You call this a projection?

”Huh? .........Who!?”

A name that Acht would never have expected to hear came from the mouth of Shirou Emiya.

It made Acht doubt if he had heard correctly, so he asked Shirou Emiya with some uncertainty: ”This......... guest, surely you don’t mean to say that you don’t know that although Olga Marie is the daughter of the Lord...?

That she is actually not valued by Lord Animusphere himself?

And that if it weren’t for the blood relation she shares with the Lord, the position of the next Head of the Department of Astronomy would never have fallen to her, but should have been filled by a disciple of Lord Animusphere instead?!”

Although the Einzbern family consists entirely of shut-ins, their entire daily routine being locking themselves in their German magic workshops to research and find ways to reproduce the Third Magic, that does not mean the Einzbern family truly does not communicate with the outside world.

How could Acht not know a famous magus like a Lord of the Clock Tower, who stands at the pinnacle of magi, and indeed, the entire Mage’s Association?

Especially Marisbury’s nature as an artificial human—it is something even magi without much morality would shake their heads at, and in the world of magi, it is a well-told joke:

A magus who claims to love humanity, yet the way he wants to realize this love for humanity is to exterminate the current human race, and then create new ”humans” one by one who have no thoughts, no soul, and only have a body and appearance like humans, who only obey his salvation?!

This is the reason why Acht questioned Shirou Emiya’s words.

Acht could endure the Third Magic, which his Einzbern family has researched for generations, being stolen by other magi. He could even endure other magi reproducing the true Third Magic faster than they could.

But what he could not accept was that the magus who would reproduce the Third Magic, which the Einzbern family regards as their glory, is a recognized clown in the world of magi. At the same time, the performance of the finished product of the Third Magic turned out to be so poor, even losing to those ordinary magi!

Even though Olga Marie’s talent as a magus is actually relatively excellent, and Kirschtaria Wodime, as Marisbury’s disciple, is a genius among geniuses, compared to the name of the [Third Magic], Olga Marie is truly unworthy of the term.

Acht did not immediately storm off; it was entirely because he had been too excited when he ran out, and realizing his actions seemed a bit too rash, he was trying to find a way to leave

while preserving his own dignity, on the condition of not angering Shirou Emiya, who had Saber as his backing.

In short, in front of Saber’s Holy Sword, he chickened out.

”Yes, Olga Marie certainly does not look like someone who has realized the Third Magic,” Shirou Emiya said.

Actually, recalling how his past self in his previous life had the same ”WTF” expression after learning about this, Shirou Emiya could actually understand Acht very well.

The Third Magic, which the Einzberns had been chasing forever, was not only realized by an unrelated magus, but it also wasn’t like the Saint of Winter, where they only created a flawed, non-replicable semi-finished product. Instead, it was a mature technology, one that was already perfected, could be mass-produced, and could even be adjusted according to the intended goal.

Although Shirou Emiya does not quite understand the obsession magi have—where they would have their family descendants work toward a single goal for generations, even trampling over all ethics and morality—he still felt quite empathetic toward this situation.

For instance, the Shirou Emiya who wanted to become a Hero of Justice before awakening his past-life memories.

After he awakened those memories and discovered that a Hero of Justice simply couldn’t work in the Type-Moon world, he felt exactly the same way Acht feels now.

However, that did not stop Shirou Emiya from continuing: ”But this is because at the very beginning of Olga Marie’s birth, she was essentially an experiment of Marisbury’s, a sample to verify the soul-materialization technology in his hands.

And in order to complete the Animusphere family’s [Grand Order], adjustments were specifically made, and Olga Marie’s soul—after soul-materialization—was stuffed into the body of an ordinary person...”

However, this time, before Shirou Emiya could even finish his sentence, Acht, as if forgetting Saber’s threat, impatiently interrupted him loudly: ”Wait a moment! Do you know what you are saying!?”

Because Shirou Emiya’s words undoubtedly confirmed a fact that Acht had found very difficult to accept ever since he first heard the news.

”I know,” Shirou Emiya said. ”Or rather, the birth of Olga Marie was not an accident, nor a natural miracle.

She was carefully experimented upon and crafted by a magus... through the Third Magic.”

It wasn’t just Olga Marie; Mash is actually a similar creation.

That is why Mash is able to accept the power of Heroic Spirits and successfully transform into a Servant without any side effects. Because whether it is Mash or a Servant, they are both products of the Third Magic.

If it were anyone else—even Sieg, who had the Counter Force cheating for him, or Shirou Emiya, who grafted the arm of his future self—they would either have their bodies completely eroded by the accepted power of the Heroic Spirit, or their body and mind would collapse under the weight of that power.

This truth made Acht fall into silence.

”How about it? This information of mine is very valuable, isn’t it?” Shirou Emiya, however, would not give Acht the chance to wallow in sorrow, and continued to press the point.

”And I can tell you that while you might not be able to trade with Marisbury for the finished Third Magic product that is Olga Marie—as she is equally useful to him—Marisbury could still sell you the data on this Third Magic and how it was achieved.

As long as you can produce the [Rhine Gold] buried in the Einzbern family, the Noble Phantasm that can bring infinite wealth to its wielder, as an exchange, Marisbury will undoubtedly readily agree to this trade.”

There was simply no time for Acht to continue his silence.

His expression was like a roller coaster, changing continuously as Shirou Emiya’s words followed one after another, staring at Shirou Emiya in complete shock.

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