Afternoon.
Artoria walked out after taking a shower, the bathroom door closing behind her, hands working a towel through her wet hair.
Still scrubbing, she stepped out of her room and into an adjacent hallway, entering the living room where we were.
Medea was playing a cooking simulator on a phone with a violet casing, her fingers clicking across its screen at rhythmic intervals. Sometimes her ears would perk up when she added a correct ingredient to her virtual dish, and other times they would drop whenever she chose wrong.
Medusa had changed the TV's channel from snake documentaries to a soap opera, sitting on our sofa with her head tilted, listening to the dialogue between a mysterious billionaire and an average female lead.
I was sitting on the floor beside her, fingers adjusting and pulling on a brake lever after each refinement to confirm it was working as intended.
Artoria took all of that in and walked over, taking a seat on the sofa beside my free side, still rubbing her wet hair, focus ahead on the TV.
A quiet silence fell between us as the dings of Medea's game merged with gears clicking from my work, both swept under the dialogue of that male and female lead.
"You don't understand."
That billionaire's voice dropped low, background music swelling with every breath as he stepped closer to the female lead, backing her against a floor-to-ceiling window. His hand came up to rest against glass beside her head, and the camera lingered on how she looked up at him, breath caught, lips parted.
"I've tried to stay away. I've tried to let you go. But every time I close my eyes, you're there, and I—"
Artoria's hands stilled on her towel.
"He's advancing on her." She said, conclusion forming after observation.
Medusa's head tilted further, her expression softening at that scene with a kind of cautious curiosity, like someone watching an animal do something they couldn't quite understand.
The female lead on screen stammered something about how this was wrong, how they couldn't, but that billionaire leaned in closer, voice rough.
"I'm not asking for permission."
Artoria sat up straighter, mouth opening on its own.
"She has surrendered her center of gravity. Her back is to the wall and she has not so much as shifted her stance." Her towel dropped to her lap, forgotten. "If he moves to grab her now, she cannot pivot or retreat, giving him every advantage."
I glanced up from my brake lever. Medea's thumbs paused over her phone screen, ears angling toward Artoria.
On screen, that female lead whispered his name, and he brought his other hand up to cup her face.
"There."
Artoria pointed a finger at where he cupped the female lead's cheek.
"He has seized her. Why is she not responding? She should be driving her palm into his nose, breaking it before he can move, or at minimum shatter his wrist with an elbow drive, forcing his fingers open."
Medusa slowly turned her head toward Artoria, held it for a second, then turned back to that show.
"He's confessing his love." Medea said quietly from further away.
"Possession would be more accurate." I corrected her.
"Confessing? By ambushing her against a wall and taking hold of her face?" Artoria's brow furrowed deeply.
"That is not a confession. It is a declaration of dominance before a strike. Knights in my time used this exact tactic before a fight to unnerve their opponent."
A soft ding came from Medea's phone.
"The music is supposed to tell you it's romantic." Medea offered, still looking at her screen.
"Music does not change the reality of what I am seeing. She has already lost."
Artoria said with finality and took the remote in her grip, changing the channel to a soccer match just as that male and female lead's lips were about to meet.
I looked up from my work at Artoria wordlessly.
Medea ignored her game for a moment and lifted her eyes up, fixing them on Artoria.
Medusa shifted her blindfolded gaze in Artoria's direction.
Artoria swept her eyes around all of us, her irisis narrowing.
"What?"
Medea rolled her eyes, her gaze drifting over to me.
"Master, we need to restock our pantry, I had checked before breakfast and it was about to run out of ingredients." She said while putting down her phone.
My fingers continued to move on the brake, voice calm.
"We'll go to a supermarket later to get everything at once."
"Ahem... Master, you have to go now, since both salt and sugar are finished, having been used in the udon noodles and their broth." Medea's words made me stop.
"Anything else?" I asked, putting that brake down.
"Soy sauce and vinegar, and maybe some meat, honey and vegetables too." She said with a finger on her chin, eyes thoughtful.
"So, we need everything?"
Medea nodded at my question. "Pretty much."
"Let's go then." I said while rising to my feet.
Artoria had been listening to our conversation intently, and interjected right at that moment.
"Master, you must take me with you. We must strategize and not be caught off guard when entering a supermarket." Her fingers had curled into fists, jaw tight like we were about to go to war instead of a supermarket.
"We need a list of our needed items. Then we need a budget and even a route through the supermarket optimized for speed." She continued, already rising to stride into the adjacent room to fetch pen and paper.
Medea, Medusa, and I watched her vanish past the threshold, exchanging glances after she was gone.
"Master... we need to teach her how to live properly in this era." Medea groaned, holding her head.
"The Grail... already gave us knowledge about it." Medusa spoke, blindfold trained on my face.
"Apparently, even the Grail couldn't get that through her thick skull." Medea said, her words echoing through the living room.
Medusa and I stayed silent.
"Alright Medusa, you're coming too."
She pointed a finger at herself, voice soft. "Me?"
I nodded. "Yes, you."
...
..
.
Supermarket.
I walked through multiple shelves inside, eyes roaming and cataloging thousands of different products, their expiries and ingredients, in seconds.
There.
My hand came up, fingers wrapping around a bottle of soy sauce with fewer chemical additives than the rest and a longer expiry.
I had just turned to place it in a carry basket when the sound of wheels screeching on marble made me look ahead.
"Rider, keep up the pace, we have nine more sections to cover after this."
Medusa was approaching from ahead with a shopping cart, and Artoria...
She was sitting inside the cart, fingers wrapped around its edge, pointing left and right, grabbing things on her way and putting them beside her.
An uncle in his late forties looked at her and shook his head with reminiscence. "Ah, youth!"
Another woman in her late thirties followed Artoria with her eyes and asked around, "Whose child is this?"
I didn't answer that.
Artoria's gaze swept around with the focus of a field commander surveying terrain, her head turning sharply toward every item with military precision.
"That way."
Her finger jabbed toward rows of bottled condiments. "Rider, adjust course twelve degrees left."
Medusa obeyed without comment, their cart's wheels squeaking as she steered to a display leftward.
Artoria reached out and snatched a single bottle of vinegar from that shelf, inspected its label for exactly two seconds, and placed it in their cart with a decisive nod.
"That will suffice."
She turned her head, eyes scanning the next section, and that was when she spotted me.
"Master. I have secured the vinegar, have you located the soy sauce?" Her voice carried over, reaching my area.
I raised the bottle in my hand.
Her eyes locked onto it from there. I watched her pupils move, reading its label at a distance that should have been impractical for a normal human.
The screech of wheels returned, louder this time, and Artoria came barreling toward me, with Medusa moving briskly behind her.
They passed me.
Artoria's hand came up as she went by.
Her fingers closed around the soy sauce bottle in my grip and pulled it free in one smooth motion, nodding in my direction on her way.
"We will take this one. Those others are inferior." She said, her voice trailing behind as their cart rounded into a corner.
I stood there with an empty hand.
Medusa glanced back at me over her shoulder, her eyes hidden behind her blindfold, and gave a small, apologetic shrug before disappearing after Artoria.
...
The next area held snacks.
I found them again three rows over, parked at a dead end between a rack of potato chips and a tower of instant noodle cups.
Artoria was leaning forward over the edge of their cart, both arms stretched toward a shelf where two packets of chips sat side by side. Her fingers hovered between them, unable to commit, jaw tight with concentration.
Medusa stood beside her, patient, one hand resting on a shelf.
"Rider. This one costs forty-eight yen. But this one—" Artoria said, one finger pointed at a blue packet of chips. "—is ninety-two yen, but it bears a mark indicating that if I purchase one, I receive another free."
She turned to Medusa.
"Which is the superior choice?"
Medusa remained quiet for a moment and replied. "Buy one... get one free."
Artoria's brow furrowed.
"But it costs nearly double the first one. If I only need one packet, then spending forty-four additional yen for a second I did not ask for is wasteful."
"But... you get two." Medusa said gently.
"If I needed two, I would have asked for two."
"The free one—"
"Is not free if I am paying more to receive it." Artoria cut in, finger raised.
"This merchant is using the word 'free' as a psychological lever to extract a higher total payment. This is a battlefield tactic. They are flanking our wallet."
Medusa opened her mouth, then closed it.
She turned her blindfolded eyes toward me as I approached.
I reached past Artoria, took both packets off that shelf, and placed them in the cart beside her.
Artoria looked up at me.
"Both?"
"Both."
She stared at those two packets sitting next to her hip for a long moment, then nodded once, as though I had just made a decision that restructured her understanding of supply chain logistics.
"Decisive. I would have done the same if the situation demanded—"
I didn't let her finish and pushed the cart forward.
Medusa fell in step beside me.
...
The checkout counter.
Artoria was still in our cart.
She had been in it for the entire duration of our shopping trip, through eleven sections, across beverages, past frozen foods, around the bakery, and back to the front. At no point had she stepped out.
A cashier ran through our items with the calm of someone who had seen far stranger things than a fourteen-year-old sitting in a shopping cart.
Three bags of rice here, two packets of chips there, vegetables, meat, honey, soy sauce, vinegar, salt, sugar.
Artoria sat through all of it with her hands resting on our cart's edge, watching the scanner's red light pass over each item with vigilance.
I stood beside her, wallet in hand.
Medusa stood on the other side, one hand still on the cart's handle.
Our bill appeared on the register's screen. I swiped my black card without looking.
That cashier bagged our last item and slid those bags across.
I looked at Artoria.
She made no move to get out.
"Artoria."
Her eyes rose to my face.
"You can get out now."
She blinked, then her gaze dropped to the cart's metallic floor beneath her, expression turning peculiar, like a person lingering in a place they had been told was temporary.
"It..." Artoria paused, fingers tightening on its edge. "It carries a rider who directs it while moving ahead. I sat upon it and surveyed the terrain around."
She lifted her chin.
"It reminded me of my steed."
Silence.
The cashier's hand stopped mid-reach for another customer's items.
Medusa turned her face away.
I looked at Artoria for a full three seconds.
Then I picked up those bags.
"Get out of the cart, Artoria."
She did, stepping out with a practiced dismount of someone who had been pretending she wasn't enjoying herself this entire time.
She straightened her clothes, cleared her throat, and walked toward the exit with her hands behind her back, posture impeccable.
Medusa fell into step beside me, bags in hand.
The cashier and every customer followed us with their gazes as we moved out.
Artoria walked ahead with a carefree air.
Medusa kept her head down, blindfold levelled at the ground.
While I...
I felt something stir inside my chest. Small, warm and without any tactical value.
It was identified in under a second.
Shame.
The kind that heats your neck and ears for no practical reason.
People were staring. A woman whispered to her companion. The uncle from earlier caught my eye and nodded at me—father to father.
I was not Artoria's father.
I understood what they saw. A man with blank eyes and a black card walking behind a girl who had just called a shopping cart her warhorse, flanked by a blind woman carrying groceries in silence.
They saw a family.
Was this what Hajime meant? To feel even if it doesn't make sense?
I should've been above this.
And yet here I was. Embarrassed in a grocery store.
I glanced at Medusa. Her knuckles had gone white around those bag handles.
She glanced at me.
We both looked away.
Ahead, Artoria pushed through automatic doors and raised one hand without turning around.
"Master. Rider. Home is this way. Maintain formation."
That shame didn't go away. It sat there, stubborn and unfamiliar, refusing to be cataloged and filed.
So I carried it out with our groceries.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Isn't a carefree Artoria such a cutie? No war pressure, no fighting and my kingdom this my kingdom that. Just pure Artoria being Artoria.
I'm happy that she can be happy.
And Izuru feeling embarrassed also made me laugh out loud. The Ultimate Hope, the one who one shot All the World's Evil, embarrassed by a grocery store trip.