As it turned out, Emiya Shirou had hit the nail on the head with his Clock Tower, Jewel Geezer, and Bricisan references.
What he didn't know… was that this was full-on cross-server chat.
Charlotte had even been considering probing further to see if he was from the Japanese hybrid family, the Sakaki Eight Clans.
But halfway through typing, she was stunned to see a message from Shirou: "Something urgent, BRB"—and then he immediately went offline.
He ran away again!?
Staring at the now-grey, cloaked-silhouette avatar, Charlotte's cheeks puffed up in frustration as she gritted her teeth and stomped the floor.
"Hmph! I may not have inherited the full board authority yet, but one day I'll dig out your secrets!"
——
Having escaped the o-jōsama's pestering, Emiya Shirou let out a long sigh.
Phew... an alchemy noble house, huh…? Just hearing that always made him think of Goredolf from FGO—that chubby director whose alchemy specialty was "turning rotting meat into marbled beef," from the Clock Tower's Department of Political Science.
His impression of the Clock Tower and its bloated, overly rigid structure wasn't great. In the FGO worldline, when the Human Order was on the brink, the other two magical organizations pulled their weight, while the Clock Tower… flopped hard.
And let's not forget—they also had a thing for slapping Sealing Designations on so-called "rare talents" and sending Executors to capture and "retrieve" them.
So what counted as a rare talent?
If Shirou ever mastered Projection Magecraft to the point of deploying his Kojin Kyōkai: Unlimited Blade Works (Reality Marble: Unlimited Blade Works) as a human... yeah, that would qualify. Actually, even just being able to project Hōgu might be enough for them to come after him.
So despite the Clock Tower building schools and setting up branches around the world to gather disciples, Shirou couldn't bring himself to like them. If anything, he considered those Western organizations as potential enemies.
Still, his sudden log-off wasn't entirely an excuse to ditch Charlotte.
He had just received an encrypted call from an old bounty hunting teammate—Old Tang.
"Old Tang?"
"Haha, it's me! Shirou, buddy, I've got news on that ancient sword you wanted—Gan Jiang & Mo Ye!"
From the other end came enthusiastic, fluent American English. A clear image popped into Shirou's mind of a man with droopy brows and a cheerful face.
Old Tang's full name was Ronald Tang. Apparently a Chinese-American, he had dropped out of high school and lived in a Brooklyn slum. He made ends meet by doing bounty hunter jobs.
He always said he wasn't that skilled, but that he had outrageous luck. Even when other teams got wiped or injured exploring dangerous ruins, he'd stumble his way into treasures and walk out unharmed. His peers joked he had "god-tier dumb luck."
Shirou met him on a past job. When Old Tang saw Shirou casually forging alchemical weapons by hand, he was stunned. He cheerfully suggested they start flipping these "ancient-looking" weapons by selling them as relics from ancient ruins—saying they could make a fortune just chilling.
He even laughed and said:
"I'll dig, you fake. Once production's up, I'll find connections in the Hunter community, start a broker firm, bring in more brothers, and take full control of these kinds of jobs. Everyone gets rich!"
"You bring the muscle, I bring the manpower. Digging tombs, splitting treasure, getting rich—glory ahead for all of us!"
Old Tang's pitch was absurdly smooth. Shirou replied with a polite "Impressive, impressive. Let's both do our best."
Although he couldn't help but note, "By the way, 'everyone walks their own path' isn't what that Chinese proverb actually means."
Old Tang had then exclaimed, "Wait, you speak Chinese too?"
Shirou rolled his eyes. I used to be a native Chinese speaker in my last life.
Meanwhile, this guy—raised in the U.S.—suddenly busting out with Chinese? That was the weird part.
Tang waved it off and said he recently befriended a Chinese StarCraft player with the ID "MingMing," who was young but already good at playing Zerg. They got along, and Tang started practicing Chinese in chat, saying, "When our company goes big, we'll open a branch in China. Gotta be ready!"
Shirou didn't care about his StarCraft bragging or his so-called "lonely master" status in the esports world—Shirou didn't play RTS games.
"Alright, enough of that. Get to the point."
"Okay, okay—this mission is about Gan Jiang & Mo Ye. You and I are teaming up again. Lucky for us, I moved fast and snagged two slots. Had to call in a lot of favors."
"The mission site's in southeastern China, supposedly the ruins of the Chu Kingdom from the pre-Qin era. Very likely the Tomb of the Three Kings."
Gan Jiang & Mo Ye—the twin swords. They were Red Archer's most iconic weapons. For Shirou, they were the first Hōgu he planned to project. Said to possess mutual attraction and extreme sharpness, they were forged from rare metals, including life itself, and used in an assassination of the Chu king. The assassin, the king, and the swords were all buried in the Tomb of the Three Kings.
Then Old Tang mumbled something and said he'd set up a group chat with the mission sponsor—or rather, the broker.
Next thing Shirou knew, he was dragged into a newly created StarCraft chat channel.
There were three people: Shirou, Old Tang, and someone named "Wazhu".
"…?"
Wait. So your "connection" is… a gaming contact?!
"What? So what if it's from gaming? Connections are connections!" Old Tang declared shamelessly.
"You see 'Wazhu' in the channel? She's the mission's top coordinator. She's managing a team of hundreds. Just one word from her, and it's done. She's also a top-tier Protoss player—even I gotta bow down!"
For a second, Shirou thought Tang was trying to qualify for the IEM StarCraft finals or something.
He had no idea how to respond to this nonsense, so he deadpanned, "Oh, wow, that's incredible. What about that 'MingMing' you mentioned? How's his skill?"
"Ah, MingMing's still young. A bit behind. Barely trails behind me at third place. Lots of potential though," Tang said smugly, probably doing a "finger-universe" pose over the phone.
Next, Tang introduced Shirou to "Wazhu," hyping him up like he was a once-in-a-century prodigy.
Wazhu didn't reply for a while. Then she finally typed:
"An alchemical talent who awakened their bloodline naturally? Which hybrid family is he from?"
"Hybrid family?" Old Tang blinked, totally lost.
He was only half an "Inner World" person. He didn't even know about the true nature of the Dragon World.
"Hybrid bloodlines?" Shirou stepped in to explain. "That refers to those born from unions between humans and non-human races in ancient times. These descendants are often called hybrids, possessing enhanced stats and unique abilities."
Still, Shirou felt a bit uneasy inside.
The last time he'd heard the word "hybrid"…
Was back in his previous life, while playing Tsukihime. The Tōno family, who adopted protagonist Shiki, were hybrids of humans and demonic kin.
So what the hell kind of worldline was this?
Did I just get dragged into the Tsukihime set?!
(End of Chapter)
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