Transmigrated to Mushoku Tensei as Mordred Pendragon (fanfic x Fate)

Isaac followed Ruijerd's instructions and entered a small cave-like canyon.

There was some firewood gathered at the side and a few primal paintings on the canyon's wall, but what attracted attention the most were two children that were lying on the ground.

It seemed to Isaac that Ruijerd invited him in exactly to show these children to him.

One of the children was a beautiful young girl with long crimson-red hair, covered with a blanket, and another a younger boy with medium length brown hair and an ordinary face.

Next to the two laid a staff with a large blue orb at one end.

Isaac observed the two children.

He recognized the red-haired girl as Eris. She was just a young girl, but she surely had a beautiful face and hair.

Isaac then looked at the boy. 'And this should be Rudeus? In reality he looks more ordinary than I expected…'

After noting the way Ruijerd watched him, Isaac kneeled in front of Rudeus and inspected him, touching his forehead.

He didn't know if this would work, but he closed his eyes, used the Instinct skill and also sent out his mana to inspect Rudeus's body.

After that he did the same to Eris.

'I think… They're just fine. They're only tired.'

Having made that conclusion, Isaac got up.

He then walked over to the side and sat down cross-legged next to the two sleeping children.

For the time being he felt he could just wait for them to wake up. When the boy he assumed to be Rudeus wakes up, if nothing's strange, he should be able to serve as a translator.

Ruijerd watched Isaac sit down, then slightly turned away his head and averted his gaze as if to avoid making eye contact with Isaac.

Isaac was silent as he also observed Ruijerd, then also turned away.

He wanted to strike a conversation, but knew that it was pointless because they wouldn't understand each other.

As Isaac waited patiently, he recalled and wanted to do something.

That was to test his personal magic - the Displacement Magecraft.

'I got wrapped up in following my instinct to this place and nearly forgot about it. Right, let's test what's the effect of my new body on my magic.'

Isaac hesitated for a moment because of Ruijerd's presence.

In fact, his Displacement Magecraft was always a kind of trump card for him because of the way it works. At this time in his new body, if he could still use it, that fact would be only more true.

'It isn't that I don't trust Ruijerd, but so readily showing off my trump card to a stranger is not in my nature.'

Isaac felt conflicted, thus instead of displacing space which was his primary use of Displacement Magecraft, he decided to attempt displacing shape.

He picked up a small branch of the dry firewood, then sunk his Magical Energy into it.

Relying on his years of practice, he manipulated his Magical Energy to change the shape of the wooden stick, replacing its original shape with the concept of the shape of a spoon in his mind.

As a result, the stick began to change shape and quickly transformed into a spoon.

[WHAT?!] Ruijerd shouted out something when he noticed that change.

Isaac noted it and inwardly also felt awed. 'I can displace the shape of an object by just relying on my will and imagination. That's incredible!'

He was positively surprised.

Normally, in order to 'displace', or in other words 'exchange', the shape of an object, he needed another object nearby as a reference. Then he would exchange the shape of these two items.

For example, having a wooden spoon and a metal fork in his two hands, he could displace the shape of the two of them, changing a wooden spoon into a wooden fork and the metal fork into a metal spoon.

This was called Shape Displacement.

However, now he didn't have a reference and could just rely on an imaginary projection to displace an object's shape. This was something that he could only dream of doing before.

With the improvement of his Magic Circuits, his Dragon Blood and Magic Power, the potential of his Displacement Magecraft had clearly reached another level!

Isaac continued experimentation.

He transformed the wooden spoon he made into a fork, then gave it the shape of a miniature wooden chair.

Following that, the chair began to rapidly grow in size as Isaac's Magical Energy was consumed.

"Aah?!" Ruijerd watched this scene in shock.

The miniature stool magically turned into a full-sized chair. Feeling satisfied, Isaac got up and sat down on the chair. 'With this, I can excuse the reason I was playing around with that stick. Anyway…'

Shape Displacement was just one application of Displacement Magecraft. More combat-oriented application was the displacement of space.

Isaac was tempted to attempt it and experiment, but decided to leave it for later.

He wanted to see if he could still use Displacement Magic and whether his potential was raised, and he had already achieved it.

Given that he could do conceptual Shape Replacement, Space Displacement should also be easy.

'Eventually, perhaps I might be able to perform pure Conceptual Displacement like the Ainsworths. At that level, exchanging anything would be possible, like exchanging the life force or Magical Energy between people, exchanging souls between people or creating any kind of matter out of Magical Energy…' Isaac's heart thought.

The idea of Displacement Magecraft stemmed from the field of alchemy in which the Magi aimed to achieve the goal of changing lead into gold.

Unfortunately, it followed an inevitable fundamental rule that the displacement will always suffer from degradation and the displaced objects would eventually return to how they were.

As Isaac pondered over the possible applications of Displacement Magic in the new world and the rumors of how Ainsworths used it, time gradually passed.

Ruijerd remained sitting at the side and observing Isaac and the two children without a word.

However, as around an hour passed, Rudeus still hadn't woken up.

Isaac had the urge to do something to make Rudeus wake up, but then realized that he might prevent or interrupt Rudeus's meeting with Hitogami that should have ended with Rudeus waking up.

He decided to do nothing and instead wait patiently.

Having nothing else to do, Isaac turned to spending time practicing his magic.

When he focused on changing the shape of the wooden branches, focusing on precision, density and sharpness of the objects he made.

Apart from that, he also practiced his ability to control lightning to attack - something that shocked Ruijerd once again.

After hours had passed, the sun had eventually descended behind the horizon.

Throughout this whole time Ruijerd didn't leave, mostly silently sitting still like a statue and not leaving the side of Isaac or the two children. The only thing he did was silently prepare a bonfire in the center of the canyon to keep the two sleeping children warm.

Isaac had read Ruijerd's intentions and helped with creating the initial spark, lighting up the fire by relying on his Lightning Magic.

As the evening came, the wooden branches burned and crackled. The sky filled with stars.

At one moment, Isaac felt something.

As he turned his head, it was just in time to see the brown-haired boy open his eyes and stare at the night sky.

In the next moment, he looked at his body in a panic. He stared at his small baby hands and then exhaled in relief.

He raised his head with a groan and slightly looked around at his nearby surroundings. His eyes fixated on the red-haired girl who was sleeping beside him with a mantle covering her and was grabbing his cuffs.

"Ghislaine?..."

Rudeus looked around his surroundings once again, and there was someone at the bonfire that he didn't notice earlier.

'?!'

In an instant he realized that this person was not Ghislaine.

He was a handsome young man with long golden hair bound into a meticulous half-ponytail. He sat there clad in full plate armor and looked back at him silently.

There were no signs of hostility.

Rudeus recalled the Human God's words: "When you wake up, rely on the man beside you, and help him."

After saying that, this man appeared in front of Rudeus.

At a glance, he felt that he could trust that man.

Rudeus frowned as he thought about it. 'He's basically a knight in shining armor! What the hell?! Who wouldn't want to trust him? What useless advice!!!'

The moment Rudeus relaxed, he noticed another person near the bonfire, sitting quite further back.

Emerald green hair, porcelain-like white skin and ruby-like stone on his forehead that's like an eye. Under his arm was a trident.

The Superd race!

His face was full of scars. His eyes are sharp, his expression solemn, and there was a look of danger about him.

I think back to what Roxy taught me.

Isaac observed as the boy instantly backed off and looked around between himself and Ruijerd in a panic as if wondering whether we were allies.

Eventually, the boy's sight landed on him. He slightly bowed his head and said something, [####.]

Isaac interpreted this as greeting. He let out a fake sight and replied, "I'm sorry, but I can't understand you."

"Aah? Inglisu?!" Rudeus looked at Isaac with a shocked face.

Isaac faintly raised his eyebrows, faking surprise. "Englishu? Can you speak English?"

Rudeus widened in surprise and mumbled, "... A lil' bit."

Isaac looked back as if in surprise, smiled in a friendly manner and said, "That's great. But you seem to have a Japanese accent… Can you speak Japanese?"

The last sentence Isaac said in Japanese.

Rudeus was shocked again. "Ah, you can speak Japanese too?!"

Isaac smiled and slowly nodded. "Yes. It's a relief. I met this man earlier, but we had trouble understanding each other."

"Ah, this man? Aren't you two companions?" Rudeus turned to look at Ruijerd with surprise.

Isaac answered honestly, "I just met him a few hours ago."

"Ah…"

Isaas saw Rudeus's expression immediately filled with suspicion and fear directed at Rujerd.

Ruijerd said nothing.

As a brief silence descended, Isaac touched his armored chest and solemnly said, "First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Isaac Pendragon."

Isaac had already thought about it before and decided to adopt the family name of Pendragon in this world.

With his body being modified by Mordred's Class Card, he essentially carried the genes of Mordred who was King Arthur's artificially born 'son'.

In a way, he was the last living descendant of the Pendragon lineage. No one could have a problem with him calling himself one.

At least, he felt that Mordred wouldn't disapprove and wouldn't care as long as he didn't call himself 'Arthur'.

In turn, Rudeus didn't react, seemingly not recognizing the Pendragon name.

He bowed down his head, touched his own chest and said, "Nice to meet you. My name is... Rudeus. Rudeus Greyrat."

Rudeus felt disgust when thinking back to his name from Earth, so he naturally introduced himself as Rudeus Greyrat.

Isaac stretched out his armored hand, put on his best friendly smile and shook Rudeus's hand. "It's nice to meet you."

Rudeus let out a sigh of relief as he released Isaac's strong grip. Inwardly, he felt a sense of trust toward Isaac. He then curiously asked, "Are you the messenger of God-sama?"

"What?"

"..."

As silence descended, Ruijerd threw some dry branches into the bonfire, making spitting noise.

Perhaps because of that noise, the red-haired girl muttered a 'nuuu' and seemed to be waking up.

Rudeus looked a bit panicked as he quickly told Isaac, "Isaac-san, I think that the girl here is about to wake up. She's a girl who's a little noisy, so I apologize in advance. She might provoke the man there."

While speaking, Rudeus glanced at Ruijerd with apprehension.

Isaac said, "Is that so? He doesn't seem to be a bad man, but you can feel relieved. If a fight breaks out, I will protect you."

"Thank you very much, and I'm sorry." Rudeus bowed his head again.

"Okay."

"Excuse me."

Rudeus looked at Eris, but it seemed that she wouldn't be waking up. He looked back at Isaac and asked, "... Where is this place? Did you live here for long?"

"I can't tell you that because I only came to this world a few hours ago."

"Ah, you just came to this world?" Rudeus asked.

Isaac slowly nodded. "Correct. I'm a traveling swordsman and magus. I used an artifact to travel to another world to have an opportunity to become stronger. That's why I'm here."

"Ooooh…" Rudeus stared at Isaac with an astonished expression.