Chapter 343

"Should I thank them for at least remembering that the manuscripts they were working on were important and not fighting each other with coffee cups?" Watson sighed as he put away the first draft of the script settings that the Grimm brothers had just handed over to him with a lot of swearing. At the same time, he complained to William who was sorting out the settings and character arrangements with him, "I thought you guys were enough to make me worry."

"At least I'm still here to help you categorize the settings." William smiled and mentioned the four people who were assigned by the magicians to collect more intelligence because they sneaked out. "Well, although it's a relatively loose first draft, there are no additional restrictions besides the actors in the main cast..."

"But some actors are always being snatched up by others." Watson turned around and looked at the whiteboards covered with manuscripts behind the two of them, and sighed helplessly, "Will, how do you think we should deal with this part of the problem? We have to integrate these scattered settings and piece together a complete story after all the actors have been assigned, right?"

"I counted the number of times all the actors and actresses were repetitive, and arranged them for you in order of frequency." William blinked and shoved his notebook into Watson's hand. "Come to think of it, I originally thought that you wouldn't call any of us by nicknames except Molly."

"Molili, that's because there's really no more convenient name to call her." Watson shrugged, flipping through William's records while recalling the situation from earlier. "When you first came, Ritsuka hadn't completed her upgrade yet, and most of the Heroic Spirits were still in the split state they were in when they manifested as Servants. There were a lot of Lilys, Alters, and Santas... Oh, and I heard from the guy who was summoned by Chaldea earlier that there was also a Leonardo Lily."

"It's even more troublesome to use job-level classification as a name - who knows which Ruler you are calling?"

"You're right. After all, in 221B, besides him, the only ones left are Caster." William smiled and spread his hands. He asked Watson, who was obviously calmer, "Are you ready to start adjusting the role arrangement from which setting?"

"Let's treat these settings as two separate stories first." Watson moved the whiteboard and answered William, "Just like the records of Sherlock Holmes' cases in the past - even if the two cases were handled in the same period, or even if they are related to each other, I can record them separately."

"First, let's start with the birth of zombies."

Mary Shelley and Stevenson were responsible for the creation of the zombie origin setting - the two writers who had used the mad scientist theory to cover up the existence of magicians for the first time seriously thought about what a mad scientist who was not a magician should be like, but the final product was still a mixture of the birth of Frankenstein and Hyde splitting from Jekyll's body.

"Well, so, their plan is to replicate the miracle of God creating man and to create new life. This group of crazy scientists in the story collected corpse fragments and pieced them together. While trying to give the corpses new life, they accidentally created a drug that can create zombies..." Watson stared at the first whiteboard in front of him, his mind going blank.

"Let's just say that." William calmly interrupted Watson's thoughts and began to explain the two men's arrangement of the roles. "They stuffed four actors into the Mad Scientist, and some members who needed to be arranged as unimportant supporting roles were also stuffed into this laboratory."

"...Who are these four actors?" Watson exhaled and sat down on the chair next to William. "Does it conflict with other people's arrangements?"

"Except for the main characters, all other roles are in conflict, even the extras." William paused and added, "Although it's not that extras are not allowed to appear repeatedly, we choose to give them extra roles precisely because they are not professional actors - so I think roles in areas where they can be offline at the beginning are more suitable for them."

"I agree with your point of view." Watson nodded, and focused his eyes on the whiteboard covered with the zombie origin setting draft papers, carefully confirming the actor selection of Mary Shelley and Stevenson, "Tentachi Jia and Zhuchuan Aoishi from the Hyakka Theater, and Chigasaki Shi and Ugi Chikage from the Spring Group of the Mankai Theater - I can understand the conflict of candidates on the Spring Group side, but what about the two from the Hyakka Theater? Looking at the video footage of Sfin and others, I think these two are very suitable for the role of crazy scientists."

"Andersen and his team wanted Zhuchuan Aoi to play the role of the evil witch who caused the natural disaster." William explained briefly, "Then the role conflict of Tenritsuka was that Dumas, who was responsible for the setting of the wasteland, wanted to insert him into the role group of the members of the Aki Group."

"...Compared to Dumas' ideas, I may be more in favor of Andersen's and their role arrangements." Watson commented in a strange tone that was obviously full of personal grudges.

"I agree." William closed his eyes and chose to unconditionally support his nationality and the opinion of the head of 221B, but he still confirmed with Watson responsibly, "Is this the tentative choice for the mad scientist? Or do you want to change to someone else?"

"Let's first look at the settings of each group and their reasons for choosing people - let's talk about Alexandre Dumas last. When will it be his turn to choose people first?" Watson raised his eyebrows and turned his gaze to the whiteboard filled with the settings of the second stage of the zombie story. "Wait, Guiji - is the parrot also arranged to be in the protagonist group!?"

"The Xia Group is good at improvisation and comedy performances. Compared to other camps, Guiji should be the most suitable here." William touched his chin and made a summary. "By the way, I am beginning to wonder what the fairy tale writers thought of assigning Guiji to the camp that caused the natural disaster."

"The villain always has subordinates who hinder him and make him look weird... This is probably the characteristic of fairy tales." Watson sighed helplessly, "Let's take a look at the first drafts written by both parties before making a decision. Guiji... It's really troublesome to assign a role to a parrot."

"Come to think of it, I actually think Kamisaka Reni is more suitable to play a bad witch or a crazy scientist... What role did they arrange for Kamisaka Reni?"

"Even if there are role conflicts, they have tied up several characters from the first generation." William spread his hands and recalled his memories of these manuscripts. "It's either a team that builds a base together against the backdrop of zombies, or a magician who guides the protagonists to solve problems against the backdrop of a fairy tale disaster and an evil magician who makes things worse."

"I'll ask them to dismantle the original set and then look at the role arrangement." Watson sighed helplessly again, "Besides, if Andersen and his team make the setting too fairy-tale, it won't be able to fit in with the zombie plot, right?"

"I think we can use unrealistic settings to cover up the story settings that need to conform to certain realistic logic to a certain extent." William blinked and looked at Watson. "After all, we haven't found the Holy Grail of this anomaly yet. We can end this dream anomaly with the ending of the story, so why can't we create conditions that meet the appearance of the Holy Grail just like the idol contest anomaly?"

"I understand what you mean." Watson stood up and rushed to the large conference room that was temporarily used by the writers as a creative area. "It's time to tell them the specific direction of the setting modification and the new suggestions for the role arrangement. The universal wish-granting machine can certainly cause all the problems that humans can create, and it can also solve all the problems that humans can solve!"

The door of the conference room opened automatically in front of Watson, and a doctor hurriedly ran from the other end of the corridor to the podium in the center and stopped the writers' creative process.

"...I need to correct a creative misunderstanding that we have all ignored before." Watson took a deep breath as he scanned the writers who were gathered in groups of three or four, still holding coffee cups in their hands. "Our creation this time is to end this anomaly and return to Chaldea, not to create a true literary or artistic work - the Holy Grail, the universal wish-granting machine."

"This is the origin of all anomalies, 'life' and the end, 'death'."

“Although this anomaly contains zombies and natural disasters, the origin of these things is definitely not the origin in ordinary disaster movies - the Holy Grail created this anomaly, and in order to resolve the already formed anomalies, Chaldea's consistent method is to recover the Holy Grail. As long as the Holy Grail is recovered, everything born from the Holy Grail will be destroyed.”

"So, what are the conditions for the Holy Grail to appear?" Andersen twirled the blue feather pen in his hand and looked down at Watson standing on the podium. "There is no clear condition for the Holy Grail to appear in this anomaly."

"When there are no clear conditions, classics will never be rejected." William, who was late for the meeting, leaned against the door of the conference room and smiled as he answered all the heroes in the conference room, "The purest and noblest knight in the world held up the Holy Grail - that is the Holy Grail Knight Galahad."

"The Mankai Theatre Company has performed a stage play related to the Knights of the Round Table, but Galahad was not one of them, right? Because it was a stage play adapted from a game with Lancelot as the protagonist..." Shakespeare fell into deep thought.

"No, since the Middle Ages, the dragon-slaying Saint George has been confused with the angel Michael..." Wilde stroked his chin and recalled something, "Mr. Georges can be equated with the angel Michael to a certain extent. The leader of the Winter Group of the Mankai Theater has played an angel character named Michael, right?"

"Names are magical." Murasaki Shikibu, who was sitting in the corner, widened her eyes. "In this special point where an actor can gain the power of a character, the power of a name becomes even more obvious."

"...Then, the leader of the Winter Group will hold the Holy Grail." The writers' discussion has ended. They have unanimously decided on the ending of this story and the absolute protagonist who truly connects the entire story. "The leader of the Winter Group has not only played the angel named Michael, but also the devil named Lucifer. Perhaps the disaster began when the angel disappeared."

"Then it is only natural that the disaster will end when the angels return to heaven."