Dan Lei felt cleansed.
Ever since the Holy Grail had sucked his soul into the Root Hole it had created, Dan Lei had felt wonderfully refreshed, immersed in Ether of an incredibly high concentration.
All around him was a passage through the Root that resembled a space-time tunnel. But whether it really looked like this, or had merely taken on a form he recognized, only heaven knew.
But Dan Lei didn't care. At long last, he'd achieved his wish and could escape this damn world.
The Type-Moon Universe—once the place Dan Lei had yearned to visit.
Back in his youth, when he'd been obsessed with 2D media, the Fate anime series had been an unforgettable part of his life.
Even after growing up, Dan Lei hadn't completely left 2D behind. He worked like a pack mule during the day, then spent his free time and evenings holed up at home watching anime and playing games. Since he didn't like socializing, that was the only way he could ease the drudgery of real life in a virtual world.
Naturally, Dan Lei had also read plenty of wish-fulfillment stories about people transported to the Type-Moon Universe, using their foreknowledge to crush everyone in their path, rising all the way to become mages, while countless beautiful women threw themselves at them.
But when he really did end up in another world for no apparent reason, the initial excitement soon wore off, and Dan Lei realized this world wasn't beautiful at all.
No cheat ability, no backer. And what good was foreknowledge to a first-generation commoner mage with only two Magic Circuits?
Even those two Magic Circuits had been activated with help from the evil alchemist who'd planned to refine children into pills. He was also the one who'd given Dan Lei his name.
As for his birth parents, Dan Lei had no idea who they were. Once he'd become conscious, he'd been a child fed all kinds of supplements every day as ingredients for pills.
If that alchemist hadn't been killed before he could harm Dan Lei, he probably would've earned himself the achievement of dying the moment he was born.
Of course, Dan Lei hadn't given up on getting stronger yet. He'd stowed away all the way from China to the Eastern Land, since he knew more about what was going on there.
In his previous life, Dan Lei had learned Japanese specifically so he could watch anime as soon as it came out, without waiting for subtitles. At the very least, he could understand it; he could also get by speaking and writing a little.
Then, relying on his foreknowledge, Dan Lei made his way to Ryougi City. After a great deal of effort, he found Garan no Dou.
The only thing to say was that Dan Lei was so useless that Aozaki Touko hadn't thought a kid who knew nothing about Magecraft or fighting could be a spy or an assassin. She hadn't killed him on the spot.
In the end, after Dan Lei pestered Aozaki Touko for ages, she took in the ten-year-old.
Unfortunately, Dan Lei didn't soar to new heights just because he'd latched onto Aozaki Touko.
Although he'd earned her trust by diligently serving her over the years, his naturally awful Magic Circuits had put a hard limit on how far he could go.
Turning into a Dead Apostle and following a nonhuman path was even more out of the question—unless Dan Lei was willing to give up his sanity and slowly work his way up from the lowest grade of Dead Apostle.
As for getting a True Ancestor to transform him, Dan Lei could only say that was the kind of thing one could dream about.
Even if he knew where to find a True Ancestor, what reason would they have to transform him?
With his potential capped, Dan Lei had eventually started thinking he might as well coast through life and make it to the end. After all, if he kept his head down, he should be able to live out this life in peace.
As for the Holy Grail War, Dan Lei figured he'd have a one-in-nine chance of making it out alive.
Besides, once he officially entered the magecraft world, he'd learned that the Holy Grail War in this world followed the Fate/Apocrypha timeline.
So Dan Lei had kept reassuring himself, "If I can live a decent life, I shouldn't go looking for trouble."
Unfortunately, he later heard some news about Chaldeas in Antarctica.
The moment he heard about Chaldeas, Dan Lei's first thought was that he couldn't stay in this world. He had to run.
Who knew whether Fujimaru Ritsuka existed in this universe? And even if she did, there was no guarantee she could save all of humanity.
Before Dan Lei had crossed over, FGO's story had already reached the second chapter of the second part. In a world like this, even mages weren't safe.
So this was a world where, even if he just wanted to live a quiet life, he probably wouldn't survive past 2016.
Dan Lei thought it was bad enough that, after crossing over once, he'd still been stuck scraping by at the bottom. But now the world was telling him exactly how long he had left to live? It was pure torture!
Under the pressure to survive, Dan Lei gradually went mad and decided to gamble on a way out of the Root.
Using the excuse that he wanted to improve his Magic Circuits through the miracle of the real Holy Grail, Dan Lei said goodbye to Aozaki Touko and insisted on joining the Holy Grail War in Romania.
Aozaki Touko said that no amount of good advice could save someone bent on dying. Seeing that Dan Lei wouldn't change his mind, she let him go.
Still, out of consideration for the bond they'd built over the years, Aozaki Touko allowed Dan Lei to take a few of her less important puppets. She also helped him look for a relic.
Without that help, the idea that Dan Lei could find Rochomsta's relic through his own connections was pure fantasy.
What happened next was simple. Using one of the puppets Aozaki Touko had given him, he killed Sagara Hyoma before he could summon a Servant, stripped the Command Spells from his hand, and then completed the summoning himself.
One could only say that Dan Lei was terrifyingly strong, willing to cast aside morality and ethics and even use his own body as a tool.
After arriving in Romania, he relied on his foreknowledge and used all kinds of underhanded schemes to kill every Servant on both the Black and Red Factions.
In the end, he wished on the Holy Grail to go home.
Dan Lei had thought it through. Whether or not the Holy Grail could send him back to his original world, this gamble couldn't cost him.
If he failed and his soul dispersed into the Root, at least he wouldn't have to spend every day gloomily counting down to his death.
If he succeeded and returned to his original world, then whether or not he retained his current memories, he'd get to live a new life.
If he did keep his memories, Dan Lei figured his future would be straight out of a wish-fulfillment urban fantasy.
Even if Magecraft couldn't be used in his original world, he'd learned how to make automata from Aozaki Touko and understood human anatomy. It'd be hard not to rise to the top.
Feeling his soul travel onward without end, Dan Lei thought there was a very good chance this would work.
But there were more possibilities in the world than just success or failure. Often, "or" itself was an option.
After his soul had drifted through the passage for an unknown length of time, the world before Dan Lei's eyes suddenly lit up. An incomprehensibly huge silver-white tree appeared before him, as though countless stars were no more than cells in a single leaf.
The next second, an image seemingly made of black and white building blocks appeared. Then Dan Lei suddenly felt as if he were immersed in water, and heard someone say beside him:
"General, this is the only surviving Sustainer Egg at the disaster site besides that Sinful Dragon's egg. But we don't know whether it's been contaminated by the power of Abundance."
"I see. Keep this Sustainer Egg in isolation for now. Every life in the Chizuru Clan is precious. The fact that this egg survived on the battlefield for so long proves it was fated to live.
"Besides, the Chizuru Clan still hasn't recovered its order after the infighting. We shouldn't agitate them just yet."
"But the Ten Lords' Commission wants us to investigate whether any life forms have been contaminated by the power of Abundance. You know Ying Xing's situation, General."
"It doesn't matter. The Chizuru Clan will definitely stop the Ten Lords' Commission from acting recklessly. A routine inspection won't change anything."
Listening to this, Dan Lei felt as if he'd somehow ended up somewhere even more extraordinary. But he was extremely sleepy, and soon fell into slumber.
At the same time, a little girl's voice suddenly rang out from the Root in the Type-Moon Universe.
"Alaya, Alaya, did you just feel something slip out of our world?"
Soon, another little girl's voice replied:
"The soul of an outsider used a Greater Grail as a ship and sailed out of our world.
"But we don't need to worry about him. It's just a Greater Grail from a timeline doomed to collapse. You know what lies beyond the world. Even we can't explore it deeply because of that golden power.
"The Greater Grail's power was only enough to get him out of this world. He's just an ordinary soul. Once he's outside, those terrifying golden energies will surely tear him apart."
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