BOOM—
BOOM—
The thunder roared.
Rain began to fall from the skies of Britain.
The falling rain washed over the streets, as if to sweep all the dust far away.
By the window.
Morgan watched all of this with a blank expression.
But her thoughts were already far from the rain before her.
After the black shadows had been utterly torn to shreds by that monster at Artoria's side, this abandoned daughter of Britain realized that this path was not going to work.
After all, she could feel the other's power.
Damn it...
Could this be yet another move plotted by that biased father of hers?
Thinking of this, Morgan gnashed her teeth in anger.
She hated this unfair fate of hers.
However—
Morgan quickly composed herself.
Because she knew that simply being angry was of no help to the current situation.
Artoria could still hum a little tune and take the throne, while she could only glare helplessly.
But, what could she do?
BOOM—
Another loud crash.
A bolt of lightning struck not far from Morgan.
The flowers and grass it touched burst into flame for an instant, but were quickly extinguished by the wind and rain.
"Are you mocking me, too?"
A certain finger of Morgan's had the impulse to rise.
But in the end, as a member of the British royal family, she refrained from such an act.
However—
As if in reward for her restraint, she soon noticed something unusual where the lightning had struck.
That was...
A trace of magical energy.
As the rightful heir of Britain, Morgan was already a master of the magic of this era.
No one would likely doubt the claim that she was the most outstanding mage.
And of course, she also understood the source of magical energy.
Everything in the world could provide magical energy, it was only a matter of quantity.
But...
This time, it was clearly far too much.
It was a level that completely surpassed what should be produced by a concept like "lightning" striking the ground.
A cold wind blew across Morgan's face.
A few strands of her beautiful silver hair fluttered up.
Her intuition told her.
Something was amiss.
After a moment's hesitation, despite the storm raging through the city, Morgan left her room.
Without telling anyone, she crossed the royal court and went out into the streets.
The cold rain fell on Morgan's body, but it did not extinguish her desire to understand the situation.
She was getting closer.
Morgan soon discovered that her intuition was correct.
Where the lightning had struck, there was indeed an extraordinary amount of magical energy.
It was absolutely not something that could be produced by an ordinary thunderstorm.
Facing the downpour, Morgan looked up at the sky above.
It was still clamoring, as if with an endless, unvented roar.
Speaking of which—
It was indeed strange.
Ever since that prophecy began to spread, Britain hadn't had rain like this for a long time.
After all, the whole of Britain was in a state of decline.
For such a rain to suddenly fall now, it was as if something beyond the norm had interfered with this land that should have remained deathly still.
BOOM—
Another clap of thunder.
This time, Morgan felt as if she had heard some kind of mournful cry.
Was it an illusion?
It couldn't be, right?
No—
That's not what I came here to investigate.
For the time being, she set aside the concern of whether it was a hallucination or something else.
Drenched by this strange rain, Morgan bent down to examine the site of the lightning strike.
To her surprise.
In just this short while, blood-black crystals had grown in the place struck by lightning.
The dense magical energy was emanating from them.
"..."
Morgan looked around.
Crystals like these were far too conspicuous; she quickly confirmed there were none in other places.
It seemed to be both a coincidence, and an inevitability.
The abandoned princess of Britain hesitated no longer.
She quickly, and without regard for her image, began to collect the things from the ground.
Although she looked a mess, Morgan felt that something appearing before her at a time like this would absolutely not be simple.
An unknown amount of time later, soaked to the bone, she returned to her room.
The feeling of being drenched was not pleasant.
But she felt incredibly excited.
Clink, clank.
The crystals were placed on the bed by Morgan.
She carefully studied each crystal in her hand and soon came to a further conclusion.
High purity—
High quality—
Each crystal here was probably comparable to the entire lifetime's worth of magical energy of an ordinary mage.
Even Morgan couldn't help but marvel at something of this level.
This was probably the only stroke of luck she'd had in many years.
But...
What could she use it for?
Morgan covered her forehead.
She felt like an upstart now, with enough wealth but no idea where to spend it.
Just then.
BOOM.
Morgan's attention was drawn away once more.
She couldn't quite explain whether it was a form of guidance, or just her own imagination.
But looking in the direction where the lightning had struck, Morgan found that an idea had suddenly come to her.
That was—
The location of the Sword of Selection.
The moment the prophecy was born, a sword embedded in a stone had appeared in the square there.
Naturally, that had become the place indicated by the prophecy.
"He who pulls the sword from there shall become the new king of Britain."
Every day, countless knights came here.
One by one, they eagerly tried to pull the sword from the stone.
But Morgan knew.
Not a single one of them would succeed.
Because it was all just a charade put on for everyone to see.
There was only one person who could pull out the sword.
And that was Artoria.
The rest were merely "actors" who had been unwittingly drawn in to legitimize this succession.
And Morgan could also feel it.
That stone had been enchanted with extremely powerful magic.
Even if she wanted to destroy it with her own power, it was impossible.
But now—
Everything was different.
Morgan looked back at the black crystals on her bed.
If before she was unable to do anything because she lacked the means, now things were completely different.
She had so many crystals of magical energy.
She could absolutely set up an even higher-level spell.
One that would make it so that even the pre-selected Artoria could not pull the sword from the stone.
In this way, the preordained selection of the king would cease to exist, and everything would return to tradition.
That's right.
This must be something that has appeared to allow me to do this.
This is a gift from fate!
So I haven't been completely abandoned after all—
Every inch of Britain's land.
I will absolutely not hand it over so easily!
In the rain.
The sneering princess gradually became twisted.
Her struggle had begun.