The night at the restaurant continued quietly.
After Ainz and Rimuru left, the dining area suddenly felt even more spacious, and while everyone sat around chatting to pass the time, Erina eventually brought up Kaori Miyazono.
The moment Kaori's name came up, sympathy and pity appeared clearly on Erina's face.
Kaori was still at an age when she should have been blooming like a flower, with nearly her entire life still waiting ahead of her, yet she had been suffering from a terminal illness that could have taken everything away before she ever had the chance to experience it.
Anyone with even the slightest compassion would feel helpless and saddened by something like that, and if Kaori had not happened to be fortunate enough to find her way into this restaurant, then perhaps the ending awaiting her would have been completely different.
"Fate really is unpredictable."
Erina sighed softly, and Yuto silently nodded in agreement.
In this ordinary world, perhaps the only thing harder to grasp than the passage of time itself was the strange course of fate.
For an ordinary person, a short human life was rather like walking through dense fog, never knowing what might be waiting beneath the next step.
Even so, people still had to continue moving forward, because wherever they chose to stop could only ever be temporary.
At that moment, the restaurant door moved.
After such a long stretch without a single customer arriving, someone had finally appeared.
"Welcome."
Yuto looked toward the entrance and immediately recognized the familiar pair of twin tails, red coat, black clothing, short skirt, and black stockings.
Rin was dressed exactly as usual, but her expression tonight looked remarkably like that of someone who had narrowly escaped disaster, as though she had only just managed to crawl alive from the jaws of a lion.
Archer stood beside her.
Several bloody gashes ran across his right arm, and fresh flesh could be seen beneath the torn skin, yet unlike Rin, he remained completely calm.
Even with injuries that looked painful enough to make an ordinary person grimace, his expression barely changed.
"Whew—good thing we got away in time!" Rin released a long breath the instant she stepped inside.
"Seriously, why does Berserker suddenly feel so much stronger?"
Archer did not answer.
He merely glanced down at his wounded arm and frowned faintly.
"Boss, give me a glass of water."
Rin ignored his silence and headed straight for the counter.
After sitting down, she immediately asked Yuto for a drink, and when he poured one for her, she raised it straight to her lips and drank deeply enough to make it obvious that she really was thirsty.
Archer silently took the seat beside her.
The wounds along his arm seemed to twitch faintly, and although he himself appeared unconcerned, the sight was gruesome enough that Yuto could not simply ignore it.
"Want me to help with that?"
Archer paused briefly before nodding. "If possible, could you bring me some bandages?"
"Bandages are enough?"
"Yes."
Yuto glanced at the wounds again before asking Tohru to go upstairs and find some.
He always kept bandages and other basic household medical supplies stocked somewhere in the restaurant, even though he personally had almost never needed to use them.
"Did you two get into a fight?" he asked while looking toward Rin.
Rin let out another long sigh before nodding.
"Looks like the Holy Grail War isn't going very smoothly," Yuto said with a faint smile.
"This wasn't supposed to happen." Rin propped her head against one hand, helplessness written all over her face.
"Archer might not be overwhelmingly powerful, but he's nowhere near weak enough to get beaten up like this. I have no idea why, but Berserker suddenly became much stronger."
The second mention of Berserker immediately caught Yuto's attention.
Illya's Servant was Berserker, and after what had happened with the divine gemstone Heracles had given her, a certain possibility began forming almost immediately in his mind.
"Calling your own Servant weak right in front of him..." Archer spoke in a completely flat tone. "You really are an unqualified Master."
"What? Am I not allowed to state the facts?" Rin shot back at once, showing absolutely no intention of admitting she had done anything wrong.
"So... did you temporarily retreat here?" Yuto asked carefully.
He had originally intended to say ran away, but considering how badly that wording might wound Rin's pride, he wisely changed it to something more diplomatic.
A faint flush immediately appeared across Rin's face.
"To be precise, we fled here," Archer said before she could answer.
Rin's face instantly darkened. "Did I ask you?! Boss was asking me!"
She glared furiously at him.
Archer's blunt declaration that they had fled had completely destroyed what little dignity she had managed to preserve, and as a proper young lady of the Tohsaka family, Rin cared a great deal about appearances.
"Am I not allowed to state the facts?"
Archer calmly returned her exact words from only moments earlier.
That made Rin even angrier!
She ground her teeth and silently fumed at him for several seconds before eventually forcing herself to calm down.
Getting into another argument with Archer would not improve their current situation, and temperamental though she might be, Rin still had enough sense to know when fighting was pointless.
At that moment, Tohru returned from upstairs carrying the bandages.
Archer thanked her, took them, and immediately began wrapping his injured arm.
Every turn of the bandage was pulled so tightly that merely watching him made Yuto's teeth ache.
"Are bandages really enough?"
"They're better than nothing," Archer replied without pausing. "Injuries inflicted by Servants can't be effectively treated using ordinary medical techniques from this era. The bandages will only be enough to keep me functional for the time being."
Once he finished, Archer tore the loose end of the bandage free and tied it off using his teeth.
Every movement was clean and practiced, making it obvious that this was far from the first time he had dealt with wounds in the middle of a battle.
"What was your opponent like?" Yuto asked.
Rin rested her chin against one hand again, and the helplessness quickly returned to her face.
"How should I put it? The Master herself doesn't seem particularly difficult to deal with. She's just a little girl. But that Servant is completely ridiculous."
She frowned more deeply as she remembered the fight.
"He's like a charging bull! There's no way ordinary human strength could ever stop something like that. Archer's attacks barely managed to leave shallow cuts on his body, and those wounds healed almost immediately. And despite being that huge, he's unbelievably fast and agile. I have absolutely no idea which figure from human history he's supposed to be, but seriously, how can someone be that strong?!"
By the time she finished complaining, Rin could only sigh weakly.
Tonight's encounter had clearly crushed a considerable amount of her fighting spirit.
They had not even been fighting for five minutes before Archer was wounded badly enough that retreat became necessary, and the difference between the two Servants had felt so absurdly large that she could hardly imagine how they were supposed to overcome it.
The comparison that came to her mind was something like putting a flintlock pistol against a modern assault rifle.
The difference was not merely noticeable; it was overwhelming.
What bothered her most, however, was that Berserker had not been this strong before.
During their previous encounters, Rin had still believed that she and Archer might have some possibility of defeating him if they fought carefully enough, but tonight's Berserker had given her a genuine sense of helplessness.
Standing in front of him had felt like facing an enormous, invincible lion that could tear both of them apart whenever it pleased.
As Yuto listened, the answer became increasingly obvious.
The Master was a little girl, the Servant was enormous and absurdly powerful, and his class was Berserker.
Taken together, those details left very little room for doubt.
"Does that little girl have white hair? And does she usually wear a purple dress?"
"Yeah, exactly..." Rin answered automatically before suddenly freezing.
She turned toward him with widened eyes. "Wait... Huh?! Boss, do you... know her?!"
Even Archer's expression changed slightly.
"Is her name Illya?" Yuto asked with a smile.
That completely confirmed Rin's suspicions.
She nodded almost blankly, and Yuto smiled as he gave a small nod in return.
"Mm. I know her."
Rin sucked in a sharp breath.
Good lord!
That revelation alone felt shocking enough to leave her dazed for an entire year.
"She's been to this restaurant too?"
"Mm. Illya's actually visited more times than you have."
Rin covered her face with one hand, momentarily unable to decide what she was even supposed to say.
The sheer absurdity of the coincidence left her completely speechless.
"Then Berserker..." She quickly lowered her hand again. "Do you know him too?"
"Hmm... Berserker himself has never spoken to me in the restaurant," Yuto said after a brief pause.
"But I do know another version of him."
Rin stared at him, her thoughts immediately beginning to race.
"Another version... Do you mean the person he was in the past, before becoming a Heroic Spirit?"
Several possibilities passed through her mind, but her instincts told her this was the most likely answer, and this time her intuition did not disappoint her.
Yuto nodded.
Rin's eyes instantly lit up. "Boss! Can you tell me who Berserker really is?!"
She leaned toward him with obvious urgency and anticipation.
If she knew Berserker's true identity, then perhaps she could discover some weakness, historical countermeasure, or other method of dealing with him.
Considering how badly the direct approach had gone, even a tiny advantage would be valuable.
Unfortunately for her, Yuto shook his head.
"No. I can't do that."
Rin's excitement froze instantly.
"One of the basic rules of the Holy Grail War is that nobody starts out knowing the identities of the other Servants, right?" Yuto smiled at her. "If I tell you who Berserker is, wouldn't I basically be interfering with the rules of the war?"
Rin felt as though something had lodged itself in her chest.
She really wanted to snap at him.
'If you weren't going to tell me, then why did you tease me with all that information in the first place?!'
Of course, she only dared think it.
When it came to Yuto, Rin still maintained a fair amount of caution.
She already knew enough about the restaurant to understand that its mysteries went far beyond anything she should casually provoke.
"Sigh... Boss, playing with a girl's heart like this is really immoral..."
"This already counts as playing with a girl's heart?" Yuto laughed casually. "I honestly didn't realize."
His relaxed attitude only made Rin feel even more helpless, but while she was silently complaining about him, another thought suddenly occurred to her.
Because of the special connection created through this restaurant, perhaps fighting Illya was not actually necessary at all.
If Illya was also a regular customer here and already knew Yuto, then there was a possibility Rin could simply talk to her directly.
The more she thought about it, the more reasonable the idea became.
They could not beat her anyway.
╮(╯▽╰)╭
If brute force had already proven useless, why not sit down and have a calm conversation instead?
Perhaps there was another way to resolve the conflict without continuing to throw Archer at a Berserker who suddenly seemed impossible to kill.
"I've got an idea! Thanks for the information, Boss!"
Rin's expression abruptly brightened.
Yuto blinked.
He had no idea what kind of plan had suddenly appeared in her head, but when he asked, Rin merely gave him a sly smile.
He had refused to tell her Berserker's identity, so now she would return the favor and keep her own idea secret.
A little retaliation from the young lady of the Tohsaka family.
Yuto smiled helplessly.
If she did not want to tell him, he had no intention of forcing the issue.
"Then I'm heading back now. See you, Boss!"
Rin immediately stood and said goodbye.
Archer rose beside her, gave Yuto a calm nod, and followed his Master out of the restaurant.
Yuto remained where he was for a moment, looking slightly helpless as the door closed behind them.
"Well, whatever."
He spread his hands and returned to chatting with Tohru and the others.
...
After Rin returned to her own world, she wasted no time putting her idea into action.
Taking Archer with her, she followed the lingering traces of Berserker's magical energy, and before they had traveled very far, they found Illya.
The little girl was sitting comfortably on Berserker's shoulder, while the enormous Servant stood beneath her like an unshakable fortress.
When Illya noticed Rin approaching again instead of continuing to run, she lightly covered her mouth and smiled.
"So you finally decided to stop running away, Onee-chan?"
Her voice was innocent and adorable, but the way she deliberately drew out every word somehow made the sentence sound even more chilling.
Rin swallowed and forced down the nervousness rising inside her.
Facing Berserker again still made every instinct warn her to be careful, but this time she had not come to fight.
"Let's talk."
Illya's eyes narrowed slightly.
The playful look in her gaze faded, replaced by scrutiny.
"Talk about what?"
Rin drew in a quiet breath before answering.
"For example... the restaurant."
The instant those words left her mouth, Illya's expression changed.
It was only a small reaction, but Rin caught it immediately, and her heart leaped with excitement.
Looks like her idea might actually work!