"So?" Aoko said calmly, "You called me here under the pretense of observing the spiritron transfer experiment. What do you want?"
"There are two reasons," Marisbuy replied unexpectedly straightforwardly, without any beating around the bush. "First, we need the help of the King of Knights, to allow us to re-establish coordinates for that era, since Chaldeas has lost the ability to track the missing staff."
"Second, we need your Fifth Magic—to reverse any unwanted outcomes, should an accident occur."
"Are you serious?" Aoko turned to stare at Marisbury's face. "As the Lord of the Department of Astronomy, you must know the consequences of doing this, right?"
"I do," Marisbury nodded. "But I still insist on asking for your help. After all, this concerns the continuation of the Human Order Security Plan."
"Alright," Aoko shrugged indifferently, "As long as you accept those consequences, I can help you. But the final decision still rests with me. Is that okay?"
"No problem." Marisbury agreed to Aoko's terms immediately, as if he had already expected her response. He sat in his wheelchair, completely composed.
Since she had agreed to Marisbury's request, Aoko saw no reason to rush. After chatting for a while with Da Vinci and Kirschtaria, she and Artoria went to the luxurious suite in Chaldea that had been specially prepared for her.
The two rested for a bit. Aoko stayed in the room, reading a spellbook she had recently retrieved from the Weave, while Artoria wandered off, full of curiosity, to Chaldea's cafeteria. Ever since obtaining a physical body in the modern era, she never missed a single meal or afternoon tea, fully displaying her kingly dignity.
Aoko sat comfortably on the sofa, legs crossed, leisurely reading the spellbook, as if waiting for something.
After about half an hour, there was a knock at the door. The knock followed a strange pattern—three light taps and one heavy—sounding almost like some kind of odd code.
Aoko snapped her fingers, activating a knock spell. The tightly shut door opened by itself, revealing an utterly unremarkable Chaldea staff member—someone who looked like a typical extra.
He stood politely at the door, greeting Aoko, who was reading as if seeking permission to enter.
"Come in," Aoko closed her spellbook with a snap and tossed it into her imaginary space pocket. "Have you finished handling everything?"
"No problems," the man replied in an equally ordinary tone, closing the door behind him carefully and stepping inside. "We've already replaced all the monitoring equipment near this room with footage showing nothing unusual. It'll be updated regularly."
"Good." Aoko nodded, then crossed her fingers on her knee, looking calmly at this perfectly ordinary man. "Report the recent situation. Has Marisbury done anything suspicious?"
"Most things are normal," the man said. "But recently Marisbury has gathered a few problematic individuals, and I think I should report this to you."
With that, the man took a stack of documents from inside his jacket and handed them to Aoko, who silently accepted them and began reading through them, one page at a time.
The documents contained information on Masters recruited by Finis Chaldea from around the world, selected for their compatibility with spiritron transfer. Aoko skipped over Group B, since at this point, no matter what, Fujimaru Ritsuka couldn't possibly have been chosen to come to Chaldea, so reading about Group B was pointless. The man hadn't marked any anomalies in Group B either.
When Aoko got to Group A, she raised her eyebrows. The leading anomaly in Group A was a glasses-wearing, twin-tailed girl who called herself "Hinako Akuta," judged as anomalous because she had participated in the first spiritron transfer experiment and lost contact with Chaldea.
Poor Hinako, always so unlucky... Aoko sighed across time and space. She didn't know when Hinako entered Chaldea in the original timeline, but it wasn't this early. Marisbury must have dug her up earlier than before.
Still, it made sense why Marisbury would have Hinako participate in the first, not-so-safe spiritron transfer experiment—after all, she was the only one in Chaldea who, after an accident, wouldn't die. At worst, she'd just respawn in the Sea of Stars and reload.
Putting Hinako's unlucky file aside, Aoko continued reading. The info on Group A wasn't as complete as in the original timeline, as many members at this point were still children—like Daybit, her astrological nemesis, who might still be an ordinary human now.
Aside from him, Aoko also found Scandinavia Peperoncino, a practitioner of Shugendo magecraft—essentially a Buddhist magus with six supernatural abilities: teleportation, clairvoyance, telepathy, spiritual insight, mind-reading, and elimination of delusions. He was a very capable magus, though his offensive power was lacking in Aoko's eyes. Still, his survival skills were maxed out.
Aoko wasn't surprised to see him in Chaldea; after all, he was known as the King of Endurance, supposedly over a thousand years old, having killed his entire family before fleeing to Europe. Marisbury must've had his eye on him for a while, or he wouldn't have tracked him down so easily.
She set Scandinavia Peperoncino's file aside. The last person's file caught Aoko's interest—a man named Beryl Gut.
In the photo, he was dressed smartly, wearing a half-smile that looked more like a gangster than a magus. But he had distinctively pointed, non-human ears. Aoko was already very familiar with this guy, as he was involved with Mash, so she'd already prepared several contingency plans. If he made a move, she'd deal with him personally.
There were two main reasons she wanted to preemptively kill him:
Beryl's mother was a fairy regression type known as the Witch of Filth. She was deeply jealous of the First Magician's line of witches, who maintained beautiful human forms—especially Yumina's lineage, to which Alice's mother belonged. She had repeatedly expressed a desire to kill Alice's mother but never dared attack openly due to the huge difference in strength. Aoko wouldn't mind removing such a dangerous enemy for Alice ahead of time.
For a crime he has yet to commit. In the FGO timeline, Beryl develops a twisted obsession with Mash. He once tortured Mash, who was bedridden and unable to move, breaking her fingers and enjoying her pain—a 100% sadistic killer.
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