Chapter 195: Suffering from Success

"My wish is to... fully catch up with my past."

Shiro has a longing look as he said that. Only he knew how painful it was to see his wives who loves him, all the while he forgot many important moments of theirs. He couldn't fully understand them, hence the reason why he couldn't fully reciprocate the intensity of their love.

However, it will be different now.

"Your wish is to [Catch up with your past]... Determined that you are under several special conditions... As a result, the fulfillment of your wish will be granted in an alternative way. That is..." She paused for a while before selecting a method. "...by [Giving your treasures from the past]."

"Eh?"

Just as he was surprised, he found out that the mana in this dreamscape is continuously rising. Its density rose too high to the point that golden particles of light floated here, making this flower garden a mystical place.

Then, he 'saw' these copious amounts of mana penetrating "something". It is only possible due to his [Six Eyes], lest he wouldn't even be able to see the [Swirl] that is extremely hidden in this place.

Sadly, he couldn't interact with it as the pathway to [The Root] here is opened forcibly, unlike that time when it came out willingly to support the new [Will] in Madoka's world.

Furthermore, Shiro wouldn't bother with it for the time being. Not only are his preparations exhausted, but he also doesn't know if he can still deal with it without his other wives supporting him.

[Augmentation]-!

A prompt appeared in front of him.

[You have triggered a <Critical Strike> of 50x. Extract the energy required and proceed?]

'Well, fuck.' He thought as another window appeared in front of him.

[Detected that you don't possess the necessary energy to pass the threshold. The augmentation fails.]

His mouth twitched as he saw this.

"My luck should be too good... to the point that I triggered this multiplier while using a grail..."

Truly, he is suffering from success right now.

Knowing that he can't do anything about this, he had only paid attention to Justeaze while waiting for his wish to be fulfilled.

In the end, the surrounding mana abruptly disappeared. It seems that nothing happened during this time, but Shiro opened his [Dimensional Storage] immediately. There, he saw more than a dozen planets remaining still in his storage.

On each of those planets, vast amounts of treasures are stored. They all came from his wealth as an Emperor and a Magus. After all, his former role came in contact with too many treasures while his latter role needed them for his experiments.

Simply put, he is filthy rich in the past.

"..." Shiro silently scanned the planet-sized treasuries with his <Mind>. He found out that four of them contain items that are memorable to him while the rest are filled with resources such as <Origin Crystals>, rare metals, and so on. There are also treasures that he used as a weapon back then, with the rest being for his subordinates' use.

In fact, there is still an EX-ranked <Flying City> which consists of various technologies that made it stand out in his world. If not for the fact that Fenrir back then acquired a better one and chose to store it in his treasury, it would be feared by many forces.

Other than that, there are more than a few dozen EX-ranked items. Though, only a select few were useful for the current him while the rest are not especially for his use; rather, it is for his future self or his wives.

There are also many useful things for his good friends in his treasuries. Overall, this is an unexpectedly satisfying harvest.

Finding himself back in the cave, he looked at the [Greater Grail] and contemplated:

'Should I help her..?'

Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern.

She is the head of the Einzbern Family 200 years ago. The Holy Grail wasn't created yet and Zelretch's influence remains prominent at this time.

Justeaze is the only Einzbern who could utilize the [Third True Magic] at this point. However, she can't be considered a bonafide "Magician" due to the limitations that she had experienced; she couldn't use [Heaven's Feel] properly.

As opposed to Shiro who could materialize souls in a second, Justeaze can only do so after months of preparations. What's more, her ideals are also big.

Simply put, she wants to reach the end of a human's path whilst maintaining their bodies at the same time—a feat impossible even for a "Magician" such as her as using [Heaven's Feel] would materialize someone's soul at the cost of their body. While they could create a new one after that, it's not the same as their mortal body anymore.

Coincidentally, Shiro's path is what she sought in the past. She knew that there were still flaws in the materialization, and only by elevating their bodies at the same level could they get rid of it.

Thus, she decided to sacrifice her everything to create the [Greater Grail].

Her flesh tainted the grail red, forming the magic circuits needed for its processing.

Her sentience was forcibly removed, acting as the core intelligence of the grail.

In the end, she sacrificed everything and got nothing.

"The grail would only cause more trouble." Shiro sighed as he recalled the possible futures that this world can take.

If the grail wasn't destroyed, it would be dismantled as every organization would realize that there's no point in keeping a grail tainted by evil. If it's left unmonitored, it might kill an entire city, which will lead to dozens of adverse consequences for them.

If the grail was somewhat destroyed, it would still affect them soon. In this timeline, the knowledge of Holy Grails would be exposed to the public due to the conflict between countries.

Since it happened in another world line, the world where Apocrypha occurred, it can happen here once again.

Many cities became wastelands at this time as only some cities retained their order. This timeline is quite memorable to Shiro since this is where a fellow [Foreigner] would appear, that little kid who travels through the stars.

As to how loads of [Greater Grails] came to life?

It wasn't explicitly stated, but he has some guesses in his heart. He also has many plans regarding the grail, such as how to keep it while retaining the order of this world.

"Since this trip helped me a lot, I don't mind helping her."

*****

A/N: I'm done with revising and editing the first 5 chapters. I accidentally deleted the paragraph comments, which sucks...

Anyways, Fate arc is about to come to an end and it'll be Arknights' arc next. After this, it would be the turn of the anime that I am currently rewatching...