Type-Moon: Star Redemption of Arthur Pendragon

Chapter 50 Tokyo

Arthur watched the changing scene before him.

The four beats of the Dragon's Furnace Heart remained steady as usual, and the Dragon Power River was fully deployed, sensing every inch of this unfamiliar world.

Cleanliness was his first impression of the world.

Unlike the cleanliness of Britain, which carries the scent of grass and earth, this is the cleanliness of the city night.

The asphalt road surface smelled damp after being washed by a water truck, and the wind blowing from the river carried a faint fishy smell.

The lights of a convenience store shone on the street corner in the distance, and the compressors of vending machines emitted a low hum.

No flames, no smoke, no smell of blood... clean.

Arthur stood on the roof of an abandoned warehouse, his feet on cracked cement slabs, surrounded by rusty fences. He withdrew his senses and used his Dragon Eyes to see.

Beneath the seaside city of Tokyo lies a man-made "magical river," whose course, width, and depth have been precisely designed.

The river water is drawn from the city's veins and converges at a central point, which is on the west side of the city, towards a forested hill.

This magical river was built specifically for a certain ritual.

There were seven people standing in the river... No, not entirely. There are only six now. The seventh point of light has not yet fully coalesced and is transitioning from "nothingness" to "somethingness".

A certain Servant has not yet been summoned, and the summoning ritual has not yet been completed.

Arthur's dragon eyes swept over the points of light: gold, deep blue, gray-white, dark green, purplish-black, and crimson. Each light had a different "weight".

The heaviest one was golden, and its light carried an extremely ancient aura that did not belong to this era.

Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes.

Arthur had seen him in the fragments of the Trails of the Stars, the King of Uruk, the holder of the King's Treasury, whose light moved slowly, as if taking a walk.

The other five clusters of light were scattered throughout the city; some were stationary, some moved slowly, and some drew closer to each other before pulling away.

With only a few days left before the Holy Grail War officially begins, the Servants are still trying to figure out their opponents' strengths and weaknesses.

Arthur shifted his gaze from the six orbs of light to the seventh spot, the one that had not yet fully coalesced.

There is a summoning circle located in an old Western-style building on the south side of the city.

Magic is converging towards the summoning circle, but the convergence is very slow, like water being blocked by something... Is the person who is about to become the Master still hesitating?

Arthur jumped from the rooftop.

The magic automatically cushioned his landing, and his footsteps made only a very light sound as he walked towards the mansion.

The night breeze blew across the river, carrying the scent of water. Arthur walked through a quiet shopping street, through a small park, and through an old residential area.

The streetlights cast a long shadow over him, and he paused as he passed the convenience store.

The automatic door was open, and white light shone out from inside. Behind the cashier sat a clerk wearing a baseball cap, looking down at a magazine.

The shelves were stocked with drinks and snacks whose names he couldn't recall.

He went inside, and the clerk looked up at him with a surprised expression before looking down again. Arthur walked around the shelves and finally picked up a bottle of water.

He remembered something Meryl had said:

"Whenever you go to a new place, first remember the taste of the water there. Once you remember the water, you've already remembered half the way."

He paid money, using the currency of this world. Upon landing, the Dragon Power River automatically "understood" the common sense of this world.

That's a magical infiltration; basic information like language, writing, and currency values ​​will naturally flow into his consciousness.

He took a sip; the water in Tokyo was completely different from the well water in Camelot.

The mansion is located at the deepest part of the residential area. It is an old Western-style building with ivy climbing all over its exterior walls and its iron gate slightly ajar.

There were no lights in the courtyard, and the curtains on the second-floor windows were drawn, but a very faint sliver of light shone through the edge of the curtains.

The center of the magic convergence is located in the basement of this mansion. Arthur stands outside the iron gate, and the Dragon Power River stretches forward.

The scene from the basement came back: stone walls, old books, remnants of a magic workshop, and a girl sitting on the edge of a summoning circle.

The girl wasn't drawing any array or preparing any rituals; she was simply sitting there, her arms wrapped around her knees, her chin buried in them, her short brown hair hanging down and obscuring her face.

Magic flowed around her, but it couldn't enter her body because she wasn't absorbing it; she was simply letting it flow through her.

Arthur stood outside the iron gate for a while, then turned and walked into the small park opposite the mansion.

There was only one swing and one bench in the park. He sat down on the bench and placed the water he bought from the convenience store next to him.

As the Dragon Power River unfolded, Arthur could sense the girl's heartbeat; it was steady, but the frequency was low.

The girl was heartbroken. She sat by the summoning circle for a long time, until her magic almost solidified, but she still couldn't make up her mind.

The moonlight shone on the sandpit in the park, and Arthur thought of Meryl, whose heart was beating at the same frequency when she waited for him to return on the city wall.

Stable, but low.

Because it had waited so long, the heart learned to beat with conserved energy.

He placed his hand on his chest, the four beats of the Dragon's Furnace rhythm remained steady as always, and the anchor point river of Meryl was glowing.

He tried to use the method taught by Meryl to transmit the frequency of the furnace core in reverse through the anchor point, four beats, one, two, three, four.

After the teleportation, his dragon power was almost completely drained. He didn't need to sleep, but the feeling of having his dragon power exhausted was even harder to bear than being sleepy.

He leaned back on the bench, closed his eyes, and after a long time, a very slight ripple came from the river at the anchor point.

It was silvery-white, just like Meryl's magic.

Mary received it and is responding.

Arthur opened his eyes. Above him was the Tokyo night sky, so clear that he could hardly see any stars, but the silvery-white rhythm in the anchor point river was brighter than any starlight.

He took the yellow wildflower out of his breast pocket; the petals were a little wilted, but the color was still bright.

He placed the wildflowers next to the water bottle, and the moonlight shone on the petals.

In the basement of the mansion, the brown-haired girl was still sitting on the edge of the summoning circle, her magical frequency slowly changing.

Arthur did not disturb her.

The next morning, Arthur was awakened by birdsong.

He sat up from the bench, his neck a little stiff. The water in the convenience store was still there, the yellow wildflowers were still there, and the curtains on the second floor of the mansion were drawn back, but there was no one behind the window.

The Dragon Power River spread out, and the girl was no longer next to the summoning circle; she was in the kitchen on the first floor of the mansion.

The water boiled, and she stood in front of the stove, holding a packet of instant coffee in her hand.

She moved slowly, tearing the packaging bag twice before she could open it. When she poured the contents into the cup, some spilled onto the table, but she didn't wipe it up.

Arthur stood up, walked to the iron gate, and this time he rang the doorbell.

"..."

There was no response for a long time, so long that he was about to think the doorbell was broken, when the door opened.

The brown-haired girl stood at the doorway, her black eyes looking at the man in front of her with a mixture of amazement, wariness, and a faint, misty bewilderment.

She was wearing faded loungewear, her bare feet on the wooden floor of the entryway, the bitter smell of instant coffee wafting out from behind her.

"……who?"

Arthur looked at her and smiled. "A passing knight."

The girl was silent for a moment, her gaze moving from Arthur's face to his waist, and then back to his face.

"Are you a follower?"

"Yes."

"Are you here to kill me?"

"no."

I did not summon you.

"I know."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Arthur didn't answer the question. He said, "Your coffee is getting cold."

The girl paused for a moment, glanced back at the kitchen, and then turned back.

The fog-like bewilderment in his black pupils faded slightly, replaced by something extremely subtle, like confusion or curiosity.

"...Do you want to come in?"

Arthur nodded.

Several pairs of shoes were piled up in the entryway, with the toes pointing outwards, arranged very neatly, and the wooden floor of the hallway was wiped very clean.

The living room wasn't big. There was a neatly folded blanket on the sofa, and an open book on the coffee table with worn-out pages.

The girl went into the kitchen, brought out the cup of coffee, sat in the corner of the sofa, held the cup in both hands, and took a sip.

Then he frowned—it was too bitter.

Arthur sat down opposite her.

"What's your name?"

The girl looked up at him, as if to confirm whether he was really asking.

"...Ayaka, Sajō Ayaka."

"Arthur Pendragon".

Ayaka's eyes widened slightly for a moment, a kind of "I see" realization. She lowered her head and looked at the brown liquid in the glass.

"King Arthur".

"You know?"

"Among the things I've learned... there are." Her voice was very soft.

"The Red Dragon of Britain, the Wielder of the Star Sword, the King of the Knights of the Round Table." She paused.

Why did you come here?

Arthur looked at her, but when Ayaka Sajou spoke, her gaze remained fixed on the coffee cup, and she didn't look at him.

She's not used to looking people in the eye when she talks.

"How long did it take you to draw your summoning circle?"

Ayaka's fingers tightened slightly on the rim of the glass. "...Three days."

"Can't even finish drawing a summoning circle in three days?"

She did not answer.

Arthur said, "Because you haven't decided whether or not to perform the summoning."

Ayaka's fingers tightened even more, the edges of her nails turning white, and tiny ripples appeared on the surface of the coffee in her cup; her hands were trembling.

"This is my father's last wish," she finally spoke, her voice even softer than before.

"He's dead, the Command Seals have been transferred to me, the Holy Grail War is about to begin, I must summon a Servant or I will die, I know all of this."

She raised her eyes, and the mist returned to her dark pupils.

"But I don't know... what I should make him do for me after I summon him. I don't want anyone to die for me. Servants are human too... at least they used to be."

Arthur did not speak.

"I've read a lot of books, about King Arthur, about the Knights of the Round Table, about the Holy Grail War." Her voice grew softer and softer.

"The book says you are the perfect king, the book says your round table has no hierarchy, the book says you fought for Britain to the last moment."

She lowered her head.

"But the book doesn't say... whether you'd like to be summoned."

The living room was quiet for a long time, then a bird outside the window chirped again.

"I don't want to," Arthur said.

Ayaka's shoulders trembled slightly.

"No one 'willing' to be summoned. The essence of summoning is to bring the dead back to the world of the living and make them fight for the desires of the living."

Arthur's voice softened, "But 'unwilling' and 'unacceptable' are two different things."

Ayaka looked up.

"You haven't decided whether to summon it yet, which is already better than most people," Arthur said, looking at her.

"Most of them, the first thing they do when they get a Command Seal is to summon it, and after summoning it, they issue the command without ever asking whether the Servant is willing."

The coffee in Ayaka's hand had gone completely cold.

"...Why did you come to find me?" she asked.

"Because you've been sitting for a long time."

Ayaka was taken aback.

"Sit next to the summoning circle, hug your knees, and bury your chin in your knees," Arthur said.

"You've been sitting here for so long without making a summoning because you're afraid that the person you summon will die because of you."

Ayaka's breath hitched for a moment, and her cheeks flushed.

"You...you've been watching all this time?"

"I sat in the park across the street all night."

Why?

Arthur pressed his hand to his chest, the four beats of the Dragon's Furnace traveling through his clothes to his palm. In the riverbed of Meryl's anchor point, the silvery-white response from last night still lingered.

"Because someone taught me," he said.

"If someone has been sitting for a long time, there's no need to persuade them to get up. Just wait by their side until they feel cold, then hand them a hot cup."

Ayaka lowered her head, her eyes hidden in the shadows, her hands still holding the cold cup of coffee.

After a long while, she spoke, her voice very soft, as if afraid the birds outside the window would hear her.

"...My coffee is cold."

Arthur stood up, went into the kitchen, where there was still boiling water on the stove. He found a new packet of instant coffee, tore it open, and poured it into a clean cup.

I brought it back to the living room and placed it on the coffee table in front of Ayaka, steam rising from the rim of the cup.

Ayaka stared at the cup of coffee for a long time, then reached out, picked it up, and took a sip.

"...It's so bitter."

"I'll remember to add sugar."

Ayaka didn't reply, but she held the cup a little tighter.