Attendance… plz…)
….
"Does killing his own mentor not count?" Rimuru asked, looking up.
In the traditional world of magecraft, matricide or patricide was one thing, but killing one's mentor? That was a sin far graver. It was the ultimate taboo.
"He had a justifiable reason," the old woman continued calmly. "If he had not shot down that plane, the magical contamination would have spread, and Mystery would have been exposed on a massive scale. While his actions are despised by all decent Magi, procedurally speaking, his logic was sound."
She paused, then added a final observation.
"However, since inheriting one-fifth of his father Emiya Norikata's Magic Crest, he has not communicated with the Association even once. In a sense, I suspect he has never cared about the Association's opinion of him in the first place."
"Alright. I have no further questions."
Rimuru set the ledger down and scanned the room.
It was clear that if Kiritsugu hadn't suddenly attacked Rimuru, thereby challenging the dignity of the Clock Tower, most of these Lords would never have even looked at this file.
To them, Emiya Kiritsugu was a gnat. Notorious, yes, but ultimately a tool-using "Magus Killer" who posed zero threat to a Lord. Why would they waste brain cells thinking about him?
Still, this intelligence network is terrifying, Rimuru thought, looking at the glowing text on the table.
He mentally bumped the Clock Tower's threat level up another notch.
It wasn't just their ability to record information. It was the Lords themselves. Eulyphis hadn't even looked at the file, yet he instantly pulled the relevant details about Kiritsugu's mentor from his memory. Inorai could recall the specific reasoning behind a bureaucratic decision made years ago without missing a beat.
"So, how does the Association plan to handle this?" May Riddell asked, her face flushing slightly as she pinched Rimuru's arm in retaliation for his whisper. She turned back to the table, her tone sharp. "Surely we aren't going to let him roam free after this?"
"Oh..." She glanced at the dossier again, double-checking to make sure she wasn't about to make a fool of herself. Then, she delivered a calm, scathing remark. "To think this man still has the right to enter the Clock Tower..."
"He won't anymore," Lorelei replied softly.
"First, we revoke his status as a Sealing Designation Enforcer. Second, we designate him as a target for Sealing Designation. Third, we issue a general bounty and warrant for his arrest."
She paused, her gaze sweeping over the Lords.
"However, these are just standard procedures. Given that he has violated the sanctity of the Clock Tower, the core of this agenda item is to decide whether a Lord should be dispatched as the Executor for immediate retrieval, and if so, which Lord shall undertake the task."
"Furthermore, the valuable 'materials' obtained from this Sealing Designation will be placed in the custody of the retriever, to be used for experimentation or research as they see fit."
….
Nominally, a "Sealing Designation" was a protective measure. It was stated to be a way to "protect" magi with unique talents from common threats, or to detain those who risked exposing Mystery in their pursuit of knowledge.
In reality? It was a polite way for the Mage's Association to purge magi who refused to bow to their rule, while simultaneously recycling them for parts.
It wasn't protection. Once a Sealing Designation was executed and the target "retrieved," that magus lost all human rights. They became "Specimens."
Usually, this meant being pickled in formalin. But keeping them alive as biological test subjects wasn't unheard of either.
This explained why Kiritsugu's dossier was laid out in such excruciating detail. It was a menu. The Lords were being invited to browse the goods and decide if they wanted to eat.
If one Lord wanted him, they would go. If multiple Lords wanted him, they would trade favors until a deal was struck.
Rimuru felt a pang of disappointment.
He had hoped to use this agenda item to smoke out which factions held malice toward him, maybe catch someone trying to block the investigation.
But obviously, in a Clock Tower controlled by the Twelve Families, expecting the Three Great Aristocratic Families to purge their own ranks for the sake of a mere Lecturer was a pipe dream.
The best he was going to get was Lorelei's opening warning shot, followed by the "gift" of capturing the assassin to placate him.
Even though Lorelei had the authority to order a capture, the fact that she framed it as a "negotiation" where Lords could volunteer proved the hegemony of the Twelve Families.
She wasn't commanding them; she was offering them a piece of meat.
The other Lords looked around at each other.
Silence. No one spoke up.
They were all old foxes. They knew the Archelot family would inevitably jump in to handle this mess. Why would they fight for it?
There was no profit! What would they gain? A favor from a future noble family? The Three Great Families didn't need favors. The lower-ranked families were actually worried Rimuru might eventually kick them out of their seats, so they had zero desire to invest in him.
Besides, no matter how much they sucked up, could they ever outbid the Archelots?
Did they want Kiritsugu as a specimen? Since the secret of his "Origin Bullets" wasn't widely known, in the eyes of these Lords, the only thing of value on Kiritsugu was his half-baked Magic Crest.
But that Crest only contained 20% of the Emiya Time Manipulation magic!
And the rest of the Emiya family magic... well, cough... Emiya Norikata's brain was already pickling in a jar somewhere in the Clock Tower's archives. They already had the original. Why fight for the watered-down copy?
Seeing the lack of interest, Rimuru wasn't angry. In fact, he was delighted.
He leaned in close, his lips brushing against May's ear, and whispered urgently.
"Secure the rights to this Sealing Designation."
These Lords had no idea what Emiya Kiritsugu was truly capable of. But Rimuru did.
Forget the fact that Kiritsugu had taken the Emiya family's lackluster Time Manipulation magic and refined it into Time Alter, a combat-ready spell capable of accelerating his own internal time. That alone was valuable.
But the real prize? The Origin Bullets.
Those things were worth their weight in gold. Actually, they were worth far more. They were Mage-Killers. "Severing and Binding." One shot could scramble a Magus's circuits permanently. With those bullets, Rimuru felt he could walk into any room in the Clock Tower and own the place.
Well, as long as I don't run into a True Ancestor, it's a one-hit KO.
And the best part? Rimuru was a Slime.
Kiritsugu had a limited supply of Origin Bullets because they required his own ribs, ground into dust, to act as the catalyst for his Origin. He only had so many bones to give.
But Rimuru? He had [Self-Regeneration].
And with [Predator], he could analyze and copy materials. In the original series, he could swallow a sword and mass-produce copies of it instantly.
If he swallowed just one Origin Bullet... or better yet, swallowed Kiritsugu's ribs directly...
Holy crap.
He could mass-produce Origin Bullets. He could spam them like a machine gun.
….
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