Shirou easily beat Fitz, winning the fight.
This wasn't a big deal for Shirou or Rudeus, but for the student council members and Fitz himself, it was unbelievable.
Fitz looked around in surprise at the many steel swords.
Shirou's sword magic had reached a point where each weapon he made was close to the quality of a top blacksmith's work.
Not only was Shirou's unique magic unheard of, but the speed at which he made weapons was unbelievable, almost instantly releasing the magic.
Fitz, who was actually Sylphy, hadn't seen Shirou's sword magic when she was little, so she didn't expect to see this.
Even after the fight, she was still stunned.
At the same time, after winning, Shirou calmly said, "Since I've won, let's end this here. Oh, you can take care of these two guys."
Shirou pointed at Linia and Pursena, who were on the ground, planning to hand the two beast-race princesses over to the student council.
The student council members were still not convinced and wanted to stop Shirou.
But Fitz had come back to her senses and said seriously:
"We agreed to the terms of the fight, and now that Shirou has won, we can't stop him."
"But... but..."
"Do you want to be scolded by Ariel Sama?"
Hearing Fitz's angry tone, the surroundings became noisy.
The student council members' faces turned pale, and they gasped. They all lowered their heads and didn't say anything, accepting Fitz's decision.
After the student council members left, Fitz came to Shirou and Rudeus and said, "I'm sorry, we were wrong this time. They did this because they admire the student council president too much..."
"It's okay."
Shirou nodded, not blaming them.
Fitz then sighed in relief, hesitated for a few moments, and quietly left.
"That guy is unexpectedly a good person."
Rudeus couldn't help saying, looking at Fitz's departing figure.
"Yeah."
Shirou nodded.
He looked at Fitz's back and felt strangely familiar, as if he had seen such a figure somewhere, but he couldn't remember where.
...
After returning to the dorm, Shirou and Rudeus parted ways for the time being.
Shirou didn't have a good solution for Rudeus's problem, so he could only rely on himself.
And after achieving his goal of finding his brother, Shirou's next step was to further develop his magic at this magic university and create sword magic that could actually be useful in battle.
Remembering what Headmaster Jinas had said to him before, Shirou gradually understood something.
High-level magic often goes in two directions.
One is a wider range.
The other is more extreme power.
In terms of release range, sword magic was already quite impressive.
Not to mention that Shirou also had Servant Emiya's Unlimited Blade Works. If he just created magic with a wider range, it would be almost meaningless to him.
Even if sword magic was powerful, it would only be a lower-level skill of Unlimited Blade Works.
So, if Shirou wanted to turn sword magic into an ability that could be used in actual combat, he had to move in the direction of extreme destructive power.
If ServantEmiya's Unlimited Blade Works led to the end of infinity, then what he had to do was return to the origin and achieve that ultimate one.
After having this idea, Shirou immediately started developing his sword magic.
But turning understanding into reality still takes time.
Most importantly, to improve his sword magic, he needed a forging workshop to forge weapons.
After all, sword magic is essentially the materialization of forging, and the ability to forge is directly related to the power of sword magic.
Therefore, Shirou found Headmaster Jinas the next day and asked about the progress of the forging workshop.
Headmaster Jinas didn't disappoint him, saying that the forging workshop was basically complete.
The reason he said "basically" was because the forging workshop only had a framework and exterior. It lacked the most important component: apprentices to help.
Ordinary forging workshops often consist of a blacksmith and many apprentices, because there are many complex processes involved.
The apprentices help the blacksmith and also learn knowledge, so they can inherit or open their own forging workshop in the future, passing down the tradition.
Shirou wasn't interested in taking in apprentices because he didn't think he was qualified to teach others how to forge.
But he did need some helpers who could handle the various tasks in the forging workshop.
So he asked Headmaster Jinas for staff, but the latter was very troubled.
After all, this was a magic university, not a sword arts university. Most students didn't use weapons or armor, so they didn't need a forging workshop.
There might not be a single blacksmith within a few kilometers of the entire magic university, let alone professional apprentices who knew forging knowledge.
However, Headmaster Jinas finally gave Shirou an idea: buy slaves and personally teach them forging knowledge to train them as apprentices.
Shirou was silent about Headmaster Jinas's idea.
He had never really wanted to get involved with slaves.
Shirou always knew that slavery was a basic system that existed in this world, a part of the era that individual power couldn't change. But Shirou was also deeply influenced by ServantEmiya. His sense of justice deep down made it impossible for him to ignore the oppressive system of slavery.
With the conflict between the two, Shirou's final choice was to ignore it.
As long as he pretended that slavery didn't exist, he wouldn't be questioned by ServantEmiya's soul.
Now, Headmaster Jinas was telling Shirou to buy slaves. While it was essentially to solve the problem of the forging workshop lacking staff, it also forced Shirou to face the reality that slavery still existed in this world.
Even if Shirou wanted to continue ignoring everything as before, he couldn't do it.
"Alright, I'll give it a try."
In Headmaster Jinas's ears, Shirou's words meant that he was going to try buying slaves at the slave market.
But for Shirou himself, he was planning to face the slave market in person to see if he could withstand the test of justice from ServantEmiya, and see if his heart could bear the heart of justice deep within his soul.
...
The next day, Shirou set off for the slave market.
Rudeus wanted to go with him, but Shirou refused.
After all, Shirou was worried that he would be affected by ServantEmiya and do something rash, which would involve Rudeus, and that would be difficult to deal with.
That's why Shirou went to the slave market alone.
Shirou had done his homework the night before, learning about the state of slave trade in this world.
In short, slaves are very common here.
Due to the limitations of the era and productivity, slave trade is somewhat restrained in the central and southern parts of the resource-rich central continent, and the Millis continent that believes in the Millis religion. But in this northern continent, slave trade is completely legal in almost all countries, and some countries even reward the promotion of slave trade.
Because in this barren land, the only thing left to sell is people.
The slave business is one of the most important commercial activities in the countries of the northern continent, and even to the point that the countries wouldn't be able to survive without the slave business.
There are many reasons why people become slaves.
For example, people who become orphans in wars, children who are sold by their parents because of crop failures and heavy debts, or people who sell themselves to save their families. There are also rumors that the thieves' guild secretly set up slave farms. Some villages even sell their children to slave traders regularly.
In this northern continent, slaves are produced because of the inequality of the world itself. People can't survive, so they voluntarily become slaves.
In contrast, some countries are completely able to deny the existence of slavery, but because of various interests, slavery is deeply rooted.
The most typical example is the Asura Kingdom. Although its national power and resources are unimaginably abundant, there are still a constant stream of slaves, because the people of interest within the country themselves create the tragedy.
After knowing all this, Shirou was finally able to treat slaves with a normal heart.
Leaving aside the forced enslavement in the Asura Kingdom, the slaves in the northern continent generally become slaves because they can't survive.
This is not a problem that can be solved by pure justice.
Or rather, simple justice often fails completely when it comes to underlying logic.
Because the cannibalistic society itself is the root cause of all the tragedies.
So Shirou tried to walk into the door of the slave market with a calm mind. It was an ordinary building, filled with lit bonfires inside.
As soon as he entered the room, his body was immediately surrounded by a wave of heat.
Then, he could see about eight display platforms, all lined with naked slaves.
At the moment he saw the slaves' miserable situation, ServantEmiya's soul deep within Shirou suddenly surged.
The heart of justice surging deep within his soul almost tore Shirou himself apart.
But fortunately, Shirou was still in control of himself. Reason was still able to hold on, and he didn't do anything too out of line.
But even so, he still felt very uncomfortable. The stinging from the depths of his soul wouldn't stop, making it hard for him to breathe, and even made him want to completely destroy this entire slave market.
---
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