"I regret absolutely nothing."
In the garden, Iskandar puffed out his broad chest, meeting the Knight King's gaze head-on with a bold declaration.
"If my decisions and those of my subjects led to such a result, then destruction was inevitable. I will mourn, and I will shed tears, but I will never regret! To attempt to overturn history is a foolish act—it is an insult to all the humans who lived in the era I built."
Iskandar spoke with an air of proud majesty. Arthur (Proto-Arthur) found himself momentarily speechless; the chasm between their ideologies was so vast that he couldn't find the words to argue back.
Suddenly, a biting chill washed over Arthur, pulling him back to reality. It was Archer's gaze.
The Golden Servant had left Arthur to Iskandar while he sat leisurely sipping his wine, but now his crimson eyes were scanning Arthur with a disturbing intensity. Gilgamesh said nothing, but his look carried a predatory, lewd undertone—like a snake slithering over skin, filling Arthur with a sense of humiliation and unease.
"...Archer, why are you looking at me like that?" Arthur asked, shivering slightly and tensing up.
"Ah, I am simply admiring the expression of your agony." Gilgamesh's smile was unexpectedly tender yet terrifying. "Your face looks like a pure virgin about to be deflowered in a bedchamber. It truly delights me. Continue to play the role of the clown, suffering for your dream of restoration; I enjoy it. Perhaps, if you entertain me enough, I shall grant you the Grail as a reward?"
Compared to Kamitani Yuu, whom his other self favored, this Gilgamesh appreciated Arthur as a rare, amusing plaything.
"You bastard...!"
For Arthur, this was an unforgivable mockery. He smashed his cup onto the ground, his face flushing with uncontrollable rage. Gilgamesh's words triggered a memory of Lucius Tiberius, the Sword Emperor he faced during the Roman campaign.
"Does Britain still hold monsters like you? If so, I, Rome, must have you! You and your Britain both!"
The arrogant posture and debauched words of the red-haired Roman Emperor overlapped perfectly with the Gilgamesh before him. This eerie hallucination made Arthur's hair stand on end. His hand twitched toward Excalibur, but logic dictated it wasn't time to strike yet. Attacking over a disgusting comment would be a failure of a King's caliber. He suppressed his fury, staring coldly at the smiling Golden King.
Silence fell again, the air so heavy it was difficult to breathe. After a long while, Iskandar turned his attention to Kamitani Yuu and Fionn, who had been quietly "eating melons" (watching the drama).
"By the way, we haven't heard the wishes of you two yet, have we?"
"I have no wish to entrust to the Grail," Yuu said, shaking his head with a smile. "If I must say something, I only want the prana accumulated within it."
A lie. Yuu had no desire for the Grail at all; to him, the omnipotent wish-machine was just an external tool. If he had a wish, he would achieve it through his own strength. Besides, he had already siphoned plenty of prana from Kayneth's "Grail-level" batteries.
"If an omnipotent wish-machine truly exists, I would wish to change my fate of constant romantic disasters," Fionn added with a sigh. "As you can see, I am beautiful, and thus I cause many tragedies..."
As Ireland's premier hero, Fionn's romantic history was disastrous, his life plagued by calamities caused by women. He had even used magecraft to temporarily seal his magical charm in this summoning to avoid another tragedy like Diarmuid and Gráinne.
"I see... so those are your wishes..." Iskandar rubbed his chin, then grinned. "Then it seems my caliber is the highest. Why don't you all just let me have the Grail?"
"Stop joking, Rider," Arthur snapped, his eyes sharp. "I have a wish to fulfill. I will not step aside."
"Say what you will. I give only one warning to thieves who covet my treasure—next time, I will kill you." Gilgamesh's red eyes glowed with a cold, predatory light.
The atmosphere turned lethal. Yuu quickly used prana to dispel the slight tipsiness from the wine. He knew the time for "righteous mobbing" (jumping Gilgamesh) had arrived. The banquet was over; the war had returned.
In the wordless silence, the four Servants and Kamitani Yuu slowly stood up. Terrifying prana reactions surged from their bodies, kicking up a gale that sent dust flying. Moments later, cold, gleaming Noble Phantasms appeared in their hands.
"Since we cannot settle this with wine, we shall settle it with steel," Iskandar declared.
"The Grail belongs only to the strong!"
___
There's a few advance chapters on my P@treon
Usually upload 2 Chapters a day in there, except Saturday and Sunday
45 Chapters Ahead, and will continue to increase
[email protected]/Sp1ced
If you're new to this stuff just replace "@" with "a" for the right link ^^