194

Scáthach tried to ignore Medusa, who was walking beside her. Walking side by side with that monster's Servant, ignoring her instinct screaming at her that the woman beside her could receive the command to remove the last obstacle to her Master's plans… was nerve wracking. If only she could figure out Ainz's end game, it would be much easier for her, there's no way that monster wasn't planning something nefarious, with Scáthach standing as his only obstacle in his way for…

Something.

Something evil and dark – not that Scáthach had ever questioned the specifics of the motivations of the creatures on the other side of the Lands of Shadows. She just killed every single last one of them.

Usually, her job in the Lands of Shadows was simple enough. She, spear in hand, protected the passage to Earth and killed those monsters who, after gathering their own powers, tried to break through with the goal of devouring humans, and turning Earth into Hell… At least that's what she guessed their motives for trying to break through to the land of the living was.

None of the dark creatures of the Lands of Shadows, which could not be described other than 'monsters', had ever been one to give away specifics of their plans in battle with Scáthach. But most of the creatures she had met along the way had acted roughly in that scenario.

Scáthach had seen what the creatures of darkness were capable of. She had seen the dark gods destroy entire nations, change the world to suit their desires, consuming heroes and artifacts created to their doom before. And how the monsters, with no regard for human life, brought terror and chaos to the world.

For example, Medusa, though an unfortunate creature at the beginning of her story, she, though not of her own volition, in the end became a monster and had to be stopped. When her curse consumed her, and she lost all reason, only her desire to bring destruction to the world was left.

In the end, she had to be killed by Perseus.

Medusa's story was tragic, but what happened is simply the natural course of the world – the monster was killed by a hero, there was nothing unnatural about it…

Except for the fact that Medusa herself was now alive, under the control of an even more powerful monster. As far as Scáthach herself, who trusted her intuition, could tell, she also had gained new powers that were out of Scáthach's own range of knowledge.

And this same Medusa, who had become a monster with new powers, was now serving as a supervisor over Scáthach herself, controlling her every move and obeying Ainz's will. At least, if the information she had received from Nobunaga during their 'communication' – if you could call it that – was right.

Scáthach could say that knowing that this Medusa was different from the one she knew, was an unpleasant factor. Scáthach was confident that she could win a fight against the previous Medusa, she even put her chances against her monstrous version as somewhat favorable. But this one? The lack of information, on both the new Medusa and Ainz, could make any move on her part tantamount to suicide.

What was the point of killing Medusa if Ainz could easily resurrect her? It might even be that Medusa was in fact now far stronger than Scáthach herself?

Besides, as much as it galls her to admit – Ainz hadn't done anything really horrible at the moment, like trying to destroy Human History or something like that… Which, however, didn't mean that he wouldn't try it in the future.

Powerful and ancient entities like Ainz could plan centuries in advance, capable of quietly and slowly subjugating minds and institutions of power instead of brute intervention. But still, Scáthach's inner sense of justice, inherited from her years training her neglectful apprentice, demanded that she recognize the fact that, so far, Ainz hadn't done anything unequivocally indicative of his monstrous nature.

Aside from the brutal murder of several Servants in the past Singularity, of which Scáthach herself was one. Or the general feeling that he was this world's worst nightmare from the depths of the Lands of Shadows – if not deeper – that is.

Scáthach allowed herself to frown a little. Strictly speaking, the reasons she had for mistrusting Ainz did look, when viewed from all angles, not indicative of Ainz's guilt at all…

Even so, the instinct honed by thousands of years of killing monsters, couldn't be put aside in a matter of moments with such a creature. Even if it tries to show itself to be not only to be an intelligent, but also agreeable person.

Scáthach was not Christian – strictly speaking she was more suited to the notion of an atheist, given the irony of the situation, that a killer of gods would begin to worship such things. But she was aware of the fact that the Christians believe that the Devil, too, could appear 'agreeable'.

Deception was not a rare tactic that is out of the question. But even then, what could Scáthach do? There is no other option if they were to save the World, is it really out of the norm to choose the lesser evil? Sure, Ainz could be planning to take over the world, but at least there would be a world that could fight back.

But is Ainz truly the 'lesser' evil? There's a possibility that he's even worse than a 'greater' evil. After all, a lesser evil would be destructive and damaging to their surroundings, and a greater evil would be like a corrupting nature, using the people surrounding it to enhance its destructive nature. Then, what of Ainz?

Perhaps it was her own biases speaking, but she truly wondered what end game a creature like Ainz is planning, what makes it necessary for him to gather so many people to his side…

"While I'm not a fan of having conversations on the road," Medusa's voice, breaking through the silence, almost made Scáthach reflexively strike with her spear.

"But if you're going to keep glaring at me, as if contemplating where it is best to stab my back, the least you can do is say something."

Medusa's tone was not sarcastic, so much as she was simply conveying to Scáthach the fact of what was going on. Medusa had seen Scáthach's usual interactions to know that she simply didn't interact with others much, but the silence has perhaps gotten to her… The stares that are like daggers to her back also doesn't help.

Scáthach could only clench her jaw in response to Medusa's words, then look away, trying to think of a plan in her head, a way that could get her out of the momentary unpleasant position that had arisen.

In other words, Scáthach felt embarrassed.

Medusa, continuing to walk quietly behind the millennia-old Lancer with the social awareness of a five-year-old child, not knowing exactly how to engage in dialogue with a stranger other than 'let's be friends?'. Something which, in Scáthach's case, turned into 'let's fight to the death?'.

Seeing the silently panicking Scáthach, who had hid it expertly, a result of her fantastic poker face, only shook her head slightly.

Medusa had always been happy to act as the youngest of the Gorgon sisters, as long as Stheno and Euryale took care of her and protected her, but after… Pretty much just about everything that had happened to her since her summoning. The absorption of the Grail's power, the betrayal, and subsequent forgiveness of her sisters, and the beginning of her relationship with Ainz, along with so many other things – Medusa could feel that she was rapidly beginning to 'grow up'.

Not in terms of her physical state, of course – Medusa didn't know what she would do if she grew even bigger and more than she was now, but in terms of her emotional state.

And so, as if she were an older sister watching a particularly willful and incredibly strong child, Medusa was forced to make contact first.

"You know, we don't know that much about each other… I know some information about you that the Throne of Heroes gave me. About the Lands of Shadows and your role as the eternal guard between them and the human world, but I know almost nothing about you as a person… Which is not good, considering that we are both Servants now, and quite likely will be in contact with each other one way or another for a long time… If just because of our potential immortality with a master like Ainz."

Scáthach only frowned slightly at these words, and this time not simply because of her lack of social skills. First, she didn't know if she should inform Medusa of her wrong assumption, Scáthach wasn't a Servant at all. Though she had ample experience of immortality, she wasn't too sure how her current contract would work in the future, given that she became a Servant because of the destruction of humanity and the Shadow Lands.

She honestly hadn't thought that much about the future. Her original plan was to kill Ainz, or, if she couldn't think of a decent way to do it, to return to her eternal post between the human world and the Shadow Lands. But as Medusa had already pointed out, Scáthach was now a Servant, and therefore, with some theoretical probability, could be tied to Ainz for a long time, perhaps even forever.

In other words, just a few hundred years could change her worldview and view of Ainz significantly. In a few thousand years, she herself wouldn't even remember that she once wanted to kill Ainz or why she wanted to in the first place. Scáthach's mental stamina was great, but still not infinite. She had long ago lost any joy in defending the human world and killing monsters from the Shadow Lands, so a thousand years in a different environment could just as easily have wrinkled her convictions for protecting humanity from Ainz.

And Medusa, who had planted a seed of doubt in Scáthach's mind by mentioning this possibility, had already taken the first step against her, perhaps even on Ainz's orders. Truly, what a frightening being.

Upon realizing this, Scáthach instantly dismissed her past thoughts and turned away from Medusa before she could do any more damage. Scáthach started walking as quickly as possible in the direction of the city, over which the night sky of this Singularity shone with stars instead of black emptiness.

Medusa, left behind by the spear-wielding Servant, could only sigh inwardly as she watched the willful child refuse to speak, half embarrassed and half distrustful of the 'stranger' that was talking to her. Medusa simply hurried after her, deciding for the moment to set aside her previous attempts at dialogue and focus on her mission as the city draws near.

Gradually, as she approached closer, Scáthach was able to begin to discern the specific outline of the city. To be more precise, it was less of a city and more of a castle, with numerous temporary and semi-temporary settlements around it. The building ranged from established tent encampments to hastily constructed wooden shacks, and even some stately mansions that looked like they had been standing there for quite some time. The manors quite likely a heritage from the present history of the place rather than having been built after the Singularity's crisis began.

Other than these settlements, though, Scáthach 's attention was taken in by the castle with rising towers and fairly high stone walls topped with several flags, most with various designs of crosses on them, hanging on the gates leading inside.

"Even if I didn't know that this was the City of the Crusaders – it wouldn't be hard to guess from their general appearance." Scáthach glanced over the flags, many of which had been placed on the ground between the various tent encampments, as if they were some sort of protection against the darkness creeping in from the scorched wasteland.

The two Servants realized that their approach, out of the darkness of the wasteland, had caused a reaction among the people in the camp. And so, a few dozen seconds later, as Scáthach approached, she could see a group of people gathering to confront them.

Judging by their armaments, the people in the settlement seemed to have managed to raise something resembling a local militia, mostly just stout men armed with spears. Though looking closer, Scáthach could see that a minority were equipped with full armors, while most were lesser in quality, dressed in various patchworks of armor, leather, or chain mail.

Dealing with these men would simply be a matter of seconds and a dozen precise blows, no more than one for each of the men, but Scáthach chose to step forward and only raised her hands, showing their emptiness. A useless gesture, given that she could summon her spear instantly if she wished, and massacre every man in front of her, but the meaning of her gesture was unambiguous and calmed the assembled militia somewhat.

One of the men, a young man dressed in chainmail, stepped forward, then glanced at Scáthach and then at Medusa, who was standing slightly behind her. "My name is Captain Lancel, and I'll tell you blandly, you don't look like anyone from these parts and I don't trust you… And I don't think there are any other places in the world from which travelers can come to this damned place, not to mention that two young girls can't have survived long in the wastelands. So, identify yourselves!"

Scáthach thought about her answer for a moment – what exactly should she answer the people in front of her? It was unlikely that they knew who or what the Servants were, but given the state of the world – it was logical to assume that they would at least not be surprised by magic and its practices in this world… Although, calling herself a 'witch' while in a crusader camp was a rather stupid decision. That is, unless Scáthach herself was simply planning to stage a battle with these people…

"All right, Captain, I'll take it from here." A voice from behind the group of militia, however, caused them to turn around instantly. And then with a nod, an international sign of respect, the militia began to disperse to the sides after a single word from the mystery person… Pronounced in a female high voice.

Scáthach frowned slightly – her knowledge of the Crusaders and significant figures among them was rudimentary at best, so she could not immediately recall any famous female Crusader… So it was likely that she had run into a Servant, and yet how could it be?

Straining her senses, Scáthach could not feel anything unusual from the figure of a girl dressed in tailored armor with a crested cape, white with a large red cross over her shoulders, as she appeared from behind the militia.

Somehow the strange occurrence made her think of Ainz again. Scáthach could instantly identify Ainz as something 'foul' in this world, but could not determine that he was a Servant… Yet the Servant before her, because she was definitely a Servant even if her sense was failing her at the moment, did not evoke the same disgusting feeling inside Scáthach as Ainz did.

In any case, the comparison did not add to Scáthach's confidence, causing her to frown more as she looked at the short girl who had just appeared.

The girl, and most likely the Servant, was somewhat similar in her appearance to Mashu, whom Scáthach had seen only a few dozen minutes ago. Except that her features were slightly more feminine, and her glasses were of a different model, one that is a poor match of her knightly appearance.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself…" The girl smiled slightly at Scáthach before shifting her gaze to Medusa before suddenly standing stock still as if Medusa had removed her glasses.

Scáthach automatically glanced at Medusa to see if there's something wrong, only to see that the Servant had also become frozen.

The two girls, both wearing glasses, began silently looking at each other, and Scáthach could see the calculating look in both of their eyes, before each of them blinked simultaneously, and they took a step toward each other.

"Medusa," Medusa calmly revealed her name, as if she hadn't even given away her biggest secret, the secret of her identity, to a potential adversary.

"Jacques," The girl smiled, shaking Medusa's hand, then shifted her gaze to Scáthach, offering a hand that Scáthach wouldn't take. "Jacques de Vitry."

Sita stared ahead – or rather, she tried to. As an Archer, her eyesight was far better than that of the other Servants she's with, and she could discern much smaller and more insignificant details than the others. But even so, all she saw before her was the desert in its various configurations, or more their lack of one.

The high dunes, the slow-flowing sand plains, the dust storms rising in the distance – all in all it was possible to say that what Sita saw was even, in a sense, beautiful. A picture created by an artist, capturing the beauty of a cruel, endless ocean of sand, but, as usually happens, the more one observes beautiful things, the more easily one gets used to them.

In Sita's case, this fact was compounded by the fact that, in addition to the beautiful vista, she also felt the desert grow freezing as night fell. As if the heat of the day were a mere mirage, and the cold wasteland stretching into the distance was its true form.

The night sky, studded with stars, a rare sight for anyone from the modern world, indicated that even in this damned ruined Singularity with a mangled history of humanity, there was still something beautiful about it. With the overbearing heat of the day and the need to constantly raise her hand to her eyes to escape the glittering sand and the bright sun gone, Sita's eyesight should have been easier.

But even so Sita was, to be honest, tired of the constant landscape, and she felt her eyes begin to blur.

Under normal circumstances it was easy enough to get rid of this effect, you could just sleep or rest in some other way, not that the Servants physically needed sleep. Still, it does help the Servant relax any accumulated emotional fatigue.

But even if sleeping on the back of a moving sphinx was easy enough, not that it was actually easy, Sita couldn't sleep. At this moment, Sita was on a mission while in enemy territory, and in theory could be attacked at any second, so she couldn't rest.

Not that she seriously expected to be attacked by unknown adversaries anytime soon.

Nitocris had led Sita and Medb around the wild sphinx's territory, and Medb had sort of made an alliance agreement with Ozymandias. Sita had no doubt that no other Servants would dare invade Ozymandias territory… unless they're prepared to start a huge war, that is.

At the same time, however, Sita could not allow herself to relax completely either. Potential problems during her mission could affect her assessment by Ainz, which would in turn affect his willingness to rid her and Rama of their curse, which was Sita's main and only goal.

Even if she wanted to, the prospect of failing her love would not let her sleep. And so, Sita's fatigue added to her nervousness, made for a dangerous cocktail, only further burdening her mind, which contributed further to both her fatigue and her nervousness. The vicious cycle would only end, seemingly, until Sita made some huge mistake… or she dropped dead.

And that moment, of course, came as soon as she thought about it.

As Sita's sphinx took another step into the same unassuming desert, a patch of sand same as everywhere else as far as the eye can see, the sand seemed to swallow the foot whole. With a lurch as the beast began falling, Sita grasped the sphinx with all her might to try to right it, or to pull it back to safety. It didn't take long for Sita to realize the efforts were doomed as more and more of the sand began falling.

With no other choice, Sita let go of the reins and jumped as far as she could be away from the falling sands to safety. Sita could only watch as the desert seemingly ate the Sphinx.

In a strange, unrealistic picture, the sand where Sita had just been walking before, collapsed downwards, as if the sand were actually hanging over a void. A balance that Sita had disturbed, ending with the death of the sphinx… Or not? The sphinx seems to be just fine… The collapse exposed something beneath the sand, a ruin with time-dried stone and metal bones, rising up as the desert receded, like the teeth of a hungry beast.

However, the sand wasn't actually falling into the recesses of the ruins, instead continuing to fall downwards disappearing into nowhere, exposing more and more ruins. Ruins that, on closer inspection, were not ruins at all, but only the dusty and sand-covered remains of a very modern building.

Or perhaps futuristic would be the better word, as modern when in regard to a time of Ramses II would be more likely to refer to a medieval time period. No, the building, all made up of steel and glass, wouldn't look out of place in the world outside the Singularity, if actually even more advanced – the most advanced scientific laboratory of the twenty-first century… Is it weirder to contemplate the ancient people were in fact capable of such advanced technology. Or that by a strange coincidence, an advanced laboratory from the future somehow were covered, and transported into a Singularity reflecting the altered reality of the Crusades.

Sita had seen many things that challenged her view of the world – her Master for instance, but for some reason, it was the sight of modern electronics that looked especially wild in this Singularity.

With a long-drawn growl, bordering on annoyed and even somewhat resentful, the sphinx, dragged down by streams of sand, managed to wriggle out a moment later than his sandy prison descended even lower. The lowering sands exposed a corridor going down, but before Sita could see any further the giant bulk of the Sphinx, jumping back onto the cliff edge a dozen meters above the floor of the ruined laboratory, blocked her view.

"Hmm," Medb's voice distracted Sita further. "There they are, the ruins of Atlas…"

Sita nodded, realizing what she's seeing, but Nitocris, obviously uninformed about what was going on and likely didn't even know exactly where she was leading the two Servants, just turned a puzzled look at Medb, "Ahem, I know I sound stupid for bringing you here, wherever here is, without knowing where I'm brining you to… I mean, I knew that this place was an anomaly within Lord Ozymandias' kingdom, but I'm not sure exactly what kind of place it is…"

"The ruins of Atlas," Medb answered again, as if it explained everything, then shifted her gaze and, realizing by the sight of Nitocris and her incomprehensible furrowed brow, that she had no idea what Medb was talking about, exhaled. "It's a laboratory… No, perhaps it's better described as a research institute, a magical one. It's also one of the main organizations of magi in human history – its most advanced and most amoral one, a haven for mad scientists. At least those that are more mad and amoral than the 'ordinary' magi of the Magical Association – quite the feat, I assure you. It is also a library of all kinds of forbidden knowledge, a repository of all kinds of forbidden artifacts, and the final resting place of many magi who decided to devote themselves entirely to their art. Mostly those which all their other colleagues considered unsuitable for public access. In one word, Atlas."

After her brief explanation, Medb shifted her gaze to Nitocris, raising one eyebrow, "You must have received the same information that I did – no, perhaps more information than I did during my summoning shouldn't you?"

Hearing these words, Nitocris dropped her gaze. She hated to admit that, unlike so many Servants around her, she had been too focused on Ozymandias and her ability to help him at the time of her summoning. So much so, that she had not even paid attention to information about everything else and, by now, she had managed to forget half of what she had learned at the time of her summoning.

Besides, Nitocris was an inexperienced Pharaoh – she didn't know how to keep so much extra random information in her head all the time!

"Something must have happened during my summoning and I didn't get that information," Nitocris looked away, like a child hiding her grades behind her back with shame as she lied… badly.

From the look Medb and Sita threw at her, they definitely didn't believe her, but she'll stick to her story!

"I've talked to Ozymandias about it – it seems that there's nothing in Atlas that can be recovered or found – either they were already looted, or they weren't any in the first place. Even so, we're here not to find any artifacts, we just need to enter the core." Medb decided to move on, ignoring the incompetent Pharaoh.

Sita wondered for a moment what exactly Ozymandias had told Medb, and how the Pharaoh of the Pharaohs and the Queen of the Fairies even found common ground, but shrugged the thought away. Medb wanted Ainz's approval as much as Sita, if for different purposes, therefore she would not betray Sita, which meant Sita could simply ignore what was happening as irrelevant to the current situation.

Nitocris clearly didn't trust Medb on a similar level – but she trusted Ozymandias, and so, without hesitation, jumped off after Medb, who had reached the bottom, and was glancing down the passage. Seeing the two other Servants, Medb returned her attention to them before gesturing onwards. "Shall we go down? Hmm, too bad that the passage is too small… Humph, very well, I suppose I shall grace the halls of Atlas with me walking over it."

Before Nitocris could even comment, Medb completely ignored Nitocris' question as meaningless, and a moment later was on the ground, her palanquin melted away like a mirage along with Medb's minions.

Without waiting for the other two, Medb started walking, going down the steps, then lower and lower.

Sita followed her, along with Nitocris, and after a short period of time, they all descended underground, while their sphinxes remained waiting for them on the surface.

Step by step, gradually, the corridors began to grow darker and darker – until at the next step, with a slight flickering sound, they were flooded with soft light, coming seemingly from all directions.

"I didn't expect the lighting to survive the current conditions." Medb remarked to herself, addressing no one in particular.

"It didn't, I just fixed it," Suddenly receiving a response in the form of a young but confident male voice, Medb paused for a moment. Sita glanced at her, trying to determine whether she should prepare for battle, but apparently not at the moment, judging by Medb's relaxed appearance.

After a moment more, Sita heard footsteps echoing softly down the empty corridor, slightly muffled by the sand scattered along the corridor.

"Who are you?" Nitocris was the only one who reacted to the voice that came out of nowhere, somewhat hostile, and then she frowned as she saw the figure emerge from an inconspicuous corner.

A young man, dressed in a gentleman's suit – white shirt, black pants, black vest, and over the vest, a gray raincoat. On his feet, polished patent black shoes, managing to keep their cleanliness even in the current conditions, and in his hands, clad in black gloves, a cane in his right, and a lighted smoking pipe in his left.

"Hmm, how unusual." The man, not at all bothered by Nitocris' reaction nor the other two Servants in front of him, only put the pipe to his lips and then took a puff while leaning on his cane. "The young Pharaoh, Nitocris, the faithful wife, Sita and… Hmm, oh? A strange one, but let me start with a guess – the Queen of the fairies, Medb?"

Nitocris, blinking several times, both at the information she discovered about Medb and the fact that the intruder could easily identify the Servants with one look, only frowned even more, repeating her question. "Who are you?"

"Who am I, indeed, hmm?" The man, leaning slightly on his cane, seemed a little amused by Nitocris' reaction.

"Well, the answer to that question is actually quite simple… I would even say that it is…" The man took another breath from his smoking pipe and let out a small ring of smoke, which instantly dispersed, hiding the features of his face behind the ash, or perhaps to add some mystery to his identity.

"Elementary, my dear…"