Shirou Emiya Stands on Terra Chapter 13

Lower City District

Shirou felt refreshed after successfully getting a reimbursement from Emperor and instantly having all his debt vanish.

"I didn't expect the new boss to be so easy to talk to!"

Shirou originally only intended to ask for a reimbursement, but he hadn't expected the boss to forgive his debts along the way as well, which differed from his prior understanding.

Based on what he had seen on television before, a boss should give you a hard time about everything and then reluctantly approve the funds at the very end. How could things go so smoothly here?

Shirou pondered for a few seconds before giving up. Anyway, as long as it went smoothly, there was no need to think about it so much.

"Everyone is around tonight too, so let's cook a good meal! Mrs. Bai introduced a street last time where there seems to be fresh meat and vegetables to choose from, so let's go check it out over there this time."

Chef Shirou was in a good mood, and Penguin Logistics had full stomachs.

After tidying up the living room, Shirou went out carrying a shopping bag. The bag was a supermarket promotional giveaway, and Shirou thought it was pretty sturdy so he brought it along to use. Its appearance was extremely rudimentary.

Shirou kept his navigation running and headed toward that commercial street.

"My first time having a destination other than the shopping district and the supermarket, huh."

Shirou muttered to himself along the way while looking at buildings different from usual.

If the previous trips to the supermarket or the Dagu Shopping District were all those tall, towering high-rises, the roads now basically consisted of somewhat lower houses, with an especially prominent building only occasionally standing out.

Shirou felt a strong sense of familiarity toward this.

If there was anything different, it was probably that a few people around here would look at him with unfriendly gazes.

"I remember Exusiai seemed to have mentioned that Lungmen Infected apparently all gather in one district, which is why they're usually relatively uncommon, but this isn't the area Exusiai talked about... No, it seems to be just nearby."

Shirou glanced at the mobile phone in his hand, discovering that his current location was adjacent to the area Exusiai had mentioned.

"The intermediate zone, huh?"

Discovering that his destination was nearby, Shirou began recalling what Exusiai had said.

Lungmen had an Upper City District, a Middle City District, and a Lower City District. The Infected generally gathered in the Lower City District.

Because the Lower City District had numerous Infected and many swarming gangs, the Knights of the Round Table could not spare the manpower to clean it up, so the overall security was chaotic, which was why it was also called the Slums.

In the Slums, because public security was chaotic, Exusiai's advice was that Shirou should try not to approach unless accompanied by her, Texas, or Croissant.

However, Shirou had already walked all the way to the market, so saying anything now was too late.

"I'll just buy things quickly and leave..."

Shirou evaluated the situation and decided to buy his things and leave in a hurry. After all, since he had already come all the way here.

"Freshly slaughtered fish and meat, plus fresh vegetables... Oh? It really does seem quite cheap, except I'll have to process them myself when I get back."

Walking along the street, Shirou quickly locked onto a few street vendors.

Shirou carefully placed his bag in front of his chest, then carefully picked out a few vegetables.

"Things have been really chaotic lately. There are always gunshots and explosions."

Shirou overheard the chatting voices of a few middle-aged women nearby.

It wasn't that he intentionally listened in, after all... the middle-aged women were chatting really loudly.

Shirou occasionally ran into them at the supermarket too, but most of them chatted about household matters or trivial things. This place was something else; the moment they started chatting, they were talking about explosive topics.

"That's right, that's right. Yesterday I saw a bunch of people carrying blades and crossbows walking down the road from my window. It was so terrifying."

Another middle-aged woman said.

"Not just that, a few days ago there was also a whole bunch of cars chasing each other on the road."

Shirou didn't listen any further, and directly left after picking his vegetables.

After all, eavesdropping was bad, even if the other party was being too loud.

Another reason was that he had to finish picking quickly and leave. He felt like someone had been staring at him from the shadows all along.

"Still, carrying blades and crossbows right out on the street? Plus gunshots and explosions, even an area with good public security like Lungmen seems quite chaotic."

Shirou walked while sighing with emotion.

Based on the information he gathered from books and the internet, Lungmen should be considered an area with fairly good security.

However, no matter how good the security was, it was still relative to this land.

It was rumored that Ursus treated Infected by arresting them on the spot, and Lungmen was already one of the few places friendly to the Infected.

If he were in Ursus...

"Thinking about these is useless."

Shirou shook his head to clear his mind.

Just focus on what's right in front of you, don't think too much, Shirou Emiya.

Shirou murmured softly to himself as a reminder.

Anyone around here could use the mysterious—that was to say, Originium Arts.

He was a Magus, or rather, a magus, but knowing magecraft didn't make him invincible.

Individual combat power had its limits in this place.

Shirou continuously reminded himself not to act rashly.

He didn't know why, but he simply felt that he shouldn't repeat past mistakes.

Perhaps Archer had said something to him during the Holy Grail War?

Or perhaps... something had been entrusted to him.

Thinking of this, Shirou touched his right arm. Ever since he almost got swallowed by memories that day, he had been carrying the Holy Shroud.

Usually kept on his person, he would wrap it around his right arm when going out.

Although he no longer remembered, this seemed to be a very important item.

"Hey, customer, what would you like?"

Shirou's train of thought was interrupted by a somewhat lazy voice. He snapped back to his senses and realized he had been lingering in front of the fish stall for quite a while.

"Sorry, I was a bit spaced out."

Shirou hurriedly apologized while looking at the stall owner.

Mm... He looked somewhat fierce and menacing, but even more lazy?

A purely fierce and menacing appearance couldn't scare him. After all, no matter what, it couldn't surpass Berserker.

"It's fine. Anyway, there aren't any other customers at this hour, so take your time picking."

The other party seemed to notice that Shirou wasn't very scared of him, so he said a few extra words.

Seeing this, Shirou nodded and then looked closely at what fish were available.

Mm... He didn't seem to recognize any of them, and apart from the ones that were obviously shrimp or crab, he wasn't very familiar with the rest.

Judging from the muscle grain, however, there was one that looked very similar to salmon.

"I'll buy it back first and pan-sear it to try the taste..."

Shirou deliberately bought a few more that looked somewhat familiar. After all, having dazed out in front of someone else's stall for so long, it would be a bit embarrassing if he didn't buy anything or bought very little.

"Do you want the bones removed?"

"Is that okay? Then I'll trouble you."

As soon as Shirou finished speaking, he saw the owner draw a knife and quickly remove the bones with a flurry of swift strokes.

"Oh oh, excellent technique."

Shirou couldn't help sighing in admiration. After all, he had never seen anyone remove bones with just a few swift strokes, and almost none of the meat was wasted.

"Thanks for the praise. I've been doing this for quite a while, after all. I'll give you a discount."

The owner packed up the fish and handed it to Shirou.

"Eh? Is that alright?"

Shirou was stunned for a moment, not knowing why he had suddenly scored a discount.

"Yeah, after all, very few people can talk to me properly the first time we meet. It feels pretty refreshing."

"...Thank you?"

Shirou wore a questioning expression, but still thanked the owner for the discount.

Getting a discount without even needing to haggle? That was awesome!

"Don't mention it. Just patronize the stall more often in the future."

The owner yawned as he sent Shirou off, then continued tending to his stall while waiting for the next customer to show up.

Fire

Shirou picked out nearly three days' worth of ingredients in total, and even the shopping bag was starting to look a bit overstuffed.

Normally Shirou wouldn't buy this much, after all, the refrigerator wouldn't fit it, but today he had originally planned to make the meal a bit richer, so it could probably consume a large portion of the ingredients in one go.

"I hope the fish I bought doesn't taste too different..."

Shirou lifted the shopping bag and thought about how to cook today's dinner.

The common meats and vegetables had already been tried out for the most part. Except for a few with rather special flavors, the rest basically had no differences.

Fish was a bit more troublesome, since in the past he only ever cooked salmon, tuna, and jack mackerel, and most of those had already been processed by the store.

Now he could only judge what kind of fish it was based on the processed appearance, and as for the taste, he could only test it out later.

"The owner wasn't bad either. I'll have Exusiai and the others come shopping with me next time."

Shirou remembered Exusiai's words: approaching the Lower City District required finding someone to come along.

This time was just an accident, but it also made Shirou realize that Exusiai's words weren't said casually. Along the way, he genuinely felt quite a few malicious gazes.

Yet they merely released malice toward Shirou; such malice didn't really mean much to him.

It was just that avoiding trouble was still best whenever possible.

After all, he was currently living under someone else's roof.

Shirou only felt the malicious gazes vanish after he got far away.

For some reason, he seemed to have suddenly become exceptionally sensitive to this kind of malice.

Checking the items on his person to make sure nothing was missing, Shirou prepared to return to the dormitory.

Shirou mentally noted down the few shops he had just bought from along the way, intending to return for purchases if the food turned out good after he got back.

Though he would have to wait until he walked through the entire market and compared options first.

Shirou turned the next corner and found that a crowd had gathered at the street intersection ahead, while the building over there seemed to be smoking.

"A fire?"

Shirou's brows furrowed slightly.

The fire didn't look very large, and what was burning seemed to be a restaurant. It was likely a gas explosion.

The moment he thought of a gas explosion, Shirou started wondering if there was some dark conspiracy behind it.

"No, no, this isn't a world where the mysterious needs to be hidden."

Shirou mentally retorted to himself.

However, the location of the fire happened to be right in the middle of Shirou's path back to the dormitory.

Yet Shirou evaluated that the fire was not big, and it shouldn't block the firefighters' access routes, so he didn't plan to take a detour.

"Don't worry, boss, I've already contacted the fire department just now."

A young Perro wearing a work uniform was reporting to an elderly-looking and ash-covered Feline.

"The customers should all be out by now, right?"

The middle-aged Feline asked the surrounding people. A portion of the people here were customers who had been inside the shop just a moment ago, only for it to suddenly go Boom and explode. Fortunately, it was just an ordinary natural gas explosion. If it had been an Originium explosion, things really would have been finished.