“I think that’s about enough for now, right?”
As another round ended, Chika Fujiwara let out a long sigh and downed a large glass of water, glancing at the timer on the group chat interface.
“I’ll need to take a shower as soon as I get back, otherwise my older sister and Moeha might notice something is off…”
“Agreed,” the others replied, checking the time.
Esdeath gestured toward the remaining half of the Winged Lion and asked, “Will you be coming back during the day?”
“Hmm…” Chika thought for a moment.
“It’s currently break time, so I can probably find some excuse to disappear for a day or two.
As long as I show my face in the evening, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Same here,” Utaha Kasumigaoka added quickly.
Previously, they had only set aside one evening because the initial plan was simply to meet up offline.
Now that they knew the Danger Beasts of this world had such beneficial properties—and having learned the specific posture from Byakuya to assist with digestion and absorption—their holiday schedules naturally had to be adjusted.
“And you two?” Esdeath nodded, looking toward Byakuya and Yukari Yakumo.
“I have some things to attend to during this period, but carving out a few days shouldn’t be an issue,” Yukari said.
“For me…
we’ll see, but it should be fine,” Byakuya answered, sensing the benefits his body had gained from a night of eating roasted meat.
With the agreement to meet again during the day, the four otherworldly visitors didn’t even wait for Esdeath to settle the accounts.
They simply navigated to the quest interface, selected her mission, and clicked ‘Abandon.’
Just as it was when they arrived, there was a brief moment of disorientation.
When their vision cleared, they had returned from Esdeath’s world to Earth in the Nasuverse.
Byakuya found himself exactly where he had left off—in that specific room within the Matou Residence.
However…
“You’re awake?” Byakuya greeted Sakura Matou.
She was sitting blankly on the bed, her vacant eyes only flickering with a hint of life the moment he appeared.
***
A short while later.
“Relax.
I told you, I have business to attend to here in Fuyuki.
I’m definitely not leaving until it’s finished.”
Having essentially acquired a personal shadow who followed him everywhere he went, Byakuya stopped in his tracks and turned around to address the little tail trailing behind him.
“…” Sakura pursed her lips, remaining silent.
“Fine, follow me if you want,” Byakuya sighed, shaking his head.
The young girl’s thoughts weren’t hard to guess.
The moment she had entered this house, Zouken Matou had dragged her straight to the worm pit.
To say her initial impression of the Matou family was “negative” would be a massive understatement.
As for the Tohsaka family…
After rescuing her yesterday, Byakuya had spoken with her.
He learned that Tokiomi Tohsaka had spent the previous few days explaining why she had to be adopted into the Matou family.
While the girl hadn’t understood everything, she remembered the core message: that leaving was for the best, for both her and her sister.
That was why, when Byakuya had asked her in the worm pit if she wanted to return to the Tohsakas, she had replied, “I can’t go back.”
Furthermore, considering that Tokiomi Tohsaka was the one who had personally handed her over to Zouken Matou—a man who threw her into a pit of worms the moment she stepped through the door—it was hard to say what her current feelings toward Tokiomi were.
Even if Byakuya had pointed out that Tokiomi, following the rules of magi, likely wouldn’t risk offending the Matous to the point of investigating their specific Magecraft—and thus probably didn’t know his ally had become such a monster—the damage was done.
Trapped between a new home she hated and an old home she couldn’t return to, she had likely viewed Byakuya—the man who had pulled her out of that pit—as the only lifeline left to grasp.
The two of them made their way to the kitchen.
Seeing that everything from the pots and pans to the cabinets and stove had been completely renewed, and that the rice, flour, and vegetables were all fresh, Byakuya nodded in satisfaction.
After asking Sakura about her preferences, he used a piece of Winged Lion meat he had brought back from Esdeath’s world to start simmering a meat porridge.
The person responsible for renovating the entire kitchen was Tsuruno Matou, Zouken Matou’s eldest son and the previous official head of the Matou family.
Yesterday, after dealing with Zouken Matou, Byakuya had led Sakura out of the now-worm-free pit.
There, he encountered Tsuruno Matou, who had rushed over to investigate after hearing the final Lion’s Roar that had purged the pests.
Following a round of “friendly negotiations,” Tsuruno—upon learning that Zouken was dead and that Sakura would inherit the “Matou” name—happily agreed to Byakuya’s proposal that Sakura be recognized as the head of the Matou family starting today.
He promised to manage the family’s secular assets until Sakura reached adulthood, at which point she could decide whether to keep him on or give him a retirement fund to live out his days.
To be clear, this “friendly negotiation” was exactly that—friendly.
Tsuruno’s “happiness” was entirely genuine.
As for why…
The magus known as Zouken Matou had a habit of throwing anyone he got a hold of into the worm pit; it was simply his way of treating all his clansmen with “equal fairness.”
As his soul rotted away over centuries of erosion, Zouken had gradually begun to project his sadistic whims onto his own kin.
By the time Tsuruno’s generation arrived, although Tsuruno was only the nominal heir due to his poor aptitude for magic, he was well aware of exactly what kind of monster his nominal father—who was actually an ancestor from five generations ago—really was.
In the past, he had no choice but to endure his fear of Zouken Matou and his disgust for the Matou family’s magecraft.
But now that Zouken was gone, Byakuya had arranged things so that the vast secular assets of the Matou family would be under his complete control for the next dozen years.
Even in the worst-case scenario—once Sakura Matou reached adulthood—the most he would lose is control over those assets.
By then, he would have amassed enough wealth to ensure that he and his son could retire in absolute luxury for the rest of their lives.
It was no exaggeration to say that Tsuruno Matou, who had whisked her son, Shinji Matou, away from the Matou Residence overnight to check into a luxury suite at a hotel in Shinto, was practically skipping with joy.
While the porridge simmered on the stove, Byakuya took a moment to discuss future arrangements with the young girl.
He wanted to avoid another misunderstanding like the one from this morning, where a simple errand had left her feeling as though she had been abandoned again.
“I’ll have to leave often…
just like I did last night,” Byakuya explained.
Sakura Matou blinked.
“Are the books in the study no longer useful to you, Big Brother?”
“It’s not that they aren’t useful,” Byakuya replied, shaking his head.
“It’s just that, for the time being, the help I can get from the other side is far more significant.”
As a magus who had lived for five hundred years and had once been close friends with legendary figures like Leonardo da Vinci and Paracelsus, Zouken Matou had possessed a staggering collection of magical texts.
Although he had spent the last century or two mostly holed up in Japan, the three hundred years prior had allowed him to accumulate an incredible library.
His collection spanned everything from the analysis of basic magecraft to explorations of the “Origin” and the “Root,” and from tests of modern magecraft to traces of the Age of Gods.
Although it looked as if Zouken himself hadn’t opened some of those books in a century, they were indeed there, lining the shelves of the Matou Residence’s study.
Unfortunately…
‘Magic Circuits…’
Byakuya sighed, knowing he was fundamentally locked out of the world of magecraft due to a lack of innate aptitude.
He could only hope that everything would go smoothly during the Fourth Holy Grail War a year from now.
Compared to the currently useless books in the Matou library, the benefits provided by the Danger Beasts from Esdeath’s world were far more tangible.
Those creatures provided resources that could break the limits of the human body, regardless of how poor one’s innate talent was, as long as one was willing to consume them.
Furthermore, Esdeath, as the ruler of her world, was remarkably generous.
“I have no interest in these matters currently; my daily hunts provide more than enough for my survival,” Esdeath had told him.
“My only pursuits now are fighting and becoming stronger.
However, if you need the flesh and blood of Danger Beasts, I can keep that quest open and let you come and hunt them yourselves.
As long as you don’t overdo it, you may keep your prey.”
This was Esdeath’s response when Chika Fujiwara, having experienced the synergy between “Danger Beast flesh” and the “techniques taught by Byakuya,” asked if she was interested in establishing a long-term trade.
“Help?”
Sakura Matou bit her lip.
“If I can keep being helpful to you, Big Brother…
does that mean you’ll never leave me?”
“What are you thinking?”
Knowing she still hadn’t fully recovered from her trauma, Byakuya reached out and ruffled her hair.
“Sakura, you’re so cute.
Even if you couldn’t help me with anything, I couldn’t bear to leave—huh?”
“Mm~”
The Command Spells, which had appeared on the back of his hand years ago after he dealt with the killer Ryunosuke Uryuu but had remained dormant ever since, suddenly “awakened,” transmitting a message to him.
Before he could ponder why this was happening, a mental chime rang out.
At the exact same moment, he looked over and saw three vivid red marks appearing on the young girl’s hand.
This…
was this right?