Chapter 1-14
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VOLUME 4
Chapter 1
Ch1-14
Caster of Red watched Rider depart, and then headed off to his study. The Servant Caster possessed the class skill [Territory Creation]. This skill’s rank changed depending on the Servant’s ability, bloodline or occupation. If they were famous as a magus, they could even create a Temple, which surpassed a Workshop.
Caster of Red wasn’t technically a magus… in the first place, someone like a writer didn’t need a Temple or a Workshop. What he required was a study for writing.
Within the study that Caster of Red had constructed, there were mountains of books, a typewriter that Shirou had gotten for him (he had immediately abandoned it after getting it), a desktop computer (he had immediately abandoned this as well)—and a writing desk with a pen and paper on it.
It was a room quite disconnected from his class name as Caster. It truly was a study. Of course, if you considered that the piles of scrap paper in the room’s garbage can were all part of Shakespeare’s new work, it was a mystical room in a certain sense.
Caster of Red took out one of the books on the bookshelves. The book’s title was [William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Historical Dramas and Tragedies]—a book compilation commonly known as the ‘First Folio’.
…However, this book wasn’t something that Shakespeare had published himself. His friend had merely collected together his works after he died. In the first place, there were no manuscripts made from his personal handwriting.
After looking it over, he took out another, bulky leather-bound book beside it. The book had no title, and even the author’s name wasn’t inscribed on it.
The book he held now was different from the earlier one. This was a genuine book personally handwritten by him. But—he still hadn’t finished writing it.
He cherishingly moved his fingers across where the text came to an interrupted halt.
“—Now then, it’s certainly been following the path of a masterpiece until this point, but…”
The protagonist needed to go through many hardships. A life full of smooth sailing from beginning to end should be left to any average person you could find anywhere. A protagonist’s story needed dramatic parts. Whether the story was a tragedy, a comedy, or something else entirely, unique people had equally unique lives.
In that sense, Shirou Kotomine was infinitely close to Caster’s ideal. Regardless of whether or not his wish was granted, his end would no doubt be impressive.
Contained in these bookshelves were books recounting the stories of all the people involved in the Great Holy Grail War.
They included both those who had already lost and vanished and those who had been killed off-hand. Naturally, among them was the book of that country girl—Jeanne d’Arc. He admitted that he had been slightly wrong to utterly make fun of her when he was alive just because she had been England’s enemy.
She wasn’t some pitiful, mad country girl. It would have been far better for her if that’s all she was. She was someone who understood her own sins and yet still didn’t stop being a saint—a girl who fought against despair.
“When classifying those known as saints, they can be properly described as those who save people and fight not out of personal desire, but against the despair of this evil world. In that case, regardless of the end results, the two of them are naturally and unmistakably saints.”
To save his people, to save her homeland; regardless of the scale, they had stood up and fought.
“However, their paths ended up being different. My Master, who acts to save all of humanity, and the Holy Grail’s protector, who moves to stop that. To think their good intentions would be turned inside out into ill will towards each other, how tragic! [Honor travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast.]”
Their confrontation with each other couldn’t be avoided, and their tale was so fascinating. Even though they were both trying to save people, they were enemies who had no choice but to kill one another.
“I’d like it if the two of them squared off against each other at the very end, but—”
Caster closed the book and took out another one. This book was different from the last extravagant leather-bound one; it was a white and bluntly plain book.
This was the book of that homunculus. He should have been immature, weak, and commonplace. No, even now, he was still commonplace. The only unique thing about him was the power he had received. The choices of those surrounding him had merely pushed the trait of being unique onto him.
But… but.
Even so, he continued to survive in the Great Holy Grail War. Though he had a short life, he chose to fight and desperately struggled. His short days alive were far too condensed to be called a human lifetime. Of course, homunculi were given knowledge from the moment they were born—or rather, they were artificial lifeforms that were born with knowledge. Most of them were boring, ordinary and uninteresting mass-produced beings.
That’s why the abnormality of this homunculus stood out so much.
He was neither boring nor ordinary. It was just that he wasn’t conspicuous within this Great Holy Grail War when all the Servants were far more abnormal than him—but that’s what made him so amiss.
He wasn’t a hero. But he wasn’t an ordinary being either. He was a pitiful boy trifled with by fate, but he wasn’t bothered by that.
In that case, what was his role in this Great Holy Grail War?
To act as recognition of the services of the holy maiden? To be a Master or Servant that was part of his side’s forces? Or perhaps—he was the one who would square off against the person at the center of this battle, Shirou Kotomine—against Amakusa Shirou Tokisada?
“…Hmm, no, that’s impossible.”
The only one who was equal to Amakusa Shirou Tokisada was the holy maiden Jeanne d’Arc. Everyone’s awareness of that was unchanged. Most likely, the two of them would square off again in the final decisive battle.
There was no room for the homunculus to wedge himself in… No, he might be thrown in as part of the enemy forces, but he himself shouldn’t be able to meddle in the part which touched upon the foundation of this war.
But even that possibility was about to vanish.
His Master’s plan to save humanity would soon begin. Would Shirou Kotomine become a savior? Or—would he fail to save people once more and become a pitiful clown? Either way, Caster had no doubt it would be a tragic, comic and extremely enjoyable story.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
(NanoDesu) A Translation of the Fate/Apocrypha Light Novel 