A quiet, deserted public park in Miyama Town.
During this freezing season, unless absolutely necessary, most sensible residents preferred huddling beside their warm kotatsu at home rather than braving the biting winter winds.
“Looks like it might snow later.” Surtr lounged casually across a wooden park bench, taking a crisp bite of an ice pop.
The refreshing chill surged from her palate straight to the crown of her head, leaving her instantly revitalized.
In her past life, she had possessed an undying passion for frozen treats—especially in the dead of winter.
Downing ice cream in freezing weather felt practically heavenly.
And pairing it with a boiling, spicy hot pot was pure bliss.
Unfortunately, her frail mortal constitution back then had strictly forbidden such decadent indulgences a single popsicle usually resulted in days of stomach cramps and bed rest.
Now, possessing the apocalyptic anatomy of a Fire Giant, such petty physiological concerns were entirely obsolete.
She could devour a dozen frozen pops in one sitting without breaking a sweat.
Polishing off the popsicle in three quick bites, Surtr leaned back against the bench, gazing up at the gray winter clouds.
You might ask why she was slacking in a playground instead of actively hunting enemy Servants.
The simple answer: she couldn’t find a single trace.
She had spent half the morning scouring Miyama’s commercial districts, and aside from eating her way through half a dozen street food stalls, she hadn’t crossed paths with a single Heroic Spirit.
Servants were supernatural anomalies that couldn’t easily blend into mundane crowds within ordinary human civilian density, their spiritual signatures shone as bright as halogen floodlights in pitch darkness.
If a Servant entered her vicinity, her instincts would pick them up immediately.
Yet there was absolutely nothing.
She had even taken another stroll past Homurahara Academy, only to realize the entire campus was deserted because it was Saturday.
At this rate, her reconnaissance mission had devolved into a pure sightseeing vacation.
Not that she minded a relaxing walk, but wandering alone through a foreign city felt slightly lonely.
‘I should have dragged Medea along with me.’ With the massive hoard of gold and yen plundered from the Matou vaults, financing an extravagant shopping spree was child’s play.
“Phew…” Warm breath condensed into clouds of white steam.
Surtr stretched her limbs, hopping off the park bench with fluid grace.
Since no rogue Servants were roaming the streets, she might as well march over to Fuyuki Church for an unannounced inspection before heading back to Mount Enzou.
Kotomine Kirei wasn’t the type to abandon his confessional booth on the weekend, right?
Just as she took her first step, a thunderous explosion echoed from several blocks away.
Boom—!
Surtr’s eyes instantly ignited with excitement.
‘Did a Servant brawl finally break out?!’ A busy commercial avenue in Miyama Town.
Billowing clouds of choking black smoke poured into the sky from a residential intersection.
Dozens of frantic civilians crowded along the sidewalks, shouting in chaotic alarm.
“Where are the fire trucks?!” “My limited-edition anime poster is still in my bedroom!” “My life savings are in that safe!” “Did everyone make it out of the stairwell?!” Surtr, blending casually into the panicked crowd, let out a disappointed sigh.
Though calling herself disappointed during a civilian emergency sounded a bit heartless, that was the genuine emotion coursing through her.
It really was just a mundane gas explosion.
The structure on fire was a seven-story residential apartment complex.
The blaze had spread with alarming speed, engulfing the upper tiers in dense, toxic smoke.
Surtr’s gaze drifted across the panicked crowd.
Normally, during public disasters, the system interface would pop up with dozens of rescue commissions.
The individual payouts were minor, but tiny drops eventually filled a bucket.
If she were the type of unprincipled villain who resorted to any means necessary, she could easily stage artificial disasters across Fuyuki just to farm endless Primogem bounties.
[Notice: Malicious generation of artificial crisis points is strictly prohibited.] The instant the devious thought crossed her mind, a red warning prompt materialized across her vision.
‘Hey, I was just spitballing hypothetical game mechanics!’ Having endured nine years of standardized compulsory education, Surtr considered herself to possess a solid moral compass.
“Is anyone still trapped inside the building?” Surtr tapped the shoulder of an anxious woman in an office suit nearby.
“I-I’m not sure…” The woman shook her head frantically she had just arrived on the scene herself.
Yet before she could finish her sentence, a loud scream erupted from the front of the crowd.
“Look up!
There’s a child trapped on the fourth-floor balcony!” Surtr immediately snapped her gaze toward the fourth floor.
Sure enough, huddled behind the stainless-steel balcony railing was a young girl of barely nine or ten years old.
The child was slumped against the concrete, choking on the thick smoke rolling out from her living room behind her, with a sheer ten-meter drop straight to the pavement in front.
Every escape vector was completely blocked.
Bang!
The escalating blaze detonated a volatile spray can inside the apartment.
The resulting shockwave blew the balcony window panes outward, sending shattered glass flying over the girl’s head to rain onto the street below.
The situation had turned critically lethal.
Surtr quietly slipped out from the rear of the crowd.
A four-story vertical leap was nothing more than a casual hop for her superhuman musculature, but landing a superhero jump in broad daylight would plaster her face across tomorrow morning’s news broadcast.
Channeling delicate air currents around her frame, Surtr manifested a personalized thermal-refraction cloak—a Fire Giant’s crude knockoff of King Arthur’s Invisible Air.
While a keen observer might notice a shimmering heat haze distorting the light, amid billowing smoke and screaming crowds, nobody had the presence of mind to spot optical anomalies.
Planting her boots, Surtr bounded effortlessly onto the first-floor awning, ricocheted off a protruding air conditioning unit, and scaled the building facade with the silent, fluid grace of an apex feline.
With her current physical parameters, scaling a building was child’s play.
Clack.
Her boots landed softly upon the fourth-floor balcony tiles.
Scooping the unconscious, smoke-inhaling girl into her arms, Surtr turned toward the flaming living room and raised her left palm.
In an instant, the roaring inferno inside the apartment began to recede and extinguish with absolute, logic-defying obedience—as if bowing before the supreme decree of a primordial monarch.
Against mundane, non-magical combustion, Surtr exercised absolute dominion even over flames she hadn’t ignited herself.
The blistering heat and toxic carbon monoxide posed zero physical threat to her lungs her only minor concern was ensuring the charred floorboards didn’t collapse beneath their weight.
However, since she lacked healing spells, the girl still required immediate medical attention at a hospital.
Cradling the child against her chest, Surtr prepared to leap toward an empty alleyway below.
Yet just as she peered over the railing, her eyes caught sight of a frantic, red-haired figure clumsily scaling the exterior masonry beneath her.
‘Wait…
that’s…’ ‘Emiya Shirou?’ Surtr recognized that stubborn face instantly she had extracted Avalon from his gut barely twenty-four hours ago.
She hadn’t expected to bump into the future Hero of Justice during an afternoon stroll.
Fuyuki City was absurdly small.
Compared to Surtr’s effortless acrobatics, Shirou’s climbing form was undeniably awkward, yet his upward speed was surprisingly brisk.
With Surtr’s clairvoyant perception, she could clearly see that the boy had successfully channeled structural Reinforcement magecraft into his own limbs.
Even so, slipping from this height with amateur reinforcement would easily result in shattered bones or permanent paralysis.
‘As expected of the guy who dreams of saving everyone.’ Had Surtr not reincarnated into this demonic vessel, she would undoubtedly be just another passive bystander watching from the sidewalk.
Letting out an impressed sigh, Surtr didn’t linger to exchange pleasantries.
Wrapping a cocoon of wind around herself and the child, she slipped over the railing and plummeted toward the secluded alley below.
[Rescue Commission: Complete] [Reward: Primogems ×10] Using the exterior window sills and metal AC brackets as leverage, Emiya Shirou finally hauled himself over the fourth-floor concrete lip.
He let out a ragged, trembling gasp of air.
Perhaps driven by pure, desperate urgency to save a life, this had been the very first time in his life he had successfully stabilized Reinforcement magecraft across his own biological frame.
Thanks to that miraculous breakthrough, he had managed to scale the sheer brick wall in under a minute.
Otherwise, with his mundane physical conditioning, he wouldn’t have made it past the first awning.
Yet even with reinforced muscles, a single misstep from this height would have put him in the ICU for months.
Not daring to look down at the dizzying pavement below, Shirou anxiously whipped his head toward the balcony floor.
He knew he lacked the physical strength to carry a child down four stories on his back that was far too reckless, endangering both himself and the victim.
However, there was an intermediate maintenance ledge between the third and fourth floors.
If he could lower her down to the ledge first, it would be infinitely safer than leaving her trapped in this blazing inferno.
Yet the moment he vaulted over the railing, the person waiting on the balcony was no longer a helpless little girl.
Standing calmly beside the charred doorframe was a strikingly gorgeous, crimson-haired young woman around seventeen or eighteen years old.
Crowning her head was a pair of obsidian-black horns that curved toward the sky like jagged blades, while her deep, violet pupils peered down at him with amused detachment.
‘An…
anomaly?!’ Even as a third-rate magical novice, Shirou’s basic senses screamed that the girl before him was an entity that completely defied the natural order.
Those menacing demonic horns were definitely not Halloween cosplay accessories.
“Keep your mouth shut.
You don’t want to bite your tongue.” A calm, enigmatic warning drifted into his ears.
Before Shirou’s brain could even process the words, a sudden blur overtook his vision as an overwhelming sensation of zero gravity crushed into his stomach.
“Whoaaaa—?!” A thoroughly undignified yelp tore from his throat.
Following a split-second whirl of vertigo, the hard black asphalt of the alleyway rushed up to meet his face.
Bite!
A sharp, metallic tang of blood flooded his mouth he had indeed bitten his tongue on the way down.
Like a commuter tossing a piece of oversized luggage, Surtr gripped the scruff of Shirou’s jacket and touched down with featherlight precision.
Splat!
Releasing her grip, Emiya Shirou’s face made intimate, unbuffered contact with the icy pavement.