Empty.
Day after day, everything just stays the same.
Sixteen long years, and the emotions that someone young like me is supposed to have… in the end, none of them ever appear.
While people my age are super excited just because they're about to go swimming.
It's that simple—they can find joy so easily like that.
Meanwhile, I feel empty. I barely have even one real hobby that defines who I am…
No… I do have some, but they don't affect my personality at all. They're just ways to kill time.
Why is that? I keep asking myself over and over.
Is this just my nature—a huge gaping hole that needs someone to fill it?
Or have I simply not yet found the thing that can ignite real excitement in me, like Grandpa used to say?
If that's the case, then what should I do?
I don't want to keep living in boredom every single day…
I want… I want to experience joy… even just a little bit would be enough…
"Vincent, my stubborn grandson."
My grandfather—the one now lying on his hospital bed, dying—still tightly held my hand.
He was my paternal grandfather. After my parents died in a gas explosion fire, he was the one who raised me ever since.
That's why the fact that he was about to pass away made my mood absolutely terrible.
"What's wrong, Grandpa?"
"In the storage shed… there are a few things I left for you. You can keep them or burn them—whatever you want."
The storage shed? Wasn't that the place Grandpa always told me to stay away from? Was there something in there?
Seeing my confused expression, he just gave a faint smile.
"Nothing too serious… just a bunch of random junk I made when I was excited about stuff. Now that I'm old and about to die, those things don't even work anymore, so I gave up on them."
"But eh… if you want to take a look at them, go ahead and keep them. I'm pretty confident in what I created."
I could only nod at that.
Seeing my response, he smiled contentedly and patted my head.
"And if you… manage to do the thing I couldn't finish… then I beg you…"
"I beg you… please complete what I left unfinished, okay?"
I gripped his hand tightly, my eyes starting to water.
"Grandpa, explain it more clearly…"
"Hah… hahh…" He breathed heavily, motioning me closer.
When my ear was right next to him, he only managed a few words:
"Jalter… I'm entrusting... to you…"
Beep—
The heart monitor flatlined into a single long tone.
After those final words, he passed away.
"GRANDPA!!!!!"
A hollow person like me—who had no real hobbies or goals—finally found one.
***
The funeral was held a few days later.
Grandpa was buried together with the rest of our family. Now I'm the only one left.
I thought I was already used to being alone… only to realize just how lost I truly felt.
Relatives? Ugh, I don't want anything to do with them. Luckily they weren't interested in me either—there was no inheritance anyway.
Our family was poor. I have to pay taxes, earn my own money, go to school, and there's no one by my side.
The pressure is crushing, turning every decision into a thorny one.
"…"
I want to relieve stress, but I don't even know how. I can't find any clear source of joy to release it into.
[In the storage shed… there's… something, right? Just go to the shed, grandson.]
Even though Grandpa was gone, his voice seemed to echo beside my ear. I wasn't sure if those were really his words, but I felt I had to follow his last wish.
Jalter.
I searched Google, YouTube, everywhere—still had no idea what it was.
A person's name? An object? Something I didn't know about?
Or maybe it's Jenga but renamed Jalter so I wouldn't recognize it because I'm not adult?
Nah, no way… actually, it's possible. Grandpa was pretty crude and weird like that.
So I went to the storage shed, took out the key, and unlocked it.
The door slowly creaked open. Right in front of me was a workspace, dusty from years of neglect.
"Bookshelf… documents… pens… notebooks, huh? So this is where he wrote stuff?"
I stepped inside and looked around.
Then I noticed a large red circle drawn right on the floor.
"…No way. Is this—"
[That's right, my boy—that's—]
"A SATANIC SYMBOL?!"
[I'll beat you to death right now!!]
Even though Grandpa was dead, I could practically hear him yelling right next to me.
"What is this…?"
I picked up one of the notebooks. On the cover were some very messy handwritten words:
"Holy Grail... War? What the hell is this?"
I opened it. Inside was a chaotic mess of information.
But since I'm the grandson of the guy who wrote this for demons to read, it wasn't too hard for me to understand.
Basically, it described a Holy Grail War: seven Masters and seven Heroic Spirits (Servants) from different times and legends would fight each other for one wish.
The Servants could be real historical figures, fictional characters, or even beings that never existed.
Blah blah blah—tons of info I couldn't finish reading.
"Was Grandpa writing a novel? No wonder he said I could burn it or keep it."
Then I noticed another notebook.
Information about Heroic Spirits.
The moment I opened it, I was hit with his terrible drawings—I had to cover my eyes.
Right on the first page was the name that had been haunting me for days:
Jalter
Or more fully: Jeanne d'Arc Alter
"…"
Grandpa took a real historical figure… and turned her into an OC?
I guess… that's normal? Maybe?
So I read the info about Jalter.
She was a Servant born from Jeanne herself—perhaps created the moment Jeanne was burned alive, when people started believing she was a dragon witch.
Or maybe she was a flawed copy reborn from Gilles de Rais's wish, filled with hatred.
Either way, I felt she was quite pitiful.
Oh, she could be summoned as Ruler or Avenger class.
"Hmm… Grandpa actually wrote pretty decent stuff. If he turned this into a real novel, it might sell a lot."
I pulled up a chair, placed it right in the middle of the magic circle, and sat down.
I flipped to another page—stats, skills, everything laid out clearly for the Servants.
You could say he invested a lot in the characters… if only the handwriting wasn't so chaotic and the drawings weren't worse than a toddler's.
While I wasn't paying attention, the chair tilted—
Click!
"Ah!"
I fell backward. The notebook fell with me.
The moment my hand touched the circle on the floor, it began to glow.
"?!"
I jolted in shock, completely confused.
The notebook hit the ground and flipped open to a page near the end.
Avenger ★0
BOOM!
A blinding flash—then thick smoke filled the room.
"What the hell is happening?!" I coughed, trying to see through the haze.
…Only to meet a pair of pitch-black eyes staring straight at me, dark as the void.
Terror shot through me. I scrambled back and accidentally touched the notebook again.
"Hm… I don't sense any Grail around here… which means I can just be lazy! Best news ever!"
The voice was youthful and friendly—but somehow it filled me with instinctive dread.
The figure stepped forward and waved casually.
"Ahem, time for the iconic line! …Are you my Master? Haha, saying that never gets old! Too bad I'm not Saber." He started talking to himself cheerfully.
I just blinked repeatedly, having no idea what was going on.
"Alright, serious mode! I am Angra Mainyu—All the World's Evil, and also the weakest Servant! Pleasure to meet you, Master!"
He gave a friendly-yet-clearly-mocking smile, eyes gleaming with sarcasm.
Summoning Angra Mainyu should be impossible without something like the Einzbern method.
There wasn't even any catalyst related to Angra Mainyu here.
And because there was nothing, the summoning system had drawn from the very nature of the one performing it.
By chance… the emptiness inside Vincent, the boy desperately seeking entertainment, closely resembled two beings:
1. Angra Mainyu himself—who loves lounging around, but still enjoys human entertainment above all.
2. …A hollow young man carrying the ideal of justice passed down by his foster grandfather.
And so—Angra Mainyu, in the vessel of that boy, was summoned!