[FDJ] Chapter 5: Unreliable Alliance

Trapped in an inescapable labyrinth, one akin to a desperate maze, humans scurried around like mice, searching for food, fleeing, desperately running towards the light, only to be met with a blazing "hellish scene." For fragile humans, this extinguished their only hope of escaping their hearts. Looking out the window as the night swallowed the destroyed city once again, they realized that they were nothing more than slightly stronger, luckier "mice" compared to what they had seen scattered throughout the day.

With only a few basic bug-controlling spells, scarce magic circuits, and magic power almost indistinguishable from none, Shinji argued with his Servant and paid no attention to Yuki's feeble attempts at persuasion. Even someone who was as magically inept as him could tell that Yuki, the person he encountered, was a qualified Magus. Qualified to the point where his servant should choose an auspicious day to swiftly kill him and form a contract with Yuki.

"They all act so superior! Bastards! Bastards! Just die already!" Shinji angrily kicked over the cabinet in his temporary bedroom. He hated anyone better than him. He had tried hard enough, yet there were always idiots who, in his eyes, did not know their place and displayed certain abilities that surpassed him, shattering his meager sense of pride. In this month, he had witnessed too many deaths, but he never expected to come across a suitable potential Master.

Shinji glanced at the three unused Command Spells on the back of his hand and briefly entertained the thought of using them to kill two people in the living room. However, he immediately suppressed the wicked ideas. At least with Lancer on his side, he could still live with some dignity, maintaining the bare minimum of existence before the disaster. Without Lancer, he would not have the courage to leave this apartment building, let alone this bedroom.

Precisely because he was a coward, precisely because he was a true waste, he could not even do bad things properly. It was clear that if he used a Command Spell now, he could make Lancer, who dared to scheme against him, obediently submit. However, he lacked the courage to do so.

He was simply not suitable to be a participating Master in the Holy Grail War and was not even qualified to be a Magus. He might not even be fit to be a beginner who knows a little bit about magecraft.

Nothing was left to strip away the self-aggrandizing facade. Shinji caught a glimpse of his own ridiculous, fearful, and helpless reflections in the mirror and laughed, pointing at himself. He wanted nothing more than to punch the twisted face that he saw in the mirror.

Noticing that the owner of the room had stored beer in the cabinet, Shinji hesitated and opened the cabinet door, approaching it like a ravenous beast. He had never drank this kind of working-class self-anesthetizing beverage from birth until a month ago, but now he desperately wanted to escape the despair of reality, even if only for an illusory moment.

Outside the bedroom, Lancer has already gone out of a nocturnal patrol. She was concerned about the Assassin she encountered during the day, but it was unsafe to search for the surroundings. Before leaving, she set up multiple warning barriers around the apartment building and told Yuki not to come out or to run away if the alarm went off.

"Humans cannot escape from Assassin," Yuki quickly recited the knowledge he had learned. Just like how, he now sensed the presence of a servant standing in the opposite building, a Servant of the Caster class.

Friend or foe?

In the blink of an eye, the visible servant suddenly disappears from its original location, leaving only a faint flame descending in front of Yuki.

"Don't go out!"

The brief message in katakana characters vanished instantly, and Yuki dared not stick his head out. He quickly closed all the curtains in the residence and retreated to the sofa closest to Shinji's resting bedroom. However, his backpack was still present there.

There is a 60% chance that Caster does not harbor ill intentions.

"Your newly acquired brat is quite obedient, isn't he, Lancer?" Caster flipped over the rooftop railing and approached Lancer, who was facing away from the light. However, he was quickly stopped by Lancers' golden snake-like eyes.

"Are you interested? It just so happens that you do not have a Master right now. I thought about it all night yesterday and decided not to change Masters."

"In your nonchalant sigh, your current Master can consider himself lucky to have his life spared: " Caster turned his head and glanced at the room with candlelight. "No need. I can still function normally even without a Master. Besides, I have no intention of forming a contract with a smelly brat of unknown origin, rather than a matured beauty."

During the day, Caster, who was in an alliance with Lancer, helped her. Originally, they had agreed to lure out the Servant causing the major fire in the port, and then join forces to kill them. But today, they encountered an Assassin at the port. When Lancer saw Caster only symbolically release a fireball, she thought he intended to take advantage of the situation, so she chose to retreat instead of pursuing Assassin.

Just now, they have cleared up misunderstandings. Caster mentioned that he had personally witnessed the Assassin they encountered today being defeated and killed. Now that he had come back to life, he did not want to rashly reveal himself or join the battle.

Verbally, both acknowledged their alliances.

"You mentioned earlier that Assassin was killed by Saber the day before yesterday? Where did it happen?"

"Inside the high school campus in this city."

"Why did Assassin choose to engage Saber head-on?"

"Archer ambushed him in the shadows. There were a few surviving students wandering around the school, and Assassin revealed his intention to save these poor souls. However, he fell for the strategy that snipers love to use. Archer deliberately did not immediately kill some of the surviving students, entangling with Assassin until Saber arrived. You know Saber's strength, especially after obtaining the Holy Grail and being engulfed in the dark. Using Noble Phantasms is effortless for her. Of course, after Saber arrived, that despicable Archer shot the surviving students who had lost their value."

"Surely they were all male students?"

"Even if they were beautiful high school girls, I would not dare go to their rescue. If they were exceptionally beautiful, I might risk my life to engage in battle."

Caster's foolish laughter disgusted Lancer. This hero from Celtic mythology was similar to the Greek heroes she had encountered before, all talking about being heroic and saving maidens, but in reality, they were easily swayed by appearances.

"But if I had gone to rescue people like Assassin, I wouldn't have had the chance to discuss battle plans under the moonlight with the beautiful Miss Lancer today. Perhaps when you were at the port, you encountered two hostile Servants."

"You mean the Assassin who was killed by Saber now serves Saber?"

"That's what I speculate. It seems that he no longer uses Noble Phantasms and does not take advantage of the opportunities to use them during battles with you during the day. His agility and effectiveness in combat had also deteriorated. There is evil rune magic that enslaves the corpses of fallen warriors. I suspect Saber used a similar method."

After listening to the opponent's speculation, Lancer temporarily nodded in acceptance because she was also curious about why Assassin did not use his Noble Phantasm to expand his advantage when Lancer made a mistake.

"What should we do next? If we want the Holy Grail, we won't be able to obtain it without breaking through Saber and her Guardian Knight, Archer. Now we might have to deal with another Assassin."

"In addition to that, there's also Berserker and Rider. They can join us and fight together."

"Are you joking, Caster? Berserker is powerful but is a genuine Mad Enhancement Servant. He will not engage in discussions with us. Rider is also half-mad, and his army slaughters the entire city's population as soon as he was resurrected. Who knows what he's thinking while occupying the bridge."

"I'm not very familiar with Berserker's situation, but based on my observations, Rider is also strange. His Master was killed on the third night a month before the Holy Grail War began. Now, while he occupies the bridge, there do not seem to be any humans around him who could be his Master. Human corpses have even been transmuted into new skeletal soldiers. He has been surviving for this month without a Master."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Perhaps this mad Rider, unbeknownst to us, has already been defeated by Saber a second time and has become a mindless beast that only knows destruction."

"So, we're left with only Berserker, who we can't communicate with, to try and recruit?"

"I'm afraid it might be too late. My familiar spotted him wandering at the edge of the forest one week ago. The forest is on the side of the old city district, and perhaps he has already been defeated a second time by Saber over there."

Caster was not a pessimist, but reality left no room for optimism. Like Lancer, had suffered defeat a month ago and had not witnessed Saber holding Holy Grail herself. Moreover, according to the devil's revelation, winning the Holy Grail would not hold any meaning. Caster naturally disclosed to Lancer information about encountering a devil at the port.

The left half of the city was shrouded in unknown darkness, whereas the right half was a place of destruction. It did not take much thought to realize that the new city district, where Saber and Archer were absent, had a similar fate. One could only imagine what the old city district and the area near Dome Mountain, where the Holy Grail was located, would look like.

"I can use magecraft to teleport to the old city district, but you, your Master, and the stinking brat you 'picked up' all need to cross the bridge, right?"

"I can go alone."

"Don't joke around. Assassin is targeting your Master. How far are you willing to leave them?"

Caster had an air of confidence. He had no Master and no burden to bear. He did not have to play the role of babysitter, as Lancer did. This was the real reason he refused to form a contract with Suzuki Yuki. The free druid wouldn't burden himself with useless defense and don heavy armor. "First, we need to find an opportunity to get rid of the chain that restricts your movement—Assassin. Then, we'll open the gate between the new and old city districts—Rider. The third step is to determine whether Berserker can still be a force to reckon with me. After that, we seize the Holy Grail."

"If Assassin truly can't use his Noble Phantasm, I'm confident I can kill him in one strike." Lancer was on guard against Assassin's Noble Phantasm, but if he no longer had his trump card, she could boldly engage in close-range combat and use her Noble Phantasm to eliminate the relatively fragile Assassin swiftly.

Caster suddenly turned his head towards the port's direction. "We're in luck. Assassin is on the move. My familiar has detected signs of the Servant."

"Did you embed a tracking spell in the fireball you used during the day?"

"Something similar in principle. In our Celtic tradition, we call this Hunter's Mark. Assassin is now under the surveillance of my familiar, and he's rapidly tracing the traces of your retreat during the day. He will soon find this place."

Both Lancer and Caster were highly confident in defeating Assassin, who had exposed his whereabouts and seemed unable to use his Noble Phantasm. To obtain the Holy Grail, temporary alliances had meaning.

"The tactics remain the same. I will support you from a distance of approximately 800 meters. I suggest engaging in battle along the riverbank, cutting off his escape routes."

"No problem."

The two Servants rushed towards the exposed location of Assassin at their fastest speeds. With Servant Assassin, who had no first-mover advantage, both Lancer and Caster had a 100% chance of defeating him.

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