To become a king and a magician

Jumping back and forth between building rooftops to get around—Sakyo Ayaka probably never wants to experience that again. No one would get used to Natsukawa Torato's way of traveling, it's really not good for the heart. Several times, Sakyo Ayaka felt like she was going to fly out of the building.

After tearing open the curry bread that Hiel had given her and taking a bite, Ayaka Sajou asked, "By the way, senpai, you actually came to school today?"

"What are you talking about? It's Friday, isn't it normal to come to school?"

"Ah...that's true."

Although Hiel is a member of the church, she doesn't know magic—she might know one or two special skills provided by the church, but according to her, those are secrets that are generally useless. Therefore, she is not a magician and thus cannot perceive the time loop.

(So, right now, only Xia Chuan and I know the situation... and we're the only ones who can solve this?)

Ayaka Sajou sighed, feeling overwhelmed. Was it too much to ask an inexperienced magician like her to handle such a major event? Although Natsukawa was very strong, he himself said that he was weaker than ever before and could not solve everything.

(Is it weaker than ever before...?)

Thinking about what happened last night, Ayaka Sajou just couldn't associate him with the word "weak." Just how powerful was he?

"Sand strips".

Suddenly, Hier called her name.

"Is Yue Luo leaving this afternoon? Do you want to see her off?"

"Hmm... I think we should go; it's proper etiquette for guests."

Actually, Ayaka Sajou's school doesn't have classes on Friday afternoons, which is why she was able to go to the station to see Natsukawa Tora off at 2:30 pm—but not today, because Natsukawa Tora is now staying at her house, and she can just go straight home this afternoon.

(Wait a minute... will he stay home the whole time?)

Ayaka Sajou suddenly realized the problem.

After Natsukawa Tora dropped her off at school, he left. Sajo Ayaka subconsciously assumed he would go home, but he didn't seem to have said he would go home.

Wouldn't that mean he'd be running around everywhere?

(I hope this won't cause me any trouble?)

Saya still remembered the stories about Natsukawa Tora that Hiel had once told her. He was the kind of person who could cause major incidents every now and then that would make the blood pressure of the association and church administrators soar. Expecting him to behave himself was almost like expecting the sun to rise in the west.

Yesterday, because he was leaving and hadn't really caused any trouble, Ayaka Sajou didn't pay much attention to it. But now he's stuck in Tokyo and can't leave, and he said he'd investigate in his own way, just in case...

"Shh-"

After quickly finishing her curry bread, Ayaka Sajou stood up and said, "Senpai, I have something urgent to do this afternoon, so I'll be going now."

"Huh? Something urgent?"

Watching Ayaka Sajou leave in a hurry, Hiel picked up his teacup and took a small sip: "So rushed... I wanted to talk to her about paranormal phenomena, but never mind, I'll talk to her about it tonight."

......

at the same time--

"There are quite a few paranormal phenomena."

In a small alley, Xia Chuanhu kicked away the oncoming supernatural phenomenon and glanced at the mess behind him—in just this one alley, he had already taken down five or six urban legends who had gained physical form.

When Ayaka Sajo mentioned it before, he thought there weren't many paranormal phenomena and that they only appeared at night. But now it seems that even if the sun prevents these spirits from appearing during the day, there are still quite a few similar entities in these dark alleys.

It's not just urban legends, but also corrupted evil spirits, undead, and beings similar to shadow followers.

"Remnants of magic and information...?"

Looking at the spirits beneath his feet that had transformed into magical energy and dissipated, Natsukawa Torato had more or less figured out the nature of these beings.

Spirit veins are rivers of magic, but they are not only rivers of magic. They also record information about the earth, such as who has passed through this place, what they have done here, and what has happened here. You can actually know all of this through spirit veins, but it is extremely fragmented.

For example, a murder may have occurred in the alley where Xia Chuanhu is now, but the spiritual vein will only have information that someone has been here before, and there will be basically nothing useful.

However, if these fragmented pieces of information are used as a basis and imbued with a certain degree of magic, spirits can be created here, which is the so-called paranormal phenomenon—although it can only manifest in fixed locations and at fixed times.

Mordred's Shadow Servant was probably created in this way, because she is a Servant and has been to many places, which is why she was able to manifest such a highly complete individual.

"This is a bit of a problem."

Thinking of a certain scenario, Natsukawa Tora curled his lip. If that were the case, all of these things would be discarded slag, all failures. The real troublesome "that" hadn't appeared yet... or rather, it hadn't been completed.

He couldn't handle that, *thud*...

Footsteps sounded from the darkness ahead, and several canine-like spirits approached Natsukawa Tora.

Thinking it would be helpful to relieve some of her work pressure, Natsukawa Tora kicked away all the spirits in front of him.

——————————————————————————————————————

Inside the clock tower of a parallel world.

"I said, do we really have to do this?"

Looking at the magic wand in her hand, Aozaki Aoko asked the Jewel Elder with some doubt.

"Why don't you just take me there directly? Why do you have to bring this... magical girl cane?"

“This is a coordinate. It would be quite difficult for me to interfere with the situation in Tokyo. It's not impossible that I could send you directly into the wall and trap you there. With this Mystic Code, I can send you to the person holding this cane over there. It's not far from Tokyo.”

"Gemstone Elder said with a serious expression."

"That kid is in your hands now. If he dies, both that world and this world will be doomed."

"I know."

106. Is this the world of XX?

In a certain alley.

"boom!"

Seeing the spirits sent flying by another punch from Natsukawa Tora, Sajou Ayaka pointed at them blankly and said, "Natsukawa, is this what you've been doing all this time?"

A few minutes earlier, because she was really worried that Natsukawa Torama might cause trouble for her, Sajo Ayaka rushed out of the school to look for him and called Natsukawa Torama to ask where he was.

Fortunately, the two had already exchanged phone numbers beforehand; otherwise, finding someone in such a large city as Tokyo would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Upon arriving at the location mentioned by Natsukawa Toramaru, the first thing Ayaka Sajou saw was Natsukawa Toramaru wreaking havoc amidst various supernatural phenomena.

"This is the first time I've realized there are so many paranormal phenomena."

"After all, they usually hide in alleys, so you wouldn't know if you didn't come. Besides, these paranormal phenomena are just the kind that haven't fully developed yet, so they're not very aggressive. I'm doing this as a precaution."

The essence of paranormal phenomena is urban legends. Urban legends originate from people's rumors and fantasies. The more people spread urban legends, the more paranormal phenomena will draw power from those fabricated plots. And—to put it bluntly—the plots that people fabricate are basically negative. Even if they are not initially negative, they will be embellished in various ways as they develop.

Under such circumstances, supernatural phenomena that evolved from urban legends naturally become ferocious and highly aggressive.

Almost all of the cases that Natsukawa Tora had dealt with before were like this.

"After cleaning like this once, your work pressure will be reduced a lot."

"Huh? Is...is that so?" Ayaka Sajou was somewhat surprised. "You did this because you were thinking of me..."

"I guess so. Also, there are some things I want to confirm." Natsukawa Tora looked at the empty alleyway. "If Tokyo is really stuck on the same day, then the things I killed should reappear tomorrow."

If it's a "rewind," then all of Xia Chuanhu's efforts will have been in vain. But if it's not—it doesn't really matter. Even if he knew the timeline, Xia Chuanhu couldn't figure out how to escape. He's not a famous detective; all he can think of is finding the mastermind behind it all and beating him up.

However, he has no idea where the mastermind is right now.

"Compared to this, don't you have classes? Why did you run away?"

“Our school doesn’t have classes on Friday afternoons. Those with club activities have to stay for practice, but I didn’t, so I could leave school directly.”

What a lenient system! I remember that Hohara Gakuen also had something like this. Are Japanese students too relaxed?

—I really want them to experience the life of working from 5 am to 10 pm.

Just as Natsukawa Tora was thinking this.

"Roar......"

A deep, guttural roar came from the depths, indicating that a few more had escaped.

Just as Natsukawa Torama was about to make a move, Ayaka Sajou appeared in front of him and released a feather from her ring: "Let me handle this. It is my mission to eliminate these beings. I shouldn't let you solve this for me."

"Alright then." Natsukawa Tora nodded. "But don't push yourself too hard, there's still quite a lot."

"I know."

.......

"Boys and girls operate in the shadows of the city, waging an unknown battle to drive away the darkness that threatens the city—it's just like a novel plot."

Standing on a rooftop quite a distance away, using a special telescope to watch the scene in the alley, Hierle smiled as he ate a curry bread and looked around.

"You've grown into a very responsible person. What are your thoughts on that?"

There was no response. In fact, there was no one around Hiel, even though she could sense that person was right next to her.

If you don't answer... does that mean you don't have any thoughts?

Hiel smiled. "However, aren't there a lot of 'failures'? With your abilities, are you capable of producing so many failures?"

[Special Existence]

"Hmm...you mean that magician who can see the moon? Indeed, those physical abilities are truly unfair. It's fortunate that he can't use magic here, otherwise it would have created an even more terrifying scene—wait, you mean...?"

Hier frowned.

Are you really not afraid that things might turn out the worst?

【impossible】

The answer that came was resolute, because for that person, everything was within their expectations, and there was nothing unexpected.

Having sensed that person's presence had vanished, Hiel put down his binoculars, sighed, and looked at the half-eaten curry bread in his hand: "Sigh, how much longer will this last? This situation..."

——————————————————————————————————————

At the same time, in Fuyuki City.

Because of Natsukawa Tora's disappearance, not only Gray, Mordred, and Atalanta, but also the Luvia family next door are now filled with anxiety.

"Ugh~~~~ I can't take it anymore, that guy just disappeared, what kind of apocalyptic joke is this?"

Rin Tohsaka paced back and forth in the conference room.

Magicians going missing is not uncommon, but Rin Tohsaka couldn't even imagine who could have set a trap for him and made him disappear.

Of course, just being missing isn't a big problem. After all, he's the man, and he should be able to come back safely in the end. But the impact of his disappearance is huge.