Chapter 492 (Patreon)

It was a surprise, to learn this newfound information. Perhaps though, it made sense in hindsight and I probably should have gave it consideration previously.

Right, as I look back on all my previous thoughts about how the Magic here worked, and the strange inconsistencies, it really did make sense.

Wands choose their owner.

The average Wizards and Witches here don’t need to understand how their Spells work because there’s an underlining mechanism that shoulders part of the burden in spellcasting. Oh, I was sure without a shadow of a doubt that the truly great Wizards and Witches here knew how their Magic and Spells truly worked. But for the mediocrity, they were content to simply waive their wands without asking any questions.

“Wilhelm?” Artoria spoke, breaking my from my thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“You went silent and stared off blankly.”

“Sorry, got lost in thought, lots of things clicking into place now. Right, I said that the Magic here is alive.” I tapped my chin.

“Would you please clarify that? I assume you don’t mean that it operates in the domain of a Divine Spirit or God.” She responded.

“Oh no, nothing like that.” I quickly waived off those concerns or thoughts. “It’s…..” Jeez, how do I phrase it. “I would say it’s closer to back home with the world.”

“The dual aspects of the world and humanity?” Artoria asked.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Are you concerned?”

“Concerned?” I pondered her question. “No. Taken by surprise and with a mild amount of trepidation, perhaps. But I don’t have any overt concern. It’s simply the make up of the world and how it operates. I never thought that Magic would have an unconscious will be associated with it.

Though, correlating it to Gaia or Alaya wouldn’t be a perfect fit either, I think.

It’s more like…

“It’s like Heaven’s System from back home. Maybe with the tiniest bit more intelligence.” Knowing what I do that’s about the best approximation I could make. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I wasn’t.

But as I said before, I wasn’t overly concerned. Especially since Medea didn’t seem concerned either when she in particular wanted nothing to do with 'higher powers’ if she could help it.

“I see, and how does this correlate to the oddities I experienced?” She asked.

“Ah, If I had to hazard a guess. A Magical Species swear Magical Oaths to King Arthur.”

She furrowed her brow, letting out a small sigh. “The World – no, the Magic here recognizes me as King Arthur.”

As a Servant, she quite literally wears her history and legend around her. With Magic being alive, it would be more strange for things not to be this way.

She caught on quick. “That’s my thought. Magic seems much more interwoven in the history of this world just as well. A more active user base across the centuries. I would say your existence, or rather your alternate’s existence held significance in a metaphysical sense for this country.”

She had several prophecies about her even back home. That might mean a lot more here where Magic was alive.

It’s utterly fascinating to truly think about.

Magic – Magical Energy at its core – Mana, the lifeblood of a planet. Rather than the Planet itself developing its will, the Magic did instead.

It’s like…..if my hands were the ‘brain’ of my body instead of, well, my brain.

“If you feel no concern, I will not dwell on it. I do not intend to spend an overt amount of time here.” She said simply. “Does the nature of this place have any significance for you?”

“Not…really?” I mean beyond the few people I care about living here for the time being, I don’t have really any attachments. I have a few ideas about some experiments for here when I have time.

I took out my wand and rolled it between my fingers.

“You could always learn magic too if you wanted. The nature of it here makes it even better to as a starting place than I initially thought.” I shot her a smile.

She let out a small laugh. “I have no desire. If I required any Magical ability, I have both you and Rin to assist me.” She finished with a smile.

“I won’t try to convince you if you don’t want to. But I will say, you’re missing out on something particular good.”

“Something good?” She repeated. “Beyond the convenience of spellcraft, I fail to see what I am missing.”

I pointed my wand at her, well, rather at her chest area. “Here’s one of the basic spells the kids here learn early on. Alohomora!”

She stared at me, twitching slightly. “Wilhelm, did you just use magic to unhook my bra?”

“Yes. Yes I did.” I said proudly.

One of the handful of spells I actually went over in my spare time, which I will rectify. But it’s a spell for ‘unlocking’ things. Which can be interpreted and used rather…. subjectively.

I love magic.

She had to awkwardly pull her bra out from her sleeve, giving me a look before depositing it into her bracelet.

“You are aware that simply asking me would result in the same outcome, yes?” Artoria stated.

“…..so if I asked you to take your shirt off.”

She started unbuttoning her shirt. “Please make it so no one else can see.”

Yes Ma’am.

I really love magic.

@***@

“Knock knock.” I opened the door to Yasaka’s office with Artoria in tow. “Are we disturbing anything?”

“Not at all, come in.” My beautiful Fox smiled.

“Hello Yasaka.” Artoria greeted with an equally beautiful smile.

“Hello Dear, did you have fun?”

“It was an interesting experience. I have no desire towards Magic, but the culture there was refreshing in a way.” She nodded.

We both sat in the empty seats opposite of Yasaka.

Yasaka looked at Artoria, her nose twitching and she shot her a knowing smile. My Artoria on the other hand, flushed slightly, avoiding her gaze.

She does have quite the nose.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

Yasaka’s expression changed silently, but it never dipped to the melancholy from earlier today. “I’m good. I’ll be good, I should say. I just needed some time to let it sink in that our little fox is gone for awhile.”

I didn’t say anything, but truthfully, I think both Yasaka and Kunou were a tad too dependent on one another. Which may sound odd considering they were mother and daughter, but Kunou needed the opportunity to leave the nest.

“Did Arthur deliver the supplies you ordered?” Artoria asked.

“Yes, he also told me what happened. I shouldn’t be surprised, It seems there’s always something.” She lightly chuckled. “Thank you for helping with that, it completely escaped me that I needed to pick that up when we were over there.”

“It’s no trouble, I am happy to help.” Artoria said straightforwardly. “Have you decided then?”

And just like that the atmosphere shifted and Yasaka’s expression hardened, borderline sharp even. “That’s right, if it’s all the same, I want to announce that the invasion will begin in a week.”

“I’ll finish up what’s needed on my end to make that work. I’ll need Avalon and the Harp that you won over from the Angels.” I already had the preliminary stuff out of the way, it was only a matter of bridging the material world and the realm of the Fae.

I was fairly confident in getting it finished by that time frame, but worse case, I could call in help from Gramps.

Artoria without a second thought handed Avalon over to me.

It always made my heart feel good knowing she trusted me with something so precious without any secondary thoughts.

Yasaka as well set the Harp on her desk, it was rather large to the point where it nearly fell over.

“And what about preparations for the invasion?” I took both items and put them properly away.

“You’re finally asking about that, hmm?” Yasaka chuckled.

Yeah, I hadn’t had much of a hand in that besides a more logistics role of gathering resources or helping on the outside.

I could freely admit that commanding an army or being a general was not one of my talents or something I had any real experience with. And I wasn’t going to interrupt the people who did know what they were doing.

Yasaka got up from her desk, stretching her back. “Why don’t we go inspect things” She held out her hand. “Artoria’s Knights and my Soldiers are in about the same area. You’ve been to the training fields at the edge of the city.”

I knew what she was asking and opened a portal without any extra prompt.

“Mordred should be leading the training today. She will be happy to have visitors.” Artoria smiled as the three of us went through the portal, stepping out onto the training fields.

Very quickly, the forces of the Youkai and allies came into view.

Sprawling tents and newly established structures were seen methodically placed. And of course, the tens of thousands of different Youkai were all over the place.

Very quickly, a shadow appeared overhead and landed onto the ground infront of us.

Soma was kneeling towards Yasaka, and dozens more Tengu joined him at impressive speed.

“Lady Yasaka, you grace us with your presence.” Soma lead them in kneeling towards her.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just taking Wilhelm to inspect our forces.” Yasaka nodded to them, basically telling them to go about their business. “Return to what you were doing.”

“At your leave.” The Tengu quickly dispersed on the winds and returned to the corners of the training fields.

They were stronger than I remember.

“I’ve had Soma train with them for awhile now.” Yasaka hummed as she led us across the fields. “He’s gotten much stronger and really, the fervor had incited quite a bit of growth across everyone.”

“A structured and grouped training regime is often more beneficial to the average warrior or soldier.” Artoria nodded. “I had many Knights under my care who had average talent and skill but were able to push themselves far beyond what they would have individually.”

“Are we lacking anything? Resources, money, that sort of deal?” I couldn’t do anything about manpower, but for other things, there were options.

“The order we just got from those Goblins was to fill the gap while the Norse get their matters sorted. They still owe us quite a bit of supplies – primarily Iron Weaponry, but I wasn’t going to push them considering what happened recently.”

“Odin is probably grateful for that.” I mused.

She grinned. “We’re set on weapons for now, but obviously we’ll want a steady supply continuously. Our trade with Whiterun has been going on without a hitch. It’s been a continuous and large source of income. Not to mention we’ve been able to buy surplus of other things from that region while filling them with things they’re lacking.”

“You mentioned awhile ago that the attempts at planting the herbs and regents from Skyrim had proved successful.” I should check up on the Yggdamillennia family as well, I’m sure they have a significant amount waiting for me to retrieve.

“We’ve started production and already have a turnout. We have a supply right now that should last us for the initial invasion, and with our own production, we will have a steady supply.” Yasaka replied.

“Is the Church still going to make due on their promises?” I was a little hesitant because of the….incident.

“I’ve been inContact with them, the promises still hold.”

Good because they were going to play a rather significant role if we wanted to make a foothold in a place like the Fae Realms.

“The Devils also finished their final delivery. Most of what they supplied was simply ‘money’ but they also gave a not insignificant amount of raw materials.”

“No problems there?”

“Well, they certainly tried to put their foot in the door for other things, but I was able to keep them out.”

That’s to be expected.

“Overall, we’re in a rather good spot. I wouldn’t say no to getting more stuff, but we’re in no way hurting right now.” Yasaka finished.

“We’re here.” Artoria stated, as we approached a sectioned off area.

Well, I say sectioned off, but it’s not like someone couldn’t just come and go.

Very quickly, we found the Pendragon family training.

Roughly a thousand I could see from my initial estimate. All donned in full Plate Armor holding their weapons and swinging them in unison.

At the front, Mordred stood there with Clarent out, watching them intently.

I noticed a few other faces such as Arthur also weaving between the crowd, helping where he needed.

“Father?” Mordred perked up noticing us.

“Hello Mordred, we came to visit, I hope we aren’t disturbing you.” She replied.

“Not at all!” Mordred seemed rather happy.

“Don’t  mind us dear, we’re just taking Wilhelm to inspect things.” Yasaka smiled.

I waved to Mordred, but looked more towards the Knights.

“So we got a time table then, huh?” She settled, leaning on Clarent as it stabbed into the ground.

“You are perceptive as always.” Artoria nodded and Mordred brightened considerably at the small compliment. “You have done a wonderful job, Mordred. Could you please tell Wilhelm about the Knights under our command?”

“Of course, Father!” she puffed up proudly. “We got 1014 Knights, and 102 Magicians ready to fight. At a minimum, we got every single one of them to what they call Mid-Class around here. About a third of them are High-Class.”

“That’s impressive.” And I was being genuine with my compliment. I recalled when we invaded the Pendragon Castle that they barely had any High-Class people under their banner.

Not to mention that at a minimum they’re all Mid-Class.

I vaguely recall Venelana telling me that in the standing armies for the Underworld, the average Devil is Low-Class.

Obviously those ‘rankings’ are rather vague. A baseline human is also ‘low class’ but at the same time, certain humans who stepped into the supernatural world and learned various things, while still being called ‘low class’ could kill hundreds of baseline humans without issue.

It’s always been just a vague and general ‘ranking’.

“How did you manage to do that in such a short time?” It’s only been months.

“Heh, just taught them to properly make themselves stronger mostly. Shit, people here can use their Magical Energy so much easier than back home, but they’re so wasteful about it. They aint gonna be doing anything like using a Mana Burst or whatever, but something closer to Reinforcement isn’t difficult.” Mordred said proudly.

She was heavily underselling the amount of effort they must have put in.

They’ve been doing a lot of work that I haven’t seen until now.

“I see that they all have two swords at their hips.” I noticed, voicing my thoughts.

“One’s the whole Iron thing, the other is a proper sword just in case.” Mordred said simply.

“By nature, the Iron Swords are not as sturdy even if they are a weakness to our foes. We thought it appropriate to carry both. Even if a steel sword does not hold the same weakness it is still a sharp edge that can harm them.” Artoria added.

True, a sharp sword backed by a knight with that amount of strength can just as much cut off the head of a fairy. Iron simply is an innate weakness that the creatures of that realm hold.

Technically, it’s not Iron exactly as Fae also have a certain aversion to Fire, if to a lesser extent. It’s a link to civilization, Iron is perhaps the biggest contributor to the building of human society. Though, that’s technically wrong too as it’s not quite Civilization that Fae have an aversion to, it’s Order.

They’re chaotic beings, even back home because they’re aligned with Nature as Nature Spirits. Here, it’s different, but they’re still creatures that hold opposite existences to the idea of Order that permeates the human world.

It’s why the Church’s methods are so effective against them. A structured and orderly form of worship backed by the belief of millions of Humans etched into the civilization of humanity itself.

The Church’s Holy Power is poison to Devils. The Church’s structure is poison to Fae.

Kinda of amusing to think about.

I’d hazard a guess it’s the reason that the Fae retreated almost completely from the world, it became much too ‘orderly’ for them to live here any longer. Or maybe, I’m wrong, who knows.

“The Magicians are training with the Druids and some Youkai people who do similar things. You wanna go check them out too?” Mordred offered.

I’m already here, I should familiarize myself with what’s going on now that there’s a countdown.

@***@

I let out a breath, stepping out of a portal onto a rooftop near the center of Youkai Kyoto.

I just looked out and watched the city below and thousands upon thousands of faces walked down the streets for their daily lives. The vast majority of them were Youkai, but at the same time, they were all so different yet coexisted here without issue.

I admit, I was worried about this place being attacked in response to our invasion.

This was my home and I would be damned if I saw it harmed without doing anything preemptively. With a short burst of Shunpo, I arrived at a familiar ‘structure’ not far away.

An Obelisk.

I made this thing how long ago?

An automated Magical Defense Terminal. It was originally just a proof of concept, but there were now hundreds scattered around Kyoto in preparation.

I put a hand on it to make sure it was still operating correctly. It hadn’t been triggered just yet and it still housed hundreds of Talismans ready to deploy should the situation call for it.

Jinn had taken up the job of implementing defenses for Kyoto in the interim. She copied my Obelisks and more. There were a crazy amount of Magical Defenses ready to be ‘activated’ in the event of an invasion.

Yasaka did mention that they had it under control when the Devils brought up ‘protecting’ Kyoto as part of payment, and that Jinn said she would handle it, but to see it in person was an entirely different matter.

Jinn was such a hard worker, I needed to do something special for her.

[Brat!] Ddraig’s voice suddenly resounded in my head.

“Hmm?”

[Don’t talk! Listen to me, I need you to stand very still and don’t turn around.]

….Ddraig, what’s wrong?

[I didn’t notice her until now! She’s always been stupidly good at hiding her presence! Stay calm, don’t draw attention to yourself, hopefully she didn’t notice –]

“So this is your new host, Great Welsh.”

I heard a feminine voice and turned around, much to Ddraig’s panicking.

Pale blue hair, with blue eyes and matching blue dress. I almost mistook her hair for flowing water at first glance.

I was genuinely surprised I didn’t notice her until Ddraig said something and she was standing this close to me because my instincts immediately flared up once she entered my ‘perception’.

Stronger than the Heretic God I recently fought.

She stared at me, as if waiting for me to respond.

[Do something!]

What do you want me to do!?

[Anything! Pull some of your bullshit!]

Alright, I got something.

“Sorry, you got the wrong person.” I replied without missing a beat.

[…..we’re dead.]

“Really?” She tilted her head.

“Yup.”

“Oh, my apologies. I’ll be on my way then.”

I did an about face and took a step to walk away, only for the same woman to be standing infront of me. But this time, her aura enveloped the area and the phantom image of a massive blue dragon looked down on me.

“Did you think I would say that?” She narrowed her eyes. “I am Tiamat, and I am owed a Debt.”

@***@

A/N

Swiggity Swooty, Tiamat coming for Ddraig’s booty.

Fae War starting very quickly, just settling the pre-war stuff.