Croissant arranged Sora's seat along the way. After all, she was a Defender, and when danger struck she needed to leave the vehicle immediately, which was why she usually sat by the door.
"No problem."
Sora had zero objections to Croissant's arrangement.
The few of them sat inside the vehicle, waiting for Exusiai to arrive with her Apple Pie.
The inside of the vehicle was very spacious, and the back seat could comfortably seat at least four people. The scenario Shirou had worried about didn't happen, which put his mind at ease quite a bit.
He sat behind the driver's seat, while the front passenger seat was usually occupied by Exusiai. Croissant sat behind Exusiai, so that in the event of an emergency, Texas and Croissant could step up to hold the line on the left and right sides respectively, with Exusiai providing firepower from the rear, and Sora assisting with her Originium Arts.
Now, with the addition of Shirou as a nominal Guard, Sniper, and Caster all in one, providing output on either flank, one could say that Penguin Logistics' Texas squad configuration was already quite complete.
"Sorry, sorry! I warmed up the Apple Pie for a bit. Do you guys want some?"
After waiting for a long time, Exusiai finally arrived fashionably late with her Apple Pie.
"No thanks, you'd better save it for yourself. Sora, help me grab a pack of Pocky."
Texas, who had started the vehicle, declined Exusiai's Apple Pie invitation and asked Sora in the back seat for a pack of Pocky.
Seeing the vehicle start up, Shirou's first reaction was to pull on his seatbelt.
Then he felt the gazes of the others upon him.
56 Mobile City
Shirou, having fastened his seatbelt, felt the stares of the others.
"A... seatbelt!?"
Croissant gave the seatbelt at her position a tug. It had been a very, very long time since she had used this gadget.
"What's wrong?"
Shirou was puzzled by their looks. He hadn't used it before because he'd been squeezed in the middle and couldn't reach one. Now that it was available, naturally he just used it. It was practically a force of habit.
"Nothing, just surprised that there's actually a seatbelt in our car, that's all."
Exusiai in the front passenger seat put down the Apple Pie in her hands and studied the seatbelt beside her.
"...?"
Watching the two of them study the seatbelt, Shirou shifted his gaze to Sora.
"Ahem... well, we run into emergencies all the time, so naturally seatbelts rarely get used... you know how it is."
Sora offered a brief explanation.
After all, they frequently needed to jump out of moving vehicles to fight, and the boss had fully equipped the car with safety gear, so naturally the seatbelts hadn't been touched in ages.
Besides, Texas's driving skills were extremely superb; wanting to get into an accident was pretty difficult. The only close call with a rollover recently was because of the impact caused by Shirou dropping out of the sky.
"I understand."
Though he said he understood, Shirou still mentally slapped a giant question mark on the group's safe driving mindset.
"Don't mind it, don't mind it, minor issue."
After studying the seatbelt for a moment, Exusiai quickly lost interest in it and instead picked up her Apple Pie to start enjoying it.
If she didn't eat it now, it wouldn't taste good once it cooled down later, plus there was still work to be done.
Amidst their conversation, the vehicle had already driven out of Lungmen.
"Whoa... so this is a mobile city?"
Looking at the massive city behind them, Shirou let out an exclamation of awe.
Seeing things through written materials and videos was entirely different from the shock of seeing it with one's own eyes.
It was hard to imagine that a city like this was enough to support such a massive population and buildings in moving about while evading natural disasters.
"It really is shocking the first time you see it, right?"
Sora, sitting beside him, looked at Shirou's astonished expression and spoke up.
Back when she first saw it, her reaction had been pretty much the same as Shirou's current one.
"Yeah, it's definitely quite a shock."
Shirou took a few more glances, and only when Lungmen vanished from view due to a blind spot did he pull his attention back from the window.
Whereupon he reaped the teasing gazes of the other three.
"As expected, gigantic mechanical products are a man's romance?"
Exusiai said, taking a bite of her Apple Pie.
"How about I get you a miniature model when we get back? I can give you a friend's discount, you know?"
A certain Bread Man rubbed her fingers together, wearing a fanci— sincere expression.
"No... that won't be necessary."
Facing the teasing from the two of them, Shirou politely declined the Bread Man's sales pitch.
He did have a tiny bit of interest in such colossal machinery, but buying a model was out of the question.
Some things simply couldn't be captured by models, plus his room didn't have the space for them.
"What a shame. Say, Shirou, didn't you want to sit in the front passenger seat? Why not learn the ropes from Exusiai now and vie for the co-pilot seat later?"
Seeing Shirou refuse, Croissant didn't mind, but she pointed out that he could learn from Exusiai right now. The front passenger seat was quite tiring, and if Shirou was interested and able to step up, it would also be a good thing for Exusiai.
"Hm? Shirou, you want to sit here? Then you've gotta study hard! This seat isn't easy to sit in!"
The Apple Pie that Exusiai had been holding in the passenger seat had long since vanished into her stomach. Now she was holding a tablet computer, which seemed to display a map.
In front of Exusiai, a telescope had also been placed, meant for observing road conditions ahead shortly.
"I remember the main things to watch out for are some wild organisms and Infected creatures, plus natural disasters and enemies?"
Sora had studied it a bit before, but the results weren't ideal. She was prone to motion sickness when using the telescope—that was just a personal physical quirk, so she could only say she had no fate with that position.
"Pretty much. After all, Texas has to mind the surrounding road conditions, while I'm usually responsible for observing distant road conditions and route adjustments."
Exusiai lifted the tablet, letting Shirou take a brief look at the screen.
It showed a map along with simple route planning, which finally made Shirou understand what Exusiai had been busy with yesterday.
One had to admit that even Exusiai worked hard when it was time to work.
It made Shirou almost want to bake an Apple Pie for her as a proper reward.
He looked exactly like an old parent watching their child finally make something of themselves.
"I remember Isv planned this, right?"
Croissant's next sentence shattered Shirou's urge to bake an Apple Pie.
"Even though Isv planned the route, I still have to cross-check it. Isv only gathers the relevant intelligence for us; we can't just dump everything on Isv!"
Exusiai offered an explanation in response to Croissant's remark, taking the tablet back in the process.
She had no idea what she had just narrowly missed out on, otherwise she would have definitely turned Croissant's horns into decorative ornaments.
Well, even without an Apple Pie, treating her to some other dessert would still be fine, Shirou thought to himself.
"Out in the wild, the main things to worry about are the ones Sora just mentioned, though the focus is still mostly on certain creatures and Infected creatures. You frequently get packs of them out in the wilderness, and those require a bit of attention—you just have to circle around them."
Exusiai explained simply.
She was quite happy to have someone take over, too, because there were quite a few things to pay attention to in this seat. One careless mistake and the whole carload of people would flip over together.
In short, the pressure was pretty high; if she could find someone to take shifts with, it would be a lot easier.
Pity that Sora wasn't great with a telescope, and Croissant was a bit too thick-headed.
Texas was alright, but she had to drive, so in the end the job fell to Exusiai.
"Wild pack animals and Infected creatures, huh?"
Shirou still had some impression of this. Every different region had different creatures, but Originium Slugs seemed to be the most numerous by far.
Occasionally there were other creatures, but you only had a chance to see them in places with water sources and food.
"Yep. As for natural disasters, they're a lot broader—tornadoes, meteorites, earthquakes, things like that. They're basically impossible to guard against."
Scanning the surroundings with her telescope, Exusiai chatted with Shirou, and Shirou listened carefully.
In this regard, Exusiai could be considered somewhat experienced.
"Those really are quite troublesome."
Pondering the formation methods of natural disasters on this land, Shirou felt that natural disasters were indeed even more troublesome than Infected creatures.
"No, no, no, those are all easy to deal with! The real headaches are people! Setting up obstacles you can't really see, or lying in wait nearby—those are basically impossible to spot."
Lowering the telescope, Exusiai said earnestly.
"Animals, natural disasters, Originium, none of those are the scariest. The scariest thing by far is people."
Texas suddenly spoke up from the driver's seat.
57 Reinforcement Magic
"People are the scariest?"
Hearing Texas's words, Shirou fell into a brief contemplation.
Some priest who constantly had the word "pleasure" on his lips, some fatty—Golden Flash—who claimed all the treasures in the world belonged to him, along with an Archer who wanted to kill his past self, plus Caster, Rider, Shinji, Illya...
"Yeah, humans really are terrifying."
Shirou concluded his thoughts.
"Were you thinking about something just now? Your expression looks pretty bad."
Sora, who had initially worried that such a topic was too heavy and wanted to liven the atmosphere up, ended up seeing Shirou's complexion turn quite grave right after he declared that people were the scariest.
"It's fine, just thought of some aggravating stuff."
Massaging the bridge of his nose, Shirou felt a headache coming on just thinking about those bizarre human beings.
Just like Rin said, people who became magi were usually not normal at all.
He himself wasn't all that normal either.
"Don't dwell on aggravating stuff, man. You gotta live happily!"
Croissant fished a bottle of Happy Water from the back seat and tossed it over to Shirou.
Shirou caught the Happy Water tossed by Croissant. It was still somewhat chilled, probably having just been in the insulated box.
"Indeed, don't think about it too much. Anyway, whoever dares to come, I'll let them taste my hail of steel."
Exusiai extended a hand to make a finger-gun gesture, taking the opportunity to ask Croissant for a bottle of Happy Water as well.
She had only brought it up because, compared to avoidable Infected creatures and natural disasters, human beings were the biggest variable. Exusiai didn't want Shirou to lose his life simply because he trusted others too easily.
As for why Texas had brought the matter up as well, it was because she had noticed that Shirou seemed to hold a certain degree of goodwill toward everyone. After all, aside from Isv, she was the only one who had been in charge of his evaluation test.
It wasn't to say that was a bad thing, just that she felt a bit concerned.
This land was so dangerous that it could hardly accommodate someone like Shirou who harbored goodwill toward others.
One slip-up and he might just get knifed in the back; she had seen plenty of people like that in the past.
However, since she had received help from him now, Texas felt she ought to offer a reminder.
Yet looking at him now, Shirou seemed to have already been through relevant experiences, so there was no need for her to say any more.
Saying too much would only reopen old wounds; experiences like that were usually not very pleasant.
"You two are always so happy."
Seeing Exusiai and Croissant always looking so cheerful, Shirou felt his mood improve quite a bit.
"Keeping a cheerful mood is one of Penguin Logistics' core tenets, you know. You've gotta learn it well, Shirou."
Exusiai flattened her empty Happy Water bottle, tossed it into a garbage bag nearby, and continued:
"Where was I? Oh right, natural disasters, Infected creatures, and other people's malice—those are the three situations we run into the most."
Before you continue