"Y-You... you insolent fellow..."
Saber's face turned red. She pressed both hands against Hansen's chest, wanting to push him away, yet she hesitated and didn't apply any strength.
Just as Saber was about to overheat and steam, Hansen suddenly withdrew his hand. He even reached out to straighten her slightly crooked tie.
"Alright, I was just teasing you." Hansen turned toward the stairs and waved his hand behind him. "Let's go, time to eat. You can't fight a war on an empty stomach."
Saber stood frozen in place, staring at his departing back. It took her a long while to come back to her senses.
She touched her burning cheeks and muttered through gritted teeth, "...Insolent fellow!"
Strangely, the peculiar feeling in her heart only intensified... Inside the dining room, the originally warm and elegant atmosphere had transformed into a smoke-filled battlefield.
The long dining table was almost completely covered with empty plates.
"Ma'am, another bowl!"
"Iri, over here too!"
The two voices rang out almost simultaneously.
Hansen and Saber sat on opposite sides of the table, the food in front of them vanishing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Saber ate extremely fast, yet she didn't lose her elegance.
Her cheeks were stuffed like a super cute golden hamster, and the fork and knife in her hands moved so fast they left afterimages, precisely delivering every piece of steak into her mouth.
For her, a Heroic Spirit, eating was not just to satisfy her appetite, but also to convert food into mana reserves.
Well, actually... she just had a really good appetite.
As for Hansen, he was simply enjoying the pleasure of fine food.
With his constitution, his digestive capacity was comparable to a black hole; no matter how much was thrown in, it wouldn't even make a sound.
"Mmm... the taste of this sausage isn't bad." Hansen speared a sausage, but before he could bring it to his mouth, he felt a sharp gaze lock onto him.
Saber stared at the sausage, the ahoge on her head spinning like a radar.
It was the last one on the plate.
Their gazes met in mid-air, and it felt as if electric sparks were crackling and popping between them.
In the next second, two forks lunged out at the same time!
Clang!
The sound of metal clashing rang out.
"Saber, didn't we agree last night not to steal each other's food?" Hansen applied force to his wrist, firmly pinning down Saber's fork.
"That was... limited to steak! And now it's breakfast time!" Saber refused to yield an inch, her emerald eyes burning with a persistence for food. "Furthermore, as a knight, replenishing one's strength is a necessity!"
"Alright, alright, so that's how you want to play it?"
Irisviel, sitting at the head of the table, rested her cheeks in her hands and watched the scene with a smile. Her gaze was as tender as if she were watching two bickering children.
At the other end of the table, the two little girls, Sakura and Illya, had long since forgotten to eat.
Holding their spoons, their little mouths were shaped like an 'O' as they stared dumbfounded at the two stacks of plates that were taller than they were.
"Sakura, do you think..." Illya tugged on Sakura's sleeve and whispered, "Is there a dragon living inside that big sister's stomach?"
Sakura stole a timid glance at Saber's flat belly and nodded seriously. "Mmm... probably more than one."
...Meanwhile, beneath Fuyuki City.
This was deep within the city's sewage system, a place that never saw the light of day. The air was thick with the smell of rot, mold, and sickening blood.
The dark and damp underground cavern had been converted into a mage's workshop filled with profanity.
The walls were covered in twisted runes painted in blood. In the corners lay piles of unidentified meat and bones, and rats scurried through the shadows, letting out squeaking sounds.
"Oooooh!! This... this is a miracle!!"
A fit of manic howling echoed through the cavernous sewer.
The Caster class, Gilles de Rais, was currently kneeling before a massive crystal ball.
His bulging eyeballs were bloodshot, and his hands gripped the base of the crystal ball so tightly that his fingernails even dug into the stone crevices.
Inside the crystal ball, the footage from last night at the warehouse district was playing on a loop.
The image froze at the moment Saber swung her sword.
That awe-inspiring figure, that holy countenance, that noble soul that belonged only to her.
"Oh, Jeanne! My Holy Virgin! You have indeed answered my summons!"
Caster trembled with excitement, tears and snot streaming down his pale, gaunt face.
"God! Have You finally opened Your eyes? No... this is fate! This is our reunion across time and space!"
However, in the next second, the scene changed, and Hansen's figure appeared.
Caster's expression instantly froze.
Then, his face twisted into a terrifying shape.
"Ah... Aaaaaah!!"
He let out a beast-like roar, frantically clawing at his own face and leaving behind bloody gashes. "That man... that vile heretic! He is profaning you! He is imprisoning you!"
In Caster's already maddened delusions, the reason Saber didn't remember him and treated him coldly was entirely because she was being controlled and brainwashed by that man!
That man in the pink suit with an arrogant expression was the demon obstructing his reunion with Jeanne!
He was a jailer who must be executed!
"Master Caster, you seem very angry?"
From the shadows to the side, a young man wearing an orange hoodie stepped out.
Ryunosuke Uryu toyed with a still-dripping deboning knife, a naive yet cruel smile on his face.
He pointed to the "artwork" he had just finished behind him—a bizarre sculpture pieced together from several corpses.
"Want to see my new work? I think this pose is very COOOOOL!"
Caster snapped his head around, black flames burning in his murky eyes.
"Ryunosuke! Now is not the time for play!"
Caster stood up. Beneath his voluminous robes, the human-skin grimoire known as Prelati's Spellbook emitted an ominous purple glow.
"The Saint is suffering! She is weeping in the hands of that demon!"
"I must go save her... I will wake her from that false paradise, even if I have to drag this world into hell once again!"
Caster spread his arms as if embracing a deity in the void, his voice hoarse and crazed.
"Since God will not save you, then I, Gilles de Rais, shall!"
"To wake you, to make you see the cruelty of this world... we need a grand festival!"
"What? Master Caster, did you say a festival?" Ryunosuke's eyes lit up, reflecting a naive yet cruel crimson light. "So... does that mean we're going to kill a lot of people?"
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