(A/N: so, guys, if you want to support an upcoming novel platform that is being made by a team of readers fed up with webnovel bs, join the Discord server i am putting in the comments)
While shirou dealt with the criminals and traumatised a World War II soldier, the world was going on without him. Waver was stamping some documents with his lord`s seal and simultaneously scanning the finance expenditure reports. After the disappearance of Dr. Heartless, the department's records of modern magecraft theory were in chaos, and a significant amount of expenditure proof had vanished, causing Waver to shed hair due to stress.
While he was dealing with the problems that fell into his lap, he took a puff of his cigar and pulled out a yellow folder from his desk drawer. The folder was filled with scribbles and drawings that might only be legible to its creator. Running his hand over the paper, he lost himself in his thoughts and then, picking up a pen, began putting crosses as well as striking out some of the contents of the pages.
Finally, as he put a cross on the image of a talisman with "spirit exorcism" drawn on it, he closed the book and threw it onto the table, alas, due to his poor aim, the folder fell and it toppled his stack of papers to the ground. This made the whole floor a mess, which made Waver wish to kill himself; he was not going to be able to play any Diablo today from the look of things.
The book on the ground was opened onto a page where the image of a graveyard was drawn, and the text scribbled read as "blackmore family".
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In a room filled with forced opulence and the smell of some kind of perfume, 3 men and an old woman sat on chairs adorned with sapphire, ruby, emerald, and aquamarine, respectively. They drank their teas silently, and the clinking of spoons in the cups echoed across the dead silent room, and young men and women standing being the chair looked at each other with bored expressions.
Looking at all the people, the one who looked the youngest among them opened his mouth and coughed politely to get others' attention and said
"Ladies and gentlemen, let's start our meeting."
"We can discuss the other plans for our purpose, as the previous one suggested by Mr. Copper failed spectacularly, and nearly had my successor killed in the process."
Hearing this, the man with red hair and appearing to be in his 50s lowered his head, and his face was red with shame. Looking at him, all the others smiled with a little disgust in their eyes, and then all eyes shifted to the old woman as the only remaining man asked
"Ms Azure, as the one to initiate this meeting, you should quickly get to the point, as you know how busy we all are with handling the fallout of certain people`s incompetence."
As he pinned down the boy standing behind the man who 1st spoke with a death stare. Shaking his head in disapproval, the man whose son was being stared at removed the bowler hat from his head, adjusted his monocle and said sarcastically as he looked at the woman standing behind the man who poked at him
"Now, Mr. Rubino, we are not here to play the blame game, and, understandably, not everyone is blessed with intelligence, so please consider caring for the unfortunately born in your ilk."
"Gentlemen," said Ms Azure as she wiped her lips with a handkerchief and explained
"You all can continue your childish actions somewhere else in your personal space. For now, I wish to discuss another plausible plan for our revival."
"I have come across an interesting case, you all are familiar with the minor ritual that the Einzberg family does in the far east ?"
"The one that claimed the life of lord arcibald ?" asked Mr. Copper
"Exactly that one, from the information I have gathered, the heir and only living member of one of the 3 founder families is a classmate of my dear granddaughter Dorthy", said Ms Azure as she gestured for the green-haired girl beside her.
"From the digging I have done, that family was established by one of the disciples of the wizard marshal, but that legacy has now degraded as expected of those uncouth barbarians," she continued
"So you want to get her knowledge from her ?" asked the man who looked the youngest
"You are far too short-sighted, Mr Helios. We can have her marry into one of our families and get whatever inheritance those fools have managed to maintain over the years, but if any of the mystic codes forged by the wizard marshal himself are present, then all of our problems will be solved at once."
Hearing this, as if a spark was lit in the minds of the three men, they focused on her intently, but they quickly calmed down, and the 1st to question her was Helios, who asked
"What if she doesn't agree to marry into one of our families?"
With a disdainful snort and baleful smile, Ms Azure said
"It's her blessing that any of us is willing to sully our bloodlines with her presence, and she should be honoured to be able to carry any of our esteemed surname."
"It`s only natural that useful things should be delivered into capable hands like ours."
4 of them looked at each other with unspoken questions in their eyes, only two of them had grandsons who were suitable for this and Ms Azure and Mr Rubino had only daughters, hence they were already unable to participate in this, so Ms Azure proposing this plan which wouldn't benefit her is peculiar to say the least and terrifying at its peak. Still, this plan, as reckless as it sounds, might benefit their declining situation or even solve it, hence they all agreed while each had a plan of their own.
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....
"So you suspect one of your classmates had placed this letter on your desk, and it was sealed when you picked it up ?" asked waver as he looked at the black haired little girl sitting in front of him.
He shuddered involuntarily after he remembered that monster wearing a face only a few years older than the girls sitting in front of him. As Waver pondered above this with his signature frown that had made him infamous among the magi for divulging their family secrets after "deciphering" them. Ignoring the lord, Reines looked at Rin and said
"Ignore these deviants, Tohsaka, there are various forms of them in the clock tower. As long as I am here, I can take care of them with ease."
Reines flashed a half-ecstatic and half-worried grin for a second and then continued to look at Waver, who looked at Rin and said
"You don't have to pay attention to these things, they are not worth it. I will take care of it if needed."
After talking to the politically adept duo, Rin left behind the reckless thoughts of going to the location to find who the one to propose this was, so she could tell them her answer with her fists. With her mind preoccupied with her impending poverty and ways to earn money, she walked away; her expenditure was increasing a lot compared to before, as she had a lot more trust in Shirou`s ability.
Using the open knowledge at the library, she understood the presence of various forms of abilities, and it also allowed her to confirm that Shirou`s was clairvoyance or scrying-related innate ability or talent. They used various methods to detect that shirou lacked a mystic eye or an ESP in his body.
As she remembered how she had to force him to make a geas with her to prevent her from leaking about his ability. Thinking of his idiotic behaviour and lack of tact, she looked at the setting sun and sighed wistfully as she let her pointless worry rest.
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...
Standing on a rooftop, shirou gazed at the moon. While sneaking around, he had suddenly felt strangely reminiscent and nostalgic as he finally stopped to gaze at the sky. Investigating the previously trembling man from the warehouse, he found that this was a survivor of a "werewolf attack". Normally, his memories should have been altered at that time, but due to the passage of time, that was not worth the effort for a magus specialised in it and was impossible for shirou with his skill in hypnosis.
Any other magus would have killed the man to solve the problem, and shirou felt ashamed even to have considered killing the man who was forced to work for smugglers under the threat to his daughter`s life.
So, with resignation, he had enforced the thought of "the werewolf attack was a hallucination due to stress and blood loss" in his mind and hoped that he would be able to overcome his trauma.
(thank you for reading :)