Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos

Though the task of taking care of the children had been left to others, this didn't stop Vahn from periodically checking up on them. This served the dual purpose of allowing him to encourage them while also increasing their familiarity with him. After all, there was a good chance they would either be permanant fixtures in the castle or, through their relationsh.i.p.s with the castle's residents, close friends to the Imperial Family.

Of the group, the person Vahn checked on the most was Alex as, in between his training and other duties, he spent a fair amount of time drinking and talking with Siegfried. Vahn was curious about his travels, the sights he had seen, and the people he encountered along the way. Since they even had Heracles to keep them company on occasion, it was one of the few ways in which Vahn was able to relax and cut loose without troubling any of his lovers.

During these times, as Alex had become Siegfried's official Esquire, the boy was actually the one to fill their drinks, a task he had taken upon himself. Though his road to recovery was still very long, it had been a sobering experience to witness the growth from Vahn being a powerless human to a literal God. Now, he no longer had the glimmer of madness in his eyes and, after a few days of hard training, he had become a quiet and focused individual. This was largely due to Siegfried himself being a quiet person and, due to constant exposure, his nature seemed to be running off on the young boy.

The thing that had made the most impact on Alex, however, was not the memories he had been shown. Instead, it was the revelation that Mash was training hard to become a Knight herself, to the point that she even pushed herself well-beyond her limits. She was also the first amongst the five to accept the Familia Crest as, with the option to grow even stronger, combined with the fact that even Artoria, Mordred, and Sakura all had one, she hadn't even hesitated to ask.

Vahn had actually been a little taken aback at the time but, now that Mash had been completing Quests faster than almost anyone else in the castle, he had nothing to say. Though she only chose D-Rank Quests, many related to chores and simple tasks, it seemed that having a clear goal was a powerful motivator for the young girl who had lived her entire life inside a series of sanitized rooms.

When Vahn had asked what made her try so hard, Mash explained that completing each of the Quests gave her a sense of achievement, even before she used the Variable Experience. The Quests also allowed her to experience many new things, some of which she might not have even thought about if not for the Objectives. Since the only time she was able to experience new things in the past was when someone else made the decision for her, Mash greatly enjoyed the freedom of being able to choose for herself.

As could be expected, Mash's strength skyrocketed compared to the other children while, during the time where they all received lessons together, she was always the quickest to learn and retain new knowledge. Since she was already the anchor of the group, this made an impact on the others, with the greatest example being Alex himself. He now trained himself to the point of exhaustion almost every day and, after a few day-night cycles, become the second in their group to accept the Familia Crest.

Now, seeing the red-haired boy wearing an outfit similar to a bartender, albeit shrunken down to fit a child, Vahn couldn't help but smile. This would often result in Alex furrowing his brows slightly but, after what he had experienced, it was nearly impossible for him to disrespect Vahn. He would never admit it but, while he looked up to Siegfried, Vahn was the person he idolized the most. They had both experienced the horrors of human nature and greed but, rather than lash out at others, Vahn had built powerful bonds that allowed him to elevate himself and others. Now, he had become an actual Emperor, not to rule over others, but to protect.

With Vahn's glass being emptied, Alex wasted no time in filling up a new mug before accepting the old one and dutifully cleaning the inside. This earned him an appreciative nod from Vahn who, after turning to Siegfried, mused, "Your Esquire seems to have come a long way, Sieg." In response to this, Siegfried, face slightly red from powerful alcohol, began to laugh in a light-hearted manner before answering, "I never had the opportunity to raise a son of my own so the last few weeks have been a blessing. He has a long way to go, but I'm proud of him."

Hearing Siegfried's words, Alex nearly fell off the stool he was using to reach the bar, his face redder than the Dragon Knight's as he quickly picked up the dropped mug. This caused Vahn and Siegfried to start laughing, exacerbating Alex's embarrassment. As for Heracles, who treated his words as if they were a finite resource, he simply made a gruff 'Hmm' sound before emptying the contents of his keg and placing it heavily against the bartop. This loud noise caused the laughter to cease for a short while but, as was often the case when they were all together, things became lively against shortly thereafter...

---

With the dawn of a new day inside of the Projection, Vahn inhaled a deep breath, filling his lungs with crisp air that smelled of flowers and, curiously enough, sunshine. His actions awoke the woman sleeping next to him, causing her to extricate herself from the warm blankets, despite a strong desire to just sleep in for once. As she stretched her body, releasing an adorable groan in the process, Vahn just watched with appreciation and affection visible on his face until she turned to him, awarding him with a smile more radiant than the sun as she said, "Good morning, Ma-Vahn..."

Resisting the urge to laugh, Vahn gently caressed his companion's face, answering, "Good morning, Artoria..." before stealing a morning kiss from her lips. Though they almost never showed any public displays of affection, she never resisted anything he did when they were alone. She had even learned to reciprocate and response to his actions proactively, something Vahn had enjoyed with increasing fervor as time continued its eternal march forward.

As he was kissing Artoria, savoring the experience a little longer than he ought to, Vahn felt a soft pressure against his back as a pair of thin arms wrapped around his body, hugging his chest. Then, as he separated from his red-faced Empress, another pair of lips found their way to his own after he turned his head and accepted Gray's affection. This allowed Artoria to calm her rapidly beating heart and, before Vahn could tease her any further, she quickly escaped from the bed wearing nothing but a pair of white panties, decorated with royal blue ribbons.

Vahn somewhat regretted not being able to follow Artoria's departure to the bathroom but, with an affectionate kitten eagerly seeking his affections, he couldn't exactly ignore her.

By the time Artoria returned, her hair now hanging loosely around her shoulders as she dried it with a white towel, Vahn had Gray curled up in his lap as he gently stroked the smiling girl's head. If she were a Cat Person, she would have undoubtedly been purring due to the influence of his Petting Laws and the calming energy flowing from his [Hands of Nirvana].

After releasing a tired sigh, despite not really being angry, Artoria used a stern tone as she reminded, "Gray, we'll be late if you idle. Go take a bath before you trouble our trainees a second time." This remark was enough to make the gray-haired woman flinch so drastically she ended up in a seated position. Then, after sneaking a final kiss on Vahn's cheek, she scurried to the bathroom, kicking up a small burst of air pressure that caused the blankets to nearly part from the bed.

Artoria, having stepped to the side to avoid Gray's sudden charge, shook her head with a wry smile as she made her way over to Vahn's side. He dutifully helped to brush and braid her hair without having to ask about what had happened as, immediately after the incident, it had been brought to his attention.

Though it wasn't exactly a foul smell, at least from Vahn's perspective, it couldn't be denied that s.e.x caused a powerful fragrance to linger on the body. This was the reason why he hadn't done anything but pet Gray earlier as, just a few days prior, they had played around a little too much before the usual morning training. As a result of her haste, Gray had a potent fragrance lingering around her which had caused Mordred to almost immediately begin pestering her. This wasn't even the worst part, however, as Mash became pale due to her trauma, collapsing on the spot and earning Vahn a ban on morning activities for the foreseeable future.

After fixing up her hair into a neat bun, Vahn finished things off by lighting pinching Artoria's ahoge, causing her back to straighten as she quickly covered the top of her head to protect the peculiar tuft of hair. The mechanism for how an ahoge worked was something that even Da Vinci had failed to crack so Vahn couldn't help but be a little curious. He could still remember the former's attempts to produce a body with an ahoge, leading to her having a rather pitiful clump of hair that, despite her best efforts, just lay lifelessly atop her head...

With Da Vinci crossing his mind, Vahn decided he would visit her after his own morning training but, before that, he also helped Gray fix her hair before accompanying the two to awaken Mordred and Sakura. As it had become part of his morning ritual, Vahn also styled Mordred's hair into a ponytail and, perhaps emulating the three people she spent the most time with, Sakura also had a neat little bun now, wrapped by a braid form from her hair and tied together with a green ribbon.

As his destination was in the opposite direction, Vahn parted ways with the group of girls after giving each of them a kiss on the forehead. This was another part of their morning ritual and, without doing it, Vahn would always feel like he had forgotten something important. Thus, after enjoying the subtle blush of Sakura and listening to the lively laughter of Mordred, Vahn made his way over to Scáthach, fearing what she would do to him if he was late.

---

From the moment he had spurned her offer to advance their relationship further, claiming he would make her fall in love with him through his own efforts, Vahn's training with Scáthach had reached an unimaginable level of difficulty. Though she was still patient when teaching him during the second half of their training, the twenty hours of sparring had become a waking nightmare.

Vahn had really underestimated her power as a [God Slayer], despite the fact he had experienced its terror many times. Back then, however, she only used it in a few instances to deal with his [Magia Erebia] but, now that she was training him 'seriously', Scáthach always had it active.

Though Vahn could recount the number of times he felt like he was going to die, he willfully chose to ignore such thoughts as he desperately tried to egg out small victories from her. Fortunately, her more 'proactive' approach to training him made [Laplace's Key] more reliable and, as he had gotten better at controlling it, Scáthach allowed him to use it sparingly. This almost always ended with him eating a spear to the face or heart but, in one instance, Vahn had even been able to bind Scáthach with his [Enkidu] after hitting her with an especially devastating attack.

The biggest detriment to using [Laplace's Key] was the fact that the mode always caused him to go to extremes he otherwise would have avoided. During the attack that had led to his singular victory against Scáthach, Vahn had overcharged his [Laevateinn Proto] with enough Source Energy to cause the blade to fracture. When he had struck Scáthach with it, using it more as a projectile than a melee weapon, it had pierced straight through her abdomen, completely overriding her immortality. If not for the fact [Laplace's Key] still seemed to carry his will, meaning he wouldn't use lethal force against his own allies, there was a chance that Scáthach would have been killed if he had aimed for her head or heart.

Unsurprisingly, Scáthach had actually treated him well after the fact, rather than blaming him for any kind of mistake he might have made. She also reminded him that, even if he destroyed her current body, he could always resummon her, memories intact. Unless he called upon a version of herself before she became the Queen of the Land of Shadows, her [Wisdom of the Haunted Ground] would make her fully aware of the time they had spent together. So long as he didn't summon her actual body, he would be able to call upon her as a Heroic Spirit as many times as he liked. He could even summon multiple versions of her, each with fragmentary souls that were all linked together due to their shared [Wisdom of the Haunted Ground].

As one Scáthach was already more than he could handle, Vahn had absolutely no intention of calling upon a second one. Though this would undoubtedly increase the strength of the Empire by several orders of magnitude, as just one Scáthach could probably take down the Clock Tower, he didn't think it would be fair to trouble her with such a burden. Unfortunately, Scáthach made it very clear that such concerns were completely unwarranted, using a technique that allowed her to make clones of herself to 'reward' him for his victory. If not for the fact the original had his 'soul stone' inside of her, Vahn wouldn't have been able to tell them apart in the slightest as, without any exception, they were all very real...

With that rather unique experience added into the annals of his mind, Vahn wondered what benefits there would be in summoning multiple versions of her, something Scáthach dutifully explained. As she was not a normal Heroic Spirit, due to the fact she was still very much alive, there were a number of benefits and restrictions placed upon her. This was the same for Ereshkigal and Ishtar but, while Scáthach could ignore most of the downsides, her parameters and skills were limited compared to her real self.

Since Scáthach literally qualified as every Servant Class, including Caster, each version of herself would be one of the strongest in its field. They would also share the same thoughts and memories, similar to a hive-mind, enabling them to take independent and cooperative action. Though she did not intend to become a weapon for his convenience, Scáthach admitted it would be easier to fulfill her duties if she had multiple bodies, not just clones. As the latter required her to split her mana between them, it was significantly less efficient than having two, or more, of herself.

What had surprised Vahn most of all about these revelations was the fact that Scáthach had fully intended to make him summon other versions of herself in the future. Since she was determined to teach him 'everything', but was limited by the Servant Class she had been summoned as, he would need to either summon her true form, or another version of herself. Until she believed he was ready, Scáthach didn't want Vahn to summon her true self as, when the time came, they very well might have a battle to the death between them. Thus, once he had reached an adequate level of mastery with his body, she was planning to have him summon a Caster version of herself, at the very least.

Due to her insistence, Vahn knew it was only a matter of time before he had a second Scáthach to 'bully' him, this one using magic instead of overwhelming physical violence. Still, as she had pointed out, it did make things easier for both of them as, while she trained him with one of her bodies, she would still be able to protect the Imperial Family from the shadows. Since Heroic Spirits could stay in their spirit form to conserve mana, wither her Caster form having an almost unlimited amount, she could easily protect the people most important to him. She even came up with the outlandish idea of summoning a version of herself for each member of the Imperial Family but, just imagining how terrifying a small army of Scáthach's would be, Vahn politely refused...

---

Beaten into a rather sorry state once again, to the point he struggled to even maintain human form, Vahn didn't even bother breathing as he just drooped pathetically on the floor. While he was in this state, Scáthach just squatted down next to him, hugging her knees as she watched him with her scarlet-red eyes and expressionless face. Then, repeating the words he had been hearing at the end of every sparring session lately, Scáthach asked, "Do you expect me to fall in love with a puddle of goo?"

This made Vahn feel the urge to laugh and cry simultaneously as he did his best to raise his body and assume a seated position. Since he had been unable to land anything more than a grazing blow this time around, he couldn't expect any pity from her at all. Fortunately, at least this time, she wasn't using the pommel of her spear to poke him...

(A/N: Alternate Titles: 'Channel your rage into Tsundere power~!','An army of Scáthach...','The dignity of an Emperor has no place under Shishou's cold gaze')

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