Chapter 48 Luna's Awakening

My name is Alaya, and I am currently distributing Golden Fingers.

128:21:45

The impact caused by the two Sabers combining their dual swords to forcibly confront EA not only completely destroyed the Einzbern Castle and the vast surrounding forest, but also produced a lingering pillar of light shooting straight into the sky. Even from the perspective of Lin Hao's seaside resort villa, it looked a bit too exaggerated.

This destructive power and the abnormal phenomenon would probably make the executors and mages of the Holy Church and the Mage's Association wish they were dead.

Moreover, because Saber Lily's mana was overdrawn, Mrs. Einzbern couldn't hold on in her capacity as the Holy Grail's vessel and passed out. However, this conveniently saved me from continuing to listen to her nagging about how worried she was about Caster.

I carried Irisviel to the bed to let her rest, then parked the wheelchair beside the bed, self-hypnotized myself, and slumped over, striking the pose of a little girl who had fallen asleep after nursing a patient for too long.

Then I could go back to the Root to beat up the system. I told that brat that every time he smiled, it would cost him a punch, and I was keeping count.

[Wuwuwu... Help me...]

[Alert: Among the pre-set protected targets, Sola-Ui is facing mortal danger.]

While I was chasing and beating the system cube around the mini-Earth at the Root, the prompt sister issued a warning sound similar to an alarm clock and very considerately projected real-time imagery into the air.

Those were images of several Assassins breaking into the forest mansion. Judging from the huge holes in the walls and on the ground, the Assassins who had suffered unprovoked attrition from traps finally switched on their brains, searched along the way for the trap trigger devices buried in the walls, and found the control room.

"By the way, where is Luna?"

Luna was originally supposed to be a Mystic Code, but she ended up fusing with a Servant's spirit core, producing a—if forced to define it—quasi-quasi-quasi-Servant.

Most of the reason for this should be the "Self-Awareness Awakening" ability attached to my Mana Wyrm. Therefore, I considered her half my creation. Ever since she gained self-awareness, I had been keeping an eye on her, intending to see just how far she could grow.

[It looks like she's fighting Zayd and Gozzur?]

"Tokiomi's arrangement is completely incomprehensible. Is he trying to win over Kayneth's faction or planning to take on two sides at once?"

Prompt sister pulled out a picture-in-picture window on the monitoring light screen, which indeed showed the silvery-white girl beating up Gozzur of the Strange Arms, swinging a pair of pure white wooden boards with formidable momentum.

Although this special Assassin's strength could momentarily spike to A rank, she was completely bullied due to her poor performance in other aspects, making her even worse than the useless bulky guy "Zayd of the Foundation" standing nearby with a thick hide—Luna couldn't even be bothered to hit him.

"Speaking of which, if Sola-Ui had systematically studied magecraft or possessed magic crests, those mob minions would have been cleaned up by her long ago."

Unlike controlling and using magical items, the magecraft Sola-Ui was currently using relied solely on her own mana, making it very crude. The founding family heads of those lineages that claimed to have been passed down for many generations probably started out using these exact things.

For example, she perfectly executed a summoning magecraft identical to Kayneth's, but what finally came out was just a pitiful little skeleton, perhaps some unlucky fellow who wandered into the deep mountains and forests and died near the mansion before Fuyuki was developed.

In addition, there was a fireball spell with standard posture and incantation, but what ultimately flew out was a square, burning "brick," and it shattered upon contact with almost no lethality.

There was also an attempt to cast a restoration spell in order to salvage the little skeleton that was acting as a meat shield and falling apart after taking a few hits; the healing light glowed for a long time only to restore a few unimportant bones.

Summoning, evocation, healing—all of them were effects basic beyond belief.

Yet, relying solely on these crude spells, she managed to escape alone from Assassins who, no matter how weak, were still Heroic Spirits. Even when accidentally falling into a situation where she had to fight, she could kill the Assassins before the little skeleton was dismantled. So was she actually a genius after all?

[Whether she's a genius or not, I don't know, but she's about to be caught.]

Because the Assassins had no ability to perceive mana and could only search for targets visually through super-fast speed while occasionally triggering traps, Sola-Ui had arrived at a location only a single room away from Luna after a few low-impact battles.

The problem was that this "single room" was a wide-open banquet hall with no cover whatsoever. Since it could be considered a thoroughfare, two Assassins were guarding the place with no intention of leaving, and two patrolling Assassins were pattering down the corridor behind her.

This was a true "dead end." Even if she shouted to let Luna on the opposite side of the banquet hall hear her and rush to the rescue, having lost her concealment, she would be killed in an instant by those two Assassins—at least judging by the previous actions of those Hassans, they had no intention of taking live captives.

I was wondering if Caster's sudden appearance would seem too abrupt when I saw Sola-Ui start to silently chant a complex spell, which looked like a major project of at least five verses.

[Invisibility? But she has no talent for illusionary magecraft. Even Kayneth wasn't good at using this spell, right?]

[Alert: Success rate is only 0.83%.]

Less than one percent, big sister! And magecraft cast via silent incantation would instead emit a loud bang if it failed.

I raised my eyes to look at Illya's avatar, whose hands were clasped in a prayer gesture, and prepared to let her down to save the person the moment I heard a bang, leaving excuses for later.

Whoosh—

The anticipated loud bang did not occur. Instead, Sola-Ui's figure disappeared from the surveillance footage. The stupid system immediately changed its display mode, and now one could clearly see Sola-Ui, glowing faintly red with an incredulous expression on her face.

Oh, she probably had also prepared herself to charge forward the moment she failed, but ended up succeeding directly.

I watched the invisible Sola-Ui silently bypass the two Assassins and approach the battling Luna, wondering whether to change the channel. After all, although there was no Command Spell connection between them, they would still be able to sense each other if they were close enough. Once they rendezvoused, even facing those special Assassins wouldn't be anything to worry about.

---

When the invisible Sola-Ui tried to bypass "Zayd of the Foundation," I suddenly felt a bad premonition. This Assassin named Zayd—didn't he seem to have once done gymnastics in a place densely packed with magic traps?

Doesn't that mean this guy's perception of magecraft—

On the screen, the tall Assassin suddenly lowered his head and said in a gloomy tone to Sola-Ui, who was trying to sneak past him: "Where are you going?"

With no intention of waiting for an answer, he abruptly lifted his strange, double-headed spear-like weapon that had been thrust into the ground, and viciously thrust it toward the seemingly stunned Sola-Ui.

"Luna!" Clang!

Luna, who had been fighting "Gozzur of the Strange Arms" at a distance earlier, instantly appeared before Sola-Ui at her cry, her pair of 'silver wooden boards' firmly clamping down on Zayd's thrust.

"[$You dare—$]" Luna's voice became bone-chillingly cold, her head slightly lowered so her expression was invisible.

"Oh?" Zayd uttered a syllable in a low tone, then tried to withdraw his double-headed spear, but failed.

Countless silvery-white mists began to converge toward Luna's body from all directions, and the resulting abnormal mana fluctuation even made Gozzur of the Strange Arms, who was pursuing them, stop in his tracks.

'She broke through her limits. It seems the scene just now matched what I told her about {$saving her master from a mortal peril$}.'

[Isn't that wrong? The condition for Shielder to unleash her Noble Phantasm is clearly having the resolute determination to $protect something with all her heart$.]

'That's the original Mash's version, how could it possibly be the same here? Shut up, you stupid system.'

[I'm not stupid...]

[Alert: Spirit Core evolution, Noble Phantasm rank increased.] Prompt sister interpreted the current situation fittingly.

When the silver mist finally dissipated, Luna herself remained unchanged, but the two "boards" in her hands had transformed into a huge shield, equally shimmering with silver light, while Zayd finally pulled back his double-headed spear.

That shield... was a bit smaller than expected, and didn't look like the Round Table either. Overall, it was a square, thick tower shield, more akin to a city wall with distinct edges.

Mhm... looking at it this way, hitting people with it probably hurt even more.

At this moment, because Sola-Ui had revealed herself and the commotion caused was large enough, the Assassins searching for her inside the mansion flocked into the banquet hall, each eager to try. After all, no matter how strong a Heroic Spirit was, failing to instantly annihilate them meant it was beyond their power to protect a Master under such a siege.

'Let me think, where should I make Caster appear so she can wipe out so many Assassins in one blow?'

I scrolled through the screen to find a suitable landing spot.

[Uh, well... Alaya? If the keywords are $shield-bearing$, $aoe attack$, and $protection$, what do you think of?]

The stupid system's tone somehow carried a bit of gloating.

'Hm? Of course it's Cal—'

Bang!!

Luna in the screen had already charged forward, slamming into the stamina-specialized Zayd with a vicious shield-bash that embedded him into the wall, and then fiercely withdrew the shield and smashed it down again. Because the unlucky Zayd was hit in the head both times, he turned into spiritual particles and dissipated without a single chance to retaliate.

Meanwhile, "Gozzur of the Strange Arms" seemed to sense the threat and raised his huge arms to block in front of him.

Clang—!

Luna shifted the shield to her left hand and made a phantom motion with her right hand as if pulling something out of the air. A cold, shimmering silvery-white single-edged blade appeared in her hand accompanied by a crisp drawing sound.

Eh? Wait a minute?

"[$Slash!$]" With the low shout of the silvery-white Shield Heroic Spirit, the glittering blade carrying lingering streams of light slashed directly onto Gozzur's pair of strange arms.

Clang! The collision between the two produced a loud metallic sound. Luna only stepped back half a step, while Gozzur was still staggering backward.

Swish! Swish! Crack! Luna closed in again like a ghost, unleashing a fatal triple combo with the sword in her hand against the defenseless Assassin. Bearing wounds that nearly cut him in half, Gozzur vanished into spiritual particles mid-air.

'Hmm, currently it looks like she can fight Lily to a tie. But she charged so far away, what about Sola-Ui?'

I checked Sola-Ui's position, and sure enough, some opportunistic Assassins were already rushing toward her.

Luna, who had pulled away, merely snorted and raised her hand to hurl her shield. That silver tower shield directly beat the first Assassin it hit into scattered spiritual particles, then automatically split into identical shields and continued to bounce accurately toward the other Assassins—one splitting into two, two into four, four into eight, turning into a room full of silver-white shield phantoms that completely annihilated all the Assassins in a single instant.

"Well done, Luna." "[$Defending Lady Queen is the meaning of my existence.$]"

[Alaya? Is this really okay?]

'Of course! Did anyone ever say a Shielder is strictly forbidden from using weapons?'