It was already morning by the time I returned to my hotel room.
The moment the door closed behind me, Merlin had already slipped into spirit form—vanishing in that effortless way of hers—
leaving me alone in a quiet, still room that felt almost normal.
Or as normal as anything could feel after everything that happened underground.
I sat on the edge of the bed and let out a slow breath.
There were a lot of things I needed to process…
the ritual, that bastard, the circumstances leading up to it—and, of course, Merlin herself.
But the thing that kept nagging at me, tugging at the back of my mind like an itch, was the card.
Her card.
The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.
"Caster, can you hear me?"
A familiar voice echoed softly in the room, light and teasing as always.
"Yes~? What is it, Master~?"
"Can you guard outside?"
There was a tiny pause—surprise, curiosity, maybe both.
"Hm… why?"
Her tone sounded playful, but I knew she was genuinely wondering.
Merlin didn't pretend not to know things unless she wanted a reaction.
"I want to check something," I said carefully.
"And I'd rather not be… distracted."
"Oh?"
I could practically hear her smirk.
"You're being secretive. How intriguing."
"It's nothing dramatic. I just need a few minutes alone."
Her soft laugh chimed like a light wind—amused, not mocking.
"Very well, Master. If you want privacy, then I shall respect it."
A moment later, I felt a faint shimmer of mana near the door, like a thin veil settling into place.
Merlin's presence faded from the room…
but I could sense her right outside—alert, attentive, and on guard.
"I'll be close," her voice murmured gently.
"Call me if anything happens."
And then it was just me again.
Silence.
I raised my hand slightly, focusing my thoughts.
The card materialized instantly—floating above my palm, shimmering faintly in the morning light.
"Alright…" I muttered. "This time, I'll examine you properly."
I held it up and let the sunlight spill across its surface.
To other people, it might look like an elaborate tarot card.
But to me—it was unmistakably a Servant card.
The front displayed Merlin's appearance precisely.
The back showed a robed figure holding a staff, surrounded by a radiant gold backdrop.
More importantly, the moment I focused on it, information unfolded in front of me like a status window.
But something was… off.
A lot off.
The details appeared as:
[Name: Merlin (Prototype)]
[Type: Living Servant]
[Gender: Female]
[Alignment: Chaotic–Good]
[Armaments: Staff]
[Class: Caster]
[Parameters]
Strength: E
Endurance: E
Agility: C+
Mana: A+
Luck: A+
Noble Phantasm: A
[Class Skills]
Territory Creation: D
Item Construction: A
High-Speed Incantation: A+
[Personal Skills]
Hero Creation: B–
Dreamlike Charisma: D
Clairvoyance: B
[Noble Phantasm]
Hope of Avalon
Rank: B+
Type: Anti-Unit
Description:
For reasons unknown, Proto Merlin can no longer access Avalon. Instead, she manifests her own version of it—an Avalon that will endure until humanity itself reaches its end. To Merlin, Avalon is not a sealed paradise, but the image of the ideal future humanity strives toward. Thus, her Avalon remains open, standing as a finish line rather than a sanctuary. Her staff points beyond the horizon, toward hope itself—an everlasting light that beckons humanity to keep running forward, even beyond eternity.
[Description]
Merlin describes herself an older sister, at some time she is somewhat apathetic and comes off as seemingly uncaring and eludes all matters with an interested and amicable smil—################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################—She watches over them from an unseen place, her faith in humanity unwavering and absolute. She asks for nothing in return; instead, she pours all of her strength into the people she loves so dearly.
Not as a ruler, nor as a savior, but as a guardian—one who believes that even when they stumble, humanity will rise again. Every dream they chase, every step they take forward, is answered by her quiet smile, carried on the wind beyond the horizon.
She was none other the guardian of the balance.
…
I slowly lowered the card, a frown forming before I even realized it.
Yep.
There it was.
The weird part.
Actually—multiple weird parts.
First off—
Her skill list was incomplete.
I wasn't imagining it.
Something was missing.
From both the Class Skills and the Personal Skills.
Not a minor detail either—something important. I could feel it, like a missing puzzle piece my brain kept trying to force into place.
Second—
Her description.
It didn't match Merlin.
Not really.
Not fully.
If anything…
It reminded me of someone else entirely.
The moment that realization hit me, a sour, frustrated feeling twisted inside me.
Because of all the Servants she could've resembled—it had to be her.
Enigma.
Or whatever she called herself back then.
A Caster—just like Merlin.
But that wasn't the problem.
The problem was the trauma she inflicted.
Yeah. Trauma.
Gacha-player trauma.
I remembered the first time she appeared in FGO—during one of the Ordeal Call quests. I don't even remember which one anymore; my brain probably blocked it out for self-preservation.
But I do remember the test Alaya set up for the player.
The test where you fight several Servants working under them—or as the community affectionately calls them:
Counter Guardians. A.K.A: "Pure Suffering."
The moment Enigma appeared, the fight mechanics immediately went downhill.
And by downhill, I mean straight into the pits of hell.
Why?
Because even though she said—
"I will refrain from using my full power."
—like some humble, polite NPC who totally isn't preparing to ruin your entire team—
The moment the battle began?
That bastard started copying my Servants.
Then she used their Noble Phantasms against me.
Repeatedly.
Sure, she dealt low damage, technically "fair," blah-blah-blah—but what did that matter when every three turns she unleashed some nightmare-level NP loop, perfectly countering my lineup?
And when her HP finally dropped?
Oh, of course.
Her next NP was a healer servant.
A healer.
Why.
Sure, you could avoid bringing any healer-type servant so she wouldn't copy one…
but her NP gauge filled faster than my patience drained.
Most players barely even got to breathe during that fight.
It took me two full hours—
Two hours of adjusting my team, retrying, swapping Craft Essences, praying to RNG, and mentally questioning every life decision that led me to that moment.
And do you know what the worst part was?
…
…
You didn't even have to win.
You could lose and STILL pass the stage.
"@$@###@@$!"
The shout escaped my mouth before I could filter it. My eye twitched.
I took a slow breath, staring at Merlin's card again.
"…Don't tell me you're some prototype merging between Merlin and her," I muttered.
The card, obviously, didn't answer.
But something about it felt… deliberately incomplete. Like it was showing me only half of what it truly was.
Or half of what she truly was.
I sighed, letting my shoulders slump.
I stared at the card for a long, heavy moment, letting every strange detail I had uncovered swirl through my mind until they formed a tangled mess I couldn't easily unravel.
The incomplete status.
The mismatched, cryptic description.
The uncanny resemblance to her—
the one Caster-class Servant I had sworn I would never think about again unless someone held me at gunpoint.
"…Caster, just what exactly are you hiding from me?" I whispered, as if the card might suddenly respond if I phrased the question just right.
Of course, it didn't.
But my brain, being both unhelpful and extremely persistent, immediately wandered back to Enigma.
Yeah. Her.
The living embodiment of player suffering.
In a later patch—because of course the universe had a sense of humor—I remembered she became a playable Servant. The developers must have thought.
"You know what would be fun? Let's let the players summon the walking trauma machine."
And because my curiosity is a dumpster fire and my self-control is practically nonexistent, I eventually decided to pull for her.
Naturally, I got her.
And do you know the first thing she said when she appeared on my screen?
In that soft, casual, almost bored tone that somehow managed to sound smug at the same time?
"Heeh~? Aren't you the one I fought earlier? I didn't expect you'd actually be able to summon me."
As if I had willingly participated in that fight instead of being ambushed by a Servant with zero respect for my sanity.
Then she kept going, unfazed by my growing irritation.
"Well, you're my Master now. I suppose I should introduce myself, although I did introduce myself back then."
That smug pause. That little hum. I can still hear it.
"My name is… Caster~! What? That's just my class name? Hmm… fine. You may call me Enigma."
See?
See how unbelievably, cosmically annoying she is?
It was like she majored in Rage-Baiting with full honors, then wrote her thesis on "How to Make FGO Players Lose All Composure in Under Thirty Seconds."
And it somehow got worse.
Because after calming myself down—and by that I mean sitting in silence questioning every decision that led me to that moment—I opened her profile, ready to see her stats, her skills, anything that could make the suffering worth it.
And all the game showed me was:
[????]
[????]
[????]
Everything—every single useful detail—was hidden behind a wall of question marks so thick it practically mocked me.
The only thing the game did allow me to view?
Her Noble Phantasm animation.
The same nightmare-inducing, strategy-destroying, meltdown-triggering NP she used during the test fight—
the one responsible for many players contemplating uninstalling at 3 AM.
And even that came with the NP name fully censored, like the game refused to acknowledge the evil it had created.
"????"
Just that.
Like the developers stared straight into my soul and whispered:
You don't deserve clarity. Only suffering.
"Bastard!!"
The curse slipped out of my mouth before I realized it, my eye twitching so hard it almost gave me a headache. I let out a long exhale, dragging a hand down my face as if that alone could pull me back to sanity.
"Great," I muttered, glaring at Merlin's card again.
"Just what I needed. A Servant with gaps in her status and a description that reminds me of the one Caster I never wanted to deal with again."
And yet…
there was something undeniably deliberate about those missing pieces.
Something intentional. As if the card wasn't broken—but hiding something.
"…Caster," I whispered, tightening my grip as the faint glow of the card pulsed in the morning light.
"Just what are you?"
Even now, just remembering all of it made my stomach drop like a stone, my hands clench on instinct, and whatever remained of my patience shrivel up and vanish into the void like it had never existed in the first place.
But…
sigh.
As much as I despised admitting it—even in the privacy of my own thoughts—
She was actually useful.
No.
That wasn't even remotely accurate.
She didn't just "help" my team.
She didn't just "support" my lineup.
She carried my entire roster on her back as if it weighed nothing more than a feather, walking through battles with the casual boredom of someone scrolling through their phone while ruining entire enemy formations.
Her skills, at first glance, were nothing special—nothing outrageous, nothing that screamed "broken," nothing that looked like it would reduce fights to a joke. They were clean, modest, almost deceptively average.
But then there was her NP.
Oh. Her. NP.
The same Noble Phantasm that traumatized half the FGO playerbase during Ordeal Call and made the other half immediately kneel, swear loyalty, and dub her the patron saint of chaos.
In the game, her Noble Phantasm let her copy one Servant and fully transform into that form for—if my memory serves—
around twenty whole turns.
Twenty. Full. Turns.
A complete metamorphosis so absurdly powerful that if you tried to explain it to a new player, they would assume you were lying.
And the best part?
You could turn her into literally anything you wanted.
Need a sub-DPS?
Easy. Just copy your main damage dealer.
Want a double-buffer team comp?
Simple. Copy your support, and suddenly she's tossing out buffs like coupons at a supermarket clearance sale.
Frontline on life support?
Just copy a healer, and she instantly becomes a better medic than most dedicated sustain kits in the whole game.
But the part that truly broke the balance?
She didn't just copy their Noble Phantasm.
She copied their skills too.
All of them.
Down to the last cooldown-reducing detail.
And because her transformation counted as an entirely fresh form, her newly copied skills were instantly usable, right from the start—no cooldowns, no restrictions, nothing to stop her.
You could pop the same 50% battery skill twice in a row.
Or double-layer invincibility like you were wrapping your team in bubble wrap.
Or stack crit buffs so aggressively the game engine probably wanted to file a complaint.
She wasn't just a cheat code.
She was a cheat code with a personality problem and a smile that said, "I know exactly what I'm doing and I'm enjoying it."
…but naturally, all that godlike power came with one fatal, maddening flaw.
Her own damage output?
Absolutely, undeniably, unredeemably questionable.
And honestly?
Calling it "questionable" was me being extremely, extremely generous.
It felt like she didn't even believe in the concept of dealing damage.
Her normal attacks landed with the kind of energy that made me question whether she was even taking the fight seriously—a light, breezy little flick of the wrist, followed by something that felt like she was saying:
"Oh dear~ I tapped you. Anyway, your turn, do your best~"
Her attack type copy Noble Phantasm didn't deal a single point of damage, not even a pity scratch, which already made her feel like the kind of Servant who fought more for the experience than the result, like some kind of battle tourist.
And even when she copied actual DPS Servants—ones famous for deleting health bars with one button press—her numbers were always just a little too low, a little too gentle, a little too suspiciously restrained, as if she really was intentionally undercutting her own potential just for her own entertainment.
It always gave the impression that she would look her enemies straight in the eyes and say, with complete sincerity:
"I could destroy you. But where's the entertainment in that?"
And not only that—no, no, the irritation didn't stop there.
When I did her own Rank Up Quest to finally upgrade her personal skills, there was a particular scene where Fujimaru—meaning me by extension—asked the most obvious question anyone would ask:
"Why won't you tell me your real name?
Why are you using 'Enigma' like it's some cool codename?"
And her answer?
Absolutely maddening.
She tilted her head, smiled like she had all the time in the world, and said something like:
"Oh, I just like it. It sounds cool, don't you think?"
Then went on with more vague, roundabout nonsense.
A whole lot of "I simply prefer it,"
and "Names can be troublesome things,"
and other evasive lines that only made me want to scream into a pillow.
Throughout that entire quest, even when the player bombarded her with questions—serious ones, important ones—she always had a response ready, smooth and unshakable, effortlessly redirecting the conversation like someone playing conversational chess with a beginner.
Flawless counters.
Perfect dodges.
No clear answers.
Just layers and layers of mystery stacked on top of smug amusement.
After reminiscing long enough to completely sour my morning, I let out a breath that was halfway between a groan and a sigh, dragging a hand down my face and rubbing my temples as if that would somehow erase the memories.
"…Why am I remembering all this now?"
I flopped backward onto the bed, staring at the ceiling for a moment.
Haah…
I really shouldn't be overthinking this.
Not after everything that happened last night.
Not when I still hadn't slept even a minute.
"I should just… rest," I muttered to myself, eyelids already growing heavy.
"Caster?"
Her voice answered from behind the door, soft and immediate:
"Yes?"
"Can you stay on guard outside the room?
If anyone—or any Servant—gets close, wake me up. I need to sleep first."
There was a brief pause, and then a warm hum of affirmation:
"Fine."
I nodded even though she couldn't see it.
After that, I let the card slip from my fingers, watching it dissolve into shimmering light before it fully vanished from my hand—
and with that last bit of worry pushed aside, I finally let my body melt into the mattress.
Within moments, exhaustion swallowed me whole.
Sleep came instantly.