Fate: Grand Hero - Chapter 1

The cold was bitter and nipping upon his skin, yet he ignored it. His attention was solely upon the large stone jutting up out of the earth, carved deeply with detailed indentions.

Runes.

Raidho, the symbolization of the wagon. Like many runes, depending on how it was inscribed, it could have different meanings, ranging from Travel to Rhythm to Spontaneity, Decisions and finally, the one he himself was specifically focused on.

Evolution.

Depending how they were carved, any single one of those meanings could produce a variety of effects. Like the rune Ansuz being able to create warmth or fire.

None of the meanings for it remotely referenced fire. But one of them was Inspiration. and one of the greatest human inspirations ever, was that of creating fire. In fact, the greatest effect Ansuz had, was of creating fire because of how heavy the mystery around the effect was.

'At least, I think that's it.' Caelan Ce Brude mused to himself as he traced the carved runes atop the large stone. His knowledge of magecraft after all and magic as a whole, was wholly lacking.

After all, before he found himself reborn as a child within the race of the ancient Picts, he was just a teenager of a modern age, and this world he now found himself in, straight out of fantasy and completely unlike the world he was from originally.

Had been an anime and game series that started off as an eroge at that.

"Back again lad?" a voice spoke up behind him.

Caelan looked over his shoulder and had to withhold an annoyed grimace as a massive bear of a man easily over six and a half feet tall made his way towards him, hair and beard a bushy braided orange.

And completely naked save for the absurd amount of tattoos that littered the mans skin, his flaccid cock, dangling longer than Caelan's forearm exposed for all to see.

Admittedly, Caelan was only seven years old right now, but considering it was limp and he was out and about naked in the current freezing weather, it was a massive tadger for sure.

For normal people at least. For the Picts it was quite average. But then, he'd been told many times that the blood of the giants ran through their veins, whether there was any truth to that, he didn't know, but considering the sheer height and muscle mass of the average Pict man, it might just be.

Caelan could tell that the man was average in size for a Pict rather easily, after all, the vast majority of them never wore any clothes at all. Even after being here for seven years after being reborn, he still wasn't used to it.

"Aye." Caelan simply responded and turned away from the man. Morleo was his name and he was one of the druids of the town he resided in.

Albeit calling it a town was a stretch.

It was more akin to a massive village atop a huge mountainous plateau. Surrounded by a massive stone wall that circled the entire village, with stone huts spread throughout the settlement, the population was only a little over a couple thousand.

Currently, he was outside the village for one simple reason. Studying the runes various runes placed around the village on stones like these to work as both a barrier from intruders and an alarm system at the same time.

It seemed to be a variation on the travel meaning of the Raidho runes. Specifically on the meaning of the runes allowing through normal travellers with good intentions, but those with malicious intention would cause the runes to react.

'I wonder if this is a runic version of a bounded field?' he wondered idly.

"Yer a real odd one Caelan," Morleo snorted, making his way over and sitting down beside the stone, "Yer always wearing that odd thing around yer waist, you keep putting off getting your runes inscribed even when you probably have more talent for them than anybody I've ever seen and don't play with the other lads and lassies yer age at all."

By the odds thing around his waist, he meant the roughly hewn kilt he'd made himself. Stitched through sheep wool and dyed blue through woad leaves.

Let it not be said the picts were incapable of making clothing and such, no they were well able to, and they were perfectly fine at sewing, his woolly bed covers could attest to that.

They just didn't like wearing clothes at all.

Here in this place, he was the odd duck out for wanting to cover his modesty, or cover his feet with sandals. In most cultures, he would have probably been something of a pariah. But, the picts were a very close unit of people, and so despite being a little odd, he wasn't really looked down on or anything like that.

And he was pict through and through in this life, in fact, of the youths of his age, he was the most pict in build. Despite being seven, he was already nearing the height and mass of most normal teenagers.

Hell the only reason he'd been able to make his kilt at all was because he was taught to sew by other members of the village when he asked.

"I'll get them done soon." Caelan shrugged. When each member of the village turned five, they were inscribed with a rune of their choice. Most tended to go the route of FEHU for variations of strength or fertility when it came to boys and girls tended to with the fertility or Femininity variation of BERKANA.

Runes such as these were special. While one could inscribe any number of normal runes onto them, they were inactive until ran through with mana or prana. These were difference, passive runes that were connected straight to the that persons very being and would passively effect them all their lives.

Take many of the young adult women of the village for instance. Because of many of them having the femininity rune inscribed as a child, they grew up to be voluptuous women with curves for days, wide breedable hips, massive tits, huge jiggling arses.

Day in and day out, whenever Caelan made his way through the village he was exposed to naked women with bodies to die for. Granted, not all of them were the prettiest, but that wasn't really the point there.

It was lucky he was only a brat right now with no runes, other wise he'd be walking around with a perpetual hard on.

Like a lot of the other kids his age already were due to the masculinity runes many of them took.

Among other things, it tended to enhance the virility of them beyond just their body size and muscle mass. Those who took that rune were bigger on average than even the typical pict like Morleo who took the fertility rune as a child.

"Oh, you made a choice then?" Morleo asked, interested, "Gonna go with Masculinity or Fertility? I'd say go Masculinity for you lad, you already have the makings of a monster in you, probably that Brude blood, take it and by time your grown you'll easily be a head taller than any other man in this village, you'll have your pick of any of the women."

Caelan just shrugged and gave him a smile, "Something like that." he replied.

He wasn't wrong after all. Just not fully correct. He'd been studying these runes for years now, since he was but a two year old brat, so a full five years.

RAIDHO was simply the last rune he was perfecting his understanding of. Because he'd found out something interesting when he was five.

It was possible to link runes. That he already knew from his old life, but rather here, he'd come to understand the intricacies of it and the limits. Specifically, he'd found how far he could push it, how many runes he could link together at a maximum.

Seven was the number he'd found to be the utmost maximum he was capable of. And so for two years he'd been studying and toiling, creating a perfect combination of runes that would synergize perfectly with one another.

…After all, this was the world of Typemoon. For all the strength of the picts, they were nothing in the grand scheme of the monsters out there. The power those monsters had, would see them wipe armies from existence and conquer entire kingdoms alone.

He wanted that power for himself.

And what he had dubbed as rune chains, were the first step on that path.

"Well best do it soon either way," Morleo shrugged, "You didn't hear it from me, but we're going to be holding a little tournament in the next few weeks. And it's best if you show off your best during it."

That was news to him.

"Why a tournament?" Caelan asked, curious despite himself. Even if he wasn't too fussed. Even without the rune, there wasn't anybody his age who could defeat him.

There wasn't actually a whole lot one could do here as a hobby. But back before he died in his old world when he was fifteen and ended up reincarnated here, he'd been a big fitness freak and was big into kick boxing. He'd taken up putting this younger body of his through its paces ever since he could walk.

…Granted it was helped along by a not so healthy dose of fear of him being murdered before he could do anything. It wasn't that long ago that the Saxons were invading constantly and Vortigern was in power and doing his level best to fuck the country up.

"King Arthur is paying a visit," Morleo grinned, excitement in his eyes, "He and those round table twits are coming up for some negotiation, think he's wanting us to formally sign up to join his army."

…Oh.

Oh!

Artoria was coming here, huh? He wasn't sure how to feel about that. Should he be excited? That was Saber after all, the literal face of the Typemoon universe. But this was also during her whole emotionless king facade phase.

"Wonder if he still looks the same?" Morleo mused aloud breaking him from his thoughts.

"You've seen King Arthur?" Caelan blinked, surprised in spite of himself. Sure, Morleo as a druid was one of the strongest fighters of the village and had one of the highest positions as well, but this was Artoria man, why would she be getting near a nude ass weirdo like Morleo?

"Oh aye," Morleo outright licked his lips, "A tiny little thing, especially for a man, but prettier by far than any woman I've ever seen. Maybe I'll try my hand at getting him out of that armour. Wouldn't mind seeing what his face looks like when bouncing his tight wee arse up and down ma' cock."

Caelan grimaced, disgust rolling through him, "For fucks sake," he huffed in annoyance when he noted Morleo's cock beginning to harden and just gave up for the day, "I'm done for the day ya' twat."

"Oi, what's the problem lad?!" Morleo called after him, confused, as if he'd done nothing wrong.

And technically he hadn't. The picts, well, the Celtic people as a whole were quite into homosexual relationships. Well, not relationships. Men just fucked each other all the time here.

…Apparently one of the reasons the Romans were so terrified of the picts in the olden days was because when they constantly ambushed them, they'd take many of the men prisoner and rape them.

The homosexuality wasn't really the problem here either.

He just didn't want to watch some horny old druid get a hard on over the thought of fucking a thought to be male Artoria up the arse.

'Maybe I should see about getting those runes done soon.' he thought with a grimace. The sooner he did, the sooner he'd be able to strike out alone and go his own way.

And be around people that wore some damn clothes.

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A project I had on the back burner for months. Decided to start uploading it here. It's a Fate Grand Order story with the first part of the story following an inserts journey and inevitable death. Becoming, a Heroic Spirit.