The Thirsty Girl's Guide To Summoning (Fate/Isekai)

Chapter 26

Unready yet to commit to a plan for dealing with Lord Kirri and his lower-case servants, Ren put everybody back to work on repairing the fortress. She set Jekyll to work with Ritsu on trying to reactivate the fortress's invisibility shield—not something she had strong hopes for, but it seemed like the theoretical work that Jekyll excelled at, and Ritsu's luck couldn't hurt. Jack she assigned to help Merlin with the masonry reconstruction, because Jack's Merlin Resistance seemed to be at least A-rank.

Cú she let choose his own task, asking only that he avoided fighting and that he spent time with Tora, encouraging her to believe they could win. He grinned at Ren, and invited Tora to help him clean out one of the outbuildings. Tora had agreed, her dull resignation temporarily receding at the thought of spending time with the warrior she so clearly admired.

As for herself, Ren finished her sweeping and then spent some time roaming through the fortress alone. She peeked in on the portal chamber, where Jekyll and Ritsu sat together with her storybook and a notebook Jekyll had manifested. She judged from Jekyll's guilty look that he hadn't made any progress on his assigned task but had definitely found something that interested him. Ritsu's foxette dozed beside her knee while Ritsu chattered cheerfully, her gaze fixed on Jekyll's handsome face.

Wondering how Jekyll would cope with a young girl's crush, Ren returned to exploring. She cataloged the other accessible rooms in the underground part of the fortress and then worked on getting to the upper levels. She found a gallery around the Great Hall that she could access by climbing over some fallen rubble, and by going up further managed to make her way onto the roof of the Great Hall where it extended out past the keep's central tower.

From there she could see not only where Merlin and Jack worked in the courtyard, but the top of the ramparts. To her very great surprise, she wasn't nearly as afraid of the drop as she'd been out on the wall. She didn't want to sit on the edge kicking her feet or anything, but she could be aware of the drop without a trembling in her limbs or a clouding of her thoughts.

Merlin's reconstruction work involved a lot more drawing on the stones and a lot less heavy lifting than she'd imagined. Jack mostly sat on tumbled masonry watching him, except when she trotted acreoss the courtyard to tuck a flower between some blocks at Merlin's behest.

Ren couldn't see Cú and Tora anywhere, nor even tell which of several outbuildings they'd decided to work on. She frowned, circling the central tower to inspect the far side of the keep, careful to test each step. It was a slow, mindless trip and she worried at the problem of not just killing her enemies as she went.

The biggest problem, she decided, was Jekyll. From what Ren knew of his parameters, he—or at least Hyde—could easily keep Blue Violet and their lionbolt occupied. He might even do better than Cú at fighting both of them at once. And Jack and Merlin could probably handle Shina the archer and her dragon, potentially non-lethally, which would allow Cú to face the Avenger-powered Lord Kirri.

Ren would have to pay the cost afterwards, of course. With her bracelets, handling Cú and Jack would be feasible. But she hadn't even picked up Jekyll's bracelet from Merlin yet, and being close to him had... risks, even if he'd allow it.

Merlin was technically correct in pointing out that she could always call yet another Servant from the portal. The thought filled her with dread, though. Without looking too closely at the story bubbles that still made up most of her memories, she knew there were plenty of other Servants she could summon that would demand much more of her. Vampires and stalkers and idol singers lurked in the depths.

But strategy demanded she choose at least one of the three to accept: sending Jack on a murder spree; draining Jekyll and Hyde to the point that they needed recharge from her; or summoning more allies.