June 27, 2004.
3:41 PM.
Miyama Town Shopping District, Fuyuki, Japan.
Living room on the second floor of Fish Fresh House.
"I may have to return home for a while."
Illya sat at the table, her hands clasped tightly around her teacup in unease.
Ever since Kaoru Sakura had returned from her school trip, Illya had increasingly felt her bodily functions beginning to deteriorate.
The amount of sleep she needed each day had also been growing longer and longer.
At this rate, she would eventually break down naturally.
In other words, she would die.
Illya needed to return to the Einzbern family's main estate—the Winter Castle, far away in Germany.
There, Illya might be able to find a way to stay alive.
But Einzbern had once again failed in the Holy Grail War.
Illya was a successfully created Lesser Grail, as well as the strongest Master in the family's history.
If even Illya, an artificial human who represented the pinnacle of all Einzbern technology, had failed...
Then the head of Einzbern, Jubstacheit von Einzbern, would abandon the Greater Grail and shut off his own power supply.
This meant that Einzbern would be completely wiped out from then on.
Jubstacheit von Einzbern had been commonly known as Acht ever since inheriting the position of the eighth-generation family head.
By continuously extending his life, Acht had lived for nearly two centuries. He led the Einzbern family after its focus shifted from pursuing the Holy Grail to fighting in the Holy Grail War.
But in truth, Jubstacheit was an artificial intelligence created by the disciples of the Third Magician to control the castle's core.
Full name: Golem Jubstacheit.
He was also the father of every artificial human created by Einzbern.
Acht, meanwhile, was the eighth humanoid terminal created by Jubstacheit.
Jubstacheit himself no