To become a king and a magician

As a return gift for learning from Emiya Shirou, Natsukawa Torara would help prepare the ingredients, just like he is doing now.

"Natsukawa, are you staying for dinner tonight? You can invite your sister over too, so she can meet Ilya."

"No need, I'll go back to eat. It's really inappropriate for me to stay and freeload after you've already taught me. I'll definitely do it next time." Xia Chuanhu said as he stood up. "Then I'll go back first. I guess I'll need you to teach me again later."

"I'm fine with anything anytime. Actually, you don't need to be so polite; we're neighbors."

That's what he said, but Shirou Emiya knew that Natsukawa Tora was unlikely to listen. They had been in this master-disciple relationship for about a month, and he had never seen Natsukawa Tora keep his promise of "I'll do it next time."

"Huh? Brother, has Mr. Natsukawa left?"

A short while later, Illya, who had gone to her room to change her clothes while Natsukawa Torami and Emiya Shirou were talking, came down to find only Emiya Shirou there.

"Well, what happened?"

"Hmm...it's nothing, just a strange feeling, probably just my imagination. Anyway, brother, what do you want to eat tonight?"

——————————————————————————————

At the Natsukawa family home, looking at the pair of shoes placed at the entrance, as if he had long been used to them, Natsukawa Tora sighed helplessly.

(Did you come today too?)

Turning around and entering the living room, as expected, a white-haired beauty wearing a white coat was lying on the sofa.

"came back?"

After glancing at Natsukawa Tora, Karen refocused her attention on the television.

"Dinner, hurry up."

"Do you think this is your home? You've been coming to my house for meals for almost half a month now, haven't you? At least cook for yourself at least once a month!"

As he said this, Natsukawa Tora felt a pang of regret, regretting what he had said to Karen earlier.

Unlike Rin Tohsaka's perfunctory surveillance attitude, who only makes a few phone calls a day and recently even only one before bed after falling down, Kallen is surprisingly dedicated. Whenever she has free time, she will carry out her surveillance work, such as installing cameras in the trees in the yard or spying on him in the third-floor room of the house across the street—thankfully, it was an empty house.

This behavior remained unchanged even when she was required to go to work.

About two weeks ago, Natsukawa Tora, who got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, accidentally caught Karen, who had come to retrieve the camera.

“No need for sneaky surveillance, you can just come to my house and monitor me directly—didn’t you say that yourself?” Karen retorted. “In that case, I’m your guest, so isn’t it perfectly reasonable to cook for your guest?”

"Visiting for more than half a month in a row?"

“My dad only knows how to make Mapo Tofu, and mine doesn’t taste as good as yours. Why should I bother making something that’s not tasty? I can just come here and eat what you make, right? Besides, I paid for it.”

"Are you treating this place like a restaurant? And you said you paid, but I haven't seen a single yen."

"Didn't you ask me a lot of questions about the church? Those are all church secrets. The information I'm giving you is practically money, isn't it?"

Karen said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"By the way, here's today's food money—the church's spy in the association said that another power struggle has started at the Clock Tower."

"When is there no power struggle over there?"

“It’s related to this,” Kallen added. “To be precise, it’s related to the Class Cards. Apparently, some mages are unhappy with the Magisterium Commander’s monopolization of Class Cards and are planning to send someone to steal them, although we haven’t found out who they’ll be. Honestly, with you mages fighting amongst yourselves in Fuyuki City, I’m the one cleaning up the mess.”

"So? Is there any information that would allow us to exchange it for dinner?"

Looking at Karen lying on the sofa with a smile, Natsukawa Tora scratched his head and then walked towards the kitchen: "Wait here for a bit, dinner will be served in an hour. Remember to call Grey downstairs, [Teacher], who is doing her homework upstairs."

Yes~~~

24. Self-produced and self-sold

Dinner time went by quickly.

Because Natsukawa Tora, Grey, and Karen are all people who eat quickly, the three of them finished their dinner shortly after it got dark.

"Has Sister Karen already left?"

After washing the dishes and returning to the living room, Grey only saw Natsukawa Tora sitting on the sofa watching TV.

"Brother, didn't you go to see her off?"

"Why would I send her off? She's just here to freeload, and she's practically my watcher. It's already unreasonable of me not to kick her out and give her food back, isn't it?"

"But I remember you invited them over, Brother Shi..."

Sometimes, Grey feels conflicted about her brother's behavior. He might say he dislikes others, but he'll take good care of them in his actions. Aozaki Aoko once told Grey that during a battle, Natsukawa Torato kicked her away to prevent her from getting hurt.

While it did protect her from attack, can it really be called being unharmed in the end?

But regardless, Grey felt that her brother was doing quite well.

"By the way, brother, when I was doing my homework earlier, a letter flew in through the window."

"letter?"

“Yes, I brought it down because I originally intended to show it to my brother.” Grey said, taking an opened letter out of her pocket. “It was sent by Rin-neechan.”

Did Rin Tohsaka send it?

After receiving the letter, Natsukawa Tora opened it with some curiosity.

The letter contained nothing special; it simply stated that Rin Tohsaka had encountered some trouble and needed to use the Ruby's ability to infinitely supply magic. She, Luvia, and Miyu would be waiting for Gray and Torakawa in the underground cavern of Mount Enzo.

"They need to use the ruby's infinite magic, huh? That's no problem... Wait, does this mean they went to the underground cavern?"

Upon seeing this line of text, Natsukawa Tora's face froze instantly, as did Gray's.

"Brother, I remember there were a lot of things we set up there before..."

Hundreds of magical traps were designed to deal with Eindsworth! Because no one was expected to survive, Natsukawa Torato designed them with the intention of killing someone; if you walked into one, even a hundred lives wouldn't be enough!

If Rin and the others went in without knowing anything...

Not to mention the traps designed to counter displacement magic, the rune traps alone would be enough to trap them all there!

The letter was sent by Grey while she was doing her homework, and about two hours have passed since then.

Can Avalon save the dead?

This is the only question that Natsukawa Tora is currently pondering.

——————————————————————————————————

After half an hour.

In front of the passageway of the underground cavern of Yuanzang Mountain.

"Oh dear, you've arrived so early—why are you all covered in injuries?"

Seeing Natsukawa Toramaru and Gray sitting disheveled at the entrance of the cave, Rin Tohsaka and the others couldn't help but frown, while Miyu, who had transformed into a magical girl, raised her wand alertly.

"A very strong magical reaction. Could it be that there are enemies inside the Great Void?"

"No, there are no enemies. How should I put it..."

It's similar to lifting a rock only to drop it on your own foot.

Ruby suppressed a laugh and said in a deep voice.

Worried that Rin Tohsaka and the others might have stepped on their landmines and gotten hurt, Torakawa and Gray rushed over, only to find that Rin and the others hadn't arrived at all.

Considering the danger of the traps, and in order to enter smoothly later, Xia Chuanhu thought of first removing some of the traps on the only way and then resetting them.

But here is the problem.

He did indeed set the traps, but he couldn't dismantle them because most of them were interconnected traps, which took a considerable amount of time to dismantle. Furthermore, he didn't know when Rin Tohsaka and the others would arrive, and what if they arrived before he had finished dismantling them...?

So Natsukawa Torato made a tough decision.

— He stepped on them one by one himself!

You have to step in the hole you dug yourself!

Physically defuse mines!

Honestly, even with A-rank magic resistance and protective magic, taking nearly a hundred magic traps in one go is still quite a challenge—the injuries on Natsukawa Tora's body are proof of that.

This was the first time he'd ever been breached in a non-Servant magic battle! Even Natsukawa Torama himself was impressed that he'd managed to do it!

As for Gray's injury... because he wanted to increase the hit rate, Natsukawa Tiger set the range of the traps to be relatively large, so when he stepped on them one by one, Gray was affected a little.

"Don't worry about what happened between me and Grey. Besides, what do you need the ruby ​​for? Is there anything that requires a lot of magic?"

"Well, actually it seems that the ley lines are blocked, or the size of the ley lines has shrunk. A lot of magic power needs to be injected to break the blockage or expand the ley lines. Generally speaking, it would require dozens of magicians to perform a large-scale ritual, but with rubies and sapphires that can provide unlimited magic power, it doesn't have to be so troublesome."

Rin Tohsaka explained.

"I have no choice but to do the task directly given by the master chef, especially since I am the head of the Tohsaka family."

As they spoke, the group had already arrived inside the large cavern.

However, seeing the devastated void, Rin Tohsaka, Luvia, and even Miyu all turned their gazes to Toramaru Natsukawa and Gray.

"What exactly did you do before we arrived?"

"It's nothing. Maybe there was an explosion here before? Gas explosion or something. Doesn't Fuyuki City have abundant underground natural gas reserves? Explosions can easily happen in this kind of space."

Natsukawa Torama smoothly recited a reason that Rin Tohsaka had heard to death, and then went directly to the large platform.

"So, how exactly do we do it?"

"Insert this Earthly Offering Needle into the central core, and then have Miyu and Gray continuously input magic power. I'll keep an eye on how much they should input." Rin Tohsaka said as she took out an item that looked like half a spear made of a tree branch from her backpack and forcefully inserted it into the center of the large platform.

A few seconds later, the branch that was originally only the size of a person suddenly began to grow rapidly, spinning and growing into a large tree in an instant. At the center of the Earthly Needle, a magic circle also appeared on the ground.

【Now it's my turn and Xiao Lan's turn!】

"Is it enough to just inject magic power?"

Transformed into magical girls, Gray and Miyu each arrived at either side of the Earth Needle, pointed their wands at the Earth Needle, and slowly released their magic power. Two beams of magic, one red and one blue, immediately illuminated the dark underground cavern.

25. Get ready to chop the pork knuckle!

Leaning against Rin Tohsaka and Luvia, Torakawa watched as Miyu and Gray were being infused with magic.

(If it were Illya, the magic backlash would likely cause the little black figure and the class card inside her to separate, but since it's Gray, there's no need to worry about her splitting in two.)

Unlike Illya, Gray doesn't possess any mysterious power. What's special about her is her physique. Although only a very limited portion of it is currently manifesting, Gray's body is actually gradually transforming into Artoria's.