"Lancelot. The Chief of the Knights of the Round Table. There is only one person he would call 'King'. I never expected it, the famous King Arthur is actually a woman."
Iskandar's eyes widened. He looked at Saber in surprise, wondering how the chroniclers of history could have gotten her gender wrong.
Noticing Iskandar's doubt, Lancelot spoke up for his King.
"Though my King is a woman, her ambition and strength are second to none. She was recorded as male because, in the social environment of that time, a male king was better for morale and stability. She disguised herself to give the people and soldiers confidence."
"Sir Lancelot..."
King Arthur, Artoria Pendragon, looked on with a complex expression. She had not expected to meet an old acquaintance in this Holy Grail War.
"My King, I repent for the past. I know you accepted Guinevere's happiness because, as a woman, you could not provide it, and so you saw our love as a good thing. But for a King, it was a blow to your dignity. To others, your knight was with your Queen, yet you showed no anger. It undermined your rule. I cannot forgive myself. I am here to receive your punishment, not forgiveness, but a penalty for my folly."
A certain Lancer holding twin spears silently averted his gaze.
Lancelot knelt.
"My fault made the 'King who does not understand human hearts' the beginning of Britain's fall. My heart is full of regret. Please punish me, not out of hate, but out of my love and respect for you. I wish to pay the price."
"Why must it be so, Sir Lancelot?"
Artoria's hands trembled. Her emerald eyes were full of sorrow as she looked at the knight.
"My King, this is my wish. Let it be the final closure for a dead man's obsession."
"Heh. Hahahaha."
A loud laugh broke the atmosphere.
Everyone looked at the King standing on the streetlight, laughing with his hand covering his face.
"What a truly amusing, absurd comedy. Haha."
"You bastard. Are you mocking Sir Lancelot?"
Artoria glared at the golden man on the streetlight, believing he was mocking Lancelot.
"Heh. Little girl King Arthur, I look forward to your face when you learn the truth."
Gilgamesh did not answer further. He glanced mockingly at Caelus and vanished into golden light.
Caelus said, "System, did Goldie see through it?"
[System: Yes. He did not notice at first and only felt that something was wrong. He used Noble Phantasms to observe Lancelot and discovered his void core. He sensed that the Power of Void comes from you. He laughed because the scene of a void core wearing a skin apologizing to King Arthur in Lancelot's place is absurdly comedic to him. He is eagerly waiting to see King Arthur's face when she learns that her knight was killed and impersonated.]
"So even a King with the title of hero has evil thoughts like ordinary people, or even desires that exceed those of ordinary people."
[System: Exactly. 'Hero' is just a title. Anyone can be a hero, but that does not mean becoming one makes you kind forever, nor that you began with kind intentions.]
"So, System, is it really such a bad thing that the character I created played the role they were meant to play perfectly? If a familiar friend dies, but I can create an existence identical to that friend, with every memory, soul, and even emotion exactly the same, is my friend truly dead, or have they been resurrected?"
[System: That is truly a profound philosophical question. If I were to explain it in detail, it would involve many things, but to put it simply, it can be described in one word, cognition.]
[System: For us systems, no matter how similar an existence may be, it is ultimately different at the information level. Even if cognition, emotions, memories, and so on are completely identical, there are absolute differences in their information signature. We would treat this new existence as a new friend to be made, but we would never treat it as the old friend who has already departed.]
[System: As for the vast majority of life forms that cannot observe the world through information, they determine who a person is based on memories, appearance, and cognition. If they cannot perceive that the person in front of them is actually a fabrication, they will continue to treat them as that friend. However, if they discover that this friend is actually someone else in disguise, they will feel anger and hatred, believing that their friend has been defiled or that their own emotions have been deceived.]
"Then, will the person who wakes up from the quill treat me as a new friend or an old friend? And will they think I have defiled their friend or deceived their feelings?"
[System: Host, you do not need to worry about that, because your own past is actually composed of an illusory future. You are an aggregate of multiple destinies that do not exist in the world, and that includes her in the quill. She is merely an individual from a hypothetical future that does not exist in the real world.]
[System: But now it is different. You have become a truly existing, non-false life form, and she is no longer just a memory from an illusory future. Your future will truly be written by yourselves.]
[System: This is a chapter that belongs to you both, one that you will write together.]
Caelus placed a hand on his chest, feeling his faintly beating heart and the quill buried within it.
It seemed as though an emotion was welling up.
I know it.
I remember that emotion.
It is called anticipation.
(To be continued.)