To become a king and a magician

As Aurora spoke, she clapped her hands, and Coral, who had left a moment earlier, immediately came back in—she had been waiting outside the door the whole time.

"Lady Aurora, is there anything I can help you with?"

"Please take these distinguished guests of His Majesty to the place of those two."

Upon hearing Aurora's words, Coral immediately understood her meaning, nodded, and looked at Grey and the others: "I understand. Guests, please follow me, I will lead you on your way."

"Then I'll go too!"

Artoria raised her hand.

But as soon as she stood up, Aurora spoke up, "Your Highness, would you please stay here?"

"Huh? Can't I go?"

“Of course not. In Salisbury, Your Highness can go wherever you wish; no place will refuse your presence,” Aurora said with a smile. “It’s just that I have something I’d like to discuss with Your Highness. Would you please spare a few minutes to listen to me?”

Is Aurora having something private to tell me again?

Artoria frowned: "Is it related to my father?"

"You could say that, and of course, it's also related to His Highness."

"ok, I get it."

With a soft sigh, Artoria sat back down on the sofa. "Sorry, Ritsuka, Mashu. You two go ahead, I'll join you later—if you see a Guardian, make sure to subdue him!"

"Okay, see you later."

After waving goodbye to Artoria, Fujimaru Ritsuka and the other three followed Coral out of the conference room.

After they left, Artoria looked at Aurora: "So, what is it you want to tell me?"

“Although this is just a guess, but…” Aurora pursed her lips, “Your Highness, did you leave the capital and come here to begin your [Pilgrimage]?”

Pilgrimage.

Upon hearing Aurora mention this word, Artoria's expression faltered slightly.

——————————————————————————————————————

Salisbury.

On the main street directly opposite the city gate and the entrance to the cathedral.

Coral led the four of them to the entrance of a restaurant on this street.

“This is it,” Coral said. “The two you were looking forward to meeting are right here.”

"Dining room......"

Grey frowned and pushed the door open.

"jingle!"

As the bell hanging on the door frame rang softly, two voices immediately came from inside the store.

"welcome!"

"How many guests are there?"

Two figures appeared before them as the voice rang out, and after seeing who it was—or rather, after recognizing one of them—Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mashu were immediately stunned.

"Miss Ba?!"

"Eh? Lord Fujimaru? Lord Mash?"

Upon seeing Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mashu standing at the door, Tomoe Gozen, dressed in a maid outfit, was momentarily stunned.

Beside Tomoe Gozen, Miyamoto Musashi, also dressed in a maid outfit, showed a slight look of doubt: "Eh? Is she an acquaintance of Tomoe-sama? That means she's also from Pan-Human History?"

"Eh? So you're here too... By the way, why is Miss Ba here? And dressed like this?"

"Well... that's a long story."

Tomoe Gozen said, her face slightly flushed.

"Well, let's come in anyway."

42. A man whose mouth is full of lies

Inside a private room on the second floor of the restaurant.

After tricking Coral back, Tomoe Gozen, Miyamoto Musashi, and Fujimaru Ritsuka arrived here—although it was called a restaurant, there were actually not many customers, or even none, since fairies originally did not have the need to eat; they ate only to taste the flavors.

Therefore, Tomoe Gozen and Miyamoto Musashi naturally had no need to entertain the guests.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Tomoe Gozen explained what had happened to her recently.

Tomoe Gozen recounts her past as briefly as possible, from the end of the Seventh Singularity to her activities as Archer Inferno in Shimousa Province, to being saved by Natsukawa Torata, meeting Miyamoto Musashi, and the three of them fighting together against the Heroic Spirit Swordsman.

"Then, just as Musashi, my Master, and I were preparing to leave Shimosa Province, Musashi's constitution activated again, bringing both my Master and me to this Lostbelt. It was about two weeks ago."

"But we weren't with our Master at the time. Musashi and I were separated and only met again a day later. After that, we started traveling around Britain in order to find our Master."

After hearing Tomoe Gozen's explanation, Fujimaru Ritsuka and the other three fell into deep thought.

Tomoe Gozen and Miyamoto Musashi arrived in this Lostbelt two weeks ago, but Natsukawa Torato, who came with them, arrived two thousand four hundred years ago.

[It must have been affected by spacetime during the time travel, right? It's common for time to become somewhat disordered when traveling between different worlds.]

The communication device worn on Fujimaru Ritsuka's wrist transmitted Merry's voice.

[Anyway, it's a good thing to see familiar faces in the Lostbelt. We're all comrades who fought together in the Seventh Singularity, so we can trust each other—but it's quite surprising that the Miyamoto Musashi from this other world is a woman, especially since she's connected to a tiger...]

"It can only be described as very much in the style of an older brother."

"I've gotten used to the minister's behavior by now..."

The people present looked at Miyamoto Musashi with a hint of friendliness, and Miyamoto Musashi didn't seem to mind at all. Instead, he asked with great enthusiasm and curiosity, "Hmm? So you mean I'm a man over there? Could you tell me about my situation over there? -- By the way, since you're Tomoe-sama's friends, you can just call me Musashi."

"Yes, that was their original plan—but Musashi, let's talk about your matter later. I have something more important to ask you right now."

"Huh? What's up?"

What's with all those maid outfits you're wearing?

Merry directly asked what Fujimaru Ritsuka and the others were thinking.

That's right, maid outfit.

This is something that Miyamoto Musashi and Tomoe Gozen cannot do without, and it is not common sense. In this fairy country, there should be no concept of maids, but the two of them are dressed in maid outfits. Where did this come from?

"Ah, you mean this... actually it's—"

"I dressed them."

A voice interrupted Miyamoto Musashi's explanation, and upon hearing it, everyone immediately looked towards the doorway.

There, Natsukawa Tora, dressed in something resembling a bartender, was standing there, smiling and watching the group.

No, it's not Natsukawa Tora.

It should be said that—

"Minister Number Two?!"

"So you were here all along?!"

Without a doubt, the one who appeared here was Natsukawa Tiger, the second one who disappeared in the Battle of Camelot.

Tiger Number Two pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with a smile. He chuckled, "Well, I've been here ever since I left Camelot. I used a few tricks to buy this shop. I gave Musashi and Aba their maid outfits—don't you think they match perfectly?"

"They match well, but..."

"You better explain to me why you've come here!"

Unlike Gray, Mordred grabbed Tiger Number Two by the collar: "While we were fighting over there, you just slipped away without a word? Give me a proper explanation!"

"Huh? This..."

Tiger Number Two thought for a moment, then smiled broadly and said, "Because I saw that you were no match for me, I just ran away to save my life."

"Thump—!"

Mordred landed a punch directly on Tiger Number Two's face, sending him flying into the wall and creating a human-shaped dent!

"Hmm...that was a really powerful punch."

Struggling to break free from the wall and jump down, Tiger Number Two dusted off the rubble: "Well, it was wrong of me to run away first, and I apologize for that. But I hope you can understand, after all, I only have one chance to defeat the main body. If I fail then, we'll truly be powerless to turn the tide—"

[Regarding this, you're probably still hiding something from us, aren't you, Tiger Number Two?]

Meryl interrupted Tiger Two from speaking.

"Why do you say that?"

[It's my gut feeling, my gut feeling. Besides, you managed to escape from Camelot City without anyone noticing, and it seems like you weren't even discovered by Tiger... That shouldn't be something someone without any magic at the time could do, right?]

"..."

Tiger Number Two fell silent after hearing what Meryl said.

After a long silence, he finally spoke again: "About this matter... actually, I left a little bit of magic behind back then."

【Huh?】

"Although I said at the beginning that I used up all my magic to teleport you, I actually found that I still had enough magic left to support me to leave on my own after I got there. So when I saw that you couldn't defeat me, I immediately used that little bit of magic to run away."

【...】

"Also, regarding why I wasn't discovered by the original body... wasn't he still in the alternate dimension he conjured up in his own imagination at that time? It would be strange if he could have discovered that I wasn't there, right?"

That... is true?

Tiger Number Two's explanation made Grey and the others nod in acceptance.

But listening to his words, whether it was a misperception or not, everyone—including Miyamoto Musashi and Tomoe Gozen—had the same thought.

This guy is probably lying.

There's no basis for it, it's just a gut feeling, like how people who have known each other for a long time can roughly know what the other is thinking. That's the feeling they have now.

Tiger Number Two is still lying to them about this matter.

Or perhaps there's still something being concealed.