Would You Like Some Mapo Tofu?

"All right, ladies."

Shinji walked over to Rin and Artoria and clapped his hands, interrupting their conversation.

"For the next part of the shoot, we'll be using a few props."

As he spoke, Shinji set a beaker down on the bed with a sharp clack. Inside was a jelly-like mass, but its deep black color made it clear at a glance that it definitely wasn't jelly.

"What's this?"

Rin curiously poked it with a finger.

"A little gadget developed using the Archibolt family's Mystic Code, Moon Cell Jelly."

Shinji explained with a serious expression, "It's made with modern industrial technology and activated through magecraft. It's flexible, moldable, and breathable—a nearly perfect product. The only downside is that it's a bit expensive to make. Otherwise, I, Master Shinji, could make a fortune selling it."

Rin cut him off. "You've been rambling on and on. What does this thing actually do?"

"Shapes your figure and enhances your bust," Shinji explained succinctly. "It feels better than the silicone fake breasts currently on the market, and it looks more realistic, too. More importantly, it's highly breathable, so you won't feel uncomfortable wearing it."

"Why would I wear something like that?! You pervert!"

Rin raised her fist, looking ready to make him regret it if he didn't give her a proper explanation.

"Because the shots we just took didn't look good. The clothes didn't have anything to fill them out, and the footage looked terrible."

Artoria and Rin were both beauties in a thousand, but unfortunately, their figures...

They looked fine standing up, but once they lay down, their shortcomings became obvious.

If it had been a fleeting shot, it wouldn't have mattered. But the scene of Rin and Artoria embracing was important, so Shinji had to take it seriously.

"That's just a rationalization!" Rin shot back, annoyed. "This whole thing about bigger breasts... It's just your lewd thoughts at work, isn't it?"

Artoria, who had been listening nearby, suddenly spoke up. "Rin, I agree with Master on this."

"Huh?!"

Rin was utterly stunned. She stared wide-eyed at Artoria, who should have been on her side.

"You may be his Servant, but you're still a girl, right? Shouldn't we be standing together at a time like this?"

Rin pointed at Artoria, looking furious.

"Well, how should I put it?"

Artoria folded her arms over her chest and nodded as if she had it all figured out.

"Just looking at the facts, Rin, your bust is neither here nor there. You're not as flat-chested as I am, but you're not as busty as Sakura either. You're just in between, so of course it doesn't look good on camera."

"W-what?!"

Rin's mouth gaped wide enough to fit two eggs.

Artoria's words weren't all that hurtful, but they were deeply insulting.

Shinji instinctively glanced at their chests. He had to admit that, while Artoria's argument was completely fallacious, there was a grain of truth to it. Rin's chest was above flat, but not quite a B-cup.

By comparison, Artoria was simply flat, with no real development yet.

"Huh? No, no. You've got it wrong." Shinji waved his hands, denying it. "Rin isn't the one who'll use it. She's on top, so it won't affect the shot. The one who needs it is you, Artoria. Lying there, you're like a plank—a perfectly flat plain. It looks terrible on camera, so we need something to fill you out."

"H-how could you?! Master, how can you say that?!"

This time, Artoria wore the same expression Rin had a moment earlier.

"Oh, so that's what you meant! Hahahaha!"

Rin scratched her head, looking relieved to have escaped the situation.

"Rin, you don't have to be like that. I can give you some too, if you want."

Shinji patted Rin on the shoulder.

"This stuff is safe, nontoxic, and high-quality. It's the perfect way to improve your figure. If you're worried people will say you got a boob job, you can start with just a little. Then if anyone asks, you can say, 'I tried a new method.'"

"After that, you just let your chest grow bit by bit as you get older. No one will notice anything strange. How about it? If you really want some, I'll give you a friends-and-family discount, since we grew up together—"

"Shut up, you disgusting pervert!"

Rin punched Shinji in the face.

In the end, out of embarrassment and pride, Miss Rin firmly refused to use the product Master Shinji had offered.

And, perhaps to prove just how determined she was, Miss Rin swore a truly monumental oath as she turned him down.

"I'm only sixteen! I'm bound to develop more! This definitely isn't the best I'll ever be!"

Master Shinji thought Miss Rin was dreaming.

He was a Transmigrator who had seen countless parallel worlds in the Nasuverse and had witnessed all sorts of versions of Tohsaka Rin.

From head of the Tohsaka family to pirate captain, and even possessed by a goddess—what version of Tohsaka Rin hadn't Shinji seen?

No matter the version, Tohsaka Rin's figure was pretty much at its limit already.

The only exception was Ereshkigal Rin, but Master Shinji was more inclined to believe the artist had made a mistake. According to the official stats, Ereshkigal Rin's measurements were exactly the same as the girl standing in front of him.

When it came to whether Rin might develop further, Master Shinji had always taken a relaxed attitude: let nature take its course; it didn't matter either way.

After all, Tohsaka Rin's biggest selling point had always been her legs, her legs, and her legs...

But however you looked at it, Miss Rin had already reached her limit. If she wanted to get any bigger, she'd have to wake up and stop dreaming.

So Master Shinji confidently answered his childhood friend's oath. "The stuff's right here with me. Come find me whenever you need it. As for the price, I'll keep it the same—I absolutely won't raise it."

"Even if I never develop any further and stay like this my whole life, I'll never use your junk!"

Rin pointed up and down with her index finger. Shinji shrugged and said, "Then I'll wait for you to come around."

With that, Shinji took advantage of the moment while Rin tried to figure out what he meant and used his custom-made Mystic Code on Artoria.

Under Shinji's control of the magic power, the jelly-like mass suddenly came to life and darted into Artoria's neckline faster than the eye could follow.

"Mm..."

The cool, chilly sensation made Artoria let out a muffled groan, and her cheeks flushed involuntarily.

Fortunately, the strange sensation from the Mystic Code lasted only a few seconds. Once the "fake breasts" had taken shape, they turned the exact same flesh color as her skin, and their temperature rose to match Artoria's body heat.

From the outside, aside from Artoria's bust suddenly growing by a size, everything looked exactly as it had before. It all seemed perfectly natural.

"Mm... How amazing." Artoria bounced twice and gave her assessment. "Other than the slight increase in weight, I don't feel uncomfortable at all. Master, this thing of yours... Master, what are you doing?"

Only after lifting her head did Artoria realize that Shinji was directing a camera at her.

"Your expression just now was fantastic!" Shinji gave Artoria a thumbs-up. "We have to capture such a rare, natural look of bashfulness! We might even be able to use it in the finished film if we change the background."

"..."

The corner of Lady King of Knights' mouth twitched awkwardly.

"Master, sometimes I can really understand why Rin hates you so much."

Artoria muttered her complaint under her breath.

"Thanks for the compliment."

Shinji grinned happily.

With the help of the jelly Mystic Code, Shinji got the near-perfect shot he wanted of Artoria and Rin cuddling.

Naturally, as someone determined to make a top-tier commercial film that would influence the whole world, Shinji wasn't going to shoot anything that crossed the line.

At most, the scene of Rin and Artoria getting cozy showed off their perfect looks and their slightly enhanced (emphasis on "enhanced") figures.

Shinji had never intended to turn FSN into an adults-only Restricted rating film.

From the start, his target rating for this version of FSN had been PG-13, the Special guidance rating chosen by most commercial films in his previous life.

So Shinji hadn't chosen the original game's R-18 replenishing magic scene. Instead, he went with the all-ages version that Nasu had specially adapted for the Console platform.

However, because this parallel world's film industry had developed so bizarrely, PG-13 was basically the least respected rating.

In this strange parallel world, R-rated and G-rated films were the biggest box-office hits.

The former were favorites of adult audiences, while the latter represented the children's and family markets.

So, in the eyes of this world's filmmakers, PG-13 films couldn't attract adults the way R-18 films did, nor could they capture the children's market like G-rated films.

They were seen as an awkward middle ground, falling short on both ends. Apart from a few Youth campus movies, hardly any films chose that rating.

Interestingly enough, if any other director in this parallel world had shot this scene of Artoria and Tohsaka Rin, it would definitely have turned into an eighteen-and-over scene.

And Shinji could guess what those directors would call "artistic imagery" without even trying. It would be nudity, nudity, and more nudity.

Anyway, Master Shinji had nothing but contempt for those old lechers who talked about art while thinking only about lust.

If they really wanted to be perverts, they should learn from Shinji and use their handsome faces to seduce girls. What kind of hero used the pretense of art to act like a sleazeball?

Of course, even in the all-ages version, the scene couldn't have three people sitting stiffly on a bed, holding hands. There had to be some relatively intimate shots that showed off the two girls' charms.

More precisely, although Shinji hadn't planned to make an R-rated film, he had chosen shots that tested the limits of the Censorship line.

Shinji had his reasons for doing this.

In his previous life, people in the commercial film industry talked about the "Key dual-element scenes." They referred to the two most profitable elements of commercial films: pillow scenes and fistfights.

"Fists" meant action scenes, while "pillows" meant passion scenes. Those two had always been the most powerful ways for commercial films to draw audiences.

Artoria and Rin had already given a perfect performance in the "pillow scenes." All that remained were the even more important "fistfight scenes" in FSN.

Shinji didn't handle the "fistfight scenes" with the same coy, half-hidden restraint he'd used for the "pillow scenes."

There were no lofty ideas or pretentious tricks. Aside from the blood, whose use was limited by the rating, Shinji crammed the "fistfight scenes" with every element that could get the audience's adrenaline pumping: sharp, direct, explosive, dazzling visual effects...

This undoubtedly made action scenes harder to shoot and delayed the filming schedule.

But Shinji cared more about the quality of his first film than the speed of production. He didn't mind taking some extra time to make it as close to perfect as possible.

Besides, the action scenes were the real test of filming with magecraft technology. The dramatic scenes they'd shot earlier barely used any magecraft apart from the Mystic Code that enhanced busts.

During this period, Shinji had put into practice every idea he'd had over the past decade about using magecraft technology in filmmaking.

Now, every mage in the film crew, including Tohsaka Rin and Shirou Emiya, was following Shinji's instructions and infusing magic power into one gemstone after another.

The word "gemstone" was in quotation marks because these were all cheap artificial gems.

"This kind of shoddy stuff doesn't deserve to be called gemstones," Rin muttered. "Each one can barely store any magic power. Even if you gave them to me, I wouldn't want them."

"Obviously. If they were expensive as hell, I wouldn't be using them either."

Shinji pursed his lips, then placed some empty gemstones in front of Shirou.

"Do me a favor and process these too."

"Got it."

Shirou shrugged, picked up a red gemstone, and got to work.

Since all he had to do was infuse them with magic power—a simple, straightforward task with practically no difficulty—even a magecraft novice like Shirou could handle it easily after Rin's five-minute demonstration. He was just a little slower than everyone else.

"Why do you need so many junky gemstones?" Rin examined one and asked Shinji. "They can only store a tiny bit of magic power. They're useless for anything."

Shinji explained directly, "Explosives for filming."

The explosion sites only needed loose soil on top, so they didn't require much force. These explosives, a little stronger than firecrackers, were just right.

"They're cheap and effective, and you don't need to lay any special wires to set them off. Just get a few mages to infuse them with magic power, and they're ready to use. They're practically flawless."

Shinji sighed. "The perfect combination of modern technology and ancient magecraft. The pinnacle of practical invention. I really am a genius to have thought of this."

"It's nothing more than recycling junk."

Rin gave a snort, her nose in the air.

Influenced by her father, Tokiomi Tohsaka, Rin had a relatively traditional attitude toward magecraft. To her, magecraft was sacred. Shinji's mercenary behavior was nothing less than blasphemy.

Shinji didn't care. He cared more about the practical uses of magecraft than the Root of All Things that old-fashioned mages pursued.

As far as he was concerned, mystery had faded from the world, and not one new mage had appeared in nearly a century. Chasing the Root was already meaningless. They might as well focus on something practical.

"Rin, you have to understand that magecraft is just a tool, when all is said and done. You shouldn't place it on a pedestal. It's like the chopsticks you use to eat. Their purpose is to help you eat."