Servant(s): ???

Who is the most likely culprit? What Servant would be most content with the rampant chaos in Chaldea caused by changing the [Spirit Origin] of all [male] Servants? They had considered BB and Kiara as likely suspects due to the history the Master had with them, but in the end, the two had been false leads. Considering Nursery Rhyme’s affiliation with Alice in Wonderland, they had also confirmed a third false lead.

Certainly, with so many Servants in Chaldea, the most likely culprits would have been those three. He should have been thankful that they weren’t the true mastermind because dealing with any of the SE.RA.PH related Servant would be an ordeal even at regular size.

But after all that searching, certainly they would have gotten some clues. How could the culprit hide in the isolated base of Chaldea so well when every [male] servant had been affected? 

In the hands of Mashu Kyrielight, Hans Christian Andersen shared his thoughts with the shrunken Lord El-Melloi II and their Master seated on Mashu’s plush palm.

“To think the two of you wouldn’t be able to come to a realization by now, I thought you were supposed to be Mr. Exposition, Lord,” Andersen laughed at the youthful pseudo-servant of Zhuge Liang. “Well, I suppose losing half your years must’ve taken a toll on your character. You’re more of a tag-along boy now instead of a high and mighty professor.”

“Can it with your satire, Andersen,” Lord El-Melloi II frowned, wishing his current form had his cigars to relieve his stress. “You’re in the same boat as us. If you’d rather we stay like this, I’d consider cooperating.”

“I already am, boy,” the bespectacled blue haired servant said. “I told you: those ladies have picked some on traits they normally wouldn’t have. You should have realized that for yourself in your encounters with them. Considering that, our scaled down heights and that girl’s interests, surely you can put two and two together.”

“I can’t say I pay close attention to every servant like you do. But if it’s the ones we’ve had to deal with, I suppose they’ve all had some tendency to want to toy with us. Those Gorgon girls, BB, and even Mashu over here.”

“The cow woman aside as she’s already depraved, they rest of them have gotten caught up in the thrill of observing and toying with us miniature victims. There’s an abnormal fixation that they certainly didn’t possess previously.”

The less than 2 cm tall Master silently considered the possibility, but it was hard to tell considering the servants he had encountered already had the natural tendency to fool around. Then again, it had certainly seemed as though they all had been enjoying what they had been doing.

“...Wait... I see,” Lord El-Melloi II came to comprehend where Andersen was going with his explanation. “No doubt this is due to the culprit getting access to a Grail. Her personality must have bled out with her wish and modified everyone’s [Spirit Origins] - not just the men. So if we consider whose personality, we can determine the culprit.”

“Ah, there’s the deduction that leads to the next scene,” confirmed Andersen. “Come now, Master. What delusionally misguided girl of a Servant in this whole base has natural sadism, lives for pleasure, and has an interest in small things?”

If they were going to spell it out so easily for them, he supposed the true mastermind had already been uncovered. They were being so blatant that he almost wished Holmes was around instead to respond much more subtly. However, from experience in hardships going from singularity to singularity, event to event, he knew that it was not going to be that simple.

“Senpai, do you have any idea where to get next yet?” Mashu asked from high above, unable to hear anything other than squeaks from their conversation except for his words. 

Their destination had been decided. 

-----

Or rather, it should have been.

“Melt? Sorry. She’s not here,” the shrunken Master heard a sleepy high pitched voice answer.

The culprit Andersen had led Lord El-Melloi and him to consider was the Alter Ego of Pleasure, Meltryllis. A Servant with a [Sadistic Constitution] and [Doll Mania] certainly had a strong likelihood of causing all [males] in Chaldea to be reduced in scale. Andersen seemed confident in his deduction, and the Master couldn’t deny that he should have considered her earlier.

They immediately left to confront the source of his troubles, but from experience going through singularity after singularity and event after event, he knew getting to the end wasn’t simple. Considering Mashu had been able to walk up to Meltryllis’s room without any trouble, he knew they were in the wrong place. That had been confirmed when, upon hearing the door open, they were immediately squished by an incredible pressure.

“Mmpph! It’s… the… other one...” Andersen spoke through the crushing force.

Passionlip had definitely opened the door after Mashu knocked asking for Meltryllis. They all immediately knew despite being unable to see outside of Mashu’s breast pocket because the Alter Ego of Love and Hate’s immense assets slammed into Mashu’s when she opened the door to answer Mashu’s question.

“P-Passionlip? Sorry, did we wake you up?” Mashu took a step back in surprise at being walked into by the sleepy Alter Ego. Doing so was a standard response for Mashu to take, but the quick and simple step was more than painful to them as Mashu’s breast dragged across Passionlip’s. Stuck in-between both, they all were ground between both of their heavy breasts. 

“Grgh!” They really needed a new place to be carried around in. Mashu’s breast pocket hadn’t exactly been safe at all the entire day. As they attempted to recover, the conversation between the giant girls continued.

“I was up with Melt all night. She was having so much fun, I couldn’t leave until she fell asleep, but keeping up with her and the rest was so exhausting,” they heard the Alter Ego say.

“So she isn’t here? Actually, it sounds like you don’t even know what’s going on,” Mashu mumbled. 

“... Going on?”

“No. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry to have woken you up. Could you tell us where Meltryllis is?” Mashu asked to confirm. If Meltryllis was not around so she needed to find out where. Just where in Chaldea could she be? 

After a yawn, Passionlip was happy to answer. “Melt was in Osakabe-hime’s room yesterday saying she wanted to live in the kotatsu.”

Osakabe-hime? Considering her hobbies, she could understand them getting along. He couldn’t picture the two of them collaborating in causing the entire incident, however. A shut-in like her couldn’t possibly be willing to let get involved in this sort of incident. Then again, there was that one event he loathed the recall...

“Osak- I see. Thank you, Passionlip. We’ll let you go back to sleep,” Mashu bowed, causing all of them to tumble as the girl’s breasts shook from the sudden descent.

“You’re welcome, Mashu. I hope I could be of some help,” Passionlip answered and closed the door to return to her room. Out of all of the servants they had encountered all day, the [Masochistic Nature] Alter Ego was one of the most reasonable. Perhaps mixing sadism with masochism simply cancelled them out. There was no need to be supported by Hassan of Serenity who was in the shadows as backup.

With Meltryllis’s hideout determined, Mashu crossed her arms. “Osakabe-hime’s room, huh? I’m not sure to think about her being an accomplice. Don’t tell me this was all for a doujinshi or something...”

The little Master couldn’t deny that possibility, but they would be able to find out upon heading there. He was having enough of all of the guess-and-check they had been doing. He simply hoped this was the correct location. 

-----

It was.

“This is…!”

After all of their searching through the base, the culprit had been around the entire time. Emanating from Osakabehime’s room was a significant flow of mana. It was unnaturally strong. There was no doubt from the feeling that a Holy Grail had been involved. This all but confirmed that the culprits they had been looking for were in the room.

“I can see why we didn’t realize it earlier,” Lord El-Melloi the Second stated after stepping off of Mashu’s palm to get onto the ground. “That hikikomori assassin’s room really is its own domain. You can hardly feel the energy unless you get close enough because it is practically sealed by her sign.”

“I understand the need for privacy during the deadline, so I can’t blame her,” Andersen smirked. “I’ve got to give that reclusive otaku credit. She knows how to lock herself away.”

Territory Creation and Presence Concealment were a strong combination together if nobody had realized the blatantly powerful energy inside until now. Behind the hand-drawn seal/sign stating ‘Hime-chan’s Crunch Time: DO NOT DISTURB’ was the cause and solution of the 1/100th scale reduction. Meltryllis was just beyond the door. They had to get in and get the Grail.

“Unfortunately, this is where things get difficult,” the little Master sighed, joining Andersen and Lord El-Melloi II on the floor by Mashu’s building sized shoes.

“... There was no alternative entrance,” Hassan of Serenity came back from her surveillance and approached Mashu as she stood back up. “The entire room has been closed off...”

“And Osakabehime isn’t answering the door at all,” Mashu frowned. “Senpai, I’m not sure about this anymore.”

After finding out that no amount of force or stealth could get inside the locked room, the little Master had told Mashu to place him and the two Casters down. The goal was right in front of them, but Mashu and Serenity could not get in no matter how hard they tried. Osakabehime was clearly inside, and hopefully, Meltryllis was as well. 

“The only reason we can feel the energy is because it’s escaping through the gaps in the door,” he had been told by El-Melloi II and repeated it to tell Mashu. “We can fit through those gaps, so we’re going to have to sneak in on our own.”

“But that’ll be dangerous. We won’t be there to protect you.”

What choice did they have? The only openings in the barrier were miniscule and they were the only ones who could fit through them.

“Honestly, dragging along two supporting role Casters like ourselves into an obvious danger zone is tantamount to suicide,” Lord El-Melloi II sighed. “But if the Holy Grail really is inside, we’ll have to push on.”

“Don’t push either of us too hard, Master,” Andersen added. “We may have a class advantage, but that’s a load of poppycock when they’re 100 times bigger than us. We’ll leave all the pain of dealing with the giant ladies to you.”

Andersen certainly appreciated throwing him under the bus, but he had helped lead them there, so he couldn’t complain. He would remember his words the next time the author faced a dreadful deadline, however.

“Mashu, just wait for us. If there is any trouble, I’ll use a Command Spell,” he looked up and up and up to Mashu and tried to convince her. It was hard to be convincing when it took a good minute to walk from Mashu’s shoe to the door she was standing right in front of.

With those words, he left Mashu and Serenity to venture off into the locked room. Without having the support of his gigantic kouhai, the tiny Master did feel vulnerable, but he knew it had to be done. The grail was so close. If they took hold of it, their gigantic ordeal would be over.

That said, sneaking into a lady’s room was easier said than done, of course.

Stomp. Stomp.

“Brace yourselves,” Lord El-Melloi II warned right after they crawled underneath the doorway. They could feel the heavy stomps of one giant girl as she crossed by. Immediately, they had a run in with a barefoot and one clad in a red stocking. Though they were thankfully still by the doorway, a barefoot larger than a giant dragon landed just centimeters away from their bodies.

“Seriously, Princess? Why’d you put the screentones in so many different places?”

“I’m really sorry. I thought I’d organize them by type, but then I swapped to digital so I gave up before I finished.”

“Digital, huh? I guess it is easier. It’s a bit too late for this one, but maybe I should do that for my next one.”

“Ah, since you’re up, could you grab another energy drink?”

“Haaah? Get it yourself. I’m not your maid.”

“But I don’t want to get out of the kotatsu~!”

“Stop saying that. You’re the reason why Ballerina Girl got so messed up.”

“No, I wasn’t. Hime-chan’s innocent.”

“Innocent, my ass. If the deadline weren’t so close, I’d...”

“It’s fine. Mel-Mel’s not going to be a bother while asleep. We can fix things when we finish our work.”

The conversation going on within the cramped and merchandise filled room of Osakabe-hime was tremendously loud to the tiny trio’s ears. Just by passing through the gap in the door, they were now witness to both the surging magical energy in the room and the booming manga artist talk between Osakabe-hime and her guest.

“It certainly sounds like we’re in the right place,” Zhuge Liang’s container coughed, taking the time to adjust to both the strong mana concentration and the amount of dust in the room.

He also felt that they definitely were; however, looking up and around the room from where they stood at the doorway, he was having trouble confirming. Being on the floor instead of a table or a bed or even Mashu’s hand made it clear to the Master how small being under 2 cm was. 

Display cabinets stretching high into the sky, cardboard boxes of merchandise forming impenetrable walls, a Musashi-chan plushie capable the size of a mountain - a shut-in’s room was a danger zone of titanic monuments. He couldn’t see the entirety of the room from where they were - not even Osakabe-hime. With scattered papers, books, and reference materials littering the hardwood floor of the room, simply navigating was going to be difficult.

It was going to be difficult. Judging from the conversation, Meltryllis was around and sleeping under the kotatsu. Moreover, Osakabe-hime was not going to deal with her until her doujinshi was completed. He wouldn’t expect any less from the shut-in assassin. Despite causing a problem while staying locked up in her room, her deadline was the priority. He had a strong urge to scold her.

Of course, that wasn’t going to be simple when he was still 1/100th size. They were so small that although there were roughly 4 meters between them and there, those 4 meters were 400 in their perspective. They weren’t even going to be able to take a straight route either with all of Osakabe-hime’s belongings and her collab partner’s reference materials scattered around. 

Speaking of her partner, her mere presence made all three of them wary. If it were Osakabe-hime alone, none of the shrunken trio had much to worry about because the bespectacled servant was very sedentary. They could move across her room with no trouble until they made it to where she sat. However, the single red-stocking clad swimsuit servant she was working with moved a lot about a lot more. Having to avoid her foot falls right after they had entered was already dangerous enough, but as the girl rummaged about for other reference materials and screentones, they had to hug the corners of the boxes and books that towered over them to avoid her haphazard steps and angry stomps.

“Damnit,” they heard as the powerful impact of a stocking clad foot shook them off balance. “I’m only making a collab work with you to get ahead of that dolphin woman. Don’t drag me into any more trouble just because you’re too lazy to fix it.”

Jeanne D’Arc Alter Swimsuit Berserker. The tiny Master tensed. To think she and Osakabe-hime were the last line of defense for getting to Meltryllis. Although the assassin princess was nice, Alter was a lot more unpredictable, especially in her mangaka Berserker mindset. 

“So Master, what’s the plan here?” Andersen asked while supporting an already winded Lord El-Melloi II.

What plan could even be made? Without Mashu and Serenity around, they were going to have to sneak over to the kotatsu that was their goal.