What I knew was only what happened in the story. Everything outside it had to be judged by me, and with a ten-year gap in between, I had to be even more cautious.
This was a real world. Didn't Araya Souren give up on Shiki Ryougi after being crushed by my financial offensive? The Garden of Sinners had ended before it had even begun.
The same might be true for other stories. Perhaps I could change certain events in Chaldea as well.
But at this point, it was hard to draw any conclusions. Different timelines produced different outcomes, but their original purpose was absolutely the same.
For example, in the Third Holy Grail War, the Einzbern Household summoned Avenger Angra Mainyu, which was why there was a Fourth Holy Grail War that I could participate in.
If they had summoned the Ruler Amakusa Shirou Tokisada instead, the Fourth Holy Grail War would have become Fate/Apocrypha, and I probably would not have had the chance to participate.
All because the Einzberns' desire to win had increased by just a little, creating another timeline.
If Marisbury had initially been determined to save humanity, then perhaps something happened along the way that led him to bring about the Bleached Earth.
If I could find the reason and change his mind, would the Bleached Earth never come to pass?
In the end, it was still uncertain whether the Incineration of Human Order would even occur in this timeline while I was alive. I would take things one step at a time.
The next day, Marisbury came to my residence carrying a thick stack of proposals. I roughly looked over the types of investments.
The simulated Earth environment model, Chaldeas, required an investment of ten billion dollars.
The Heroic Spirit Summoning System: Fate required an investment of two billion dollars.
The Near-Future Observation Lens: Sheba required an investment of five billion dollars.
The Spiritron Computation Device: Trismegistus required an investment of ten billion dollars.
The Imaginary Number Observation Device: Moon of the Plane required an investment of two billion dollars, along with a whole host of other projects.
I looked up at Marisbury. "Are you serious? No wonder you couldn't secure any investments."
Marisbury flushed. "Of course I'm serious. I swear it in the name of Animusphere."
I immediately cut him off. "Forget it. I'll directly invest two billion dollars into the Heroic Spirit Summoning System: Fate, with an additional three billion dollars as reserve funding."
"For the other projects, I'll arrange for professionals on my side to conduct on-site inspections. If I have the time, I'll be there personally."
"If my people conclude that something is worth investing in, then even twenty billion dollars won't be a problem. But if they say an investment is meaningless, then sorry, I won't invest."
"As for the Heroic Spirit Summoning System: Fate, I participated in the Fourth Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City. I feel a little nostalgic for that system, so I'm investing in it first out of personal interest."
Marisbury wanted to say something else, but I interrupted him. "You don't need to worry, either. Once I'm done here, I'll return to Japan and contact you again. It won't take more than three months. You've waited this long already; do you really care about another three months?"
That was right. I wanted to see for myself what Chaldeas actually was.
Marisbury agreed after hearing that and gave up on trying to sell me more projects.
I spoke up. "I still need to make a trip to Spirit Tomb Albion, so I won't keep you."
Marisbury asked, "You're going to Albion? Do you need me to accompany you?"
I declined, saying that I had already arranged to meet some friends.
That afternoon, I found Waver and invited him to Albion so I could broaden my horizons. Waver, his best friend Melvin, and the three little ones all wanted to go.
Albion was very dangerous, and I did not want to bring them along. However, Melvin said that the first level was very safe and that he would accompany them the entire time, so I brought the three little ones with us.
Spirit Tomb Albion was a vast underground labyrinth stretching beneath the Clock Tower. Compared with the Clock Tower, it could be called the Clock Hole.
It was the shared property of the Clock Tower's Casters, a great labyrinth that continued to be explored even now.
Spirit Tomb Albion was one of the pillars supporting the Clock Tower. It contained vast amounts of thaumaturgical materials nearly impossible to find on the surface, such as dragon scales and fangs, and the corpses of Hydra hatchlings.
Even Casters of the "new generation" could rise rapidly to prominence if they acquired enough precious thaumaturgical materials from Albion.
Legend said that at the end of the Age of Gods, a giant dragon roughly two thousand meters long died beneath the Clock Tower, its remains scattered throughout the area.
To use its corpse as a source of magical energy, the Clock Tower headquarters had been built above its remains.
Yet whether due to the dragon's influence or because the land had always been this way, the deeper they dug, the more strange worlds they encountered.
At some point, the labyrinth became a mine, the mine became a town, and the town, as the abyss continued to develop, became ruins.
However, after actual excavation, they discovered that this area's abnormality was not caused by the dragon's corpse, but because this region had once been a physical passage leading to the Inner Sea of the Planet.
Yet it was guarded by something that could exhaust even a dragon to death along the way, so it was believed impossible for humans to excavate a path all the way through with their own strength.
But pursuing greater mysteries was considered only natural for Casters, so excavation work in Albion continued even in the modern age.
Underground exploration had continued for more than a thousand years since the Clock Tower's founding. This underground exploration, which brought great profits but also substantial losses, had at some point slipped beyond the Lords' control and come under the management of the Department of Mystic Corpse Dissection.
There were four Portals into the Spirit Tomb across all of London: one beneath the Clock Tower, one beneath the Department of Mystic Corpse Dissection, and the locations of the remaining two were still unknown.
However, because the Spirit Tomb's coordinates were unstable, parts of its terrain sometimes appeared in locations near the surface, where unstable Portals would also emerge.
The relationship between time and space inside the Spirit Tomb was ambiguous, and its environment changed frequently. The air was filled with True Ether, and many dangerous phantasmal creatures lived there.
The 0–10 kilometer layer was the Mining City of Magisphere. Since it was far too troublesome for miners to return to the surface, they simply established a living area in the upper levels, which gradually developed into a town and eventually became one layer of the ruins.
In a sense, this place counted as another academic city. Under the radiance of the great crystals, most monsters did not appear, which was why the city's safety could be guaranteed.
This was where we parted ways with the three little ones and Melvin.
Before you continue