Chapter 260: The Law Apprentice's Goal, Golden Spark Falls! (Patreon)

The FSF World.

A secret military base of the United States, far from Snowfield.

Ryuuen hovered in midair, dozens of meters above the ground.

Below him, squads of tense Beautiful Country soldiers scurried like worker ants, hauling heavy military hardware into hangars. On the side, they were loading the "shoddy Decepticons"—wrecks blasted apart by cannon fire and lightning—onto heavy trailers.

"Heh. They work fast, I'll give them that."

Ryuuen's mouth twitched.

Honestly, with the tech he had at his disposal now, he could just take over the network here, fly to every other Beautiful Country military base around the globe, and forcibly "Cybertronize" all the heavy equipment inside. That would rack up a ton of S Points, and he wouldn't have to wait around here.

But for the moment, at least…

Both the arrogant magi and this world's Beautiful Country government were keeping their heads unusually low.

They hadn't pulled any tricks in this so-called "cooperation."

In private, they hadn't even sent a few magus assassins to test him and make trouble.

Was it because they figured they could reverse-engineer alien tech from the scrapped Decepticon wrecks, so the deal wasn't a loss?

Or did the magi simply not care about how many resources the surface world burned through?

Ryuuen ran the numbers in his head.

Since the other side wasn't playing games with the deal, he and his people shouldn't stir up extra trouble either.

They had no choice. For now they were still wearing the "savior" filter on the surface.

If they went too far and the masks came off…

And the remaining Servants of this world banded together and hunted them down as villains? That would be way too ridiculous.

At the very least, they should wait until they'd confirmed that Hiyori Shiina no longer needed to use Rasiel to search for intel in this world. Right?

…

The next morning.

After clearing out the vast majority of the Decepticons on the base,

Ryuuen, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and Kouenji Rokusuke very "generously" left behind two freshly converted Decepticons as a gift for the locals to study, then set off for the meeting point they'd agreed on at the edge of Snowfield.

On the abandoned highway in the wasteland, Honami Ichinose and the others were already in position.

Seeing Ryuuen descend from the sky, Ichinose stepped forward, unable to hide her curiosity.

"Ryuuen, those robots made from the helicopters and armored vehicles… are they really as strong as the Decepticons we met in the exam?"

Ryuuen shook his head and answered offhandedly.

"Going by looks and firepower alone, pretty much the same."

"But they're clearly dumber than the real thing. At best, they're a pack of mechanical beasts wrecking stuff on instinct."

As he spoke, Ryuuen casually pulled up the Black Sphere Watch interface for a quick look.

"Luckily, the Black Sphere judges fairly enough. These knockoffs still score twenty or thirty points, and the best of them hit forty."

"When I get the chance, I want to try something. If I build one from scratch and inject my own source code… would the mechanical life born from it have reason? Would it even obey my orders?"

Honami Ichinose pursed her lips and nodded, not dwelling on Ryuuen's idea.

Instead, she turned her gaze to the Servants arriving one after another for the appointment, and spoke with deliberate meaning.

"We agreed on a time limit with those great heroes, but in reality, they're bound by the Masters behind them."

"If those magi get desperate enough, and recklessly use Command Seals to force an order…"

"What's there to worry about?"

Ryuuen froze for a second at that, then waved it off, cutting off her concern.

"Unless they can focus fire and kill me within a minute, I don't buy that a bunch of obsessed magi, who treat the Mystery like it's more important than their own dads, would risk me exposing every last one of their magecraft secrets on the global network just to start trouble over something this small."

He snorted.

"Besides, I've been pretty restrained already."

"All this is, at most, a little payback for the sneak attack they tried at the start."

"They were in the wrong first. They can hold their noses and live with it."

Ichinose sighed and said nothing more.

As Ryuuen said, the people of this world were the ones who broke faith and struck first. Even by Ichinose's near-excessively strict moral standards, her side was definitely in the right.

While Ichinose was mulling it over, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who'd come along with Ryuuen, stepped forward and asked.

"Ryuuen told me my father was captured by the Assassin's Master?"

"How is he now?"

Ichinose snapped out of it and explained helplessly.

"Not long after Ryuuen hacked the network and threatened the magus world, Faldeus dumped Mr. Ayanokōji outside the Snowfield police station. He's safe."

"It's just that… the two items Mr. Ayanokōji was carrying, they don't seem to have any intention of returning." Ichinose frowned slightly. "And strangest of all, we can't find Faldeus's location on the Black Sphere Controller at all."

"It's like he evaporated into thin air."

Ayanokoji raised an eyebrow, thinking it over.

"Then either the Ring he took is special enough to give absolute concealment, or the other item he took has a unique function."

"Not a big problem, though." Ayanokoji's tone was perfectly flat. "We can wait for Chris to come back and have Hiyori Shiina check directly with her Rasiel."

Ichinose nodded and was about to say something, but she followed Ayanokoji's gaze and looked at the space behind her.

With a surge of dazzling golden particles, the Oldest Gian, Goldie, appeared.

Unlike the other Servants, Goldie had a foul mouth when it came to those who carried the name of saviors, and every other word was "mongrel," sending everyone's blood pressure through the roof.

So the instant the appointed hour for the duel arrived,

Arisu Sakayanagi was the first to step forward, her signature wicked smile on her lips, and she provoked Goldie on her own initiative.

"King of Heroes, I've always been a little curious about something."

"I hear your Ea, the sword that splits the world, can deal special damage to any Reality Marble…"

"But would it still work against a fully independent, real world with complete laws of its own?"

Goldie's blood-red eyes narrowed, and he gave a haughty, cold laugh.

"No matter."

"Even a complete world would be ground to dust by This King's Ea. Provided you mongrels don't mind your laughable hideout being destroyed."

Sakayanagi chuckled and casually raised her cane, pointing at the Mirror World gate that had just been opened behind her.

"In that case, why don't we use a contest between the two of us as the appetizer for this grand show?"

The girl tilted her head slightly. "I'll tell you now, this match decides both victory and life or death~"

Goldie gave her a glance, not even bothering to waste a taunt on her, and strode proudly through the Mirror World gate.

In truth, back when Humbaba ambushed him and Enkidu pulled him back from the brink of death, Goldie had reactivated the Star of Omniscience and Omnipotence, and he hadn't turned it off since.

Naturally, he knew Chris had already taken the thing they were really after. He knew full well that Sakayanagi opening this gate now most likely meant she planned to scheme against him with the so-called Little Peanut Chris had left behind.

Even so, Goldie had no intention of backing down.

Knowing there's a trap and not daring to meet it head-on… wasn't that the mindset of a coward?

To be frank, Goldie had never taken a little girl like Sakayanagi seriously, from start to finish.

Or rather, among the students of Advanced Nurturing High School, apart from Chris, who deserved a second look, the rest…

He only felt that Ryuuen's Allspark, Ayanokoji's time-stop Stand, and Hiyori Shiina's Rasiel were worthy of being collected as treasures in his King's Treasury.

In the King of Heroes's mind, in a sense, these students were even more extreme "item racks" than he was.

Strip away those strange external things, and they weren't worth mentioning.

He would crush them so thoroughly, so overwhelmingly, that these self-styled saviors would learn what the King of Heroes's greatness meant!

They were merely travelers saving the world, while he was the true Wedge of Heaven that severed man from the gods!

And then…

In the eyes of everyone outside, not even a minute had passed.

Arisu Sakayanagi strolled out of the Mirror World's entrance at her leisure.

She covered her mouth with one hand, her shoulders shaking slightly, looking like she was about to burst out laughing at any moment.

At this sight,

It wasn't just True Rider Hippolyta and Berserker Jack. Even the ever-gentle Enkidu widened his eyes in shock.

After all, they'd seen Sakayanagi's strength. Her methods were strange, but there was no way she could take down the King of Heroes in this little time.

And after a day of rest, Goldie should be in nearly peak condition.

Even so, the King of Heroes hadn't lasted long at all?

Could he even have been killed instantly?!

"The Golden King is that weak? Was Heracles just playing around when he fought him to that state before?"

Hippolyta rubbed her chin and muttered to herself, lost in thought.

"So that's how it is… I did wonder why someone with Heracles's martial skill would tangle with him for so long."

"Turns out he's a pushover."

Hearing this, Enkidu didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

If they hadn't fought side by side for a while, and if the false Grail War here in Snowfield hadn't already lost any reason to continue…

He probably would have summoned the Chains of Heaven the instant Hippolyta slandered Goldie.

Shaking his head helplessly, Enkidu looked at Sakayanagi, who was working hard to calm her laughter, and asked softly.

"Excuse me… has Gil already returned to the Throne of Heroes?"

Sakayanagi was thinking of what had happened in the Mirror World: Goldie blinked once, and Little Peanut was instantly in his face, snapping his neck with a crisp crack. Then she'd finished him off with a feather-light shot from the Romantic Cannon, and the disbelief and humiliation written across Goldie's face…

In the end, she couldn't help it. The corners of her mouth curled up, and she answered lightly.

"Mm, you could put it that way."

"Please rest assured, he felt no pain when he went. It was very quick."

"I also got to personally witness the real combat value of the contained anomalies we hold."

"Contained anomalies?" Enkidu turned the unfamiliar word over in his mind.

Before Enkidu could work out whether it referred to monsters or to special items that ignored all reason,

Kei Karuizawa, standing not far from Sakayanagi, suddenly stepped forward with a proposal.

"I hate to admit it, but unless we use special measures, we can't quickly take down someone on the level of the King of Heroes."

"Then again, since you've all already taken precautions, whether it would actually do any good is hard to say."

More importantly, Karuizawa and some of the others hadn't had the chance to truly reach the front lines when they fought Ishtar and Alcides, because of their strength and roles.

Now that Ryuuen was openly deterring the restless magi lurking in the shadows, they didn't need to worry so much about backstabs.

That meant the remaining Hippolyta and Enkidu made the perfect opponents for this group of "second-liners" to test their recent progress!

"So… from here, let's settle it right here as teams."

So said Karuizawa.

Enkidu listened, his brows knitting slightly. The girls' candor surprised him a little.

But after thinking it over, Enkidu didn't direct his anger at these young people over Goldie's exit.

That was a choice Goldie had made out of his own arrogance. As his friend, he ought to respect the King's end.

He simply turned to Hippolyta beside him and Berserker Jack, who was toying with a dagger.

"Then… shall we go together?"

Hippolyta and Berserker Jack naturally had no reason to refuse.

After all, their Masters were closely tied to El-Melloi II.

And Waver had long since agreed with these otherworld students that one of his own pupils would be chosen as this Grail's winner.

Without a doubt, given Berserker Jack's twisted trait of "every clone can be the original," handing Flat the clear was the safest option.

So Rin Tohsaka and the other students of El-Melloi II's classroom were very relaxed about Hippolyta's request.

Friendship first, competition second. Just do your best.

But compared with their eager classmates,

Ryuuen, Ichinose and Sakayanagi showed little interest in Karuizawa's proposal and had no intention of stepping up to join.

Besides the fact that the shared points wouldn't stretch far enough, these front-line fighters didn't need such a trivial bit of teamwork experience.

The bigger reason

was that all three were staying on guard against Faldeus and the American magi behind him, who might still be scheming in the dark.

In fact, compared with Ichinose's and Sakayanagi's wariness, Ryuuen was even a little expectant deep down.

He hoped Faldeus would pull something big!

Because only then would he and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka have a proper excuse to harvest these magi's lives on a grand scale and speed up their S Point farming in the Black Sphere system.

He was now at the point where even flying over to wipe them out one by one felt like too much trouble. He'd love for Faldeus to deliver himself to the door so he could take control of the country's defense system in one go!

As he thought, Ryuuen narrowed his eyes slightly.

He'd suddenly noticed that, in the network surveillance he'd taken over, the counts for several heavy strategic weapons the Beautiful Country had on record no longer matched.

Not only had several tactical nukes and hydrogen bombs been secretly loaded onto trucks and taken away, even the carrier strike group anchored offshore had silently left port, looking ready to go down fighting.

Honestly, Ryuuen really didn't understand what Faldeus was thinking.

Did these relics from the Mystery side seriously think someone who could hijack the global network in an instant could be fooled by a physical local network or some simple magus barrier?

Don't make the Tengong Society, and the Black Sphere tech behind them, laugh.

If he wanted, he could connect to the network at any time and drop these electronically controlled heavy weapons straight onto the heads of the politicians and magi behind Faldeus.

That was exactly why Ryuuen was even more curious.

Faldeus had put on the One Ring and never taken it off, erasing every trace of himself. What kind of big move was he cooking up now?

Meanwhile, in the center of the field,

Enkidu and Hippolyta had already clashed with the students led by Amasawa Ichika, Kouenji and Karuizawa!

They faced Enkidu's Chains of Heaven and a super Hippolyta, whose stacked divinity, built up like a game of Jenga, had pushed her combat power to absurd levels.

Two absolute top-tier powerhouses!

Without enough raw stats to back you up, an ordinary third-rate Servant would be killed in a single exchange.

On the field, apart from the girls who had exchanged for spirit crystals to become Spirits and those with magical-girl firepower, only Ayanokoji, Kouenji and the others with special abilities like time-stop and elemental transformation could stand up to them for a round or two.

Everyone else was staying in the fight only because Crazy Diamond was in the back, healing them with no regard for reason as the ultimate safety net. Otherwise they'd have been knocked out of the fight fast.

Take Shiranami Chihiro and Kushida Kikyo, each holding a Gaia Memory.

The Scream Memory's stats were too low, and it was a struggle even to support or interrupt an enemy's moves.

As for the Taboo Memory, it was facing battle-hardened great heroes who simply weren't scared by it, so its ability was almost completely nullified…

In the end, the two could only retreat helplessly to the second line, reduced to porters who helped Suzune Horikita drag the wounded to the rear for treatment.

Ryūji Kanzaki, the honest deputy of Ichinose's class, was a different story.

The Door-Door Fruit he'd drawn hadn't boosted his physical stats much.

But in terms of mechanics, it showed eye-opening effects.

He was completely unaffected by Enkidu's Chains of Heaven. He could even "open a door" right on an incoming chain and use spatial displacement to cut it off physically!

That move surprised even Ryuuen, who was watching the fight while searching for Faldeus's whereabouts.

"Spatial abilities… no matter how you look at them, they're bugged."

"Even someone with Kanzaki's average stats can use it this well. Looks like I'll have to get something like that myself when I get the chance."

Arisu Sakayanagi saw through him and lifted her chin slightly, interested.

"Special abilities aren't hard to get at the presiding god's Mystery Shop."

"Whether it's a Devil Fruit, a Spirit's spirit crystal, or a Gaia Memory, as long as you're willing to throw money at the blind boxes, you've always got a chance."

"The only problem is… the drop types depend way too much on luck."

Ryuuen answered offhandedly.

"Bad luck? Then smash it with points. As long as you have enough points, that's all that matters."

"But whether these body-based abilities would even be compatible with my cybernetic prosthetics is still unknown."

"Right now, fully upgrading my own gear matters more."

"If there's ever a template like the Ex-Machina, I might consider buying one to fuse with."

As the two chatted casually,

Honami Ichinose, standing nearby and listening quietly, suddenly seemed to sense something.

She whipped her head toward a spot in midair.

Then a delighted smile bloomed on the girl's face.

"Senpai?!"

Ryuuen and Arisu Sakayanagi turned at the sound, almost at the same time.

They saw Chris stroll out of a rift he'd torn in space, with nobody at his side.

"You found the Mysterious Merchant?"

Ryuuen frowned and asked on reflex.

Chris gave a slight nod, casually slid the Enma Blade back into its sheath, and glanced at the far horizon.

"Not completely settled yet… Looks like I came back at a bad time. Did I interrupt you?"

Arisu Sakayanagi rolled her eyes at him, annoyed.

"We agreed from the start to let everyone get some practice. How fast could we possibly end this? We can't all charge in and finish the fight in three minutes."

"Until the time comes, shouldn't we let everyone get more combat experience and points to keep in reserve?"

"Otherwise, by the time you're back, nobody will have enough points to upgrade their items."

But before Chris could smile and respond to this tsundere explanation,

Ryuuen seemed to suddenly remember something important, and his face turned serious.

"Right! Where's Shiina? Isn't she supposed to be in your Mountain-River Scroll the whole time?"

"If you've got nothing urgent, get her out here to help."

Ryuuen bared his teeth.

"That bastard Faldeus put on the Ring he took from Ayanokoji's old man, and now even the Black Sphere radar Controller can't find his location!"

"He's definitely cooking up something nasty. I don't want those sneaky magi pulling off a scheme at the last moment…"

This time, Ryuuen didn't even get to finish.

An anomaly struck!

Under their feet…

The calm, hard desert ground seemed to have a trigger buried in it all along.

The moment Chris crossed space and appeared, it fired.

From beneath their feet, all the way to the battlefield where Enkidu and the Servants fought Amasawa Ichika and the others!

A howling wind stripped away the surface dust and gravel, exposing a dense network of extremely intricate, enormous spatial-transfer magic circle patterns beneath.

"… Heh. Looks like I got back at just the right time?"

Seeing the sudden change, Chris didn't panic. He just chuckled at the thought.

He flicked his hand backward.

The Mountain-River Scroll!

In a single instant,

Right before the teleportation circle below fully erupted with energy and stripped this region's space away, the Scroll swept everyone in the area, Servants included, along with the glowing circle itself, inside by force.

…

After a brief spatial disorientation,

once his eyes adjusted to the Scroll's scenery, so different from the desert a moment ago, Ryuuen saw the lovely mountains and rivers all around, and Koro Sensei and the others in the distance serving tea with tentacles. He frowned instinctively and immediately spotted Hiyori Shiina walking down a bamboo path with Rasiel in her arms.

"What was behind that giant magic circle outside just now?"

Hiyori Shiina sighed, flipped open the book in her hands, ran her eyes over the page, and slowly explained.

"It's the effect of one of the two items taken from Mr. Ayanokōji."

"A super-large spatial teleportation Imperial Arms that can send designated targets within its range to a preset location."

"Originally, Faldeus planned to teleport everyone, exhausted after the decisive battle, along with the Servants to outside the atmosphere."

"Then, using trap weapons the Clock Tower magi had prepared in advance, weapons that bypass modern network communication, they'd exile you all into outer space."

The girl closed the book and sighed.

"After that, he'd use the power of the false Caster François and Alexandre Dumas to seize Snowfield's final Grail together."

"The missing nukes you noticed earlier, Ryuuen, and the carrier that left port, were part of the trap he set to draw your attention."

Honami Ichinose listened to all of it, her lips parted slightly, unable to close them for a long while.

This kind of insane, win-at-any-cost plan left her at a loss for words.

However you looked at it, they didn't have some blood feud with these people. Why go this far?

Arisu Sakayanagi picked up the thread, her fingers lightly tapping the Black Sphere Controller interface as she raised her own question.

"Then why didn't he wait until the battle was completely over and reap the rewards? Why trigger it now?"

"Whichever way you look at it, our fight is still deadlocked. Forcing the circle to activate now leaves far too much room for variables. That doesn't seem like a magus's style."

As she spoke, Sakayanagi turned her gaze to Chris and understood at once.

"Could it be… because you came back early?"

Hiyori Shiina answered calmly.

"It is. From what I observed, they considered Chris's sudden appearance an uncontrollable variable and decided they couldn't wait any longer."

"Though even with the circle triggered ahead of time… it still wasn't faster than Chris's Scroll."

"Oh, and one more thing."

"Because activating that spatial item requires the user to personally sit at the formation's hub as an anchor."

Hiyori Shiina smiled slightly.

"So Faldeus has actually been swept into this Mountain-River Scroll too, along with the formation."

Ryuuen immediately raised his hand and checked the 3D map on the Black Sphere Controller that tracked enemy positions.

The red-dot scan still showed no sign of Faldeus. After confirming it, he couldn't help twitching the corner of his mouth.

"Looks like the Ring Ayanokoji's old man had really is great at hiding. It takes a powerful causality item like Rasiel, one that can view the world's past and present, to find him."

"I just don't know if, in his current state, he can mask his scent and presence in this sealed scroll world too."

Ryuuen cracked his knuckles.

"His position is already locked inside this scroll. Let's see where he can run!"

Chris turned and looked toward Akane Tachibana, who was still by the clockwork spirit Oriana.

"Let's ask Akane Tachibana-senpai."

"Kiryuuin-senpai's Beast King Transformation is on her now. A lion's keen sense of smell is perfect for a closed environment like this."

"And if even that doesn't work, we'll have to go with the dumb approach."

Ryuuen nodded in agreement.

"We could try Ayanokoji too."

"I've noticed that guy's Parasyte is pretty sharp at sensing things. I don't know if that's common to all Parasytes, or just the one he fused with the serum."

"Too bad he's busy grabbing points right now and has no time for us."

Chris neither agreed nor disagreed. He simply turned and led the way toward Tachibana.

In fact, they didn't need to go looking at all.

With the senses granted by the Beast King Transformation, in a scroll space this small,

even Miyabi Nagumo and Koro Sensei, whose senses were just as sharp, had heard Chris and the others' conversation, so Tachibana was no exception.

So when the group walked toward her, she didn't even wait for Chris to speak. She twitched the beast ears on her head and answered helplessly.

"No."

"There are all kinds of demons already living in here, and some new Servants have come in. There are just too many unfamiliar scents, too tangled together."

"I can't pick out that one person's unique scent from tens of thousands of smells."

"… True, since Akane Tachibana-senpai has never been around him," Arisu Sakayanagi muttered with pursed lips. "Actually, none of us have even seen that Faldeus's real face yet."

"With no scent to use as a reference, how are we supposed to find him?"

Chris nodded and couldn't be bothered to dwell on the problem.

"Then let's go upgrade our gear first."

"If Ayanokoji really can't spare the time later, I'll just cast a blizzard that covers the whole scroll with a technique. Even if he can turn invisible, I don't believe he can stop breathing and leave no footprints."

His gaze swept over the group.

"The points you've saved up this time should be enough to upgrade your combat power, right?"

"After I finish things here, I may head out again to look for the other members of the Tengong Society."

"So in the end, I probably won't be able to look after both sides for you."

"Either you all go on to explore the Chainsaw Man world together later, or you'll have to count on Student Council President Nagumo's Flying Thunder God marker to carry you across the Backrooms' warped space."

"Or you can talk to Miss Oriana yourselves and see which side she'd like to stay on to provide shop services."

Hearing this, Ryuuen stroked his chin, deep in thought.

Before he could answer and make his decision,

Faldeus seemed to have circled around the sealed scroll once and finally realized something.

He knew that no matter how well he hid in this fish-in-a-jar secret realm, he would be exposed sooner or later.

In front of Ryuuen and Chris, beside a rockery not far off, Faldeus wearily pulled the One Ring off his finger.

As the concealment effect lifted, a figure slowly materialized out of thin air.

And so,

the words on the tip of Ryuuen's tongue changed in an instant.

He looked at the magus raising both hands in an attempt to look like he was surrendering, and couldn't help sneering and mocking him.

"Well, well. Weren't you pretty cocky before?"

"What, you really thought I was some good-tempered guy?"

"That I wouldn't dare expose all your filthy magus secrets?"