To become a king and a magician

"The Plant Family has spies planted in the Mineral Family. They sent back news that Lord El-Melloi went to Japan. There's no reason for a monarch to suddenly go to such a remote little country. The only thing we can think of is that bastard who's been missing for more than half a year."

Although she knew that Natsukawa Tora had gone to Japan, Lydia really didn't expect that he would stay for more than half a year. It made it so that she couldn't find anyone to have tea with whenever she had free time. It was a real pity that she didn't have a trip to Japan in her itinerary for the first half of the year.

"It seems that Miss Lydia harbors a great deal of resentment towards Natsukawa. To be so favored by a monarch, he must really have some tricks up his sleeve."

Mary smiled knowingly as she spoke.

Upon hearing this, Lydia quickly turned her head away and began to explain, "It's not that I favor him, it's just that he's one of the few people I can talk to, and he can also give me some advice on idol management. Besides, I've also found out that he's the one who blew up my lab, I'm just here to settle the score with him!"

(But that debt has already been paid off, and you came all the way here so early in the morning...)

Weber felt that even if this wasn't interesting, it should at least have some meaning.

"It feels like this apartment is about to get lively again."

月姬

1. The Thousand-Year-Old City in My Dreams

moon.

A crimson moon.

A crimson moon hanging above an ancient castle.

How many times has this happened? I've seen this scene in my dreams.

A sea of ​​flowers carrying a hint of blood, an ancient castle standing amidst the flowers, and a crimson full moon above the castle.

When did I start dreaming about such scenes?

My memories are hazy and unclear, and my cognition seems to be confused and disrupted by something.

【Who are you?】

It seemed to be someone's voice coming from inside the castle.

No, that's not quite right. It should be said that the sound was projected directly into the mind.

This should be a very familiar voice. Although we may be strangers, this voice gives me a certain feeling.

They recognized the owner of the voice.

Why are you here?

Yeah, why?

The reason is still being searched, but it should not have been through normal means to get here. In fact, for me, this place is a dream, and after waking up, I will only remember some residual hallucinations.

"Crack—"

The sounds of gears meshing or chains rubbing together faintly reached my ears, along with a faint growl. These sounds, seemingly unrelated, blended together with the fragrance of flowers, yet they sounded remarkably reasonable at that moment.

【Tiger】

That person spoke again.

I understand now, your name is Tiger.

tiger.

This is indeed my name; my surname is Xia Chuan, and my given name is Hu.

"Then... what's your name?"

"I can't help but ask," Natsukawa Torato asked. He felt he should know who the voice belonged to, but the name seemed to be censored, and he couldn't recall it clearly.

Arcueid

Bang----------!

It was as if something had exploded; a loud bang suddenly pierced through Xia Chuanhu's ears, and his previously drowsy consciousness instantly returned to normal!

In the instant he regained consciousness, the mysterious sea of ​​flowers vanished, replaced by a dimly lit classroom and a lemon standing angrily on the podium not far away.

Judging from his hand slamming on the table, he must have been the one who slammed the table, since he was sitting in the first row, which explains why the sound was so loud.

"You openly sleep in my class? Do you think my lectures are so boring that you can't concentrate at all, Natsukawa Tora?"

With obvious anger and dissatisfaction in his tone, Kenneth questioned sharply.

Rubbing his eyes, Natsukawa Tora stood up and shook his head: "No, the teacher's lectures were excellent. I fell asleep because of personal reasons. I'm very sorry."

"Properly managing and arranging one's time is an essential skill for outstanding magicians and nobles."

"Yes."

"Please sit down. Let's continue the lesson. We were just talking about the composition of barriers, the materials used to construct them..."

Sitting down again to listen to Kenneth's lecture, Natsukawa Tiger couldn't absorb a single word of the content; his mind was filled with the dream he had just had.

(That place is undoubtedly the ancient city.)

A city with a thousand-year history.

The castle where the original progenitors once lived, the place where Arcueid imprisoned himself and slept. Since returning to London, Natsukawa Torato has dreamed of that place from time to time; although he hasn't kept track of it, he's probably dreamed of it at least ten times already.

Why did I dream about the City of a Thousand Years? Is this dream hinting at something? Or is it simply because my consciousness unexpectedly arrived in the City of a Thousand Years for various reasons?

If these were accidents, then nearly ten accidents...

"Arquette..."

Natsukawa Torama took a slight breath after muttering the name of that Tsukihime to himself.

(In a few months it will be 1999, which is exactly the timeline of the old Tsukihime. I should have time to go to Misaki City, since I've almost finished resolving things here.)

Xia Chuanhu has been back in London for five months. In these five months, he has almost finished all the things he wanted to do before he returned, and they should all be completed by January next year.

Graduate from all basic courses and complete your own priesthood advancement.

Once these two things are done, he can officially transfer to the Spirit Summoning Department and return to Japan to continue learning about dolls under Aozaki Touko.

(I'll visit Misaki City a few times after I return to Japan.)

While Natsukawa Tora was thinking this.

"Thump~~~~~~"

A melodious chime echoed throughout the clock tower. Hearing this bell signaling the end of get out of class, Kenneth, who had just finished his lecture, put away his notes, said "get out of class dismissed," and left the classroom.

"That means no classes today... Let's go home."

After packing up his things, Xia Chuanhu stood up and left the classroom. Just as he was about to jump onto the roof and parkour back to his apartment, he caught sight of a rather unusual figure in the corner of his field of vision.

No, it's not that it's rare. That might be true for others, but for him, he saw that figure several times a month.

(That makes sense, it's the end of the month now...)

————————————————————————————

Kanak.

One of London's largest department stores, with a history of over 150 years. Under normal circumstances, Natsukawa Tiger probably wouldn't come here; he doesn't particularly enjoy shopping, nor does he like the environment here.

Even so, he would always come here for two or three days at the end of each month.

Because of the woman sitting in front of him at this very moment.

"Hmm, the cakes here taste as good as ever. The only downside is that the cakes have too many toppings. They're so fancy that they don't make me want to eat them."

"Then don't order so much at the beginning, Ms. Lydia."

Lydia.

May Lydia Acherlotte.

The monarch of the Botany family, one of the twelve disciplines of the Clock Tower, a world-famous witch-type idol, is a hands-off boss who delegates 90% of the work to his subordinates and spends his time holding concerts all over the world.

He works away from home for three weeks each month and only comes back once a month at the end of the month. Every time he comes back, he immediately takes Natsukawa Tiger out shopping.

With a slight frown, Lydia scooped up a small piece of parfait and stuffed it directly into Natsukawa Toru's mouth: "How many times have I told you, let's skip social occasions. In private, you can just call me [Lydia]."

Isn't a shopping mall a social setting?

After swallowing the ice cream, Natsukawa Tiger asked, "Naridelle, how did the performance go? I remember you went to America, right?"

"Yes, it's perfect as a retirement performance."

"That's good—wait?"

A certain word that came out of Lydia's mouth made Natsukawa Tiger freeze in shock.

Retirement performance?

"You're retiring? Giving up being an idol?" Natsukawa Torama looked at Lydia in disbelief. "Why?"

"Are you surprised that I'm not an idol anymore? By the way, you didn't know that was my retirement performance? I explained it during the performance, you definitely didn't watch my live stream!"

Natsukawa Tora shrugged: "When would I have time to look? Don't you even think about what I've been doing lately? I've been working myself to death on the sacrificial ceremony. Today is one of my rare free days. By the way, why did you decide to retire? Wasn't your idol career going well?"

"It's not because of that, it's just that I don't want to do it anymore," Lydel explained. "I'm almost thirty years old, and it's really not suitable to be an idol at this age. Besides, there are more and more things to do at the Clock Tower, and it's very difficult to balance being an idol and doing things at the Clock Tower at the same time, so I simply decided to retire."

"The retirement ceremony was also held after the concert, and the agency successfully terminated the contract... Now I can finally feel free."

"The fans will probably have a hard time accepting this, and so will the media."

“Who cares about them?” Lydia laughed. “More importantly, can I come over for dinner tonight?”

“Okay, I’ll call Mary and ask her to buy more groceries.”

Please.

2. Living with my idol

Evening, inside the apartment, at the dining table.

Meryl looked at Lydia, who was sitting opposite Natsukawa Tora.

"I didn't expect you to retire, Lydia. It really gave me a fright."

"Hmm, I remember people in the Clock Tower were discussing this a few days ago, mostly fans of Miss Lydelle," Gray recalled. "Why choose this time to retire? Miss Lydelle is still very popular, isn't she?"