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

Chapter 38

Merlin, half-incubus, an alien, immortal connoisseur of emotions, knew from the outside the flavors of anger, of jealousy, of envy and of desire. When he'd realized that Serendipity had resorted to fooling around with Hyde, he'd tasted all four. He didn't know where they'd come from. But the regret that had flowed over him after that dark jolt... that was his. He owned it. He knew.

At least it wasn't the peculiar hurt Artoria brought him. And there was no point in blaming Serendipity for his own mistakes. But he was glad to step beyond her too-seeing eyes for a moment all the same. He slid between the layers of illusion that surrounded them all, until he was safely hidden from all eyes Servant or magus.

Illusion and delusion: a dual-lobed deception carefully crafted to keep its victims comfortable as they were used to siphon off their world's energy. A vast project involving hundreds of magi of every experience level, it was far more complex than the Grail War it was weakly attempting to simulate. That wouldn't go anywhere, of course, but he was certain that given the time they'd work it out and add it to their repetoire of energy processing tools.

Not that he cared one way or another if they did. They'd provided an attractive diversion at a time when he'd wanted some distance from Serendipity and her effect on him, that was all. He'd gone along with the force trying to steal him away as a break, a change, a chance for perspective. And it had all been pointless because he'd constructed his entire escape scenario around her. He'd spent that day of dream-life eager for her appearance, for the opportunity to make her smile at him again as she'd smiled at him in the castle courtyard.

Idiotic, that. He'd constructed the key to his awakening around her outrage, not her smile. If she'd smiled at him, he might have stayed there forever.

The vast illusion commanded by the Master of the Raven Tower had been constructed of many, many layers that fit together like a complex pop-up book. Merlin absently devoured one of them just to weaken the structure of the spell, and tasted the bitter flavor of long and fruitless work. This second world, full of clever, scrupulous people, was interesting, no doubt, and in a different situation he'd happily take advantage of the breakthrough to have an adventure.

In fact, he'd done so occasionally before he'd accepted the imprisonment in Avalon. Once he'd avoided Morgan le Fay that very way. She'd been very eager to make him taste the flavors Serendipity had evoked.

Or had it been another woman?

It hardly mattered now. He wasn't what he'd been in those days. Once he'd wondered but now he knew: nothing living remained the same forever, not even him. Change had crept over him, so subtly he had trouble distinguishing what had altered... but that he'd changed was undeniable all the same. Regret told him that.

Merlin followed the flow of the illusion to the center, where the human child bound by the dark fairy anchored the entire spell. The dark fairy rode the child's back, with its own hands sunk into the child's chest in an impossible melding of flesh.

Settling his spirit form near the kid, Merlin observed the qualities of the binding magic and the illusion magic, making a few tiny adjustments. The fairy's eyes narrowed and the tendons in its arms tightened as if it clenched its fists within the boy's flesh. The boy trembled and Merlin tweaked the magic again.

Among other things, his tweak was a summons, and as expected, the Master of Raven Tower appeared before him: two men standing back to back, bound even more inextricably together than the fairy and the child. The taller of the men, Jonathan, said wistfully, "You're going to leave us, then?" and Merlin once again tasted that bitter flavor of fruitless work.

"I couldn't save your world," Merlin said lightly. "Only make its disintegration more pleasant. You'd hate me by the end."

"You've saved other worlds," countered Jonathan.