Investment Is My Call, Spirit Tomb Albion

What I knew well was what happened in the story. Anything outside the story 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. Hadn't Araya Souren been beaten by my financial offensive into giving up on Shiki Ryougi? Before The Garden of Sinners had even begun, it had already ended.

The same might hold true for other stories. Perhaps I could change some of Chaldea's plotlines.

But at this point, it was difficult to draw any conclusions. Different timelines led to different outcomes, but their original purpose was absolutely the same.

For example, in the Third Holy Grail War, the Einzbern Household summoned Angra Mainyu as Avenger, which was why there was a Fourth Holy Grail War that I could participate in.

If they had summoned Amakusa Shirou Tokisada as Ruler instead, then the Fourth Holy Grail War would have become Fate/Apocrypha, and I probably would not have had the chance to participate.

It was 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 something must have happened along the way that caused him to bleach the Earth.

If I could find the reason and change his mind, then perhaps the Earth would not be bleached.

In the end, it was still uncertain whether the Incineration of Human Order would appear 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 Pseudo-Earth Environment Model, Chaldeas, required an investment of ten billion US dollars.

The Heroic Spirit Summoning System: Fate required an investment of two billion US dollars.

The Near-Future Observation Lens: Sheba required an investment of five billion US dollars.

The Spiritron Calculation Device: Trismegistus required an investment of ten billion US dollars.

The Imaginary Number Observation Device: Moon of the Plane required an investment of two billion US dollars, along with a whole host of other projects.

I looked up at Marisbury. "Are you serious? No wonder you couldn't attract investors."

Marisbury blushed. "Of course I'm serious. I swear it in the name of Animusphere."

I immediately cut him off. "Forget it. I'll invest two billion US dollars directly into the Heroic Spirit Summoning System: Fate, with an additional three billion US dollars in reserve funds."

"For the other projects, I'll have my professionals conduct on-site inspections. If I have the time, I'll personally attend."

"If my people conclude that something is worth investing in, then even ten billion or twenty billion US dollars won't be a problem. But if they say the 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 and have some fond memories of that system, so I'll invest based on my personal interest first."

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 with my own eyes exactly what this so-called Chaldeas was.

Marisbury thought so too after hearing that and gave up on trying to sell me more projects.

I said, "I'm also making 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 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 had not wanted to bring them along. However, Melvin said that the first level was very safe and that he would accompany them the entire way, so I brought the three little ones with us.

Spirit Tomb Albion was an enormous underground labyrinth stretching beneath the Clock Tower. Compared to the Clock Tower, it could be called the Clock Hole.

It was the shared property of the Clock Tower's magi, a great labyrinth that was still being explored to this day.

Spirit Tomb Albion was one of the Clock Tower's pillars. It contained vast quantities of thaumaturgical materials that were nearly impossible to find on the surface, such as dragon scales and teeth, and the corpses of Hydra hatchlings.

Even a "new generation" magus could rise to prominence after obtaining a large quantity of 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's headquarters had been built above its body.

But whether due to the dragon's influence or because the land had always been this way, the deeper one dug, the more strange worlds one encountered.

At some point, the labyrinth became a mine, the mine became a town, and the town gradually became ruins as the abyss continued to develop.

However, actual excavation revealed that the region's abnormality was not caused by the dragon's corpse, but because this area had once been a physical passage leading to the Inner Sea of the Planet.

Yet there were guardians along the way that could exhaust even dragons to death, so it was believed impossible for humans to excavate a route all the way through.

But pursuing deeper mysteries was considered only natural for magi, and 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. At some point, this profitable yet costly underground exploration slipped beyond the Lords' control and came under the management of the Department of Mystic Corpse Dissection.

There were four Portals into the Spirit Tomb throughout London: one beneath the Clock Tower, one beneath the Department of Mystic Corpse Dissection, and the remaining two were currently unknown.

However, because the Spirit Tomb's coordinates were unstable, parts of its terrain sometimes existed simultaneously near the surface, where unstable Portals would also appear.

The relationship between time and space inside the Spirit Tomb was ambiguous, and its environment changed frequently. The air was saturated 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 district in the shallower layers, which evolved into a town and eventually became one layer of the ruins.

In a sense, this counted as another academic city. Under the radiance of the great crystals, most monsters would 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.