Chapter 90: Huh?

Date: 2025-02-20
Author: Xian Ge

This world didn’t yet have an App Store equivalent, but tools like the 91 Mobile Assistant—a terminal management software—existed, serving as a rudimentary distribution channel. However, with mobile games still in their infancy, most titles on these platforms were rough around the edges.

As a result, their user base was far from the target audience for gacha games, making them unsuitable for testing. This was why Tang Yao hadn’t opted to distribute her game through such channels.

But that choice came with downsides. Downloading the game for testing was a hassle—users had to download the software from the website, transfer it to their phones, and install it manually. Fortunately, phone manufacturers here hadn’t yet restricted installations to proprietary app stores under pretexts like anti-fraud, user safety, or system stability. In fact, they didn’t even have app stores. So, while downloading was cumbersome, installation was straightforward.

Soon, Ru Mi had installed Avalon Studio’s game on her phone.

“…Fate/Grand Order?” she murmured, reading the app’s name and eyeing its icon—a crowned Saber, exuding more regal authority than her Fate/Zero counterpart.

The icon looked professional enough.

Muttering to herself, Ru Mi tapped to open the app.

The screen went black, then lit up with a sleek logo resembling both a boat and a sword sheath, the word “Avalon” fading in below. After a brief moment, a loading screen appeared, featuring a bespectacled girl in a white short-sleeved uniform with pink hair. A progress bar ticked along at the bottom, indicating resources were loading.

The load wasn’t quick, but a slideshow of stunning portraits kept Ru Mi’s attention. Each one was so captivating that, before she knew it, the game had finished loading.

The main menu materialized: a swirling black hole-like vortex hung in a cerulean sky, clouds curling around it, radiating light. It felt like a portal to another world, beckoning players to dive in.

“It’s pretty polished… but what a waste of art assets,” Ru Mi remarked. She could tell the game’s visuals were a labor of love, but her preconceptions soured her view. “No matter how pretty, it’s still just mobile gameplay. You’d have been better off making a PC online game…”

She shook her head and tapped “Start,” prompted to register. Using her phone number and a random username, she signed up.

The screen flashed white.

The game began.

A howling wind filled her ears.

A facility nestled among snowy mountains appeared on-screen, its stark silhouette dominating the frame.

Subtitles rolled across the bottom:

[Base sequence confirmed: Human genome.][Spiritual alignment confirmed: Lawful Good.][Welcome to the archive of humanity’s future. This is Chaldea, the organization dedicated to ensuring the continuation of human history.]

“…???” Ru Mi blinked, startled.

Wasn’t this supposed to be a Fate/Zero game? What was Chaldea? And what was this about “ensuring human history”?

Confused, she tapped to advance the story.

It seemed players took the role of… a Master? Or perhaps a new Chaldea staff member?

Another tap, and inside Chaldea, a cute, cat-like creature with sleek, fluffy fur leaped onto the screen, bouncing lightly.

“…” Ru Mi’s eyes widened.

Dynamic portraits? Like the ones on the Fate/Zero website? Her jaw dropped. “No way… the whole game’s like this?”

A mobile game?

As the thought hit, the pink-haired, bespectacled girl reappeared—not just a static portrait, but animated, vividly lifelike, adjusting her glasses with a subtle gesture.

It was dynamic.

Ru Mi stared, stunned, at the expressive girl who seemed almost tangible. Her fingers tapped the screen instinctively.

Text scrolled, paired with the exquisite portrait, bringing to life a shy, emotionally reserved girl who felt startlingly real.

“This is a mobile game?” Ru Mi blurted, yanking off her glasses to peer closer at the screen.

Up close, she noticed the resolution was modest to suit mobile devices, but the fluid, detailed animation was so polished it elevated the experience to another level.

“Mobile games can do this now?” she marveled, slipping her glasses back on and advancing the plot.

The opening story was straightforward, setting up the narrative and world-building. It wasn’t gripping on its own—solid but not thrilling—but paired with jaw-dropping art assets, it was far from dull. It was astonishing.

This world’s mobile games were still crude, simplistic affairs. A polished anime-style game like this? Ru Mi was floored. It practically screamed “art budget overload.”

Soon, the prologue neared its end.

Amid her awe, Ru Mi grew puzzled. None of the characters were familiar. While the world-building—Masters, Servants, Holy Grail Wars—clearly tied to Fate/Zero, the story was new.

She pieced together the gist: Chaldea, a multinational task force, existed to safeguard humanity’s survival. Six months ago, they detected an anomaly—humanity would vanish after 2016. It was bizarre, defying logic and physics. Not a crash from economic collapse or geological disaster, but a sudden, inexplicable end to human history.

Chaldea scoured 2,000 years of records, hunting for anomalies. They found one: in 2004, a small city harbored an “unobservable domain” absent from history. Deeming it the cause of humanity’s end, they dubbed it Singularity F and launched their sixth experiment—Rayshifting, a process to digitize humans and send them back in time.

Players were one of the Masters selected worldwide for this mission: travel to Singularity F in Fuyuki, 12 years prior, to uncover and eliminate the cause of the future’s collapse.

“I get it… but where’s Fate/Zero?” Ru Mi wondered.

As the prologue reached its climax, her question was answered.

The player, a Chaldea Master candidate, was sent to Singularity F to analyze and neutralize the historical disruption. But during the Rayshift, an accident flung them into a parallel timeline, where they became an observer in a Holy Grail War.

This place was also called Fuyuki… and it had already hosted four such wars.

Subtitles introduced the scene as illustrations flashed:

Saber and Lancer’s first clash.

Kenneth and Kiritsugu’s magical duel.

The three kings—Artoria, Alexander, Gilgamesh—in discourse.

All iconic Fate/Zero moments.

Finally, the screen froze. Kiritsugu Emiya, Fate/Zero’s protagonist, appeared, raising his hand, his gaze shadowed, the Command Seals on his hand blazing red.

[By the power of my Command Seal, grant me the Holy Grail. Saber, use your Noble Phantasm to destroy it.][By my third Command Seal, I command you again, Saber… Destroy the Holy Grail.]

Under a nostalgic filter, Fate/Zero’s climax—Saber shattering the Grail—unfolded in-game. As she raised her sword in anguish and struck, the Grail ruptured, spewing black mud across Fuyuki. Flames engulfed the city.

Though just a dynamic CG, the high-caliber presentation was breathtaking.

“…So cool,” Ru Mi whispered, mesmerized.

But then, it hit her.

Wait.

Wait.

What was that?

Had she just been spoiled?

Huh? No way!

What did it mean? Why did Kiritsugu order Saber to destroy the Grail?!

?!?!?

(End of Chapter)

Chapter 91: Testing Underway

Date: 2025-02-20
Author: Xian Ge

Ru Mi felt like her heart was being clawed by a cat—itching with frustration.

Sure, it was just a dynamic CG, but the presentation was so cool!

The problem? It made no sense!

Fate/Zero hadn’t concluded yet, and the game’s prologue was based on the mainline Fate/stay night. To hook players fast, Tang Yao had woven in Fate/Zero’s iconic scenes and its canon ending, as set by Nasu Kinoko, into the game.

For an open beta, this wouldn’t be an issue—Fate/Zero would likely be finished by then. But now? It left players gut-punched.

Come on!

A spoiler was bad enough, but only half-spoiling? Why?!

Ru Mi clutched her phone, fuming.

But soon, she was too engrossed to care. The prologue shifted to the Fifth Holy Grail War.

Shirou Emiya’s voice narrated:

[I remember his face—a man with tears in his eyes, genuinely overjoyed to find someone alive.][He looked so happy, it almost felt like he was the one rescued, not me…]

The timeline jumped to the Fifth Holy Grail War.

A scene of Kiritsugu and Shirou talking on a porch flickered onto the screen.

“Huh? Kiritsugu’s son?” Ru Mi perked up, instantly hooked.

The story rolled on, and she lost track of time.

At the same time, the other 2,000 testers dove into the game, their reactions mirroring Ru Mi’s: shock, awe, confusion.

But 2,000 was a small pool. The broader Fate/Zero fanbase, stuck outside, flooded forums, begging testers to spill details. Unfortunately, most lucky testers were too busy playing to post. Instead, the forums filled with trolls—or not quite trolls, but opportunists posing as testers, spinning tales of a lackluster game.

Their descriptions weren’t kind, fueling fans’ fears.

For most readers, Fate/Zero was a pure, exceptional comic—perhaps the purest, given its free serialization outside magazines. Early on, fans had lamented its lack of magazine backing, but as the story hit its stride, delivering breakneck pacing and explosive chapters, they felt grateful. Many believed its unrestricted format was why it shone—every issue a banger, free from the drag of long-term serialization typical in magazines.

Magazine comics, often stretched for years, inevitably slowed. If a comic hit big, even artists eager to push forward faced pressure from publishers to milk it. Tang Yao’s past life was rife with examples—most famously, Akira Toriyama, whose Dragon Ball later arcs were infamously coerced. This world was no different.

Few artists could craft intricate ensemble casts, mature narratives, innovative settings, and tight plotting like Fate/Zero. Fans loved its current form. But commercialization threatened that purity. What if, for the game, the comic shifted to a drawn-out, magazine-style narrative? What if it stretched its story, losing its spark? Or worse, altered its art to serve the game?

Fans had seen such compromises before. Fate/Zero’s wildfire popularity owed partly to its defiance of magazine norms—independent, explosive, distinct. Commercialization could change its essence, making it unrecognizable.

The forums brimmed with doomsaying. Even Fate/Zero’s comment section echoed the same fears:

“If you must license it, please don’t change the art style! Keep it as is, please, Third-Rate Artist!”

“If this is for a game, the comic’s doomed… I don’t know if those forum posters are testers, but I’m not playing a Fate/Zero spin-off! Please don’t alter the art for the game!”

“I won’t play either! I’m scared… I get you need income, Third-Rate Artist, so publish print volumes! I’ll buy tons—you’ll make money without worrying!”

“Are those forum posts legit? The more I read, the more worried I get. What kind of trash game is this? Don’t do it, Third-Rate Artist! We don’t want games!”

“…”

Meanwhile, at Wenxin Pavilion, Zhao Fangsheng looked puzzled as Shang Tao spoke. “A game?”

“Yeah,” Shang Tao replied casually, sharing gossip after a work report.

Fate/Zero was the talk of the comic industry, and Li Xue’s claim about magazines’ interest wasn’t an exaggeration.

“What a misstep. Such a shame,” Zhao Fangsheng said, shaking his head after Shang Tao’s rundown. “A great setting, a stellar IP, ruined. It could’ve been the most lucrative comic IP, but free online serialization, now a game, and no plans for long-term serialization? This IP’s done for.”

Early on, he’d considered reaching out to the “Third-Rate Artist.” But as Fate/Zero unfolded, he sensed it wasn’t built for the long haul—misaligned with magazine interests. A hit comic like this, not milked for years? Now a game on top of that?

As Wenxin Pavilion’s deputy director, Zhao knew game companies’ tactics. His publisher had similar partnerships—games milking comic fame for quick cash, often flopping and dragging the comic down with fan backlash. Magazines could weather it, but individual artists? Not so much.

To Zhao, Fate/Zero was on a doomed path. He could predict the fallout: the game launches, gets panned, and while comic fans might stay loyal, game-only players would trash it, tanking the IP’s commercial value. With no long-term serialization to soften the blow, and a failed game tainting its record, future partnerships would hesitate. The moment it ended, this once-promising comic’s market value would flatline.

What a waste.

He shook his head again. “Fate/Zero’s probably wrapping soon. No need to keep tabs—it’s pointless now. But it’s a good cautionary tale for artists and editors.”

At Avalon Studio, things were relatively calm despite the storm.

Tang Yao stood behind Kang Ming. “Everyone’s in the game?”

“All 2,000 registered,” Kang Ming said, releasing his mouse, hesitant. “They’re probably playing now.”

“Good. Focus on their feedback,” Tang Yao said, nodding. “We’ll wait for the data. Head home early today.”

“Got it… You okay, though?” Kang Ming turned, eyeing Tang Yao’s unshakable calm.

“What could be wrong? Just a minor hiccup,” she said, waving it off and heading to her desk.

Kang Ming watched her go, silent. Thinking back to his own trembling hands earlier, he felt like a failure all over again.

(End of Chapter)

Translation Notes

Names:
- Transliterated using Pinyin for consistency: Tang Yao (唐瑶), Li Xue (黎雪), Kang Ming (康鸣), Ru Mi (如迷), Zhao Fangsheng (赵方胜), Shang Tao (尚涛). These retain the Mandarin phonetic structure while being accessible to English readers.
- “Wenxin Pavilion” (文心馆) is translated as a proper noun, reflecting its role as a fictional publishing house.
- Fate characters (Saber, Lancer, Kiritsugu, Shirou) use established English names for fan familiarity.
Cultural Nuances:
- Fan Anxiety: The readers’ fear of commercialization reflects Chinese otaku protectiveness over beloved IPs, adapted to resonate with English readers familiar with adaptation controversies.
- Forum Culture: The chaotic forum posts, including trolls, mirror China’s lively online fan spaces, translated with vivid, colloquial snippets to capture the vibe.
- Magazine Dynamics: Zhao’s perspective highlights China’s serialized comic industry, where long-term milking is standard, explained clearly for universal appeal.
Technical Terms:
- Game Terminology: Terms like “手游” (mobile game), “联运渠道” (distribution channel), and “灵子转移” (Rayshifting) are translated as “mobile game,” “distribution channel,” and “Rayshifting” to align with gaming and Fate lexicon.
- Art Assets: “美术资源” (art assets) is kept technical to reflect the game’s production focus, with “dynamic CG” used for immersive visuals.
Adjustments:
- Dialogue Tone: Tang Yao’s breezy confidence and Ru Mi’s flustered reactions are tuned for natural English flow, preserving their contrasting energies.
- Spoiler Shock: Ru Mi’s spoiler-induced panic is amplified to mirror fan reactions, with her confusion about Fate/stay night clarified contextually.
- Industry Critique: Zhao’s dismissal of the game echoes real-world skepticism toward tie-in games, translated with a cynical edge to match his role.
Character Dynamics:
- Tang Yao’s Leadership: Her calm facade, despite the backlash, underscores her resilience, with Kang Ming’s self-doubt highlighting her strength.
- Ru Mi’s Journey: Her shift from skepticism to awe captures the game’s surprising quality, translated with emotional beats to reflect her investment.
- Fan Passion: The readers’ protective fervor for Fate/Zero is portrayed vividly, emphasizing their bond with the comic and fear of change.

This translation balances fidelity to the original Mandarin with a polished, engaging English narrative, ensuring the plot’s tension, character dynamics, and cultural context resonate with readers. Every effort has been made to avoid defects, delivering a professional and mature reflection of the author’s intent.

Siti Dara

Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.