Ordeal Call 0

Good, you're all here. Thanks for coming on such short notice. I'd like to start by quoting what I said before:

"We'll have to deal with the imbalances we've racked up over the course of our battles to date, and we'll have to face the scrutiny of our mistakes from humanity itself."

"Once we overcome these new trials, that's when we'll reach our final destination!"

Nice speech, right? The only problem is, our operations team hasn't been able to come up with an actual plan of action.

But no more. That embarrassment ends today.

That's right. I've called you here because we've finally determined what to do to prove our innocence in order to enter the Antarctic.

Allow me to show you the method we're going to use to correct these so-called imbalances we've racked up. We'll also cover where we're going to start!

Oho! This is wonderful news!

Just when I was beginning to resign myself to being cursed to blindly wander the bleached Earth forever, too!

So, where do we begin? If this is a matter of imbalances, we must surely have a Singularity to contend with.

Of course, we dealt with all seven Lostbelts; a Singularity shouldn't be any trouble for us.

So let's quickly patch it up and be on our way to Antarctica. Right, Fujimaru?

I bet. Lostbelts are just single timelines. Sure, they're big as all hell, but they don't deliberately set out to do us much harm.

A Singularity, though? No matter how small they may be, they're always a threat to Proper Human History.

There's no sense trying to judge which is easier. Not to mention

The Paper Moon isn't showing any abnormalities, so there don't seem to be any Singularities around at the moment.

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Exactly. So far as we can tell, there are no Singularities for us to address.

According to that guy who looked like Romani Archaman, this is a problem for us to solve. Except...we're not seeing anything out of place anywhere on Earth right now.

Obviously, we can't do much about a problem when we don't know what it is.

Correct. With no enemy, we have no target for our torpedoes. I feel like an orca who's just had a whale disappear on it.

We've spent the past few weeks searching for Singularities. As you're all well aware, we haven't found any.

With matters being what they are, we have neither a chart nor a compass to help us navigate the seas.

It almost makes me wish we still had the Lostbelts. At least with those, we knew where we needed to go.

Hmm, I suppose you're right. It hasn't been smooth sailing so much as a lack of wind altogether. No wonder I've been gaining weight lately...

All right, what do we do then?

If there are no abnormalities at surface level, does that mean we need to start searching the stratosphere?

Only as a last resort. The Storm Border isn't a spaceship, so I'd rather not push it quite so hard.

No, my big takeaway is that we were barking up the wrong tree. We shouldn't have been searching for problems to solve in the first place.

We're not dealing with an enemy from outside this time. No, this time, it's us.

If the Preservation of Humanity itself is keeping us from the Antarctic, the first thing we should do is...

Fujimaru, what do you think?

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Exactly. And to do that, we first need to know what kind of state we're in right now.

Sooo, on that note...

Heeey there. Feels like I've been waiting for my turn for ages now, so let's get to it.

First, take a look at this.

This is a new device Sion and I made together at Da Vinci's request.

It's called the FoH Board, short for "Foundation of Humanity."

I see. The FoH Board, eh. So...what does it do?

Exactly what its name suggests. We're trying to make things as easy to understand as possible.

Unlike the kinds of measurements we've been taking up till now, the FoH Board doesn't look at the Foundation of Humanity value for all of humankind.

Instead, it only looks at the value for the Storm Border itself.

Would you tell them more, Sion?

It is simple. Think of it like taking your baggage through customs to enter a foreign country.

The value the FoH Board displays indicates Chaldea's current imbalancethat is, the shared imbalance of all here.

Our current rank is E, which is as low as you can get. But according to Trismegistus II...

...once we restore our rank to A, we will be able to pass through the wall of humanity surrounding the Antarctic.

Huh? So, we're the lowest rank possible right now? Really?

Yes. It is really quite something that we made it this far without realizing it. What do you think, Fou?

Fou, fou fou. Fou.

Okay, so, how exactly do we go about restoring our Foundation of Humanity value?

There are no Singularities out there, right? So do we just have to wait for it to go up on its own?

Essentially, yes. For the time being, there is nothing we can do. This is the best approach we have.

Da Vinci and I have discussed this as well and we think it is significant that Romani Archaman used the word "call."

Perhaps it does not mean something is calling us, but that we should be calling something ourselves?

Once we considered matters from this perspective, our next course of action became clear.

The FoH Board is not only meant for measuring our foundation. It also reveals it.

We made it to warn us of anything which violates the rules, whether those things are outside or among us...

...and to act as a signal to call in foundation repair trials like those we have undertaken many times before.

Call in...trials...

Now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense. Of course you need to fix the imbalances in your own body yourself.

The world isn't where the abnormality lies. It's us.

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Yup. We've sounded the Ordeal Call and finally stand at the precipice of our trial.

What is the scrutiny of humanity? What is it we need to do?

Trismegistus II answered those questions like this:

"Scrutiny is the absence of recognition. Do not be careless in your approach. Understand the meaning behind all things."

"Disclosure. Supplementation. Parting. Trust. Vows."

"Every time you find answers to these questions, an imbalance will be corrected."

'Course, we have no idea what any of this means right now.

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It's okay, Fujimaru. Don't worry about it for now.

Remember, we don't have to look for these trials. They're going to come to us.

All we can do now is prepare for them. Then, when they show up, we give them everything we've got.

All right, here is our mission!

The Storm Border will continue investigating the bleached Earth as we bolster our forces in preparation for the coming showdown!

On which note, we can now enhance Servant classes directly!

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Correct! We've been thinking about this for a while now, in fact.

Our personal Foundation of Humanity might be tanked right now...

...but with the seven Lostbelts gone, the overall foundation of human history has improved by leaps and bounds.

This means we can now use human history itself as a source of information, giving us an even more solid foundation with which to summon Heroic Spirits.

Da Vinci and Sion call this the Class Score.

An enhanced Class Score doesn't just strengthen a single Heroic Spirit, but every spirit belonging to that class.

Trismegistus II predicts that enhancing Class Scores will help with the battles that lie ahead...

...and give us an ace up our sleeve in our ultimate confrontation against the Foreign God.

Professor can fill you in on the details. Don't worry, it's nothing complicated.

All right, that's all from the ship.

Everyone, stay sharp and keep working hard. I know you'll all come through!