Melusine, Become my Noble Phantasm!

The cost of using the silver arm was enormous. Every time he unleashed its power, the toll on his body increased. The more he relied on it, the closer he came to collapse. But now was not the time to worry. Even if his body broke down, he would finish his mission first!

The civilians he had saved looked at him with gratitude lighting their faces.

"Thank you! Thank you so much! May we ask your name...?"

The silver-armed knight hesitated for a moment, then replied softly, "Lucius... You can call me Lucius."

Melusine, who had just finished dispatching a group of Upright Knights nearby, perked up the moment she heard that name. She instinctively turned toward the voice, alert—but the figure she saw was not the infamous red-haired Roman emperor. Instead, it was a white-haired, handsome knight.

Still... Melusine remembered this face.

During her thousand years in the Inner Sea of the Stars, she had learned something important: Aslan, her beloved, kept a respectful distance from most women—but was strangely close with a few men. Too close.

Melusine had always wanted to knock on Aslan's thick skull and shout, "Look into their eyes! You call that pure friendship?!"

Over the centuries, she had become increasingly convinced, it wasn't the women she had to be wary of—it was the men. If Aslan ever left her one day, it wouldn't be for a woman. No, it would be for a "close friend" she never saw coming.

Perhaps due to her recent reawakening and her long, lucid years, her memory had become sharper than ever. She could now recall each and every man Aslan had ever shared an odd bond with. And the knight in front of her—yes, she remembered him. Vividly.

He was definitely one of those standout men from the past. Though she couldn't remember if he had ties to Rome or Britain, logic told her he had to be a Knight of the Round Table. After all, every knight summoned to this world had been.

Still, Melusine chose not to expose him. If he was a Knight of the Round Table, Morgan would see through the lie eventually. So why bother? What puzzled her, though, was—if he was one of them, why bother lying at all? Why act like a stranger?

What Melusine hadn't realized was that the knight before her was still alive, like her and Aslan—but unlike them, he had not been summoned as a Servant. The immense magical pressure radiating from his silver arm masked his human nature completely.

And more importantly—this man came from the same world as the Lion King. In contrast, Aslan, Melusine, and Morgan were intruders in this timeline. So it wasn't that he was lying. He simply didn't know. He had no idea that the one his other self had once pursued under the name Lucius... was Aslan.

It was like someone claiming their wife was Melusine—only to discover Melusine's husband was them.

Aslan, for his part, showed no sign of surprise upon seeing the knight. He stepped forward, raised his holy spear, and unfurled the flag attached to it. The radiant light of healing and restoration flowed from the spear and washed over the knight.

"Don't use that arm again," Aslan said sternly. "Do you want to ascend to the Throne of Heroes before you've even returned the holy sword—Bedivere?"

The white-haired knight froze at the name, his expression flickering. He shook his head and stubbornly repeated, "I am Lucius of Rome. Not some—"

Before he could finish, Aslan sighed, reached into his cloak, and pulled out a distinctively decorated sword—one that had once belonged to the red-haired Roman emperor Lucius. He gently twirled it in his hand, letting the light gleam off its floral carvings.

Aslan didn't need to say anything more. If Bedivere had once followed the Lion King on her Roman conquest, he would recognize this sword instantly.

And he did.

Bedivere's mouth clamped shut. His shoulders slumped slightly. After a long pause, he exhaled. "All right... then, may I ask who you are?"

Aslan raised an eyebrow and pointed at his own face and hair.

"After seeing this face, you still need to ask?"

Bedivere frowned. There was no denying it. The man before him looked very much like his king. And the sword—after Lucius had died, that blade had been returned to Camelot's treasury by the king herself. How could this man be holding it now?

Bedivere's face turned pale with realization.

"Could it be... are you the king's illegitimate son?"

!!!

Why did I just lose a whole generation out of nowhere?!

Aslan casually swatted away a rushing Knight of Honor with the spear and rubbed his temple with a long sigh. "Forget it... We come from different worlds, after all. Knight of the Round Table, Bedivere—listen. In terms of lineage, I'm actually Arturia's cousin."

He looked Bedivere in the eye, tone firm.

"You are part of the resistance now. You stand against the Lion King, just as we do. There's no need to hide your identity here. Let us help you complete your mission. But you must also keep up with us—if your body continues to weaken, you will slow us down."

The knights they faced now—those of the Round Table and the Purification Order—were stronger than ever. The knight before him could not survive relying only on a few bursts of power from his silver arm.

"As for your weapon," Aslan added with a smirk, "I'm something of a divine-tier blacksmith in a certain world's Great Britain. I'll forge you something temporarily—on par with a B-rank Noble Phantasm."

Right now, Aslan had arrived as a cavalry-class Servant. He could only create B-rank weapons without their True Names. Had he come as a Caster, he would have been a true Noble Phantasm wholesaler.

Under the light of the Spear of Destiny, Bedivere—his body now slowly recovering—nodded solemnly. He'd only just regained consciousness when he arrived in this singularity. He didn't know the full situation. And in this unfamiliar land, the best option... was to follow Aslan's lead.

-End Chapter-

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