After the King of Conquerors finished speaking, his voice slowly faded.
But those words still lingered in the garden, weighing heavily on everyone.
He looked back at Artoria.
"O king renowned among knights. Perhaps the justice and ideals you championed truly did save your country and its people."
His tone grew grave.
"But what became of those people who were merely saved?"
The question bore straight down on her.
"Surely you know."
Artoria knew.
The subjects of Camelot.
The people of Britain she had saved.
Those who had enjoyed a brief peace under her just rule.
In the end, they had still descended into civil war, collapse, betrayal, slaughter, and destruction.
Everything she had fought desperately to protect had begun rotting from within after her death-even before her death.
The King of Conquerors gave her no time to dwell on it.
"You did nothing but save your subjects, never knowing how to guide them."
He gave every word weight.
"You never showed them a king's desires. You abandoned your lost subjects, standing alone in self-righteousness, absorbed in those seemingly perfect ideals of yours."
"And that is precisely why-"
The King of Conquerors' amber eyes shone piercingly in the moonlight.
"You are no true king."
"You are merely someone who does not live for herself, bound by the title of king..."
He paused.
"Nothing more than a little girl."
As those final words fell, the garden went silent.
Artoria's expression finally changed.
It was not mere anger, nor simple embarrassment.
She pressed her lips together, her jaw tight, and a tiny crack appeared in the composure she had maintained in her emerald eyes.
Little girl.
Those words did not deny her abilities or the achievements she had earned.
They denied the very foundation of her kingship.
Mayuri had been listening nearby the whole time.
Her stemmed glass had long since emptied, with only a little unfinished cola left at the bottom, its bubbles nearly all gone.
She held the glass in her left hand and braced her right against the stone slab behind her, sitting loosely, her long pale-gold hair falling behind her shoulders.
"King of Conquerors."
Mayuri's voice came from nearby, quiet but clear.
"You've gone a little too far."
Even in her previous life, Mayuri had disliked tyrants like him.
They charged headlong into everything, caring only about their own satisfaction, without any regard for whether others lived or died.
And for some reason, every time she saw the King of Conquerors, a deeply uncomfortable feeling rose from the depths of her Spirit Origin.
Iskandar turned, his amber eyes meeting her rose-red ones.
Mayuri did not stand.
She remained seated there, holding the nearly empty stemmed glass in her left hand, her right braced against the stone slab.
Beside those two towering kings, she looked almost excessively small.
But when she spoke, she did not sound like a child at all.
"The time and place in which the King of Knights lived were very unusual."
Mayuri's gaze moved between Iskandar and Artoria.
"It was the last place where the Age of Gods lingered."
At those words, several people nearby paused.
Everyone knew very well what the term "Age of Gods" meant in magecraft circles. It was the age when gods still walked the earth.
And Britain happened to be one of the last places left behind as the Age of Gods receded.
"Britain's fate was actually sealed from the very beginning. Destruction was its only path."
Mayuri's voice was level, as though she were stating something she had long known.
"But King Arthur single-handedly delayed Britain's demise."
"And for that brief time, she gave her subjects a reason to keep living."
She looked at Iskandar.
"That is not something tyrants like you and the King of Heroes could do."
Iskandar raised an eyebrow. Rather than looking offended, he seemed a little surprised.
"Caster. You would actually speak up for this little girl, the King of Knights?"
His gaze settled on Mayuri's face, growing somewhat more serious.
"Did you know her in life?"
Mayuri shook her head.
"I do not know her. I simply know something of her experiences, without her knowing me."
She offered no further explanation and returned to the subject.
"Do not preach kindness to others when you have never suffered what they have."
As Mayuri spoke those words, her rose-red eyes stared straight at Iskandar.
"King Arthur's experiences are beyond what a tyrant like you or a village chief like the King of Heroes could imagine or compare yourselves to."
The garden fell quiet for a short while.
Village chief.
The king of Uruk, humanity's oldest King of Heroes, the king of kings-she had called him a village chief.
Kid Gil's hand paused around his golden cup.
His half-lidded crimson eyes opened fully and looked straight over.
The expression on that youthful face wavered between Did she just call me a village chief? and Is it too early to bring out the treasury? before settling into something very complicated.
He did not lash out immediately.
But he would remember this.
Iskandar, however, laughed.
The King of Conquerors stared at Mayuri for several seconds. Rather than anger, a little appreciation entered his expression.
This little girl had courage, and she was not afraid to speak.
Though he disagreed with some of her points, he did not dislike her readiness to stand up and speak out.
But kings had their own rules.
"Big words, little girl."
The corner of his mouth lifted with a hint of challenge.
"But if you want to hold forth at this banquet of kings-"
His gaze fell on the untouched earthenware bowl beside Mayuri's feet.
The red wine in the bowl looked dark beneath the moonlight. Since the banquet began, not a single sip had been taken.
"You should at least drink the wine in front of you."
The King of Conquerors spoke.
"Otherwise, what right do you have to speak?"
Mayuri lowered her head to look at the bowl of wine.
The deep-red liquid lay still in the rough earthenware bowl, reflecting a small patch of moonlight.
It was the wine Iskandar had poured for her at the start of the banquet, from that cask of roughly made wine touted as "one of the best" in Fuyuki City.
Mayuri did not drink alcohol.
She had not in her previous life, and she did not in this one.
For a Servant, getting drunk probably was not much of a problem, but that was not the point.
The point was that she simply disliked the taste.
Sharp, astringent, bitter-beer, sake, wine, brandy, whisky, they were all much the same to her.
Cola was the best.
But the King of Conquerors had already put it that plainly.
If you want to speak at a banquet of kings, drink your wine first.
At this point, trying to refuse with "I don't like drinking" would no longer work.
Mayuri frowned at the bowl of wine for two seconds.
Her expression looked less conflicted than locked in a contest with that bowl of red liquid.
Then, as though suddenly making up her mind, she reached out and lifted the earthenware bowl.
Its rough sides pressed uncomfortably against her fingertips. The smell of wine rushed up at once.
Whatever.
She tipped her head back and brought the bowl to her lips.
Gulp.
Gulp, gulp.
Gulp, gulp, gulp.
In less than three seconds, she poured the entire bowl of wine into her mouth.
Mayuri did not sip. She drank it all in one go, hoping to get past that taste as quickly as possible.
But it did not work very well.
The wine rushed down from the back of her tongue, sharpness and astringency surging together, as though something had scraped her throat.
Though she had become a Servant, her sense of taste remained, and this truly did not feel pleasant.
The earthenware bowl made a dull thud as she set it back on the stone slab.
Its bottom faced the sky, not a drop left.
"Cough-"
Mayuri could not help coughing.
"Cough, cough."
She coughed twice more.
The lingering fumes of alcohol had yet to leave her throat, and they had even brought a little moisture to the corners of her eyes.
Mayuri raised her hand and wiped the corner of her mouth with its back, the trace of wine on her lips gleaming faintly red beneath the moonlight.