Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note 02
Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files 02
ロード・エルメロイⅡ世の事件簿 -魔眼蒐集列車 Grace note- 02

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Melvin and Reines inform Waver that he is being requested regarding the murder of a mage, Ernest Fargo. The requester, Mary Lil Fargo, is a former student of Waver’s. Further, the Fargo family is an offshoot of the powerful Animusphere family. Waver is talked into taking the case for a rich reward. As such, he and Gray head to the Fargo mansion. They are met by Claire, the housemaid.

Mary comes out to greet her former teacher and thanks him for coming. They are joined by Fernando Li, a friend and fellow magecraft researcher. A little later, Mary’s cousin Alec joins them. Waver and Gray are eventually lead to a spherical room, where parts of Ernest’s sealed body are placed into planetary positions. Two parts of the body, representing other celestial elements, are not in the room, which is unusual.

After completing his examination of the rooms, Gray and Waver discuss the situation. Waver suspects everyone, then goes for a walk with Gray. Later, he questions Mary about her father and his research. Meanwhile, Alec is attempting to steal books out of the library, where some of Ernest’s body parts are, and is brutally slaughtered. He’s found by Claire, who reports the murder.

In the library, Add smells something. Gray states that there are traces of the undead here. They return to the circular room, where Waver again notes Ernest’s heart in the center of the room. Waver finds a secret floor panel where Ernest’s soul is contained. An undead entity is spawned, which is what Ernest has become. Gray has Add become a scythe. Since Add is a Mystic Code with an anti-undead property, Gray makes short work of the creature. Gray and Waver leave after a final word with Mary.

Thoughts/Review

With Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files 02, we now enter the actual cases Waver is sent to solve. First up is a murder mystery.

World of Magic

The Fate multi-verse is one filled with magic and such. However, there are a lot of unique terms for this world. There’s talk of Magecraft and of things like Mystic Codes. I don’t think I heard anyone discuss Ernest Fargo’s Magic Crest though. Ernest would have had one, which Mary would have inherited. It should have been on Ernest’s body somewhere. Maybe I missed something.

That said, I have no clue what Astromancy actually is. That was a new term to me.

Still, Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files 02 does show the jacked up world of magic and mages.

Gray and Add

This episode gave us more of a look at both Gray and Add. Waver uses Gray like a Servant. After all, when the undead entity that was Ernest showed up, Waver had Gray battle him. But if she’s using a Mystic Code for combat, she’s not a Servant. I don’t think Servants use Mystic Codes. More on Mystic Codes in a bit.

When Gray’s hood dropped, I couldn’t help but notice that she has a “Saber Face”. The term refers to Saber Altria (Artoria, as it should be) from Fate/stay night. TYPE-MOON then created a number of female Servant characters with a similar character design. Several of them are Artoria, but others are different people who just look similar. So maybe Gray’s appearance is an in-joke, but it may be why Waver wants her to keep a hood up.

As to Add, we now know it is a Mystic Code. And it feeds off of the mana from defeating the undead. I got the impression that it may have more abilities than that. We’ll see, but it is a powerful weapon. And it has its own intelligence, which is something I don’t remember being a thing with other Mystic Codes.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files 02 with some final thoughts.

• The Animusphere family got a name drop. Olga Marie from Fate/Grand Order was the head of that family in that game.
• As someone mentioned to me, this episode does play out like something from Sherlock Holmes.
• The episode really hinted at some serious ugliness, which wasn’t explored deeply. One being the physical abuse of the maid Claire.

In the end, Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files 02 was an interesting episode, dealing with a murder mystery.