"Guaaah...!"
The diminutive Hassan-i-Sabbah immediately knelt on the ground in pain, looking at his left hand that had been blown to nothing with horror on his face.
His Noble Phantasm "Delusional Heartbeat" activated through his left hand's touch. Now that his left hand had been destroyed, his Noble Phantasm was essentially sealed.
Originally, as a Heroic Spirit, he could recover from injuries through his Master using healing magecraft... but the problem now was that Ryuudou Issei didn't know any healing magecraft at all.
And Zuke obviously wouldn't give him a chance to recover.
"Boring. Is that all?"
Zuke looked at Hassan-i-Sabbah, who had knelt on the ground in a sorry state after having his left hand blown off, and clicked his tongue.
Dealing with this kind of guy, he didn't even have the interest to devour him—after all, "Delusional Heartbeat" was completely an inferior version of "Killer Queen."
"Sitonai, freeze him."
Then, following Zuke's statement that sounded like some cold storage warehouse owner, a small figure suddenly flipped in through the room's window from outside.
It was Sitonai, who had been waiting outside the window for a while—just now, to avoid alerting the target, Zuke had entered the room alone with "Presence Concealment" activated to eavesdrop, having Sitonai wait outside the room.
But now there was no need to hide anymore, so he called Sitonai in to freeze this Hassan-i-Sabbah and prepare to take him back.
"Really, I'm not a Heroic Spirit specifically in charge of packaging."
After flipping in, Sitonai couldn't help but complain—of course, although she complained verbally, her body honestly followed Zuke's orders.
After all, her purpose in coming here was to help Zuke. Even though this kind of thing looked like menial work, it was still helping, wasn't it?
With a wave of her hand, the diminutive Hassan-i-Sabbah was instantly frozen—although he seemed to want to struggle at the end, it was all in vain.
Finally, this Hassan-i-Sabbah, maintaining the pose of reaching toward his waist to pull out a poison needle, was directly frozen into an ice sculpture by Sitonai, just like Heroic Spirit EMIYA before.
And unlike Heroic Spirit EMIYA, who had Projection Magecraft and could project special Noble Phantasms to help thaw parts of his body, this Hassan-i-Sabbah didn't have abilities in that regard.
If nothing unexpected happened, this guy would remain frozen like this until a new Lesser Grail was created and then be casually killed by Zuke.
Zuke had "Black Bird Requiem" pick up the frozen Hassan-i-Sabbah and prepared to leave. However, before leaving, he still looked at the badly frightened Ryuudou Issei.
Although this guy didn't have much screen time in the original work, he still appeared as Emiya Shirou's friend, so he was somewhat curious and asked Ryuudou Issei:
"By the way, Ryuudou Issei, right? Do you have a friend named Emiya Shirou? Or rather, do you have a friend with red hair?"
Because there was no Emiya Kiritsugu and no great fire from ten years ago, this world's Emiya Shirou probably wasn't called by that name but maintained his original name, living with his original parents.
However, names and personalities might change, but appearance and hair color definitely wouldn't, so he was also a bit curious about what this world's Emiya Shirou had become.
"Ah... ah?"
Ryuudou Issei was stunned for quite a while before coming to his senses, realizing that this man who had instantly dealt with Hassan-i-Sabbah was asking him a question. He trembled and answered:
"No... I don't know. I've never heard of this person, and I don't have any red-haired friends around me."
Although there were definitely red-haired male students in the entire school... even if Ryuudou Issei was the student council president, he obviously couldn't remember the appearance and information of all the students in the school.
"Is that so? Then forget it. This has nothing to do with you."
Zuke nodded. Although a bit disappointed, he didn't dwell on this matter—what did changes in Emiya Shirou's future have to do with him anyway?
"By the way, you'd better not talk about today's events casually, otherwise, someone will come looking for trouble with you."
After speaking, Zuke and Sitonai left through the room's window, taking the frozen Hassan-i-Sabbah with them, leaving only Ryuudou Issei alone in the room.
Because Sitonai had just used cold air, the room's temperature had dropped considerably, making Ryuudou Issei shiver:
"What is all this..."
Not long after Zuke and Sitonai left, two more people arrived at Ryuudou Issei's doorstep.
"This is Assassin's location, right?"
Mordred stood at the entrance, a smile on her face—although it looked quite cheerful, careful observation would reveal that her smile also contained a hint of ferocity.
"After searching for so long, we finally found a clue—today, we're making Assassin join forces with us!"
In fact, contrary to what Hassan-i-Sabbah thought, his whereabouts had been exposed not only to Heroic Spirit EMIYA but even Mordred had detected some clues.
For an Assassin whose strength lay in concealing presence and assassination, this could be considered quite disastrous.
After a period of investigation, Mordred and Tohsaka Rin had finally determined Hassan-i-Sabbah's location and came to the door.
"Are you sure Assassin will really cooperate with us?"
Tohsaka Rin looked at Mordred ahead and sighed helplessly.
Originally, given her personality, she wouldn't be willing to visit so brazenly—but unfortunately, Mordred said there was no need to be timid when facing Assassin.
Tohsaka Rin no longer held much hope for victory. She had seen with her own eyes how Zuke had brutally beaten Mordred, which gave her a further understanding of Zuke's strength.
Now she just wanted to see what other tricks Mordred was going to pull.
"If he doesn't cooperate, then we'll beat him until he's willing to cooperate—he's just an Assassin, after all."
Mordred sneered—Assassin was the class with the worst stat parameters among all classes. This class's only strength was assassination and intelligence gathering.
There was no way this Assassin was the First Hassan, right?
Mordred's reason for wanting to cooperate with Assassin was also very simple—she wanted to investigate what Zuke's weaknesses were.
She didn't believe a person could have absolutely no weaknesses, and Assassin, who excelled at gathering intelligence, could help with this.
Mordred's combat style wasn't like Artoria's, full of knightly spirit. As long as she could win, she would do anything.
"Assassin! Come out!"
The next moment, Mordred shouted Assassin's title, then charged directly into Ryuudou Issei's house.
Her immense strength directly smashed open the door, and she barged into the house like a fierce tiger.