Snowfield's underground facility, Dumas's workshop
Under the police station, there is a web of underground tunnels connecting to several downtown facilities.
Further within it, 20 meters below the ground, there is the workshop of the Caster of the police force, Alexandre Dumas Pere.
Dumas was in the back of the room working on some project. The others beside him were Orlando Reeve, his Master and the Chief of the Snowfield Police, and his subordinate Vera Levitt, both in the center of the room.
Dumas's cheerful voice contrasted with Orlando's sullen face.
"Crystal Hill had some fine restaurants, I gotta tell ya. I had no idea a good bouillon's supernate could work as a frying oil. The inside of the meat was left in a prime state."
"I give up on complaining about your unauthorized excursions... Binding you here with a Command Spell would only make your work even slower."
"Hoh, I'm glad you're getting a better hang of how I roll, brother. C'mon, you look like you're about to roast me. Don't be like that. It's a miracle that the cop squad escaped that situation with no casualties at all. There was a mass murder going on around them, not to mention whatever was up with the dream world."
"..."
The chief silently thought about Dumas's words.
(Whatever appeared after Flat Escardos's death didn't attack the police. Does that confirm that that creature is Flat Escardos and that our truce is still in effect...? In that case, is it possible to stay in touch with him?), he examined his group's next course of action, careful not to get his hopes up too much.
"Kuruoka Tsubaki's biolevels are a stage lower, from what I can tell. The situation's looking highly unpredictable...", said Vera.
From the corner of his eyes, he could see her pair of eyes clouded by impatience as she spoke, which was unusual for someone who always carried herself like a cold blade.
"We received no further updates. My sister will be with her night and day, but she's unsure if the girl will last 3 more days."
"I see. If it comes to that, her Servant won't be able to maintain its Saint Graph after the Master's death. I'm sorry for your sister, but that thing can lock an immense amount of people and Heroic Spirits within its Reality Marble. After seeing that much power, I cannot approve of the idea of saving someone who endangers the city and its people."
"... Yes, sir."
"The most dangerous outcome here is that the Heroic Spirit forms a new contract with someone else... but a hero this powerful should disappear the instant its power supply is cut. Although we shouldn't lower our guards until we have confirmation."
Vera didn't argue against the chief practically telling her to abandon Tsubaki.
She was among the ones who personally experienced her Heroic Spirit's power.
Without Saber's help, she would have lost many allies, if not the whole squad.
To still want to save her knowing that meant abandoning everyone else in the whole city.
Nonetheless, thinking about how her sister clueless about the world of magecraft would risk her life to save this girl inevitably left her dreary.
This was not how a mage should think, but the chief taught her not to think like a mage, and she knew many others in the police force would think the same way.
In a sense, most of them were where they were precisely due to their inability to abandon normal human morals and philosophies as a mage ought to.
That aside, as someone who has been with Orlando for a long time, Vera knows this decision frustrates the chief more than it frustrates any officer.
Considering his logical mage mind and his position as the chief, the ideal answer for him would be not to abandon Tsubaki, but to actively eliminate her.
Or to promptly conclude the Holy Grail War to see if her health would improve by being released from the Command Spells.
(What am I even trying to get at here...?)
Pained by the naivete of the convenient delusions she was investing her hopes in, Vera tried to reorganize her thoughts discarding the emotional aspect completely.
Her attempt was interrupted by a soothing yet striking smell stimulating her heart by tickling her nasal cavities.
"...?"
When she lifted her head, she saw Dumas coming from the back of the room carrying a large tray.
The appetizing smell came from it. The chief next to her looked at Dumas with a raised eyebrow.
"Yo, it's done."
Ignoring the eyes in his direction, Duman placed the tray on the meeting table.
Strangely enough, the cheap work desk had its color and shape overwritten, turning into a luxurious dining table that could only be found in a noble castle or a very traditional restaurant.
The tablecloth fluttered with the breeze and the scene was softly illuminated by all the candlestands that appeared out of nowhere.
The contents of the tray were so finely decorated that Vera felt satisfied just looking at it.
The meat dish formed a model of a royal court garden with its pie crust, sauce, vegetables cut into specific shapes, and mousse. Even the thin slices of truffle served as a side dish contributed to the "landscape" constructed atop the plate.
Even disregarding the decorative vegetables, this was a product of technique polished by devoted study, far beyond the level that could be achieved by a gourmand who only consumed without creating.
It was practically a complete sculpture, but its rich aroma made the will to eat it as soon as possible overwhelm the feeling it would be a waste to eat this piece of art. The most vivid color in this piece was the color of flavor that stimulated the tongue and the stomach.
"What's this...?"
"Huh? It's the same thing I did to your weapons. Just embellished the table's history a tiny bit. You know Projection magecraft? It's sorta like a variant of that. Your stuff will be back to normal once you finish your dish.", Dumas responded to Orlando's grumble.
"No, that's not what I meant... Did you prepare this meal?"
"Oh, yeah, there were some leftover weapons and some trinkets no one was using, so I rewrote them all into cooking utensils. No worries though, I wouldn't turn a venom dagger into a kitchen knife."
The Servant spoke without a shred of guilt, but the chief was more overcome by surprise than by anger or annoyance. He knew Dumas was so meticulous of a gourmand that he would personally hunt the meat he cooked, but his level of skill was several stages beyond his imagination.
"Did you use your magecraft for this meal?"
"Nope. My amateur magecraft ain't no reliable tool for someone trying to create flavor."
"I see... You view your cuisine above your Noble Phantasm's productions, and so you... No, I won't complete this sentence. I was wondering what you were doing back there, but I'd never have guessed you were cooking. Were you concealing the smell?"
"Wouldn't want you two stopping me halfway through. I found a good pheasant in town, so I couldn't let this chance slide."
Dumas remained always unrepentant.
Seeing the chief's exasperated sigh, Dumas opened a speech, turning the other way to ensure his saliva wouldn't fall into the dishes.
"At first, I was going to make galantine fond accompanying a Lucullus-based remix of something in Tete Noire's menu, but I didn't have the ingredients I wanted. I also wanted to try this era's pie crust while I'm still here, so I tried my hand at fowl breast with pie borders. Pheasant is by far the best-smelling bird to me, so I held back on the aromatic legumes for the sauce. But if pheasant is not your thing, I can give the recipe a quick fix, brother and miss. Not something I normally do, but I wanna serve you the very best on this special occasion."
Vera looked at the plate with even more surprise in reaction to Dumas's most fluent commentary yet.
"What a surprise. Your first order after your summon was hamburgers, so I didn't see you as the kind to cook this kind of food."
"Heheh. Is that something someone who read my novels, plays, or biographies would say, miss Vera? If you really wanna know me, you gotta read my writing about food. The Three Musketeers and La Comtesse de Salisbury are not the only places to find my essence. If anything, my cookbooks are where I'm at my most Dumas."
After this cheerful remark, Dumas returned to the back of the room and came back with three plates.
"Since the day of my summon, I've been eating everything, from those hard general store jellies and dollar hamburgers to high-class meals that practically took our whole war funds. I tried adapting myself to this era's table manners, and well, it's been a great time. Can't say I got no complaints, but that might be just me being antiquated, so I gave everything a fair shot."
Encouraging the two to sit down, Dumas cut the meal in three and took each slice to each plate.
Contrary to usual rusticness, Dumas's gestures on the dinner table were completely refined.
Vera and the chief looked at each other confused by this random development, but neither could bring themselves to say it was not the time for this.
There was a hidden meaning to Dumas's behavior.
His past attitude shows he was the kind to throw these kinds of hints, but much more importantly, the gastronomic charm of the dish was enough to fill even the straight-laced Orlando and Vera with hunger.
Long story short, this dinner was unquestionably the absolute best Orlando and Vera have ever experienced.
After the meal, Dumas brought his full wine glass to his mouth with a burst of stifled laughter.
"Man, nothing beats the progress of history research. I got to learn that what I wrote back in the day about Chef Taillevent being Charles VII's cook is now seen as bullshit. It'd be fine if I said that in a novel or play because him working for Charles VII makes for a more interesting story, but of all things to get my facts wrong, I did it in a cookbook. Though the next advancement in that research might prove I was actually right, who knows?"
Dumas showed no signs of caring about his supposed mistake.
"But man, I feel blessed to learn culinary research is still making its breakthroughs. Can't fucking believe we already learned how to eat ox kidney in the present day. I can say with absolute confidence that cooking is one of the energy sources fueling humanity's evolution. Like, I know eating's one of our three major physical needs, but I really think this one is the most fundamental of them all."
Dumas's eyes were half-closed, but his eyelids couldn't hide the passionate glimmer in his pupils as he continued.
"We want to evolve today's dinner beyond yesterday's dinner. Evolve in what direction? Make it tastier? More digestible? Cheaper? Lighter? Healthier? Doesn't matter. As long as there's at least one man trying to take cooking to the next step, this culture will never see stagnation."
At this point, he quickly shrugged. The next part felt more like a self-reminder than something said to others.
"But don't get me wrong, dude. I'm no believer that newest is always best when it comes to food. The best sheep roast I ate in my life still beats anything you can with the latest big city stove. When I was visiting a ruin in Djem-Djem and got treated to a whole wood-roasted sheep. Real desert cuisine."
"Wood-roasted? Not what I would expect to be best."
"Just 'cause something is roasted under ash and dirt, it doesn't make it rustic or messy. The pre-cooking process is very meticulous and based on ages of history and experience. Even now I look back to it as better than any mutton I found in any European restaurant. Well, I don't know how things are looking now, though... Ah, now I wanna eat that again. Book us a ticket to Tunis, brother."
"Don't be ridiculous, we still haven't settled the matter preventing people from leaving the city."
The phenomenon presumed to have been caused by Kuruoka Tsubaki's Servant still hadn't fully stabilized.
They presumed the Servant only spread a "disease" of unusual qualities, without actively manipulating the infected.
The patients in the hospital already regained their sanities and were presumably freed from the dream world, yet they still feel pressured into not wanting to leave the city, and half of the people who did leave soon returned after experiencing bouts of terror and anxiety.
"By now, the mental domination should be considerably weaker, no? Pretty sure any mage with a half-decent Mystic Code should be able to escape the city."
"Wait, Caster... What do you know?"
Offput by Caster's wording, the chief switched mental channels, immediately eliminating the dinner's aftertaste.
"C'mon, you figured this was coming. Those meteorites or satellites or whatever that fell all over the world yesterday... Anyone can tell this city is ground zero, yet your mastermind buddies didn't even call to say hi. You came here 'cause you want answers. More exactly, you wanna go to a floor below here, to check if that sham Greater Grail of yours was taken somewhere else."
"...Exactly."
"I got you, brother. After that much of an effect on the world, it's obvious you'd wanna know what your 'bosses' decided. Your goal is to regulate the ambient surrounding the Holy Grail War... the human society here. Screw up and everyone's dead. RIP. You don't want that, do you, brother?"
"Be concise. What do you know?"
For the longest time, Caster could gain information through a network that not even Orlando could identify.
Judging by his subordinates' accounts and general conjecture on Dumas's abilities, Dumas most likely modified stories about his computer, radio, and internet, elevating them into pseudo-Mystic Codes, objects with parameters lower than his usual Noble Phantasms.
The chief was certain of his speculation and thought today was the day to put it to the test, but just when the time was right for the big reveal, he came across a more important question he needed to ask first. What does Caster know?
The chief's question was more serious than ever. After averting his eyes for a moment, Dumas answered choosing his words carefully.
"The dudes said... Code 983 [Aurora fall]. You know what that means?"
"...! When will it be executed? How long do we still have left?"
"Oh, you ain't doubting me?"
"I don't know what that dinner was supposed to represent, but I can't imagine it being a build-up for a poor joke. No man is as faithful to cuisine as you are. Having tasted your cooking, I can tell!"
The chief's declaration erased all emotion from Dumas's face for an instant before refilling it with a delighted smile accompanied by a shrug.
"Man, you're a real square. That's fine. The order was issued at 16:23 if we're going by our timezone. To be executed 48 hours later. Miss Francesca and Faldeus should've already gotten the news."
"15 minutes ago...? Caster, you started cooking because you predicted this development?"
"My bad, that was just your typical Heroic Spirit self-indulgence. I had this prediction I was hoping would be off the mark, but I didn't tell you about it before the dinner 'cause I knew you wouldn't take your time to savor it if I did. 'sides, brother, I wasn't thinking your 'bosses' really were this messed up in the head."
"..."
Dumas reacted to the chief's silence by wiping his smile and asking a question.
"Brother, weren't you half-sure this was going to happen yourself?"
"Yes, I won't deny. That's why I assumed Francesca would be here hiding the Greater Grail... or is she planning to do it later?"
After hearing the two talk, Vera asked her chief a question with a raised eyebrow.
"Chief, pardon the intrusive question, but what is Code 983... [Aurora fall]?"
"It's the codename of an operation to erase everything in this city, including the land's magecraft foundation... by launching a special warhead of the highest degree."
"...!"
"This 48 hours countdown is to give them time to prepare this event's concealment. It will have to go in history as a major calamity on a global scale... I believe the public news will say that a part of a planetoid fell directly on the city."
Vera was shocked from hearing the specifics.
She was warned this could happen.
She was ready for the worst if it came to it.
But hearing concrete confirmation that it would happen, Vera's heart grew tenser than ever before.
All in her mind were images of her fellow officers, the city's landscape, and her sister fighting day after day unaware of what was happening behind the scenes.
Vera's face remained expressionless but her body was drenched in sweat. Her chief made a dispassionate comment.
"If our internal treatment was ever deemed incapable of processing the situation, the city could be obliterated on Faldeus's command. That was Code 982... [Abyss rise]. This one is a program to overcharge the Grail and the dragonveins, triggering abnormal activities on the magma deposits to make the city's erasure look like an eruption. [Aurora fall], on the other hand, comes from outside... In other words, it's a device set in case our superiors deem the Holy Grail War to be unmanageable. To be used before a destructive seam is torn in the world."
"Can we request the operation to be canceled?"
"If we forcibly destroyed the Grail, Heroic Spirit activity will become almost impossible. The remaining Heroic Spirits' rampage is something we have a high chance of managing to keep under control. However..."
For this last part, the chief tried his best to keep a neutral face, but his voice betrayed his frustration.
"The problem is that new variables besides the Heroic Spirits have been added."
"You mean Flat Escardos and... the Einzbern homunculus?"
"Both were initially included in the Holy Grail War system. Flat Escardos was one of the multiple mages chosen for the unspecified Master slots... and the Einzbern homunculus was lured here by Francesca to serve as the Lesser Grail's vessel.
But now both of them had turned into something else entirely.
According to Francesca's and Faldeus's reports from the last few days, the Einzbern homunculus was possessed by something completely extraneous to her original personality. And whatever is possessing her (Francesca showed strong hints that she knows what it is) is stronger than a lower-grade Heroic Spirit.
"In a normal Holy Grail War, the energies of the Heroic Spirit who leave the competition are accumulated in the Lesser Grail... Does this mean whatever is inside the Lesser Grail homunculus will benefit from this power?"
Even with a fake Greater Grail that can't hope to reproduce Third Magic, the total amount of magical energy accumulated is enough for it to function as a wish-granting device without a hitch.
(When the Grail War reaches its last stages, the Lesser Grail shifts from human to vessel... Is this what's happening with her?)
If the power of the Grail accumulates in someone with free will and this someone leaves the city unrestrained, whatever she does will be extremely difficult to conceal.
Whatever used to be Flat Escardos demonstrated better than anyone why Orlando was worried about power being directed outside of the city.
Nations with shallower knowledge of magecraft are either buying the idea that asteroid fragments and space debris fell down or suspecting it was some other country's missiles exploding or an intentional destructive act.
But magecraft organizations, chiefly the Clock Tower, and the greater nations connected with those organizations already figured out the truth.
That destruction was caused by the power of an individual.
They could conceal the desert crater from the beginning of the Grail War by sacrificing a gas company, but there's nothing they can do beyond that.
(Things could have been so different if we had the Holy Church's full cooperation...)
The police chief recalled the face of the eyepatched priest.
In the past, his hometown was turned into hell overnight by high-grade vampires. A group of monsters of incalculable power: an Ancestor accompanied by superior Dead Apostles.
Every time something like this happens, the Holy Church manages to successfully cover it up with its connections and arcane knowledge. Despite its continued successful streak, they have been excluded from the Holy Grail War in Snowfield, being complete outsiders to the ritual.
That Hansa Cervantes was using the precedent of the Fuyuki's overseers to forcibly butt in, meaning it was hard to tell how willing to cooperate he was.
(That said, the arcane concealment is as major of a principle for them as it is for us. Shameless as it may sound, it might be worth it to invite him to fight alongside us. Although considering the Church's policies, his answer might be "48 hours is too long, explode the city in 3 hours"... That would be a huge gamble.)
"Hah... Nice eyes, brother. They show you haven't thrown the towel. You don't want to make my treat your last supper.", happily said Dumas.
"Of course not. If Faldeus is cutting us off from his group, then I won't care about him either. As a chief of police loyal to the United States of America, I'll act taking the safety of the citizens as my utmost priority.", replied Orlando.
"Are you sure? You might be getting other cities trampled by the monsters coming out of this one, y'know? Ain't that why the bigwigs are trying to quash them?"
"I won't allow that either. Not to mention that I don't believe that destroying the city and the Grail in it will disperse that mutated Flat Escardos or... as much as I hate to admit, that dangerous hurricane that's blatantly running in our direction."
"So knowing everything coming your way, you still plan to fight to the very end? Nice! You're a real brother! If you chose to quit and drown your sorrows, I'd have rewritten your whole life."
Dumas rose from his chair, grinning.
"Clan Calatin is about to get busy. But when it's their lunchtime, bring them to me. One by one if you need to. I wanna treat the whole team to the same dinner you just had."
"Does this act have any magecraft significance?"
"Nope. None. It's just that since you want the whole team to survive, I should give them something to remember me by."
Vera and Orlando were dumbfounded at this nonchalant confession.
"Remember you?"
"I told ya, it's just self-indulgence. The novels I wrote are now something anyone can have, and writing a new one just for them doesn't feel like enough of a gesture of gratitude. So I just thought I should hit the bunch with my cooking and one day get them to look back and say 'Ah, that food Dumas treated me to that day was the best I've ever had. No, I must prepare greater delicacies with my own hands! Run, to the peaks of flavor!'... That's my way of providing material support.", Dumas joked. But the next part of his line was far more genuine. "Did you know? The pheasant is a species that was introduced to Europe when Captain Jason's Argonauts brought them from Colchis to Greece. Doesn't that make it a great shot of energy for someone trying to be a hero? I could tell you more about it, but we're on a time limit. Go do your thing. If you have any Noble Phantasm you need, I can help you choose the right thing while the bouillon is boiling."
"Caster."
"What?"
The serious Orlando bowed to the humming Dumas to thank him.
"As a mage and a police officer, I'm under no obligation to humor your illogical sentimentality... but as a chief, I'm grateful for your appreciation of my subordinates."
Dumas saw his Master's face looking surly as ever, but this time he felt a tinge of honest optimism in it.
"I'll have less time to eat and sleep in the next two days, but I can't afford to collapse on the job. Please, make me something nourishing."
With these final words, Vera and the chief left. After watching them on the way out, Dumas monologued with a stifled burst of laughter.
"Shit man, today might be the last breather day with no clashes among Heroic Spirits, and here I am this busy. Well, we are walking the tightrope to see whether or not the city will be dead in 2 days... Depending on how things go, that might have actually been my last supper."
(I really wonder if we aren't biting more than we can chew. I don't have many cards left in my hand. I'm definitely getting to watch the interesting real story I initially wanted, but it sucks that those guys are so willing to sacrifice themselves in a blaze of glory.)
A deep sigh.
"I got a bit too attached to brother's team to stay purely a spectator... Am I losing my edge?", self-derisively spoke Dumas.
After cleaning up the dishes, Dumas felt like checking the collection of books lined up on a shelf in the corner of the workshop.
They took notice of the English version of his own The Three Musketeers which he bought in the local bookstore.
The shelf contained many books by other authors of his era, not only his own.
He took one of those.
An illustrated edition of a fairytale written by an author he was friends with in life.
"Can't believe kids these days still read his books. The Tallow Candle. Ain't that one he chose not to put on sale? He made excuses that he was too immature back when he wrote this one, but it was honestly my favorite..."
He made comments to himself as he flipped the pages, but then his eyes stopped at an illustration of a girl lighting a match.
"Her memories are drawn inside the match's flames. I don't think that's what he envisioned, but this arrangement kinda resembles the way we Heroic Spirits work..."
With those self-derisive words, Dumas flipped the next page and...
"Hm?"
Noticing something wrong, he reread the page.
"Ah?"
The page he had open showed the final scene of the fairytale about the girl who sold matches.
He immediately realized what was wrong.
The ending was completely different from the original version of the fairytale he was familiar with.
The end where the girl freezes to death immersed in her beautiful memories was replaced by an ending where she was saved by a wealthy family and lived a happy life.
"Hey hey hey... Wait, wait, wait, is this shit for real?"
This picture book was one of the regionally published versions that rewrite the tragic endings into happy endings.
"You... Godamnit..."
He rechecked the author's name in disbelief, and after doing so, his hand started trembling.
"Hahahaha...! Good Lord! How is this even allowed?"
He burst out in laughter.
"I thought the guy who genderbent Aramis in his version of my The Three Musketeers was onto something, but this is on a whole other level... They completely changed the core fundamentals of a masterpiece by the man with the most unremovable stick up his ass! They completely changed his very life!"
With stars in both eyes, he raised his fairytale anthology up high and continued yelling.
"No freaking way! One of my main jobs was adapting stuff into theater scripts, but I sure as hell never flipped an established narrative back on its head like this! Old Mr. Ducis's Shakespeare localizations got nothing on this! They just wanted to put that ending there, coherence be damned! I always thought things would turn out very different if were to write a story on the same themes... But then you just change the end and sell the thing keeping the original title and author's name! Unbelievable! Well played, modern publishers! This is hilarious! I'm dying to see the face he would make! What would I do to say 'But y'know dude, this happy ending surely took some people out of their dark places, and they'll be thanking you for it' right to his sullen face!"
It's hard to judge if he was on good or bad terms with the original from this long-winded cackling speech.
That is, until his smile turned considerably softer.
"Well, with this much provocation... he'll probably just insist this is the one story he'll never talk about... Of all potential new endings to include, they put one about being saved by a rich family. It's how the quote goes... Life is a series of ironies. Every man to take foot in this world is hideous, yet nonetheless beautiful are their fates!"
He closed the book with nostalgic eyes, reminiscing about his lifetime.
"And that's why you gotta read the books you buy instead of just letting the pile grow!"
Dumas closed his eyes. Not a hint of a previous melancholy. The moment of his summon was the only other time he ever felt this alive.
"Ok, now that he got me motivated, let's put this brain to work."
The phone behind him rang.
He figured it was the police chief calling to inform him how many officers would come for dinner.
He headed to the phone, still devising the secret spices of his recipe, but while also redirecting part of his thoughts into plotting a new script.
"Time to devise a way to deck the faces of the dudes ignoring us before we freeze to death."
