Miracle, initial signs.
Is it fate? Or causality?
Is it a coincidence? Or is someone secretly guiding or even manipulating the worldline?
None of this matters. Shinji only knows that Aozaki Touko's sister, the other half of the Aozaki family's peerless pair, has come to the Grievance Pavilion and is now standing in front of him, looking at him and his shop with a peculiar gaze.
"This Grievance Pavilion... hehe... Hey, shop owner, do you know me?"
Whether it was daze or excitement, or perhaps bewilderment, it was all a momentary thing. When Aozaki Aoko started speaking, Shinji had already adjusted his mindset. He pointed to a wooden board beside him without answering.
"Please feel free to complain... Even if you meet acquaintances, pretend not to know each other... Interesting rules, and it seems there are quite strong compulsory inscriptions attached. And it seems you and this young lady here also—"
Aozaki Aoko, standing at the pinnacle of mystery as a magician, saw through the secrets of the Grievance Pavilion with just a few glances.
"Miss, you're putting me in a difficult position. Acquaintances must pretend not to know each other, let alone probe into someone else's past. This place is just a small shop providing food and a place to vent for the tired and weary, nothing else."
Shinji's reminder did not make this magician known for her freewheeling ways stop; instead, it piqued her interest even more. She put her suitcase on the ground and sat across from Shinji, her blue eyes staring at him playfully.
"What if I insist on asking?"
"Then there's nothing I can do but ask you to leave."
Shinji's expression remained unchanged as he calmly picked up a cloth from the floor. Arcueid tilted her head, her disguised black eyes glaring at Aoko without blinking, occasionally menacingly baring her teeth.
The atmosphere in the shop gradually became tense, but Shinji felt no waves in his heart; in fact, he even found it a bit amusing.
He knew Aozaki Aoko quite well.
One of Type-Moon's four main heroines, the protagonist of Mahou Tsukai no Yoru, the earliest created but latest named heroine of Nasu Kinoko, and the first female character to serve as the main viewpoint in a canonical work. She first appeared in Type-Moon's debut work Tsukihime, appearing as Tohno Shiki's teacher at the beginning and end. Though she only had a few lines and silhouettes, she left a deep impression.
Her personality is carefree and unrestrained, and she loves freedom. Beneath her beautiful exterior lies a clumsy and solitary heart. Her dashing style is sometimes accompanied by impulsive and reckless actions. To summarize in one sentence—she is the standard hot-blooded shounen manga protagonist.
Such a person would never start a fight with Shinji here. The Grievance Pavilion is surrounded by residential areas, and with Aoko's destructive talent, if a fight broke out, the nearby residents would suffer, easily causing hundreds or thousands of casualties.
Even if Aoko did get hot-headed and decided to cause trouble, Shinji wasn't particularly afraid. While magicians are indeed powerful, they aren't invincible. The combination of himself and Arcueid might not lose, and even if they did, they could escape. Even if they couldn't escape, they wouldn't die.
The five great magics each have their mysteries, but one thing is universally acknowledged—the Second Magic is the best for running away, and the Third Magic is the best for survival. Having spent some time as Kitahara Haruki, Shinji now is hard to kill, whether in the fictional world or the real one, as long as he doesn't want to die.
As Shinji expected, Aoko didn't get hot-headed. She waved her hand dismissively, looking disappointed.
"Forget it, I'm not here to cause trouble. I just dealt with some punks earlier. When I heard them mention the Grievance Pavilion, I came to check it out. Turns out I was meddling. No, I should say I saved those idiots."
"Miss, please don't imagine us as monsters. We are honest business people who don't engage in illegal activities. And Kazusa, stop baring your teeth. You don't look scary at all."
Shinji continued to act nonchalant, while Arcueid let out an "Oh," and lay on the table out of boredom.
The Grievance Pavilion, an important base for perfecting the Third Magic, could never be just an ordinary shop. Besides the ever-growing strength of Shinji, there were his contract spirit Justeaze and Gaia's daughter Arcueid. The shop itself had many modifications.
The counter and stove were reinforced by Arcueid using Marble Phantasm.
Underground, there was a bounded field set up by Justeaze using Infinite Threads.
The sign next to the counter, crafted by Shinji himself, looked like an ordinary wooden board with four sentences written on it. In reality, the paint on the board was infused with Shinji's blood and magically processed, giving these four rules real compulsive power. Anyone without magical resistance would be involuntarily influenced by this compulsion while inside the shop, compelled to share their story and gradually forget it after leaving. Even those with intentions of extortion would become just like any other customer once inside. That's why Shinji could claim he was an honest businessman who did not engage in illegal activities.
Because the three of them used high-level mysteries, even people related to the mystical world would hardly notice it, until they encountered a magician like Aozaki Aoko.
"Whether you engage in illegal activities or not is none of my business, and those punks are none of my business either. As you said, I'm a customer and you're the shop owner. I want to order something."
"Alright, customer, what would you like to eat?"
Shinji draped the cloth over his shoulder and stood up.
"I'll have some salmon."
"Sorry, we don't have that."
"Then, some sushi."
"Apologies, we don't have that either."
"What do you have then?"
"I'm very sorry, but we've almost run out of ingredients. What's left is here. If you don't mind, you can pick from these and I'll make something for you."
As Shinji spoke, he pointed, and Aoko turned her head, her mouth twitching involuntarily.
Cheap soba noodles, cold leftover rice, vegetables that had been out all night, a few eggs, and some not-so-fresh refrigerated meat.
"What can you make with this?"
"We can cook noodles, fried rice, fried eggs, and we can do some simple grilling, like grilled meat and vegetables..."
"Grilling, huh..."
Aoko seemed to remember something, her expression softening.
"Alright then, but I have high standards for grilled food. If it's not tasty, be careful, I might not pay and just eat for free."
"I can't guarantee the taste, but I think it should satisfy you."
Shinji bent down to take out the grill plate, his calm expression now tinged with confidence.
During this time, he had learned far more than just Magic. He had ventured into many areas that magic could never touch.