"Is that so..."
Vlad III quietly closed his eyes.
In the end, he could not even be considered a major player in the Holy Grail War. Just like that, at the very beginning of the war, he had hastily exited the stage without knowing anything about what was happening.
The humiliation of defeat, despair, and regret churned through his heart like an overflowing river.
Just as he accepted his defeat and steeled his resolve—
The Master who had formed a contract with Lancer suddenly appeared behind him as if by magic and murmured like a demon:
"It's still too early to give up."
Shirou, Vlad III, and the familiars hidden nearby all looked toward the voice—
The head of the Kaiser Family, Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia.
"We haven't truly lost yet—King, as long as you activate that Noble Phantasm."
In his hundred-year life, Darnic had been driven into desperate situations many times.
The most dangerous of them all had been the Third Holy Grail War sixty years ago, a brutal battle so deadly that even now he found it miraculous that he had survived.
He had luckily discovered a path to the Greater Grail in a collapsed cave, won over the Third Reich with clever rhetoric, convinced it to send an enormous army to the allied nation at the Führer's command, and forcibly seized the Greater Grail.
Then, while transporting the Greater Grail to Germany, he had deliberately passed through Tuliphas and slaughtered every magus and soldier who had fought alongside him on his own territory.
After that, Darnic spent every day researching and handling politics.
When dealing with the Mage's Association, he kept his posture extremely low, even willingly playing the role of someone whose Thousandth Tree Clan specialized in taking in failed magi.
For sixty years, Darnic