If one had told Alaric he would be sitting at the side of a lord of the, unironically, posh and arrogant, aristocratic faction within the Clock Tower, he would have thought of the person as mentally challenged. He was a lowborn magus, with not much to his family name. That alone was enough for them to disregard him as useless but his father was a man of the cloth, a very prominent one in fact.

Forget the lords residing in the Clock Tower, even the underperforming students had regarded him with disdain for the duration of his studies there.

So, to sit beside Lord Marisbury Animusphere, a member of the elitist aristocrats and one of the twelve lords, hadn't quite been within expectations.

"Alaric, your face tells me you don't quite believe this could happen." Marisbury regarded him gently, a thin smile across his lips, "Even aristocrats have to recognise talent that outperforms their own somewhere along the way..." He put a hand to his chin and hummed for a moment, "Though, I suppose that realisation causes frustration in most."

Vast od reserves, an inhuman mana processing rate coupled with the elemental affinity for all the five great elements did make Alaric a prodigy the sort of which was rarely seen, allowing for feats many magi couldn't fathom. His teacher Sancraid Phahn, had been a member of the Holy Church's Assembly of the Eighth Sacrament, and he'd been trained as an Executor specialised in combat for much of his early life.

"What will you report to the Clock Tower?" Alaric questioned and ran his gaze over their immediate surroundings. His brow twitched under his sunglasses before he laid back into the oddly comfortable economy class recliner seat, "King Solomon lives among us again. Jesus might be coming soon too." He hoped not, adopting a many over few mentality meant he'd booked himself an appointment with Hell's warden if only for the sheer casualties incurred at Fuyuki.

The King of Magecraft returning wasn't simply a joke, reincarnation was what the Caster had wished for and his wish… was granted. He lived again as a simple human and had chosen to go his own way.

Marisbury narrowed his eyes before shrugging, "Saber and their Master can be the victors..." He then smiled at the small brown haired child sitting across from them, "Of course, that also means 'they' are liable for all casualties and damages."

A small cheeky grin formed across Alaric's lips.

They were on an economic class flight back to London, England, to the Clock Tower that governed their hidden world. Marisbury had used the Holy Grail to wish for copious amounts of wealth to go about setting up his organisation after realising that it could not grant his original desire.

That desire, as Alaric had come to know, was to hasten the process to the formation of the Chaldea Security Organisation against an unprecedented threat to humanity as a whole. Marisbury didn't have long to live, as he himself claimed, and so desired to use the Grail to hasten and cut short the process of it's formation.

The same threat Alaric had been aware of since his birth in this twisted world and had been aspiring to resist.

Alas, it couldn't do that.

So, he wished for wealth so great it could do that for him if he knew how to use it in the right way.

This also meant they could have been flying first class with no dent in their monetary situations but Marisbury chose to fly with the working class. Now they sat on one of the middle seats and while Alaric admitted the olive cushions were comfortable enough, they were surrounded by elderly, and children. That came with a lot of noise two people who had just fought a war could do without.

"You think we could exchange seats?"

"As your senior in both age and rank, I deny your request." Marisbury answered politely. He closed his eyes and with a faint smile tugging at his lips, laid his head back into his window seat. Leaving Alaric to sit by the aisle with an empty seat between them.

Alaric didn't speak further and leaned onto the armrest, holding up his head with a hand. He took in the sight of shouting children throwing food about, an unsavoury man in his late forties in casual clothing arguing with a stewardess in uniform, an elderly couple discussing an unknown topic with smiles and a mother cooing her giggling baby.

This sort of sight was why he'd worked himself to the bone, to death's grasp several times, from the moment he grasped the nature of this new world he'd opened his eyes to after an untimely death. He had mostly disregarded the fictional series it seemed to be from for it's overly convoluted nature. Fiction, for him, was meant to be a casual experience to relax with, not to exhaust himself trying to understand it's intricate workings.

He regretted that now though.

So, he'd worked hard, under the looming threat of instant death and boosted his prowess as high as possible, gathered what treasures he could recall from his casual skim of one of the books, and worked diligently. Alaric wasn't willing to let his fate rest in the hands of an adolescent child and none could blame him for that.

He'd promised himself to do his utmost and well, the end of the world as he knew it had been a great motivator.

Alaric desired personal strength and power, and he was doing it's utmost to attain it. 

"Alaric, Archer mentioned a key to his treasury..." Marisbury left the rest unsaid, his eyes still closed. It didn't take a genius to figure out his intention. They were meant to work together from now on, Alaric was meant to be an assistant and for them to be able to trust one another, despite being magi, some secrets would have to be shared.

Alaric stared at his palm in thought, "Like you said, a key to his treasury... He gave it to me after I used it as a catalyst for the summoning." The King of Heroes had called it useless trash and tossed it aside. Alaric considered it discarded and bonded it with himself right there and then but couldn't make any real use of it until the King of Heroes permitted him to, "He's letting me use it on a whim I think." Or maybe humanity's oldest hero had recognised his will and acknowledged his aspirations as worthy.

He didn't desire world peace, or salvation, or eternal happiness but instead, he simply wanted his own mundane days to go on, 'to preserve the world for his own selfishness' as he liked to call it.

"A great boon I'm sure, it is said to hold all that man has made."

"I guess so..." Alaric didn't shift from his position, instead he held out his other hand and in a whisk of regal gold, a glass bottle holding a blood red liquid appeared in it, "Wine. Some pompous br-..." He suddenly shivered, feeling as if someone had glared at him.

Marisbury elegantly took it from his hand, feeling his thin fingers wrap around the cold glass, "I'll gladly partake while you go about completing your first official task. You've noticed the bizarre silence, yes?" He reached for a glass on the hanging table next to him.

Alaric nodded in affirmation. The idle chatter and noise had been replaced by a deathly silence and only the low hum of the plane's engines remained, producing a strange environment in the ostensibly well-lit and bare cabin of the airplane. Every single passenger had drifted off to sleep, several in strangely compromising positions.

"Do you want to bet on who they're after?" Alaric asked calmly, running a hand through his grey streaked dark hair and jumped to his feet. He stared around with his hands behind his back, ignoring Marisbury who'd begun pouring himself a glass of wine, unperturbed by their bizarre circumstances.

Sipping from his glass, Marisbury waved his hand in denial, "I assure you, I've no enemies this daring." 

"... Regrettably, I have quite a few." Alaric admitted. His gaze shifted to one of the plane toilets and his pupils contracted before he hurriedly walked over to it. He tried to open the door but failed and simply yanked the handle, ripped it off and kicked in the door, "An impressive choice. No one would even think to look in the bathroom."

Wait, Alaric remembered seeing quite a few people use this bathroom.

A sudden flash of light made him jump back and regard his yet unknown opponent with caution. His ears twitched, catching the brushing of steel and he moved immediately. Raising a hand to grasp the dark hilt of an estoc emerging from a golden ripple in the air, he slashed down.

Steel clashed against steel, sparks flew about as a result of the raw strength employed but, betraying the expectation that he would continue using the sword, Alaric withdrew a glistening nail sized sapphire from his pants and lobbed it at his cloaked opponent.

"Burst."

The air sizzled and in the blink of an eye, ice encased his attacker along with the matted floor.

Alaric was an Average One, a master of the Five Great Elements and this was among the weakest of weapons in his arsenal. A gem, made to hold the property of rapidly decreasing the temperature of what it's shards came into contact with upon bursting, enforced with the fifth imaginary element, Void that dismantled whatever spell his opponent had been preparing while also empowering his own.

Yet he wasn't done.

With a swift, powerful straight kick to the ice sculpture's chest, he shattered it entirely.

"When are they going to realise it's useless?"

He was powerful enough to deal with most magi already, and now with the Gate of Babylon, granting him access to King Gilgamesh's treasury via ripples that served as doors to it, their chances of overpowering him were only made bleaker.

"Wow." Marisbury slowly clapped his hands, smiling at him with closed eyes. Alaric felt the man was insulting him, not praising him, "I was hoping to see you rip out his throat with your bare hands... or was the way you killed your teacher simply exaggerated rumours?"

Alaric silently took his seat beside Marisbury and laid his head back, hoping for an opportunity to glean the magus' true intentions. It would be simply stupid to trust a noble for his words alone, this notion was reinforced by Marisbury's scientist-like choice of attire. Staring into the metal ceiling, Alaric wondered if the Gate of Babylon held any coffee.

x

That's chapter 2.