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

Wuming's voice came through the communicator. He was standing on the top floor of a tall building, overlooking the vast city before him. With his exceptional eyesight, he carefully observed every street and every building, meticulously searching for any trace of Kamijou Touma.

"Even if he encountered the enemy, there should at least be traces of the battle, right? But there are no such traces at the scene. I suspect that he was captured and knocked unconscious by the enemy and taken away."

Li Cheng's voice joined in; he had just walked through a quiet, narrow alley and onto another street.

"But if it was a planned kidnapping, there's no reason to leave Kamijou's phone at the scene. Someone who can carry out a kidnapping plan in a place like this shouldn't make such a mistake, right?"

Wuming immediately retorted.

“Unless the person who kidnapped Mr. Kamijou had a purpose other than just him, those of us who are searching for him also need to be left behind.”

An unfamiliar male voice suddenly joined the communicator's network at that moment.

"who is it?"

Li Cheng and Wu Ming both became alert at the same time.

“It’s me, Eric. Mr. Li Cheng, we spoke during the day. I’m currently helping my student find someone. I apologize for interrupting, but I don’t have the communicator you’re using, so I’m using my ability to cut into your communication channel.”

Eric?

Li Cheng quickly recalled the tall, seemingly gentle man in the weapons exhibition hall during the day who had easily discovered his identity as a martial artist.

So he stayed behind to help look for people too?

Just as Li Chengcai remembered the man's identity, Wuming's voice rang out again in the communicator, this time with a serious tone.

"Yes, if I'm not mistaken, that lost phone might be the invitation they sent us."

"..."

Eric's voice silenced both Li Cheng and Wu Ming. After a while, Wu Ming spoke again, but what he said made Li Cheng's heart sink even further.

"We can't get in touch with Kiritsugu anymore, so we can confirm that all communication with the outside world has been completely cut off," Wuming's voice remained calm. "If there are no unforeseen circumstances, I think the barrier separating Academy City from the outside world should also be unable to be opened now, right?"

……

In the conference room of the sixth group's branch building, Kiritsugu Emiya solemnly put down his communicator and shook his head at the people in the room.

"Communications have been completely cut off, and we cannot contact them."

Half an hour ago, Shin returned to Tokyo and told Kiritsugu Emiya what he had seen and heard in the prison. Kiritsugu Emiya immediately launched an investigation and quickly identified the tall, dark figure Shin had seen in the prison.

William Orwell, born in the Free Commons, served as a mercenary in World War III, during which he successfully broke through to the Transcendent level. After the war, he converted to the Roman Catholic Church and disappeared from public view.

Such a person's decision to intervene in this incident despite the agreement, and to reveal that Aleister himself is likely also a transcendent, is a message that Kiritsugu Emiya feels strongly threatened by.

"Should we try to break through the barrier?"

Shi said with some eagerness.

“That level of barrier is not something we can break through,” Kiritsugu Emiya decisively rejected Shiki’s idea. “Moreover, there is a powerful private mercenary army stationed near the barrier. If we try to break through by ourselves, it will cause a lot of unnecessary casualties.”

"Then what should we do?"

Rin asked somewhat anxiously.

“Since our own strength is insufficient, we can only seek help from a greater force,” Kiritsugu Emiya said as he sent out a message. “Coincidentally, there is someone on this land who can help us with matters of this magnitude.”

"Who?"

Kiritsugu Emiya's words piqued the curiosity of both Rin and Shiki.

“Oda Nobueshi, only the transcendent can defeat the transcendent.”

Kiritsugu Emiya calmly gave his answer.

"Ok?"

"You managed to get him here?! Your network of connections has actually grown that powerful? You must be kidding me."

The two people present both showed expressions of surprise and disbelief.

“My network of connections certainly can’t do that, but some people’s networks can.”

As Kiritsugu Emiya finished speaking, a door opened.

"That's right, Emiya's network of connections can't possibly extend to those of the Beyonders, but my network can, hehehehe—"

A man whose face was obscured, whose very presence seemed strange, and who appeared almost nonexistent if one looked away, chuckled as he opened the door and entered the conference room.

"You are... the Prime Minister? Oh, no, the former Prime Minister?"

After her initial confusion, Rin quickly realized the identity of the person in front of her: the former prime minister who had been impeached because of the Tokyo massacre and subsequently disappeared.

Was he actually being protected by Kiritsugu Emiya?

"I'm the Prime Minister, not the former Prime Minister, young lady," the blurry-looking man said with a smile. "I've just temporarily handed that position over to someone else. Even so, I'll be back sooner or later. There's no one else but me who can stand at the top of this country and guide everyone forward. Only I can be the Prime Minister of this country. How about it, young lady, want to take a bet?"

The man's voice was flat, unlike the forceful pronouncements of a typical politician, but one could detect a strong sense of confidence in his tone, an unwavering, almost arrogant, confidence. For some reason, Rin immediately thought of Wuming's current de facto superior, Gilgamesh, the leader of the Three Kings Alliance (the other two kings had fled). Gilgamesh often displayed the same kind of arrogance in his speech.

Does that mean that leaders with distinctive characteristics are all arrogant?

"Humph……"

Unlike Rin, who was already deep in thought, Shiki kept staring at the blurry man, looking quite displeased.

There's always this... urge to chop him up.

There was a strange feeling, as if the man wasn't a complete man, but rather a broken, fragmented figure. She had a peculiar illusion that the man's body should have been covered in various lines, some lines that would have made him more like a normal person. But those lines were now completely crushed and invisible, making the man seem eerie and abnormal. This gave her an extremely uncomfortable feeling, as if the man were some kind of alien entity that shouldn't exist, making her want to erase him.

"You... are not human."

Enduring the discomfort, she looked coldly at the man standing in the room and said with certainty.

“That’s right, I’m not human. Ever since I used the concept erasure on myself, I’ve ceased to be human,” the man’s voice remained calm, and no one could see any expression on his face. “I’m not even a carbon-based life form in the normal sense anymore; I’m just a dying, chaotic energy being in the midst of collapse. In other words, I could suddenly die at any moment, with a ‘bang,’ and then be forgotten by everyone.”

As he spoke, a hint of smugness crept into his voice.

"But I won the gamble. This adventure earned me enough chips to become someone who seeks neither fame nor wealth and is willing to devote himself wholeheartedly to the country. As a result, I won the support of the people because I am now in this terrible state and can no longer enjoy most of the things that normal people can enjoy. As the spoils of this high-stakes gamble, I became the prime minister and have been in this position ever since."

"It was three weeks ago. You stopped being prime minister three weeks ago."

Kiritsugu Emiya corrected him, then stood up from his chair.

"But as a former prime minister, you know Oda Nobueshi's address very well, and you have a fairly good personal relationship with him. So, we need you now to help us find him and persuade him to take action, break the barrier, and go inside to deal with the upcoming, or even possibly already arrived, transcendent being."

“Of course, no problem, Brother Emiya,” the man said casually. “Business is about give and take. You’ve protected me for so many days and collected so much dirt on our competitors. I should at least help you with this little favor, don’t you think?”

"However, I can only guarantee to create space for you to persuade him; I can't guarantee whether it will be successful. You can understand that, right?"

The man sat down at the conference table, his voice tinged with amusement. He tossed a 20-sided die into the air, caught it, and, as if confirming something, let out a low laugh. However, his indistinct face revealed no emotion whatsoever.

"No problem, let's go."

Kiritsugu Emiya took the weapon case from the table and led everyone out of the building.

……

At the same time, outside the outer walls of Academy City, on the rooftop of a building, a white-haired girl yawned, holding a magic wand with intricate patterns, her eyes drowsy as she looked at Academy City, which was shrouded in darkness not far away.

"Hmm, are there already two people? That's a bit too few. Such a big event would be rather boring if there were only two of us."

The girl sat on the edge of the roof, swinging her smooth legs listlessly.

"This is boring, really boring. A major event like this should at least involve a chaotic battle between four or five people, blowing up one or two cities, and sinking one or two pieces of land. That's what makes it interesting!"

Of course, whether she blows up the city or sinks the land, she won't actually get involved. Watching from a safe distance and occasionally cheering is the most she can do, since this guy only came here to join in the fun.

"Ah, speaking of which, I was so busy waiting for those guys to fight that I almost forgot to update Magical Girl Merry."

The girl seemed to suddenly remember something, slapped her forehead, and showed a somewhat embarrassed expression. Then, she gently tapped her wand in the air, the smoke cleared, and a virtual screen appeared in front of her.

"Hello everyone, this is Magical Girl Merry~ I'm so, so sorry, I accidentally overslept today..."

The girl spoke intently to the virtual screen in front of her, deliberately making her voice sound particularly sweet and coquettish.

Unbeknownst to the girl, in an inconspicuous room of another house not far from her, a fanatical orange-haired man was secretly filming the white-haired girl, who was live-streaming from a distance, using a specially made small camera.

"Ah, the way Meryl kisses her bare feet during a live stream is really nice, this photo is worth saving!"

As the man spoke, he switched to camera mode and began filming the girl in the distance. Inside his pockets were dozens of large-capacity storage devices, filled with photos and videos he had taken of the girl during this time.

"Ah, the way she lifts her little feet is so nice, quick, quick, take a picture!"

The man spoke excitedly, and then took another photo.

…………

Thank you to reader Ding Ye for the monthly ticket.

Thank you to readers Feng Yong Sui You Fei, Tian Ming Xun Meng, Da Tu Zi, Ke Mi De Tu Zi, and Ding Ye for their recommendation votes.

Section 343, Chapter Twenty-Two: The Increasing Number of Players

Located on the outskirts of Tokyo, in a low-rise residential area where some poor people live in relatively difficult circumstances, Kiritsugu Emiya drove his black luxury car and parked it outside an inconspicuous alley.

Is this the place? The place where Oda Nobueshi, the only one to surpass Japan, now lives in seclusion.

Kiritsugu Emiya subconsciously surveyed his surroundings. In this neighborhood, which was practically a gathering place for low-level workers in Tokyo, all he could see were dirty, peeling walls, a ground with obvious cracks, and some garbage that had not yet been completely cleaned up.

At night, the neighborhood is very empty and quiet. The people living here don't have a rich and colorful nightlife, so at night all you can see are closed doors and windows. In fact, because the streetlights are broken, the streets can't even provide basic lighting, and it's pitch black everywhere.

Choosing to live in seclusion in such a place always feels like a clichéd and outdated approach.

"This is it."

A blurry-looking man got out of the passenger seat and said with certainty.

Rin, who was in the back seat, couldn't open the car door for a moment. Shiki, who was next to her, helped her open the door before she was finally able to get out of the car. She looked around at the surrounding environment and muttered to herself, "It seems that it has become the norm for masters to live in seclusion in simple places."

“He likes living in this kind of place, and I can’t stop him.”

The blurry-looking man sighed and walked forward first.

The group walked deeper into the alley until they reached the end of the road, where they stood before a seemingly ordinary wall. The man approached the wall, knocked on it, then stepped back two paces, adopting a polite posture as he waited.

Five minutes have passed.

"Hey, Mosaic, are you sure that guy is here?"

Rin asked in an unfriendly tone.

"Generally, the passage should appear after you knock, maybe you didn't notice," the man said somewhat uncertainly, then suddenly realized what Rin had called him and immediately became displeased, "Wait, what did you just call me? Hey, hey, hey, calling me 'Mosaic' is way too much, isn't it? How can a little girl like you give people nicknames? It's very impolite, you know?"