At some point, Draco realized that instead of her sharp beastly claws, she was only flailing the delicate arms of a young girl.
Hypnosis? Hallucination? Or a magical restraint? It didn't matter.
It was the witch's doing anyway, so when she thought she had been neutralized, that's when she should aim for the opening.
Draco, who had been full of spirit, frowned.
Because her tail, which was no different from a weapon, had also vanished.
"...Not even teeth. If it were a spell that simply took away my claws and tail, it wouldn't be this detailed. What kind of trick is this?"
Draco shouted.
"We are asking. Answer, witch."
At the end of Draco's gaze was Morgan. Morgan didn't even look at Draco.
Just a moment ago, they were engaged in a fierce bloody battle, unfolding their Reality Marbles, and now she was being treated worse than a roadside bug.
A vein popped on Draco's forehead.
"If you will not answer, I will make your body understa—"
"Be quiet, beast. We are thinking."
"What did you say?"
After a long silence, Morgan opened her mouth.
"All magical energy has vanished. The backup leyline connection has been severed, and even the mystic codes are silent."
"That means..."
"I cannot use magic. I also feel a decline in my physical functions. At this rate, beast, there is a possibility that I might lose to you."
Draco pondered. She couldn't be sure if this was Morgan's trick or not.
She might be lying about not being able to use magic, and then strike the unsuspecting Draco from behind.
Draco decided to test Morgan.
"It seems my Noble Phantasm has finally worked."
"Your Noble Phantasm...?"
"Yes! It seems that even you could not escape the constraints of my golden theater."
Morgan showed no shred of emotion. She just stared at Draco.
And then she said calmly.
"You're bluffing."
"What did you say...!"
"Did you think that just because my magical energy is gone, my eyesight is gone too? My eyes can see. That your power has vanished."
Morgan pointed out that Draco's claws and tail were gone.
Come to think of it, it's a funny situation.
If the enemy is weakened, you should immediately strike their neck. The act of sheathing one's sword and waiting is something that could never happen, at least not between Draco and Morgan.
Draco's short bluff was over.
"Hmph... so it seems my power has truly vanished, witch. It doesn't seem to be your trick."
Then the culprit is a third party. What is the identity of the third party who intervened in Draco and Morgan's fight?
Draco racked her brain, but nothing came to mind.
Even if we grant that it's possible to seal a beast's power, there's no way to seal Morgan's power in an instant.
If someone were to try any tricks, Morgan would have immediately stopped the intervention and counterattacked.
"In the first place, what is this place? This isn't the empty lot where the clinic was."
Draco looked around. She saw trees, benches, and a gravel path.
A park. Draco and Morgan were in a park.
"...Is this the golden one's doing? Did that woman send us here?"
"That's not it. The King of Heroes has already taken a step back. There's no reason to intervene."
"Don't be ridiculous, witch. I don't believe it. Where is the guarantee that that woman won't betray you like you did?"
Morgan was silent.
Draco pondered for a long time whether it meant to think as she pleased, or if she was silent because it wasn't worth responding to.
And then she got annoyed, feeling like she was the only one paying attention to Morgan.
Draco kicked a nearby tree in frustration. And she regretted it.
"Ouch... you disrespectful thing...!"
Because the tree, instead of breaking with a snap, returned the shock to Draco's ankle.
Draco was furious, clutching her throbbing ankle. But there was nothing she could do.
At best, she could curse the tree that had caused her pain.
Feeling ashamed for having acted foolishly in front of Morgan, Draco turned her head away abruptly.
'Did she see everything?'
Fortunately, Morgan was gone.
No. She had been out of Draco's sight for a long time. Draco had been putting on a show in an empty park.
"Where have you gone! Witch! Did you run away?!"
Draco shouted. Her throat hurt, so she couldn't shout more than a few times.
"Phew...! Really, what a frail body...!"
In the end, Draco guessed the direction Morgan had gone and followed her.
Her head was hot, but... she didn't feel bad.
Even Draco herself was puzzled.
"It might be a special kind of magic cast on this space.... That witch must have gone this way, right?"
While Draco was rubbing her head and chasing after Morgan.
In the same space, but a different place, Johanna was rubbing her drowsy eyes and waking up.
"Ugh... what was I doing?"
"You were in such a deep sleep that you wouldn't have known if someone had carried you off, you know?"
"Wh-who are you?!"
An answer came back to her monologue. A young woman's voice. Light, but not frivolous.
"Ah, you're Lupus's..."
"I am Tamamo-no-Mae."
Tamamo-no-Mae was dressed in a much more fashionable outfit than Johanna remembered.
There was no trace of the long, traditional kimono.
Instead, skinny jeans that properly accentuated her legs and a black crop top that revealed her navel.
The finishing touch was the sunglasses. They covered her eyes, but her beauty shone through them.
Someone with an old-fashioned sensibility might criticize it as outrageous, but for Johanna, it was a fashion that naturally inspired admiration.
It's a stylish modern outfit. Lupus might like it!
"It... it really suits you!"
"Oh my, a compliment from a rival in love. The confidence of the main wife? This Tamamo feels like she's going to drown in jealousy."
Johanna laughed awkwardly.
She had just woken up and hadn't even come to her senses yet, and suddenly Tamamo had appeared and was spouting off incomprehensible words.
Tamamo approached her in a strangely friendly manner, but Johanna couldn't accept it so cheerfully.
Johanna and Tamamo's relationship was not that good.
Tamamo was on the side of Chaldea, which had come to destroy the Singularity, and Johanna was on the opposite side. Tamamo didn't like Johanna very much, and Johanna knew that.
But Johanna put the past into her memories.
With a smile on her lips, she bowed her head to Tamamo.
"I heard you were eliminated after saving Ritsuka. Thank you for protecting that child."
Right now, Johanna is a Servant belonging to Chaldea. She can be considered a junior who was summoned as a follow-up Servant after Tamamo was forcibly eliminated by the King of Mages.
That's why she bowed her head with a grateful heart, but Tamamo's reaction was lukewarm.
"Well, I'll take that as a thank you. But, Your Holiness Johanna. Don't you find something strange?"
"Huh...? Yes! It is strange! Why are you and I here, Your Excellency Tamamo?"
It was certainly strange.
Johanna, now almost fully awake, remembered that she had been facing Morgan until just before.
She had tried to resolve it through conversation, but had failed and it had eventually escalated into a fight.
But this was not the clinic, and Morgan was not here.
Lupus was not here either, and yet Tamamo-no-Mae, who had not even been able to participate in the Holy Grail War, was greeting Johanna.
On a deserted road where not a single car was passing!
Johanna racked her brain and came up with a plausible guess.
"...Could this be a world created by Her Majesty Morgan? I've heard that great mages possess Reality Marbles."
"That is certainly strange, but what is truly strange is what's inside here."
Tamamo poked Johanna's chest with her index finger.
Johanna blushed and stepped back. Clutching her chest, Johanna let out a high-pitched shriek.
"Wh-what was that?! You shouldn't do that between women!"
"My apologies. Tamamo-miss. It was meant to tell you to check your body."
"...My body, you say?"
"Yes. Isn't there something that should be there but isn't?"
Following Tamamo's words, Johanna focused her attention on her body.
And she was immediately able to understand the meaning of the word 'strange'.
"There's no magical energy! I can't feel my Spirit Core either! It feels like when I was alive?"
Though she had never been 'truly' alive.
Johanna swallowed the end of her sentence and looked at Tamamo.
"Could it be that you are in the same state as me, Your Excellency Tamamo?"
"Yes. It's been like this ever since I woke up on this road."
Tamamo said, twirling her hair.
Johanna mulled over Tamamo's words and had a flash of insight.
"...If it's been 'ever since', then you must have woken up before me, right?"
"That is correct."
"Um, was I by any chance sleeping sloppily...?"
Johanna's face turned red for a different reason than before.
Tamamo was a little surprised. Is that more important than the disappearance of magical energy?
She was fine now, but Tamamo was also greatly flustered when she first woke up. It wasn't just her magic circuits that had disappeared.
This world was a world where magic did not exist.
Tamamo's talismans were also just pieces of paper with writing on them.
Tamamo was now an ordinary person with fox ears and a tail. She was so shocked that the afterglow of it hadn't faded even now as she was dealing with Johanna.
And yet, Johanna was worried about how freely she had been sleeping.
'...She's a little... interesting, isn't she?'
Tamamo smiled and said in a very kind voice.
"Yes. Your sleeping habits were cute. I wanted to take a picture of them, you know?"
"...Aaaah!"
Next to the despairing Johanna, Tamamo looked up at the sky.
The sun was shining down on her in the endlessly blue and clear sky.
It's a world without magical energy. And yet, the world was so peaceful.
"...If it were here, I wonder if I could have lived happily with Father."
"Huh? What did you say?"
"It's nothing. More importantly..."
Tamamo suggested.
"It's a bit much to just stand on the road, so shall we walk around and gather some information?"
"Yes! Let's do that!"
Johanna & Tamamo party formed...!