Chapter 201 - 202: Parallel World Traversal

"Did I do something wrong?

No, nothing! I did nothing wrong!

This is all to save this world!

As long as the world can be saved, any sacrifice is worth it—whether it's Emiya's sister, or my own..."

In Miyu Edelfelt's world, while Emiya Shirou and his group were still inside the Mirror World, fine-tuning the coordinates to traverse into this parallel world...

Seven days ago, Julian had watched with his own eyes as the only hope for saving their world—Miyu Edelfelt—was cut off simply because of a single wish made by the Emiya Shirou of this parallel world and a moment of hesitation.

He had waited for hope, for a miracle to occur, but none came. Instead, Julian watched as more and more regions on Earth were eroded by those constantly appearing unknown elements, turning into one forbidden zone after another where no earthly life could survive. How could he not feel regret for the choices he had once made?

The sheer will of Emiya Shirou, who had risked everything to save Miyu—evolving from a minor character he had once easily brushed aside into a "hero" capable of ending the Holy Grail War in a single night—touched a nerve within him. Under the increasingly dire circumstances, that feeling had transformed into nothing but contempt for his own past weakness.

It was precisely because he hadn't made up his mind at that time that these consequences had come to pass.

He had to do something.

So, at Homurahara Academy, during what should have been class time, Julian sat in the student council room dressed in his school uniform. Under the guise of studying or reading, he was actually poring over treatises regarding displacement magic and the methodology of spatial displacement.

As for whether this counted as a student council president leading the charge in breaking school discipline? That would require Homurahara Academy to still have students.

Whether it was the accident five years ago that caused most people in Fuyuki to flee, or the Holy Grail War seven days ago that reminded the remaining citizens of Fuyuki of the city's classic specialty—"gas explosions"—the number of people preparing to stay in Fuyuki had dwindled to almost nothing. The students who would have remained to continue their schooling had either been killed by Julian or imprisoned by him. In fact, there weren't even teachers at Homurahara Academy anymore.

Julian didn't actually need to come to school. But, just as he had met the parallel-world Emiya Shirou at Homurahara Academy and realized that Shirou had hidden Miyu—the "Holy Grail"—there, he wondered: If Miyu were to return, would she look for clues about where Emiya Shirou was in the places he once frequented?

"Although this is just a delusion..."

"But if I hadn't monitored the Edelfelt house again and again, and monitored the people who chose to visit the Edelfelt house during those five years, how could I have finally discovered that the Divine Child was in the hands of Emiya?"

—"Human emotion is the weakness that caused both Emiya and me to fail in the beginning."

"The Divine Child... since Emiya would risk his life for her, the Divine Child surely won't abandon Emiya."

Julian closed the book in his hands. Using displacement magic, he tossed the finished book back into the Ainsworth workshop and pulled a new one out of the workshop through the displaced space. He compared the insights of his ancestor—the first to develop displacement magic into a form capable of displacing space—with his own experiments, attempting to grasp the logic behind achieving such magic-like feats to further develop his own displacement magic for the purpose of "world displacement."

As he pondered, his brow furrowed involuntarily.

—"The only pity is that guy Emiya, even now, refuses to say what he intended to do with the Divine Child when he first appeared with her."

"If I knew what the Divine Child wanted to do back then, I could have focused my surveillance on those areas."

"I wouldn't be in this situation, needing to spread my limited manpower across these locations that I'm not even sure are effective."

Yes, even though Julian had chosen to set an ambush here at Homurahara Academy, it was more of a helpless choice born of not knowing what else to do.

Just as Julian was thinking this...

"...!?"

Suddenly, it felt as if someone had punched his magic circuits. They flared with violent agitation, and the impact forced a trickle of blood to spill from the corner of his mouth. Since magic circuits are rooted in the mage's soul, they affect the physical body as well. If the circuits suffer damage, it is a double blow to the soul and the body for the mage.

Yet, as the victim of the attack, Julian felt no nervousness.

Because he "saw" it—or rather, he sensed it!

The barrier he had laid out at Homurahara Academy, which was meant to monitor the surrounding situation, had suddenly detected a massive amount of magical energy. Under the impact of this power, his barrier didn't even last for a second before being destroyed, and the magic circuits within his body that maintained the barrier were affected in turn.

Heh...

"Heh, heh, heh! Hahahahahahaha!! This magical energy... the person who can still possess such immense power in this world is undoubtedly..."

Ignoring the internal damage from his magic circuits, Julian stood up from his seat, rapid and pleasantly surprised. He looked toward the direction the magical energy was coming from and laughed wildly: "...Miyu Edelfelt! As the Divine Child, you've finally decided to come back!"

On the other side...

"Removing the imaginary axis from the observation variables." "Center coordinate, fixed." "Reflection path within a six-meter radius, formed." "Second Magic parallel world traversal, complete!"

By connecting the two worlds through the Mirror World and recording the coordinates of Shirou's world and the Mirror World, it was possible to exclude them and lock onto the coordinates of the final, remaining world—locating Miyu Edelfelt's world.

Shirou and his group had finally arrived here, in this parallel world that belonged to Miyu Edelfelt.

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