Starting in Type-Moon, but as a Magician from A Certain Magical Index

A young, handsome man radiating a faint glow stood before her. Judging by his light golden hair and fair face, he was probably European.

"That flame just now—or rather, that lightning—is called Creation Lightning. It is the reaction caused by drawing the Infinite Light born from nothingness into the Crown, then having it descend through the Crown until it finally reaches the material world. It represents the process of God creating the world."

As he spoke, the man crouched in front of Sakura Matou and gently rubbed her cheek. When Sakura Matou showed little reaction, he even increased the force, kneading her tender cheeks back and forth.

"Cheer up. Your suffering is already over."

"My suffering... is over?"

"Yes, it's over. That necklace—you can call it the Eye of Horus. It will repair your body, restore your soul, and continue protecting you.

"And I'll give you a little gift as well."

As he spoke, the man lightly touched the girl's forehead with a finger.

A magic circle began forming inside the girl's body. In the end, it became a stream of light that merged deep into her soul, completely fused with it and impossible to erase.

"This is the Magic of Deception and Fooling. You only need to let that old man see what he wants to see. Don't worry, it's very simple. You won't need to do anything; this magic will naturally help you.

"From this day onward, the swarm of worms will be fooled, and humans will be fooled as well. The real you, meanwhile, will remain hidden beneath mystery." Sakura Matou finally could not hold back any longer. She asked, "Are you a god?"

"A god?" The man thought for a moment. "In some ways, I suppose so. In other ways, I'm not. Right now, I'm merely a practitioner striving to climb higher and higher upon the Tree of Life."

As he spoke, he softly began to hum. The nursery rhyme sung in that gentle voice seemed to possess magic, making the girl feel sleepy even within this dream.

"Rock, rock, rock, baby's cradle hangs from a tree. When the wind blows softly, the cradle gently sways..."

Just before she drifted into sleep, Sakura Matou struggled and asked, "Who are you?! What's your name?!"

As drowsiness washed over her, she heard an answer through the haze.

"You can call me Mephistopheles. Just an ordinary man pursuing the path of magic."

FGO Proper Human History World, Age of Gods, Greece.

Mephistopheles was holding a gemstone that looked like a crystal cluster, carefully polishing it.

After polishing the crystal cluster into the shape of a diamond, Mephistopheles immediately went to find Artemis.

"Artemis, infuse this with a little of your moon goddess power!"

Artemis picked up the gemstone and asked in confusion, "Isn't this selenite? What are you making with it?"

"Of course I'm making a tool—a tool that can strengthen my magic!" Mephistopheles immediately replied.

Seeing that Artemis was still curious, Mephistopheles continued, "It's just an experiment. I want to verify one of my theories."

"Fine." Artemis did not say much more. Directly using her authority as the moon goddess, she gave the stone a portion of the moon goddess's power, like something that could serve as proof of a contract.

Mephistopheles happily accepted it and began fiddling with it again.

Before long, Artemis felt her connection to the selenite vanish.

"What are you doing?"

"Mm, I'm naturally integrating your moon goddess power into it completely. After all, this isn't meant to turn it into your contracted object. It's for something else."

As Mephistopheles spoke, he controlled his magic power and began carving within it.

Inside, Mephistopheles carved a strange mark, shaped like a spoon from top to bottom.

Artemis could not understand what it was, but she sensed a familiar power.

It was the power of the moon.

Most strangely, as Artemis looked at the transparent crystal, she discovered a bizarre structure appearing within it. Faintly, nine rows and nine columns emerged, making a total of eighty-one cells. Or rather, these lines divided the gemstone into eighty-one regions!

And it was still changing!

Numbers began appearing inside every cell. The first was 37, the second 78, the third 29, followed by 70, 21, 62, 13, 54, and 5.

Then came the second row. It continued onward like that, with the numbers constantly changing!

When the number in the final cell appeared as 45, Artemis quickly calculated the peculiarity of these numbers.

Every row and column added up to 369, while the total of all the numbers was 3321.

As the moon goddess, she keenly sensed the special nature of those numbers!

They also contained the power of the moon!

"Is this your magic?"

"Yes, this is my magic. It represents the magic of the moon." Mephistopheles did not deny it and continued processing the piece of selenite.

Finally, as the processing was completed, the symbols within gradually faded away. Not only the symbols, but also the grid, the numbers, and everything else vanished. The gemstone now looked like an utterly ordinary stone.

Mephistopheles held the gemstone and silently felt the power surging within it.

"Selenite represents the moon in Planetary Magic, while the grid and numbers I carved into it are the Lunar Magic Square representing the moon. That too is Planetary Magic. As for that strange mark, it represents Gabriel, and it likewise comes from Planetary Magic.

"Because Artemis's divine power was added, and because that pure divine power served as the catalyst, this gemstone has clearly succeeded. I only need to test it afterward. There's a good chance it'll let me wield Gabriel's power more easily than before.

"If it truly works, then later I can find the remaining three gods corresponding to the other three elements and make the rest as well. That way, my Angel Magic will have been improved once again.

"Though this does rely on powerful materials to reduce my own burden, when your realm isn't enough, materials can make up for it. That's only natural!"

Thinking this, the corners of Mephistopheles's mouth rose. He now desperately wanted to find some fool who did not know better and test the gemstone's power.

Then the crisis arrived.

The sea suddenly became violent. A gigantic serpent with nine heads emerged from the water and roared at everyone!

It had appeared so suddenly, yet it was so menacing, as though it had come specifically to cause trouble for them!

"Hydra, it's Hydra!"

Someone in the crowd shouted, and everyone was shocked by the monster that had suddenly appeared.

Mephistopheles was equally shocked. Of course he knew who Hydra was. Hydra was sometimes also translated as the Hydra, a giant serpent with nine heads!

It was the offspring of Typhon, the father of all monsters, and Echidna, the mother of all monsters. Its bloodline alone was terrifying!

On top of that, the venom in its fangs was exceptionally dreadful. Once the venom eroded someone's body, there was practically no way to cure it.

In the legends, Heracles killed Hydra and smeared its venom onto the tips of his arrows, only to end up wounding his own teacher, Chiron.

Chiron's body was corroded by the venom. Unable to bear the pain, he had no choice but to give up his immortality. In the end, he was poisoned to death and became the constellation Sagittarius.

Naturally, those were all legends. Hydra's famous tale took place during Heracles's Twelve Labors, but this thing had suddenly appeared, leaving Mephistopheles unable to understand for a moment.

Hydra had never appeared during the voyage of the Argo. Why had it appeared now? Didn't it live in swamplands? This was the ocean!

Or was this simply how FGO's story progressed? Was it really this wild?

Before Mephistopheles could resolve his doubts, everyone had already begun fighting. Heracles raised his weapon and struck the descending snake head.

Heracles's tremendous strength erupted against that head, directly smashing it apart. Blood splattered across the deck and into the seawater, staining an entire area red.

But before the heroes could cheer, new snake heads grew from the wound. They began very small, yet as though they had cheats activated, they grew several times larger in the blink of an eye, quickly becoming as large as the original head!

Everyone was startled by the sight. This thing actually possessed such outrageous regenerative ability!

"Damn it, we're at sea! We can't just fight it however we want!"

Someone shouted, and many people deeply agreed. Heracles was powerful, but fighting this giant serpent in the sea was simply courting death.

Atalanta drew her bow, aimed at one of Hydra's heads, and released the arrow. It flew out and struck the head with extreme precision.

As the head was pierced, it lost control and toppled to one side.

Yet before long, the arrow was expelled from the head and fell into the sea. The head that had lost feeling regained it, while the hole rapidly healed until it looked as though it had never been injured at all!

"No, trying to jam something inside to stop it from healing won't work either! It'll expel it on its own!" Atalanta shouted as she drew another arrow and aimed at a snake head.

Though it was not very useful, under the current circumstances, this sort of attack could still interfere with Hydra and prevent it from destroying the entire ship.

At once, everyone took out bows and arrows and began launching ranged attacks at Hydra, determined not to let its attacks affect the ship.

If the ship was damaged, then they would have to face the endless sea afterward.

Watching everything unfold, Mephistopheles quietly said to Medea, "Try burning Hydra's wounds with fire."

"Burn them?" Medea was curious why Mephistopheles had said that, but she did not hesitate and began gathering magic power.

Magecraft patterns appeared around her, spreading through the surroundings and forming a territory.

The territory was not large, but it was sufficiently refined and more than enough to envelop her.

Then Medea raised her hand. A fireball appeared overhead—a massive fireball. It was continuously compressed until it was several times smaller than before, yet the temperature within it surged dramatically!

Then Medea fiercely launched the fireball. By chance, a snake head that had broken through the blockade was about to smash into the ship when Heracles shattered it with a blow of his club, spraying brains mixed with blood across the deck in red and white.

Boom!

The fireball exploded against that head. Violent heat licked at the wet wound, producing a sizzling sound.

At that moment, nearly everyone smelled the savory scent of scorching flesh!

The area licked by the flames had been charred black, and the pitiful little heads could no longer grow back.

The body beneath that snake head seemed to lose all life and crashed heavily into the water, splashing up waves.

Everyone was delighted by the sight.

"Great, this works!"

"Use fire! Fire can keep the wounds from healing!"

Amid the shouts, everyone became even more determined. Though they were still at sea, now that they had discovered the enemy could also suffer grave wounds, these people—nearly all of whom could be considered to possess divine blood—lost their fear and instead attacked Hydra with even greater force.

Medea naturally cooperated fully. She stared intently at the snake heads. Whenever one was beaten into complete ruin, she launched a fireball at it, blasting the heads one after another until they lost all signs of life and could no longer heal.

After four heads on each side—a total of eight heads—were killed in this way, only the middle head remained!

However, when attacks struck that snake head, something strange happened.

The head could be injured, but it would never suffer anything like exploding or being blown apart. It was as if that head were an indivisible whole that could not sustain major damage!

Moreover, its wounds healed rapidly—so rapidly that they completely vanished in the blink of an eye!

"Immortality," Mephistopheles said quietly. "It has immortality. No matter how we attack, that head cannot die unless its immortality is erased at the Root."

"Immortality?! Then how are we supposed to fight it?" Heracles frowned and asked Mephistopheles, "If we were on land, I could cut off that head and weigh it down with something so it could never regrow a body. But we're at sea. We don't have that option!"

"Exactly. This thing is keeping its distance and constantly launching ranged attacks with venom, giving us no chance to attack!" Atalanta said as well, looking toward Mephistopheles and hoping he might make a move.

Mephistopheles merely said softly to Medea, "Pull it over."

Medea's magic changed once again. Magic power turned into ropes that shot out and bound Hydra's head!

Then Heracles reached out and grabbed the magical ropes, using his immense strength to drag the snake head toward the ship!

Heracles's strength was truly enormous. Even Hydra, the giant serpent, could not compete with him. Its massive body was pulled along—or perhaps the ship was being pulled instead. In any case, the distance between them kept shrinking.

The instant the snake head neared the ship, everyone attacked together. Amid flashing blades and clashing weapons, countless weapons struck the spot beneath the snake head, directly severing Hydra's head. The giant serpent's body fell into the sea, while the head held in Heracles's arms still opened its mouth and roared.

Its body was already dead, but that head still lived and continued struggling!

Without any hesitation, Medea controlled the ropes, binding the snake's mouth shut and even tying a bow on top of it!

The sturdy ropes of magic power were a seal that the current Hydra could not break. Unable to move its mouth, the pitiful snake head lost its chance to struggle again.

"Heracles, that was great!" Jason somehow darted from the rear to the front. He even reached out and patted the snake head before shouting, "Everyone did wonderfully! Under my leadership, we actually defeated Hydra. This is already an enormous achievement!"

Many people rolled their eyes at his words. No one had even seen where he was just now, yet he suddenly appeared. They truly did not know how to judge him.

Just as everyone let out a sigh of relief, the sea surface, which had already calmed somewhat, suddenly turned violent once more. Then nine enormous heads burst out of the water!

Everyone froze, because what had appeared was not another monster, but Hydra!

An individual identical to the Hydra from before!

Seeing the massive Hydra emerge, everyone was stunned again.

Everyone knew of Hydra, but they also knew something else: Hydra was a unique individual. There could not be multiple Hydras!

Then why had another Hydra appeared now?

Could it be that the corpse that had fallen into the sea had not died, but instead grown new heads?!

As everyone stood in confusion, the surrounding sea began churning as well.