“Hiss, so painful.”
He didn’t get hurt because the distance was very close, but the pain was still inevitable.
Standing up, Emiya Shirou rubbed his slightly flushed nose, and his gaze fell upon Surtr.
“Um, who are you…”
Subconsciously, he used honorifics.
Although the other person looked to be about his age, the strength she had just demonstrated was obviously not that of an ordinary person.
“My name is Surtr.”
Surtr looked over the boy, and the other person’s wish resurfaced in her heart.
Wanting to become an ally of justice.
A wish with quite generous rewards, and the conditions for fulfillment were also very ambiguous.
She had felt it was too troublesome before and didn’t think much about it, but since she ran into him again, she might as well give it a try; anyway, she was quite idle right now.
‘Pardon me, what is the standard for fulfilling this wish?
Also, do I have to help him until he becomes an ally of justice?’
Surtr asked in her heart.
[Whether the wish is fulfilled is decided by the client. If Emiya Shirou feels that he has become an ally of justice, the wish will be accomplished.]
[The host needs to make a pivotal impact during the process of the other person becoming an ally of justice. The system will give different levels of rewards based on the degree of impact.]
‘A pivotal impact?
For example?’
[For example, how to become an ally of justice, whether to rewalk the path of Heroic Spirit Emiya or choose to be an ally of justice for a single person, and so on.]
I see.
In other words, she was supposed to be the other person’s life mentor?
This made Miss Surtr, who preferred action over talking, feel quite troublesome.
‘Pardon me, what if I brainwash the other person with magecraft…’
Surtr unconsciously thought of Medea’s previous words, but before she finished thinking, a big cross appeared in front of her eyes.
[Brainwashing is strictly prohibited. Please, host, do not try to cut corners.]
‘I was just thinking about it.’
[Being able to think of such things already shows that the host’s mindset has a big problem.]
Miss System’s sharp critique.
I consider myself to have a relatively correct worldview.
Surtr muttered to herself.
She felt that it must have been Medea who influenced her, all because the other person talked about brainwashing.
The conversation with the system did not last long before Emiya Shirou’s slightly restrained voice came over.
“Um, hello. My name is Emiya Shirou, thank you for saving me. Was that girl on the balcony earlier rescued by you?”
“Yeah, I handed her over to the nearby police.”
Surtr nodded.
For this, she also obtained a reward of fifty Primogems.
Extinguishing the fire helped them a great deal.
She recommended having more of these things where Primogems could be earned just by lifting a finger.
“That’s great.”
Emiya Shirou breathed a sigh of relief, genuinely feeling happy for that girl.
Surtr, on the other hand, was calculating in her heart how to complete the task.
Through the memories of her past life, she knew that the boy in front of her was an absolute altruist, possessing a distorted sense of justice and self-sacrificing spirit due to his childhood experiences.
The value of life for him was helping others.
Miss Surtr had no way of understanding this kind of helping psychology that completely ignored oneself.
She was no psychology master and didn’t have much of a solution for the other person’s personality.
But if it was just giving some advice on the other person’s actions as an ally of justice, she felt there was no problem at all.
Of course, the premise was to keep this conversation going.
“Your name is Emiya Shirou, right? It sounds a bit like someone I know.”
Looking at Emiya Shirou in front of her, Surtr suddenly said.
“His name is Emiya Kiritsugu, a guy with black hedgehog hair and eyes like a dead person. Do you know him?”
Compared to awkward small talk like nice weather today, starting with someone both parties knew was undoubtedly much more effective.
“Kiritsugu?”
Seeming to hear a familiar name from the mouth of a stranger, Emiya Shirou’s tone carried surprise.
The surname Emiya was not uncommon in the Far East, and aside from his adoptive father, he couldn’t think of anyone else with the traits pointed out by the other person.
But saying his eyes were like a dead person was a bit too much, even though it was a fact.
“He is my adoptive father. Are you an acquaintance of Kiritsugu?”
Emiya Shirou was puzzled; the other person didn’t look much older than him, so where did Kiritsugu meet her?
“No, it’s just that I am unilaterally quite familiar with him. After all, he is quite famous among magi.”
Surtr’s gaze swept over a snow-white figure by the roadside, and she reached out to point aside, motioning for the other person to walk and talk.
“Famous?”
Emiya Shirou’s curiosity was successfully piqued, and following Surtr, he asked.
Even though he had lived with Emiya Kiritsugu for many years, other than knowing the other person was a magus, he could be said to know nothing else about him.
“Mhm, he is called the Magus Killer, a rather cold-blooded guy who uses any means to achieve his goals.”
Surtr recalled her memories of Emiya Kiritsugu.
“How could that be! Kiritsugu has clearly always been a gentle person.”
Emiya Shirou’s tone couldn’t help rising a bit, seemingly disbelieving the other person’s statement.
Emiya Kiritsugu in his impression was an extremely great person.
To this day, he still remembered the emotion contained in those eyes of the other person when he saved him, as if he had attained redemption.
“I am just speaking the truth. Of course, I won’t refute you either; after all, people change under different environments.”
“He is the naive one, he is the cold-blooded one, and he is the gentle one.”
“In my view, he is a rather contradictory person. Out of curiosity, I specially learned about him. After knowing all this, in my opinion, Emiya Kiritsugu is a poor fellow tormented by an obsession.”
Surtr walked in front and reached out her hand, and a work-of-art-like white pigeon fell from the air, landing on her arm.
“Obsession? Does Kiritsugu have any obsession?”
Emiya Shirou frowned, vaguely harboring a guess.
“It’s that ‘wanting to become an ally of justice’. Since you are his adopted son, you should know.”
“But that should be Kiritsugu’s ideal.”
There was some anger in his tone; he didn’t understand why the other person would say that.
There is still a big gap between an obsession and an ideal.
“Let’s use an analogy. You should know the trolley problem, right?”
Surtr snapped her fingers lightly and asked.
“Mhm, that’s the thought experiment of controlling a train to crash into five people or one person, right?”
Emiya Shirou nodded.
“Then, which side would you choose?”
“How can anyone choose this! There must be other ways.”
Emiya Shirou blurted out almost instantly.
“Normal people would indeed think like that.”
Surtr nodded.
If it were her, she would probably think about what methods there were first, and if that didn’t work, she’d simply let them fend for themselves.
Although she would help others because of her own upbringing, to be honest, she completely wouldn’t care if an unknown person died in front of her.
“But Emiya Kiritsugu is not like that. If it were him, he would definitely kill the smaller number of people without hesitation.”
“How is that possible!”
Emiya Shirou subconsciously denied it; he didn’t think that gentle adoptive father in his memory would do such a thing.
“This is the him I know.”
Surtr told the other person to stay calm.
“Emiya Kiritsugu’s past experiences made him feel that wanting to protect a part means sacrificing a part. After being a killer for so many years, this mindset has been engraved deep in his heart.”
“He might have said similar things to you.”
Emiya Shirou was speechless, because the other person had indeed said such things.
Whenever he recalled the other person’s lifeless eyes, he felt that perhaps this was not impossible.
Before leaving, Kiritsugu said he gave up his dream.
Was it because reality made him give up?
“That’s why I said this is an obsession. People with ideals will look for more possibilities, but obsessions often lead people to extremes.”
Surtr made a summary.
Hearing the other person’s words, inexplicably, a sense of creepiness crawled up Emiya Shirou’s spine.
It was as if the other person was not talking about Kiritsugu, but talking about himself.