I adopted a child demon from the Gap, and I'm a special agent for the Bureau of Supernatural Ab

At the same time, Li Cheng left the closed supermarket with some regret. The impact of the incident was greater than he had imagined. He went to three supermarkets in a row, but couldn't find one that was open. Finally, he found one that was open, but the produce inside was also very unsatisfactory.

If it's like this, there's no way Zi will be satisfied.

Li Cheng became somewhat troubled.

After thinking for a while, Li Cheng opened a portal and ran to the seaside. After diving into the sea and catching some fish, he ran to other cities through the portal. After selecting some vegetables to go with the fish, he returned home satisfied.

"Purple, I'm back."

"Yes, welcome back."

At this moment, Zi was watching anime broadcast by TV Tokyo. It was strange that TV Tokyo would continue to broadcast anime despite such a terrible attack and casualties. As a Chinese person, Li Cheng still couldn't quite understand the TV station's thought process.

Zi seemed engrossed in watching the anime. Even when Li Cheng returned, she didn't turn around, only casually waving and giving a perfunctory reply to indicate she knew he was back. Looking at her so focused on the anime, Li Cheng had a feeling she might gradually become a shut-in.

Wait a minute, in the end, isn't Zi, who doesn't want to go out all day and just wants to stay at home and sleep, essentially just a 100% pure homebody, uh, a homebody demon?

Thinking of this, Li Cheng couldn't help but want to persuade Zi to go out more, but when he recalled the results of his previous attempts to persuade her, he couldn't help but feel a little discouraged.

Forget it, let her be. Anyway, it's not like I can't afford to support her. In fact, Zi is the kind of person who is easy to take care of. She doesn't like cosmetics or jewelry, and she has no interest in traveling. She can always understand what you're thinking, and she can always join in the conversation and have a great time no matter what the topic is.

From this perspective, she is practically the perfect woman who could only exist in a fantasy world, even though she is indeed a fantasy creature in essence.

However, although they are technically husband and wife and both acknowledge this relationship, he has never bought her any jewelry, including a wedding ring.

Li Cheng, who was preparing ingredients in the kitchen, stopped what he was doing.

Wedding jewelry...

Although Zi doesn't care much about such formalities, it's still better to give her something. Speaking of which, what kind of jewelry suits Zi's temperament best?

Li Cheng fell into deep thought.

Pearls? Jade? Diamonds? Hmm... I'll ask Tohsaka Swaya sometime. Since her family sells gemstones, she should know something about this kind of thing.

While pondering what kind of jewelry to buy for Zi and how to give it to her, Li Cheng started making lunch.

The afternoon was quite relaxing. With no tasks, Li Cheng could rest peacefully at home, while Zi, after yawning several times, quickly began her afternoon nap.

By the way, Zi's afternoon nap time is usually from 1 p.m. to around 6 or 7 p.m. If Li Cheng doesn't wake her up, she can sleep straight until the next morning.

In the evening, Kiritsugu Emiya unusually suggested a dinner party.

The dinner was held at the same buffet restaurant they had visited several times before. Zi declined the invitation, citing the need for more rest to recover her demonic power, so Li Cheng had to go alone. Upon arriving at the restaurant, Li Cheng saw Emiya Kiritsugu, Wuming, Tohsaka Rin, and Team Leader Ryougi Shiki through the glass. He didn't see anyone else, so it seemed this was just an internal gathering of the Sixth Team members.

The shop owner gasped when he saw Li Cheng, then breathed a sigh of relief when he realized Li Cheng was alone. Suddenly, his face turned red and he slumped onto the table, taking out a nitroglycerin pill and putting it in his mouth.

"You've arrived?" Kiritsugu Emiya looked up at Li Cheng as he approached, pointing to an empty seat next to him. "How's your recovery going?"

"It's alright, it basically doesn't affect our operations anymore."

Li Cheng answered casually, sat down in his seat, and glanced to his left and right.

"Speaking of which, isn't Xin here? We could totally have her participate in the dinner party, instead of her being so gloomy all the time."

“She went to monitor the extradition handover,” Kiritsugu Emiya replied. “I can’t trust the Freedom League, so I had her hide near the prison and monitor the prisoner until he is sent to the Freedom League’s prison. She won’t be able to get any letters back.”

“Surely this isn’t serious,” Li Cheng frowned. He felt that Kiritsugu Emiya was making a mountain out of a molehill. “This is a terrorist who has committed crimes against humanity. The Freedom Alliance is a superpower that claims to be the beacon of all mankind. They shouldn’t be making a fuss over such a big issue, right?”

"Who knows? The fact that they requested extradition so soon after the incident makes it hard not to be suspicious."

Kiritsugu Emiya spoke calmly, while Li Cheng shrugged helplessly, picked up his chopsticks, and casually said:

"In short, for quite some time to come, Shin will be out of the group, that's about it, right? Speaking of which, almost everyone's here, so why isn't anyone getting moving?"

“There’s still one person missing,” Wuming interjected with a smile. “Our young hero hasn’t arrived yet today.”

The heroic young man, does that refer to Touma Kamijou?

Just then, the sound of the restaurant door being pushed open rang out. Li Cheng turned his head and saw Kamijou Touma, looking somewhat listless, yawning and rubbing his slightly disheveled hair as he slowly walked towards them.

Li Cheng noticed that his clothes were still the same ones he wore on the night of the battle, so they looked very dirty and messy. However, he seemed completely unaware of this, or perhaps he was distracted by other things and didn't even pay attention to his clothes anymore.

Good evening, everyone.

His smile when he greeted people was still as silly as ever, so it seems that his previous experience hadn't affected him too much and he was still fine.

"Welcome, rookie! Speaking of which, you were really impressive today," Rin Tohsaka said with a slightly mischievous smile. "You're now a nationally renowned 'young hero'."

He probably intended to tease her with that kind of talk. If Kamijou were a shy person, he might have shown a very embarrassed expression.

Rin had planned it that way, but unfortunately, Touma Kamijou was completely stunned after hearing Rin's words, and even seemed to be very surprised.

"What? Me? A hero?"

Judging from his sincere expression, he knew absolutely nothing about this matter.

"Hey, newbie, don't you ever watch TV?"

Rin looked somewhat incredulous.

"I still watch TV occasionally, but I spent the whole day today with the reconstruction team clearing rubble and delivering necessities to the residents of the temporary shantytown. I only finished half an hour ago, so honestly I didn't have any time to pay attention to the news or anything like that."

"Wow, is that how it is? I have to say, I'm quite impressed with you, newbie..."

Rin looked shocked, and not only her, but the others present also showed surprise. This boy, whose combat strength was not particularly outstanding, seemed to be more special than they had imagined.

“There’s nothing remarkable about it. I just… wanted to help those people as much as possible,” Touma Kamijou said, his mood somewhat downcast. He sat down with a dejected expression. “They didn’t do anything wrong, but because of those magicians’ rejection of Academy City, they became targets of attacks and suffered such terrible injuries. This kind of thing should never have happened to them.”

“Although it doesn’t make sense, these kinds of things are unavoidable,” Kiritsugu Emiya shook his head and said with some emotion, “Sometimes, you just happen to be in that place at that time, and that’s how you get caught up in it. Fate is the most unreasonable thing.”

As they were talking, Kiritsugu Emiya subconsciously reached for a cigarette, but under the watchful gaze of Wuming beside him, he simply coughed and pretended to shift his sitting position.

"But no matter what, I really can't accept this happening. I think this kind of thing... is wrong."

After a moment of silence, Touma Kamijou looked at his reflection in the porcelain bowl in front of him and slowly began to speak.

"If you think something is wrong, correct it; if you can't accept it, stop it. Change what you can and should change. This is the guiding principle of our Sixth Group," Kiritsugu Emiya said calmly to Touma Kamijou. "It's a good thing that you have this kind of thinking, Touma. Keep it up."

"...Is that so?" Touma Kamijou chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I've said so many nice things, but I'm actually just a C-rank ability user. No, I'm probably barely even a C-rank. After all, other C-rank ability users at least have some kind of power that is different from ordinary people, such as creating a little arc of electricity to make themselves fly, or lifting a car or something. But all I have is this hand that can eliminate mysterious power."

He looked at his right hand, his expression turning unbearably desolate.

"I always feel like I'm acting like a hypocrite..."

Even though there's not much I can do, nothing I can change, those people who have died so tragically, those cries of pain and sorrow, those desperate looks—I can't do anything for them, yet I still feel pain for them, hoping to help them. Isn't this humble, powerless desire to do the impossible just hypocrisy?

Including defeating that enemy called Wind Ahead, if Senior Li Cheng hadn't found the core of the ice ship and destroyed it, thus disrupting the enemy's air support, and if Miss Xin hadn't forcibly entered the battlefield and used her buff to deflect Wind Ahead's potentially fatal blow, I wouldn't have been able to get close enough to defeat him.

Then, Kamijou received a rather sharp flick to the forehead.

Snapped!

"Ouch, ouch, ouch! Senior Li, what are you doing?"

Covering his reddened forehead, Touma Kamijou looked at Li Cheng beside him with a somewhat surprised expression.

“I never realized before, Touma, that you actually have a bit of a philosophical talent,” Li Cheng said with a smile, patting Touma’s shoulder so hard he almost knocked him to the ground. “You look like just an immature fifteen or sixteen-year-old kid, but you’re thinking about such complicated things.”

"I'm already seventeen years old..."

Touma Kamijou, rubbing his shoulders, had a somewhat resentful expression on his face.

“It’s not strange to have such thoughts. Emiya and I have both had them,” Li Cheng pointed at Emiya Kiritsugu, who scoffed and turned away, ignoring Li Cheng. “When you’re not strong enough, sometimes you do feel like you’re being foolish and hypocritical to care about things you can’t control when you don’t have enough power. But isn’t it true that holding onto these thoughts is what motivates you to become stronger?”

As Li Cheng spoke, he pinched Kamijou Touma's arm, which had become somewhat toned due to his consistent training, and revealed a satisfied expression.

"Is that so..."

Touma Kamijou forced a smile, but his expression remained somewhat gloomy. However, this was unavoidable; after witnessing such a cruel event, no amount of comforting could bring him back to his senses quickly. Li Cheng imagined that this child was strong enough, and time would allow him to mature.

"Keep going, Toujou. The pain of feeling powerless is a stage that everyone inevitably goes through. What's truly important is that even after you become strong, you never forget your original aspirations. Keep going while you're still feeling this pain, and one day you'll be able to help more and more people."

"Haha, Senior Li said I have a talent for philosophy, but Senior, you're the one who's really into philosophy, aren't you?"

"You're actually arguing with your senior now, kid. You still have a long way to go. First, get through the transformation from boy to man. By the way, when are you planning to marry Index?"

"Get married?! We're not in that kind of relationship!"

"What? Not her? Could it be that brown-haired female student, or Suzuko?"

"Senior, please don't always worry about these kinds of things!"

"Oh my, are you blushing?"

After the atmosphere finally relaxed, everyone chatted about other topics before starting to eat and drink. At the table, Wuming, who had just finished serving himself a bowl of meat soup, suddenly remembered something and looked at Touma Kamijou, asking:

"Speaking of which, Touma, even if you don't have time to watch the news, haven't any reporters come to interview you?"

"Reporters?" Touma Kamijou paused for a moment, a look of recollection on his face. "It seems like a few reporters came over, saying they wanted me to film something according to a script, to promote some kind of national hero image or something. I felt those guys were really too boring, so I refused. But later those guys didn't leave. They followed me around, took some photos, and then went back. I didn't really pay attention to them."

It was clear that Touma Kamijou was genuinely uninterested in the reporters; he couldn't even remember what questions they had asked.

In a way, Kamijou is really an admirable kid.

Seeing Touma Kamijou's nonchalant expression, Li Cheng revealed a subtle expression. Then, he suddenly remembered a question that might be very important to Touma Kamijou.

"Kamijou, you've been busy all day, and then you're having dinner here tonight. Does your Index know about this?"

pat!

Touma Kamijou's chopsticks fell to the ground.

His face, visibly faded and seemingly completely devoid of color, and his body, beginning to tremble, revealed an expression of utter horror to Touma Kamijou.

"Tom~~Ma~~"

Almost at the same time, Li Cheng suddenly felt a gap open at the restaurant entrance. The next moment, a girl with long silver hair staggered in, her movements like those of a deadly ghost.

"Touma, you're eating something really delicious, hehe, you're eating something really delicious, hehehe—"

Those lifeless eyes, seemingly exuding death, pierced straight through several rows of seats and fixed on the stunned Touma Kamijou.

"Huh? How did we get here so quickly? Wait, wait, wait! Index, listen to me first."

"Questions and answers are useless!!"

click-

"Damn it!!"

Afterwards, Touma Kamijou, due to his severe bite wound, was treated by Li Cheng and Rin for half an hour to recover, while the buffet restaurant owner, as always, was sent to the hospital due to a heart attack.

That said, why hasn't this buffet restaurant gone out of business yet?

…………

Thank you to readers Nia7 and Beetroot9 for their monthly tickets.