I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 451: When It Comes to Slacking Off, Doctors Are Still the Pros
Of course, Shinji wasn't the kind of artsy director who liked to make things deliberately cryptic. The black screen after Lev's declaration felt more like the final frame of a game's opening cinematic, meant to leave a stronger impression on the audience.
To achieve the desired effect, Shinji even had the background music cut off abruptly at its most intense moment, at the exact same time as Lev's speech.
No light. No sound.
With such a presentation, it was no wonder Aoko thought the television had broken.
Fortunately, the black screen didn't last long. Accompanied by Ritsuka's heavy breathing, the screen gradually brightened once more.
Startled awake, Ritsuka found himself lying in bed. The familiar furnishings around him somehow felt strangely unfamiliar.
"This is my room in Japan?"
Sitting upright, Ritsuka fell into confusion. Everything in the room looked exactly as it had before he left—even the manga he had casually tossed onto the floor remained where it was.
If there was anything different, it was that all the curtains had been drawn, plunging the room into darkness.
"Was it all just a dream?"
Listening to the ticking of the alarm clock, Ritsuka covered his face wearily.
Mash, the girl named Mash.
The great hero Cú Chulainn who had helped him.
Doctor Roman, who loved slacking off.
The tsundere director whose ending was so tragic.
The terrifying girl King Arthur.
And Lev, who had proclaimed humanity's extinction...
"So it was just a dream! I knew something that weird couldn't possibly happen."
Ritsuka let out a foolish laugh.
He felt like there was something wrong with his mind for having such a bizarre dream.
Before Ritsuka could fully gather his thoughts, this scene sparked intense discussion among viewers in the real world.
"Hey, hey, don't tell me this is going to end like one of those horror movies where it turns out the protagonist was mentally ill the whole time?"
Several viewers watching the film through VPNs voiced their concerns in a chat group.
"Probably not a dream. There are still several sequels after this."
A user named [Kotomine Takako of the Matou Family] offered a theory:
"I bet after the protagonist goes downstairs, he'll run into the shield girl and the others. Then they'll tell him the world is in danger and needs his help."
[Li Family's Second Son Is Archer]:
"That's kind of cliché. If Shinji really does that, the story would feel pretty ordinary. I think Ritsuka will believe it was all a dream and return to normal life. Then in the second movie, Mash crashes down from the sky and drags him off to save the world."
[Tokiomi, You've Done Every Evil Deed Possible]:
"Even better—have Mash stay beside Ritsuka as his childhood friend, secretly monitoring whether he's keeping magecraft a secret. Then when he gets into danger in the second movie, she appears in her Servant form and saves him."
[Li Family's Second Son Is Archer]:
"Childhood friends aren't as exciting as girls who fall from the sky. Besides, in Japanese stories, childhood friends only exist to lose."
[Kotomine Takako of the Matou Family]:
"Miss Shielder, you wouldn't want your senpai's identity as a magus to be exposed, would you?"
"Please calm down, Japanese netizen! The group chat is going to get banned!!"
×N
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"Hahaha..."
On the television screen, after laughing a few times, Ritsuka noticed something was wrong.
The house was too quiet.
At this hour, there should have been people at home.
"..."
A trace of anxiety crossed his face. He climbed out of bed, bracing himself against the wall as he slowly made his way down the hallway toward the dining room.
The moment he opened the door, he expected to see the scene he had long grown accustomed to:
His mother preparing breakfast by the sink.
His father sitting at the table, drinking coffee and chatting with her.
However—
"..."
Shinji deliberately refused to show the audience what was inside the dining room.
Instead, the camera stayed focused entirely on Ritsuka's face.
The audience could only guess what he was seeing from his expression—but it wasn't difficult.
The melancholy look on his face already revealed enough.
"What's that light?"
Aoko noticed a flickering glow illuminating one side of Ritsuka's face.
Against the room's overwhelmingly dark color palette, the light stood out prominently.
Unfortunately, the camera didn't reveal its source.
Instead, it followed Ritsuka's footsteps from the dining room entrance to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Though the walk lasted only a few seconds, it felt like several long minutes to the audience.
Swish—
Ritsuka pulled back the curtains.
The scene outside came into full view.
"Am I an idiot? What dream..."
With a sigh, Ritsuka looked out at the landscape beyond—
Tokyo, engulfed in flames.
"This is the dream."
As the camera shifted, viewers finally saw the interior of the Fujimaru family's dining room.
In the darkness stood two figures.
One was standing by the stove.
The other sat at the table.
Both of their bodies were burning.
"So the light from earlier was Ritsuka's parents' burning bodies? That's actually pretty horrifying."
Aoko hadn't expected Shinji Matou to use a shot like that. She had guessed that Ritsuka was in a post-apocalyptic world, but she had imagined a scenario more like the "Dictator Switch" from Doraemon, where everyone simply vanished. She hadn't expected humanity to have literally turned into firewood.
"Does Shinji Matou play Dark Souls too?" Fujita was equally shocked by the burning-body scene.
"I thought the Incineration of Humanity was just a figure of speech. Turns out they're literally burning!"
"Obviously. From the perspective of magecraft, the Incineration of Humanity—"
"—Stop! Stop! Stop! Let's watch the movie first and talk afterward."
Aoko hurriedly gestured for Alice to stop.
Knowing her friend as well as she did, Aoko was certain that Alice's mouth was about to unleash a flood of obscure and incomprehensible technical jargon.
Even worse, you had to listen. If you let your mind wander, she'd follow up with an even longer lecture.
Rather than letting the rest of the movie be consumed by "Miss Alice's Magecraft Classroom," it was better to shut Alice up now and enjoy the film's finale.
Sure, saying so would probably make Alice focus all her attacks on Aoko, but if she didn't say anything and then zoned out during the explanation, Alice's verbal artillery would still end up targeting her anyway.
Since getting nagged was unavoidable, it was better to at least finish watching the movie first.
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"So that's how it is..."
The flames burning on his parents' bodies quickly spread to everything else in the dining room.
The fire expanded with terrifying speed, surrounding Ritsuka in an instant.
"So this is what a burned-out world looks like?"
Engulfed by flames, Ritsuka could only let out a helpless sigh.
"Hah...! Hah...!"
When he came back to his senses, he found himself sitting upright on a bed in Chaldea, gasping for breath.
An indescribable pressure weighed upon him, making it difficult to breathe.
Mash and Fou were sitting beside the bed, watching him anxiously, afraid something might happen to him.
"I'm sorry, Senpai!"
When Ritsuka looked up at her, Mash hurriedly explained, "I wasn't planning to come in, but I heard you sounding like you were in pain, so..."
"It's nothing."
Ritsuka forced a smile.
"Thank you, Mash."
"Yes..."
His pale complexion.
The sweat covering his forehead.
His still-weak limbs.
No matter how Mash looked at him, Ritsuka clearly wasn't fine.
But when she met his resolute gaze, she hesitated.
Mash wanted to comfort him, but she couldn't find the right words.
In the end, she simply relayed a message from Romani.
"Senpai, Doctor Romani is waiting for you in the control room."
"…Let's go."
Without saying anything else, Ritsuka left his room with Mash.
However, when she led him into the control room, he was stunned.
Ritsuka had expected the place to be in complete chaos.
Everyone should have been scrambling to repair damaged equipment.
They should all have looked as if they were attending a funeral.
Instead, he found the Chaldea staff, led by Romani, huddled together under a heated kotatsu table to keep warm.
The room was only missing tatami mats to become a stereotypical Japanese living room.
"See? I told you!"
Romani rested his face against the tabletop, wearing the relaxed expression of a retired old man enjoying life.
"This is the second greatest invention in the world after the Internet!"
"Back when I was in Japan, I was crazy about these things. Oh, right—kotatsu go especially well with mandarins. Want one?"
As he spoke, Romani picked up a mandarin orange from a basket and tossed it to a staff member nearby.
"…You're awfully relaxed."
There was a hint of resentment in Ritsuka's voice. He hadn't expected the doctor to still be slacking off at a time like this.
Romani chuckled and stood up.
"The more urgent the situation, the more important it is to relax, don't you think? Besides, the heating system is broken."
"The second part is the real reason, isn't it?"
Having already become familiar with the doctor's personality, Ritsuka immediately cut to the heart of the matter.
"Let's put that aside for now."
As the conversation turned serious, Romani's expression became more solemn.
"First of all, congratulations on surviving, Fujimaru-kun, Mash. Although it was a mission forced upon you, you not only successfully resolved the Fuyuki City Singularity, but also returned safely."
"On behalf of all the surviving staff of Chaldea, I offer you my heartfelt respect and gratitude."
Romani's praise made Ritsuka blush slightly in embarrassment, but he quickly regained his serious expression.
"But Doctor, there were many casualties."
"Yeah."
Romani glanced around the control room, which looked about as battered as a war zone in Iraq, and sighed helplessly.
"Not only did we lose the Director, but Lev's explosion also killed seventy percent of Chaldea's staff... And although the other Masters are still alive, none of them are capable of acting."
"We've managed to repair enough damage to get the main systems, including the control room, operational again, but they're barely functioning. Chaldea—the organization created to protect humanity's future—is now only one step away from complete shutdown."
"It's really that bad..."
Romani smiled bitterly.
"One man did all of this. Lev alone."
Chaldea was supposed to be one of the world's foremost research institutions, yet a single bomb planted by Lev had reduced it to paralysis.
Who would believe a story like that?
At this point, the audience still didn't know the true nature of the members of Team A, so they assumed Lev was merely a traitor who had launched a surprise attack from within.
Otherwise, they would already have bestowed upon Professor Lev the honorable title of Grand Bomber.
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Note:
(A play on Fate/Grand Order's "Grand" Servant titles, jokingly elevating Lev to the highest-ranked "Bomb Man" for single-handedly destroying most of Chaldea.)
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