Chapter 180: Adventuring with Brother Siegfried
Looking at Siegfried inside the coffin, Eikou felt like crying but no tears would come.
"This Singularity inherited the save-game data from me, so it dragged you in too…?"
He said,
"Brother Siegfried, this isn't my fault, it's that Servant Mochizuki's fault. He's the one who meddled and got you killed…"
But thinking again, he silently told himself there was no real problem. After all, Siegfried wasn't truly dead—the pixelated figure lying in the coffin was merely a string of save-game data, a fake puppet used to decorate the game's background.
The ones actually summoned by the Holy Grail were only Kriemhild, Brynhildr, and Medb.
"Wait a second…"
Realizing that, a thought flashed through his mind.
"If Siegfried here is nothing more than a string of electronic data, then I don't need to feel any psychological burden anymore…"
At first Eikou found moving square by square painfully slow,
but fortunately Siegfried was here, and right away there was a way to speed things up.
[Check Luck – success.]
[You rolled a five, you can move five squares.]
"I want to move next to Siegfried's coffin," Eikou said.
Under the push of the Holy Grail's rules, he and Yu Ji were propelled forward five squares, arriving before the pixel Siegfried's coffin.
"Kouhai, you brought us in front of his coffin for what reason?" Yu Ji asked.
"I want to do an experiment,"
Eikou said seriously,
"Our movement is limited by squares. The lower half of our bodies can't move outside of turns, but our upper halves can move freely… so, couldn't we make a manual vehicle?"
Yu Ji seemed to realize something and looked utterly shocked. "Don't tell me you mean…"
He smiled gently and said, "I want to use Brother Siegfried's coffin as a skateboard!"
"???"
Yu Ji was stunned, thinking, I may not be human, but this guy is even less human than I am!
"Doing that is way too immoral!"
"It's fine," Eikou insisted. "He isn't the real Siegfried, just a string of data set up as Siegfried, so it's fine!"
"This isn't about data or not—this behavior is just too disrespectful…"
"It's okay. Brother Siegfried is a really good person. Back then he could rip out his own heart to save Sieg, so he'd definitely be willing to let me borrow his coffin. At worst, when I get back I'll give him a few crates of vodka." He declared heroically, "Let me bear this sin!"
With that, he grabbed Siegfried's coffin and, using the strength of his upper body, flipped himself inside.
"Oho… so this is what it feels like to lie in a coffin—surprisingly feels pretty safe."
"You idiot, you actually did it! At least take Siegfried out first!" Yu Ji said angrily.
"What are you saying, senpai? Could you really abandon Brother Siegfried alone on the cold ground? Absolutely not! I will never gonna give him up!"
"What do you mean… are you planning to take him along on the adventure too?"
"That's right. Siegfried is an indispensable teammate," he said seriously. "I plan to bring him along. Let him, under the title 'Sleeping Siegfried,' take an active part in this Holy Grail War!"
"You expect a corpse to participate somehow? And besides, he isn't even alive anymore! Are you underestimating him or overestimating him?"
Yu Ji felt she was almost out of arguments.
"Anyway, hurry up and get on," Eikou urged.
"..."
Yu Ji looked at him with clear displeasure, but time was short. After a brief hesitation, she climbed onto the coffin.
Right after, she quickly realized a problem.
"How are you going to make this coffin move? It's not a wheelchair."
"No worries, Brother Siegfried the Almighty will help us solve that."
Eikou used both hands to grip the pixel Siegfried tightly.
[You have used the skill "A Knight Does Not Die with Empty Hands EX."]
[You have obtained the temporary weapon "Siegfried the Ship Oar."]
[You have used the skill "Mana Burst A."]
[You channeled powerful mana into the weapon in your hands, stomped on the coffin, and rowed with the oar, surging forward at full speed!]
[Exactly as you first predicted, you exploited the vehicle to successfully bug the square-based movement, allowing free movement—and even to take Siegfried along on the adventure.]
[Your movement speed became very fast, no longer restricted at all.]
So when you said, 'Siegfried is an indispensable teammate, I will never gonna give him up,' that's what you meant!
You're not a human!!!
"Perfect." Eikou said with a bright smile.
"That's way too immoral!" Yu Ji couldn't help but shout. "One foot stomping on someone's coffin, the other using them as an oar… are you even human? Even Human Evil wouldn't do something like this!"
"Isn't this just normal operation? Any normal person in this situation would definitely do the same thing, right?" he said with an innocent look.
"Normal, my ass. Besides you, who else could possibly—"
Before she could finish, two familiar figures suddenly rushed out from an old corner of the school.
Seeing that familiar blond hair and white outfit, it looked like the twin Gemini.
They were both sitting on Moriarty's coffin, paddling hard while using the old professor himself as an oar.
So there really are people like this! Is this some kind of gathering spot for scum?
"Sasuga nii-sama, to come up with the idea of sitting on a coffin and using a Servant as a paddle—you truly are a genius,"
said the younger sister, Pollux.
Castor calmly replied, "No need to praise me, isn't this just basic common sense? As gods we naturally possess such wisdom—"
Before he could finish, he suddenly stopped rowing with Moriarty and turned to look at Eikou across the hallway.
Eikou, holding Siegfried, looked at him a bit helplessly.
"..."
"..."
Not good—same idea collision.
They stayed silent for a long while. Finally Eikou couldn't hold it in and shouted at the twins, "You two pieces of trash, what the hell do you think Servants are!"
"Do you have any right to say that to them?" Yu Ji sighed.
"This isn't really Siegfried, but over there they're actually using Moriarty as an oar. The old professor already has back pain, and now he's being tortured like that—that's really too much."
"So are you being righteous or just double-standarded here…"
Her voice was soft, almost too tired to argue,
"Honestly, whatever. If you all can't stand each other, then just kill each other already. Whichever side dies will only make this world a better place."
"Isn't it natural for humans to be ordered around by us,"
Castor said coldly.
"If it weren't for the existence of humans, we gods wouldn't have weakened. Now we're merely using you human Servants as paddles—what's the harm in that?"
"Haha, brother-in-law, that doesn't sound pleasant at all," Eikou said.
"Who's your brother-in-law?!"
Castor shouted angrily,
"Since we've met here, don't even think of leaving alive. Even if this Holy Grail War has turned into a bizarre game, killing every opponent still means victory. Come on, human! Between my little sister and your lover, which side is stronger!"
[Once your eyes have locked with each other...]
[Then step into the duel of wives!]