Zongman: Evolution Paradise

Hayasaka Ai's Hundred-Faced Hassans were scattered in small groups throughout Fuyuki City, gathering information on all other players and Servants.

It was at this moment that Steve Rogers, dressed in a bodysuit, appeared before Hassan.

"Where is your Master? I have some information I'd like to give you."

The phantom of Hydra floated eerily on the wall under the streetlights, and Steve Rogers made no attempt to hide his malice.

Having gone to Scáthach and been rejected, Steve Rogers naturally wouldn't miss the other side of the battle. He immediately tracked them down, intending to relay some information about Jolyne.

Moreover, Jolyne already knew the resurrection principle of her Hydra Noble Phantasm, and it was impossible for her to give the Hydra captain another chance to revive and split.

Steve Rogers needs to find a Heroic Spirit who is unaware of the details of his Hydra Noble Phantasm to separate the remaining three individuals...

Steve Rogers originally intended to provoke Scáthach directly to divide himself, but the magic spear in Scáthach's hand gave him a rather dangerous feeling.

Just to be on the safe side, the Hydra captain abandoned Scáthach as a candidate and went to Hassan instead.

As he had predicted, the Hassans wearing skull masks did not hesitate; their golden eyes, as bright as the blazing sun, lit up as they attacked Steve Rogers.

communicate?

That's a term used when you have equal strength. If you can't even withstand our attacks, Hassan and his assassins are even more adept at "interrogation" techniques.

Hassan, a sixth-order instantaneous being, moved with lightning speed at 64 times the speed of lightning, his sword piercing through Steve Rogers' neck without any resistance.

The ease with which the killings were carried out made Hassan somewhat suspicious, after all, even the Hassan with 128x speed had failed to kill a single dog at Scáthach's hands.

Because Steve Rogers was alone, while there were several Hassans in front of him, his inherent skill - 50/50 - was not activated, which would have increased his agility to Hassan's level.

The speed was so fast that Steve Rogers didn't even feel it until his life began to ebb away, at which point he thoughtfully touched his neck.

"interesting."

Steve Rogers laughed and personally lifted his own head from the severed head, letting the blood splatter.

Then, the body fell into a pool of blood.

Before Hassan and his companions could even approach and examine him, under their glowing golden eyes, the dead Steve Rogers split into two people, each with the same aura, and their power did not diminish despite the split.

"How about it?" ×2

Two brand-new Steve Rogers got up from the ground and asked, and the answer they received was Hassan's 64x speed slash once again.

Moments later, the two Steve Rogers lying in pools of blood split again, becoming four.

The four Steve Rogers looked at Hassan and his men with eyes full of malice.

Since the other five individuals did not die but were petrified and sealed, they still occupy the slots for existence. Now that Steve Rogers has been killed again, he is unable to split into more individuals and can only keep the number at four.

However, Hassan was unaware of this.

Hassan's backers, Hayasaka Ai and Shinomiya Kaguya, were also unaware of this information.

Steve Rogers' eyes were full of malice; he was pretending, pretending that he still had reservations.

And Steve Rogers did succeed. Faced with the two resurrections and splits of this heroic spirit, Hassan and his allies did not act rashly again.

Such a strange heroic spirit, who was killed twice without resistance in order to entrust a piece of information, shouldn't we at least listen to him say a word?

What information do you want to share?

A Hassan spoke in a hoarse voice, relaying Hayasaka Ai's message to Shinomiya Kaguya.

"Hehe." ×4

The four Steve Rogers laughed in turn.

“My Master is a high-level player who came in to hunt me down. According to the rules for entering, attacking someone who is not a target of the hunt will result in severe punishment from Paradise.”

"Given my Master's player level, even if he wins in this world, he won't get any rewards. You should know that too."

"With these two basic conditions in place, would you like to join forces with us?"

"When I arrived with the alliance, you should have already known how troublesome our opponent would be this time."

"Two people...five heroic spirits..."

"Time stop... petrification seal... magicians, swordsmen, and even logistics personnel responsible for healing..."

"They should be at Ryudong Temple now."

"If you don't believe me, as an Assassin, you can go and see for yourself."

One sentence after another, the shadow of Hydra loomed over the surrounding houses. The Hydra captains, who were about to leave into the shadows, turned back once more, scrutinized the Hassans, and left with their last words.

"Of course, don't give your own Heroic Spirit to the other party, otherwise it will cause me a lot of trouble."

……

After receiving the information from Hassan, Kaguya Shinomiya did not immediately agree to form an alliance, because she wanted to verify the authenticity of the information first.

and……

Unable to kill non-pursuers?

Are you so high-level that you don't care about winning this game?

While it is true, it would be foolish to trust and form an alliance with them based solely on these two pieces of news.

Kaguya Shinomiya knows too many cases, too many methods to bypass loopholes and reach the target directly.

-

To verify Steve Rogers' intelligence, Hassan intensified his search efforts.

Apart from the razed Homurahara School, the traces of Heroic Spirits at Ryudouji Temple, and Scáthach, no other traces of Heroic Spirits were found.

When Jolyne and the others emerged from Ryudong Temple, the Hassans hidden among the crowd began to probe.

The probing just now allowed Kaguya Shinomiya to basically confirm the information about the Hydra captain.

That is, there really are two players who have formed an alliance, and they also have five powerful Heroic Spirits!

Chapter 229 Kotomine Church

[Intelligence 2: It is widely known that the Holy Grail War involving seven people will definitely have an eighth Servant]

Scáthach is Lancer, Hayasaka Ai summoned the Assassin and herself is Archer. Including Steve Rogers and the five Servants confirmed by Ryudouji, the number has reached nine.

Looking at the hidden information brought by her A-rank training sequence, Kaguya Shinomiya muttered to herself, "Nine? But Paradise didn't say that this Holy Grail War of seven only has eight Servants, did it?"

The news from the park only says there will be an eighth one, not that there will only be eight Heroic Spirits.

This level of textual narrative problem is similar to the rule of "not letting ordinary people realize the extraordinary."

Similarly, it allows players to think for themselves and extract more information.

"Kaguya-sama, Hassan and his men have indeed not found any other Heroic Spirits."

"Aside from the high-level player's Heroic Spirit and Scáthach, all the other Heroic Spirits should have been gathered in the hands of these two."

Hayasaka Ai revealed Kaguya Shinomiya's thoughts, causing Kaguya to squint her eyes.

"Is it possible to plunder the heroic spirits of other players?"

"Five heroic spirits, one of whom is even capable of stopping time..."

"Should we form an alliance with that guy?"

Faced with such an enemy, forming an alliance is an unquestionable decision. The question Kaguya Shinomiya is now pondering is: when should they form an alliance?

Forming an alliance too early could easily make them a scapegoat for Souichirou Kuzuki.

If the alliance is formed too late, and Kuzuki Souichirou is killed by the other side, then he will be left alone and unable to hold on.

In the end, Kaguya Shinomiya made her decision.

"Let's wait and see what happens."

Kaguya Shinomiya chose to believe in the strength of Souichirou Kuzuki, believing that as a high-level player, he wouldn't die so easily at the hands of the enemy.

"If you're going to die so easily at the hands of that player, then what's the point of our alliance? Might as well surrender sooner rather than later?"

Kaguya Shinomiya rubbed her forehead in exasperation.

-

Back to Jolyne and Yukino Yukinoshita.

The Hassans' mission was to probe, and they had already slipped into the shadows and escaped the scene of the crime when the tornado dissipated into ice shards.

From any perspective, they had no reason to stay. Before a real opportunity arrived, pointless fighting would only reveal their intelligence.

However, neither Kaguya Shinomiya nor Ai Hayasaka anticipated that Jolyne had read Fate.

After Medea used magic to reveal the appearance of the Hassans in images, Jolyne had already recognized them "uncertainly".

"Hassan the Hundred-Faced?"

Based on the quantity and general appearance, Jolyne made a somewhat uncertain judgment.

The reason I'm not entirely sure is that Hassan the Hundred Faces is a rather weak Heroic Spirit.

In this star-studded Holy Grail War, the appearance of Hassan with a hundred faces is like a mule pulling a millstone in a racetrack.

A normal horse knows to charge towards the finish line, but this mule just keeps spinning in circles.

Moreover, according to yesterday's assessment, wasn't the battle taking place in the arcade between the assassin and Scáthach?

Now that it has been confirmed that the assassin is Hassan the Hundred Faces, doesn't that mean Hassan the Hundred Faces made Scáthach suffer because of his strength?

That sounds absolutely absurd!

"Is this heroic spirit very powerful?"

Seeing Jolyne's strange expression, Yukino Yukinoshita asked curiously from the side.

The last time Jolyne showed this expression was when he learned that Scáthach had appeared.

"According to the information I have, Hassan the Hundred Faces is not only not strong, but rather quite weak. I find it very puzzling that this Heroic Spirit could appear in the Holy Grail War."

Jolyne shook her head and replied.

“Weak?” Lily pondered and said, “But the Assassin class is inherently weaker than normal classes, right? This class is mostly used to assassinate enemy Masters.”

Given the initial setup of the seven classes in the Holy Grail War, it's normal that the Assassin was weaker than the other classes.

After all, the most important thing in the Holy Grail War is the Master. If the assassins are too strong, what chance will the Master have?

Lily's question made Jolyne pause for a moment, then she explained with some difficulty, "...Hassan the Hundred Faces is weak because he can't even beat a stronger Master."

"???"

Yukino Yukinoshita raised a question mark and couldn't help but retort, "Isn't that a bit far-fetched?"

The Servants can't defeat their Masters?

It sounds like the story of the Tiger King in Lolo's Adventures, who couldn't beat the little boy.

Jolyne shook her head. "That was the original situation. No one can predict what the situation will be now. For example, the ability to control the wind just now is something the normal Hassan would never have. Maybe it's a skill that some player unlocked. We don't know the specific effects."

"Should we try to track it down?"

Medusa asked.

With her A-rank agility and the mobility inherent in her cavalry class, she is basically the fastest among everyone present. Against Medusa, even a skilled assassin would not be able to escape her pursuit so easily.

"There's no need for that right now. Hassan the Hundred-Faced can split into eighty different personalities. We can't make this assassin leave the scene unless we kill them all."

"Moreover, this assassin came to Ryudouji Temple to test us, but stayed in the crowd and did not confront us openly. I'm afraid his Master has already contacted Kuzuki Souichirou. If we follow him alone, there might be a trap."

Jolyne refused Medusa's decision to pursue her.

Hassan the Hundred Faces is too weak in terms of basic strength. If the opponent's Master is even slightly sane, after learning about Jolyne and the others, he will definitely form an alliance with other players to deal with the gap in strength.

Whether the other party is normal or not can be determined by their wary demeanor when they try to probe.

“Saber, Medusa, Medusa, Esdeath, Scáthach, and Hassan the Hundred Faces.”

Jolyne said softly, "Now only the Archer class remains to be seen."

The Heroic Spirits present all remained calm. In their view, this was nothing to be alarmed about. Even if the archer was also allied with Kuzuki Souichirou, the enemy side only had three Heroic Spirits.

As Jolyne and her companions continue to grow stronger, the sheer difference in power makes many things much simpler.