Yoru Hayashi held Tohsaka Sakura in his arms, and the moment he stepped off the dark staircase leading to the first floor, system notifications went off in his head like a barrage of New Year’s firecrackers, popping one after another.
[Ding!
Rewards generated.]
[Reward 1: Advanced Martial Arts — Bajiquan (B-Rank)]
[Note: Originates from a certain hypocritical priest who loves Mapo Tofu.
Bajiquan is a specialized cure for all kinds of flashy stationary spellcasting.
Combined with the host’s brash fighting style, it is the ultimate romance for a melee mage.]
[Reward 2: Passive Skill — Battle Continuation (C-Rank)]
[Note: As long as your head isn’t chopped off or your heart isn’t completely crushed, even if your guts spill all over the ground, you can still finish hurling your last curse and sprint two kilometers.
For a host who frequently courts death, this is a divine skill.]
[Reward 3: Starter Survival Pack — Compliant Identification (1993 Fuyuki City Permanent Resident) and Initial Funds of 500,000 Yen.]
[Note: Don’t say the system isn’t thoughtful—these are genuine Fukuzawa Yukichi bills.]
Listening to the announcement in his head, Yoru Hayashi almost couldn’t hold back a roar of laughter into the sky.
Relief!
Total relief!
“Kirei Kotomine’s Bajiquan?
System, you finally did something decent!” Yoru laughed wildly in his heart.
In the Type-Moon universe, mages usually kept their distance and pelted each other with spells, but there were always a few oddballs lacking martial honor who preferred getting right in your face for hand-to-hand combat.
Kirei Kotomine was a prime example.
His Bajiquan had shattered the pride of countless orthodox mages.
Now, this entire martial art was directly imprinted into Yoru Hayashi’s mind.
He felt a sudden swell at the back of his head, and a vast body of muscle memory regarding force generation, footwork, and breathing rhythm fused into his DNA in an instant.
He even had the illusion that if a bull were standing in front of him right now, he could smash it into beef jerky with a single Iron Mountain Lean.
“Big brother…
does…
does your head hurt?”
Sakura, snuggled in Yoru’s arms, watched the big brother holding her suddenly grimace, only to follow up with a greasy, smug smile like he had just won the lottery.
She couldn’t help asking softly.
Toward this stranger who had fished her out of hell, little Sakura’s feelings were complex.
Fear was certainly part of it—after all, this man had just turned that terrifying “grandfather” into a pile of minced meat.
But even more than that, she felt a sense of reliance, like a drowning person grasping at a lifeline.
Because Yoru Hayashi’s chest was warm, unlike the bone-chilling cold of the Matou household.
“Ah?
I’m fine, totally fine.” Yoru Hayashi immediately reined in his ecstatic expression and looked down at Sakura with a gentle smile.
“Brother was just thinking about what good food to take you out for in a bit.”
“Food…” Sakura’s eyes dimmed slightly.
“But…
Father already adopted me out to this place.
If I run away without permission, Father will be angry.
And…
Uncle Kariya will get in trouble too.”
Seeing the little girl’s submissive, obedient look, the sudden spark of rage ignited in Yoru Hayashi’s heart again.
That old bastard Tokiomi Tohsaka, for the sake of the so-called magecraft inheritance, had shoved such a sweet daughter right into a pit of fire.
While Tokiomi wasn’t wrong according to the brutal logic of mages, to Yoru Hayashi, a modern person raised under nine years of compulsory education, this was pure braindead madness!
“Remember this, Sakura.” Yoru Hayashi stopped in his tracks, his expression turning unusually serious as he looked her in the eyes, speaking word by word.
“From the moment that old geezer intended to throw you into a pile of bugs, you owed the Matou family nothing.
As for that birth father of yours from the Tohsaka family—if he dares come asking for you, I’ll stuff him and his precious elegance straight down the sewers of Fuyuki City.”
Sakura stared blankly at Yoru Hayashi, a strange light flickering in her reddish-violet eyes that she couldn’t quite understand herself.
Just as the atmosphere began to warm up, shuffling footsteps in slippers echoed from the corridor nearby.
“So noisy…
In the middle of the night, what on earth is going on in the basement?
Is Father tormenting some unlucky bastard who crossed him again?”
A skinny man with greasy hair, dark eye sockets, and a loose bathrobe yawned and rubbed his eyes as he walked out from around the corner.
The newcomer was Shinji Matou’s biological father, Tohsaka Sakura’s current nominal adoptive father, and the Matou family’s number-one piece of trash—Tsuruno Matou.
This guy not only had almost non-existent Magic Circuits, but his character was completely rotten.
Usually, he relied on the family’s lingering influence to indulge in wine and women outside, while at home he was a total spineless coward.
When Tsuruno’s eyes met Yoru Hayashi, who was holding Sakura, the air suddenly went still.
He froze for two seconds, rubbed his eyes vigorously, and confirmed he wasn’t hallucinating.
A strange young man dressed in odd modern casual clothes was strutting down the hallway of his own home, holding the future “magecraft incubator” of the Matou family!
“Who…
who are you?!
A thief?
No, could you be an enemy mage?!” Tsuruno stumbled backward in terror, but quickly tried to act tough, shouting, “Let go of that girl!
Do you have any idea this is the estate of the Matou family, one of the Three Founding Families of Fuyuki City?!
Believe it or not, I won’t let you walk out that door!”
Shouting as he went, Tsuruno hurriedly fumbled out a crumpled paper talisman from his bathrobe pocket and began stammering out a clunky magecraft chant.
*Buzz—*
A few flying insects with razor-sharp wings crawled clumsily out of the talisman, hovering above Tsuruno’s head.
With a spellcasting speed so riddled with openings, if Yoru Hayashi felt like it, he would have enough time to light a cigarette and slap him across the face twice before he finished.
“Do all the people of the Matou family have the same cheesy entrance lines?”
Yoru Hayashi sneered, gently placing Sakura down beside the staircase handrail, and patted her small head.
“Close your eyes and count to three.
It’ll be over in a second.”
Sakura obediently covered her eyes with both hands.
“One.”
Yoru Hayashi kicked off the ground, sweeping forward in a low rush.
Having just obtained mastery over Bajiquan, his footwork was terrifyingly solid.
His foot slammed hard against the wooden floorboards with a heart-stopping thud, directly cracking the solid wood into a spiderweb of fractures.
“Two.”
Before Tsuruno could process what was happening, he felt a gale of wind rush into his face.
The few blade-winged insects above his head came into contact with the passive [Pesticide] aura emanating from Yoru Hayashi.
As if they had drunk fake liquor, they twitched and dropped straight to the ground, dying instantly on the spot.
“You—”
Tsuruno’s pupils shrank, and before his terrified shriek could squeeze out of his throat, Yoru Hayashi’s figure had appeared right in front of him like a ghost.
Yoru Hayashi lowered his shoulder abruptly, aligning his hips and waist, and a domineering, peerless inch-force traveled sequentially through his spine, slamming viciously into Tsuruno’s chest.
Bajiquan — Iron Mountain Lean!
*Crack!*
*Pfft-wah—!*
Tsuruno Matou was knocked flying as if hit head-on by a dump truck going 120 kilometers per hour.
Both of his feet left the ground, and he spewed out a massive mouthful of sour liquid and stomach fluid midair, flying backward seven or eight meters.
He smashed heavily into a valuable blue-and-white porcelain vase at the end of the corridor, rolling his eyes back and passing out on the spot, his fate unknown.
“Three.”
Hearing the noise, Sakura quietly parted her fingers and peeked through the gaps.
Tsuruno Matou, who had just been baring his fangs and brandishing his claws, was now slumped in the shattered porcelain like a dead dog, while the big brother was crouching beside him, doing something that didn’t quite fit the image of a “hero of justice.”
Yoru Hayashi deftly pulled open Tsuruno’s bathrobe, his hands rapidly searching the man’s body.
“This trash looks greasy, but he’s actually pretty loaded.”
Yoru Hayashi pulled a thick crocodile-skin wallet from Tsuruno’s inner pocket.
Opening it, he saw it stuffed with a thick stack of 10,000-yen bills—at a glance, at least 300,000 to 400,000 yen, and even a few bank cards without passwords beside them.
Yoru Hayashi unhesitatingly pulled out all the cash, stuffed it into his pants pocket, and tossed the empty wallet onto the greasy face in disgust.
Well, the 500,000 yen from the system was just starter capital.
Now he was carrying a dependent.
Wouldn’t eating, lodging, and buying clothes all cost money in the future?
This was called robbing the rich to help the poor, got it?
Looting some gold from the Matou family on the way gave him zero psychological pressure; in fact, he felt he took too little.
Finished, Yoru Hayashi clapped the dust off his hands, stood up, walked to Sakura, and picked her up again.
“Alright, roadblock cleared.
Let’s move out.”
This time, he didn’t encounter any further resistance.
When Yoru Hayashi pushed open the heavy iron gate of the Matou estate holding Sakura and stepped out, the chilly early winter wind of Fuyuki City in 1993 blew against his face, making him shiver.
The moonlight was beautiful tonight, cold and clear as it bathed the quiet streets.
Yoru Hayashi glanced down at Sakura in his arms, who was wearing only a thin dress and already trembling in the cold wind.
He quickly took off his jacket and wrapped Sakura up tightly like a little rice dumpling, leaving only her eyes visible.
“A bit cold, huh?
Hold on a little longer.
Big brother is taking you to stay in the best, warmest hotel in all of Fuyuki City right now.
Tomorrow, we’ll buy a bunch of new clothes.”
Sakura was wrapped in the oversized jacket, which still retained Yoru Hayashi’s body heat and a faint soap scent.
This scent, full of the warmth of life, completely drove away the nauseating reek of bugs from the Matou household.
She secretly raised her head, looking at Yoru Hayashi’s sharp-featured face in the moonlight.
Though his actions were sometimes rough and he even dug through other people’s wallets, in little Sakura’s eyes, he was taller and grander than any mage.
“Big brother…” Sakura spoke softly.
“Hmm?
What is it?” Yoru Hayashi looked down at her.
“Are we…
never going back to that dark place again?”
Hearing the little girl’s cautious, probing tone, Yoru Hayashi paused.
He looked up at the deep night sky of Fuyuki City, his eyes filled with confidence.
“Go back?
Of course not.
Not only are we not going back, but once I settle you down in a bit, I’m coming back to set this trashy mansion on fire.”
Yoru Hayashi bounced the weight in his arms slightly and strode toward the brightly lit city center.
“Remember this, Sakura.
From today on, there is no Matou in your name.
As long as I, Yoru Hayashi, have a bite of meat to eat, I’ll never let you go hungry.
As for this bullshit Holy Grail War…”
A flash of fanatical mania unique to a “Fourth Calamity” gamer glinted in Yoru Hayashi’s eyes.
“If I don’t trick these high-and-mighty mages out of their undergarments, my name isn’t Pure Love God of War!”