Chapter 209: Emiya: Is It My Turn to Work Overtime Now?
At this moment, the streets of the Shibuya District could only be described as overcrowded.
In the beginning, the crowds on the streets could still manage to circulate, because no matter how foolish the government was, they wouldn't allow a bustling commercial street to fall into a state of total traffic paralysis.
However, as the entire perimeter of the Shibuya District was sealed by the barrier, not only were the channels for people to leave blocked, but even the people who were originally settled inside the malls—and wouldn't normally come out—began to spill onto the streets under the gradually mounting tension.
First, thousands upon thousands of people were gathered together; then, the internet was forcibly cut off by the barrier, causing everyone to lose their means of contacting the outside world or passing the time. This forced them to begin constantly interacting with the people around them...
When a group of people is forced together in a situation where they can only communicate with each other—and in a situation where they don't even know what danger has occurred—who knows what kind of conclusions they might discuss?
One must realize that there is a term in law called "illegal assembly," which is often used to describe this very situation.
"What's going on? Has no one remembered us until now? What is the government doing?"
At first, everyone was still relatively patient, so they didn't harbor much resentment toward the current situation. They understood that such a large-scale network outage and paralysis was clearly a major incident.
But once the first voice of resistance and complaint appeared, the direction of things began to shift.
In a complex crowd, positive emotions don't necessarily spread, but negative emotions can certainly diffuse with ease.
The mainstream view in the crowd was originally an expectation that government rescue was coming, until a few minutes ago when that expectation suddenly reversed, and they began to complain about why the rescue had not yet arrived. People living in this high-pressure society carry more or less some level of resentment; it's normal for such resentment to arise. From their perspective, their normal lives had been completely disrupted.
Unfortunately, from their ignorant perspective, they likely couldn't imagine what they were actually experiencing. Even the most daring and conspiracy-minded ordinary person could only imagine, at most, that this place was under attack by some terrorist organization, leading to the failure of all their communication facilities.
Having lived within the bounds of peace since the day they were born, they were unwilling and reluctant to think of the outcome in terms of war.
But although such things are detrimental to the human collective, there are always some individuals who don't quite count as human and want to profit for themselves from it, aren't there?
"Looking at what's happening, do you think it's a war exercise? Even if there is such a thing, is it necessary to make it so realistic?"
"Who cares what it is. Anyway, once I get out, I'm going to find the government and file a heavy complaint. What kind of logic is it to leave so many people stranded on the street without any care?"
"But I seemed to hear from over there that the entire Shibuya District has been locked down by something. Could it be that something big is really about to happen..."
"Are you an idiot? What era is this? How can anyone still believe that kind of talk? Even if some terrible infectious disease appeared, it would be impossible to seal so many of us together like this."
"The way I see it, this is purely some good-for-nothing guys in the government who caused a major problem, leading to the current state of traffic and communication..."
The crowded masses on the street were full of different opinions, but most were negative remarks.
However, in Emiya's eyes, this was still a good thing.
This was because it was still just complaints against the government, rather than the entire crowd falling into a panic. This meant that, so far, these ordinary people had not suffered any casualties—at least not a large-scale casualty phenomenon.
As for the matter of the government unknowingly taking the blame for the cursed spirits? It was no big deal. They had problems to begin with, so being spat on a bit was fine.
Indeed, after dealing with Hanami, who was responsible for stalling him, the first thing Emiya did was try to find a way back to the real world. Subsequently, he successfully returned to the Shibuya District through one of the gates standing around Magano, which was almost identical to the real world.
He knew that there were still many jujutsu sorcerers waiting for him to save them within Magano, but there was clearly no small amount of trouble here in Shibuya as well...
Originally, Emiya was very conflicted about which problem to solve first.
Fortunately, just as he arrived at the vicinity of the gates, he happened to encounter Gojo Satoru, who had come from the Shibuya District into Magano. In a very short amount of time, they completed an exchange of information.
After a brief discussion, the two successfully divided their tasks: Gojo Satoru was responsible for searching and rescuing the missing jujutsu sorcerers in Magano, while Emiya was responsible for returning to reality to solve the trouble in Shibuya.
Neither of these problems could be considered more or less important. After all, the quality of life can never be compared by quantity, or rather, such things shouldn't be placed on either end of a scale. When life itself is placed on a scale, it means humanity has already lost miserably.
Moreover, they currently had no way of knowing whether Kenjaku's final goal was Magano or Shibuya, so they had to handle both with a firm hand.
However, before parting, Gojo Satoru specifically requested another favor from Emiya: that, unless absolutely necessary, he should try not to provide too much help to the students. Emiya could naturally understand Gojo's urgent desire for the students to be able to stand on their own.
Incidentally, he had similar thoughts himself, so he agreed.
Right now, it seemed the crowd was still stable, which meant Itadori and the others likely hadn't officially engaged the enemy yet, or perhaps they had intentionally restricted the scope of the battle. If they really could perfectly resolve the enemy under those conditions, it would be a bit unreasonable for Emiya not to reward them.
Let him think carefully... otherwise...
"Do you feel like the temperature around here has gotten a bit higher?"
"Really? I think it might just be because there are too many people and it's too crowded right now, leading to that illusion."
RUMBLE...!
Before Emiya could finish thinking about the rewards, he heard the people beside him talking about this issue, and the entire ground began to tremble violently.
Realizing something was wrong, Emiya was about to try and pursue the source of the vibration, but he suddenly realized there was no need.
This was because the cursed energy released by a certain fellow right now was not concealed at all. That fireball, with a radius of likely dozens of meters, was shining over the entire Shibuya District like a sun.
If it weren't for the fact that ordinary people—who are not sensitive enough to cursed energy fluctuations—couldn't see the massive flame standing in the sky and could only feel as if they had suddenly fallen into a heat as intense as a desert, the entire Shibuya District would have probably exploded instantly.
But it was also equally certain that if that massive flame meteor were allowed to crash down directly, Shibuya would "explode" in the physical sense.
"I was just thinking about whether to praise them, and then they prepared a surprise for me in the next second.
So... does this count as overtime?"
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