[FDJ]Chapter 133: The Only Option (Patreon)

After wandering around the camp for an hour, Suzuki hurried back to his quarters. Fortunately, Eleanor was not inside upon his return.

He took note of the soldiers on night patrol outside and the two roaming magus. They only observed for a moment before continuing their patrol, not coming over to disturb him.

His Servant, Eleanor, had warned him to be wary of Saladin. Tonight, Aphaf insisted on confronting Archer, which he suspected was under Saladin's instructions. After all, after restricting Archer's movement range, Aphaf decisively followed Eleanor's suggestion to retreat. If Aphaf truly desired to defeat the enemy Servant, she would not have changed course so quickly.

However, Suzuki couldn't understand why they had to engage with Archer Tristan tonight when the confrontation could have been avoided. Aphaf's use of armor had drained most of her mana within minutes, and Don Quixote was also reluctant to linger and fight on enemy territory.

They gained nothing but wasted mana. A typical 15-year-old girl might act recklessly, but Suzuki couldn't believe that a seasoned 15-year-old magus would act so rashly. On the contrary, Archer might have identified a weakness in Aphaf after encountering her in her Berserker armor. Borrowing a Servant’s Noble Phantasm was never as effective as the Servant using it themselves.

Lying on a comfortable blanket, Suzuki felt he had found many valuable clues, but no matter how he pieced them together, he couldn't connect them to the Holy Grail War of this era.

Because logically, no one should be able to possess nearly all the Servants and control the Holy Grail simultaneously. Wouldn't victory have been decided at that point?

Gradually, Suzuki's drowsiness halted his wandering thoughts. Approaching 2 AM, in a state of half-sleep, he suddenly realized his Servant, Eleanor, was beside him.

"Master, I'm sorry to disturb your rest." Eleanor, using a rare tone, waited for Suzuki’s response, as if she had a request.

Suzuki instantly lost any trace of sleepiness. He felt that Eleanor wasn't here to "scare" him this time. From his perspective, Eleanor's so-called "maternal love" was a twisted emotion derived from extreme control desires. He might not understand normal human emotions, but he was sure they weren't like Eleanor's controlling ways.

"What does Sultan Saladin suggest we do next?" Suzuki chose to respond with a prudent question, waiting for his Servant to state her purpose. He dared not take the initiative to command Eleanor.

"Him?" Eleanor's smile became stiff. In the dimly lit room, her luxurious gown no longer enhanced her beauty. Stripped of all things related to beauty, Eleanor would be left with a stark sense of danger.

—A terrifying woman who loved only a few people, relied on others for amusement and constantly grasped for power and luxury.

"From now on, I need to seriously participate in this Holy Grail War. That's why I'm disturbing you now. Master, do you understand?"

The apology was false. Eleanor's straightforwardness, when serious, made Suzuki slightly relieved. After all, he was no naive child.

"I..."

Before Suzuki could respond, Eleanor added another question.

"Master, are you willing to fight alongside me? I promise to give you a fair duel with Richard."

"I cannot cooperate with an enemy of humanity who intends to destroy it." Suzuki quickly grasped the implication in Eleanor's words. A so-called fair duel, if it involved an untrained ordinary person facing a fully armed knight, might as well be a direct surrender.

After rejecting Eleanor's request, Suzuki was immediately overwhelmed by a deep sense of fear. When it came to matters concerning humanity, his stance could not waver even slightly. However, outright refusing Eleanor was not the right choice either.

Eleanor stared directly at Suzuki, puzzled by what was so captivating about humanity that future generations would go to great lengths to protect it, creating the hollow being before her—a mere tool, a fusion of magic and technology, pitiful and lamentable.

To merely create destruction, to cut off a branch from the towering tree of human history, creating a parallel world that shouldn’t exist—what’s the harm? The eternally binding, nebulous concept of “correctness” held no allure for Eleanor. Her interest in humanity was waning, but she couldn’t escape her current situation until everything concluded, whether for the sake of her Master or her beloved son Richard.

"Impossible? I should have known you would respond this way, yet I still tried my luck with you in the dead of night." Eleanor masked her self-mockery with a smile, stepping back several paces to put three meters between herself and Suzuki. "Master, if you won’t listen to me, I'll have to force you into submission."

A sense of danger immediately washed over Suzuki. Almost instinctively, his gaze turned to the three Command Spells on the back of his hand. The Command Spells might not work on Eleanor, but if a conflict arose now, he had no other options.

Use them or wait until Eleanor formally rebelled... Suzuki understood the vast chasm of power between a human and a Servant. Even if he had the initiative, he likely couldn’t outpace a serious Servant.

The two stood in the dark room, locked in a standoff for over ten seconds. Suzuki felt a pressure unlike any he had ever experienced. His intuition told him that if he handled this poorly, Eleanor might kill him.

"Won’t you use the Command Spells?" Eleanor applied immense psychological pressure on Suzuki, aware of what kind of retaliation she might face if she pushed her Master too far.

Extracting one last bit of enjoyment from her struggling Master was also an acceptable choice. She anticipated Suzuki using the Command Spells, which would satisfy her desires after her disappointment.

After another ten seconds, seeing that Suzuki still hadn't used the Command Spells, Eleanor ceased her pressure on him.

"Why not use all three Command Spells? Suzuki Yuki, from what I know of Jeanne’s experiences, you’re not a coward."

Suzuki slowly lowered his raised hands and laboriously lifted himself from the blanket. "I want to win or at least prevent the destruction of humanity. That’s my mission. Without a Servant, I can’t accomplish anything. So I can’t use the Command Spells on you."

"At least you could try to forbid me from harming you."

"Even if I used one Command Spell now to try to ease the tension, it would only enrage you, right?" Suzuki couldn't fully grasp Eleanor’s intentions, but he had learned a bit about her personality over the past few days.

With an alignment of "Chaotic Neutral," driven by extreme individualism, Eleanor did things solely based on her preferences and interests. She valued things that brought her enjoyment. To her, uninteresting people were disposable, while interesting ones were treasures. Most people were mere objects in her eyes. Thus, respecting Eleanor’s freedom was crucial—it was her psychological red line. Objects couldn’t restrict their owner’s freedom.

Suzuki had researched Eleanor’s history. Whether she truly loved her two husbands was unknown. At least early on, she seemed to love them, knowing that Henry II coveted her wealth yet still married him. However, with similar imprisonments later, both Louis VII and Henry II faced Eleanor’s “betrayal.” Especially after summoning Eleanor, Suzuki heard her evaluation of her second husband, Henry II—she wished she could poison the man who had confined her for years and was grateful that Richard’s future actions of seizing the throne effectively killed Henry II. No normal person would agree with such a “filial” act. The Lionheart was no ordinary person, and neither was Eleanor.

"You indeed have remarkable qualities, gambling your life to protect humanity," Eleanor said, though she sounded disapproving of such an approach.

"I don't have a choice. Losing my Servant means failure; I can't fight Richard and the others by myself," Suzuki initially resented Eleanor's ambiguous stance, but later realized that summoning her was probably the only option at the time. Considering Richard's "lavish" lineup of Servants, who could withstand a 6-on-1 battle?

When there's only one correct choice, all other options, no matter how tempting, are akin to luring the chooser into making a fatal mistake.

"Master, if your enemy in this Holy Grail War weren't Richard, I wouldn't have coerced you. Someone as interesting as you shouldn't be in such a perilous situation," Eleanor said, seemingly having made a firm decision after much hesitation.

"Suzuki Yuki, do you trust me? Are you prepared for the possibility of my betrayal at any moment?"

It seemed contradictory, but wasn't. Eleanor was sure she couldn't change Suzuki's stance even slightly, so she solemnly asked him to reaffirm their Master-Servant contract. Without this, they couldn't maintain any short-term cooperation.

Suzuki could choose not to trust her now, and Eleanor would at most leave in disappointment, not kill him, maintaining their previous cooperative state. But once Suzuki fully involved himself in matters Eleanor cared about, any betrayal would mean she would completely oppose him.

It seemed like there was a choice, but there wasn't. Suzuki had to protect humanity and needed the power of a Servant to do so.

"I trust you."

A faint red glow appeared on the Command Spells on Suzuki's hand, with one activating automatically without his control.

"What's happening?" Suzuki was surprised by the spontaneous activation of the Command Spell.

"Don't worry, I used the Command Spell. After you successfully summoned me, I took complete control of your Command Spells," Eleanor said, stepping closer and gently stroking the back of Suzuki's left hand where the Command Spells were. "Sorry, Master, I don't allow anyone other than myself to command me. As for the first Command Spell I used—"

Eleanor paused intentionally, then resumed her enchanting smile. "Can you guess what order I gave myself?"