"Oh! I swear, if you use that awkward translation tone to disgust me again, I'm definitely going to use the Impaler's Noble Phantasm to kick your ass hard."
Chapter 20: Since it concerns everyone's fun, you won't have any complaints, right?
"Name?"
"Sampo Koski. Friend, can we find a wind-sheltered spot first? Old Sampo here can already feel the cold wind creeping into the seams of my clothes."
"Cold?"
Shirou Emiya looked at his companions beside him. The companions shook their heads in unison, and Shirou Emiya then looked at old Sampo with displeasure before speaking.
"Are you not ashamed as a big man? The two young girls are running around bare-legged and haven't called it cold. Suck it up."
"My esteemed big brothers and sisters, stop toying with me. If you keep playing like this, my body temperature really won't be able to hold o—achoo..."
Emotion from Sampo +13
Old Sampo had already begun to regret it. He had originally been searching for some useful supplies in this snowfield when he suddenly saw a flying machine descend from the sky. Thus, he had planned to hide along the other party's inevitable route to observe these newcomers.
Who would have thought...
The moment those people walked up to the snowdrift where he was hiding, one of them unceremoniously yanked him out of the snowdrift like pulling up a radish, and even briefly wanted to use him as a means of transportation.
"He looks kind of pitiful. Stop messing with him, Shirou."
"March 7th, do you know what kind of person you're sympathizing with?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Shirou Emiya took out a mask with a smile from his personal storage. The moment he saw the mask, old Sampo's expression became extremely dramatic, looking just like a duck whose neck was being choked as his face flushed red.
"You, you..."
Emotion from Sampo +42
"How did he suddenly become like this? Teacher Dan Heng, take a quick look at him. Is he really about to have a problem?"
"Calm down, March. That mask should be the mask of a Masked Fool, belonging to one of the token types for followers of Joy."
The Cold-faced Little Azure Dragon understood Shirou's meaning, then explained to March 7th.
"Followers of Joy often disguise themselves as ordinary people while secretly pushing events behind the scenes to make things more troublesome. According to them, this is meant to make events more dramatic, but in essence, it's just looking for fun."
"Shirou Emiya means that this Mr. Sampo should also be one of the Masked Fools, and his facial expression is changing right now simply because he was preemptively treated as entertainment and toyed with by Shirou Emiya."
"I see... and here this young lady was worried for a moment."
Hearing Teacher Dan Heng's thoughtful explanation, the trace of sympathy in Little Pink Hair's heart instantly vanished without a trace, and she even felt somewhat like going up and kicking him a few times. If she hadn't discovered his identity in advance, wouldn't this young lady have been kept in the dark and treated as his amusement?
"However, after hearing Teacher Dan Heng explain it like this, this young lady is so angry... Shirou, since he said the cold wind blowing into his clothing seams feels uncomfortable, let's strip off the rest of his clothes so the cold wind doesn't sneak in and make him uncomfortable."
"Virtuous! You are too virtuous, March 7th."
Shirou Emiya expressed heartfelt praise. Teacher Dan Heng seemed somewhat unable to watch anymore and was preparing to stop them when Asta suddenly spoke up.
"No, stripping all of them isn't very appropriate."
"...Seems like it too."
March 7th's belated sympathy returned. After pondering slightly, she decided to speak up and only symbolically strip off one piece of Sampo's clothing to teach him a lesson, but Miss Asta's next sentence directly caused her entire cerebellum to atrophy.
"Just leave him with a pair of underwear. Undressing him completely would make March look too eager."
"Eager for what?"
Miss Asta's light gold pupils stared at her good friend. That calm little face for the first time revealed a weird smile that made March 7th want to punch her. Her small mouth parted slightly, and as soon as her delicate lips opened, out came—
"A man's..."
"Ahhhhhhh! You are not allowed to say it!!!"
A sound like a boiling kettle spread across the entire snowfield. Shirou Emiya looked at Miss Asta in silence. Although children would imitate the people around them, just whose person did this skill of dropping dirty jokes actually come from?
First, rule out the Express crew members...
Then, the only ones left are from his old employers, the Stellaron Hunters.
Asta seemed to be the product of four people's genetic inheritance.
If something were passed down genetically...
First, Blade had to be ruled out. That cool guy could never drop dirty jokes.
Secondly, Kafka was the type who never smiled easily.
Sam himself was even more innocent than Miss Asta.
Then...
The mastermind seemed to only leave one person.
"You have committed heinous crimes, little wolf."
Sampo's clothes were ultimately not pulled off. Teacher Dan Heng was still too kind, forcibly dragging old Sampo through the snow and pulling him along while inquiring about the situation on this planet along the way.
Old Sampo seemed to be lacking in enthusiasm because Shirou had pulled out the mask, so he didn't conceal much and told everyone everything they wanted to know.
For example, this planet indeed possessed a Stellaron that had wreaked havoc for hundreds to thousands of years, and the Great Cold was brought about by the Stellaron.
And for another example, the local human settlement was left with only a single city named "Belobog", implying the sanctuary of Klippers. The supreme leader of the governing apparatus here was the Supreme Guardian, belonging to a military-political integrated administrator. Holding the ownership of the sole army—the Silvermane Guards—the Supreme Guardian's power had radiated into every domain of the city through generations of power shifts.
The Son of Heaven: those with strong soldiers and stout horses should hold the position.
This Supreme Guardian of Belobog was practically the final "King" upon this planet.
If they, these outsiders, wanted to do anything locally, they would inevitably be unable to bypass the existence of this King.
"What is the reputation of the current Supreme Guardian?"
"Her administrative achievements are not bad, but a few years ago she closed the mining area and locked a large number of miners in the Belobog Underworld, which triggered some public opinion. Now the Belobog Underworld has completely severed ties with the surface. Later, the miners' families launched protests and had conflicts with the Silvermane Guards. Because of this situation, the Supreme Guardian seems to have completely cut off the Underworld's possibility of returning to the surface and dispatched heavy troops to guard all transportation routes."
Hearing this, Shirou's eyes instantly lit up, and he quickly spoke.
"Good! Let me go down to the Underworld to have a few foxes howl a bit, and we'll go down to support the Underworld's administrators. Then we can directly raise troops to march on the capital and snatch that Supreme Guardian's bloody throne!"
"We don't have any foxes here anymore."
Old Sampo said lifelessly, looking as though he had aged several decades.
"Besides, isn't your goal the Stellaron? Wouldn't it be better to quickly contain the Stellaron and leave?"
"Brother, I am also a Masked Fool."
Hearing Shirou utter these righteous words, old Sampo cried out without tears.
"Big bro, isn't the profession of Nameless enough to be glorious? I beg you, don't go messing around in my old Sampo's turf."
Emotion from Sampo +25
Watching the emotional value once again hit the ledger in the prompt box, Shirou Emiya looked at old Sampo with an increasingly affectionate gaze, and thus gave old Sampo the most enthusiastic response.
"Love the job you do. Since Grandpa Aha personally named me to be this Masked Fool, how could I live up to His trust?"
"Brother Sampo, for the sake of everyone in the tavern, you'll just have to be wronged."
"Since it concerns everyone's fun, you won't have any complaints, right?"
Chapter 21: Words cannot reform others; it's still more effective to use a bat.
"Shirou, you're not seriously planning to support a rebellion, are you?"
"You could consider it."
Walking along the path toward Belobog, March 7th sidled up to Shirou and cautiously asked.
"Wouldn't that cause a lot of people to die?"
"Armed coup or palace revolt, since ancient times, power transitions have never come without bloodshed and sacrifice."
"I understand that much, but..."
"You mean it's no good if we push it forward, right?"
"—Right."
"Then, if we don't push it, who's going to fire the first shot? If no one ever fires the first shot, how much longer will the current situation persist? How many more people will die while it continues? How much longer do we need to be blocked here by the Stellaron? You can call me reckless... but sometimes, when you want to do something, you don't need to care too much about other people's opinions. As long as you yourself feel it is right, that is enough."
Shirou Emiya looked at March 7th. His light gold pupils rarely held a hint of solemnity.
"With only a single city left, the material situation of this planet can already be imagined. The arable area is extremely small, and staple grain foods must be in short supply, while meat... one can imagine it should be mainly based on cultivable types. Without accidents, we might even be able to drink soup made of earthworms and silkworms here."
"And under these conditions, locking a large number of miners inside the mining area without material transport—Little March... we usually call this kind of situation being buried alive."
"Moreover, the miners there were originally people from the surface city. Because of a single administrative order from the Supreme Guardian, numerous families must have already been torn apart. If there are elderly people at home, even their parents might have already passed away without the Underworld ever knowing."
"If that Supreme Guardian truly has no 'crucial' reason, her actions can basically be stamped with the labels of a dim-witted and tyrannical ruler."
He naturally understood Cocolia's situation; bewitched by the Stellaron, she had basically now been reduced to a puppet of the Stellaron.
But even so,
the decree was issued by her personally, and those innocent dead and suffering victims were almost equivalent to being sent into hell by her own hands.
Standing from the perspective that she was also a victim, perhaps some people would forgive her, such as Bronya, or perhaps Serval, but... standing from the perspective of the innocent victims, if this Supreme Guardian did not die, public anger would have no way to subside.
"Of course, this is just my own unilateral opinion right now. In your eyes, I might appear a bit radical, but I've only stated one of my ideas. Right now, we're also unsure whether that Supreme Guardian will become our resistance. Assuming she really is an understandable, wise ruler willing to cooperate with us to solve the Stellaron problem, that would naturally be the best of both worlds."
However...
Mr. Emiya knew it was impossible, because that woman had almost completely degenerated into a puppet.
Although letting Bronya ascend smoothly was also a suitable plan, as a member of the privileged interest group, Bronya fundamentally lacked the qualifications to empathize with the people of the Underworld—even though a so-called background of being from an Underworld orphanage was forcefully added later.
However,
just such a background at most only showed the legitimacy of her succession.
In Mr. Emiya's view, this setting was also pure perfunctory writing. Bronya in this world didn't even do anything before picking up the position of Supreme Guardian for free, making it seem far too smooth and logical.
Having already made up her mind to harbor rebellious intentions against the Supreme Guardian, she actually still ran up to the main target to inquire, only to nearly get brainwashed and pulled over by the main target's verbal debate.
A betrayal that isn't thorough is a complete lack of betrayal.
If Li Yuan had had such a simple and honest good second son back then, he probably could have smiled in his sleep.
"There's no need to think so much for now, March. This is also your Trailblaze Journey. Observe everything well with your own eyes, and then make the choice you feel is right. You don't need to force yourself to agree with everyone else's opinions. Even me, I won't require you to submit to my ideals."
"However, in the end, if you always insist on your own thoughts and are unable to effectively complete that action, perhaps you can call my name."
"At that time, if I can recognize your ideals, I will pour out everything to help you."
Gazing at Shirou Emiya who made such a promise, Little March's eyes briefly flashed with a few ripples of unusual light before she cheerfully smiled again.
"What if by then it's you, Shirou, begging this young lady to make a move? If that Supreme Guardian really is a bad guy, this young lady will sneakily give her an arrow then and vent a bit of pent-up anger for the people she's bullied."
Shirou smiled and said no more.
After crossing the vast snowfield and looking down from before a steep cliff, everyone finally saw the silver fortress standing amidst the ice and snow—the ultimate and only surviving gathering place of human civilization on the planet Jarilo-VI.
Belobog.
This name had represented local civilization for several centuries, and even the planet's name Jarilo-VI, once recognized by interstellar civilization, had long since vanished from conventional records.
The reason was simply because of a tiny Stellaron.
This was why it was called the Cancer of All Worlds.
"If you big brothers and sisters want to enter Belobog, how about I, old Sampo, go ahead and say hello for you first to get you some temporary identity proofs?"
Belobog had not seen any visitors from beyond for centuries. To call it a purely native indigenous civilization nowadays was not an exaggeration; there were no other human settlements outside the city. Any unfamiliar face wanting to enter Belobog would inevitably undergo inspection and interrogation.
"I suggest going straight to the Underworld."
Shirou looked into the distance at this city in the ice and snow. The vision bestowed upon him by Clairvoyance allowed him to clearly see that there were still quite a few members of the middle class enjoying a leisurely life on the city streets.
"Dealing with official authorities in the Upper City and Belobog will be very troublesome. As an organization combining military and police that takes orders directly from the Supreme Guardian, rushing blindly into this city will probably result in us being sent straight to prison or before the Supreme Guardian at the very first moment."
"The possibility of unfamiliar visitors from beyond being placed under control for a year or two exists. Just the excuse of confirming our potential threat is enough to get us locked up."
Before you continue