second, they were left dumbfounded.

What they witnessed was a somewhat surreal scene.

"Fou!"

There, Fou was emitting joyful sounds as he chased after an owl.

Yes, an owl.

Moreover, it was an owl that seemed to have just learned to walk, as it couldn't flap its wings to fly, and instead stumbled on its two little legs, emitting distressed cries.

However, this wasn't the reason that stunned everyone the most.

The truly astonishing part was the voice coming from the owl's mouth.

"Don't... don't come any closer! You, unidentified creature! I am the Director of Chaldea! The descendant of the Animusphere family! How dare you be so impertinent... Aah! Don't grab me! It hurts!"

Stumbling as it tried to escape, the owl, or rather, Olga Marie in the form of an owl, uttered such words.

"Director...?"

Mash's mind went completely blank.

"That... that's the Director!? No way, no way, no way, no way!!"

Roman's face was filled with astonishment, and he shouted in disbelief.

"Haha...! Hahaha!"

Rozen, on the other hand, burst into laughter, without any sign of holding back.

This caused the owl... no, rather, Olga Marie to explode.

"You bastard! What have you done to me!?"

The owl, or Olga Marie, pounced towards Rozen.

Unfortunately, even if Rozen had a weak constitution, he wouldn't lose to an owl. He immediately reached out and grabbed it.

"You should thank me, esteemed Director."

Rozen looked at the struggling owl in his hand and said with a smile.

"If it weren't for me saving you, you would have disappeared by now, you know?"

That's how things turned out.

Olga Marie's physical body had already disappeared, and only residual consciousness remained.

Therefore, if Olga Marie were to return to Chaldea, these remnants of consciousness would certainly disappear.

"After all, Olga Marie is not a Heroic Spirit. Even Heroic Spirits rely on their Spirit Origins and Spirit Cores to manifest, along with a considerable amount of magical energy to sustain their existence. Only then can they appear in the world and not fully manifest, but rather as Familiars in the form of Servants, after forming a contract with a Master to prove their existence. Someone like Olga Marie, who can survive in Fuyuki City, is already due to that era being detached from the norm, like a Bug-like world, allowing her to do so.

Due to this, even if Olga Marie were to survive in this way, once the Singularities disappear, or if she returns to Chaldea, her existence would vanish like a gust of wind, leaving no trace.

In other words, no matter what, Olga Marie was destined to disappear.

If it weren't for Rozen.

"You should consider yourself lucky that I happen to be able to summon demonic familiars, creatures capable of consuming spirits," Rozen said with amusement. "If, just before the Singularity disappeared, I hadn't summon a new demonic familiar and had it swallow you, you would have been finished."

Here, some explanation is needed.

Although demonic familiars can separate the spirits that exist in the world, as legends suggest, and take on the form of an owl to carry away the deceased, they do not truly bring the deceased to the afterlife.

It's just that intermediate familiars like demonic familiars lack the ability to travel between the world and the afterlife, so they can only store the spirits they consume in their abdomen and slowly convert them into pure magical energy.

Initially, when Rozen learned of this ability of demonic familiars, he even thought about reusing the converted magical energy to offset the massive consumption required to summon demonic familiars. However, he couldn't succeed and had to give up.

But, based on that experience, Rozen explored some more delicate ways to manipulate demonic familiars.

For example, making the demonic familiar stop its instinctive behavior of converting consumed spirits into magical energy and simply storing them in its abdomen.

In other words...

"Before the new demonic familiar formed a contract with me, it swallowed you and kept you in its belly," Rozen confidently explained the situation. "And this type of demonic familiar lacks autonomous consciousness. It is itself a form of spirit. As a result, in the absence of a contract, your consciousness, formed from remnants, reversed the situation and swallowed the demonic familiar."

If the newly summoned demonic familiar had already formed a contract with Rozen, even as a record, inscribed in Rozen's soul, and with Rozen's manipulation, this situation would not have occurred.

If Rozen's prowess in the "Summoning" system was not extraordinary and could not even partially control a newly summoned, contractless demonic familiar, then Olga Marie would have been directly in a tragic state.

Furthermore, if Olga Marie were not a spirit formed from remnants, and her own spirit was not complete, she wouldn't have instinctively tried to compensate for herself, swallowing the completely unconscious demonic familiar, which was pure luck. As a result, Olga Marie wouldn't have become this kind of existence.

In conclusion, due to various reasons, and even luck, Olga Marie directly became a new demonic familiar.

"Congratulations on your rebirth. Please live on strongly as an owl, esteemed Director."

Originally, Rozen only wanted to protect Olga Marie so that she wouldn't disappear upon returning to Chaldea, and tried to find a way to save her. However, he never expected it to turn out like this, and at this moment, he completely revealed his gloating mood.

The impact of these words on everyone can be imagined.

"I... I am an owl... owl... owl..."

Olga Marie stood there completely stunned, her entire being, or rather the owl's body, turning pale as if petrified.

"Fou! Fou!"

Fou ran to Rozen's feet and made cheerful sounds, as if welcoming a new companion.

"That... please take care, Director..." Roman nervously spoke up.

"From now on, Fou will have a companion, just like having a junior, a wonderful relationship. You should take good care of your new junior, Fou," Mash advised Fou while delivering the final blow to Olga Marie.

"Nooooooo------------!"

Olga Marie's scream of despair echoed once again throughout the control room of Chaldea.

"Hahaha!"

Accompanying it was Rozen's boisterous laughter.