Servant(s): [Assassin] Osakabe-hime, [Berserker] Jeanne d’Arc (Swimsuit Alter)

How do artists work?

“Urgh. I just can’t figure out this pose. Alter, can you model for me?”

When it comes to doujinshi, how much effort is squeezed out of the author’s mind and body?

“Hell no. I’m still trying to find out what ‘Incineration’ means in German.”

Be it shipping characters, creating an original story, or just putting to paper one’s own interests, the artist’s passions run rampant throughout the creative process.

“Muuu… And we shouldn’t wake Mel-Mel until those drinks run their course… No choice. Hime-chan will have to rely on her Musashi-chan poseable figure.”

Osakabe-hime and Jeanne d’Arc Alter were two of such artists. The Assassin servant worked at her kotatsu drawing away using her dual monitor + drawing pad electronic set up while the Swimsuit-clad Berserker sat down on a magenta cushion floor, legs spread, and surrounded by binders of screentones, pens and papers, German dictionaries, and notebooks of reference materials she had placed around where she sat on the hardwood floor. The two of them were hard at work trying to make the deadline for their collaboration book.

Unbeknownst to them, their bug sized Master and two supporters were creeping across the floor.

“I’m not sure how I feel having less presence than an assassin,” Lord El-Melloi II stated as they peeked around the box they were hiding behind.

“Would you rather get discovered by that black saint with the delusions of a middle schooler? While I’d count my blessings that she’d sooner target Master than us, we’d likely still end up as collateral,” Andersen couldn’t resist having his say.

He couldn’t deny that. And if Andersen’s hypothesis was correct, with Meltryllis’s [Sadistic Constitution] added to her, she’d be very willing to toy with him… not that she wouldn’t naturally. Jeanne Alter’s personality was extreme enough. If he wanted to get to Meltryllis without invoking those traits, they were going to have to sneak past her.

That wouldn’t be easy, however. Alter had sat down with her back to them, but with her legs spread very unmaidenly, their path had been blocked. Her bare left foot was unconsciously pushing a stack of dictionaries further and further off balance while the stockinged right foot was surrounded by drawn pages, ink pens, and binders. The right side was a zone of constant movement as Jeanne continually moved things around. She was working so hard in Osakabehime’s room, she was sweating. The air conditioning was not helping her. Perhaps the reason why she was in the Berserker mode was to cool down.

Osakabehime, on the other hand, was purely focused on her Musashi-chan figurine, trying to draw out the pose she had set for it while munching on a chocolate treat. He could feel the thumping of her feet beneath the kotatsu vibrate through the hardwood floor. Osakabehime was a shut-in who liked a bit of luxury. Despite the AC being on full blast, she was enjoying the comfort of a heated table.

“So which path are we taking?” asked Andersen.

They’d have to get through Alter before getting to Osakabehime. Going right would be fraught with danger due to how many things were being moved about as Jeanne Alter worked. They’d just as easily be knocked down and crushed as they would be discovered scampering across. If they went left, there was a high chance Alter’s slight movements would knock the stack of books down like an avalanche.

“We should go...”

The Master began to speak, but found his decision to be completely meaningless as a shadow fell over the three of them.

“Master!”

Slam!

“Goddamn~! Leaning forward so much sucks~! My back is aching!” Alter kicked her feet forward and let her back hit the floor as she stretched her arms and legs. Her body easily knocked away the boxes behind her where they hid. The less than 2 cm tall intruders, on the other hand, were not so lucky.

“Mmpfhh! Al...ter…” the shrunken Master struggled to tilt his head to the side so he wasn’t pressed firmly against Jeanne Alter’s back.

“Mmgh… Good thing… Grk… I made it… in time...” he heard Lord El-Melloi II mumble. He could tell the rejuvenated pseudo-servant had activated his defensive skill. Alter was not gentle when she decided to take a break. She had slammed her full body down on them. Without his skill, they may very well have been flattened.

But that wasn’t to say that they were out of danger.

“Gak… Sweat… Sweat… And more sweat...” Andersen spat. He, much like the rest of them, were drenched by drops of sweat as large as their heads. The heat from Alter’s body poured into them, warming them up hotter than any summer sun could. The only thing they could be thankful for was that Alter did not lie on the ground for very long.

“You really shouldn’t be working on the ground, Alter,” they heard Osakabehime remark, though muffled underneath Jeanne Alter’s mid-back. “I told you that you could use the table.”

At those words, Jeanne Alter sat back up. Unfortunately, the bug sized Master and his servants found themselves to be seeing the floor grow distant. They were lifted up, stuck to Jeanne’s back by her muggy sweat.

“Hold on tight,” Lord El-Melloi advised, his back stuck to Jeanne’s own back.

“Gak. It doesn’t seem necessary, boy. These constraints are a tad suffocating, if you haven’t realized,” Andersen coughed, trying to spit out the salty sweat that had coated his face.

Said sweat was also bothering Alter, though it did not seem as though she had realized they were adhered to her back. She continued her conversation with Osakabehime. “I’m a Summer Servant right now. You think I can deal with that heat? I’ve actually got to hand it to you for having the guts to stay in that kotatsu.”

“Summer Servants are weird… Am I going to get like if I put on the swimsuit I bought?” Osakabehime mumbled. “You could at least remove your shrug. That might be what’s making you so hot.”

“You’ve got a point.”

To the shrunken Master’s panic, Jeanne Alter began to move. Faster than any of the adhered trio were able to comprehend let alone brace for, the gigantic servant jumped to stand up straight. They were surprised to not have been flung off by the slingshot force of her kicking off the floor, but even more when Alter began to take off her jacket as the assassin had mentioned.

“Hey, we’ve got a dangerous object incoming,” Andersen warned.

“Brace yourself. Grk- Argh!” Lord El-Melloi II warned just as Jeanne Alter stripped. To think they’d be in such a panic from one mere girl taking her shrug off, every single motion she made was catastrophic to them.

Just by rolling her shoulder, the shrunken Master felt his body slipping. The sweat was evaporating off thanks to Jeanne Alter’s body heat. This wasn’t good.

“Ah,” he could only bluntly utter a single sound when Jeanne Alter suddenly jerked, knocking him right off her back.

“Master!” “Gah! Me too?!”

All three of them had been shaken off so simply. The plummet was going to be hard. He saw Andersen right below him. Reflexively, he reached out to grab onto the author Servant. He pulled him close and looked up to see Jeanne Alter’s nearly bare back getting higher and higher up. This was bad. As used to falling from great heights as he was from how often as it had happened in his Rayshifts, even Sky High Plancha had Quetzalcoatl to break his fall.

Yank!

“Got it!” the shrunken master felt his arm jerked and pulled up. Even with Andersen in hand, his descent had been slowed to a stop. Unfortunately, his momentum was still high enough where he was slammed face first by his swinging arm into a plush, red surface.

“Urgh… Professor!” he called the title he gave to the young Lord El-Melloi II. The Caster servant had successfully gotten hold of him with one hand in spite of his E rank strength. He had saved them.

“Damnit. This isn’t exactly the best place to be, Master,” he complained. 

He agreed. They had fallen past Alter’s bikini bottom along their descent, so the pseudo-servant had no other place to grab hold of except her right stocking. Now, they were at the very top of Alter’s stocking, desperately clinging to it so they wouldn’t fall. To think that at 1/100th their normal size the threads of the stocking could easily be grabbed...

“Mister Andersen, are you alright?” he asked the writer servant he held under his arm.

“Well, now I have a first hand experience at writing a skydiving scene should I ever need it,” the author groaned and grabbed onto the red wall to lessen the burden on the Master. “Thanks for the rescue service, you two. I’m not cut out for all this manual labor.”

“And you think I am? Even younger, I’m out of shape,” the container of Zhuge Liang scowled.

Hearing the two Casters complain did lighten up the mood, but the Master knew better than to relax while in a perilous position such as clinging like ants to Jeanne Alter’s stocking. The fabric was thin which was fitting for summer, but to Jeanne Alter, it was still thick enough to feel hot. The sweat pouring from her skin soaked the red thigh-high. As he gripped the damp fabric with his hands, his nose was assaulted by the pungent aroma.

And as predicted, their misfortune continued. A shadow fell over them as Jeanne Alter’s hands reached toward her stocking. She was going to take it off as well.

“I don’t know why I bothered putting this on. My legs can’t breathe when I’m working like this.”

Giving her bare leg the freedom it deserved, Jeanne Alter’s fingers dipped under the stocking and gently pulled them. The stretching fabric shook, forcing the tiny trio to hang on for dear life. Jeanne Alter kneeled down on the other leg and bent the leg they were on, making the vertical wall they were hanging onto completely horizontal. They dangled in the air gripping with their arms up like Jaguar Warrior hanging onto trees when rushing through the jungle.

“Incoming!” he exclaimed upon seeing a wall of scrunched up red fabric heading towards them. Jeanne Alter slowly but smoothly pulled her stocking off her leg. They were engulfed and wrapped up by the red stocking. At the very least, they did not need to hang on anymore, but they were being carried along and enveloped by Alter’s footwear as she stripped it down to her foot. They could feel the descent as more and more stocking was collected between her hands and more and more sweaty fabric surrounded them.

“Blargh. This is more rancid than wet bicorn,” Andersen choked.

He couldn’t agree more. Jeanne Alter had been sweating for some time. The scent of her foot clung to the red stocking along with the sweat, mixing with it and coating them in the musty and salty odor. By the end of Alter’s fluid motion, they were all wrapped up in the red, scrunched up ball. With Andersen and Lord El-Melloi II, they struggled to breathe or even look through the muggy cloth trapping them.

Jeanne Alter was none-the-wiser as she held the ball that was her stocking in her hand. She was happy to feel the air conditioned air brush against her now exposed leg and arms. She was still sweating, but she was feeling remarkably cooler now that she was only clad in her O-ring bikini.

“That’s so much better,” Alter sighed a breath of relief and stood back up. She stretched her leg and arms as wide as she could. “I don’t get how you and Ballerina Girl can just enjoy that kotatsu. It’s just so hot. And I know hot.”

“It might be your [Saint Graph]. You’re probably stuck in a permanent summer when you’re like that.”

“That sucks, but it explains why that Dolphin woman has a more Berserker-like fever than me… That siscon...”

“Hime disagrees,” Osakabehime shook her head. “You’re way more insane than your Big Sister.”

At those words, the shrunken Master could feel the pressure around him increase. Jeanne Alter tightened her grip around them.

“Whoaaa!” he screamed as the stocking ball they were in was fastballed across the room.

“She ain’t my sister!” Alter screamed. She didn’t deny she was insane.

The impact was heavy. Jeanne Alter had thrown them inside her sock right at Osakabehime’s face. Though it had opened up upon hitting her, they had tumbled into and down the stocking. With where they were and how the stocking had slammed into Osakabehime, they were now directly in front of the Assassin servant’s mouth while trapped inside the cloth. Osakabehime’s hot breath further heated up their scarlet prison.

“Bleck! Ew!” Osakabehime peeled the stocking off her face and threw it back over the kotatsu. The tiny Master felt his stomach lurch as the stocking made an arc through the air over the kotatsu and landed on the floor. Unfortunately for the three of them, they did not make it to the floor. While the stocking unravelled in the air, the trio were flung out by the rotation. “Okay! Okay! She’s not.”

“Damn straight. Let’s just get back to work. Now that I’ve cooled down, I can start using your model guns as a reference.”

“Don’t break them. Hime spent a pretty penny to get those and still needs to mod them.”

“Mod them? Wow, you go hardcore.”

“Hmph. Hime’s the type to go all out for a survival game.”

“Eh? You’d actually be willing to go outside? I heard that even that Berserker stalker thinks that’s impossible.”

“Er… Survival FPS games…?”

“That’s not outdoors.”

With the conversation of the two giant women going on, the shrunken Master and his servants had escaped Jeanne Alter’s stocking but exhausted and battered. Being thrown about by Jeanne Alter and then Osakabehime felt like being in a hurricane… made by Rhongomyniad… combined with Golden Spark… and System Keraunos… all at once.

“Well… we somehow survived that...”

“Survived is a strong word...” Lord El-Melloi II was on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

“We’re right above of our destination, but after that series of unfortunate events, it certainly doesn’t feel like it,” Andersen frowned. “Our goal doesn’t seem to be here.”

He wasn’t kidding. When, Osakabehime had thrown Jeanne Alter’s stocking away, they had been thrown onto the top of Osakabehime’s heated table. They were right on their destination, the kotatsu, so he should have been relieved to have made it there quickly (though painfully). There was just one major issue: Meltryllis wasn’t around.

Despite Osakabehime and Jeanne Alter talking about her, she clearly was not around the kotatsu. Considering her very obvious legs, they should have been able to see her now that they had gotten close, but she was clearly not around.

“Tch. She must be over at Himeji Castle…,” Lord El-Melloi II quickly concluded. “It’s never that easy, is it?”

She had to be below the kotatsu. Going under there was difficult for more reasons than one. His Halloween traumas aside, Osakabehime would have to open the path to Himeji Castle herself. That meant that even if they made it beneath the table they would have to wait for her to open the entrance to her domain.

“So close, yet so far,” Andersen forced a weak chuckle. “I’m surprised we’ve succeeded with the stealth approach all the 

way here. This is one rough venture we’ve been through, Master. Can’t we have an extension on this deadline?”

Slam!

The bespectacled servant was answered when a shadow covered them. Looking up, they saw a hand cross over the table to reach an energy drink. Osakabehime gave herself a pick-me-up before going back to her drawing. Immediately after, she dropped the bottle back down onto the kotatsu table without even looking. The building sized bottle crashed within their vicinity, knocking all three of them to the ground from the force despite Osakabehime being gentle.

“Let’s… not stay here out in the open…,” the Master decided. “Okki may not move much, but she can get distracted when she works.”

“No helping it,” an exasperated El-Melloi II groaned. “I’d rather not end up dead before any deadline, Andersen.”

“Well, aren’t you clever,” the writer did not appreciate the bad pun.

It was the best course of action at the very least. He would rather they get under the kotatsu which Osakabehime typically made the path to her castle. He hoped getting there would be easier than dealing with Jeanne Alter, but at 1/100th scale, even a shut-in like Osakabehime was a frightening danger.

For starters, the kotatsu they were on was fraught with scattered bottles of energy drinks and snacks. The shut-in assassin had been hard at work. While the giant energy drinks made good places to conceal themselves behind, they were also obstacles as Osakabehime was haphazardly drinking from them - not finishing one but moving to the next and later going back to the previous. Bottle after bottle was being lifted up and placed back down. Not only that, but bag after bag of snack foods were being consumed by her too. Those moments were their chances to move through the bottles, though. As she was paying attention to only her tablet and monitors, the princess servant still hadn’t noticed them scurrying about.

Their strategy as they moved was to make it to the edge of the table and slide down the heavy blanket. Then they could easily sneak underneath.

“I’d certainly appreciate not getting closer to that titaness, though,” Andersen complained because that was precisely what they were doing. “While she has my respect as an author in a sense, I value being able to write my own manuscript, Master.”

“It’s not like we can go anywhere else. Those snack boxes and the Musashi-chan figure are in the way,” the small Master told the Servant. He kept his guard up every time Osakabehime stopped sketching to take a choco-stick or grab of sip of her energy drinks.

There was no time to relax. The fox youkai in a bat hoodie was careful not to spill her energy drinks whenever she reached over, but there was one part of her body she neglected to consider whenever she moved.

“Ah!”

Strike! was what he couldn’t resist thinking as he and the others held on tight to the bottle they were hiding behind. They watched as half a dozen bottles of energy drinks on the opposite side were knocked over by the assassin princess’s notable bosom. She was lucky the bottles she had knocked over were empty or else her blouse and her left monitor would have been soaked when she bowled them over.

“I know a few imbecilic knights who might have cheered at such a sight,” Andersen remarked as he peeked out.

Considering the bespectacled Servant’s breasts were literally meteoric to them, he couldn’t deny that. Gawain, Lancelot, and Tristan would all have the reaction Andersen believed they would have. As their Master, he knew. There was something to appreciate about the fact that the two servants he was with were not reacting like they would. He would be in far greater danger if they stood around and stared.

Dashing from bottle to bottle like he was going from tree to tree in between Osakabehime’s brief sips and munches, they had made it far in the span of ten minutes, but far to them was only a quarter of the length of the table. The edge was near, but the closer they got to Osakabehime, the more likely she was to both spot or accidentally bump into them. It was why they had taken the long way to the edge in the first place.

But being careful would not be enough against the unpredictable actions of the colossal shut-in.

“Wait!” he signaled the caster duo who were one energy drink bottle behind him. Osakabehime’s digital pen had stopped moving, meaning she was about to get another snack break. He had recognized that pattern from simple observation. He still wasn’t within the range of bottles Osakabehime had been drinking from, so he believed he was safe. That was his mistake. The world did not stick to patterns and neither did the Princess of Himeji Castle.

“Mmuuu… My glasses need a wiping... ”

“Huh?”

Before the less than 2 cm tall Master could react, a soft but solid wall of white slammed into him and knocked over the energy drink bottle he was hiding behind. Osakabehime had to grab for a tissue, which was on a box to her left. To reach it, she had to lean forward. Where he thought was safe was right in the vicinity of her movement.

“Master!” he heard Andersen and Lord El-Melloi II call before his vision became dark. His entire body was pressed under the great mass that was Osakabehime’s left breast. He could feel his body creak as his Servant’s breast spread across the table as it was pressed down while she leaned forward. He should have only felt Osakabehime’s thick blouse, but the heat and pressure from being squished between her and the table forced his body to endure more weight than just Osakabehime’s breast.

She did not let up either as she maintained the same posture as she wiped her glasses clean.

“Y’know, you really need to put those bottles in the trash when you’re done with them. Hearing you knock them over all the time is really distracting.” Jeanne Alter commented.

“I know, but the trash can is too far away. I’ll just do it later,” Osakabehime replied.

“At least watch those boobs. Ballerina Girl was so pissy yesterday watching you and her sister knock things over with them the whole night, remember?”

“Right...”

After Jeanne Alter’s mild scolding, the youkai Servant put her glasses back on and leaned back very quickly. While that would have been good for the smushed Master, he was taken along for the ride underneath Osakabehime’s bosom. He watched as the table got further away. He spotted Andersen and Lord El-Melloi II making their move towards the edge as he was pulled along by Osakabehime.

“They’re not that distracting, are they?” the princess had gotten self-conscious from Alter’s words. Instead of going back to her work, her two hands grabbed both of her breasts firmly. “Blackie didn’t react last time that happened… at least I don’t think so...”

As Osakabehime bashfully checked her breasts, the miniscule Master felt his stomach lurch as he was lifted, dropped, and smothered between Osakabehime’s hand and breast. Though it wasn’t exactly painful, it was certainly suffocating. Osakabehime didn’t sweat as much as Jeanne Alter had been, but the heat of the kotatsu, the thickness of her blouse, and the poor ventilation under her breasts, was the perfect combination of mugginess and perspiration to overwhelm his senses with Osakabehime’s scent.

“U-Urgh...” the Master struggled to keep himself from passing out.

Though his consciousness was slipping, it wasn’t the only thing. His body was detaching from the underside of Osakabehime’s left breast. The moment Osakabehime’s hand left, he felt his arms, torso, and then his legs peeled off her chest. The pull of gravity was strong.

“Waaaaaaaaaah!” he screamed, though his voice was too small for the Assassin class princess to hear. He plummeted past her stomach and down onto her skirt. “Oof!”

The violet cloth acted like a soft safety net that caught him, safely stopping his fall, but the slight slope caused him to tumble down immediately. He was able to grab on tight to the very edge of Osakabehime’s skirt to stop himself from falling further. 

“That was close...” the Master sighed a brief of relief. He trailed off when he opened his eyes, however. Staring forward, it sunk in just where he was. To his left and right were plump peach walls while in front of him were the colors pink and white - pink flowers on white to be precise. “Oh.”

The little Master gulped. Sweat rolled down his neck. Now he had to make sure Osakabehime didn’t realize he was there. She’d self-destruct knowing her ‘Ma-chan’ had snuck into her room and peaked into her skirt.

There was a distressing sensation the Master was feeling as he dangled on the edge of Osakabehime’s skirt. There was heat coming from all around him, but a pungent warmth emanated from directly in front of him. He was reminded of his troubles with the Gorgon sisters and their [Charm] powers. While Osakabehime did not have that sort of skill, a voice in the back of his head told him to not linger for too long lest he risk his sanity.

Unable to hold on any longer, the shaken Master lost his grip on the princess’s skirt and fell. Even just a fall of the thickness of Osakabehime’s thighs was essentially a fair drop from a tall building for him. He plopped onto the midnight blue cushion she had been sitting on. He was cornered on three sides by two mountainous thighs and the Assassin Princess’s panties.

“Sometimes, I’m not sure about my own luck stat,” the Master groaned. He felt the full pain of the fall as Lord El-Melloi II hadn’t been able to use his skills in time, but every impact at least had some softness behind it. There was more bruising than he would care to admit, but at least he was still alive. No broken bones either.

Picking himself up and turning around, he saw that the underside of the kotatsu was ahead. His only path was forward as Osakabehime’s long, winding legs formed an inescapable canyon into the darkness of the heated table.  He could spy two small dots slowly crawling down the blanket that was draped over Osakabehime’s shins. His two Caster class servants were on their way to him. How had they gone through the ordeal unscathed? Andersen’s luck was E. Shouldn’t he have been the victim instead? Or was it because of Andersen’s luck that the tiny Master was in his current state?

Whatever the case, the Master’s misfortune just wouldn’t end until he got back to normal. He was in for a long journey. He couldn’t just climb the insurmountable walls of flesh that were Osakabehime’s full thighs. And the distance from Osakabehime’s mid-thigh to her feet on his scale was further than the emotional distance between Mashu and Lancelot. Starting to set off on his journey down the Chasm of Osakabehime’s Legs, the shrunken Master set his first checkpoint as the point where her long white socks squeezed her shins.

All the while, the conversation between Osakabehime and Jeanne Alter was continuing. 

“What the-...? … what the hell are you groping yourself for?” Jeanne Alter’s disgusted voice asked.

“It’s your fault. You made Hime conscious about her body,” she pouted.

“Hah? What are you going pinning this on me for? And if you’re going to be caring about your body, you should stop eating all those snacks. Your favorite ‘Ma-chan’ might be calling you tubby sometime soon,” Alter couldn’t resist poking fun at the shut-in.

At those words, the tiny Master realized it was definitely Jeanne Alter’s presence that was causing him all of his troubles. The moment Jeanne Alter said that forbidden insult, the bespectacled maiden’s legs pulled out from the kotatsu with impossible speeds for such towering structures.  Immediately, the miniscule Andersen and El-Melloi II were shaken off the heavy blanket and slammed onto the ground. The tiny Master ducked as Osakabehime’s thighs slammed deafeningly together directly overhead him before she poised her feet firmly on the wooden floor and stood up.

He would have preferred those be the only victims instead of him.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

It wasn’t going to be easy having that ensuring that, however.

“Servants don’t get fat!” Osakabehime shouted, standing up immediately after leaving the kotatsu. She stomped her feet repeatedly. “This isn’t flab! It’s muscle!”

Stomp!

Still atop the cushion, the tiny Master frantically ran to avoid the heavy footfalls of Osakabehime’s socked feet. She was alternating between her left stomping the floor and her right stomping the cushion. He tried to get off the cushion, but the moment her left foot came down, the blue pillow warped around the shape of her foot. The edges rose up, pulling him back in towards her foot. Then, just as quickly as it came down, it rose up again, allowing the cushion to bounce back to its original shape.

Unfortunately for the Master, now that he dragged further into the center of the pillow, he was in greater danger as Osakabehime’s left foot returned again. He scrambled forward, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a hair’s breadth, but again, the cycle repeated, drawing him in until he slammed into the front of her foot.

“Pfft. Muscle? You? Maybe if you went outdoors more.”

“Hime’s in her prime!”

“Oh no,” the Master paled upon being able to feel Osakabehime’s toes through the sock. Toes as tall as he was along with the entire foot rose up high above him. Forced to look up, he gazed at the underside of Osakabehime’s left foot. The white sock and its dark shadow started off distant and small but rapidly grew larger and larger as it descended on him.

Stomp!

“Gwargh!” the little Master spat as his entire bug sized form was trampled by Osakabehime’s socked foot. He survived due to the softness of the Assassin class Servant’s quality cushion, but he was still being pressed down by her intense weight on his scale. Her sock, hot and sweaty from being inside the heated table all day, essentially ironed him to the cushion.

And much like his prior experiences in the room, it did not end there. Sweat did wonders for the Master’s suffering that he was sure to develop a trauma for it if he hadn’t already gone face to face with so many of humanity’s evils. He was stuck to Osakabehime’s foot as it rose up and slammed down again and again and again.

Stomp! “Grk!” Stomp! “Gah!” Stomp! “Uwah!”

“Grr… Hime will show you. She’ll get a sexy swimsuit body that’ll blow you out of the water!”

Finally, when she had made her declaration to Jeanne Alter, Osakabehime stopped. The Master was battered and beaten but somehow still alive. It may have been because he was in the center of her foot where she had a natural arch to it, but he was honestly surprised he hadn’t been turned to paste by the princess’s tantrum. He was, however, still plastered to Osakabehime’s sole.

A ray of hope came only in the fact that being stuck to her foot worked in his favor when Osakabehime returned to the kotatsu. It was no ray of light as he was taken into the steaming hot darkness of the heated table. The heat from the kotatsu radiated into him from both the air and from Osakabehime’s foot. 

This was his destination. But even upon making it, the voice in the back of the shrunken Master’s head wondered if it had been worth it. He could hardly see anything other than the edge of the blanket that surrounded him where the light of Osakabehime’s room peaked through.

“Master! Are you okay! Hey, speak to me!” he could hear the voice of the young Lord El-Melloi II below him.

“That was some innocent torture scene. I’m no medic, but I guess I can offer my services here,” Andersen’s deep voice followed it. 

“Marchen Meines Lebens [A Story Just For You]!” 

Following those words, the tiny Master saw a blue glow for a brief instance. His body slowly felt lighter. This brief reprieve gave him the time to think so he could change his [Mystic Code]. Closing his eyes, he focused his energy on changing. He decided upon his [Mage’s Association Uniform].

With his outfit changed, the Master could activate the skill that came with the magic enchanted item.

“[Cure-All]!” he invoked, further healing his injuries.

Though he had to wait until his body naturally peeled off of Osakabehime’s foot because Lord El-Melloi giving Andersen a piggyback wasn’t tall enough to reach him, he was recovering.

“Looks like you’re improving. Good,” Andersen smirked. He waved his hand and allowed a parchment and quill pen to appear in his hands. “Can’t have you messing up a good story by being exhausted.”

“A good story?” the Master frowned at Andersen’s blase demeanor. “Well, we made it. We’ll have to wait until Okki opens the path, though.”

“Should we wait even further to see if your kouhai can get through the door? Dealing with Meltryllis alone at this size is tantamount to charging head first into the final boss at level one,” Lord El-Melloi II acknowledged. “I don’t suppose you can use one of your [Command Spells] to call Mashu?”

If he could do that, they wouldn’t have had to go through that whole mess. Being tiny, the magic stored in his Command Spells had been reduced along with him. His body told him that the mana cost of calling his kouhai would be too high for both of the Command Spells he had left.

“That’s a problem. We can only hope that girl’s able to find solution to break in. I’m all for waiting, but the danger here isn’t exactly gone,” the tactician Servant scowled.

Rumble. Rumble.

Carrying a conversation at the feet of Osakabehime was intimidating. Every now and then, she scrunched her toes and shuffled her feet. Her unconscious actions as she worked unnerved the miniscule trio. Just an accidental shift in the wrong direction could easily smush them and drag them across the floor. Lord El-Melloi had to stay alert so as to use his skills at the right time.

“You know… maybe getting over there as soon as possible would be a good idea,” the Lord relented, fearing for his own safety now. “But that still requires waiting.”

“There’s no choice about that, is there? It’s not like we can make Okki do anything.”

“... Andersen, what do you think?” the Clock Tower Lord tried to calm himself by asking the other Servant present for his two pence.

The blue haired servant was busy putting feather pen to parchment.

“Andersen?”

“Shut up. I’m busy,” the blue haired servant declared as he wrote on his written parchment. 

“Busy? Busy doing what? Don’t tell me you’re starting your manuscript right now of all times!”

Surprisingly, the author shook his head. “I’ve gotten plenty of reference material being dragged in here. While I will bill you two for extraneous labor and all the pain and suffering I endured, I know when to pull my weight. We’ve made it this far, so I can probably do it.”

“Do what?”

To answer his question, Andersen stopped writing on his parchment and released it. Immediately, it radiated a bright blue glow. Unlike before with his supportive noble phantasm, however, the brightness remained. In fact, it expanded until it became a full rectangular shape… like a door.

“What the-?” “A portal? How?” the Master and the Lord were astonished at what they saw. 

“Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki… The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and Past... illustrated folklore are essentially stories. I may not be able to fight, but when it comes to giving life to stories, there’s not many who can compare to me,” the author boasted. “If I can turn that perverse cow woman into a last boss, I can add a few lines into this youkai story, even if it’s only temporary.”

Temporary was all they needed. Andersen had written his way into Osakabehime’s folklore with his Noble Phantasm to open the path to Himeji Castle. 

“Why didn’t you do this earlier?” an exasperated El-Melloi the Second was both exhilarated and annoyed.

“It’s not like I can do this on a whim. We’re just in the right place for it,” Andersen smirked, knowing full well he had picked the right moment to show off. Though he was a minimal effort man in every day actions, writing was where he put all of his effort. To pick this time out of any to do so, to create his own original rendition of a story on his own whims, he truly was an author, an artist. “Come on, I’m sick of this muggy sauna. Master can deal with things when we get out of here.”

Deal with things… Could he really deal with Meltryllis at 1/100th his normal size without Mashu? Just Osakabehime and Jeanne Alter’s antics had already exhausted him. Then again, Mashu wasn’t exactly always his side the entire time…

Rumble… Rumble…

“Alter, how many pages do you have left?”

No. This wasn’t the time to think about that. Mashu would catch up if she could. Slapping himself in the face to ready himself, the Master followed Andersen through the portal door after Andersen.