Shirou had only briefly mentioned wanting to stop staying with them, but Sakura's tears immediately began to fall.
"Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"It's not that, Sakura. This isn't your fault..."
"Hey! Shirou! What exactly is going on?"
Shinji gnashed his teeth, his face flushed red. "Didn't we agree to go all the way to the nationals together? What about our promise to compete in the National Karuta Tournament together? You can't leave!"
"No, we never made any such promise."
With both siblings tugging at his arms from either side, Shirou looked toward Tsuruno Matou as if seeking help.
The middle-aged man, the nominal head of the family who was usually obsequious toward Shirou and obeyed his every word, fell silent for a moment before speaking.
"I understand. Since Shirou wants to leave, we have no reason to stop him, but...
Wait until you find a suitable place to live before moving out."
Early in the morning, Shirou quietly walked through the streets of Fuyuki City.
There were no classes at school today, so he had slipped out early to wander around.
"Houses in Fuyuki are really expensive... Ah, crap."
When he came back to his senses, Shirou realized that he had arrived on an unfamiliar street.
Where was this?
Shirou looked around. Which direction was the Matou Family in again?
"Did you get separated from your mother?"
Suddenly, a hoarse voice came from behind him.
Shirou turned around and saw a thin, disheveled middle-aged man.
"Ah! No! Little boy, I'm not a suspicious person!"
The man waved his hands in panic as he tried to explain himself. The more he explained, the more suspicious he seemed.
He wore a dirty tracksuit. Beneath his wrinkled cap was hair that looked as if it had not been washed for several months, and the glasses perched on his nose were clearly the wrong size. An unpleasant odor emanated from his entire body.
He's a homeless man, Shirou thought.
"I-I'll take you to find a police officer?"
The homeless man clearly knew that he looked suspicious, so he threw out a term convincing enough for a child to trust.
He forced the kindest expression he could onto his cracked lips. "I'll take you to the police station to find your mother, all right?"
"..."
Shirou was deeply unwilling. Sorry, but I don't have a mother.
Just as he was considering whether to use Suggestion Magic to get rid of the man, his stomach let out a loud growl.
Shirou had not eaten breakfast before leaving home. He had been lost in thought and had not noticed, but now he was suddenly unbearably hungry.
At that moment, the homeless man pulled a wrapped hamburger from his filthy coat and gave him a sincere smile.
"I just got it from the back of a fast-food restaurant. Want it?"
In the early hours of the morning, Fuyuki Park was shrouded in silence.
A camp where homeless people gathered stood not far away. Shirou Amamiya sat on a bench, quietly eating the cold hamburger, while the man who had offered him the food watched him with a beaming smile.
If a patrol officer saw this scene, the homeless man would at the very least be treated as a criminal and detained for questioning all night.
"My name is Shirou."
"Huh? Ah, yeah! My name is Sato!"
Shirou's taking the initiative became the starting point for the two of them to chat.
The homeless man's name was Sato. He had apparently once been an office worker, with a decent job and a happy family.
Then, during the financial crisis a few years earlier, he had been laid off. After failing at stock trading and ending up heavily in debt, he had been too afraid to face his wife and children. He had run to the park and lived as a homeless man for five years.
Put simply, he was a loser and a piece of trash. Most of the people gathered in this park were the same kind.
"Being homeless... Maybe it suits me..."
Shirou looked at a homeless shelter stitched together from scraps of cloth nearby. "Should I stay here too? All I'd have to do every day is collect bottles and beg for food, right?"
"What are you talking about?"
The homeless man's expression suddenly turned serious as he began lecturing him.
"Shirou, people like us are already beyond saving. We're society's garbage.
"But you're different. You're still young. You shouldn't..."
"I get it, I get it. I'll leave after I finish the hamburger. Stop nagging, master."
Sato showed his yellowing teeth and smiled. "Yeah. Go back to school properly."
That was where their conversation ended.
"I'm leaving."
Shirou jumped down from the bench and tossed the hamburger wrapper into a trash can.
"Oh, right."
Sato watched the boy leave, but halfway there, Shirou suddenly stopped.
"Come to think of it, I forgot to ask. Mister, why did you call out to me just now?
"You don't seem like the type to warmly help anyone who happens to be in trouble, do you?"
Faced with the boy's question, Sato could only answer honestly. "Because you're about the same age as my son..."
"I see."
Shirou nodded thoughtfully. "Sato, although you're truly an irredeemable piece of trash, it turns out you're not someone who should be staying in this park after all."
"T-Trash!?"
Shirou said, "You still have somewhere to return to, so... go back to your own home."
Sato fell silent at those words, and his expression darkened.
"Go home... How could I possibly have the face to go home now? I've abandoned my wife and child for more than five years. I don't have a home to return to anymore. They won't forgive me."
Shirou glanced at him. "Whether they forgive you is their business.
"But asking them for forgiveness is something even a piece of trash like you can do."
"I can't... I can't go back...!"
Sato clutched his head in despair and shouted hysterically, "I owe a huge amount of money! I've been hiding all these years! There's no way I can go back...!"
Looking at his pathetic display, Shirou could not help sighing. Trash really is trash.
And yet, even this piece of trash had somewhere he could return to.
The boy walked over to the man and placed a hand on his drooping shoulder.
"Sato, promise me you'll get a haircut, shave your beard, and then go home to see your family, all right?"
"..."
Sato raised his tearful face.
Looking at Shirou's childish features, the man could not say a word.
The boy had an adorable face, yet his expression and gaze radiated an inexplicably powerful persuasiveness—
charisma.
It was said to be a quality possessed by only a tiny fraction of people.
Many of the heroes and kings throughout history had possessed this prodigious trait, which could not be explained by science or magic.
As the King of Knights of the Fae who had established the Fae Round Table in a foreign land, Shirou had naturally developed this miraculous quality through cultivation as well.
It had nothing to do with magic. His words were filled with sacred, inspiring power.
Furthermore, charisma took many forms depending on the individual.
In Shirou Amamiya's case, it should be classified as... or perhaps called, "leadership in desperate circumstances."
"Yeah..."
After remaining silent for quite a while, Sato finally nodded as if he had made up his mind.
"I-I understand. I'll try! After Shirou encouraged me, I feel full of strength! I want to work hard, pay off my debts, and earn my family's forgiveness!"
"Good. Then I'll be going... Come to think of it."
Before leaving, Shirou casually asked one more question.
Sato's creditor seemed to be a yakuza family called the Fujimura Group.
Volume One 015: The Fujimura Group
"Phew."
After leaving the park, Shirou relaxed and stretched.
Although he had learned the way back to the Matou Family from Sato, it was still too early to return.
All right, I'll look around Miyama Town.
I'll ask around about the Fujimura Group while I'm at it. Just while I'm at it.
Shirou called out to an office worker. "Excuse me, do you know where the Fujimura Group is?"
"Fuj..."
The office worker looked stunned, glanced at the boy, and then quickly walked away.
What? Was I not polite enough just now?
—If Shirou had merely been an ordinary seven-year-old child, he probably would have thought that.
Unfortunately, I am the companion of the Savior and the Ancestor King of Britain. What sort of social intricacies have I not seen?
The passerby's reaction clearly showed that he did not want to get involved with an organization called the Fujimura Group.
Since that was the case, he had no choice but to use his ultimate trick.
"Excuse me, do you know where the Fujimura Group is?"
The second person who heard the question also changed color, but Shirou pulled two thousand-yen bills from his pocket.
He obtained the information with ease.
This was the first principle Shirou had realized after returning: money was omnipotent.
In this world without calamity, people followed a religion called "capitalism" (?). As long as you had money, you could obtain nearly anything you wanted.
Money was effective not only in the mundane world but also in the hidden world of magic.
According to Makiri, if you had hundreds of millions of dollars, you could even obtain the highest-grade, Jewel-level Mystic Eyes.
In the past, Zouken Matou had painstakingly studied ways to make money for the sake of his magical research. He now possessed enormous assets overseas.
With the power of money, Shirou found the Fujimura Group's base—a shabby old office that looked utterly unremarkable.
"Hey! This isn't a place for little kids! Hurry up and go home to watch cartoons!"
A tall man stood at the entrance in a black suit and black sunglasses, threatening Shirou viciously.
No wonder the citizens all kept their distance from this place, the boy thought.
Before you continue