197 Unassuming Danger

"Ehehehehe~! Close, but not enough~!" Mephistopheles laughed as he repelled Mordred's assault with his giant scissors, causing her to grit her teeth in annoyance. Soon, though, her expression turned into a smirk, as a shadow appeared behind the Caster Servant, spear already in a thrusting motion.

"Kugh!" Vlad wasted no time in impaling the clown, immediately drawing blood from him. However, he quickly noticed something wrong.

"Just kidding!" Caster head bent back unnaturally until he was facing Berserker with a grin that was a mix of mocking and deranged.

The Ruler of Wallachia soon found his face twisting into a snarl when he noticed the attitude of his opponent, as well as the mechanical bugs that were exiting from where he had 'stabbed' him.

He was quick to retreat lest he got trapped in whatever the enemy was planning on doing. Mordred also followed swift after trying, in vain, to cut him in two while he was not looking. Unfortunately, Mephistopheles still managed to block her attempt.

"Yaah!" With a shout, Mash came crashing down with her shield, ready to slam Caster with the cross end of her bulwark. Alerted by her voice, he got enough time to jump away, carefully maintaining an equal distance between Mordred and Vlad.

Pieces of stone flew in the air after Shielder's attack, allowing the combatants to gain some respite to think of new strategies—ones that they could not think before as Saber went on the offensive immediately to deal with the threat quickly.

That put Fujimaru in a tough spot. As much as he would have liked to be able to think on the spot of mind-blowing strategies, he was not quite there yet. There was no way he could come up with a plan just yet, and more so when he didn't know the capabilities of the enemy Servant.

Sure, the name Mephistopheles sounded a bit familiar, but aside from that, there was not much else. He was literally dressed as a clown. What was he to expect? For him to make a balloon dog and him them with it?

The fact that Mordred was not one to follow through with the plans was also a bit of a factor that worked against him.

"Ahhhh~ That was rude!" Mephistopheles' mock complaint returned Fujimaru's attention back to him. The Clown reached for the spot where Vlad had 'stabbed' him before taking out a bag filled with some kind of red liquid dripping down from a hole.

Vlad's eyebrows twitched in irritation, evidently angry at the one who had dared to make a fool of himself. That anger soon turned to annoyance as numerous Automata once again started approaching from the dark corners of the streets, all with the same wobbling steps. This time, however, they were faster than before. Nonetheless, he doubted they were harmless in the slightest.

"Berserker, Saber, focus on Mephistopheles! Caster, please use your magic on farthest enemies. Mash, Assassin. You two deal with whoever gets close!" Fujimaru fired orders as fast as he could, reminding himself of using their classes instead of their actual names just in case the enemy learned of their weakness. It was something that both Zhuge Liang and Seth had capitalized upon.

Everyone nodded with various degrees of acceptance and got to work.

The first to start was Medea. She had the advantage of possessing numerous abilities that allowed her to attack from a safe distance. At times like these where they were being ganged upon, she truly could show her worth.

Lightning strikes, big icicles and blade-like gusts of wind assaulted the Automata without mercy. The sound reverberated across the dark streets, soon accompanied by the explosions of their remains once the bombs that Mephistopheles planted inside them got triggered by Medea's attack.

They had already expected the same trick would be used twice, so they were not surprised when it happened. This worked in their favor, though. They only needed to hit one, and the resulting explosion would take down two more, and so on.

Mash decided to take a mid-ranged approach since the mechanical humans were starting to distance themselves from each other, and defending really close to her Master would pose a danger to him if some stray part got to him after their eventual destruction.

She fought smartly by using the weight of the opponents. Instead of bashing her shield against them, which would result in them exploding in her face, she used it to push them at each other with delicacy, kind of like a hand running through water and creating a small wave.

It was certainly an effective method, albeit one that required a lot in terms of focus. That's where Carmilla came in. The Blood Countess also did her part by reducing the burden Shielder was subjected to.

While Mash was suited for melee combat, and Medea for ranged ones; Assassin didn't belong to any of those camps, but was more in the middle side of things.

"How utterly annoying..." Her mutter of distaste was accompanied by her stabbing her long fingernails on the head of an Automaton before throwing it to the others, once again filling the air with the sound of explosions.

Next, she swung her staff as if she were fighting against an invisible opponent. That motion created a raging tide of blood that took the shape of spikes that mercilessly impaled her enemies as if they were nothing.

It was more tedious work than it was difficult. However, Carmilla couldn't help but notice something particularly significant. She might have been the most indicated person to come to this realization, albeit by pure luck, but she wouldn't admit to that. 'How simple and unoriginal, yet at the same time smart.'

Taking some steps back to gain distance and not receive a sneak attack, Assassin turned toward her Master's direction, where Medea was already looking at her, seemingly having arrived to the same conclusion.

"The bombs are in their chest. Aim for the head and we should not have to worry for any collateral damage." Although Assassin cared next to nothing about what sort of destruction they could cause to their surroundings, she understood that it was not something ideal either, considering they were fighting for Humanity, and that the constant explosions were starting to take its toll on the buildings were probably some local inhabitants hid in fear.

Caster, who was taking in every event in the small battlefield also noticed the strange occurrence, and Carmilla's words did nothing but confirm what she herself had observed from the small and short skirmish between her and the Automata.

With that in mind, Medea changed her attack pattern to better suit the needs of the situation. Instead of using attacks focused on a bigger area of damage, she opted to be more precise with her magic.

Her staff moved swiftly, and from it, multiple shards of ice shot unimpeded in her enemies' direction. The projectiles were small, fast, and deadly; impacting everywhere but the core in their chest.

Sure enough, nothing 'grand' happened aside from the machines tumbling down onto the ground once the necessary damage was done. Some lasted more than others, but they, too, eventually fell. It was evident that the modification they had been subjected too to make them walking bombs had reduced their overall defense. After all, it would make no sense to make them sturdier if all you wanted was to cause them to blow up at the bare minimum of contact.

"Caster... Keep it up. Make sure to support Carmilla and Mash... as much as you can." The Witch of Betrayal shot him a look with some traces of worry after his mutter. Her Master sounded... off, so to say.

"Are you okay, Master? Think you can endure a bit more?" It was honestly not looking good for them. There was no doubt that Fujimaru had been cursed, but without knowing what exactly he was cursed with, there was not much she could do. She needed to be aware of the cause behind it to actually help—something that, unfortunately, was not like that.

"Y-Yeah... Thanks to you. I don't think I can last more than an hour, though..." While it was true that Medea couldn't remove the curse without using Rule Breaker, she still helped with some Healing Magic to alleviate the symptoms and pain.

Since it was only a feeling of weakness, and there wasn't a real threat to his life, he decided to avoid making Caster use her Noble Phantasm when there could be prying eyes watching them from the dark. It was suspicious for Mephistopheles to appear suddenly and want to fight a group of Servants just like that, so it was best to show as less of their secret cards as possible.

Naturally, it was only because the curse did nothing more than give him a feeling of weakness, of tiredness, which would eventually lead to him fainting on the spot. If it were something more serious that threatened his life, there would be no amount of reasoning that prevented the use of Rule Breaker, and it was not as if he would go against it. He was inexperienced, not stupid.

"Our readings show a similar conclusion. You have approximately 50 minutes before your health parameters enter a concerning state. Try to finish the fight before that, and if you cannot, just retreat." Romani suddenly butted in on the conversation; loud enough for them to hear, yet low enough to prevent eavesdroppers from knowing the information.

"Thanks for the heads up, Doctor." Fujimaru's reply was short, but it conveyed his gratefulness. The black-haired youth knew things should be done faster, so some sacrifices had to be made. In this case, the sacrifice was a good part of his Magical Energy's reserves.

It was not easy maintaining all these Servants at once, and let's say that powering them up did not help in the slightest, but sometimes it was the right option, or just the best in an scenario like this one.

'Vlad. You have my permission to use your Noble Phantasm. I don't know if there are other Servants nearby, but I am afraid we cannot take many risks. If you find a window to release it, do so.' With that in mind, he quickly gave his seal of approval to Berserker. In terms of raw power, he was by far the strongest in his current entourage. Carmilla would not be that far off, but that would only be if the target were female thanks to the Mystery behind her legend.

It took a moment, but Berserker's reply came eventually. 'Understood, my vassal. However, a warning is in order. This fellow is still hiding something. Be careful on your end.'

'I will. Good luck to you too. If you need me to use my Mystic Code to help you just ask. Sorry if my response comes a bit late, but I have my mind focused on enduring whatever curse Caster inflicted on me.' Fujimaru's response was met with a grunt from Vlad's part. Enough time spent with the King made him understand that he agreed, and he also noticed a bit of urgency in there.

And urgency there was indeed. The Impaler didn't hesitate in fight more aggressively; not only because his Master's situation could worsen his own in the long run, neither because the clown was getting on his nerves, but also due to the potential ambush they could receive if they delayed things any longer.

Despite all his posturing, Caster did not seem to be actively trying to fight them. The correct thing to say would be that he was playing with them. However, it was not the sort of playing the strong did with the weak. It was more like he was waiting for something, and Vlad did not have the intention of waiting to know what it was.

Refocusing on the fight at hand, Berserker disappear into a pool of blood only to reapper next to Mephistopheles with his spear ready to pierce the clown's torso. Unfortunately for him, Caster had predicted it, so after dodging another slash from a very annoyed Mordred, he used the space between the blades of his scissors to push Vlad's weapon down to the ground, all while laughing in his usualy mocking way.

His laugh was short-lived, though, as Mordred hit him with a flying kick in the face. Caster kept rolling on the ground until he impacted on a building, which managed to stop the inertia.

Vlad observed Saber's smug face with raised eyebrows, although he would be lying if he said that he did not enjoy it. He had it coming since a while ago.

"How's that, you shitty clown?! There's more of that, so get the fuck up before I do that with my fists!" Her smirk and tone of voice was as taunting as they could get, but her posture was not as relaxed. For all that could be said about her, her instincts when it came to fights were not to be scoffed at. She had arrived at the same conclusion Berserker did, so she knew that playing games was not in her best interest. The green-eyes knight only wanted to force Caster to make at least a tiny mistake that they could take advantage of.

There was some coughing coming from Mephistopheles' direction. With some, obviously faked, difficulty, he removed the rubbles on top of him, waving his hand to disperse the dust around him. "How cruel! What would you have done if my make-up got ruined?! And aren't knights supposed to fight with swords?! Where did that kick came from?!"

"..."

"...But..."

All of a sudden, the atmosphere around him changed. His joking smirk was still present, but this time it didn't have the mocking tint on it. Now, only something sinester remained.

"...THAAAAAAANNNNNNNK YOUUUUU!"

Mordred's eyes widened, immediately going down to the foot she kicked Mephistopheles with... To where a row of mechanical bugs were coiling around her leg. "Fuc—"