True enough. More than half a century had passed, and there were hardly any survivors from the original Fuyuki. Modern magi's impressions of the Holy Grail War all came from the variant Holy Grail Wars held across the world over the years.
Those were cruel as well, but in the eyes of Clock Tower elites, they were merely a pack of wild dogs tearing at each other. If they entered the fray themselves, winning would not be difficult.
...Well, that was not exactly wrong. Variant Holy Grail Wars generally operated at a much lower level. Many were makeshift affairs that could not even fill all seven classes. At most, they summoned five Servants; at fewest, only three. And those Servants were usually not especially powerful, often lacking strong Servants from the Three Knights classes.
One fact proved just how low their standards were:
In variant Holy Grail Wars, the Master and Servant pairing with the highest win rate was the Assassin combination...
Of course the Clock Tower elites were confident. At the very least, they could produce excellent Holy Relics and summon sufficiently powerful Servants.
Yet these people seemed unaware that something called a "challenge level" existed in this world.
Easy mode and hell mode were fundamentally different things!
"By now, the backbone of every Clock Tower faction has treated the war against Yggdmillennia as an opportunity to make a name for themselves. To them, a Master slot is an invitation to rise to a higher rank.
"In other words, when assigning Master slots, the balance between the various factions must also be considered... Otherwise, they would not have asked a neutral party like me to handle this."
Lord El-Melloi II sounded weary as he said impatiently, "Now that you have claimed one slot in advance, someone is destined to