Chapter 103

"So, what about the relationship between Heroic Spirits and Servants?" Fujimaru Ritsuka turned his head to look at Kirshtalia and gestured casually, "After all, the system is still the Holy Grail War system - suppose that the Red, who holds the Holy Grail, also holds all the Rose Mothers... then she can split into projections of the original seven Rose Girls just like the Heroic Spirit splits the Servants."

"That's what I thought." Kirshtalia laughed, "And the changes in Shinku as a Servant are due to the influence of the still dormant original body - after all, they are the same person no matter what. So, Ritsuka - if there is anything that may be related to her discovery..."

"Remember to notify me."

So, as Fujimaru Ritsuka left the throne room, he asked Charlemagne to inform Kirshtalia - and quickly left the second floor where the throne room was located and ran towards the empty first floor.

The first floor of the castle is arguably the emptiest place in the entire castle—in other words, there is almost nothing worth exploring.

Ritsuka Fujimaru explored along the long corridor on the side of the hall, and unexpectedly found a wooden door when she reached the end. She reached out and opened the door, and found a staircase extending in a spiral towards the underground, and she didn't know where it led to.

"...I have a bad feeling, Ritsuka." Kirshtalia, who was called by Charlemagne, appeared behind Fujimaru Ritsuka in time, and his eyes fell directly into the endless stairs in front of him. "Especially after it is connected to the Holy Grail War, there will definitely be a lot of trouble underground--"

"But the two of us are not allowed to go underground." Fujimaru Ritsuka turned around and looked at Kirshtalia standing behind him, sighing helplessly, "Should we go outside to call for help? Although we can't go underground, everyone else has no such restrictions."

"...It's almost time for lunch." Kirshtalia glanced at the pocket watch in her hand, stepped forward and closed the door leading to the underground. "After lunch, tell them what's going on here - and, I think there should be some changes outside as well."

"It's already the third day, Ritsuka."

"By the way, can you tell me in detail about the situation in the throne room?"

After lunch, the seven members of the new Group A gathered in the rest area without any prior arrangement.

"We don't have to go to the croquet court this afternoon." Ophelia sat on the white sofa and watched Kirshtalia set up the soundproof barrier. She said to the three groups that were not at the croquet court, "Because it's already the third day, I'm worried that the special point will change drastically tomorrow - so we finished the work of dyeing the stork in the morning."

"The dyeing work on the Rose Labyrinth is also finished." Cadoc nodded, agreeing with Ophelia's speculation, "Both the Holy Grail War and the Rose Maiden are related to the number seven - and four is exactly the middle of seven. In other words, the time of this anomaly is only about seven days."

"Also, I discovered a new area near the Rose Labyrinth - the Queen of Hearts' Court. This area has its own rules."

"I've discovered another new area here." Mashu raised her hand and looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka. "That's a garden used for tea parties, but the flowers in the garden are all white roses half painted red... and there are no separate rules there - that is, the roses there may need to be dyed."

"Then I'll go there this afternoon." Cadoc sighed gloomily and took on the job of dyeing the roses in the tea garden. "While I still remember the laws about rose colors, I'll go and get rid of these extra roses. After all, the later it gets, the more likely it is that something bad will happen in the anomaly."

"Then let me tell you about the castle exploration." Fujimaru Ritsuka looked around at his teammates and spread the map of the castle interior that he and Charlemagne had spent some time drawing on the coffee table in front of everyone. "In the past two days, our activities and exploration range only included these areas - and based on the location of our rest area, we can also infer the location of the other two camps' rest areas."

"In this case, the only areas that we haven't explored and need to check are the first floor of the castle, the ballroom on the second floor, the terrace, and the throne room." Fujimaru Ritsuka traced his fingertips across the map and stopped at the ballroom on the second floor of the castle. "So I went to the ballroom on the second floor first, which is the area directly opposite the stairs of the first floor lobby."

- There is a door on one side of the wall of the ballroom, presumably connected to the banquet hall where meals are served; the color of the roses in the decorative bouquets corresponds to the Rose Girl, rather than the three-color camps of this Holy Grail War; there is no door separating the terrace and the ballroom, and standing on the terrace and looking to the left you can see the croquet court.

"…The key point is the throne room on the second floor." Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed helplessly and moved his finger from the terrace on the map to the throne room. "As soon as I entered, I felt a pressure no less than that brought to me by the Holy Spear Goddess Longominid in the Sixth Anomaly. For Senior Kirshtalia, Morgan, the Fairy Queen of the British Anomaly Belt, is probably easier to understand."

"…That is the pressure that fills the throne room of the Castle of Hearts."

"At the same time, I felt an unknown gaze falling on me."

"...Didn't you completely wake up the holder of the Holy Grail?" Kirshtalia looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka, sighed heavily, and decided the direction of action for all members of the new A team in the afternoon, "Let's go to the tea party garden that Mashu discovered together - Ritsuka had better not stay in the castle this afternoon, the exploration of the basement should still be..."

"You also found the basement?" Mustard looked at Kirshtalia and Mashu, and pouted. "Then let me explore the basement. Peperoncino, come with me, and you go to the Tea Party Garden... I know you two can't go underground. Relatively speaking, my attributes are most suitable for exploring underground areas."

"And Peperoncino is good for being a danger detector in unknown areas - although I don't usually die."

"...As long as you don't use your Noble Phantasms carelessly, it'll be fine." Kirshtalia gave her opinion. "Although the impact of self-destruction and reshaping your body each time is not very big on you...but let Mr. Asclepius in the infirmary go. And there is also an Asclepius in the Black Faction here. I think he will definitely notice that your appearance has changed."

After the brief meeting after lunch, the members of the new Group A quickly started their afternoon activities according to their respective groups. Although Laplace's Demon changed their respective work areas, the Rose Labyrinth Group subtly did not change and remained the members of the second day, so that Kadoc almost memorized all the laws about the color of roses.

And now, Kadoc was reiterating the rules regarding rose dyeing to his teammates who came to be in charge of dyeing - because their job was to meet the dyeing needs of all the roses in the garden in one afternoon, so they had to ensure that there were no mistakes during the afternoon's work, otherwise it would be too late.

"On ordinary days, when we hold tea parties, the roses should be all red." Fujimaru Ritsuka held a bucket of red paint and painted the half-red and half-white roses in front of him with a brush. "No wonder there is so much paint in the castle. If the 810 Laws of the Queen of Hearts are strictly enforced, the amount of paint consumed to color the roses will be very large."

"Speaking of painting white roses red with red paint, it's Alice in Wonderland after all." Mashu squatted beside Fujimaru Ritsuka and used a paintbrush to paint the roses at the bottom red one by one, while repeating the content of the fairy tale, "'Oh, Miss, you know, this should be planted with red roses.'"

"'But we made a mistake and planted white roses here. If the Queen finds out, we will all be beheaded. Miss, you see, we are doing our best to plant white roses before the Queen arrives..." Fujimaru Ritsuka stopped what he was doing and turned his head to look at Kirschtalia, who was in charge of the rose at the highest point. "By the way, does this count as being before the Queen's arrival?"

"...Indeed." Kirshtalia also stopped what she was doing and thought carefully about all the information they had collected so far in this special point. "After all, strictly speaking, according to the information we know, can't the holder of the Holy Grail also be said to be the Queen of Hearts in this special point?"

On the other side, Mustard Hinami and Pepperoncino opened the wooden door leading to the underground that Fujimaru Ritsuka discovered, and walked down the spiral staircase one after the other. Taigong Wang, who was walking at the end, used magic to hide the existence of the door as requested by Pepperoncino, and illuminated the dark underground for them.

Then, they discovered something unexpected underground.

"Oh, Pepe..." Akagi turned around and looked at Pepe Longino standing behind her, her expression more serious than ever before, "Do you think this will overturn Ritsuka and Kirshtalia's inference? Moreover, at this time, such an area is exposed in the anomaly..."

"The balance has been broken." Peperoncino looked at everything in front of him seriously, "No matter what, Ritsuka must see this with his own eyes - everyone thought that the Seventh Doll Group withdrew yesterday morning because of the civil war in the Crimson Camp. Although there has been no trace of the Seventh Doll Group since then, I think..."

"Neither the Black Camp nor the Red Camp would have thought that the medium who withdrew from the battle because the puppet lost and lost the qualification to participate would reappear in the basement of the castle in the form of a corpse." Peperoncino looked at the corpse of Catalina in front of him and took a deep breath, "We need Ritsuka to confirm whether this is a real corpse."

"Because in the previous meeting, we didn't mention that we came to this special point without experiencing the soul transfer. Now, only Ritsuka can give us the real answer."