Souta sat on the floor of his room, his eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at the ceiling. His heart was still pounding from the overwhelming realization that he was no longer the ordinary high schooler he once was. This new life was fraught with dangers, secrets, and expectations. But the hardest truth to face was that he had no cheats. No system. No overpowered abilities that would make his survival in the Holy Grail War easy.
The idea of a system had become almost an instinctual hope, something borne from the countless isekai stories he'd consumed over the years. In every single one of those stories, the protagonist had been granted a convenient power or magical ability to give them an edge. It was only natural for him to think that such a system would manifest in this new life.
Maybe it's just not activated yet… Souta thought, though the idea felt more and more ridiculous the longer he mulled over it. The fact that he had no such system became increasingly clear as he tried to reason with himself.
"Alright," he muttered to himself, sitting cross-legged. He clapped his hands together and cleared his throat.
"System. Are you there?" he asked, his voice tentative, almost pleading.
He waited. Nothing. No notifications. No interface flashing in front of his eyes.
Damn it, he cursed internally. I should've known. This isn't an isekai. This is real life.
But the strange sense of longing lingered, a nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, there was something more to his existence in this world.
Souta let out a sigh, closing his eyes in frustration. Forget it. No system. No cheats. But there has to be something.
He turned his attention inward, diving deep into the new memories that had been implanted in his mind. Unlike his old life, these memories felt like a foreign inheritance. He wasn't just an ordinary teenager in Fuyuki; he was the heir to a family of magi. Or, at least, that's what the memories suggested.
What about magic? I know the basics of magecraft. But there's something deeper, something I'm missing.
With that thought in mind, he began to search through the fragments of his memories, hoping to uncover any detail that could help him understand his family's connection to magecraft and the Moonlit World, a term that still felt foreign, though strangely familiar. Magic, mystic codes, and strange rituals—the world of magi was something out of reach for ordinary humans, and yet…
The world isn't as simple as I thought, Souta mused.
He began to sift through the hazy recollections of his ancestors. There were vague images of old, leather-bound tomes stacked on ancient wooden shelves, their spines cracked with age. One book in particular caught his attention. A grimoire? His mind flashed to the cover—a black book with intricate golden markings. The pages were filled with symbols he couldn't quite decipher. He knew that this book was once in his family's possession, yet it had long since been hidden or destroyed.
Another book, one even older, seemed to have a more prominent place in his memories. It was about the true nature of magecraft, detailing its deep, esoteric practices. His fingers instinctively remembered tracing the yellowed pages as a child, as if he had been taught its content as a matter of routine. Yet there was no one in his family who had openly practiced magic as far back as he could recall.
Was I really meant to inherit something from them? he wondered. He felt the answers just out of his reach.
He searched deeper. Among the memories, he found fleeting fragments of conversations—a voice, distorted by time, mentioning "The Bloodline", and another speaking of "mistakes from the previous generation." He couldn't make sense of it at first, but then a faint, almost imperceptible line of thought began to emerge. His parents… they had done something. Something that had prevented the inheritance of their magical talents.
What was it? Souta's hand tightened into a fist. Who were they connected to?
His mind pushed forward through a barrier, deeper into his memories. Images blurred by time began to sharpen. He saw his father's face for the first time—stern and unapproachable, with dark eyes that held secrets he'd never shared. His mother's smile was more vivid, soft and warm, but there was a sadness in it, an unspoken grief.
The memory shifted, and Souta felt an undeniable sense of dread. His parents had been involved with someone dangerous—someone who had manipulated them into a position where they had to abandon their magical inheritance. The way they spoke about the person—whispers of a "curse" and "dangerous alliances"—led him to believe that his family had crossed paths with forces beyond their control.
His hand reached to his head, as if trying to shake away the fragments that wouldn't come together. His parents had messed with the wrong people. That was the conclusion. They had done something to sever the link to the ancient magical bloodline, leaving him with only vague knowledge, like a shadow of the true power.
Souta's stomach churned. So I'm not a full-fledged magus after all. My parents' failure… it's left me with barely any inheritance.
He shook his head. His thoughts were fragmented, and the weight of the truth was heavier than he had anticipated. For a brief moment, he considered giving up on the whole idea of using magecraft in the Holy Grail War. But then, the memories of that old, hidden grimoire surfaced again.
I'll make do with what I have. I'm not without tools. Not yet.
His fingers grazed the leather-bound spine of a book in the corner of his room. He had no true magecraft skills like other Masters, but he could still tap into what his ancestors had left behind—rudimentary magic, if anything. Magic circuits were extremely weak, but even a faint, diluted ability could still prove useful in the right hands.
With a deep breath, Souta steadied himself. No system. No shortcuts.
But he would make the most of whatever he had. Because if there was one thing he had learned, it was that even the most fleeting power could be turned into something dangerous.