"Please, help us recover the Grail."
Olga ended the transmission after that. Leaning back onto her chair, the Director tried to think of anything else to distract herself from everything that happened in the last 24 hours.
There, just as the woman rubbed her forehead, she grabbed the cup from her desk and took a long sip. Olga's last sleep was close to two days ago, and right now she's running on pure caffeine.
"And so, we place the fate of our world upon the shoulders of an unknown Goddess who somehow exists despite being in the middle of the Age of Man." Da Vinci eloquently said.
Olga's cup made a clinking sound against the metal surface as she put it down. Giving Da Vinci the side-eye glare of tiredness, Olga said, "Do you think this is a mistake?"
"I would be lying if I said I wasn't fascinated by this living Goddess. She's definitely an anomaly, so some amount of caution is warranted. Though I feel like you should worry more about Ritsuka than the Goddess."
Olga grimaced as her brows furrowed like she had just smelled something bad. The fact that she had to tell him how everything else in the world had been incinerated… that the whole world was now a lifeless field of raging firestorms.
The kid didn't take it very well. Olga couldn't blame him. He's just a commoner, unlike Olga who lived her whole life inside the Moonlit World and was thus more aware of the powers that be.
The Goddess was the first to move, comforting Ritsuka by placing a hand on his shoulder. Her soft eyes spoke of sympathy and understanding, as though she had gone through the same thing he did.
Strange, perhaps her worshippers were incinerated also?
Olga cupped her chin.
"A living deity. Well, at least we know that humanity is still being watched over."
Olga took a bit of comfort in that.
_________
"Alright, so I'll head up and see our surroundings." Her Polkovodets announced as her feet stopped touching the ground.
"I'll see above the tree line and see the immediate surroundings. See if you can see the town." Archer stated before turning invisible. Archer didn't even leave room for her Polkovodets to reply. He just expected her to.
The Goddess appeared annoyed for an instant before doing just that.
In the meantime, Zvezdnyy wandered off to the nearest tree trunk. She traced her fingers across the rough surface, utterly fascinated by it like an archeologist fascinated by a newly discovered cave painting.
Zvezdnyy picked at it. She inserted a finger into a crevasse and pulled a small tree trunk bark.
Zvezdnyy almost panicked before using her power and reverting the bark to an unpicked state.
She looked around, and upon finding her Polkovodets to be nowhere near, let out a small sigh of relief.
Whew. No chance for any scolding.
Zvezdnyy could still vividly recall the scolding she received when she and some of her followers went into a sealed-off section of the forests. It was one of the rare times she heard her Polkovodets disappointed in her.
"What's so interesting about those trees?" Ritsuka asked as he approached.
"Ah, heed my tale! Trees are a rarity in my realm, and fell victim to a cataclysm that rends my world asunder. In the aftermath, we labored relentlessly to nurture each sapling anew ere our very breath succumbed to the encroaching void of depleted oxygen!"
Was she exaggerating things? Perhaps. Trees were rendered mostly extinct before people replanted entire forests of fast-growing saplings.
"Um, ahem." Ritsuka cleared his throat and added a flare of drama into his tone, "So trees were rare? What devastating apocalypse could've ever caused such a thing that something as common as trees to be rare?"
"Verily, it was a cataclysm of unfathomable magnitude!"
Zvezdnyy spread her arms out to emphasize how large the disaster was.
"The radiant sun, once benign, meta… metamop… metamorphized into an evil force! Trans… transmog. Hmm, transforming all touched by its luminous embrace into monstrous aberrations. By the steadfast valor of my esteemed Polkovodets, the sun's taint was scarcely vanquished, thus rescuing our world from the edge of annihilation!"
Zvezdnyy pushed through the difficult words regardless.
Just then, her Polkovodets dropped out of the sky. "Bad news. The nearest village is a smokey ruin. I can also spot what appeared to be dragons in the distance."
"Dragons?" The Direktor's voice came from Ritsuka's bracelet.
"Yes. Dragons. Multiple lizards each with a pair of wings and a pair of feet like that of an eagle."
"That sounds more like a wyvern."
Her Polkovodets tilted her head to express bafflement. "Is there a difference?"
"Yes." The Direktor confirmed.
A diagram of a lizard with four limbs alongside a pair of wings materialized from Ritsuka's bracelet.
She then elaborated, "European dragons are typically quadrupedal instead of bipedal. And they are usually far more powerful than even the strongest wyvern, to the point just one fully grown dragon can slay whole hordes of wyverns single-handedly."
Huh. Zvezdnyy did not know that. Like her Polkovodets, Zvezdnyy thought that wyverns were just another name for dragons.
"They're anomalies here in this time period. Most phantasmal creatures should've died out or entered the Reverse Side of the World after the Age of God's ending except for a few exceptions like Fafnir, which isn't in France."
"So then," Her Polkovodets concluded, "these wyverns would lead us to the source of the anomalies in this Singularity? The things that are responsible for changing history?"
"It should. Find the source of these wyverns, find the Grail, and restore this point in history."
"Alright." Her Polkovodets stood firm. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out, Kukulkan began to crack her knuckles like someone who's eager for a fight, "I'll be off to deal with these wyverns. If I slay enough of them, whoever made these anomalies should come out of whatever hole they're hiding in."
Before anyone could say another word, her Polkovodets took off into the sky once more. In less than a second, a bright flash of light appeared all over the sky as streaks of plasma burned the wyverns with ease.
"So Director, how can we help Kukulkan?" Ritsuka spoke into his bracelet.
"While the Goddess can serve as a powerhouse, she's only but a single person, and that person can't be everywhere at once. Thus, your mission is such, Ritsuka Fujimaru; gather as much useful information as possible about the differences in this era of time."
"Right Director!" The teen pumped his fist in affirmation. Then, his confidence rapidly deflated like a leaky balloon, "Um, how do I do that?"
Archer sighed and answered in an exasperated tone, "You collect information by talking to people. How else?"
"So we should go into towns and ask questions?"
"Yes, exactly like one of your RPGs."
Ritsuka looked confused at the mention of 'RPG'. "Wait, Archer, since you're some ancient hero, how would you know what a role-playing game is?"
"Um, Senpai? The FATE system gives all servants summoned a degree of modern knowledge." The shield girl with the strange purple hair said.
"I see." Ritsuka then clapped his hands, "Very well then, let's head towards a village. Since Kukulkan said that our nearest one is a smokey ruin, we'll need to head further away to find one. Archer?"
"Don't worry, I'm on it."
Archer disappeared, vanished from the face of the world, and turned into a spirit invisible to the naked eye. Zvezdnyy can still sense him as he climbs up a tree and glances at the distance.
"Got one." Archer materialized no more than five seconds after he disappeared.
"Swift and precise, exactly as an archer should be. Verily thou shouldst join my legion of the chosen!" Zvezdnyy remarked and offered.
To others, it may appear as a half-hearted effort, a joke. But Archer saw through Zvezdnyy's youthfulness and knew it was a serious recruitment offer.
He made an expression of disgust.
"No." Archer bluntly rejected.
"Argh!"
Zvezdnyy recoiled with a look of shock on her face. Never once has she been so bluntly rejected. Most of the time when she did receive a rejection, like say from her Polkovodets, it was always through an easing lens. The witch was always eased into it.
"But why?!" Zvezdnyy cried out.
"You're a child with the power of a god playing as a savior. You don't actually want to save humanity for humanity itself. You just do it to sate your own ego."
"..."
One can hear a pin drop in this silence.
Zvezdnyy then disappeared. Teleported away from the scary man who had said such hurtful things to her.
Ritsuka glared at Archer while Mash didn't know what to do.
Instead of feeling guilty, Archer crossed his arms and was unapologetic.
"Archer what the hell did you do?!" Olga's voice cried out from Ritsuka's bracelet, "Damn it she's so far away as well... Forget getting information. Ritsuka Fujimaru! Your new mission is to find Zvezdnyy before the Goddess comes back!"
"Right away Director!"
___________
In the wilderness of rural France, the sound of a girl's crying can be heard.
Zvezdnyy leaned on the base of a tall tree. The girl's left cheek felt the bite of the rough bark while the loose soil dirtied her pants. She hugged the tree as one of her age might hug a teddy bear while in bed.
"I… I am… Zvezdnyy… Rebenok…" The witch said, her sentence broken up by uncontrollable bouts of stuttering, "I am some…one who will… save all of human… ity…"
Her eyes were red as tears streaked down the sides of her face. Archer's words hurt her immensely. They cut deep into her flesh, far greater than anything before save for that man who had put her into a deep sleep.
She was in so much pain. Never once had Zvezdnyy ever been spurned so greatly.
Zvezdnyy wants comfort. She felt tired from the crying. The pain…
Reality warped around her as the bark stopped being so rough. The whole tree transformed into a huge teddy bear with the softest fur imaginable. The ground around Zvezdnyy changed into the texture of what she imagined clouds must feel like.
Just as the girl was about to fall asleep in the arms of this teddy bear, thoughts of talking to her Polkovodets on her mind, her ears picked up distant voices.
A fire lit up inside Zvezdnyy as she opened her eyes to see how she was now inside a cozy cabin— one that wasn't there before.
A thick blanket covered her as the witch lay on a bed of clouds while resting her head on the stomach of a teddy bear taller and larger than even Kukulkan, her Polkovodets, her sweet subordinate whom she looked up to.
In her mind, Zvezdnyy couldn't help but recall her most vivid memory of the Commander of her army. Standing between her and the horror that used to be her mentor, down in her first home under the sea.
Her Polkovodets defeated her Arka Nemezida. And then saved the world, thereby earning everyone's adoration.
"I wish things returned to as it was."
Things returned to exactly how it once was. The cabin was gone. The teddy vanished from existence, in its place was the same tree truck. The bed itself returned to its original form of a pack of soil.
Placing a hand on her chest, Zvezdnyy said to herself without any dramatics since there was no one here to watch her, "I will show you then, Archer. I will show you how I am a savior on par with Kukulkan."
"I wish I was near a village I could save."
With a single phase, Zvezdnyy warped reality and spacetime to transport her away again, to her desired destination.
_________
AN: A bit of a shorter chapters this time.