Saberfes!

Chapter 195

Chapter 195

By the time Kuzuki left, Shirou was already half-dead, a trail of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth as glassy eyes stared at the ceiling. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he instantly fell asleep.

A distant rumble of thunder shook his body, and he cracked open his eyes. Looking up, the wooden panels with gold leaf borders were gone. In their place, rough wooden planks laid horizontally together, and the damp smell of mildew suffused the room.

Is this...another dream?

Remembering his previous experience, he stood up, feeling the strange sensation of lightness again. It didn't seem like Saber or anyone else was in the room with him, so he pushed open the wooden door and headed outside.

Ironcast skies above obscured the sun as intermittent rumbles groaned in the distance, the threat of rain hanging heavily overhead. Buildings covered in limestone became gray under the lack of light, and he could see a people walking about, preparing for the inevitable deluge. A number of horses could be seen being led to shelters, and some men were securing the bundles of hay, covering them with large tarps.

Seeing nobody familiar, Shirou continued to walk through the town, an unseen presence among the people bustling to and fro. At first, it was slightly unsettling to have people thoroughly disregard him as they walked, with not a single eye turning towards him. It was even more eerie to have them pass through his body and not even bat an eye, but after a while the flow of people started thinning out, until a small entourage of what seemed to be soldiers appeared.

Equipped with spears and what looked like leather armor, they strode through the streets with discipline as the other people gave them a wide berth, though it seemed to be more of a simple caution than fear as their conversation went unbroken around them, though Shirou was unable to understand a single word. Seeing nothing else to guide him, he decided to follow the troupe. As an added bonus, he was no longer phasing through people with the spaced between them and the civilians.

Ahead of him, massive walls loomed in the distance, but he could see parts where it tapered off, the blocky outlines of unfinished construction remaining in the gaps between different sections. Despite that, it still looked quite majestic from afar, and when he got closer he received a greater sense of scale as it towered over him.

The group in front of him headed to a large gate that looked like one of the main entrances, with two towers flanking on either side, and the gate placed in a indentation in the wall structures that looked like a "U" when viewed from above. There were no drawbridges or moats, which he had come to associate with castles, but there was indeed a portcullis poking out of the top of the gate, a thick web of iron bars that had yet to be tainted by rust.

A steadily dwindling stream of people were exiting and entering the castle as the thunder grew closer, with the guards stationed at the gates hastening their inspections.

Instead of joining the queue, the troop directly marched up to the soldiers, and a representative split off to start talking to them. After a moment, they seemed to reach an understanding, the guard nodding and standing aside to let them pass. However, instead of entering the city like Shirou thought they would, they took up positions near the gate and in front of it, with some entering the passages within the wall.

The number of guards almost tripled after being bolstered, and he could hear a number of voices within the walls that seemed to suggest a similar event happening on the other side.

All of a sudden, something fell from the sky and crashed into the ground, almost hitting a guard standing to the side.

The man raised his head and shouted, glaring at someone just barely visible on the top of the wall. Shirou really couldn't be sure, but he thought the person up there waved their hands in apology. When he looked down at the object, he realized it was a crossbow. It was roughly made, and the catch had broken, making it useless. Craning his head to look upwards, he spotted several more people above, and the glint of steel in their hands told him that they were all armed.