Chapter 304: Merlin, Get Out Here!
At this very moment, within the dark, dense forests of this alternate world, a literal "Shura Field"—a battlefield of carnage—had manifested. The goal was to fight for Shirou: kill the competition and claim ownership of the boy. Or at least, ownership of a specific part of his body.
Shirou had been running for half an hour. Instead of finding the girls he was looking for, he kept encountering terrifying women: a snake-woman spitting fire, a brown-skinned girl lunging at him with toxic gas, and so on and so forth.
It was only by running with every ounce of strength he possessed that Shirou finally managed to shake them off.
Finally reaching his limit, the boy pulled out his phone, activated the Pseudo-Summoning, and roared at the top of his lungs.
"Merlin! Get out here and do something!"
"My apologies, my apologies. I was busy updating Magi*Mari's blog..." A man with long white hair entered the boy's body with a chuckle.
"What's going on here? This familiar magical boundary... it's like a magnified version of the magecraft that shut me away," Merlin observed from within the mental landscape, scanning the surroundings.
Shirou and Merlin were partners with a 100% synchronization rate. During possession, they could see each other's pasts. Because Shirou understood Merlin's true nature, he didn't want to waste too much energy blaming him.
Ultimately, Merlin was an incubus. Being attracted to women and subsequently provoking them was his racial talent—it was his very nature. Running away when faced with danger was also part of his instinct.
Even the Merlin of the past had run away...
He had run away from the unavoidable fate of King Arthur; away from his disciple, his dear friend, the person he himself had pushed onto the throne.
That pure and upright girl had chosen the hardest path—one that would inevitably lead to despair. He hadn't stopped her, nor had he found a way to change it. He chose to flee.
Morgan le Fay was causing mischief everywhere in the shadows. The local lords and vassals were already dissatisfied with a King who was "too correct" and "too strict." Gawain, the King's right hand, had been blinded by hatred for his siblings and couldn't focus on anything else.
And Mordred, after being rejected, had become a ticking time bomb. Yet King Arthur chose to keep her close, assigning her vital guard duties.
Everything was foreseeable. Upon returning from the campaign in Rome, what awaited the King would certainly not be the welcoming smiles of her subjects.
But none of that really mattered. Human lives only lasted a few decades anyway. Whether one died of exhaustion, hunger, disease, or by the sword, it was all essentially the same.
Before leaving Camelot, he had already said his goodbyes to the King, so he had no regrets.
He was the Magician of Flowers. His eyes were slightly better than those of ordinary people, but he wasn't an all-powerful god. He preferred playing around with pretty young ladies over fighting to the death with a bunch of brutes. He had zero interest in involving himself in these human trivialities.
Furthermore, at the time, he was being hunted by a former partner with whom he used to have a very "fun" time. After wandering around for a while, he suddenly lost interest in the outside world, so he simply hid himself in that secret realm isolated from the mortal world.
What he hadn't expected was that a certain witch—the same one he used to have fun with—had already set a trap there. At the entrance to Avalon stood a stone tablet inscribed with: 'Only the innocent may pass.'
Only the innocent may pass...
Seeing this, Merlin realized he had been played.
This was a powerful curse that could lead to eternal damnation if one made even the slightest mistake. He really had to hand it to her; she was so cute as a disciple and so sweet as a lover, yet why did she become so relentless the moment he mentioned breaking up?
Truly... humans are incomprehensible.
Because he was the child of an incubus—his mother was once a Welsh princess, but his father was an incubus born between the moon and the earth, existing beyond the specifications of nature—the weak human genes were no match for the potency of the incubus genes. It seemed they hadn't influenced him much at all.
From a young age, he knew he was different from humans. In terms of gender, though he looked like a human male, changing into a female was merely a matter of a single thought.
As a half-human, half-incubus, he shared the same habits as Lilith, the famous British succubus who drained the essence of men. He naturally sought intimate contact with the opposite sex, craved their embrace, and his body even absorbed human essence as sustenance.
There was a vast chasm between him and humanity; an absolute difference.
While he couldn't be called truly immortal, he had enough lifespan to at least outlive the extinction of the human race.
Fragile humans were his complete opposite: short lives, meager resources, and bodies so weak that a single illness could prevent them from ever standing up again.
Everything dictated that he could never truly understand humans.
Yet, perhaps because of his mother, he was filled with curiosity about this species.
Yes, he liked humans. He liked the upright King, he liked the idiotic knights, he liked the straightforward child at Chaldea who desperately pushed forward (Gudako), he liked the pure Mash, and he quite liked the "good guy" Shirou...
At least, he liked them significantly more than fairies, giants, or magical beasts.
However, even so, he couldn't process things in a human way. What is good, what is bad, what is acceptable, what is unacceptable—even with his "Independent Manifestation" and "Clairvoyance" that allowed him to see thousands of examples, what he couldn't understand, he simply couldn't understand.
On one hand, he couldn't grasp human thoughts, so he often chose not to meet them face-to-face. On the other hand, he liked humans; he wanted to be with human women, he wanted to embrace, he wanted skin-to-skin intimacy.
That was why in the Seventh Singularity, before Uruk in Mesopotamia was destroyed, he indulged himself in the temples almost every day.
The temples of Ancient Babylon were very different from those of later ages. Legend has it that the Babylonians worshipped the Venus goddess Ishtar—an ancient goddess with ties to multiple pantheons who held authority over love, fertility, war, and agriculture.
But within the city's temples, this goddess was seen more as a goddess of fertility—the same deity known in later ages as Aphrodite or the fertility goddess Freya.
The priestesses inside were treated as substitutes for the god, bringing joy to people on the goddess's behalf.
Thus, in the temple of Ishtar, every unmarried woman served as a sacred proxy, with an obligation to mate and make love with any man in the city-state until they became pregnant and married off, or reached the age of marriage.
What a wonderful country that was. Yet, humans in history looked back on it with criticism, claiming that because they were too "lewd" and spent every day making love, the country declined and the Babylonians perished.
The wonderful goddess Ishtar was even called the "Great Whore of Babylon" by Christianity. Even though they were all humans, they acted like ice and fire, desperately trying to distance themselves from one another.
So even when he tried to actively help or understand humans... in the end, they were still hard to grasp.
He liked the civilization of Uruk and the priestesses in Uruk's temples, and then he watched quietly as they vanished.
Ultimately, that is the kind of existence he is. For humans, he is by no means a "good" companion. While he likes humans, it's like a carefree high school boy who, when asked what he would wish for with the Dragon Balls, can't think of an answer and simply says "World Peace."
It doesn't have any deep meaning; he simply feels it would be nice if all of humanity could be happy. If the world is peaceful, then great.
But if the world continues to wage war, it doesn't really change anything for him. After all, he wasn't born in the Middle East, he doesn't have friends or family serving in the US military, he doesn't know any Iraqis, and he doesn't even know where Syria is.
When he watches videos and sees people losing their homes, going out for a trip only to return and find their house bombed and their parents gone, and then desperately trying to bypass border blockades to smuggle themselves into Europe as refugees... he admits it's quite tragic.
"Well, it would be nice if the world were peaceful."
He thinks this, and three seconds later, he continues to eat, play, and sleep as usual. After all, it's none of his business.
To Merlin, human affairs felt like that. Even if humanity went extinct, he would probably still be able to live on. He would feel regret, but in truth, that would be the end of it.
So, Merlin ignored the stone tablet and walked straight in.
The moment he entered Avalon, massive stones rose from the ground, forming a cramped stone chamber with only a single window, trapping Merlin inside.
Only the innocent may pass...
Merlin had thought he was innocent, but his heart still ached.
"I see... I suppose it's impossible not to feel guilty..."
Merlin sat on the only protruding rock in the stone room. It was a bit hard, and his rear would ache if he sat too long, but the angle was perfect for seeing the sky outside the window. Through this, he could use his Clairvoyance to observe the outside world.
At that moment, Merlin gazed at the sky, observing that girl. She was currently in a state of deep sleep, her soul seemingly summoned to a distant world in her dreams. The current Merlin could only watch over the sleeping girl with a heart full of guilt.
Just then, his familiar, the three-eyed cat-beast (Cath Palug), began chirping "Fou, Fou," waking the white-haired man from his trance.
"Ah, right... I'm supposed to be locked up in here." Merlin looked around. The stone room had less than two meters of space to move. The walls, made of giant stones piled together, were useless for anything other than being sturdy—completely lacking in aesthetic value.
For a witch who was once human, that child really lacked any genetic sense of aesthetics. That's why she got dumped by men; a necessary amount of patience is a virtue neither men nor women can do without.
Merlin took the black staff leaning against his shoulder and tapped the ground.
Ttap...
Ttap...
As the sound echoed, the stone room began to change. The uneven walls inside and out became smooth and flat. The chamber rose continuously, eventually transforming into a high tower with a slender spire. Purple flowers instantly bloomed from the barren earth below, covering the land alongside green leaves.
Even the window was reinforced with black iron bars. Compared to before, the secret chamber no longer had any gaps and became even sturdier. This tower would now stand for a thousand years without collapsing, even in the face of earthquakes or tsunamis.
"If it's for the sake of punishment, this much should be enough, right?" Merlin muttered to himself as he looked around.
"Fou..." The small white beast gave the man a look of utter disdain.
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Years ago, Merlin, who liked humans, chose to stand on their side and help them find a better future. However, he was ultimately just an incubus who liked humans. Therefore, from the very beginning, he came to the human world as a bystander, maintaining an attitude of "gaming" through life.
When he was still young, he encountered Vortigern, the Usurper who was still human at the time. Vortigern was a vassal king assigned by the Roman Empire to the British station, but he lacked the aptitude to lead the island onto the right track, so Merlin soon left him.
At that time, the island of Britain was one of the few places on Earth that still retained "Mystery," but it was reaching its end.
The struggle between the Red Dragon and the White Dragon was, on one hand, a battle for survival between the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons—a war over territory. But on the other hand, it was the island making a choice to change itself.
After all, the Age of Gods had ended thousands of years ago, and now the Age of Fairies was reaching its conclusion. From here on, the world belonged to humans. Because Mystery was fading, the land that once relied on the blessing of spirits became barren. The indigenous people had no solution left; only by introducing a new race could the land be revitalized.
King Uther knew he couldn't maintain the country, so he begged Merlin to help him create the child of the Red Dragon to oppose the White Dragon. But even after winning every battle for ten years, King Arthur—striving for good governance—could not stop the country's destiny.
Merlin initially thought that the girl, who forced herself to act according to the "correct" standard at all times, would one day reach her limit. She would realize that protecting Britain was an impossible task.
He expected the girl would eventually cry and say she wanted to give up. Until then, Merlin decided he would just watch silently.
But... the girl persevered. She held on for ten years, and she performed more perfectly than anyone else.
From the moment she pulled the Sword in the Stone, she truly made the resolve to accept that fate. She no longer viewed herself as a human but as a King, treating the happiness of the entire country as her own.
She threw her own feelings and needs to the back of her mind to become everyone's ideal King.
She led her knights to suppress rebels, united the feudal states, and achieved the unification of Britain in a short time. Then she drove back the invading Anglo-Saxons and signed non-aggression treaties.
She used the wealth obtained through conquest to compensate for the barren land's inability to provide enough food, sending Lancelot to his home country to purchase grain.
It could be said the girl spared no expense to make the country better, desperate to change the outcome of Britain's decline.
It's just that reality is always so cruel...
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