That evening, Sovell finally finished reviewing the stack of petitions he had been forced to work overtime on. Just as he stepped into the hall to report back to his king...
"Merlin, what is this? Oh? Sovell, you're here too. Perfect timing. Come take a look."
There in the hall, Merlin was holding a, a... well, an earthy-yellow, roughly oval lump, "showing it off" to Artoria.
Hmm. A curious thing she had never seen before.
"Oh my, back from overtime?"
"Merlin, why is your mouth still begging for a beating?"
As Sovell answered Merlin's teasing, he set the stack of petitions, twice his own height, steadily down on the floor.
But Merlin remained utterly unruffled and continued "showing off" the earthy-yellow object to Artoria.
"Come on, Arthur. Guess what this is."
Faced with Merlin's continued teasing, Artoria refused to indulge him and reached beside the throne, where there seemed to be nothing at all.
As though she had truly touched something, Artoria closed her hand around a patch of air. She made a motion as if drawing a sword, and the hall actually rang with the metallic scrape of a blade leaving its sheath.
Then a blue-green glow appeared on Artoria's left hand. Several strands of wind brushed past her middle finger, which already bore the Star-Crown Ring, before winding around her thumb and becoming another ring engraved with a rose pattern.
At the same time, a golden longsword wreathed in blue-green light appeared soundlessly on Merlin's shoulder.
Helpless before Artoria's stern demeanor, Merlin set down the earthy-yellow object and raised both hands in surrender.
"Hey, let's talk this through, Arthur. It's not as if I have to keep you in suspense-
But you, Sovell-you've been doing some fine research without saying a word. You made a second 'Invisible Air'