Chapter 84 - Caster...?

The night was filled with mana because of the fight in the mountain range. For every Noble Phantasm and attack, the mana reaction in the surrounding was stirred up as the masters frowned at this battle.

Although it's not the end of the world type of battle, all the fighters were very strong and might be one of the stronger caliber opponents in this war.

This made the war's difficult increase more, even if it was already Abyss-Rank because of what happened.

Above the rooftops of Fuyuki, Cu was running and jumping in his spiritual form. His moves were very fast and agile as he crossed a long distance with just a little movement.

Because of the mana in the air, the mana reaction was very confusing and hard to detect anything precisely. A regular magi will have a hard time trying to figure something in this mess, but Cu was able to advance without any problem.

His Rune magecraft, even if it's weaker in his Lancer-Class, can calm the mana around him, which allows him to detect mana signals without a problem. Although he thinks it's too much trouble to use them, he doesn't mind as long as he gets rid of this boredom.

However, for Cu, his instinct was the most important. He has a feeling that going in this way is the best route to find servants.

After a while, most of the regular buildings started to decrease and what left was some fancy mansions. This area was the south end of Miyama town, a suburban area of Fuyuki that contains old houses and traditional buildings. But in this area, the houses are western-style and fancier.

"Now, where is it" Landing on the rooftop of one of the mansions, Cu looked around as he felt the mana in the air before jumping again.

The wind was blowing around him as the mansion in his sight was getting closer, but Cu always felt something off in this place, even if he couldn't detect it. He always believed in his instinct, but this doesn't mean he'll run away or back down.

"Very small, is there even a magi here?" Landing on another mansion, which was fancier than others, Cu didn't know what to feel about this slight signal of mana in it.

Maybe it was just a regular magi, who's not involved in the war, these were Cu's thoughts before he entered the mansion using his spirit form.

The spirit form allows servants to pass through normal solid objects if there wasn't a barrier or a spell on them. This also made Cu more suspicious of this place because there wasn't even a small barrier.

His instinct and logic were telling him two different things, but Cu entered away, so he might check the source of mana. After all, his master is a coward and won't allow him to run into the other fight, he even told him to retreat once his Noble Phantasm was revealed.

"Nothing, huh…" Cu traveled in the mansion until he reached its bas.e.m.e.nt. It was dark and large for a normal bas.e.m.e.nt.

Cu glanced left and right as he was trying to determine the mana place, but he was frowning slightly.

{Everything is normal, but why do I have a disgusting feeling from this place} Keeping this feeling in mind, Cu took one step forward and exited from his spiritual form.

At that moment, something like a mechanism in the bas.e.m.e.nt was activated before two skeleton shape creatures appeared and rushed towards Cu.

"*Whistle*~..." Cu kicked the two skeletons into fragments while whistling and moving around.

"That was all, huh… It's very weird" Cu felt the little mana disappearing with the skeletons before he said " No barriers, no enemies, small trap, and clear bas.e.m.e.nt, which has a disgusting feeling in it"

"Either it's a stupid guy or someone who wants to hide his tracks by making the others think he's stupid" Cu said his thoughts before he grabbed his spear as started to write some runes on the ground. He has nothing better to do, so he might just try and figure out what is going on.

Using his runes to give him a vision of truth and taste of every mana in this place, Cu felt this place is really disgusting like a bugs nest just from the mana remnant in it.

" This mana and way it has been erased. Three magi were using this place, the first two didn't hide their traces or they couldn't" Cu felt three types of mana. One was normal, the second was like a bug, and the third one almost didn't exist.

If it wasn't for his runes, instinct, and divinity, Cu will never be able to sense the third one before he said " And this type of mana… Caster, huh… Well, I guess it wasn't a useless trip in the end, even if I didn't fight anyone"

Cu said with a helpless sigh as he was preparing to leave, but he didn't see the shadows in the bas.e.m.e.nt moving around as Assassin was following all his movements.

Presence concealment EX isn't a joke. This skill allows Assassin to be one with the world in the shadows and avoid all detection abilities. He'll only be revealed when he attacks as it drops to A+. Although some special abilities and skills can reveal him, those aren't common things, which show how unlucky he was in this war.

{Master, I believe that I found the presence of the other Caster} Assassin called him master in his head.

{Excellent, this is a great discovery. Where did you find it?} Assassin's master said through the link as Assassin said { I followed Lancer. He was the one who found it}

{Give me the location and did you notice something strange?} Assassin heard his master words as his eyes flashed green for a moment before he said {Matou resident. There wasn't anything stange}

{Good, continue the investigation and follow Lancer for the moment} Assassin's master said before he left the spiritual link.

Assassin stared at the area around before he disappeared into the shadows, however, he didn't follow Lancer and went in a completely different way.

Meanwhile, in a hotel in the middle of Fuyuki City.

"Good, finally we can have some foothold in this mission" A man wearing a black robe looked at the window as he quit his link with his servant.

"Caster and Matou, it must have something to do with Pale Rider stealing" the man said as he looked at his hand watch. This was something he used to communicate with his leader Alex during the mission. He got a clear order to wait until Alex figured out Pale Rider's master before they did any action.

"Is the leader in that battle, vice-leader?" Suddenly, the door of the room was opened as a man in a soldier outfit asked.

"Yes, we lost a lot of our members, even more than we intended, but it's okay if we can recover the loss with the mission rewards" the robed man didn't look at the soldiers as he said" The nightmare space doesn't allow weakness"

The soldier nodded as he didn't say any other word. He knew this was supposed to happen in the mission, but it went more extreme than they intended.

The nightmare space is the place where they take their missions and upgrade their power, it's a place where the law of jungle rules. Failures and weakness means death, these words always pushed the player to risk themselves to improve, even if it was mean to throw themselves at danger because it's better to die trying than dying on the hand of the nightmare space.

Their guild, Silver Lightning, planned to enter this world and 'lower' the members number. The survival of fitness was the rule of this mission, this was something that most of the members didn't know.

In the past, Alex raised the guild from zero as it accepted a lot of players and reached a huge power, but the more they advanced, the difficulty of the missions was increasing. This change wasn't affordable by the guild because the resources can't be equal and so many members sharing them can reflect very badly on the guild overall strength, so it went to this… A survival game.

The goal is lowering the members' number and allow the strong to survive as those will be the main focus for the resources.

Everything went well at first, some idiot lost their lives in internal conflicts for the rewards or items and some met Gilgamesh as the greed took the best from them, even their lives.

However, that didn't last as a servant came over and wiped the whole B team from existence before the world-ending event happened. The mission wasn't normal and this turned from a convenient test to a nightmare-level mission.

The soldier didn't stay in the room as he left to take care of something, but he and the vice-leader didn't notice the mask hidden in the shadows, shining green.

Meanwhile, in mount Endou, there was a mansion in a secret location, hidden from all sights.

"Ho? Caster? A third Caster? Or maybe a fourth Caster? And Matou… Call me crazy, but my system user senses are tingling" Leo grinned as he looked at the show from Assassin's eyes.

Assassin now is just a puppet with no mind dancing on his hand. The real Assassin was already defeated, but Leo forced him to stay by using his Noble Phantasm and fixed him to this world. This drains more mana from Leo because the Holy Grail stopped giving any mana to Assassin, but this is nothing for him.

You need more than 15 servants fighting around to make Leo really helpless about his mana capacity.

"Did you succeed in… whatever you were doing?" Merlin looked at Leo sitting on the table while grinning as she was curious about what happened.

"I was watching the detective, Mario Cu Cu-lame(Cu Chulainn), solving the case while some idiots were making fun of themselves" Leo grinned more as a creepy aura was around him, which made Merlin sweat a little.

This looked like a very scary Devil that Merlin didn't want to mess with, so he glanced at the surrounding using his Clairvoyance before he walked away.

"Are you going somewhere, Merlin?" Ritsuka asked as she was looking at Nero, who was thinking about something. She was in this state for more than 5 minutes as Nero entered deep thought mode.

"Are you worried about me? Fear not, I'm just going to stroll with the wind and look at this wonderful world" Merlin said as the petals were flying around him before he disappeared.

"Bullshit…" Leo added from the side before he went back to his VR Assassin creed, Fate Stay Night edition.

"Ehh…" Ritsuka was speechless by these words and the fact that as a Master, she's completely clueless about her servant actions… This makes it two if she counts Rin, who doesn't know what happened with Archer.

"I found it!!" Suddenly, Nero raised her head with huge excitement, which shocked Ritsuka.

"What do you mea-- AHHH!!!" Ritsuka wanted to ask something, but Nero didn't give her any chance. She took her hand and rushed outside the room as Ritsuka was helpless against the strength of a servant.

"That looks interesting… Good for them" Leo looked at Nero and Ritsuka running away as he was able to feel Nero excitement from here, which even if he didn't want to admit it, but having a cheerful person around isn't all that bad.

"Don't you think so?" Leo said to Fou, who woke up after some sleeping.

"Fou, fou" Fou rubbed his eyes with his paw as he moved close to Leo on the table.

"You mean the little girl(Ritsuka)? If she doesn't want to say what happened to her, then I won't mention it" Leo shrugged his shoulder. He was never the type that loves to dig up people's private things, especially if he at least knows this person and if that thing was important for the said person.

"Fou, fou" Fou shook his ears as he said something to Leo.

"Mashu Kyrielight? Is this the person you're willing to fight for? Even recovering your Beast power… How to say, you're really interesting and… Congratulations on finding this cause" Leo c.a.r.e.s.sed Fou's head and ears as he smiled a little while looking at this fluffy white killing-machine finding something worthy to live for.

"Well, if this is my kin and comrade request, then I'll make sure this timeline will come back to its normal form, be it for my job or this request, but first…" Leo looked left and right while scanning the area with mana and his divinity before he took a cookie from his hidden space and put it in front of Fou.

"Fou~?" Fou tilted his head before he ate the cookie from Leo's hand which made the latter smile as he took another cookie.

However, at that moment, he saw Fou yawning and felt his mana was still weak from the morning.

"You used your mana to reach this timeline and some power in fighting, are really this determined?" Leo sighed at this action this day before he looked at the cookie in his hand and said " Do you prefer Genesis, history, or the End?"

"Fou~? Fou" Fou was confused with this question before he answered.

Leo nodded before his golden eye glowed and the cookie in his hand was charged with golden color mana. He looked at the cookie in his hand before he said " Genesis flavor cookies. My genius is… Almost frightening"

Leo felt he was making some weird things these days before he gave Fou the cookie, which apparently, he liked it a lot.

Then Leo proceeded to feed Fou while patting him as it was very entertaining for him.

However, he didn't know if any magi saw what he did with those cookies and how he wasted them. He'll suicide from this absurd action of wasting something that can even be a relic of a whole magecraft family… Even if it was a cookie.