-
｡
○ oﾟ｡ﾞ ,｡ﾞ
Foam seethed in his head.
.. ,｡ﾞoﾟ｡ ○ ｡
'I'm dizzy.'
〃／
─wﾍ√ﾚvv ⌒
A ringing in his ears wouldn't stop.
'It's noisy.'
His body, ㅁ heav, ㅇ y ㅇ
ㅜ ㅜ ㅏ.
'Heavy.' ㅆ
The sound of foam. Ringing. Heaviness.
Sensations that shattered his mind, seduced his reason, and suppressed his instincts swept over him.
Soon, Myeongseong slowly felt his entire body grow languid. A softness was felt along with comfort, as if melting and seeping into the ground.
It was like, what should he say. As if held in his mother's embrace. That kind of―――
Wait.
―――Mother?
The moment a single word he could never, ever forget brushed through his mind, his consciousness awoke like a flash of lightning.
"Huff―!!!"
As if spewing out foam, shaking off whispers, throwing off the heaviness, he breathed roughly.
Myeongseong's eyes snapped open and he reflexively sat up.
"Wh-what, where is this…. Keuk!? It hurts?!"
And feeling the excruciating pain all over his body, Myeongseong curled up, *thud*.
For a moment, writhing in pain enough to crumple the soft something he gripped in his hand, *kwaaak*, he raised his hand in confusion and a soft cotton blanket came up with it.
Bandages were wrapped around the hand holding the blanket, and soon the texture of bandages wrapped all over his body was felt. Simultaneously, the smell of disinfectant and ointment brushed the tip of his nose.
"I was treated? By whom? No, more importantly, didn't I wake from a dream?!"
―――I wasn't dead?
But why is thought (cognition) continuing?
Pushing back his own unconscious question, not yet fully realized, Myeongseong hastily looked around.
What came into view following his gaze was first, classical wallpaper. Next, decorations of an antique design. Thereafter, sequentially, a chandelier decorating the ceiling, a Maneki-neko, a full-length mirror, a dresser, and the bed he was lying on.
"A hotel room…?"
It was even in a historical drama style. Myeongseong was bewildered by the sight of a hotel you'd only see in a drama set in the Japanese colonial era, just like the ones in *Mi*ter *Sun*in.
"Why am I here…?"
"So you've finally awoken."
"…You?!"
Before he could even resolve his doubts, a chillingly familiar voice came from behind him.
As Myeongseong urgently turned his head back, there stood a man (a handsome one at that) leaning his shoulder against the wall in a slanted posture. And that man was the one he had knocked out just moments ago―――
"Sleeping for three whole days, then moving so vigorously the moment you wake. Truly an amazing physique."
"Three days?!"
―――Regarding the matter of waking up to find three days had passed.
'I was unconscious for three days? What did I even do?!'
He fell into a sewer, swam through foam, fell from space to Earth, denied reality and went mad, screamed, killed a person, fought that man (the psychic) and passed out, but.
The fact that it was a story from three days ago shocked Myeongseong.
Ignoring Myeongseong's dumbfounded expression, the man shook his head and spoke.
"Haaah. Cleaning up after you was quite a hassle. In a situation already in an uproar over a meteor falling and whatnot, somehow burying the body, erasing traces, casting suggestions…. Damn it! To have to do this kind of cleanup as the family head!"
Bang! Perhaps his emotions ran high as he spoke, the man ground his teeth and punched the wall. *Crackle*, watching the wall (probably cement) crack like a spiderweb centered on the man's fist, Myeongseong gulped.
"Uh…."
"If I'd known it would be like this, I wouldn't have come to this damned peninsula! Tsk! Damn it. To come all the way here and lose control of my emotions like this. I guess I'm still immature."
The man, taking a deep breath slowly, straightened his posture with elegance and composure once more.
And then glared straight at Myeongseong.
"So what are you?"
"…."
'What the hell is this nonsense. Fuck? Is this a nonsense quiz?'
Even Myeongseong, who had inwardly guessed the man would interrogate him, was taken aback by the absurd question that made his soul leave his body.
Literally.
It wasn't that he didn't understand the meaning of the direct question, 'What are you?'
But having suddenly been asked 'What are you?', Myeongseong simply couldn't comprehend the question.
He hadn't even properly understood the situation he was in—whether it was dimension travel or time-slip—and the first question he hears upon waking from sleep (unconsciousness) is something like that!
'There's a limit to how incomprehensible and confusing a situation can be. Fuck. Is that bastard perhaps insane?'
Myeongseong guessed the man was crazy, and thought it was possible.
Myeongseong was currently devolved(?) into a ten or eleven-year-old child!
In other words, he was essentially a young boy in appearance.
A man who, without hesitation, fired an incomprehensible psychic power that could kill even an adult man at such a child, who genuinely tried to kill Myeongseong, was highly likely to be a genuine, perhaps a true madman.
As that thought reached him, Myeongseong's eyes naturally narrowed hazily. Looking at the man as if pitying him, as if looking at a madman, the man instead burst into a hollow laugh.
"Huh? What's this. That disrespectful gaze? As if you're looking at a madman."
"Tsk."
'He guessed it eerily well.'
Clicking his tongue at the man's strangely good intuition, Myeongseong pouted his lips.
Seeing Myeongseong's attitude, the man, thinking he wouldn't answer easily, sighed and took out a blue gem from his pocket. Briefly wondering at the man suddenly taking out a gem, Myeongseong's gaze was momentarily stolen by the beauty of the gem he was seeing for the first time.
A clear blue light. A color that transformed diversely according to the sunlight seeping through the window. And the star-shaped pattern glimpsed within. Even to Myeongseong, a layman regarding gems, it was a top-quality piece that caught the eye at a glance. It was even a star sapphire.
But soon, Myeongseong felt goosebumps rising all over his body.
'What is it?'
Dangerous.
'It's dangerous. I don't know what it is, but it's dangerous!'
Was it Myeongseong's survival instinct, or some kind of sixth sense?
Strength naturally flowed into Myeongseong's entire body. His muscles stiffened, and his senses became acutely sensitive. His body flinched and reacted to every minor action of the man.
And the man, noticing Myeongseong's demeanor, made an expression of interest.
"My oh my. You detect such things eerily well too. A special mechanism reacting to danger? Or an instinctive sense? Whatever it is, it's preposterous."
But it would be useless.
The man, rolling the sapphire with his finger for a moment, smiled like a scientist in a lab—no, like a mad scientist—and asked Myeongseong again.
"I'll give you a special chance to ask once more. What are you?"
"...."
"I already know the translation Magecraft works mutually between us, so don't insolently stay silent. It would be better to speak honestly rather than think of deceiving me."
"What should I call myself…"
Myeongseong, in a crisis situation sensed by an instinct or intuition he couldn't name, naturally spoke more politely.
Toward such a Myeongseong, the man answered calmly, leisurely, as if imprinting upon him that he held the superior position.
"Your true identity."
'So what the fuck is that. Fuck. What am I supposed to answer? That I'm human?'
The events Myeongseong had faced up to now were a continuous series of incomprehensible, surreal, unrealistic situations.
At this time, when even he himself didn't properly understand, a situation where he was facing a threat to his life from this unidentified man!
For Myeongseong, who was no more than an ordinary person, a college student, it was a situation where he could barely hold onto a shred of reason, let alone regain his senses. Or, he had completely gone mad.
Anyway, the single thread of reason Myeongseong was barely holding onto did not understand the man's question itself. No, it couldn't even accept it.
'What is this? Something feels off between that man's thinking and mine?'
Myeongseong felt that the man's way of thinking was somehow different from his own.
It wasn't simply the difference between a modern person and a 19th-century person.
Some knowledge. Some perspective. Some common sense was fundamentally different from Myeongseong's.
Faced with a question fired one-sidedly for the man's own convenience, Myeongseong tilted his head, not even understanding the context, but with the mindset of answering *something*, he at least gave his name.
"If by true identity you mean…. Yes. First, my name is Eun Myeongseong."
"No, I'm not asking for your name but your true identity…. Hmm? Your name is Jin Myōujō? What kind of strange name is that?"
"…."
'This fucking insane Jappy bastard? No. Myeongseong. Hold on. Just hold on.'
For a moment, Myeongseong flared up at the man's absurd words, but he tried to somehow control his emotions and calm down.
Because Myeongseong's life was precious.
"I'm not curious about your name, but your true identity."
"True identity?"
"Yes. True identity. What on earth are you?"
The man's eyes stared clearly at Myeongseong. As if in a mirror's reflection, Myeongseong was visible in the man's pupils. He saw his own younger self.
"Your true identity, race, or something else other than human."
"Ah!"
When the man asked again, only then did Myeongseong understand the man's question, its meaning. And he found it absurd.
'What's with this bastard? Does he think I'm an alien or some other heteromorphic race in human form?'
And for a moment, he was utterly dumbfounded. This unidentified psychic man seemed to think he was some kind of alien or something in human form.
'But I'm an ordinary human? No, since I've gotten younger, maybe not ordinary?'
But Myeongseong was human.
No matter that he fell into a sewer, was in foam, and fell from space to Earth. Even if his body had gotten younger.
This body was undoubtedly Myeongseong's own body. A pure human body with no modifications, nothing added. Solely Myeongseong's body. Strangely enough, Myeongseong was aware, conscious of that fact very clearly, almost with certainty.
Simultaneously, he also possessed the (maddened) way of thinking of an ordinary human.
'I am just an ordinary person caught up in something akin to a disaster or calamity, a catastrophe….'
To Myeongseong, he was simply caught up in an unidentified disaster, calamity, or catastrophe.
'But why is that bastard asking such an idiotic question?'
Myeongseong found it odd, but decided to honestly tell the man the most obvious fact.
"I am human."
"...."
Myeongseong spoke with a confident expression, and the man's face went blank for a moment.
And for dozens of seconds.
A momentary silence filled the room.
As Myeongseong felt awkward for a moment, soon the man's blank expression distorted.
"…Human, you say?"
"Yes."
"You?"
"Yes. But why?"
"No, no. Really? You're human? Down to every piece of flesh and drop of blood?"
"That is correct."
"Damn it! I'd rather you spouted lies about being a True Ancestor or an elemental!"
Hearing Myeongseong's answer, the man, perhaps thinking he had been insulted, spat curses and slammed his fist down.
And *crack*.
The table, hit squarely by the man's fist, split in half and collapsed. Swallowing his saliva again at that fearsome power, Myeongseong thought.
'Wh-what kind of monstrous strength is that…. Isn't he the one who's not human?'
Cracking a cement wall, smashing a table with a fist. And even firing meaning-missing magic missiles(?). Myeongseong thought that man was more like a psychic or a monster.
After huffing for a moment to catch his breath, the man calmly opened his fist and, fixing his hair and tie, asked again.
"So you, whom Magecraft doesn't work on, who has absolutely no Magic Circuits, who smashed a Gander with your bare hands, are human…"
'Then what are you? You fucking bastard.'
Myeongseong, whose soul left his body at the man's suspicious gaze, was instead asked again.
"Speak honestly. Your true identity."
"I said I'm human because I am human, so if you say that, I have nothing more to say."
'I said I'm human because I am human, what the fuck is he saying. He's the one who seems like a monster.'
Myeongseong, annoyed by the man's repeated angry questioning even though he had given the most obvious, utterly honest answer (the truth).
'This man, he's oddly irritating.'
A man who seemed like a wealthy Japanese person visiting colonial Korea, given the (as Myeongseong guessed) era.
On top of that, a Western-style suit and stylish hairstyle as if emphasizing 'I am superior.' All sorts of jeweled accessories. Eyes filled with a sense of being the chosen people.
Actions and speech observing him as if dissecting or experimenting on him. Behavior that showed no consideration for Myeongseong, persistently asking as if only his own thoughts were correct.
'Disgusting. I feel like vomiting.'
As if foam was bubbling inside.
A situation that seemed to impose trials on him, endlessly crushing him.
At the man's incessant questioning, to the point where ringing was heard in his ears again.
Myeongseong began to feel anger. Myeongseong's entire body, his spirit, began to feel extreme disgust toward that man.
"Enough of those trivial lies and tell me your true identity…."
"By the way, let me ask something too. You shoot magic missiles(?) with your finger, smash walls with your fist, aren't you the one who's not human? Who are you to wield such psychic powers?"
Finally unable to endure, Myeongseong fired back like a machine gun, as if fed up with being interrogated.
"Psychic powers?! Are you now comparing my great Magecraft to such lowly abilities?!"
The man's eyes widened, as if he hadn't expected to be (dared to be) questioned by Myeongseong. But upon hearing a word in the last part of Myeongseong's continued questions that he could never let pass, the man became greatly indignant and shouted.
"I am the third head of the Tōsaka family! Tōsaka Kokumin! Ours is not a Magecraft family to be looked down upon by such lowly supernatural abilities!"
"Tō…saka?"
Myeongseong, who had been listening quietly to the man's words, heard a word he could absolutely not let pass. Yes. He had heard it. Myeongseong's eyes opened wide like someone witnessing hope—despair.
"Ri, ri, right now Tōsaka?! You?!"
Myeongseong leapt from the bed like lightning and grabbed the collar of the man, no, the Tōsaka or whatever.
"Wh, huh?"
'Fast! So fast I couldn't even react!'
Kokumin, who until just now was confident of his overwhelming superiority, was greatly flustered. The speed Myeongseong showed just now was an unbelievable mad speed, difficult even for him to react to. A speed even a first-rate magus like him couldn't perceive.
"How dare―――!"
But the moment he was about to shout in indignation at having his collar grabbed by a child of ten or eleven.
"Tōsaka right now? You said you're Tōsaka?! You fucking bastard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Before that, rage and irritation or fear. Overwhelming killing intent and madness revealed in Myeongseong for a moment shut his mouth.
Pure madness of unknowable depth, unbelievable for a mere ten to eleven-year-old child!
'Wh, what kind of eyes are those.'
He's just a child.
No matter how suspicious an existence he might be, his appearance was that of an ordinary child at first glance.
But Kokumin was shocked by the emotional torrent and the even greater, unknowable madness emanating from that figure, that form, which was unbelievable.
'Huh, huuuh. Human eyes, you say?'
No, he gulped.
That, that is not a madness a person can harbor.
At that madness, Kokumin flinched for a moment.
That's right.
The third head of the great Tōsaka family. Tōsaka Kokumin.
He had been cowed by Myeongseong.
"Y, yes, but?"
Was it a magus's intuition, or a human's survival instinct?
Kokumin inadvertently affirmed Myeongseong's question. Yes. He had answered.
"Ah. Ahhh…."
And so Myeongseong finally understood. Where he had fallen to, what kind of situation he had encountered.
Yes. He had understood.
"A time-slip, you say?"
Myeongseong had time-slipped into the Type-Moon universe.
"Ha. Hahaha. Type-Moon? Fate?"
"What…?"
Not even caring about Kokumin's shock as a magus at Myeongseong's weak mutter.
Myeongseong. Just with all his strength. With all his emotion. Shouted with all his heart and soul—screamed.
"Th, this doesn't make any seeeeeeense!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
-
For about 10 minutes.
Rushing out of bed, pushing over drawers, tearing off and throwing all sorts of decorations, scratching the wallpaper whether his nails broke or not, then again crying and shouting like a madman causing a ruckus, then again jumping into bed, chewing and tearing the blanket, then again hitting any desk he could find, repeating without rest.
Soon exhausted, Myeongseong slumped into a nearby chair, panting.
"Huff, huff."
No, his strength was gone.
If he had any strength left, he might have rampaged for at least 20 more minutes.
Myeongseong fell silent with an expression as if his soul had left, unable to believe it, and Tōsaka Kokumin, who had been cautiously watching from a corner during Myeongseong's rampage, finally sighed and stood up.
"Damn it. For me to show such disgrace in a moment."
Denying to the end that he had been frightened, Kokumin tried hard to ignore the fact that he had cowered and hid crouched in a corner from Myeongseong's madness. And clearing his throat, he brought Myeongseong's attention back to him.
"Ahem! Well, have you come around to honestly speaking about your identity now?"
Myeongseong, looking at Kokumin with a face where no vitality could be found, weakly remained silent.
"Don't just keep your mouth shut, I already know you're aware of the Tōsaka family."
Kokumin sharply rebuked Myeongseong, who consistently remained silent with an expression of disbelief.
'Ah….'
At that rebuke, Myeongseong, barely holding onto a thread of sanity, inwardly went 'Oops!'
'A mistake! Damn it! I should have pretended not to know!'
But Myeongseong had gone mad and rampaged.
Honestly, it was unavoidable; it had been a continuous series of incomprehensible situations from the moment he fell here until now.
A continuous series of disaster-like calamities, catastrophic events overwhelming for him, who had lived as an ordinary human.
Falling into a sewer, entering space, crashing to Earth, time-slipping and getting younger, (killing a person too) facing some psychic and nearly dying, wishing it was all a dream and passing out, only to wake and find it still a dream and realize it's not a dream but (reality) and the Type-Moon universe, how could he not go mad?
'Type-Moon? Fucking Type-Moon?!'
What kind of place is the Type-Moon universe!
A world where Dead Apostles or True Ancestors or vampires walk back alleys nonchalantly, where passing magi kill ordinary people without hesitation or use them as test subjects!
A hellscape where humanity goes extinct whenever they're bored, a demonic realm among demonic realms where humanity is doomed to extinction in the future anyway. Isn't it the hell of all ages!
Myeongseong felt darkness before his eyes. It was truly the feeling of walking in darkness where you can't see an inch ahead.
In that desperate situation. Myeongseong glanced at the expression of the Tōsaka or whatever.
Between the eyes looking at him as if finding it absurd, a certain resolve was glimpsed. A certain resolve. A kind of inhuman gaze fitting of a magus. Or something akin to killing intent.
'Fuck. I'm screwed. I just violated the concealment of mysteries.'
To a magus, Magecraft is something to be concealed. To a magus, their family is like a sanctuary other magi cannot approach.
Myeongseong had provoked that. He had shown that he knew.
'Th, think. Think! Myeongseong! That bastard is a magus!'
Even if he was just a light fan who had watched a few anime or read some manga, Myeongseong had often read the wikis. So he knew the basic common sense(?) of Type-Moon.
Now.
'What were magi in the Type-Moon world?'
Think.
'The dregs of humanity. The pinnacle of inhumanity. Mad scientists. Heretics. Trash. Assholes.'
Very. And extremely.
It was a very narrow-minded and prejudiced conclusion unique to Myeongseong, but he was certain.
'If I say one wrong word here, it's immediate sealing designation, or becoming a test subject, or if I'm lucky, death.'
Here, even a cruel death is a blessing. If things go wrong, he could face a situation worse than death.
'I have to speak! An alibi(?) he can accept! But will he really believe it?'
Now, let's imagine.
The result when Myeongseong speaks honestly.
'So, I fell from space to Earth.'
'Huh, a lie. No choice but to silence you.'
'No, it's true…?! Kyaaaaah?!'
A magic bullet is fired, his head explodes, KO.
Bad Ending.
'What the. Fuck. Either way, I die, don't I?'
I'm screwed.
Myeongseong thought.
I'm screwed.
Thought it twice because it was important.
It seemed Myeongseong was screwed no matter what.
"Hmm. No choice then."
While Myeongseong was briefly lost in thought, Tōsaka Kokumin, presuming Myeongseong had no intention to answer, raised the sapphire. The sapphire glowed for an instant, then melted, and the light transferred directly to his hand.
The moment that hand, that light, was aimed at Myeongseong, Myeongseong instinctively covered his head with both arms.
And―――
"FUCK! Mental interference Magecraft didn't work! Damn it! To forget that fact for a moment!"
―――Nothing happened.
Myeongseong, watching the Tōsaka or whatever blame himself for wasting a precious gem, making such a mistake in a moment, recalled an important piece of Type-Moon common sense(?).
'Ah, that's the thing.'
The Tōsaka family's hereditary ailment of misfiring…, no, slipping up at crucial moments.
'My my, he looks truly pathetic.'
Trying to do something again with gems, taking out rubies, sapphires, emeralds, but they soon melt, and having no effect on Myeongseong, the Tōsaka (whatever) spits curses and clutches his head.
That sight looked so pathetic that Myeongseong couldn't help but inwardly scoff.
Thinking he had been ignored and insulted by Myeongseong's scoff, Tōsaka Kokumin flared up and took out a red ruby.
'Huh?'
This time it's different.
"Eek! Then I'll torture you with physical interference Magecraft!"
"I'll talk."
"Wh…at?"
"I'll speak honestly."
"Uh...."
Having genuinely felt a threat to his life, Myeongseong immediately changed his attitude and answered politely.
Kokumin was momentarily taken aback by Myeongseong's sudden change in stance, but soon put on a composed expression.
"C, cough. You should have done that from the start."
Perhaps inwardly praising himself that his method was somewhat effective, though unintentional.
'Sigh. Fuck. Pathetic bastard.'
Myeongseong inwardly sneered at the dumbfounded appearance of the Tōsaka whatever, who seemed to be trying hard to maintain dignity.
'Right. Just a character from a work of fiction. Even if he's a character I don't know, he's just a creation.'
In the end, isn't he just a fake human following the setting values(?) of the Type-Moon universe?
'I'll deceive him appropriately according to that setting.'
Just setting values. I'll deceive him easily.
"I came from the sky."
"The sky? Is that a metaphorical meaning?"
"Not a metaphorical meaning, but literally. No, more precisely. Yes."
Should I say outer space?
"What…?"
"I fell from the void into space, from space into the sky, and then to the earth."
Now, let's begin.
'Mix 1% of lies into 99% of truth.'
A desperate con.
―――
-Material for Eun Myeongseong when "assumed" as a Servant-
Class : Foreigner?
[Parameters]
[Strength - Endurance- Agility F- Mana - Luck - Noble Phantasm -]
[Class Skills]
"Life from Outside the Territory EX"
An arrival from the outer cosmos, from the void.
"■■ ■■ ■■(■■) EX"
―――Details unknown.
"■■■■ : ■■ EX"
―――Details unknown.
[Personal Skills]
"Madness EX"
Anxiety and fear. A deviation from harmony and providence.
In Myeongseong's case, he clearly distinguishes between reality and this different world, between himself and the setting.
That way of thinking is clearly a different, heterogeneous way of thinking from this other world.
He does not recognize people as people, and recognizes the world not as reality but as fake (or something equivalent).
…That's how he's maintaining his sanity. Or he has gone mad.
[Noble Phantasm]
None. He is not a Servant, so there's no reason for him to possess one. May he rest in peace.