[FDJ]Chapter 16: Summoning of the Servant

A small bird landed on the raised haystack in the forest. Not long ago, this was a suburban village where people lived. However, after the arrival of the Hun army, anyone who wanted to survive fled. Weeds had already surrounded the village fences, and for three weeks, no one had come near.

The little bird sensed movement beneath the haystack and quickly flew away, flapping its wings.

"Where... am I...?"

Wearing clothing completely different from this era, Suzuki Yuki crawled out of the haystack. He felt weak all over as if he had just run a marathon. He couldn't even stand steadily or determine the directions; everything seemed to be spinning.

He lay in the weeds for a long time before recovering from dizziness and fatigue. He took out his phone, but there was no signal, and the battery was almost empty. He distinctly remembered that his phone was fully charged when he went to the control room.

The time displayed on the phone was 23:08, and he could see the sun hanging high in the sky. It was cloudless, a beautiful day. The time was completely off.

He took out a positioning device from a hidden pocket in his clothes and, assuming the magnetic field hadn't changed, roughly estimated his location in France based on the compass readings.

In his memory, he was in the control room just a moment ago, standing in the central position, answering questions from the director. But after a headache, he couldn't recall what happened next.

Suzuki turned around the haystack and saw a silent village right in front of him. The surroundings were mostly forests that seemed even more unsafe. He had no idea where the so-called mountain road led. He didn't think he could find any locals in the village, where there was no smoke rising from the houses.

"Why did I go from Chaldea to France?" Suzuki couldn't make sense of his memories from inside Chaldea. Apart from dust and farming tools, he couldn't see any other objects. Occasionally, he kicked open a door and found clay pots, but they were all empty.

There was no sign of recent human activity, let alone any people. Suzuki searched through the village, going from house to house. By the time he finished half of the village, the sun was directly overhead, indicating it was lunchtime for modern people.

Suzuki only found a relatively clean wooden barrel and pottery plate. Using his vaguely remembered method of fetching water, he tied the bucket to a rope near the village's only well and drew a bucket of clean water.

Without rashly drinking the well water, Suzuki used a testing device carried in the lining of his clothes to check the mineral content of the water. The instrument quickly concluded it was "high-quality groundwater."

If Suzuki had the complete set of testing equipment from Chaldea, he could use the well water to determine the year and location in France. Based on his intuition, he was not in 21st-century France. The style of the village looked more like the pre-10th century.

After drinking two large bowls of well water, Suzuki washed his face with the cold water, trying to stay alert. The feeling of exhaustion came over him again. Water alone wasn't enough; he needed food. The compressed biscuits he had in his pocket could only be a last resort. Eating that kind of thing would only solve the problem of hunger, but it wouldn't sustain his body for combat.

Unfortunately, Suzuki hadn't hidden any nutritious food himself before going to the control room. He had only treated it as going to be "interrogated."

The sound of birds chirping in the forest became livelier than before. Realizing something was wrong, Suzuki could already hear the sound of hooves.

Quickly pouring the remaining water back into the well, he even threw the bucket down. He stomped on his footprints with his boots and then hid in a backlit wooden house. He placed the bowls and plates on the only bed in the house and crouched near the wooden window, observing the changes outside.

It seemed like he had undergone this kind of training before. His body acted before his mind could process the situation. As he slowed his breathing and observed the village from the window, only 40 seconds had passed.

He waited for less than 30 seconds and heard the sound of horses neighing, indicating that a battle was taking place in an unseen location.

Soon, three soldiers with Asian features ran into the village from the entrance. One of them was injured, and all of them were armed with swords and carried bows and arrows. They wore a somewhat complete set of leather armor.

Before they could reach the center of the village, several soldiers on horseback with different attire chased after them. Suzuki could tell that the group behind them consisted of white people. Although they were the pursuers, their weapons and equipment were not as good as those of the previous three soldiers of Asian descent.

One side was on horseback, while the other side had an injured comrade. The three soldiers didn't have time to escape into the wooden house in the village before they were intercepted and surrounded by the cavalry. Suzuki quietly counted; there were a total of seven white cavalry soldiers.

One of the soldiers of Asian descent raised his sword in an attempt to resist, but he was immediately pierced through the chest by a spear from one of the cavalry soldiers and fell to the ground. The other two soldiers also wielded their swords, trying to make a final struggle.

Both sides were shouting in a language Suzuki couldn't understand. At least, the words spoken by the white cavalry soldiers had no connection to Latin. The only words he could make out were "Rome" and "Orleans."

"Rome? Orleans?" Suzuki didn't dare to act recklessly. He couldn't gather useful information from the few words shouted by the white cavalry soldiers. If he were to go out now and greet the seven mounted white soldiers, he would be rewarded with a spear pressed against the ground.

The injured soldier rushed towards the cavalry, but with just one swing of his sword, he was knocked down and trampled by the surrounding soldiers. The cries of agony frightened Suzuki, and he couldn't overcome his fear of death, even though he tried.

The last soldier of Asian descent picked up a bow and arrow and shot one of the cavalry's horses. The injured horse immediately went out of control and hindered the surrounding cavalry soldiers. The roads in the village were relatively narrow. Now he had a glimmer of hope for escape.

In the brief moment of chaos, the soldier ran desperately towards a narrow path in the village that was difficult for horses to pass through and accurately escaped into the wooden house where Suzuki was hiding.

Both of them looked at each other and were momentarily stunned.

The soldier shook the horse saber in his hand and whispered two sentences. He kept staring at Suzuki, appearing ready to swing his blade at any moment.

The sound of horse hooves gradually approached, and both of them dared not take a breath. Although they were fixated on each other, neither made a move. They remained still until the cavalry passed in another direction.

Suzuki couldn't understand the language spoken by the soldier, and the soldier seemed extremely nervous, continuously murmuring in a language completely different from Latin.

After about two minutes of standoff, the soldier slightly relaxed his grip and slowly walked deeper into the wooden house. As he walked, he used his blade to indicate for Suzuki to move to the corner and keep a distance from him.

In fact, during those two minutes, Suzuki had already prepared a counterattack. Although he couldn't use magecraft, the uniform he was wearing allowed him to employ a few simple tricks, including a light projectile with offensive capabilities. It couldn't kill, but it could knock down an unprepared ordinary person. His incantation didn't make the soldier notice anything unusual, and neither understood what the other was saying.

Unfortunately, the dismounted soldiers had no intention of letting the enemy soldier go, even though they had already killed all but one of the Hun reconnaissance teams. It wasn't due to their professionalism but because they returned to search the two corpses and didn't find what they were looking for. Moreover, they recognized that the person they had just killed was just an ordinary scout among the Huns. The price for the heads of ordinary soldiers and captains was completely different, so they had no reason to let go of the fat meat right in front of them.

They searched each house in the village one by one, and soon they returned to the vicinity of the wooden house where the two were hiding. This time, they discovered footprints on the ground.

The seven dismounted cavalry soldiers outside looked at each other and split into two groups, heading towards the back of the wooden house, while the remaining five rushed to the front and kicked the flimsy wooden door with a forceful kick, shattering it. The other four rushed in from both sides.

The Hun soldier and Suzuki heard the footsteps outside the stop, and they both understood that they had been discovered. They also saw someone heading towards the back door of the wooden house, leaving them no chance to escape. As the wooden door was kicked open, the Hun soldier no longer focused on Suzuki. Waving his horse saber, he charged forward. However, before the soldier could engage in a desperate battle, he pointed to the only place in the wooden house where someone could hide, directing Suzuki to hide underneath the bed. It seemed he wanted Suzuki to take cover there.

Suzuki took two steps toward the direction of the bed, but the back door also burst open, and two white cavalry soldiers immediately spotted him. Although they couldn't discern Suzuki's identity, without hesitation, they drew their single-handed swords and closed in.

The battle at the front door ended quickly. With five against one, there was no suspense, and the soldier was captured on the spot. They heard the cries of their comrade and also realized that there were other people in the house.

There was no way out. Suzuki threw the prepared magic projectile at one of the cavalry soldiers, hoping to take advantage of his momentary incapacitation and make a run for the back door.

The other person immediately grabbed Suzuki's wrist and pressed it against his chest. In terms of combat skills, Suzuki was no match for these professional soldiers.

There was no time for Suzuki to prepare a second projectile, and the soldier who had been knocked down stood up from the floor. The magecraft he could unleash with his uniform alone proved weaker than he had anticipated.

Suzuki's free left hand unintentionally reached for his waist pouch, where he believed he had a medical spray that might startle the soldier holding him at close range. It was the only method he could think of. He was afraid of being killed, afraid of being unable to carry out his orders.

Instead of finding the spray can, his fingers touched a slightly hard object beneath the gauze. The soldier holding him noticed this small movement. He immediately shouted and reached out to grab the small pouch on Suzuki's waist.

At the critical moment, the golden chess piece Suzuki had retrieved from his waist pouch fell to the floor.

A golden light flashed, and a half-human figure holding a sword appeared from within the chess piece. The word "Saber" immediately came to Suzuki's mind. Along with his touch on the chess piece, three red marks appeared on the back of his left hand, the very Command Seals he had longed for.

The light of magical power illuminated the entire wooden house as a female knight wielding a sword emerged from the summoning circle. To the French cavalry soldiers who witnessed this scene, it was as if a strangely dressed young man had conjured a living person with witchcraft, and their faces were filled with fear.

The blade was unsheathed, severing both arms of the soldier holding Suzuki without hesitation. Ignoring the blood splattering on both of them, the female knight turned her sword towards Suzuki Tomoyuki.

"Saber, Jeanne d'Arc, I accept your summons. Are you my Master?"

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