Pov. Caster
I enter the dark room, which my 'master' appreciates so much. It's a rather depressing place, but I enjoy it quite a bit; the aesthetics match me well.
In the room's corner was my 'master', who seemed to be having some troubles.
"What afflicts you, master? I can see the frustration on your face from here." I teasingly say.
He jumps a bit, alarmed, before sighing in relief. "Oh, it's you, Caster. You entered the room so quietly, I didn't even notice you arriving."
I laugh a bit. "Ha, no worries, master. But you didn't answer my question. What's afflicting you?"
He sighs in annoyance. "It's the damn seal, I can't apply it properly to the servant's spirit core. The summoning disables its activation before I can even try to summon the servant! It's frustrating."
I bring my hand to my chin and begin thinking about it. "How many seals have you added?"
"Six, of course, it matches perfectly with the hero's myth, so the servant's own legend would reinforce the seal, allowing us to better regulate it."
I snap my fingers in realisation. "That's it!"
He looks at me, confused. "While six is perfect for the servant, it does not possess the characteristics needed for the sealing. We should use seven seals instead, while weaker than six when it comes to the connection to the servant's myth, it still works well. And not only that, seven can be associated with spiritual growth, and considering the seal's purpose..."
"It will lock their power at first and increase as time goes by, allowing us to bypass the vessel's limitation that the grail creates. The servant will be as powerful as they were at their peak if done properly!" My 'master' completes, having fully understood what I meant. He is quite impressive overall. If he were born a few centuries early, I could see him reaching a level akin to my own, but sadly, it was not meant to be.
Having been born into a fallen Swedish family that lost its prestige a few centuries ago. They still had some connections to both Japan and China, so they tried a political marriage in the hope of strengthening their crafts, and while they succeeded somewhat, they never recovered their prestige. After all, families from the Far East are seen as backwaters by the Magi from Europe.
A pathetic thought in my opinion, surely Japanese and Western Magecraft aren't compatible, but it doesn't mean they can't be used alongside one another. My 'Master' can do it quite well, and he surely isn't the only one! With a bit of my expertise, he was able to reach levels far above any of those 'Lords' could even hope to reach.
And that is not to mention his research on the Holy Grail; in less than a decade, he was able to create a vessel almost as good as that of Eizbern! If we weren't on the clock because of that 'Witch', we could wait for five more years and create something even better than the Greater Grail!
After talking about our options, we concluded the summoning's modifications.
Strictly speaking, the servant is not an Alter, but rather an aspect of the heroic spirit we wish to summon. By forcing the alterization, we can summon the appropriate form without interference from the servant themself, therefore bypassing any restriction the summoning would usually have.
The seals we implanted in the summoning are necessary for the servant to achieve their full power. If this ritual were made using the 'Greater Grail', perhaps it would be unnecessary, and even then, I am not sure if it would work. Using the Waxing Moon prototype and the blueprints of the Fuiyuki's grail, we were able to create a ritual above all others, losing only to the original one made by the famed three families.
But that's just a matter of time, we did this ritual in four years, while it takes sixty years for the Fuiyuki ritual to work... well, took sixty years
That's not to mention the rogue servants, with their existence, it won't be necessary to kill all seven servants to reach the Root, as for every two rogues would equate a single servant, and that is not considering overly powerful servants that can have higher value.
"It is done. The summoning circle is complete; you only need to summon them." I tell my 'master'.
"The catalyst is in place; let us begin."
"Let silver and steel be the essence.
Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation.
Let black be the color I pay tribute to.
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall.
Let the four cardinal gates close.
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate.
Let it be declared now;
Your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword.
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail.
Answer, if you would submit to this will and this truth.
An oath shall be sworn here.
I shall destroy all virtues of all of Heaven;
I shall submit to all evils of all of Hell.
From the Ninth Hell, attended to by three great words of power,
come forth from the ring of restraint, destroyer of the holy balance!"
For a second, nothing happened.
But then, a bright blue light began spinning inside the summoning circle, before turning into an ugly shade of red.
It looked like countless curses somehow turned into liquid as if evil itself came to earth.
When the liquid disappeared, a sole figure appeared in the circle.
A short yet voluptuous woman with long pale blonde hair and violet eyes. She wears a revealing black dress that allows her cleavage and shoulders to be free, with a transparent cloth on the legs, which reveals her ornament to the world.
Yet, her powerful presence was impressive. Just feeling it made my spirit core want to bow.
"Servant Rider, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. I ask of you, are you the scum that dares summon me?" She narrows her eyes at us.
Well, we asked for the strongest servant, didn't we?
Well, here she is.
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"A Holy Grail War... no, it's called the Waxing Moon Ritual in this case, right?" A blonde Japanese man speaks out loud.
This is my last chance. A second-rate Magus like myself can't progress anymore, but this ritual can bring the success I was never able to get!
I am useless when it comes to combat; my family's craft is that of concealment and suggestion after all. We may be called 'rats' by the Association, but that doesn't mean we can't achieve greatness! Our bounded fields are of great quality; only something akin to a Noble Phantasm would be able to break a bounded field made by me! It may be a cowardly way to act, but as long as I win, who cares!
But because of that I can't rely on a servant to win, I am too weak to support a Knight Class servant, so I will have to work with a Cavalry Class instead.
Rider is too expensive; their Noble Phantasms are usually powerful and drain quite a bit of magical energy, so they're out.
Caster is unreliable; I would feel inadequate in front of a magus of old, and that would absolutely reduce our compatibility. I can even imagine summoning the likes of Merlin and Medea, and they just laugh at my magecraft, treating me as a joke! It's common for Modern Magi to dislike caster servants, and their servants dislike them as well. So they're also out.
No way I would risk a berserker. It is unlikely that I would be able to control them, and if I were able to, they would use too much Magical Energy; I would be the easiest target in the whole war!
So Assassin it is. Their style matches me the most after all. Surely, hitting and hiding would be a time-consuming tactic, but will match me and possibly my servant as well.
But it can't be a Hassan, because of the many minor Holy Grail Wars that happened since the third, all their noble phantasm have been registered, all but one, and the First Hassan seems to be impossible to summon without a proper catalyst, unlike their successors.
So an unusual assassin it is. Unlike the Hassan, who can be summoned by just wanting the assassin class, other assassin servants need both a catalyst and a modified summon circle to be called.
I do have a Dagger that belonged to Jack the Ripper, but I don't think it will be enough. I believe that this ritual has something called 'stray servants', servants without a master that use the Leylines to support themselves. So I need a servant who can kill them as well. Jack would be good to kill masters but less so to kill servants.
So another servant will be needed. And I think I have an idea of who, or rather what.
The Atlas Institute has been researching a certain variant of Heroic Spirits known as Phantom Spirit. They're heroes that were unable to rise to the level of a heroic spirit, but using a heroic spirit as a vessel, it's possible to summon a servant made from the union of a Phantom and a Heroic.
So that is what I am going to do! Summoning a servant whose legend is associated with a Myth of Folklore, allowing me to summon a composite servant from them! This way, I can summon a servant of the assassin class that is able to fight with stray servants if necessary.
Then, after having set the summoning circle and the necessary modifications, I am sure I will be able to summon the servant I desire!
By creating a secondary circle to summon the phantom, I can use their spirit graph to fuel the heroic spirit, summoning the union of them as a servant. It's reckless to do something like that without more research, but I heard that the Waxing Moon Ritual barely has any rules! Even Heracles, a servant who was banned from minor wars, is allowed here! And it doesn't set any restrictions in the summoning ritual like other wars, so doing this is actually possible here!
"Well, then." I crack my neck.
"Time to begin." I made all servants leave the upper floor so as not to disturb me and not to interfere with the summoning.
I raise my arm and begin chanting.
"Silver and iron to the origin. Gem and the archduke of contracts to the cornerstone. The ancestor is my great master Schweinorg.
The alighted wind becomes a wall. The gates in the four directions close, coming from the crown, the three-forked road that leads to the kingdom circulates.
Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill).
Repeat every five times.
Simply, shatter once filled.
――――I announce.
Your self is under me, my fate(doom) is in your sword.
In accordance with the approach of the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer.
Here is my oath. I am the one who becomes all the good of the world of the dead, I am the one who lays out all the evil of the world of the dead.
You, seven heavens clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O keeper of the balance ―――!"
A bright light appears before vanishing, a single man in the circle.
He is old, not that old, nearing his forty or fifty, perhaps. Short dark blonde hair, alongside an unkept beard and bright blue eyes, with a bloodthirsty smile adorning his face.
"Servant Assassin. So, who do you need me to murder my 'Master'?" He asks, making his smile somehow even more bloodthirsty.
It seems I got the servant I desired after all.
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Saitama City, Ushida Shigeo's House
'Well, well, you were sneaky, weren't you, daddy?' She smiles as she thinks that, looking at the false botton from the drawer.
Taking a sheat of documents from the drawer she begins reading them.
'I see, most of the victims were sent back to their families, and those whose families died in the incident were sent to their closest family.'
'But what about those who don't have any family at all?'
She read the documents further until she finally arrived where she wanted.
'Hah, so here you are! My client will pay me lots for your death; it would be annoying if all their effort to separate you from your family were for naught after all. It's almost sad. Without you to take your place as heir, there will be no one to protect your property or your little sister. My client paid me a lots to make sure they could take over your family.'
'A shame the ritual didn't work, you would be better as a part of my sire than dead. But something interfered that night; there was no reason for so many people to be affected! I wonder if it was Daddy Dearest... no, impossible. He abandoned his craft ages ago, didn't even leave me our damn Magic Crest, preferring to sell it to the Clock Tower!'
She shakes her head, trying to give up that thought.
'Doesn't matter, I have become a Dead Apostle now, I don't need to care about stupid things like that anymore. And I am a child of an Ancestor! Soon, I will reach the fifth rank and surpass a normal vampire! And when my sire returns, we will reach the peak of this planet!' She begins making a depraved face, clearly thinking things that would make a normal person disturbed.
'Saito Masumi runs a small orphanage downtown, and it seems she was the one who took the brat. So I just need to get there at night and end the job, hah, easy. All your effort was for nothing, Daddy.'
After getting the information, she left and waited until nightfall to look for her target.
'Hah, look at them. So happy, so carefree, a shame that ends tonight.' She says while looking at them from a roof nearby.
A few hours pass.
'Hoh? I thought I would need to go there to kill him, but he left willingly?' She questions while looking at Niko leaving the house after they all went to sleep.
'Well, may as well have some fun then!' People nearby, who now could be seen as dead bodies, begin walking in Niko's direction.
"Run, run my little prey!" She laughs as she sends her ghouls at him.
He quickly notices, and as his eyes widen at the woman, he begins running.