Protecting His Familiar

"Thump... thump-thump..."

The sound of rubble and broken tiles rolling down echoed incessantly through the collapsed cavern.

Olga Marie stared blankly at the scene, watching helplessly as Mashu fell into it and the collapsing pit was buried beneath the debris. Her face went deathly pale.

" Mashu!"

It was only after a long while that Olga Marie finally moved. She ran madly out of the building and toward the collapsed pit.

"Fou! Fou!"

Fou also ran to the edge of the still-collapsing pit, crying out repeatedly as though calling his master's name.

"Mashu! Mashu!"

Standing before the pit filled with smoke and dust, Olga Marie shouted again and again.

Naturally, no one answered Olga Marie's calls.

"Mashu..."

Olga Marie collapsed onto the ground, her expression vacant.

Her heart was completely enveloped by despair.

"What do I do... What do I do..."

Olga Marie muttered blankly.

"Rorerei... Mashu..."

These two companions, so hard-won, had now both fallen into situations where their survival was unknown, leaving Olga Marie alone once more.

"Fou!"

Fou seemed unwilling to give up. After seeing the pit filled in and realizing that Mashu could not be recovered, he turned and ran in another direction.

That was the direction in which Luo Zhen had been sent flying.

Olga Marie, however, did not go search for Luo Zhen as Fou had.

Because Olga Marie knew that with Luo Zhen's constitution, which was even worse than an ordinary person's, there was no way he could have survived taking Berserker's attack head-on.

"What do I do... What do I do?"

Faced with this situation, the director of Chaldea completely lost her composure, revealing the fragile side hidden within her heart.

At this moment, Olga Marie was nothing more than an ordinary girl.

But just then...

"Yo, are you looking for this little girl?"

Under a somewhat wild and carefree laugh, Olga Marie leaped up like a startled rabbit.

But in the next second, Olga Marie cried out in delight.

"Mashu!"

The Mashu who should have fallen underground together with Berserker was actually being carried in one hand by a sage-like Magus as he descended from midair.

"That was a close one. If I hadn't arrived in time, you would have been beyond saving, little girl."

Saying this, the sage let out a hearty laugh.

"Who... who are you!?"

Olga Marie immediately questioned him.

The other party did not conceal anything.

"A Servant of Caster. Well, I'm not your enemy, so there's no need to be so wary of me."

As he spoke, Caster set Mashu down.

Mashu's condition, however, was not very good. She was covered in dirt and looked disheveled, while tear tracks ran down her face, making her look pitiful.

The moment Mashu touched the ground, she disregarded everything else and ran forward.

"Senpai! Senpai!"

Mashu hurried in the direction Fou had just run.

"Wait! Mashu!"

Olga Marie called out to Mashu first, then glared at Caster. While remaining wary of this sudden Servant, she moved toward Mashu.

"Looks like I'm disliked."

Caster shrugged. He did not seem troubled by the situation in the slightest. Instead, wearing a relaxed expression, he followed in everyone's footsteps.

Before long, everyone arrived at the ruins where Luo Zhen was.

"Fou! Fouuu!"

Fou cried out toward the ruins.

The scene was strikingly similar to when the Chaldea Control Room had exploded and Luo Zhen found Mashu.

The only difference was that back then, Fou had been calling out to Mashu, who was trapped beneath chunks of concrete. Now, he was calling out to Luo Zhen, who was buried in the ruins.

Unlike Mashu, who had been on the brink of death at the time, everyone froze when they arrived and saw the state of the ruins.

There was only one reason.

Buried in the ruins was not the mangled human body everyone had imagined, but a gigantic shell.

"Crack... crack-crack..."

A highly visible, savage mark ran across the shell, causing it to slowly fracture and break apart piece by piece.

Within the cracking shell, Luo Zhen lay with his face deathly pale.

"Senpai!"

Mashu was both shocked and overjoyed.

"Y-You're not dead?"

Olga Marie was also pleasantly surprised.

"Hoho..."

Even Caster clicked his tongue in admiration.

"I see. You had already summoned a protective Familiar beforehand, just in case?"

That was right.

To guard against the unexpected, Luo Zhen had summoned this Familiar before the battle began to protect himself.

—Giant Shell Summon.

This was the final spell Luo Zhen had learned that could summon a Mid-Level Familiar.

It could summon a shell with extremely powerful defensive capabilities. When the summoner was attacked, it would swallow the summoner into its shell and protect him.

Before the battle began, Luo Zhen had summoned it just in case, hiding it underground so it could be used when necessary.

That action ultimately saved Luo Zhen's life.

When Berserker unleashed a fatal attack, the gigantic shell waiting beneath his feet burst from the ground, swallowed Luo Zhen, and protected him.

In other words, Berserker's attack had struck this sturdy shell, not Luo Zhen.

Still, looking at the shell slowly shattering, Luo Zhen felt a lingering fear.

"It only took one hit to shatter it. What an absolute monster..."

The shell Luo Zhen had summoned might not have been as defensive as Mashu's shield, but its defenses were still enough to leave most High-Level Familiars far behind.

This Familiar had no combat ability or any other capabilities. It could only protect its master, but Luo Zhen had been quite confident in its defensive power.

He had never expected that the method he had been so confident in could withstand only one attack.

"Can that kind of monster really be defeated?"

Luo Zhen could only smile bitterly.

It was Caster who answered him.

"Don't worry. You did defeat Berserker. That little girl's final attack shattered his Spirit Core."

Caster grinned as he spoke.

"Of course, you only killed him once. If Saber hadn't already defeated him and exhausted his Noble Phantasm, you would have had no chance of defeating him at all."

Those words allowed quite a few people present to hear the deeper meaning behind them.

"Only killed him once?"

Olga Marie was somewhat confused.

"Saber had already defeated him?"

Mashu, who was helping Luo Zhen out of the shell, also froze.

"Exhausted his Noble Phantasm?"

Luo Zhen frowned even more deeply.

Seeing this, Caster looked toward them all.

"This isn't the place to talk. Let's go somewhere else."

With that, everyone left the battlefield and slowly headed toward a hidden place where they could take shelter.