"Ah, Zouken Matou certainly worked fast."
During his lunch break, Roland received a message from Zouken Matou through the shop's fax machine.
"The arrangements for a magical energy supply will take a few more days, but they're nearly ready? And he'll do his best to provide a holy relic based on the class I choose?"
Zouken Matou was certainly repulsive as an enemy, but when it came to offering help, he was quite reliable.
Still, rather than dwelling on those things, Roland turned to the intelligence he cared about most.
With it all but certain that Contract Spirits had caused major deviations, it was important to establish how much of his advantage from knowing the plot remained.
"No major changes among the Three Founding Families? Still, not being able to find out about their holy relics is a real nuisance..."
The many Type-Moon works had already made it abundantly clear how much the differences in Heroic Spirits' personalities and abilities could alter an entire battle. There was no need to elaborate.
Still, having a few familiar faces around was reassuring. In each of these teams, the Master took the lead in controlling the Heroic Spirit, so knowing their plans and styles would be useful in the battles ahead.
"So these two are the troublesome ones?"
Roland lightly tapped Kayneth's arrogant face on the report and sighed.
"Professor Kayneth, oh, Professor Kayneth. You passed up the road to heaven and forced your way into hell."
Anyone who did not know the full picture might be extremely wary of Kayneth. After all, his wealth and abilities on paper were intimidating.
But Roland, who had watched the Holy Grail War many times, knew that a Master's own abilities hardly mattered. They were just there to supply magical energy anyway. Unless they encountered certain rebellious Heroic Spirits, what truly decided victory or defeat was the Master's character.
Tolerance toward their Heroic Spirit, adaptability to changing circumstances, and determination to win-these were the key factors in whether a Master could emerge unscathed. Having experienced three wars, Zouken Matou understood this perfectly, which was why he had invested in Roland without hesitation.
As for Kayneth, it was not that he lacked the resolve to stake his life on the war, but the arrogance cultivated in him at the Clock Tower since childhood was his greatest flaw. Unless his Heroic Spirit could pull him back from the brink, he was the one Roland had the least faith in.
Darnic, on the other hand, excelled in this respect. Even if he had not participated in the previous war and started on equal footing with Kayneth, Roland still did not think he would be eliminated easily.
"But what will their Heroic Spirits be like?"
In the original story, Darnic had chosen Vlad III, but that had been an excellent choice for a defensive battle on home soil, where the Grand Duke could make full use of his Noble Phantasm and home-field advantage. Without support from the ley lines, Vlad III was only a second-rate Heroic Spirit. Roland did not believe someone like Darnic, who had already fought in a Holy Grail War, would be misled on that point.
Viewed that way, Finn, whom he had used in the previous Holy Grail War, would be a better choice, but even that was uncertain. Judging by the intelligence, Darnic, who had gradually withdrawn from public life before emerging again for the Fourth War, had most likely already been influenced by a Contract Spirit. Blindly relying on his portrayal in the story would only put Roland at a disadvantage.
"Kayneth is much easier to guess, provided his holy relic hasn't been stolen."
Roland raised his head and laid the documents over his face, an amused smile spreading across his lips as though something funny had occurred to him.
"Come to think of it, with Darnic and Kayneth already at each other's throats, would Waver still dare to steal the holy relic in a fit of anger?"
"Damn it, nobody understands my talent!"
Waver Velvet hurried down the road, his face filled with indignation.
Just moments earlier, his lecturer Kayneth had taken the thesis he had painstakingly completed over three years and torn it apart in front of everyone. Waver had stormed out of that oppressive classroom before the lesson was even over.
Class had not ended yet, but he probably would not even have to wait until tomorrow for the name Waver Velvet to become the Clock Tower's newest laughingstock.
For Waver, this was the greatest humiliation he had suffered in his nineteen years of life.
It was as though his pride had been thrown to the ground and viciously trampled to pieces. Largely self-taught and possessing only a meager, third-generation lineage, Waver took considerable pride in his talent for passing the examination and gaining admission to the Clock Tower, London's foremost institution of learning.
Compared with the classmates around him, whose lineages extended back at least five or six generations, accomplishing this so early did, in theory, give him reason to be proud.
But that was all. The finest mages gathered here at the Clock Tower, and an aptitude for learning meant little. Everyone pursued more profound formulas and more accomplished mages.
In other words, the heirs of distinguished families, with outstanding bloodlines carefully cultivated over generations and powerful, complete Magic Crests. Those were the people everyone flocked to.
To Waver, this was utterly absurd. They were nothing but flatterers, nothing but parrots standing on their predecessors' shoulders. No one paid any attention to someone like him, with such a shallow lineage.
To that end, Waver had spent three years developing his ideas and one year writing a thesis that fiercely attacked the rotten system of the Mage's Association. But before he could publish it, Kayneth had suppressed it.
"A delusional person like you is unsuited to the study of magecraft."
The mere thought of those condescending words made Waver seethe.
"What the hell? He must be afraid of me! Afraid of my terrifying talent!"
Waver grumbled bitterly, then encountered a turning point around a corner.
After bumping into a delivery worker from the Finance Department, he ended up with a parcel addressed to Kayneth.
"Then I'll leave it to you. Sorry for the trouble."
"All right."
Watching the delivery worker walk away, Waver looked down at the small box in his hands in puzzlement.
"A shipment from Macedonia? Come to think of it, that lemon-head apparently got into a dispute with Yggdmillennia's patriarch and is going to enter some Magecraft Competition in the Far East."
-the Holy Grail War.
Unlike his classmates, who were merely enjoying the gossip, the ever-studious Waver had immediately looked up the relevant material upon hearing the news and learned how the competition worked.
He was very fond of a competition that did not judge people by their birth, but trivial matters such as his unsettled studies, lack of money, and absence of a holy relic had kept him from taking part.
"So this is Kayneth's holy relic?"
Looking at the small box in his hands, Waver suddenly had a bold idea. Although the consequences would certainly be disastrous, it would definitely teach that lemon-head a lesson he would never forget.
Just then, an icy voice abruptly interrupted his thoughts.
"Is that a parcel addressed to Kayneth?"
At some point, a young, handsome man with long blue hair and luxurious formal attire had appeared at the end of the road. He looked more like an aristocrat than a mage.
"Darnic..."
Waver froze on the spot, seemingly unable to process what was happening, and spoke the newcomer's name through chattering teeth. As the other central figure in the Clock Tower's latest juicy scandal, information about this man was even easier to find than information about Kayneth.
Then something Waver had never expected happened. Darnic slowly approached, his world-weary, gloomy gaze fixed on the parcel in Waver's hands, and held out his hand.
"Young man, may I have a look?"