Fate: How About a New Savior?

Half an hour later, in an apartment in London.

This was the base Mordred had mentioned, but it turned out she wasn't the only one living here. The apartment's owner was a young man who appeared to be around the same age as Shiomi and introduced himself as Henry Jekyll.

Shiomi recognized the name.

The protagonist of the famous novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who, after drinking a certain potion, would manifest a violent alternate personality named Hyde. Shiomi had always thought it was just a fictional story from modern literature, but clearly, such a person had truly existed in history.

More importantly, unlike Mordred, he wasn't a Servant, but a living person native to the era of this Singularity.

"This way, she'll be fully in sync with the ley lines of this land, and Saber's contract can function at full capacity," Sakura said as she activated the communicator. On the projected screen appeared Morgan, who was overseeing support on Shiomi's side.

Mordred, who had just pulled a beer from the fridge and taken a sip, choked on it in surprise when Morgan's image appeared.

Shiomi was even more surprised to find that this apartment had a home refrigerator, despite the fact that such appliances had only been invented about ten years ago in this timeline.

Then Mordred learned that although she had been defeated by the King of Heroes and exited the stage during the final moments of the Fifth Holy Grail War in Fuyuki, Morgan and Shiomi had not lost.

After taking all this in, Jekyll began explaining the current situation to Shiomi and the others.

About three days ago, a mysterious magical fog enveloped London, cutting the city off completely from the outside world. With chaos-inducing mechanical soldiers and Magecraft puppets roaming the streets, the city had fallen into paralysis within days.

This explained why Shiomi and Sakura had barely seen any people outside.

The fog was harmful to humans. Civilians were either hiding indoors, too afraid to go out, or had already fallen unconscious—Jekyll included. That left the investigation to Mordred, who had arrived at this Singularity three days earlier and was taken in by Jekyll.

"I think I get it now."

Shiomi was starting to piece things together. Just as he was about to ask Jekyll whether he'd contacted the Clock Tower, Jekyll continued with his explanation.

"I've been trying to figure out the truth behind this fog for the past few days. But this morning, the friend who was helping me investigate went missing. Since I can't leave the apartment, I asked Mordred to go look for Dr. Frankenstein—"

"Then, on the way, I heard the sounds of fighting," Mordred said, pointing at Shiomi and Sakura with the hand still holding her beer bottle.

That's how she'd ended up at the scene.

"They're probably dead," Morgan stated calmly, offering the most likely conclusion. "London has become a Singularity, and the magical fog was created by the mastermind behind it. If it were me, I wouldn't allow anyone to uncover the truth either."

"...Ugh..." Mordred let out a sound that was hard to describe.

"Mordred, if you disagree with my analysis, don't hesitate to say so," Morgan said with a faint smile.

"No, not at all," Mordred quickly denied.

Shiomi leaned against the armrest of the sofa. "But Jekyll said he only lost contact with Dr. Frankenstein this morning. If we head over there now, we might still be able to confirm if he's alive. And if the worst has already happened, we could at least start tracking the mastermind behind all this."

The calamity known as the Incineration of Humanity was far too massive for Lev to have orchestrated alone. That man was clearly just another pawn in the larger scheme.

"Then before heading to the Clock Tower, should we make a detour to Dr. Frankenstein's home and investigate?" Sakura asked, confirming their next move.

Her question drew Jekyll's attention. He shook his head with a regretful look.

"My lady, I hate to disappoint you, but the Clock Tower has already fallen."

"I see," Sakura replied with a sigh.

"Knew it would come to this," Shiomi added, completely unsurprised.

They had already anticipated it on their way here with Mordred. As the heart of the Magus, the Clock Tower was one of the Mage's Association's most functional institutions and had the closest ties to the world of Magecraft.

Anyone attempting to create a Singularity in this city and distort history would've been detected by the Magi first. Naturally, they would have responded immediately.

Which meant the correct strategy was to eliminate the Clock Tower first—wipe out the resistance and clear the way.

But to pull off something like that...

"You two really aren't surprised at all," Jekyll said, realizing he'd probably been overthinking things.

Mordred laughed heartily. "My Master is a first-rate Magus! Of course she would've anticipated something like this right away!"

"Not at all," Sakura replied humbly as she sipped her tea. "It's all thanks to Father and Lady Mother's guidance."

Mordred glanced at the projection of Morgan, who was still linked to their call, and swirled her beer bottle. "That reminds me, I never got to ask—why does Master use an honorific for Mother?"

Shiomi was just "Dad," but Morgan was "Lady Mother."

"Because she is Lady Mother. Anything less just feels wrong," Sakura answered simply.

"Huh..." Mordred had the urge to mock Sakura's reverence toward Morgan but decided it wasn't the right time.

"Sakura's a good girl. Much better than someone who would look their so-called father in the eye and call him 'my mother's boy toy,'" Morgan said with a teasing smile.

"True," Shiomi chimed in.

Embarrassed, Mordred scowled and shot a glare at Jekyll, who was laughing.

She hadn't realized Morgan could hear them at the time.

As for who Morgan really was, Mordred had given up trying to figure it out. She left the question in a deliberately vague space, neither acknowledging her as "Mother" nor outright denying it.

"Oh, right! Why did Saber say Dad was just a boy toy?" Sakura suddenly remembered and complained, "Even if you don't want to accept his position, you didn't have to put it like that, did you?"

Mordred took a swig of her beer and grumbled, "Whatever. I'll call him what I want. If you've got a problem with that, go ahead and use your Command Spell."

"The Command Spells created by Chaldea aren't as strong as the ones from the Fuyuki Holy Grail War," Sakura said, glancing regretfully at the mark on the back of her hand.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! If they were strong enough, you'd seriously waste one just for that?!"

"Seems like the perfect use to me," Sakura said, blinking innocently.

Listening to Sakura and Mordred go back and forth, with Morgan occasionally throwing in a sharp remark, Shiomi finally started to relax. The tension in his body began to ease as he decided to take a short rest before moving on.