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"Today is a fine day for a grave visit~ a fine day indeed~"
The Berserker's Master was humming to himself at the entrance of Ryudou Temple's ruins, having a picnic with Asterius and drinking beer, in an exceptionally good mood.
There was no hunger meter in the character interface, but Max's design included a real food system: players needed to eat once every two hours or their stats would decline, and four continuous hours of starvation meant immediate death. It also enabled certain Noble Phantasms that interacted with the mechanic. In practice, it meant sitting in the ruins of a flattened temple eating snacks while your enemy was theoretically trapped inside an inescapable labyrinth was a completely valid strategic position.
The Berserker's Master had been a strategy game enthusiast well before Holy Grail War existed. When he'd found the dragon pulse ley line through the map system and performed an affinity summon, he hadn't gotten what he pictured. What he'd gotten was Asterius — the Minotaur, not a traditional hero, somewhat difficult to categorize, carrying a Noble Phantasm that seemed niche until you thought carefully about it.
He'd thought carefully about it.
The labyrinth had restrictions: no new targets could be added while the current group was inside. The Noble Phantasm couldn't be reopened immediately after use — a cooldown that even a Command Seal could only partially bypass, and using it twice in quick succession put it into a very long vacuum period. The economics of the ability were narrow: two or three uses maximum in a full Holy Grail War, meaning at most two or three eliminations.
Unless.
Unless you waited until multiple groups were in the same location, activated it once, and trapped everyone simultaneously.
So when the Church bounty brought everyone to Ryudou Temple, the Berserker's Master had not engaged. He'd waited. Let the Ashiya Doman fight play out — let the teams exhaust each other, let Rider come back, let everyone relax. Then, with the full roster assembled and off their guard:
One Command Seal to recharge. One Noble Phantasm. Three groups eliminated at once.
The math had been beautiful.
He raised his beer to Asterius. The big bull tilted his head and made a sound that might have been acknowledgment.
The Berserker's Master was mentally planning how to handle the Assassin group next, and after that the Archer group still out there somewhere, when the ground shook.
A rift tore open in the sky.
An emerald green figure flashed through it.
The chariot's wheels left a long furrow through the ruins before it stopped.
The Berserker's Master's smile had not yet fully processed the situation when Maverick, A-bro's partner, and Maverick's Artoria stepped off the vehicle.
Their expressions could be described as "smiles" in the same way that a drawn blade could be described as "open."
"Well," Maverick said. "You're in a pretty good mood. Having a picnic out here. Mind if I join you?"
"Your reckoning has arrived," A-bro's partner said, "you opportunist."
"Little boss is relaxed, huh?" Maverick again. "Ready to eat Daddy Maverick's bullets?"
The girl had apparently decided she had nothing useful to add verbally.
She pulled the pin on a grenade and threw it.
Maverick's face went from smug to horrified in the specific way of someone who is technically on the same side as the person who just threw the grenade and is now doing the math on the blast radius.
Artoria's Invisible Air was still active. The invisible sword swung, and the grenade sailed up and detonated in the air like sudden fireworks. The second round of the Holy Grail War's finale had officially begun.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING—"
"Sorry. My hand slipped."
[Chat]: HAND SLIPPED
[Chat]: HAND SLIPPED
[Analyzing]: she has been waiting to throw that grenade this entire time
[Maverick_Sympathy]: he didn't even get to gloat properly before his teammate threw a grenade at his feet
[Female_Driver_Joke_Incoming]: that's the lethality of a—
[Preemptive_Response]: don't
[Noticing]: the enemy's faces have gone green. both of them.
[Explaining]: they set the flag: "a labyrinth that can never be escaped." it was always going to get escaped.
[Goose_Corp_Comment]: the rendering on that explosion though. when will the major studios catch up to what one developer built in a garage.
[Response]: going to their review page right now
The Berserker's Master processed his options in about three seconds and arrived at the same conclusion any strategy player eventually does when the math stops working: the situation had changed, escape was impossible against Achilles's mobility, and forward was the only direction remaining.
He activated 2x Time Acceleration. Pulled the submachine gun. Opened fire on Maverick.
Bullets and smoke. Maverick slid behind a piece of rubble.
And silently counted to three.
Then activated 5x.
The Berserker's Master watched Maverick come out from behind the rubble and charge across open ground at a speed that left visible afterimages and thought: lunatic. Then reached for the grenades. Charging directly meant bullets were useless — fine, grenades worked at any speed, let them collide and see who took more damage—
Maverick was still smiling. Not the anxious smile. The other one.
His hand rose. One of the Command Seal marks on his hand faded.
"Artoria. It's up to you."
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