Shirou Emiya had actually managed to answer correctly by using the Clock Tower, Zelretch, and Briselice as templates.
Little did he know they were having a completely cross-server conversation.
Charlotte was just about to probe further—to see if Shirou Emiya was connected to the Eight Serpentine Families, one of Japan's hybrid clans.
But halfway through typing, she was startled to see Shirou post "something urgent came up, talk later" and go offline.
He got away AGAIN!?
Staring at the now-grayed-out lonely silhouette avatar, Miss Charlotte puffed out her cheeks in frustration, grinding her teeth and stomping her feet.
Hmph. Even if she hadn't inherited the board seat yet and her authority was limited, sooner or later she'd dig out all his secrets.
Having escaped the young lady's interrogation, Shirou Emiya let out a long breath.
Phew... an alchemy household, huh... Whenever someone mentioned that, his mind jumped to FGO's chubby Director Goredolf, whose specialty in alchemy was "turning rotten meat into marbled beef." The guy was from the Clock Tower's Department of Policies.
But Shirou had a really poor impression of the Clock Tower—that bloated, unwieldy Mage's Association organization. He didn't want to talk about it. During the Incineration of Humanity in the FGO timeline, the other two major branches of the Mage's Association had each pulled their weight. Only the Clock Tower's performance was pathetic.
Plus, the Clock Tower would issue "Sealing Designations" for "rare talents," dispatching Enforcers to capture and "collect" them.
What counted as a rare talent?
In the future, if Shirou Emiya refined his Projection magecraft to the extreme and deployed a Reality Marble—Unlimited Blade Works—as a human, he'd definitely qualify. No, actually, he might get Sealed the moment he could project Noble Phantasms.
So even though the Clock Tower had established schools and branches worldwide to recruit students, he couldn't bring himself to feel any goodwill toward them. If anything, he should treat those Western powers as hypothetical enemies.
But Shirou's hasty logout this time wasn't entirely an excuse to escape.
He'd received an encrypted call from his bounty hunter teammate, Old Tang.
"Old Tang?"
"Haha, it's me! Bro Emiya, I've got news on those ancient swords you were looking for—'Kanshou and Bakuya'!"
The voice on the other end was pure American English with an eager tone. The image of a man with droopy eyebrows and a jovial face immediately crystallized in Shirou's mind.
Old Tang's full name was Ronald Tang. He seemed to be Chinese-American—dropped out of high school and lived in a Brooklyn slum, scraping by on bounty hunter jobs.
Old Tang claimed he wasn't particularly skilled, but he was blessed with incredible luck. Even on dangerous tomb exploration missions where others often came back covered in wounds—or didn't come back at all—
He alone, despite being directionally challenged, would somehow stumble and fumble his way to miraculous plays. He'd snag ancient treasures and then waltz out completely unscathed. His peers constantly cursed him for being born under a lucky star.
Shirou had met Old Tang during a previous mission. When Old Tang saw Shirou casually craft alchemical weapons by hand, he was absolutely floored. He'd laughed and said: "Hand those crummy antiques over to me, bro, and I'll flip them for you. Package them as 'masterpieces unearthed from such-and-such ancient site'... We could make a fortune just lying around!"
Then he'd clapped his hands and laughed: "From now on, Old Tang here does the digging, and you do the forging. Once your production's up, I'll work my connections in the hunter circles. We'll start a contracting company, bring in more guys, and corner this type of job. When there's money to be made, everyone gets a piece."
"I bring the people, you bring the skills. We dig up treasures, crack open coffins, and make bank. Each of us walks our own path under the same sky—we've all got bright futures ahead!"
Old Tang really knew how to paint a pretty picture. Shirou had complimented him with a "much respect, much respect, let's keep at it together." And also: "That's not what 'each walks their own path' means. You're using that Chinese proverb wrong."
Old Tang had exclaimed in surprise: "Bro, you know Chinese?!"
Shirou rolled his eyes internally. I was a born-and-bred Chinese citizen in my past life. Meanwhile, Old Tang—this fake Chinese guy who'd grown up in America—suddenly started throwing around Chinese phrases. Shirou found it pretty weird.
Old Tang waved it off, saying he'd recently befriended a StarCraft player from China with the username "Mingming." The guy was young but pretty good at Zerg—seemed like a worthy rival. Old Tang figured he should make friends, so he'd been practicing his Chinese typing for chatting. Besides, once the company expanded, they could branch out to China. Learning Chinese had plenty of benefits!
Shirou didn't particularly want to hear Old Tang brag about being "a lonely master at the peak" in StarCraft, because Shirou didn't play StarCraft at all.
"Alright, alright, get to the point."
"Sure thing. The intel on 'Kanshou and Bakuya' depends on this job. It's you and me teaming up again. Good thing Old Tang here has been single for years—fast hands, managed to snag two spots, haha... Actually, I had to pull a lot of strings. The mission location is in a southeastern city in China. Supposedly ruins from the Chu Kingdom during the pre-Qin era. High probability it's the 'Three Kings Tomb.'"
The twin swords Kanshou and Bakuya—Archer EMIYA's most iconic weapons, and the Noble Phantasm Shirou had decided to project first. Legend said they had properties of mutual attraction and extreme sharpness. A husband-and-wife pair from the state of Wu had forged them using three materials: essence of five mountains, gold of six heroes, and human life. The swords were ultimately used to assassinate the King of Chu, and the assassin and king alike were buried in the Three Kings Tomb.
Then Old Tang mumbled something about setting up a group chat to introduce his employer—or rather, the mission coordinator—whom he'd connected with through his network.
Next thing Shirou knew, he'd been added to a... newly created StarCraft chat channel. Three people total: Shirou, Old Tang, and someone with the username "Wa Zhu."
"?"
So your "network" means your GAMING network?!
"What's wrong with gaming? Being able to make connections through games is a skill too!" Old Tang wasn't backing down, speaking with complete confidence.
"See that 'Wa Zhu' in the channel? She's the top person in charge of this mission. Organizing hundreds of people is just a word from her. She's also a Protoss expert—even I have to bow down to her skills!"
Anyone who didn't know better would think Old Tang was putting together a team for the StarCraft IEM Grand Finals.
Shirou couldn't find any angle to play along from. He delivered a flat, wooden response: "Oh wow, that's really impressive. What about that 'Mingming' you mentioned before? How good is he?"
"Eh, Mingming's still young. Not quite there yet. Barely ranks third under me, I guess. But he's got lots of room to grow." Old Tang's tone was utterly smug on the other end, as if he was making a "pinch the universe between my fingers" gesture.
Next, Old Tang introduced his "good bro Emiya" to Wa Zhu and proceeded to heap praise on him, determined to hype him up as a once-in-a-century prodigy...
Wa Zhu just watched the messages without responding. After a while, she typed one line:
"A self-awakened bloodline alchemist? Which hybrid family's disciple is he?"
"Hybrid family?" Old Tang was stumped. He had no idea how to respond—he was only half an "inner world" person himself and didn't even know the truth about the dragon world.
"She probably means the non-human races. In the distant past, humans and non-human species interbred, producing descendants called 'hybrids.' These bloodlines often have physical abilities far beyond normal humans, along with special powers."
Shirou jumped in with the explanation, but his mood was complicated.
The last time he'd heard the word "hybrid" was... back in his previous life, playing Tsukihime. The Tohno family that adopted the protagonist Shiki Tohno was a hybrid clan of humans and oni.
What timeline was this, exactly? Did I somehow end up on the Tsukihime set?
[End of Chapter 3]