"Sealing Designation"—that was a "privilege" enjoyed only by magi whom the Mage's Association recognized as possessing exceptionally valuable talents.
And in order to preserve those miracles forever, the hounds responsible for capturing them were a group known as "Executors."
"A Sealing Designation Executor... You?" Shirou frowned.
"What? Is that a problem?" Natalia retorted.
Shirou said, "You don't seem like the type to obediently do your job."
"Ha! You're as sharp as ever."
Natalia cheerfully took a drag from her cigarette. "I'm not actually affiliated with the Mage's Association. I only use that impressive title, 'Sealing Designation Executor,' for convenience...
"Or rather, to save the Clock Tower's face when I'm operating."
Shirou nodded thoughtfully. "So that's how it is."
She was Shirou's kindred spirit, a bounty hunter who did business with the Association.
Unlike Shirou Bolzak, who would do anything as long as there was work and wandered across battlefields seeking out deadly situations, Natalia took action for the reward.
Her actual way of working was probably to seize the targets before the Association's dedicated Executors could reach them, then sell them off at a high price.
Although she went by the impressive title of "Sealing Designation Executor," genuine Sealing Designations were extremely rare. An Executor probably wouldn't even get the chance to find such a major target once in ten years.
For a freelance magus taking outsourced work to make a living, she was, in truth, merely a Heterodox Magus who had escaped the regulations governing magi.
"...You actually called me an outsourced Executor?"
Natalia muttered unhappily, "It's not your place to say that, you part-time stand-in! You should focus on going to school and studying, kid!"
In a distant foreign land nearly ten thousand kilometers from home, the part-time "stand-in" and the outsourced "Executor" had met in a strange