Simultaneous Transmigration: We Share a Role-Playing System

Chapter 128 The Magician of the Clock Tower, Victor

Outside the snow-covered city, surrounded by heavy snow, Gemstone Elder and his senior apprentice, Clock Tower Dean Bricissan, sat in a makeshift snow-proof enclosure, enjoying English black tea and remarking with emotion:

Gemstone Elder: "The Chaos God, no wonder he wants to change the future. It seems that no matter what great achievements he makes, new difficulties will always arise."

Dean of the Clock Tower: "After breaking free from the restraining force, we will face the encirclement and attack of other planets in the solar system. After conquering the solar system, we will face other civilizations. It seems that humanity's conquest is not just about dreaming of looking up at the stars, but more about its own survival."

Gemstone Elder: "Star Vanguard, Machine God, Devouring Swarm, Spore Lifeform, Sleeping Soulless One, and Chaos God. Fortunately, we have been abandoned by the times and no longer need to face these terrible opponents."

As payment for helping him break free from the influence of the evil god, Gemstone Elder and his senior brother agreed to Locke's request and set up a barrier in Snowfield City.

As a result, this hot summer desert was suddenly hit by a blizzard that surrounded the entire city.

Just as the two were lamenting the hardships ahead and admiring each other's contributions to humanity, a flower magician dressed in white appeared there.

Jewel Elder: "Huh? How come it's you? You actually showed up too."

Merlin: "Haha, although I personally really didn't want to come out, it was my grand-disciple who caused this, and I'm afraid of being held accountable later, so I'll just go out and make a statement."

Gemstone Elder: "In that case, you're preparing to—"

Halfway through his sentence, the Gem Elder revealed an expression of anticipation, curious about the other party's attitude, because their true job was simply to stop those who were not qualified. According to the agreement, if they could pass through the barrier they had set up, they could come and go freely.

They were also curious about what this guy was up to.

What? You're saying he's afraid of being held accountable later? Haha, who would believe that?

Merlin's attitude was also very clear. He waved his hands in a helpless expression and said bluntly, "Of course we'll just watch the show from outside. Anyway, with you guys around, it doesn't matter if something happens."

After saying that, he sat down next to the two of them as if they were old friends, and extended his hand to Brissison to introduce himself.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I am Merlin, and you must be Brisesson, Solomon's apprentice. I've long admired your name."

In a certain future 40,000 years from now, the human emperor who rules the galaxy is in the snowy city of the desert in the scorching summer sun, but a continuous blizzard of goose feathers begins to fall inexplicably.

Even though the magic world tried its best to cover up the truth with concealment barriers, and the government used all media channels to block the news, this city still irrevocably became the focus of attention for everyone, both openly and secretly, in the world.

When the worldly satellites and the astrological charts of the magic world were all locked onto this snow-covered desert, the barrier surrounding Snowfield City, which screened out the strong, only allowed those who were truly qualified to enter. All the weak were firmly kept out of the snowstorm.

Meanwhile, Faldius, the nominal person in charge of this farce, was facing a livid phone with a busy tone.

Just now, he was given a severe dressing-down by his boss, who was far away in Washington.

Everyone knows that the Holy Grail War spiraled completely out of control because of the rumor he spread about the "future emperor."

Even if they knew perfectly well that this was essentially François's conspiracy, the furious higher-ups didn't care about that at all; they only recognized him as the person in charge who signed off on the project.

The moment he hung up the phone, Faldius rubbed his temples in frustration, feeling like his head was about to explode.

Despite his frustration, he had to admit that while the unusual blizzard sweeping across the desert had brought countless troubles, it had also effectively blocked most of the shady magicians who wanted to take advantage of the situation, giving him a much-needed respite from his already strained management work.

The problem now is that, knowing that the future Heroic Spirit might exist, those reckless individuals actually want to control the Emperor as a familiar, and even obtain future technology and intelligence from him, so as to gain dominance in the magic world.

This completely impossible task was naturally assigned to Faldius. Although he didn't know the emperor's background, as a magician, he deeply understood that this was no less than sending Benboerba to kill Tang Sanzang and his disciples.

Huh? Me?

After spending some time in the magic world, Faldius had never felt so strongly that the country was doomed. How could he possibly manage the lighthouse with this bunch of bastards?

The female secretary stood before the desk, watching Faldius, whose face was ashen from the pain of trigeminal neuralgia. She waited quietly for a long time until his rubbing of his temples eased slightly before finally speaking softly, "So what should we do next? Do we really have to join forces with that person, summon that tyrant from the future in this Holy Grail War, and then control him using the Command Seals system?"

"impossible."

Faldius lowered his hand, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force, his tone showing no hesitation, only a calmness etched into his very bones.

"No matter how sophisticated the Command Seals and Holy Grail Summoning system of the Fuyuki family are, I have no confidence that I can control such an existence that is beyond common sense."

Moreover, the more I think about it, the more I feel that there's a trap hidden in the official records of the Fifth Fuyuki Holy Grail War that we haven't seen through. That old monster Francesca definitely knows something inside. We've been tricked by her. The most important thing now is to pry some real information out of her.

The mere mention of Francesca's name sent a jolt through Faldius's forehead, doubling his headache.

He only closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, all the irritation in his eyes had been suppressed, leaving only the coldness and rigor of his work mode. He looked up at his female secretary: "Leaving that aside, the summoning of the first six pseudo-Servants should all be finished by now, right? Have the Master-Servant pairings been verified?"

"All verifications are complete. Apart from Flat from the Clock Tower, there's one discrepancy between our initial assessment and our previous predictions." The female secretary paused, "The Master of the Kōgō family isn't the Kōgō couple we've been monitoring, but their daughter—Kōgō Tsubaki."

"Kuangu Tsubaki?" Faldius's movements suddenly stopped. He was first taken aback, then he gave a self-deprecating smile. "Isn't that child in a vegetative state? Well, even the synthetic beast Silver Wolf, which was only used as a human sacrifice, could become a Master through willpower. What's impossible for a bedridden, vegetative person?"

He looked up at his female secretary, his tone unusually gentle, "Who investigated this intelligence? At least someone did the work properly and got something done."

But as soon as he said that, he saw obvious embarrassment on the female secretary's face. Her lips moved, as if she wanted to say something but hesitated.

"I was just about to report this to you." She took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "This information wasn't discovered by our people. It was found by another magician from the Clock Tower. He took the initiative to contact our field surveillance team and handed the information to us."

Faldius's hand holding the pen froze instantly, the nib leaving a long trail of ink on the document. He abruptly looked up, his brows furrowing deeply, his eyes filled with extreme vigilance and astonishment, uttering only a single, heavily questioning syllable: "Huh?"

"Did you bring Mom and Dad with you, big brother? Thank you, big brother!"

As the little girl was immersed in her gentle dreams, Locke looked at the innocent and carefree Tsubaki Kugaoka, and, unwilling to shatter the child's beautiful dream, patted her head and corrected her, "It's not me, your older brother, but Mr. Gray beside you. He's the one who helped bring your mom and dad to keep you company."

As a magician's inheritance, the Kuga couple did give their daughter enough love, even though this love stemmed from their love for the tools of magic inheritance. However, it did not turn the kind-hearted Kuga Tsubaki into a twisted magician.

This lovely child knew nothing of the Holy Grail War; she simply longed to return to her former blissful life, which is why she summoned the Pale Knight and attracted Nurgle's attention.

Fortunately, Locke was prepared and prevented the poor child from suffering a terrible fate. He looked at the little girl who was earnestly thanking the Pale Knight, smiled, and left the cozy room, thoughtfully closing the door behind him before turning back to his own world.

As soon as he stepped inside, it was as if he had fallen into the entire Milky Way.

An endless sea of ​​stars unfolded before my eyes, the dark currents of imaginary numbers and the golden light of psionic energy intertwined to form surging nebulae that swept across the boundaries of heaven and earth.

As the first person to complete the glorious evolution, Shinji Matou was already waiting here. He stared blankly at the starry sky and slowly realized that in every glimmer of light among those countless, endless morning stars, there was a human figure.

Those are silhouettes of countless human souls, silently floating in this sea of ​​stars, yet forming the foundation of the entire galaxy.

"Is this your inner world, Locke?"

Shinji's voice was soft, yet it rippled through the vast space, his eyes filled with a shock that defied all understanding.

"Yes." Locke's voice came from all directions, as if it were hidden in every ray of starlight. "This is my spiritual world. I rewrote the rules of the imaginary space with the Sixth Law and placed the soul projections of all humans here. I will protect the soul of each and every one of them, so that no matter how far away the planet is, it will not be eroded by external things."

His voices overlapped in a strange way at that moment, as if two souls were resonating on the same frequency.

On one side stood Locke, gentle and remorseful, and on the other, the resolute voice of Victor, the Arcane Pioneer.

On the other side was the majestic and powerful voice of the human emperor who ruled the galaxy from 40,000 years in the future, a voice that could encompass the entire human civilization.

Present and future, pioneers and emperors, are completely integrated at this moment.

"To protect the souls of all humanity?"

Despite already knowing that the other party would rule a human empire spanning the galaxy in the future, and was even the Sixth Magician, witnessing the other party's great achievements firsthand left Shinji Matou speechless with shock—something beyond a magician's imagination.

"Unfortunately, as humanity expands, my progress can never keep up with the pace of human expansion. In the end, I am simply unable to protect the souls of all humanity, allowing them to be tempted and corrupted by the Chaos God."

After saying that, Locke and Shinji Matou explained the dangers that the Chaos Gods posed to humanity. These fragments of Outer Gods, who became gods due to extreme emotions, were a nightmare that all of humanity and even all intelligent life in the galaxy could not escape.

In the future, after the subspace completely replaces the imaginary space, Locke defines the scope of the entire subspace as the entire galaxy, allowing the souls of all intelligent beings that conform to his definition to appear in the subspace.

The four gods, transformed from the four fragments of the Outer Gods he shattered, also possessed the power to distort the rules of physics and became the four Chaos Gods in the Type-Moon version.

In the long struggle, Emperor Locke successfully convinced them that Locke, who was now participating in the Holy Grail War in Snowfield City, was here to use the point of changing the future to completely erase the foundation of their existence, which was why he was willing to pay a huge price to travel through time and space to descend.

After listening to Locke's explanation, Shinji Matou naturally assumed that chaos was the anomaly that Locke had to solve in this Holy Grail War.

This was only Locke's first objective: to unite everyone against Chaos so that he could justify his subsequent actions once Chaos appeared.

Anyway, since Emperor Locke said he tampered with the Four Gods, he definitely won't fail.

"So Shinji, I must ask you to help deal with those Masters who are suspected of being corrupted by Chaos."

Shinji, who has been transformed and evolved by the Sixth Law, now possesses the power he has always dreamed of. The imaginary attribute circuit that Locke helped him open five years ago has given him a powerful subspace essence in the subspace-shrouded area of ​​Snowfield City.

In other words, Shinji at this moment could even be called the first chosen emperor.

Shinji's eyes were filled with determination when faced with Locke's request. Having found his life's creed, he was eager to try.

"Leave it to me, Locke."

"No, pioneers."

"Wake up."

Having just withdrawn his consciousness from the dreamscape of the Starry Sea of ​​Souls, Locke had just finalized all the subsequent arrangements with Shinji in his mind when he keenly sensed the unfamiliar presence that had intruded into the ward.

Faldius has arrived.

He didn't move, remaining in a sleeping posture, his breathing steady and long, not even his eyelashes trembling.

Only after Faldius had carefully checked every surgical panel in the ward and confirmed that there were no abnormalities did he bend down and knock on the bed railing, deliberately "waking" him up.

Locke slowly opened his eyes, his gaze perfectly capturing the bewilderment of someone just waking up.

"I never expected that you, the mastermind behind this Holy Grail War, would dare to come in person. What, are you here to deal with other troublemakers and force me to commit murder?"

His opening remarks were a bombshell; his hoarse, slightly drowsy voice, tinged with the weariness of someone just waking up, revealed not a trace of timidity in the face of the mastermind behind the scenes. Instead, it was sharp and incisive, directly exposing the other party's most crucial identity.

The air in the ward seemed to freeze instantly.

Faldius's composed expression froze completely.

The man in front of me immediately saw through all his feigned spiciness, as if he knew his true nature and his spicy style perfectly.

At this moment, he was absolutely certain that this Clock Tower teaching assistant with the name "Victor" was definitely not simple. Just like the man himself, who had a dual identity in the government and the Magic Association, there were countless secrets hidden behind this man's name.

"Victor, the teaching assistant in the El-Melloi classroom at the Clock Tower, and a confidant of Lord El-Melloi II." Faldius suppressed his inner vigilance and spoke slowly, each word like a cold, sharp blade. "Everyone in the Clock Tower laughs at you for getting your position through the Lord's influence, but no one knows that all the research you had that could have changed the landscape of the magic world was sold off by you at a low price. Position? That's not your true worth."

He leaned close to the bedside, his gaze fixed on Locke, his tone undisguisedly threatening: "But now it seems you've hidden far more spicy stuff than I've found."

I advise you to be honest and clearly state who you are and what you want in this Holy Grail War. Don't expect me to lecture you on the rules of magicians like those old fogies. I always prefer to get the answers I want through the easiest means.

As soon as he finished speaking, Faldius gripped the activated defensive costume in his pocket tightly.

Almost simultaneously, from the rooftop of the building opposite the ward, several blindingly bright red lasers suddenly pierced through the glass, densely covering Locke's entire body.

His brow, heart, and throat—all vital points were firmly locked on. Dozens of top snipers outside the window were already in position, their fingers on the triggers. If he made the slightest move, he would be riddled with bullets.

Although Faldius still couldn't understand where this hot man, who was being targeted by dozens of snipers and was at a complete disadvantage, got his confidence, he had already made thorough preparations.

He had already planned ahead, intending to first exert absolute force to pressure the enemy, and then use the Holy Grail War intelligence and Clock Tower resources as bargaining chips. He would use this usual combination of force and incentives to thoroughly investigate the enemy's intentions and plans.

But to his utter surprise, Locke completely disregarded his threats and the sniper formation outside the window.

He simply propped himself up on the headboard, picked up the cane lying beside him, and slowly stood up, walking straight toward Faldius.

The two guards standing at the ward door were on high alert, raising their hands to fire their guns, but Locke simply snapped his fingers, and the hypnotic spell instantly engulfed the two of them.

One second he was on high alert, guarding the fierce guards, the next second his eyelids drooped, and he fell straight to the ground unconscious, without even a chance to resist.

This scene terrified Faldius to the point of being scared out of his wits.

He staggered backward, his fingertips gathering magic power, preparing to unleash a powerful attack spell for self-defense. But the next second, his blood seemed to freeze. The magic circuits that usually flowed smoothly were now completely gone. No matter how he tried to activate them, not a trace of magic power flowed, leaving the area as desolate as a desert.

Before he could even recover from this catastrophic turn of events, the encrypted earpiece he'd just plugged into his ear blared through the sniper's frantic, bewildered reports: "Report! This is A3 sniper position! Weapons malfunctioned, firing incorrectly! Repeat, firing incorrectly!"

"Report! This is sniper position B8! All core components of the weapon are locked; it's completely malfunctioning!"

"Report! This is C1—"

More than a dozen top snipers' sniper rifles all malfunctioned simultaneously without any warning.

A bone-chilling coldness shot up Faldius's spine and straight to the top of his head as he stared intently at the hot man slowly walking towards him.

A clear and sharp intuition screamed in his mind: all these strange and illogical events must be related to this man in front of him, who was using the alias Victor.

He finally realized that he had been wrong from the very beginning.

This incredibly hot man, hidden beneath his identity as a teaching assistant at the Clock Tower, is no ordinary, high-level hot magician.