Zongman: Evolution Paradise

The water returned to calm. Medusa squinted, with only her nose and above the surface above the water, as her master lathered her up with foam, completing her bath.

After a long silence, Medusa finally spoke up and asked, "Why do you insist on looking into my eyes? It's dangerous. Lily's Noble Phantasm can't revive the dead."

“I was just thinking that you should be able to understand my feelings by making eye contact,” Jolyne replied, lifting Medusa’s arm.

Medusa responded with an apologetic smile.

"I do understand now, but not whether I'm cute or not. I understand that no matter whether I'm cute or not, I can no longer leave Master."

"...Perhaps the outcome will be much the same?"

After a moment of silence, Jolyne didn't know how to express her feelings.

"The stubborn Medusa is also quite adorable."

"Thank you, Master, but I still think that small and cute is the most beautiful."

Chapter 219 The only problem is this.

When Medea led Lily out of the bathroom from the other side, they saw Medusa, who had changed into a bathrobe, removed her blindfold, and was sitting on a soft chair by the window reading a book.

Knowing the power of Medusa's Eyes, Medea averted her gaze, pulled Lily aside, and while drying Lily's wet hair with a towel, asked, "Medusa, where did you go just now?"

"Oh right, I didn't see Medusa."

Lily, who has already witnessed what she will look like when she grows up in the bathroom, also said.

Medusa turned to the next page of the storybook in her hand and calmly replied, "There are hot springs in the mountains near Ryudong Temple. I went to soak in the hot springs."

Well... she did discover a hot spring at Ryudoji Temple, but as for whether she went there or not, Medusa felt no qualms about telling a little lie.

"Huh, a hot spring? You didn't even tell us about a place like this." Lily said, taking the towel from Medea's hand with an expectant look on her face.

"I thought you guys were going to take a bath with Master."

He voiced his doubts, but he was completely oblivious to the fact that he had just been lying in the Master bathtub.

Medusa's lips curled up slightly, as if she were enjoying a secret meal in the middle of the night.

"……this."

Medea didn't think much of it, but she felt that Esdeath was getting in her way more and more.

Medea originally intended to scrub Master's back and finish some things she hadn't done in the afternoon, but Esdeath was watching her intently from the side, so she had to give up the idea of ​​bathing together and went into another bathroom with Lily.

As long as Esdeath is still alive, it's really difficult for her to develop a closer relationship with her master.

"When I borrow the Yinluo Spirit Mansion from Master later, I'm going to give you a good beating."

Medea thought to herself, grinding her teeth.

In terms of the Heroic Spirits' say, strength ultimately prevails, and Medea knew very well that she would have a hard time defeating Esdeath in a one-on-one fight.

Medea may have considered using the equipment to deal with Esdeath herself, as she helped Master transform the Yinluo Banner into the Yinluo Spirit Mansion, which combines potential, defense, and attack.

After all, Jolyne had previously said that she would give the equipment to Esdeath, and Esdeath couldn't freely unleash her Noble Phantasm because of Scáthach.

As long as she wields the Yinluo Spirit Mansion, Medea feels that her offensive and defensive capabilities can leap forward significantly. Fighting Esdeath, who doesn't have time-stop, wouldn't be an easy victory, but it would at least be a 50/50 match.

Thinking this, Lily nudged Medea and excitedly suggested, "Let's go to the hot springs together tomorrow!"

"alright."

Medea agreed, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Esdeath had also finished bathing and come out.

As Esdeath dried her hair with a towel, her body still steaming, but the key point wasn't that; it was that her yukata was rather revealing.

Her fair, delicate shoulders glistened with moisture, and the areas that should have been restrained were almost free of their shackles. The yukata was only held together by the sash that accentuated her waistline.

"Why are you all looking at me?" Esdeath, displaying an aura that neither of them could match, continued to ask while being stared at by Medea and Lily, "I'd like to go to the hot springs too, but who's going to keep watch tonight?"

Although Servants don't need to sleep, they clearly all want to sleep with their Master.

In the midst of the Holy Grail War, keeping watch is a necessary task. Since neither Lily nor her two Masters are capable of doing so, the list of Servants can only be drawn from the remaining four Servants.

"I'll take the night watch."

This difficult problem didn't last long; Medusa calmly accepted the task.

"Thanks a lot."

Medea thanked her, and her feelings of goodwill towards Medusa increased slightly.

Just as Lily was about to go to sleep with her Master, the sound of the TV playing unexpectedly created a peaceful atmosphere. After a moment of contemplation, Lily realized that this was because her Master was not there.

Looking around at the expressions of the other Servants, Lily couldn't help but ask, "So, where did the Master go?"

As soon as these words came out, the whole place fell into silence.

"...Right, where's Master?"

Esdeath asked the same question.

"It's unlikely that he'll hide in the workshop and not come out tonight, right?" Medusa said, never one to miss a chance to stir up trouble.

Lily glanced at Esdeath and Medea, thinking to herself that it wasn't impossible.

"Impossible. Every time Master enters the workshop, he explains things first and then comes out quickly."

"In any case, we are currently in the Holy Grail War. The flow of that space is too fast, and we have no means to contact the Master. If we stay inside, and something happens to Fuyuki, unpredictable situations could easily arise."

Medea's heart skipped a beat at first, then she immediately rejected the possibility from a rational perspective. She began to sense things through magic, and finally, her face flushed slightly. After a moment of silence, she said, "...Master is with Saber right now."

……

"Xu Lunqing, I will accept any condition as long as it can save my kingdom!"

"Are you really willing to accept any conditions?"

"...Yes, really!"

"Let me touch your ahoge (cowlick)."

"No! This is the only thing I can't do! The ahoge (cowlick) is a symbol of being a king, and it's something that absolutely cannot be touched by anyone else!"

"Didn't you say any conditions were acceptable?"

"...This is the only condition that won't work."

In the pavilion at Ryudou Temple, Saber secretly lured Jolyne out, and is now bravely resisting Jolyne's conditions while covering her ahoge (cowlick) on her head.

Jolyne sat on the other side, and if she shifted her gaze back, she could see Yukino Yukinoshita, who was also sneaking over to see what Jolyne and Saber were doing.

"The petite Saber is unwilling to even give up her ahoge (cowlick), so how can she possibly save Britain from destruction?"

Jolyne looked at Saber and sighed inwardly. Saber's idea for participating in the Holy Grail War was to obtain the Holy Grail and return to the day of the King's election. Then she would no longer pull out the sword in the stone to become King Arthur, but live as an ordinary girl. Great Britain would then be led by a new King Arthur and move towards a future that would not be destroyed.

Even if the Holy Grail isn't the Black Grail that twists all wishes into world-destroying destruction, but rather the Fuyuki Grail that theoretically grants wishes, this wish is still impossible to fulfill.

After all, if Saber's wish comes true, then the history of more than a thousand years after the destruction of Great Britain in the Fate world will be negated. Even a butterfly can bring a hurricane, let alone her desire to change the history of Great Britain.

Chapter 220 Saber's Story

There are simply too many settings and world lines in Fate for Jolyne's past life to have seen them all, nor could she have studied every detail like a scholar. Or rather, the people who created Fate were constantly dismantling and filling in the gaps in the existing settings...

Jolyne's mind raced through the jumbled Fate settings, and with her current intelligence, she had a general idea of ​​why Britain had fallen.

That is, the destruction of Great Britain is the predetermined fate of the Fate world.

In the Fate universe, there is a very important concept: [mystery].

The root cause of Great Britain's destruction was actually the mystical retreat. From Gilgamesh's break with the gods and his entry into the human race, to Solomon's return of all the rings to the heavens, the mysticism of the earth was constantly weakening during this process, and the mysticism of Great Britain retreated much more slowly than in other places.

This resulted in Great Britain, whose mysterious retreat was too slow, being exposed to the eyes of Earth's will like a "stubborn holdout."

Faced with this stubborn and unyielding kingdom that refused to break free from its mysterious past, the will of Earth chose the most violent method of forced demolition. It is precisely because of this that the Kingdom of Britain suffers natural disasters and is surrounded by powerful enemies every year, and the entire kingdom is on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile, Merlin, the magician of flowers, created King Arthur, who turned the tide for the Kingdom of Britain.

From beginning to end, King Arthur's enemy was not the Roman army, but the will of the earth itself.

Although Artoria possesses the bloodline of the Red Dragon and is invincible on the battlefield, she cannot match the natural and man-made disasters caused by the will of Earth.

Naturally, faced with a series of natural and man-made disasters, the tragedy of Britain's demise occurred.

Saber always believed that she had made a mistake that led to the downfall of the Kingdom of Britain. She felt guilty and wanted to change everything, which also made her deny her glory as King Arthur.

Even if Saber had avoided the mistakes she made, the will of Earth would still have issued a purge order against the Kingdom of Britain, leading to its demise in a different way.

"The destruction of Great Britain is a predetermined fate, not your fault as king."

Although Jolyne wanted to say that, she knew Saber wouldn't accept it and it might cause trouble.

Ultimately, she herself had to understand the root causes of the destruction of the Kingdom of Britain.

Moreover, understanding does not mean accepting one's fate.

The destruction of the Kingdom of Britain is the predetermined fate of the Fate world, so why not just transcend the Fate world?

Although she had some ideas, Jolyne didn't want to bring them up herself; she wanted Saber to ask first for a better outcome.

"So, how did you end up here, with your sword sheath?"

Jolyne changed the subject and asked Saber.

To this question, Saber shook her head and said, "I don't know either. One day, the scabbard suddenly returned to my hands. However, the kingdom was already on the verge of destruction at that time, and even the return of the lost scabbard did not change anything."

"But with the sword sheath, you couldn't possibly die, could you?"

The scabbard could not stop the destruction of the British kingdom, but with the scabbard in place, how could Saber be destined to die?

Jolyne was extremely curious about this.

Saber hesitated for a moment, her mouth slightly open as if she wanted to say something, but then she closed it again, finally shaking her head. "I don't know either. Under Mordred's sword, the power of the scabbard did not protect me."

"No asylum?"

With too few options, Jolyne naturally couldn't get any answers. He coughed lightly and gestured for Yukino Yukinoshita, who was hiding behind him, to come out quickly. He and Saber had already discovered that Yukino Yukinoshita was eavesdropping.

"Good evening?" Yukino Yukinoshita, dressed in a yukata, appeared from the side and greeted her.

While taking a bath that evening, Yukino Yukinoshita noticed that Saber looked preoccupied. She then decided to talk to her Servant and try to build a relationship with her.

Before she could even say it, she discovered that Saber had gone straight to find Jolyne, which made Yukino Yukinoshita think, "I'm tired, let's just destroy it."

"Good evening, Master."

Saber greeted them politely and made way for Yukino Yukinoshita to sit down as well.

"So, may I tell you about the Kingdom of Britain?"

Yukino Yukinoshita tried asking, since she had only recently summoned Saber and naturally didn't know Saber's story from their brief time together.

"It all started when I pulled the sword from the stone..."

Saber did not refuse and generously recounted her experiences.

Unifying the fragmented Britain, leading the kingdom to prosperity, Lancelot falling in love with the princess, the Knights of the Round Table falling apart, the final Battle of Camlann...

With Saber's story coming to an end, Yukino Yukinoshita didn't know how to react. In her opinion, Saber didn't seem to have done anything wrong.

However, seeing Saber's determined expression, Yukino Yukinoshita didn't object and didn't bring it up.

After hearing Saber's story, Jolyne continued to ponder the connections between them.

In Saber's account, this past differs from the normal timeline in only two ways: first, the lost scabbard returned to King Arthur's hands; and second, even with the scabbard, King Arthur's fate of death remained unchanged.

Jolyne has confirmed that the stories of Medea, Lily, and Medusa have not changed, so Saber seems normal now, except for this inexplicably found scabbard.

"Either it's a problem with this timeline, or some player created all of this."

Ultimately, Jolyne made this perfunctory judgment: it's not surprising that anything would happen in the chaotic worldline of Fate, but it's even more reasonable in the latter case—what kind of player would they be if they didn't mess everything up?

"Actually, our world also has Britain, its full name is the Holy Kingdom of Great Britain. In that history, King Arthur left the most significant mark, and it still exists to this day. Would you like to go see it with me, Saber?"

After a moment's thought, Yukino Yukinoshita mentioned the Great Britain Kingdom that exists in the main world.

"I would go if I had the chance, but I have things I have to do right now!"

Saber stood up and solemnly declared to her two Masters.