Chapter 63 Successful Infiltration

My name is Illya.

Kiritsugu and Kayneth are preparing for negotiations.

83:04:11

Emiya Kiritsugu was preparing to meet with Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald to discuss the upcoming plans.

In this Holy Grail War, because Tohsaka Tokiomi had gathered three Servants right from the start and launched an overwhelming offensive against the other factions, the consequence was that neither side had engaged in any substantial conflict thus far. Moreover, under Caster’s plotting, the two sides had even cooperated once with a tacit understanding.

At this moment, since the opposition had captured an apparently very important Assassin, it was necessary for him, as a natural ally, to discuss information regarding her and her subsequent disposal.

However, the reason that made Kiritsugu hesitate for a while was the natural opposition between the "Magus Killer" and the "Genius Magus." To Kiritsugu, those academic Magi from the Clock Tower had never been on his hunting list.

Like medieval nobles, they held an extremely high status in the mystical side. Normally, aside from conducting experiments, they spent their time writing experimental reports, and their affiliated families were just like high society, busy competing with one another, hosting balls, and celebrating pointless festivals.

Perhaps the biggest commotion they ever caused was when two gentlemen dueled for the affections of a certain lady. Any other scandals or accidents that might affect their public image would be thoroughly smoothed out long before they could ferment.

Kiritsugu had once witnessed them carry out a "Sealing Designation." Although a magus with special abilities thereby lost personal freedom and magical talent, his magus trait—which was easily prone to getting out of control and causing casualties—was completely sealed and preserved. Throughout the process, not a single person lost their life, which, in terms of results, perfectly matched Kiritsugu's definition of justice.

Even so, because Emiya Kiritsugu himself was on the "Sealing Designation" list, he chose to keep his distance from these Enforcers.

Regardless of the circumstances, Kiritsugu believed that Kayneth's attitude toward him would not be very favorable, especially since he could not offer conditions that the other party could not refuse, unlike Caster. Therefore, Kiritsugu brought Saber Alter with him this time, though not for intimidation—the other party was British, after all, and although her gender and demeanor were somewhat wrong, Saber was ultimately that King Arthur.

Emiya Kiritsugu opened the front passenger door, stepped out of the G550, and stood at the outer perimeter of the Western-style mansion's warning barrier, waiting for the master of the house to emerge.

82:55:12

Kayneth had been at his wits' end since last night, and the reason was precisely the Assassin that Rider had brought back.

According to his plan, this little-girl-like Assassin should have been locked into an anti-magic barrier, and various analytical magecraft should have been used to examine her condition in order to find clues beneficial to this war or even confidential intelligence on the Tohsaka family. At most, out of respect for Rider, he wouldn't use methods that might cause harm, and that would be sufficient.

Yet, for some reason, this little girl, who was clearly an enemy Servant, had won the unanimous affection of Kayneth's faction. Sola and Luna aside, even Waver and Diarmuid took special care of her. They resolutely and unanimously refused to have her locked up like a criminal, or subjected to any "examination" methods that might cause harm.

After repeatedly confirming that his fiancee and disciple had not been affected by charm magecraft, a deeply depressed Kayneth had no choice but to use ancient and inefficient magecraft to examine the condition of this special Assassin individual—well, her name was Emil—and the conclusion, naturally, was that everything was normal.

For a Servant to yield an "everything is normal" result when subjected to spells targeted at examining humans was abnormal in itself, especially since neither Kayneth nor Waver nor Sola could perceive the aura and attribute values unique to a Servant from Emil at all.

Could Iskandar have made a mistake? Had he captured an ordinary little girl just because she was dressed a bit specially and mistaken her for an Assassin?

Upon discovering that almost everyone held this thought—except for Kayneth and Rider—the Clock Tower's genius lecturer finally determined that she was indeed an Assassin, an Assassin carrying an exceptionally powerful passive attribute.

In the end, Sola reluctantly accepted Kayneth's proposal to restrict Emil's range of activities to a room capable of effectively suppressing magical energy release, with the suppression intensity set to the standard of the strongest Assassin they had seen so far, Gozul of the Monstrous Arms.

And Emil, who had remained virtually wordless since her capture, raised no objections to this whatsoever.

Thus, upon learning that the actual leader of the Einzbern family, Emiya Kiritsugu, was visiting, Kayneth, accompanied by Sola, went out to meet him with Luna and Rider, leaving Waver to monitor the surrounding environment in the "Control Room," while Lancer patrolled the vicinity while maintaining his spiritual form.

82:53:11

Kirei Kotomine was extremely experienced in how to infiltrate a magus's workshop.

As an Executor of the Holy Church's [Burial Agency], his targets were not only those Dead Apostles, supernatural beings, and heretics who should have been buried long ago, but also internal traitors, evildoing magi, and even "Enforcers" from the Mage Association whose missions conflicted with his.

Those fellows who knew full well that their actions would summon the arbiters naturally fortified their lairs with extreme density, making the difficulty of infiltration or breakthrough quite high. If a breakthrough proved utterly impossible, Kirei would have no choice but to gather numerous peers and join forces to use large-scale magecraft to completely raze the opponent's fortress to the ground.

Yet the difficulty of breaking through Kayneth's temporary workshop was not high.

It possessed a dual structure consisting of the top floor of the Hyatt Hotel and a deep-mountain Western-style mansion. The defensive barriers and various counter-attack traps cooperated with one another with exquisite precision, bearing no resemblance to something hastily thrown together after a forced descent.

Furthermore, there were numerous magical barriers and traps inside them as well. Just like Teacher Tokiomi did in his own estate, any uninvited guest would invite a fierce counter-attack—the strange magical traps that the Assassin incarnations had encountered during their last incursion were the manifestation of this.

Because it was impossible to perceive magical energy fluctuations when sharing senses with Assassin, they could only watch helplessly as one trap after another was triggered, knowing nothing except the structure of the building. As for those traps, they had likely long been relocated to new positions by the enemy.

Therefore, Kirei Kotomine was now effectively tasked with infiltrating a completely unfamiliar magus's workshop, finding Emil, and rescuing her before the negotiating parties either reached an agreement or broke down. Moreover, unlike when Emiya Kiritsugu infiltrated the Tohsaka residence, the master of the workshop was close at hand; even if a battle ensued, he could not create massive noises like the Magus Killer.

With so many unfavorable conditions stacked against him, the success rate of this unauthorized rescue operation by Kirei was... less than thirty percent. But for an Executor skilled at seizing opportunities, that was enough. After all, certain mandatory missions only offered a single chance, and one had to strike regardless, so calculating the success rate was not part of pre-battle preparations.

Rescuing Emil was precisely one such mandatory mission. Whether her identity and uniqueness were analyzed, or the rescue failed, or even a single hair of hers was harmed, the mission could not be considered successful.

At this moment, Kirei Kotomine, dressed in black clerical robes, was half-squatting outside the range of a warning barrier in the backyard of the Western-style mansion, pressing his palm against the ground and closing his eyes to feel a sound resembling a heartbeat emanating from deep within the earth.

Thump, thump, hum—hum-thump!

This was the sound of a leyline becoming blocked and subsequently shattering through on its own. Ordinary people could not hear this sound at all, and it was barely perceptible even to animals with sensitive hearing. Only magi or magical creatures could discover it through careful magical energy perception.

Generally speaking, magi with a long history or thorough preparation would build their magus workshops atop leyline nodes, channeling the magical energy within to continuously reinforce the workshop. This could vastly enhance the workshop's defenses and the power of the magecraft cast by the master within. For instance, Fuyuki's major nodes were respectively occupied by the Tohsaka residence, the Matou residence, and the Fuyuki Church. As for the one on Mount Enzou, it had already been abandoned by Teacher Tokiomi due to its poor terrain.

Perhaps families like the Einzbern, who loved building their strongholds deep in the mountains and forests, would like it, and now one had to add Kayneth to that list.

As an outsider, Kayneth had abruptly carved out a new node at the Hyatt Hotel upon arriving in Fuyuki, much like building a dam across a river to store water. However, the magical energy flow between leylines was entirely different from ordinary rivers; they resembled an organic whole, and the magical energy contained within them, if left unused, could traverse all of Fuyuki's leylines.

Thus, this abruptly appearing "dam" threw Fuyuki's entire leyline network into chaos. This was likely one of the reasons why Teacher Tokiomi, as Fuyuki's leyline manager, had previously prioritized attacking him and dismantling his magus workshop.

Yet, after being driven here, they had actually attempted to create nodes once more, and across two magus workshops simultaneously. Coupled with the fact that the "dam" at the Hyatt had not yet been completely dismantled, if they succeeded, gaining home-field advantage would be a minor matter—Fuyuki's leylines would never be able to recover, and the Tohsaka family, while suffering massive losses, would probably also be stripped of their management status by the Mage Association.

Such behavior was not entirely incomprehensible. After all, it was once mentioned as a joke among Executors that the Clock Tower's usage of leylines actually had restrictions such as "bandwidth" and "flow rate," accompanied by pricing standards formulated accordingly. Consequently, the magi emerging from there were all experts at conserving flow and freeloading off leylines; they neither would nor could ever think of saving resources for the manager.

And precisely because of this behavior, all barriers within Kayneth's workshop powered by leylines would fail for a split second during the interval when the leyline was blocked and then forced open. Unless one specifically inspected for this or used exceptionally high-sensitivity barriers, it was completely undetectable. Therefore, the first step of Kirei's infiltration could be said to be foolproof.

Thump, thump, hum—

Catching the exact instant when the leyline was blocked, the black-robed Executor darted forward into the range of the warning barrier.

—Hum-thump!

The barrier, which should have reacted to any intrusion, remained completely silent—this was a normal phenomenon. The simple logic circuits of those crude barriers simply could not process the self-contradictory feedback of "no foreign object intruding" and "foreign object discovered internally," and would ultimately treat this "foreign object" that caused the logical confusion as nonexistent.

It seemed that even the genius of the Clock Tower had not repaired this ancient loophole. Thus, the first step of the operation could be said to have been achieved to perfection. Kirei Kotomine clapped his hands to brush off the dust and strode quickly toward the nearby Western-style mansion.