Artoria Pendragon, specifically the Lion King, the Lancer wielding Rhongomyniad, Lartoria; as with the amount of Arthurias in Chaldea, her identity needed to be specified. Had manifested as a Divine Spirit in the Camelot Singularity due to a disruption in human history. In the world's True History, Bedivere returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, Vivian, and King Arthur eventually succumbed to her wounds. Merlin then ferried her soul and body to Avalon before becoming eternally imprisoned in his tower at the end of the world.
Lancer Artoria was the aberration to this tale, an Artoria that never died because Bedivere was never able to return Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, ascending as a Divine Spirit bound to Rhongomyniad, the Tower at the End of the World, anchoring the two realms as one. In short, Lancer Artoria’s existence was a paradox, a being with no ‘proper’ place in this world. Her arrival at Chaldea, within the boundaries of ‘Correct’ Human History, was akin to an alien landing on Earth.
For many Servants, this would be ample cause for an existential crisis, something that required a deep dive into the nature of their being, and a struggle to define what made this Artoria ‘real.’ Something similar had happened to Jalter.
But Artoria Lancer never got the chance to fully immerse herself in such thoughts, not because she couldn't or didn't want to, but simply because she wasn't given the time.
Immediately upon summoning, she was barraged with grave news that didn’t allow her time to contemplate; humanity's incineration, Archer's excellent cooking, the presence of Mordred, and the existence of another version of herself, Artoria Alter, Salter. Worse, before she could even digest the smallest bit from the barrage of information, she was deployed to a Singularity.
There, she barely had time to consider anything else other than bashing Merlin over the head, an absolutely essential part of her existence and journey, before being thrown into deadly combat against Tiamat.
And when, by some miracle, Tiamat was defeated and Lancer finally returned to Chaldea, presumably freeing up time for that existential crisis, Arthur, yet another version of herself, one even stranger due to a complete lack of connection to Proper Human History, instead coming from a different World altogether, making her existence even more alien than Lancer’s own, grabbed her by the arm.
While Ainz, her Master, yet another existence far removed from the Proper Human History who had nonetheless chosen to become its savior, was busy dealing with the two newly summoned goddesses; Arthur dragged her into another room and posed a question fundamentally similar to querying the nature of her existence.
"Why are you a woman?"
Arthur's voice, familiar and yet alien to her at the same time, made Artoria blink.
She stared at the figure opposite her with no small amount of confusion. "Excuse me?"
"A woman. Why are you a woman?" Arthur planted her hands on her very womanly hips and sighed harshly. "Actually, I wanted… I wanted to ask why I am a woman, but I suspect it's connected to the secret reason why we already have three Arthurs and a Mordred, and all of them are women. So let's start with you. Why are you female?"
Artoria blinked again, once more, her attempt to sink into philosophical contemplation shattered against the encroaching cliffs of absurdity.
"I don't know how to answer that."
Artoria Pendragon was born a woman, and so was Mordred. Does a reason need to exist for why they are the way they are? There wasn't much more to say about it. Uther, her father, struck a bargain with Merlin to create an heir, but the heir was a girl. To hide this, Uther sent her away to be raised by his knights while hiding their true identity and gender. Later, Merlin revealed her destiny, trained her, and concealed her gender because of the succession laws of Britain—only a man could inherit the throne of Britain.
In other words, the only answer to ‘why are you a woman’ was…
“It just happened?”
"That… That makes no sense!" Arthur stepped back, raising hands to cover her face. "You were married!"
Memories of Guinevere, and how their first night had turned out, caused Artoria to flush slightly, a rare feat given her status as the Divine Spirit of Rhongomyniad. She looked away, awkwardness tinting her divine composure. "A political alliance. A king requires a wife."
"And Mordred?" Arthur stepped forward. "You have a son… a daughter! That physically cannot happen between two women!"
"Ahem!" At the mention of her child's conception, Artoria coughed loudly into her fist, a blush covering her face, before meeting Arthur's gaze with all the composure she could conjure.
"A clone. Morgan created a clone based on me." The less said about how said ‘clone’ came to be, the better.
"Really?" Arthur raised a skeptical eyebrow. "It seems to me that when discussing cloning, a donor usually doesn't look quite so embarrassed."
"That is the official story." Lancer Artoria made sure that her intent for the other Arthur to drop the question came clear through.
"We shall stick to it."
"Fine, fine," Arthur sighed, then gave Artoria another once-over, making the Divine Spirit feel slightly uncomfortable, especially when the gaze lingered on her rather prominent curves and on her chest. Her rather large chest.
"So… there's no reason? You weren't cursed by fairies, there was no contract with the world, no interference from Ainz, you're just… a woman?"
"Well… yes?" Artoria blinked, unsure of what else she was supposed to do now. Apologize that historians recorded her gender incorrectly in the chronicles? After all, that had been the entire point of her masquerade.
Arthur, fixing Lartoria's face with an unimpressed look, sighed and dragged her hands down her face, trying to gather and discard her frustrations with that action before looking back up.
"Alright, let's assume that's true. It still doesn't answer the main question."
Arthur pointed a finger at herself. "Why am I a woman?!"
Lartoria, needless to say, was greatly confused.
"I was actually born a man! I became a consecrated paladin, I was a knight, I was a king, and yes, I had a wife and an heir…" At the mention of his heir, of Mordred, of the traitor that had burned his kingdom down, due to no small help from Ainz Ooal Gown, Arthur’s tirade of complaints faltered slightly.
"Okay, that history is also very complicated, so let's not touch on it… My Mordred is also a clone, an evil clone, yep."
For a second, Lartoria felt the urge to learn a bit more about the history between this Arthur and his Mordred, which Arthur had so easily glossed over. But realizing that would likely obligate her to share her own story regarding Mordred and the real ‘story’ of her conception, she decided not to pursue the topic any longer.
"In short, there is no reason why I became a woman! None… except one! It's somehow connected to you and the fact that there are already multiple female Arthurias in this world." Arthur let out a long breath, slowly massaging her temples.
"Or Ainz is involved somehow, manipulating things as usual before I was summoned. Though… I always thought he was more into destroying the world than gender-bending?"
Lartoria merely shrugged at this. "Get used to it."
Arthur, who until this moment had been lost in thought about her transformation, blinked. "What?"
"I don't know if Ainz did this or if something else happened, but you don't have a choice now, do you?" Lartoria looked at Arthur, philosophically assessing the situation. For someone that is complaining about how their gender was changed, Arthur was holding herself really well.
"You simply have no other choice but to get used to the new situation."
Arthur paused, contemplating Lartoria’s words, then shook her head. "'Get used to it'… Sounds easy enough."
Seeing that Arthur seems receptive to her advice, Lartoria continued.
"Back in the Singularity, you didn’t seem bothered by this topic at all; you even got drunk with Mashu. What has changed?" Lartoria pointed out a rather significant detail.
"That's because I didn't have time to process the fact." Arthur shook her head. "A sudden unexpected summoning, then meeting Momo– Ainz, who I never expected to fight on the side of the good guys… Heck, I’m still expecting a sudden betrayal, but then the Singularity… After Tiamat… Heh, then the drinking, fighting… There was no time to contemplate what happened."
"No time?" Lartoria looked at Arthur, then nodded thoughtfully. "That I can understand …"
A moment later, the room housing the two versions of King Arthur descended into contemplative silence.
Lartoria was not the King Arthur of this world… and Arthur was not the King Arthur of this world either. Debating which of them was more ‘alien’ made no sense; neither belonged to the ‘Proper Human History.’ One was a King Arthur born after a thousand-year wandering on an earth where she shouldn't exist, and the other was a man from a completely different world, brought here by chance.
What could they do with this fact? Only accept it as their starting point, even if it's a low point and, pushing off from the bottom, begin to swim up.
So, enjoying the silence for a few more seconds, Lartoria accepted that she couldn’t give Arthur any better of an answer; Arthur had seemed to have accepted it as well, and so Lartoria decided that she wanted to entertain some of her curiosity.
"Speaking of your origin… you're from the same world as Ainz? Another Earth?"
Arthur, blinking as if just surfacing from some deep thoughts, sighed, nodded, and then made her way to a nearby armchair, sitting down and seemingly sinking into the chair, slumping.
"In short? Yes. More specifically, we both come from a place where there is no 'Earth,' but we’re from different worlds on the tree of Yggdrasil."
"Yggdrasil, hmm." Arthur knew of the Nordic World Tree thanks to the information granted by the Throne of Heroes upon her summoning. However, somehow connecting King Arthur, Ainz, and Yggdrasil was a stretch for her; that felt more like Da Vinci's territory than Artoria's.
And so, she decided not to fixate on it, focusing instead on another aspect that interested her. "And he was different before?"
"Yes. Not in appearance; he was still the same massive skeleton, at least when he’s not wearing the meat suit that Da Vinci made for him. But in action and temperament." Arthur shook her head as if she was trying to disperse some bad memory.
"I admit, I still struggle to believe he's here to save humanity or anything of the sort. It's just… very uncharacteristic of him. They say actions speak louder than words, but right now, he's drowning in the noise of his past deeds."
Lartoria could only mentally shrug at Arthur’s assessment, if the Goddess of Rhongomyniad were prone to such gestures, that is. The information that the Grail had downloaded into her mind only informed her of the world’s current state; she had no window into another world, let alone the worlds of Yggdrasil that Arthur had hailed from. So, Arthur's words remained just words, while Ainz's actions in this world were all she had to judge by.
Then again, Scáthach loathed Ainz with a particularly fervent hatred, and when it came to monster-slaying pedigree, no one rivaled her. On the other hand, calling Scáthach entirely ‘sane’ was something Larrtoria wouldn't rush to do either.
"What exactly did Ainz do in your world? Did he do something evil?" Deciding to learn more about her Master, Artoria asked for more information, earning a most un-kingly and un-paladin-like snort from Arthur.
"What didn’t he do, ha!? Asking what wrongs he committed is the wrong question. Better to ask what he didn't do. Or rather, what he didn't get around to doing. And that list isn't very long."
Seeing a confused look from Lartoria, Arthur decided that sarcasm wasn’t perhaps the best method of sharing information. Arthur pondered on how to best answer Lartoria’s question. The fact of the matter is, the ‘achievements’ of Ainz Ooal Gown were too many to list, everything from simple murder and thievery to outright massacres.
Before realizing that there was one simple act of Ainz Ooal Gown that would hit closest to home.
"He destroyed Camelot."
Arthur's words hit Lartoria like a punch to the guts, and Arthur knew that he had hit a homerun. The Lancer’s eyes went wide, her detached, cold demeanor shattering for a moment. Satisfied with the reaction, Arthur leaned back in her chair and spread her arms as if to better portray the image.
"I see you're starting to understand why I don't particularly trust Ainz and his 'save humanity' shtick."
Lartoria was no longer listening to Arthur’s words, busy as she was trying to reconcile the two conflicting images in her head – Ainz, ‘savior of the world,’ and Ainz, ‘destroyer of Camelot,’ but the two pictures refused to merge.
"And…" Lartoria, thrown off balance, grasped for a foothold. "Mordred?"
"They did it together. Made an alliance behind my back and…" Arthur shrugged, then sighed, shaking her head. "You could say Mordred wanted to destroy Camelot, but it was Ainz Ooal Gown who gave him the means to do it. Without them, he simply wouldn't have had the strength."
Lartoria instantly mapped this fact onto her history. Her Mordred had conspired with numerous of her enemies, from the common rebels and bandits to minor nobles, all backed by Morgan le Fay, this rebellion ultimately leading to the final battle at the field of Camlann, where her loyal Knights of the Round Table, what remained of them, met their end alongside her. Of course, except for Bedivere.
She hadn't needed an Ainz for her reign to crumble, but if, in another world, Ainz had been involved…
Lartoria imagined that same history where Ainz, not Morgan Le Fay, mentored Mordred instead and shook her head. Indeed, if Morgan had exchanged places with Ainz and had been her Master… After her sister would probably do all sorts of embarrassing and degrading things, she wouldn't have put much stock in Morgan's claims of saving humanity either.
Preserving it to rule later? Perhaps. But certainly not lead a heroic crusade against evil.
However, Lartoria's mind snagged on another key detail in Arthur's account. "'They'?"
Arthur blinked, tilting her head back. "Right, yes… The Ainz you know isn't Ainz Ooal Gown. That's Momonga."
"Momonga?" Lartoria blinked, chewing on the strange name, a name that is very much not fitting with the image of the scary skeleton. "Like… a flying squirrel?"
"Don't ask me; their names are always weird. One's name is 'Teapot' for some reason." Arthur sighed, shaking her head.
"Ainz Ooal Gown… Ainz Ooal Gown wasn’t just one person but instead a whole group of monsters that had decided to band together, with Momonga as their leader. Yes, the same skeleton that had summoned the both of us. It seemed that he had decided to change his name after arriving in this world for some reason."
"Changed his name?”
In most cases, changing one's name was a rare event for humans, one that usually denoted a massive change in their life. Though technically nothing stopped them from adopting aliases or simply introducing themselves differently. But for Servants, whose very legend and identity mark them invariably, the situation was fundamentally different. They could use pseudonyms or class names to obscure their identities, a standard tactic in fact, or even made use of a Skill or Ability to obscure their true identity further, but none truly ‘changed’ their name.
A Servant was an imprint of a Heroic Spirit placed into a Saint Graph container; a sealed, immutable snapshot of a legend. Changing a Servant’s name implied altering the Servant itself, not just swapping a random collection of sounds others used to address them.
"Servants don't just change their names like that," Lartoria frowned slightly.
"This is Momo—well, Ainz, we’re talking about," Arthur shrugged simply as if saying ‘what can you do about it?’
"In his case, the exceptions are more of the rule rather than the other way around."
"Perhaps," Lartoria didn't press the point, still unfamiliar with the subject. "But he had become a Servant of this world to be summoned, didn't he? That means… he must have a True Name. Just as a Servant does."
"Hmm," Arthur frowned thoughtfully, weighing the statement against the foundational knowledge granted by her summoning and her history with Ainz. She understood what Artoria meant. "Let's assume so."
"Then there's a chance… that Master, Ainz, is not a single entity, Momonga, as you called him."
Lartoria furrowed her brow, trying to decipher the implications from the information she had just received. Ainz, that is, Momonga, was already an anomaly capable of making even Merlin nervous at the threat of a mere touch. And as much as Lartoria enjoyed the idea of a nervous Merlin, she had to admit her Court Wizard is almost impossible to make nervous. Even in the court of King Gilgamesh, the Wizard of Flowers acted more like a jester, a clown, rather than the wise Court Wizard that he was supposed to be.
The only ones who had ever elicited a genuine reaction from Merlin were Morgan and, as Artoria had heard, Uther, who once managed to wound Merlin during an argument. And for good reason.
Merlin was one of history's greatest mages. Nothing could kill him, and a part of Humanity itself, Avalon, would not permit Merlin to die until the world ended.
But if Ainz was a figure capable of rattling even Merlin? And in reality was more than a single entity, but a multitude gathered into one form, then…
‘What did that mean?’ Lartoria had to admit that she was not knowledgeable enough to find a satisfying conclusion.
"Is that bad?" Lartoria finally asked.
"It's complicated," Arthur replied, shaking her head. "There were Forty-one… Forty-one personalities that made up Ainz Ooal Gown; and each and every one of them is a monster by nature. Every one of them did terrible things, but some… I can't call them true monsters. Not because they weren't, but because they didn't act like it. It was only a scant few, of course, but Ainz Ooal Gown was made up of very diverse personalities."
For a moment, Artoria tried to imagine a being carrying over forty personalities. Her memory helpfully reminded her that she had encountered at least one such Servant in the Singularity. But with all due respect to the Hundred Personas of Hassan, each of them was only marginally better than an ordinary human. A professional at the height of their craft, certainly, but in the world of Servants, being a ‘professional’ was wholly insufficient to stand out among ‘heroes.’
"Can you give one as an example?" Trying to gauge the danger that Ainz Ooal Gown could possess, Lartoria probed for specifics about the personalities within Ainz Ooal Gown.
"Where to start… How about Ulbert? The World Disaster, Ulbert Alain Odle—people said his name shouldn't be spoken because it cursed the speaker and the listener. That should tell you just how far his infamy has reached.” Arthur grimaced as if just saying the name hurt her.
"Everything Scáthach thinks about Ainz? It is true regarding Ulbert, only severely understated compared to his true nature. A demon who simply reveled in the death and chaos he brought to the world. There was nothing redeemable in him; he was simply a monster unleashed upon the world with the sole purpose of destroying everything noble and bright. The Hero Killer, The Curse Upon the World, The Demon of Catastrophe. If he had manifested along with Momonga… then this world is already doomed, perhaps saved only to be destroyed at the last moment so that Ulbert could enjoy the despair that it would have caused."
It was simply words, but Lartoria could feel a shiver running down her back. Just what kind of monster was this Ulbert that Arthur, the proclaimed ‘Strongest Paladin,’ would utter his name with dread?
Scáthach already incessantly expected Ainz to begin torturing and slaughtering his summoned Servants at any second, and when he didn't, she simply changed her expectations for it to happen a few seconds later, so on and so forth, never abandoning the idea that Ainz planned to turn this world into hell. The Witch of Dun Scaith wouldn’t even entertain the idea, the very possibility, that she is wrong.
Hearing that Scathach's assumptions were true and even understated regarding Ainz, if only aimed at the wrong target, the wrong personality, was… A bleak moment for Lartoria.
"On the other hand, there's Touch Me… Yes, I know it's a strange name." Lartoria, momentarily pausing in her contemplation of doom, suddenly found her train of thought crashing as she heard the name uttered by Arthur. The Paladin, seeing Lartoria’s confused look, once again simply raised her hands in the air, as if to ward off the unspoken judgment in the Rhongomyniad Goddess' eyes.
"It must be a nickname! It must be… There’s no way that a Paladin that I would happily call my peer would have such a strange name.” Arthur then looks downwards, her words more to convince herself than Lartoria.
“Anyway! There was a Paladin who always hid behind a mask, famous only for challenging every warrior he met to a duel, demanding that if they could just touch him in battle, he would remove his mask and admit defeat! No one could, so people nicknamed him that, Touch Me! That must be the origin of his name!"
Lartoria, initially frowning at the paladin's name, relaxed slightly; the story was still a bit amusing, but far less strange than someone seriously naming themselves ‘Touch Me.’ However, another question interested her far more.
"A Paladin? A knight sworn to a king or a knight sworn to God?"
"To God," Arthur grimaced slightly, as if reluctantly admitting the fact. "A Good God at that."
Artoria experienced yet another revelation, one of many in the last ten minutes, more than she had ever experienced in her life. "Wait, why are you suddenly talking about some unrelated Pala– Wait, is this ‘Touch Me’ part of Ainz Ooal Gown!? Didn't you say all members of Ainz Ooal Gown were monsters?"
"He was! He also participated in the attack on Camelot, and in killing other humans, but…" Arthur sighed, seeming very, very reluctant to acknowledge the complexity of the situation.
Lartoria, if it was possible, was even more confused than before.
“He was sworn to a good god; I can confirm that. He was… a 'paladin for monsters'; he sometimes intervened in attacks on weaker monsters when humans would ‘prey’ on them, stopping the humans… And while it was taken as something strange, the monsters on those occasions were all weak monsters that the humans would hunt for sport, a dishonorable act, and so no one would say anything about his deeds of protecting monsters; it was lauded even.”
Arthur’s statement earned a nod of agreement from Lartoria. Indeed, while killing monsters is well and good, becoming monsters themselves is not the answer. This Touch Me had done well stopping such atrocities.
“And more, he would intervene when a human settlement was about to be overrun by monsters, so no one suspected he was a monster himself. He was… a complex creature. One day he had even earned recognition from …"
Arthur paused, chewing her lip, her whole demeanor showing how uncomfortable she was admitting that among ‘monsters’ there were quite traditional heroes, even knights and paladins, before she gathered herself and continued.
"Touch Me’s achievement and heroics reached such a level that he received recognition from the world itself and became one of the World Champions, becoming one of its defenders. Everyone thought he was a great paladin among humans; that is… until one day a warrior did manage to ‘touch him’ and in one swing managed to remove the mask that Touch Me always wore, revealing his true identity as an Insectoid, one of the many races of monsters."
Lartoria, who had accepted the abstract picture of a monster as a hero easily enough; after all, one could argue she herself was born with a dragon core and thus wasn't entirely human. Or even Merlin, half of whose essence was that of an incubus, a demon of dreams. Even then she found the specifics that the paladin Touch Me wasn't a human with a ‘pair of horns’ but actually an Insectoid, a creature closer to an insect than a man, to be jarring. Once again, she realized just how fickle the world of Servants was.
Just a couple of days ago, she thought Tiamat, Mother of All Life, was the most insane discovery for her, but Chaldea continued to surprise her time and again. What next?
"Just in case, was there anyone even more… eclectic among Ainz Ooal Gown?" Lartoria sincerely hoped for a no as an answer, but the world was cruel and not at all inclined to satisfy desires, even those of Goddesses’.
"That implies there was someone among them you'd call 'normal'!" Arthur guffawed as she rolled her eyes.
"A Nephilim healer, a slime alchemist, a blacksmith building mechs, take your pick."
"That sounds…" Lartoria tried to find a suitable word but couldn't express the fullness of her emotions, limiting herself to a brief remark, "Remarkable."
"Extremely," Arthur snorted and shrugged before letting out a long sigh. "The world is already messed up enough with just the one Momonga; it isn’t ready for more. What if there are two here? Three? All forty-one?"
Lartoria didn't even attempt to respond to such a hypothetical. Her mind was conditioned for tactics, strategy, and governance, not theoretical exercises on what a god-like slime alchemist might do to the world.
However, Scáthach existed to suspect Ainz of heinous deeds at every turn, Arthur existed to hold a grudge against him, and half of Chaldea existed to fawn over and praise his every move.
Maybe it was foolish, after everything that had been said, to offer a naive sentiment like ‘I still believe in him,’ but Artoria had no other cards to play. Even assuming Ainz truly intended to destroy the world immediately after saving it… that was a problem to be dealt with when the world was actually already saved. What’s the point of worrying about the world being destroyed a second time when it hasn’t even been fixed yet?
For now?
"Then we have no other choice but to get used to it." Lartoria simply gave the simplest answer, the only answer she could give.
Arthur merely grunted and shrugged, plunging the room into silence for another second before Lartoria closed her eyes briefly, processing all the information gleaned from her short conversation with Arthur, then opened them again as she remembered one more thing that she needed to ask.
"Were they friends?"
"What?" Arthur looked lost for a moment. "Who?"
"The ‘members’ of Ainz Ooal Gown. They were all strange, some heroes, some monsters, as you’ve said… But I can't understand the group itself, what was it supposed to be?" Artoria tried to compare it to Camelot, but the figure of an insectoid stubbornly refused to fit in Gawain's place.
"Did they unite for some purpose? Or did they just… come together and decide to walk together? What convinced such conflicting personalities to be able to work together? To choose Momonga as their leader?"
"I don't have that information." Arthur spoke slowly as she pondered, trying to remember all the details she could remember. "It couldn’t be for accomplishing some grand ritual or grand goal everyone would have known about it or they would have already accomplished it, Ainz Ooal Gown was among the strongest… Huh, that reminded me, they weren’t named Ainz Ooal Gown originally… It was back when they were still a small group, they were known as something different…'Nine's Own Goal'."
"What?" Lartoria paused in shock at the rather blatant name, a great clue as to their purposes, wondering if she should make surprise her default expression just to save her facial muscles the effort. It was quite easy to see how ‘Nine's Own Goal’ transformed perfectly into ‘Ainz Ooal Gown’ with a slight modification. Perhaps they realized that their name was perhaps a bit on the nose?
"Goal… So they had a unified goal? For the nine of them?" Lartoria peered at Arthur, who only lifted her hands in defeat.
"I don't know. It's unlikely they named themselves that without a real objective in mind, but… if they had a unified goal, it remains unknown to me."
Nine… If there was originally a coalition of nine that later grew to forty-one… It meant those dozens deemed their unified goal important enough to join.
Yet they subsequently changed the name…
"Do you think whatever goal they had… they’ve achieved it?" Lartoria once again thought of Camelot, a unified goal that attracted more and more like-minded individuals…
Perhaps the insectoid figure refused to overlay onto Gawain, but imagining a common purpose drawing more and more people was extremely easy for her.
"Or lost sight of it… Maybe they just abandoned it," Arthur shrugged.
For a moment, Lartoria entertained a thought.
What if she had abandoned the quest for the Grail? What if she had simply decided to spend time with her knights? What if she had decided to dedicate herself to ruling…
How might history have turned out in that case?
Lartoria didn't know, and speculating was probably pointless; the past couldn't be changed; one could only move toward the future. But what future was Ainz ultimately moving towards?
"And so, without Ainz deciding to share his secrets, we are stuck, so what now?" Lartoria finally asked, deciding the topic was exhausted as it is, as was Arthur's desire to figure out why she was now a ‘she’ and not a ‘he.’
Lartoria had no idea how such a silly topic ended up leading towards something so serious.
"We adapt, of course." Arthur ultimately returned Artoria's phrase with a snort. "And if you want specifics... I don't know, apparently Archer cooked something again. Let's start there; maybe I can eat enough that I would stop worrying, especially about how I now have a shifted center of gravity... What’s the point of these sacks of fat?"
Hearing this, Lartoria glanced at Arthur's, somewhat more modest than her own but still quite decent, chest, then at herself, and nodded. "A worthy proposal."
In the end, the past couldn't be changed; one could only adapt to the future, and that adaptation started small.
And if that small thing happened to be delicious, well, adaptation doesn’t necessarily mean something painful.
And when compared to the tasteless boiled potatoes of her past? Well, she was ‘adapting’ pretty well.