Emiya Ritsuka Level 1 Strength: I0→G267 Endurance: I0→G242 Dexterity: I0→F325 Agility: I0→F334 Magic: I0→F381 "Magic" " " " " " " "Skills" Twelve Trials ○ Twelve trials that humans could not accomplish. ○ Immune to most mental influences, interference, charm abilities, and the like. ○ Possesses an exceptionally strong will. Ability Values accumulate additionally during battle, slightly accelerating growth. Poison Immunity ○ Having endured the terrifying venom of the Hydra, her body had been tortured by poison. ○ Her body possessed powerful poison resistance, rendering most corrosive and invasive toxins ineffective. Projection: Sword ○ A technique capable of passing off fakes as real. ○ Sword-type armaments that had been seen once and successfully analyzed could be recreated by consuming magical power, reproducing the construction process of the weapon and manifesting fantasy armaments. ○ Non-bladed armaments and armor could also be projected, though the consumption of magical power would increase dramatically.
Her overall Ability Value had increased by 1,549 points—a downright demonic number.
Although entering the Dungeon as a Level 1 and slaughtering a higher-level Minotaur would certainly yield a substantial amount of experience points, the Minotaur had its pride too.
But even the most talented individuals generally gained no more than fifty points in a day inside the Dungeon. For most, gaining ten points in total over a day was already pretty good.
Her Strength and Endurance had improved somewhat less, since Ritsuka herself was not particularly skilled in those two areas.
The latter three also had dedicated training methods, and they seemed to have paid off quite well. Her Magic had improved the most, perhaps because the fake Holy Sword she projected at the end, along with the enormous expenditure from releasing the Noble Phantasm, had translated into increased Ability Values.
"Could it be because it was my first time entering the Dungeon?"
Ritsuka hesitantly voiced her opinion.
After all, it had been her first time receiving a Blessing, and then she had gone hunting elite monsters stronger than herself. It was probably not hard to understand why this had happened.
It was like when she used to play Dungeon Fighter Online with her friends. They would bring her into stages beyond her level, where her damage was pitiful, yet after clearing a stage, the experience she gained could send her character's level soaring.
The principle was probably similar, right?
"That's possible too. Growing quickly is a good thing. If you can reach the peak of Level 1 before the expedition, then by the next Denatus, you might even be close to level 3."
"Then you can give those idle busybodies a proper shock."
Loki smiled in complete satisfaction. Being able to recruit a member like Ritsuka, a human with the potential of a mythical hero, meant that luck was absolutely on her side.
Her narrowed eyes opened slightly, and the corner of the mouth curled upward.
She did not believe that if someone so talented kept sneaking into the Dungeon every day, that peeping creep hiding atop the Tower of Babel would fail to notice...
Thinking of that, Loki suddenly asked, "By the way, Ritsuka, did any other Familia invite you before you joined us?"
"An invitation..."
Ritsuka's expression shifted slightly, and her eyes began to wander.
Ais, meanwhile, remained as blankly adorable as ever. She stared at Ritsuka's Ability Value parchment, seemingly lost in thought.
Riveria clearly seemed to have remembered something as well, her beautiful eyes widening. "Could it be..."
"There was. That guy named Ottar said he was acting on the Goddess's orders and wanted to invite me to the Tower of Babel for a visit, but he looked completely like he was going to drag me there."
"So I..."
"So you kicked Ottar flying with one kick? Hahaha... I knew it..."
Loki clutched her stomach and burst into wild laughter. She had heard about it before, and most gods had already confirmed it.
Orario's only level 7, the strongest adventurer, Ottar the Brute, had been kicked flying in the plaza while "hitting on" a strange girl. Of course, most gods had treated it as a joke.
Even Loki herself had not expected it to be true.
Hearing that Freya had suffered a setback filled Loki with delight. Watching her longtime rival make a fool of herself was simply too satisfying.
What was more, the "child" Freya had taken a liking to was now in Loki's Familia. Unless Loki was willing to let her go, Freya could forget about taking Ritsuka away.
The Loki Familia was not made of clay.
"Did I cause trouble for the Familia? I didn't think much of it at the time. I just felt that gaze from atop the Tower of Babel was kind of disgusting, so..."
"Disgusting? Pfft—hahahaha... I never thought I'd see the day someone called Freya's gaze disgusting."
Loki laughed so hard that her body twitched. She collapsed onto Ritsuka's bed, nearly unable to breathe, a tear hanging from the corner of her narrowed eyes. She had laughed until even her tear ducts surrendered.
Only under Riveria's wordless gaze did she gradually become serious.
"Don't worry. It's not much trouble, and Freya can't exactly pick a fight with me."
"Just work hard and become stronger. I'll handle Freya's side. You should be able to beat that pigman Ottar, right?"
"—Maybe."
Ritsuka gave a vague answer. Though she did not think much of Ottar, she was not sure how strong he truly was.
If he had some ridiculously broken magic, it was not impossible for her to lose.
"If I use that, I'll definitely win."
"Oh, right. I don't think I've told you all about my ultimate trump card yet. Loki, Riveria, Ais—do you want to see it?"
Ritsuka hesitated for a moment, then decided to be honest.
The people before her had all treated her well. There was no point in continuing to hide it, and with the Familia expedition about to begin, having one more trump card might be better for the Familia.
"Mm, let me see."
Everyone revealed curious expressions.
Ritsuka scratched her head, her expression somewhat bitter. Honestly, she did not really want others to know what her Imaginary Number Space looked like.
For some reason, it felt a little embarrassing.
"My Body Was Made of Swords."
"My heart was of steel, my blood was of glass."
"I had crossed countless battlefields and remained undefeated."
The familiar words made Lefiya's eyes widen.
Riveria watched Ritsuka chant softly, her eyes filled with intense curiosity and a trace of concern. "Is this some long-incantation Area Annihilation Magic?"
If it was as she suspected, then given what she knew of Ritsuka's personality, Ritsuka would never use such magic within the Familia. It could only be something else.
To prevent Ritsuka from failing her casting and causing her magical power to run wild, Riveria clenched her hand, ready to use magic at any moment...
"Yet I had never once won."
"Nor had I ever once been defeated."
"I, alone, shattered ice upon the Sword Mound."
Ritsuka did not chant quickly. In order to let Riveria and the others hear the incantation clearly, she had slowed her speaking speed by more than half.
If she had dared to chant that slowly when fighting that woman, Gilgamesh's Noble Phantasms might have already cut her into pieces. Being so leisurely in battle was practically asking to die.
"However—"
"This life had not yet ended."
"This false body..."
It's so long. This is different from the one she used when she saved me before.
Lefiya secretly looked forward to it. At the same time, before the astonished eyes of the four, the scenery changed along with the dense magical power.
Snow fell onto Ais's cheek. She raised her hand in surprise and caught the fluttering snowflakes.
"Still,"
"Made of swords!"
The scenery changed drastically.
The bright room with its comfortable temperature suddenly became a dark, icy plain ravaged by heavy snow.
A full moon hung overhead, providing the only light. Riveria's beautiful eyes trembled; what she saw exceeded her understanding.
Then she saw Ritsuka standing nearby with several coats in her arms, smiling.
"It really is a little cold."
Loki, Riveria, and Lefiya accepted the coats and put on the warm garments.
Ais, who had refused that warmth, lightly walked forward. She looked at the mountains of swords, then stopped before one of them.
Countless armaments—Demonic Blades, sharp swords, curved blades, thrusting swords...
Whether fine or poor, it was as though every sword in the world had been buried here. Ais even saw identical copies of Gan Jiang Mo Ye and the Eternal Distant Golden Sword that Ritsuka had used.
"Why?"
"My ability is Projection. I recreate swords I have seen within my own world. They are weapons that belong to fakes..."
"This is the unique Imaginary Number Space that belongs to Emiya Ritsuka."
"Imaginary Number Space?"
Riveria furrowed her beautiful brows, as though she did not quite understand the meaning of those words.
Individually, she naturally knew what they meant. But when put together, the possibility they implied made her afraid to guess.
Ritsuka smiled faintly. "The individual and the world, fantasy and reality—I replace everything with the shape of my heart. It is the ultimate mystery of magecraft—an Inherent Domain."
"It materializes the scenery within one's heart. In a sense, it is a manifestation of my inner self."
Azure patterns emerged across her cheeks. Ritsuka looked at the infinite swords within the finite boundary. If this was the landscape of her heart...
"It feels so desolate. More than swords, it looks like... a graveyard."
"Ais!"
The blankly adorable Sword Princess voiced her thoughts, and Riveria behind her nearly covered her face on the spot.
This manifestation of Ritsuka's inner world, combined with what Riveria had learned about Ritsuka's past after that night, naturally told her what it meant. She had been doing her best to steer the conversation away from the subject.
Did airheaded Ais really not understand what emotional intelligence was?
"Desolate... Haha, that's true. I was in quite a miserable state back then."
This was one of her strongest trump cards, equal in value to Alcides himself, but the first time she used it, she had been in an extremely miserable state.
That Fake King of Heroes had been incredibly strong.
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