To become a king and a magician

First, there's Natsukawa Torama, who has absolute control over his body; then there's Merry, who can greatly interfere with Natsukawa Torama's dreams; next, there's Arcueid, who can only be communicated with in a fairy possession state; and finally, there's Sajō Aika, who's locked in the Soul Dark Room.

There really is a clear hierarchy.

"No, wait a minute, I remember Arcueid said that her consciousness is connected to mine, does that mean she watched the whole dream I had last night?"

Buzz!

The crimson moon mark on the back of his hand flashed a few times, as if in response to Xia Chuanhu's words.

In other words, the innocent Arcueid did indeed watch from the sidelines all night?

"Isn't this... a bit ominous?"

[Ha, isn't this just your true nature? You perverted vixen, that princess's opinion of you has probably plummeted by now, serves you right.]

"No, Arcueid probably wouldn't be like that... I'll find some time to possess her and ask her."

"Boom boom boom!"

A knock on the door abruptly interrupted Natsukawa Tora's thoughts, followed by Gray's voice from outside: "It's already morning, brother, are you up? I'm coming in?"

"Oh, come in."

Pushing open the door and entering the room, Gray was somewhat surprised to see Natsukawa Tora sitting up in bed: "Brother is already up?"

Why do you sound so surprised?

“Because…it’s really rare that you get up on your own without me having to wake you,” Grey said with a smile. “And you seem very happy, did you have a sweet dream?”

Yes, that's right.

That was indeed a beautiful dream.

Natsukawa Tora smiled and nodded: "Pretty much. More importantly, what should we have for breakfast this morning?"

"As usual, I've already started brewing the coffee. Brother, you can come down and have your meal after you've washed up."

"Okay, thank you for your hard work. You can go down now, I'll be downstairs in a bit."

Grey nodded and left the room.

He got out of bed, went to the window, opened it, stretched lazily towards the rising sun, and took a deep breath of the fresh morning air. Just then, a bright spot of light suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

(What is that?)

--------------------------------

A few minutes later, in the restaurant on the first floor.

【Good morning, dear brother】

【You're up pretty early today, buddy. Not sleeping in?】

The ruby ​​floating beside Grey and Yad on the dining table greeted Natsukawa Tiger as he walked in.

After sitting down at the table, Natsukawa Torama looked at Ruby: "Why are you still here? All the class cards have been collected, you're done here, right? Aren't you going back to old man Ruby's place?"

[Don't be so heartless! I've already decided to make Greytan my master! Even if the class card retrieval mission ends, the contract won't end! I don't want a one-night stand with a cute girl like Greytan!]

"Ruby, come a little closer."

【Huh? What are you doing?】

Ruby obediently flew over.

Clang!

A flying trash can caught the ruby ​​and slammed it to the ground.

【Ahhhhhh! Why are you locking me up again?! It's so dark! And why is it a trash can?! Isn't this Mr. Yad's private seat?!】

Hahaha! Now that's your reserved seat!

"Reflect on why you were locked up," Natsukawa Torama said, stepping on the bottom of a trash can. "Honestly, it's clearly an excellent Mystic Code, so why did that old man with the gem have to put a talking function on it?"

As the saying goes, "Everything about him is good, except he has a mouth," right?

"Brother, don't bully Ruby."

Carrying breakfast over, Grey said with a hint of exasperation, "Ruby, stop making your brother angry all the time. You don't want to be stuck in the trash forever, do you?"

But they have absolutely no idea where their brother's trigger points are! Or rather, he's practically a walking trigger point!

"Am I that unreasonable, Yad?"

【Absolutely not. If you say that the guy has a bad temper, then the only one in the world with a good temper is that idiot Grey.】

That's right.

“I’m not as good as Yad and my brother make it out to be.”

The sudden praise made Grey blush and feel a little shy.

"By the way, brother, what are your plans for today?"

"No for now, but I've thought of two on the fly." Natsukawa Tora picked up his coffee. "I plan to go to the church first, and then go to the underground cavern of Mount Enzo."

19. This is actually a normal Kirei Kotobuki worldline?!

The church, and Yuanzang Mountain.

There wasn't any particularly important reason why Natsukawa Tora wanted to go to those two places.

He went to the church to find out who was monitoring him. When he was collecting his class cards, Natsukawa Torato had a vague feeling that someone was following him, and he figured the person monitoring him now was probably the same one. Although he had some suspicions, it was best to confirm it.

He didn't want to live under someone's spying 24/7.

The reason for going to Yuanzang Mountain is quite simple—to prepare some surprises for Ainsworth in advance.

Now that we know Ainsworth will appear in the underground cavern, there's no reason not to set up some traps first, right? For example, setting up trigger-based magic on the cavern walls, which would detonate and cause a collapse as soon as someone is detected inside the cavern—something like that.

Hehehe, you're really naughty, sir.

Hidden under Gray's hood, Ruby couldn't help but let out a sinister laugh after hearing Natsukawa Torato's idea.

[Strike first, that's a simple yet effective tactic. But if you ask me, buddy, you're still too young. You should come up with some more annoying tactics.]

"I don't have that many materials on hand, and besides, Ainsworth has displacement magic, so ordinary methods won't be very effective. In the end, I'll have to take action myself."

So, since it's meant to disgust people anyway, why not make it as disgusting as possible? Since it's ineffective, don't focus on the effect, just focus on making people disgusted instead.

"That makes sense. How about digging a bunch of holes and stuffing them with animal droppings?"

【Great! Great!】

Watching Natsukawa Tora and Yad in his hands begin their discussion, Grey couldn't help but sigh: "Brother, Yad, we're still on the street. Please talk about this when we get home."

“It’s alright, I kept my voice down.” Xia Chuanhu waved his hand. “But Gray is right, we’re almost at the church now. Yad, Ruby, you two don’t speak for a while, and hide well.”

I don't think it's necessary, but since you put it that way...

[Then I'll crawl inside Gray's clothes again, hehehehe]

"ruby!"

Grey blushed and quickly reached behind her, grabbed the ruby ​​that was trying to sneak into her clothes, opened the birdcage that held Ad and threw it inside.

It's best to leave these two magical costumes, which seem to share a similar quirk, locked up together.

As the group moved forward, a familiar building soon came into Xia Chuanhu's view.

"Fuyuki Church..."

During that Holy Grail War, Natsukawa Tora had visited this place once. From the outside, even in a different world, the church hadn't changed much. He just didn't know if the person in charge of the church here was still the one Natsukawa Tora knew.

Push open the iron gate, follow the path to the church entrance, and open the door.

The church, half bright and half dim, suddenly came into their view.

Due to lighting conditions, only half of the church area was illuminated, and that area was precisely the one in front of the statue of God, while the side closer to the door was shrouded in darkness.

In front of the statue, a priest in black was holding a scripture, seemingly praying.

Hearing the door open behind him, the priest closed the book in his hand, turned around and looked at Natsukawa Tora and Gray: "Welcome to Fuyuki Church, may I ask what brings you here, guests?"

"Kirei Kotomine...Mr."

Natsukawa Tora looked at Kotomine Kirei in surprise.

How could the person in charge of the Fuyuki Church be... no, it should be said that it was actually him?

Although the Fourth Holy Grail War ended before it even began in the timeline of Magical Girl Illya, so Kirei Kotomine's presence here isn't entirely unreasonable, if I remember correctly, the church personnel in Fuyuki City should be...

"Ah, I recognize you, Mr. Natsukawa Torato."

Just as Natsukawa Torato was wondering, Kirei Kotomine had already appeared in front of him: "The magician who caused the [Moonfall] in the early hours of yesterday morning, the culprit who made me have to get up and work overtime in the middle of the night, it's really unexpected that you would come here. Are you here to repent to me, no... to the Lord?"

"I don't think I have any reason to repent."

"Your moonfall caused panic throughout the city and resulted in great losses. In this respect, you are already a sinner. Fortunately, there were no casualties, otherwise your sins would have been even deeper. At this time, it is the right thing to pray to the Lord and repent in order to be forgiven."

Despite not having participated in the Holy Grail War, Kirei Kotomine's smile was clearly full of pleasure, as if he were anticipating the scene of Natsukawa Tora confessing to God.

Xia Chuanhu frowned: "Perhaps, but unfortunately, I am a magician and have no interest in your gods. Even if I were to repent, I would go to the graves of the victims to pay my respects. Seeking spiritual comfort here is meaningless. But as you said, there were no casualties."

“I see. You value actions more than words of atonement—a rather pragmatic approach. I apologize for my rudeness; I was a little resentful because I was woken up to work in the middle of the night.” Kirei Kotomine bowed slightly. “So, may I ask what brings you two here?”

Are you the person in charge here?

"That's right. Even so, the only people working in this church right now are my daughter Karen and me. Calling ourselves the leaders would be giving ourselves too much credit."

Karen is here too?

Natsukawa Tora was surprised again.

He wasn't surprised by Kallen's existence, but rather by the fact that Kirei Kotomine and Kallen, this father-daughter duo, had actually gotten together. As far as he knew, in all the known storylines so far, it seemed that the father and daughter had never been together before; Kirei Kotomine had always entrusted Kallen to other people to raise after his wife's death.

"You seem a little surprised?"

"Hmm, you don't seem like the type to have a daughter, and... this might be a bit rude of me to say it, but I don't think you're the type to live with a daughter."

"Is that so?" Kirei Kotomine turned to face the statue. "Perhaps. My relationship with Karen wasn't very harmonious, probably because I wasn't there for her during her childhood. After all, after my wife passed away, I was immersed in church work and didn't pay much attention to her. It was only after my late father's angry rebuke that I brought her back here, which is eight years now—I've digressed a bit. I haven't even told you what you're doing here?"

“The Clock Tower and the Church both seem to regard me as a dangerous person, and both sides are planning to plant monitors on my side to put their minds at ease,” Xia Chuanhu explained. “Although it was unintentional, I was indeed in the wrong first. I will not refuse to plant monitors, but I do not want to be secretly monitored. I don’t like such sneaky behavior.”

"The monitor over at the Clock Tower is Rin Tohsaka, the head of the Tohsaka family, you should know that, right? But I haven't seen the monitor over at the Church yet."