To Become a King and a Magician

"What's wrong, Sajyou? You look exhausted today."

During lunch break, in the tea ceremony room.

Seeing Ayaka's weary appearance, Ciel, who was eating curry bread, asked with concern.

"Are you feeling unwell?"

"No… it's just that this morning was a bit too bizarre…"

Jumping across rooftops to get around—Ayaka was certain she never wanted to experience that again. No one could get used to Naoki's method of travel. It was terrible for her heart; several times, she felt like she was about to fly off.

Tearing off a piece of the curry bread Ciel handed her and taking a bite, Ayaka asked: "By the way, Senpai, you actually came to school today."

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

"Oh… right."

Though Ciel was from the Church, she couldn't use Magecraft—she could manage one or two Church-specific Magecrafts, but she considered them Mysteries that were generally useless. So, she wasn't a Magus and thus couldn't sense the time loop.

(That means only Naoki and I know about the situation… Are we the only ones who can resolve this?)

Ayaka sighed, feeling a bit burdened. Was it too much for her, an immature Magus, to handle such a major event? Though Naoki was incredibly strong, he himself said he was weaker than before and couldn't handle everything alone.

(Weaker than before…?)

Recalling last night's events, Ayaka couldn't associate Naoki with the word 'weak' at all. Just how powerful was he before?

"Sajyou."

Ciel suddenly called her name.

"This afternoon, Moon Fall is leaving, right? Are you going to see them off?"

"Hm… Yeah, maybe. It's polite to see off a guest."

In truth, Ayaka's school had no classes on Friday afternoons, so she could have gone to the station to see Naoki off at 2:30 PM—but not today, since Naoki was now staying at her house. She just needed to head home later.

(Wait a second… he's going to keep staying at my house?)

Ayaka suddenly realized this issue.

Naoki left after escorting her to school. She'd subconsciously assumed he'd go home, but he hadn't said anything about leaving, had he?

So, doesn't that mean Naoki would be wandering around?

(He… he wouldn't cause trouble for me, right?)

Ayaka still remembered the stories Ciel told her about Naoki's deeds. He was someone who could trigger major incidents that made the Mage's Association and the Church's blood pressure spike at any moment. Expecting him to stay calm was like expecting the sun to rise in the west.

Yesterday, since Naoki was supposed to leave and hadn't caused much trouble, Ayaka hadn't paid it much mind. But now that he was stuck in Tokyo and couldn't leave, and he said he'd investigate in his own way, what if…

*SWOOSH!*

Quickly finishing her curry bread, Ayaka stood abruptly: "Senpai, I have something urgent this afternoon, so I'll head out first."

"Huh? Something urgent?"

Watching Ayaka leave in a rush, Ciel lifted her teacup and took a sip: "So hasty… I still wanted to talk to her about the spiritual phenomena. Oh well, tonight then."

◆━⊰✧⊱━◆

Meanwhile—

"There are quite a few spiritual phenomena."

In an alley, Naoki kicked apart a spiritual phenomenon lunging at him, then glanced at the chaos behind him—in this alley alone, he'd already dealt with five or six urban legends that had taken physical form.

When Ayaka mentioned it before, Naoki thought there weren't many spiritual phenomena and that they only appeared at night. But now, it was clear that while sunlight prevented these spirits from appearing during the day, in dark alleys like this, such entities were not uncommon.

Not just urban legends, but also corrupted evil spirits, undead, and entities resembling Shadow Servants.

"Residual Mana and information…?"

Watching the spirit dissipate with Mana under his foot, Naoki began to understand the essence of these beings.

Leylines were flows of Mana, but not just that. They also recorded information in the land—such as who passed through, what was done, or what happened here. All of that could be gleaned through leylines, though in a highly fragmented form.

For example, the alley Naoki was in had once been the site of a murder, but the leyline would only hold information like 'someone came here once,' which was essentially useless.

However, if a certain amount of Mana was applied to these fragmented pieces of information, spirits could be created—known as spiritual phenomena—though they could only manifest at specific locations and times.

Mordred's Shadow Servant was likely created this way. As a Servant who had been to many places, she could manifest highly complete entities.

"Kind of a hassle."

Considering a certain possibility, Naoki snorted. If that was the case, what he was dealing with now were just discarded residues, failed products. The 'real thing,' the truly troublesome one, hadn't appeared yet… or wasn't complete.

He couldn't handle the 'real thing.'

From the darkness ahead, footsteps echoed, and several dog-shaped spirits approached Naoki.

Might as well help lighten the workload—thinking this, Naoki kicked all the spirits in front of him into oblivion.

◆━⊰✧⊱━◆

In the Clock Tower of a parallel world.

"Tell me, is this really necessary?"

Holding the magic wand in her hand, Aoko asked Zelretch with slight hesitation.

"Wouldn't it be better to send me directly? Why do I have to bring… this magical girl wand?"

"It's a coordinate. The situation in that Tokyo is difficult for me to interfere with. It's not impossible you'd get sent straight into a wall. With this Craft Essence, you can be sure to arrive next to the person holding this wand, and that place isn't far from Tokyo."

Zelretch spoke seriously.

"I'm entrusting that kid to you. If he dies, both that world and this one will collapse."

"I know."