Truth be told, Shirou didn't feel like his relationship with Charlotte had reached that level yet. As far as he was concerned, they were just contractor and client—a simple business arrangement.
They'd first met through a website called "Hunter"—a platform where bounty hunters, mercenaries, assassins, and the like could pick up commissions. The jobs ranged from exploring ancient tombs to contract killings, spanning an impressive spectrum of morally questionable content.
Shirou wasn't surprised such a site existed. His adoptive father, Kiritsugu Emiya, had worked as a mercenary and assassin. Kairi Sisigou from the Fate/Apocrypha timeline was the same. Both of them also had the hidden identity of being magi on the mystic side.
It meant this was a gray zone between the mystic side and the mundane world. Even though the mystic side adhered to the first principle of "mysteries must not be revealed to the general public," this gray zone was tacitly permitted to exist.
Since transmigrating, Shirou had taken a few ruin exploration commissions through this platform. Thanks to the muscle memory left behind by the original body, he was agile and skilled in combat. Combined with reliable teammates, the jobs had gone pretty smoothly.
He'd also gotten acquainted with Charlotte and Governor of Gaul—two employers with deep pockets.
But Shirou's reason for coming online this time was to ask around about Noble Phantasms. Ancient families with thousand-year legacies might have Noble Phantasms in storage, or at least access to crucial information. He remembered that Bazett's family still possessed Fragarach, a Noble Phantasm passed down from the Age of Gods. And somewhere in a village in England, there was supposedly King Arthur's holy lance, Rhongomyniad.
"Ooh, what's a Noble Phantasm? Sounds like some kind of setting from a story."
Governor of Gaul seemed interested—turns out he was a closet otaku. But his response was disappointing. Shirou figured the Governor's family either had a short history, or was just a branch family of some major house.
Even ancient magus families could have main and branch family divisions. Branch families typically only managed business assets without inheriting the family's mystic traditions, so they wouldn't pay attention to news from the mystic side.
"Noble Phantasms are legendary armaments that frequently appear in myths and heroic epics," Shirou typed, feeling let down. "Like the holy sword from Arthurian legend, Indra's Vajra from Hindu mythology, or Odin's divine spear Gungnir from Norse mythology."
Made sense, really. Why would ancient families show up on a bounty hunter website? They'd have their own secret channels.
However, Charlotte's pretty-girl avatar suddenly flashed with a private message notification.
"You're someone who knows the truth about the world?"
Europe. The sprawling private estate of the Göttingen family, a prestigious alchemy lineage with a thousand-year history.
Charlotte Göttingen—holder of one of the board seats at Cassell College under the Secret Party, and current heir to the Göttingen family—had her pale golden hair pinned up atop her head. Her face, still carrying a hint of baby fat, was fair as jade in the sunlight, making her look like an exquisite porcelain doll.
Outside the window, the noble greenery of the courtyard was as delicate as filigree metalwork. Inside, the décor showcased an extravagantly gorgeous glazed style. Beethoven's "Spring Sonata" flowed softly through the room.
At this moment, Miss Charlotte wore a serious expression as she stared at the constantly refreshing screen. Then she saw Shirou Emiya's reply—
"Yeah, I know. This website is basically a gray zone between your side and the mundane world, right?"
Charlotte relaxed slightly and began typing: "Then you should also know that many of those mythological-era weapons you mentioned are conceptual armaments that transcend the human domain."
In this world, alchemy had seven outstanding achievements known as the "Seven Kingdoms." One of them was "Conceptual Armaments"—weapons forged using concepts as materials. Time, causality, natural laws—all fell within the scope of "concepts." The guaranteed-hit effect of the Eternal Spear Gungnir clearly contained concept-level materials.
This was the level of alchemy from the Age of Myths... which meant Dragon King-tier alchemy.
In this world of dragons, all mythology was distorted dragon history. Before the human era, dragons had ruled this planet. The Age of Myths was the Age of Dragons. The pinnacle of divine artifacts had to be alchemical weapons crafted by Dragon Kings.
Modern alchemy was born from dragon-kind—it was essentially the science of dragons, their tool and discipline for observing, understanding, and reshaping the world.
After the dragon era was overthrown and the human era began, humanity developed their own science. Only alchemists like Charlotte still pursued the ancient dragon alchemy. Yet even her family's research into the Seven Kingdoms remained quite shallow.
Then Shirou replied: "That was just an example. Doesn't have to be something as extreme as a mythological weapon. Something from a more recent era would work too."
"That's good then. My family is considered an alchemy household, so I can help you look into recently excavated ruins with ancient weapons."
"Thanks! My reinforcement magecraft practice has been going really smoothly lately, but I almost hit a wall on the next step."
Reinforcement magecraft?
Charlotte's expression froze. What was that?
Shirou explained: it was a technique for strengthening weapons and breaking through their original performance limits. Cutting through alloy steel would be no problem. He had quite a few of these reinforced weapons on hand.
Charlotte said, "Isn't that just alchemical weapons made with 'regenerative metal'? The standard alchemy process of 'killing metal and regenerating it' to form stronger regenerative metal... My family specializes in alchemy research and we have a certain stockpile of weapons. But wait—where did a hunter like you get so many alchemical weapons?"
Shirou immediately replied: "Don't know anything about alchemy. Like I said, I made these myself through reinforcement. If you're asking about the source materials, I just bought sword crafts online from eBay. There's also a physical store in Ginza. Didn't buy from the sword merchants with inflated prices though—went for the low-end stuff. Quality doesn't matter since they're just for reinforcement practice."
Charlotte was immediately stunned. If he wasn't lying, she might have just encountered an alchemy prodigy!
These days, stable production of alchemical equipment relied on advanced modern industrial technology. As for high-end alchemical weapons with their own alchemical domains—comparable to famous ancient swords—that was master alchemist territory...
In other words, this guy was young, and just by buying cheap swords online and practicing by hand, he was already close to becoming a master alchemist?
This was like Tony Stark being kidnapped by terrorists and building the first Iron Man suit in a cave. Utterly ridiculous.
Charlotte couldn't help but wonder who Shirou Emiya had studied under. He couldn't be a graduate of the College, could he?
Shirou quickly said—oh no, he wasn't really a student. He'd previously come to the Association as an assistant to a Japanese young lady (meaning Rin Tohsaka) to study Western magecraft. He wasn't even officially enrolled.
Charlotte nodded. She immediately thought of Cassell College's Japan branch. That place sent a batch of Japanese hybrids to the main campus for advanced training every year. Unfortunately, the main campus knew very little about the situation in Japan, even for someone like her who was heir to a board seat.
But what was this "Association" he mentioned? The Abraham's Blood Covenant—another name for the Secret Party? And this "reinforcement magecraft" and "Western magecraft" he kept bringing up... Charlotte wondered if this was just some chuunibyou terminology the Japanese used.
But if Shirou wasn't even a student, then he probably didn't have a mentor guiding him. Maybe he'd just heard some unreliable rumors from the News Department. So Charlotte tried asking about his general impression of the College's leadership.
Shirou answered immediately: Your leaders are basically a dozen or so so-called ancient noble family heads. The biggest one is a bad-tempered old man who's lived for ages. He's often not at the school.
There's another one who stays at the school but is really hard to actually see. These two are supposedly from the same generation—both disciples of King Solomon.
Charlotte did some mental math. The seven board members of Cassell plus the four elders like Beowulf did add up to eleven.
The Secret Party's leader, Hilbert Jean Anjou, had indeed lived for a very long time and was constantly traveling around the world. The Nightwatcher, Nicholas Flamel, was similarly ancient. He assisted Anjou at the College but spent most of his time alone in the clock tower—students definitely wouldn't see him...
But King Solomon... was he referring to Blair Bitner, the "Solomon of Mathematics"? In terms of the mathematics field alone, calling him Solomon did make sense as a mentor figure...
[End of Chapter 2]