In a canyon of red clay soil several kilometers north of the cave Gilgamesh had been summoned in, a man was standing on a plateau of roughly the same elevation as the top floor of Crystal Hill. He was a scraggly thin man over two meters tall. A bow was gripped in his hands. It was larger than a normal great bow, but because it was being held by the slender man, it felt somewhat small. The man wore something that ought to be described as outlandish rather than strange. What would first attract one’s attention is the long piece of cloth vertically covering his body. It was not resting on his shoulders. Its center was placed over the top of his head, completely covering his face and the back of his head and then hanging down so as to conceal the front and back of his body. What can be seen of his face from the parts not covered by the cloth is at best the area around his ears, and one could not tell if even he could see in front. He had a skirt and undergarment behind the cloth and wore sandals, but he had no other piece of cloth on his upper body, and dark dye stained his exposed skin. There was also some form of pattern drawn in white dye on his body, but it was covered by the aforementioned cloth so its entirety could not be ascertained. The man, who at a glance looked like something that would appear in a horror game chasing after the main character, grinned beneath the cloth covering his face and gently drew the bow without a word. Then his fingers let go of the string, releasing a single arrow. At a speed far beyond the speed of the wind, beyond even the speed of sound.
Snowfield sky
A blade-like gust of wind hurtled through the city of Snowfield in a straight line. It cut through air and formed shockwaves, and by the time the boom resonated in the surroundings, the wind had already gone. In the center of the wind gust was a single arrow. Where it was heading was the top floor of Crystal Hill, a high-rise building at the heart of Snowfield. The arrow that the mysterious man shot had not decelerated, had not changed elevation, even briefly since he had fired it from the plateau in the canyon, and it continued moving forward like a laser beam while ignoring the laws of physics. The arrow had already travelled 20 kilometers, which by itself proved that the bowman was no human being, no normal magus. The shockwave plowed through the city sky, the sound and impact shattering the glass of buildings below its line of fire.
A human, no, even a Heroic Spirit would not be safe from a direct hit. Soon after piercing the top of its target’s head, the rest of the upper body would be blown to smithereens.
The arrow continued straight on course to its target. To the head of the person standing next to Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes who was occupying the top floor of Crystal Hill: his Master, Tine Chelc.
Crystal Hill Royal Suite
Tine, who had been facing Gilgamesh, glanced to the window on the north side.
“Eh…?”
The sound hadn’t reached her yet. She simply sensed some strange disturbance in the mana in the air and just looked in that direction without much thought, but –
By the time she noticed that the wind was being shredded, it had been too late. A single point of death was coming from her, already at a distance at which her reflexes could not act in time. However she moved, there were no means for her by which she could avoid the incoming arrow that was moving faster than sound. For her at least.
“…”
Instantly, thunder boomed outside the glass window when the arrow was within 20 meters from the hotel. Bright light dazzled, and innumerous small bolts of lightning ran across the sky. Of those, one had directly hit the arrow and dissipated what should have been a deadly blow in the air. Still, the shockwave shattered the glass, coming at all sides in the room.
“ ”
Tine casted a silent chant, and wind swirled from her hand to become a barrier that deflected the glass shrapnel raining down on herself, Gilgamesh, and her subordinates.
“Are you uninjured?”
She asked Gilgamesh after regaining her breath.
Then the King of Heroes, who remained uninjured, answered unamused.
“I am fine.”
“What was that lightning?”
“The lightning was one of my Noble Phantasms. It seems that it intercepted something.”
Upon hearing this nonchalant reply from Gilgamesh, Tine mumbled something on reflex.
“Intercepted?”
Tine looked outside the window and saw multiple disks floating above the building.
“An autodefensor. There was a chance that my friend would spring a surprise attack in jest, so I had readied it in case, but–“
Gilgamesh shifted his eyes to the north and took out a noble phantasm from his vault. It was a golden ring, which floated in the air, as seems to be the case with such objects, and had a strangely warped lens fit inside. Though it was a single lens, it showed the distant landscape like a telescope.
“I did not think it would deflect an arrow from a mere Archer.”
In the ring was a man boldly drawing a bow in this direction.
“Archer…?”
Questions entered Tine’s mind. Archer was none other than Gilgamesh. So it would have to be a Rider, Assassin, or Berserker-class Servant using a bow for a weapon. Tine looked at Archer through the golden ring and what surprised her first was how high his status values were. If you were to consider his total status points alone, it would appear that he was greater than Gilgamesh.
Then it must be a Berserker?
Gilgamesh muttered without changing his expression before an apprehensive Tine.
“….Will you come with me?”
But the second shot had already been fired.
The bolts of lightning from the autodefensor activated and went to intercept the incoming arrow, but while several bolts had struck it, the arrow managed to slip through the firing interval and came for Gilgamesh. The speed at which electricity transmitted through the air, the speed of lighting in other words, is slower than light, but it should have been fast enough to catch a normal arrow. But the speed of the arrow went beyond the limits of humanity. Gilgamesh instantly manifested his armor and knocked the arrow away with his left gauntlet. However, apparently not completely nullifying its force, a portion of the armor shattered and chips of gold fell to the floor.
“….Ho.”
Gilgamesh coldly looking at the chips of his armor narrowed his eyes slightly, and then,
“Impressive bowmanship, however… I will shake off the rust from my treasures with you, you manner-less barbarian!”
An enormous noble phantasm appeared to the side of the top floor, outside of the shattered glass.
“What is this?”
“Tine, get on the back.”
“Are you sure of it?
“If I leave you behind, I cannot protect you from those infernal arrows. Until I fulfill my promise with my friend, I cannot have you die.”
Tine nodded strongly to answer the plainly-spoken words of the King and boarded the rear of the huge noble phantasm. It looked like it was a golden yacht with large fairy wings. It was the noble phantasm Vimana, a small aerial battleship among the noble phantasms of Gilgamesh. The King’s Treasure which is said to include all treasures included not only weapons but the crystallizations of all knowledge produced by man. When Tine was on the rear of Vimana on all fours, Gilgamesh launched the golden vehicle. The sudden acceleration almost caused Tine to be blown off unwittingly, but she managed to regain her balance and breath by using wards against wind and gravity control magic. Gilgamesh stood powerfully on the bow and sent the battleship toward Archer. Sometimes arrows launched by Archer would come but the dozens of interception systems deployed around it completely shot down all of them.
“This is amazing…”
The girl unconsciously exclaimed with emotion after seeing again what it was she was riding on.
“It can even do this…”
Was it awe or was it wonder that was contained in the emotions in the voice of the girl?