"Tristan?" Ritsuka stared in shock at the knight of the Round Table who had suddenly appeared before their group. The distinctive flowing red hair and the sorrowful expression behind his closed eyes—it was none other than the sorrowful Tristan.
"Senpai and Da Vinci, you can see him too? I thought I was the only one who could see him. I thought he was a hallucination caused by extreme tension, so I was planning to pretend I hadn't seen anything." Mash looked equally astonished.
"It's not a hallucination. It's the real Tristan. Mash, your shield lit up just now. But this makes things interesting." They had just concluded that this world had no human history, that Spirit Origin Portraits could not be used, and that there was no way to summon Heroic Spirits. Yet Tristan had been summoned the moment they landed, utterly overturning their previous assumptions.
"What is this atmosphere of being trapped in enemy territory? I am so sorrowful. Though this was indeed a thoroughly lackluster summoning, as automatic and casual as a weather vane spinning in the wind."
As expected of the sorrowful Tristan, even his opening words carried an air of sadness.
"Sorry, I have something to report. The Round Table Shield still retains the residual heat of a summoning." Mash finally reacted. Her shield had glowed earlier, but with the fog so thick, she had not noticed it herself. There were no enemies nearby. Mash had summoned the shield only because Da Vinci had asked her to; she needed to run some tests.
"Really? It isn't a hallucination? The Spirit Origin has truly materialized—it really is Sir Tristan. But why? Heroic Spirits from Pan-Human History should have been rejected." Little Da Vinci could not help frowning. She had personally confirmed that the Spirit Origin Portraits had