He Tore Through The Holy Grail War, And You Still Call Him A Dragon?

As everyone knows, black curtain dealings and underhanded manipulations are a staple of any Holy Grail War.

Thinking everyone will behave like honest folk and strictly follow the rules?

That doesn't exist.

In the more standard worldlines, the Einzbern family had already started breaking rules in the Third Grail War by summoning Angra Mainyu, which ended up polluting the Greater Grail.

And in other worldlines, there was even the case of the entire Greater Grail being stolen by the magus Darnic. His Yggdmillennia clan directly seized all seven Master slots, turning it into a one-sided Grail War with seven Servants under their family. That level of power was more than enough to sweep the Mage's Association.

If not for the Clock Tower using a special mechanism of the Grail system to summon another faction's seven Servants, launching a "Great Grail War," they would have been completely crushed by Yggdmillennia.

So Shirou felt that in this Holy Grail War, if there weren't some shady characters involved, it wouldn't make any sense. Even in Fate/stay night's HF route, the Holy Grail War had the infamously ranked bug-ridden old man actively participating as a must-have villain.

He thought it over. Surely it wasn't that "King General" who appeared only to die almost instantly, right? Sure, his method of controlling crowds with clapper sounds was strange, but the guy got taken out way too fast.

And Shirou still felt that this Holy Grail War, from the moment it started until now, seemed to be missing something.

The King General, the clones, the masked man… ah, right—Odin!

———

"Another accident?"

After a whole day's work, Gen Ushitora had only closed his eyes for three hours of rest in his office chair before waking the next morning to see a mountain of messages piled up before him. His brows instantly furrowed.

On his personal computer, the super AI "Kaguya-hime" was continuously sending in collected reports of "unnatural deaths." A series of sudden "accidents," bloody and suffocating, hit like a storm right in the face, matching the thick, oppressive storm clouds and heavy rains outside, broken only by streaks of lightning.

"An oil tanker exploded after a rear-end collision in Bunkyō Ward, killing over a hundred people…"

"In Shinjuku, a long-tube trailer carrying compressed hydrogen suddenly swerved into a mall, its explosion killing more than three hundred pedestrians on the spot…"

"Due to the continuous heavy rains, Mount Takao in Hachiōji experienced a massive landslide and mudflow, destroying numerous residences and killing many nearby citizens, casualties still under tally…"

Gen sat up straight, his long fingers scrolling the mouse wheel. Accidents like these happened every day.

In this island nation, more than two thousand people died annually from traffic accidents alone. If you added drowning, falls, fires, and other incidents, the yearly total would reach twenty or thirty thousand.

But from the past few days of Kaguya-hime's data, the numbers had skyrocketed dozens of times higher in just three days.

Traffic explosions, landslides, earthquakes, mysterious shipwrecks at sea, plus scattered construction accidents, falling objects, house fires… woven together into a dense and terrifying net of death blanketing the nation.

The phrase Shirou once said—"the descent of the divine"—flashed through Gen's mind once again… The god's steps of destruction drew closer and closer. Ever since Eri's Judgment was stolen away, in the god's hands it had turned into an inescapable fate of death.

Ironically, under such fear and oppression, even the "Shinjuku Incident" from before, where a natural gas company was scapegoated, had seen its public criticism fade.

Because now, far worse had arrived. By comparison, people longed for that day again—at least then, only Shinjuku had suffered. Everywhere else had been untouched, hadn't it?

The phone on his desk suddenly rang.

"Hello? Crow?"

Gen picked up. He instinctively reached for his coffee, only to find the cup long empty. Normally by this time, Yabuki Sakura would've quietly brought him a fresh cup of hand-ground coffee.

But now Sakura had been sent away to take care of Eri, so he had to handle things himself.

As his eyes drifted, looking for the coffee machine he had never once cared about, Crow's next words froze him.

"What, rumors about Eri have spread in the family?"

"Yes," Crow's voice lowered, "the rumor is crafted convincingly. They're saying the Uesugi heir's bloodline went out of control, that she rampaged. These recent accidents are just a cover-up for her killings."

"…"

Gen almost laughed in disbelief. Leaving aside that Eri's departure was a tightly held secret—Shirou and Father wouldn't leak it either—even if the clan had such ability and reach to cover up abnormal accidents nationwide, then tell him…

How could Eri possibly appear in so many different places at the same time?

But rumor-mongers didn't care. As long as it was about "those above," the words would spread like wildfire. And as for how Eri could appear everywhere?

Well, most of them had never seen her fight before. She was the clan's Tsukuyomi no Mikoto, wasn't she? Surely doing something like that wasn't impossible for her?

"…Crow, spread my order…"

Gen paused. He could never reveal to the public that Eri had gone abroad as an ordinary girl. That was the fastest way to dispel rumors, but also the most dangerous.

The truth was—someone had learned of a secret that should never have leaked.

They knew about Eri's kotodama, her Judgment that caused instant death. And these accidents were marked by mass instantaneous deaths. If Eri ever had to demonstrate her ability in public, she'd immediately be under suspicion.

But what they didn't know was that Eri had already become an ordinary girl and left the country. They mistakenly thought she was being controlled by the god and had rampaged. If they knew the truth, they wouldn't act so rashly.

Gen recalled Kitajima Shino's earlier testimony of "Aoiya Taihō," and his brows finally eased.

These "shadows" had finally shown their true colors.

"…Crow, keep this quiet for now. Investigate who spread the rumor first. You can coordinate with the Fūma clan head—their ninja are skilled at such matters."

Gen walked over to the coffee machine as Crow's voice continued.

"Understood, clan head… There's one more thing. Kazama Ruri of the Fierce Ghosts… has awakened."

"Got it. I'll head there immediately." Gen set down his cup with a sigh.

Seems he wouldn't be drinking any freshly brewed coffee today.

———

The next morning, the books arranged by Wa Master had already arrived by air, efficiency beyond belief.

Shirou carried the entire crate into his room. Tearing the packaging open, he found on top a neat label handwritten by her.

It said these books weren't originals but urgent copies, only paper wasted, worth little. So as long as he kept them safe and didn't leak them, there was no need to return them.

Shirou peeled the label away and checked the contents. Besides the foundational Huangtingjing, there were Daoist classics like the Yunji Qiqian, Zhengao, Shangqing Dadong Zhenjing, and other rare scriptures.

Many were solitary texts long lost in the modern age. Wa Master's claim that they were "worthless" was pure humility.

After all, while some classics remained widely printed, their true originals might have been lost to history.

For example, the famous Tao Te Ching existed in multiple forms: the Wang Bi edition, the Mawangdui silk manuscripts, the Guodian bamboo slips… yet none of these were Laozi's original five-thousand-word text written for Yin Xi.

"…Phew, sending me this many books—is this a test of my quantum-wave reading speed?"

Shirou immediately began flipping through them. He wasn't a scholar obsessed with dissecting words but more the hands-on type. The texts served as references to consult when needed.

So he skimmed them quickly for their main ideas, then began cross-referencing the concept of "inner visualization" to explore the method of cultivating a Reality Marble.

"So-called 'inner visualization' means storing thought and spirit—focusing inwardly and outwardly on sun, moon, stars, mountains, and such phenomena, making the internal image correspond to the outer world."

Shirou clipped the lines together, quickly grasping the key point: the texts showed him the path.

Use the real world (the outer scene) as a template, then mold an "inner scene" or "mental landscape" within.

In other words, before crafting a product, first confirm its blueprint. Imagining from nothing would be slow, so the shortcut was to take directly from reality…

With that insight, Shirou felt reassured.

Little did he realize that as the method wound around and around, the process of constructing his Reality Marble was becoming more and more like Nibelungen.

(End of Chapter)

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