Chapter 2-5
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VOLUME 4
Chapter 2
Ch2-5
Saber of Red walked idly down the streets of Bucharest during midday. In addition to her excessively exposing outfit, her dignified and beautiful features attracted quite a lot of attention… However, not a single person tried to call out to her.
The public order in Romania’s capital of Bucharest was terrible. At the very least, there was a high chance that a girl like her, walking outside alone in such a conspicuous outfit, would be dragged into some kind of trouble.
But there were always exceptions to every case. Whether they were street punks, pickpockets or fake policemen, as long as they were human, they would act according to their instincts.
…In other words, there was no one foolish enough to call out to a grizzly bear in the shape of a young girl.
“Muu. Like I thought, I should have brought Master along, even if I had to do it by force.”
Saber yawned in boredom.
The people who passed by her all took notice of her beauty for an instant—but then frantically turned to look away from her. Having realized that she was being looked at, Saber wished she would get caught up in some trouble already.
Perhaps because she had seen that depressing dream, she felt like some vague emotion was gathering in her stomach. The best way to clear it away was with violence.
However, not a single person called out to her, leaving her extremely bored. There were various kinds of people, the old, the young, those who seemed good, those who seemed bad—and she was cut off and separate from all of them.
—Servants were beings that were separate from the world.
Heroic Spirits were summoned to win in the Holy Grail War. Even if they were given a second life, what was asked of them was only battle—so it couldn’t be helped.
Though Saber thus reasoned in her mind, her thoughts couldn’t ignore the truth that she was alone from the start even when she was alive.
Her mother Morgan had only seen her as a tool of revenge against her father. Because her growth had been quickened, there was no one who knew her from childhood either.
Even after she rose up to be a knight in Camelot, she had never interacted with the other knights.
The only thing she had was battle. Exchanging sword blows, cursing and trying to kill one another. That seemed to be the only form of communication that Saber knew.
There was only one person—who had been aware of her as ‘Mordred’ and with whom she had talked with her face unhidden.
Her father Arthur, who didn’t hold any interest in her.
Every time she remembered her father, she felt her guts boil. It was impossible to reach an understanding and be on equal ground with that. To be able to converse with that mechanical doll that was extolled as the ideal king, she had to, at the very least, become king herself—
“Ah——!?”
Her thoughts were suddenly cut off by a hysterical shout. Even though she had wished for someone to call out to her just a little earlier, now she felt irritation strong enough to make her want to send the speaker flying without asking any questions first.
“Be quiet. Just who—”
“Y-You! What are you doing here!?”
When she turned around, Saber of Red couldn’t help widening her eyes. Standing there was Rider of Black, wearing modern clothing like her and standing warily to cover the homunculus with him.
“…”
“…”
Rider of Black and Saber of Red fell into an awkward silence.
They weren’t exactly enemies right now. But things weren’t reconciled between them either. Still, if there had been any other humans or Servants present, they would have managed to bear it, but right now there was no one to stop them.
“…That’s my line. So, do you wanna pick a fight here?”
Saber of Red faintly smiled, making Rider of Black lose his temper.
“I could ask you the same thing. I’m fine either way. If you wanna go at it, then bring it.”
He really doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson after having been so badly beaten down by me before. This is a good opportunity to relieve some stress, I’ll smash him down completely one more time here—
Just as Saber of Red was going to take a step forward, another character took the stage. He stepped in front of Rider of Black and spoke to him while waving his right hand in greeting.
“Saber of Red, it’s been two days since we last saw each other. There’s something I’d like to ask you, so could we talk a little if you have some free time?”
“Eh?”
“Huh?”
—Talk?
Ignoring the dumfounded reactions of the other two, the boy asked once more.
“Are you busy right now?”
“No, I’m not really busy, but… is it really fine?”
Saber of Red looked at the boy suspiciously. She couldn’t find any anger, hatred or even fear in the boy’s calm expression… He’d been killed by her, but it seemed that incident was already treated as a closed matter within the boy.
The boy nodded like a drinking bird1.
“Yeah, we also have some free time right now.”
“Wha, no, wait…”
“Are you busy, Rider? Then we can separate and—”
“No, no, no, no, no, no! I’ll go, I’ll go with you!”
After looking first at the boy and then Rider of Black, Saber of Red frowned and spoke.
“All right. Where will we go to talk?”
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
(1) Drinking birds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_bird
(NanoDesu) A Translation of the Fate/Apocrypha Light Novel 