Olga Marie ran for her life, a swarm of skeleton soldiers clattering after her.
Luck was not on her side. She tripped over a loose stone and went sprawling.
Pain flared through her knee from the hard impact, yet when she looked down there wasn't a single scratch.
The skeletons closed in. Fear flashed across her face—then vanished just as fast. In the next heartbeat she wore the cool, resolute mask of a mage in combat.
"What is this nonsense?!"
She thrust her left arm forward, right hand bracing it like a rifle. A glowing magic circle flared at her fingertips. A black magical bullet screamed out and vaporized one skeleton on contact.
The rest of the horde rattled with eerie, almost human laughter—clack-clack-clack—as if mocking her.
That all?
They surged forward again. Olga Marie kept firing, but her shots barely thinned their ranks.
Then she heard it: bones scraping together directly overhead.
She looked up.
One skeleton perched on a streetlamp, cleaver raised. It opened its jaw in a silent snarl that somehow screamed one word—
Mongrel~
It leaped. Olga Marie snapped off another bullet, but the creature twisted mid-air and the shot went wide. The cleaver came down fast.
Was this how it ended? No praise, no recognition, nothing—
Someone… save me… Lev…
She squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear slipping free.
Clang!
The pain never came.
Instead, a warm hand reached down. "What are you waiting for? Get up!"
The burning orange light around the stranger should have been terrifying. Instead it felt… safe. Relief flooded her, and for a moment she couldn't look away.
[Olga Marie Emotion Value +10]
[Olga Marie Emotion Value +10]
[Olga Marie Emotion Value +10]
...
The man who had come was Adam. He kicked the nearest skeleton aside and offered his hand. Olga Marie took it without thinking and let him pull her to her feet.
Only then did she really see him. "Who… are you?"
Adam didn't answer right away. He studied her, weighing how to break the news about Lev—and about the body she no longer had.
Olga Marie felt her cheeks burn under his steady gaze. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
Clang!
The crash of metal on bone pulled her attention.
Mash was sweeping skeletons aside with her shield—perfectly normal for a Demi-Servant. But beside her fought another figure who moved like a seasoned warrior.
Same face, same shield, yet every motion was sharper, every strike heavier.
This Mash leaped high, slammed her shield into the ground, and wiped out the entire pack in one shockwave.
The first Mash stared in open admiration.
Olga Marie blinked, utterly lost. "What is happening?"
Ritsuka Fujimaru finally skidded into view, eyes widening at the sight of the Director. "Director?!"
Olga Marie frowned. "You're… that ordinary civilian, right?"
Adam almost smiled. In every other timeline he knew, those words were hilariously wrong.
Mash and the battle-hardened Mash jogged over together.
"Director, are you hurt?" they asked in perfect unison.
Olga Marie's head spun. "Will someone please explain what is going on?!"
Adam stepped in front of her. He took a slow breath and met her eyes.
"Director, short version: we're from a parallel Chaldea."
Olga Marie stared, then laughed once in disbelief. "Excuse me?"
He simply pointed at the armored Mash. "She's standing right there."
Olga Marie looked at the veteran warrior, then back at the younger Mash, and finally nodded, stunned. "That… is actually convincing."
"How did you even get here?"
Adam shrugged. "Still working on that part myself."
She didn't press. He had saved her, after all. "Fine. Then why are you here?"
Adam's gaze drifted across Fou, then Mash, and finally settled on her. The answer was obvious.
Olga Marie changed the subject.
"So… how is the me from your Chaldea? Has she become the respected Director everyone looks up to?"
Adam pictured U-Olga Marie for a moment.
"Yeah… you could say she's pretty admired."
Olga Marie's face lit up like a child's—then she caught herself and cleared her throat, straightening. "Of course she is."
Adam watched her and made his choice. He wasn't sending her into CHALDEAS to become that other version. He would find a way to give her back a body.
But first she needed the truth.
He stepped closer, expression grave.
"Director..."
"...you're dead."
Olga Marie's smile froze. For half a second she didn't process the words. Then her eyes flew wide.
"…What did you just say?"
***
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