The early morning of the Remembrance day was not as chaotic as the previous night. The atmosphere inside the Guard Department could practically be described as peaceful.
Aside from a few people still sitting in front of computers with dark circles under their eyes, lightly tapping away at keyboards, most people had piled up clothes and jackets as makeshift pillows and fallen asleep.
Chen and Hoshiguma already seemed accustomed to this kind of situation. They even had their own sleeping bags.
Under normal circumstances, Shirou would not mind projecting a few items for others to use, but right now he needed to conserve both magical energy and stamina. So when he looked at those sleeping under rather rough conditions, all he could do was silently apologize.
At the moment, Shirou was merely taking advantage of spare moments to rest and recover his stamina.
He did not choose to sleep. Setting aside the fact that he probably would not be able to fall asleep in this situation anyway, there was also still work to be done from time to time, with occasional phone calls coming in.
Shirou mainly stayed by the phone. At the very least, while he was here, he would not let it ring for too long and wake everyone else up.
Once the phone rang, it usually meant they had to mobilize again. After some coordination among the group, they decided that whenever there was news about wanted criminals appearing, the three of them would take turns bringing Shirou along on operations.
The reason they rotated was mainly to allow everyone opportunities to rest, and this arrangement had actually been Shirou's suggestion.
Compared to leading a large group during operations, Shirou preferred this kind of independent combat style.
Under these exceptional circumstances, Chen, Hoshiguma, and Swire could only accept the suggestion. At the very least, all three of them had already taken Shirou out once each, allowing everyone else to get at least a little proper sleep.
Being able to sleep peacefully for even two hours now counted as extremely fortunate.
While waiting for calls, Shirou also handled some relatively simple paperwork.
All he could say was that Swire truly had the nerve to throw work at him... these documents were not things he should even be dealing with.
But he could not simply leave them unfinished either, so in the end he gritted his teeth and dealt with them. The documents he could not process went into a pile on the left, while completed ones went into a pile on the right as Shirou carefully worked through them.
After the series of arrest operations ended and they returned to the Guard Department, the three of them each took turns resting. Whenever something came up, Shirou would wake up whichever person had been designated earlier and have them take him out on the operation.
They could operate with fewer people, but the squad leader absolutely had to be one of those three.
Throughout the entire early morning, they went out on three operations total, perfectly one for each person.
As for why the workload dropped so drastically after midnight... Shirou guessed it had something to do with the black-cloaked figures he had seen at the scenes earlier.
Shirou felt as though he frequently encountered these people, though Yith had previously told him not to concern himself with them and simply treat them as though they did not exist.
And if he truly became enemies with those people, then he should simply unleash a massive attack into the sky and give the people behind them a taste of fear.
Right now, it was about time for him to wake Chen up.
Honestly, Shirou felt somewhat guilty about waking people up like this. Back at Penguin Logistics, whenever someone tried to sleep in, Shirou would usually leave it to the others to handle them properly. This might actually be his first time personally waking someone himself.
Fuji-nee did not count. He felt absolutely no guilt waking her up.
If Chen had not specifically said there was still work to do, Shirou would actually have preferred letting her sleep longer. After all, it was only six in the morning, still far from normal working hours.
After thinking for a moment, Shirou first took out his phone and ordered breakfast delivery from a breakfast shop Swire had once recommended, enough for the three of them and himself. Then he went to the break room and brewed a pot of coffee before finally carrying out this truly unforgivable task.
The reason he deliberately handled those trivial matters first was partly to delay things a little. That way, even if someone questioned him, he could simply say those errands had taken time.
Perfect plan.
"...Thanks. Did you stay awake the entire night?"
Fortunately, Chen did not have any morning temper. Although she still looked a little groggy after waking up, the moment she saw her desk she quickly returned to work mode.
The first thing she did was ask about Shirou's condition.
There was still some time before work officially started, enough for him to get proper rest. Since she was awake now, they could switch duties.
Looking at the documents piled on Shirou's desk, Chen honestly wanted to collapse back down and continue sleeping. However, those thoughts only flashed through her mind briefly before she quickly threw them aside.
It was already wrong enough to leave the pressure of the overnight work on Shirou. Thinking about slacking off even more would be unacceptable.
After taking a sip of the coffee Shirou had brewed, Chen felt much more awake.
Four hours of sleep might seem very short for ordinary people, but for her it was enough.
Now it was time for Shirou to get some proper rest.
"It is only one sleepless night. It is not a major issue."
For Shirou, staying awake for one night really was not much of a problem.
After all, his body was still young. Pushing it a little would not cause any major issues.
Besides, during the Holy Grail Wars, most operations happened at night anyway. With memories from several Holy Grail Wars, Shirou was already quite used to this kind of schedule.
Of course, staying up late long-term was still not a good idea. Shirou intended to properly adjust his schedule later.
"Is that so? Even so, you should still rest for a while."
Seeing that Shirou still looked remarkably energetic, Chen did not think too much about it.
A few days ago, she herself had looked just like Shirou. The only difference was that she had now already been thoroughly worn down.
Considering that he was essentially reinforcement borrowed from Penguin Logistics, and also considering how much help he had already provided her in the past, Chen had no intention of dragging him into all these exhausting troubles as well.
"Alright. I already ordered breakfast earlier. It should arrive soon, so Chen, you can share it with Swire and Hoshiguma later. As for the coffee, I only brewed this one pot pf coffee."
Although he had just been thinking earlier about how his young body could endure some abuse, if possible Shirou still wanted to properly rest and recover his energy.
After all, something similar to last night's events might happen again today. And now that Chen was awake, he could hand the work back over to her, meaning there was nothing else he needed to do.
After briefly explaining the breakfast arrangements he had made, Shirou returned to his seat and lay down to rest.
"..."
Thinking back to what Shirou had just said, Chen could only feel that he was truly exceptional when it came to taking care of people.
And when she thought about the nickname people inside the Guard Department secretly used for Shirou...
It was honestly rather amusing.
Shirou only managed to take a short nap. After all, once the sky brightened and the people of Lungmen woke up, the phones at the Guard Department started ringing nonstop again.
The noise gave Shirou a headache.
"You are awake? Good work."
Hoshiguma, who had woken up slightly earlier than Shirou, was currently eating the breakfast Shirou had ordered for everyone.
Waking up to find breakfast already arranged for you really was a wonderful feeling, especially when the person even knew what you liked to eat.
One bite of fried dough sticks, one sip of soy milk. A perfect start to the day.
"Yawn... what is with all those phone calls? Do we not need to head out?"
Letting out a yawn, Shirou grabbed the remaining meat bun from the bag and bit into it. It was the breakfast he had ordered for himself earlier.
At the same time, he asked about the continuous phone calls from earlier.
"There is no need to worry about those. They are calls from higher up. They said if we work a bit harder today, they will be able to send us more manpower tomorrow."
Seeing Shirou's resentful expression, Hoshiguma laughed lightly as she explained.
She understood completely, because she herself had also been woken up by those calls earlier. Both she and Shirou were victims.
"At this hour?"
Shirou glanced at the time slightly. There was still more than half an hour before the Guard Department officially started work.
They were actually calling this early?
"It is routine already. We are used to it."
Hoshiguma said with a helpless expression.
Just from her movements and tone, Shirou could fully sense the resentment she had built up over a long period of time.
Right, it had nothing to do with him... wait, no. Considering how often the Boss casually loaned him out, it seemed very possible that he would frequently get borrowed by the Guard Department in the future to help handle this kind of high-pressure work.
Thinking of that, Shirou viciously bit into his breakfast, as though he could already see his future self trapped in an endless overtime hell.
Was Emiya Shirou simply destined to be tied to overtime work?
Looking at it another way, at least his normal days were still fairly relaxed. He only occasionally encountered these periods of intense overtime, which was still within an acceptable range.
With that thought in mind, Shirou felt a little less miserable.
"Today, Shirou, you will stay with Old Chen again. You two were quite efficient yesterday."
Seeing Shirou's expression constantly changing before finally seeming to accept reality, Hoshiguma decided she could not understand what he was thinking and directly moved the conversation back to work.
"Alright... speaking of which, where is Chen?"
Shirou had no objections to Hoshiguma's arrangement. It was only after she mentioned Chen that he realized Chen was not in the office.
"I went to handle those documents. I threw part of them back to the char siu cat. Also, the portion you handled yesterday was done quite well. At this rate, we can assign you more paperwork in the future."
Speak of the devil. Chen walked over carrying a stack of documents and directly placed them on Shirou's desk.
"...I really do not think these are things I should be dealing with."
Looking at the thick stack of files, Shirou forced out a strained smile as he tried to refuse.
This kind of work seriously exhausted the brain, alright? If Swire had not looked like she was about to suddenly die from overwork earlier, he never would have helped.
Shirou felt he could still save himself. No matter what, he was technically just temporary support personnel, so handling paperwork like this was honestly inappropriate.
"It is fine. If I think you can do it, then you can do it. Work hard."
Seeing Shirou's troubled expression, Chen smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
"Alright... I will do my best."
At this point, Shirou could only accept reality.
Just earlier, he had been thinking that since the three of them worked so hard, he should probably add more dishes to their lunchboxes in the future.
Shirou still thought that way now. The only difference was that this time he was thinking they should eat something especially nutritious to replenish themselves.
For example, nutritional meals. Or perhaps Miss Hibiscus's nutritional meals.
Naturally, Chen had no idea what Shirou was thinking. Still, she was not some Sarkaz who would force a person that had stayed up all night to continue handling work endlessly.
However, she genuinely meant what she said earlier. She felt that letting Shirou gradually get exposed to some office work was actually not a bad thing.
Subtle influence and adaptation.
Besides, recently Shirou seemed to be showing signs of becoming more like Penguin Logistics. His personality was becoming increasingly sly and black-hearted, so she wanted to see whether giving him more work could slightly correct that.
If the people from Penguin Logistics knew what she was thinking, they would definitely cry out in injustice. They were victims too.
Of course, neither side would ever know this, because even Shirou himself had not realized he had such issues.
As time passed, the number of calls coming into the Guard Department gradually increased again, and people constantly moved in and out of the office.
Most of it was just small incidents that did not require Chen personally handling them, so Shirou comfortably remained at his desk.
And perhaps because of lack of sleep or something similar, Shirou felt that Chen's condition seemed somewhat off.
Before Shirou could walk over and ask about her condition, the phone on Chen's desk rang, and she immediately answered it.
Shirou also understood very clearly that calls made directly to her desk were usually important matters, so he immediately started packing up his things in preparation to head out.
And his assumption was correct. The moment Chen answered the phone, her expression became extremely serious.
"Shirou, we are leaving!"
After putting down the phone, Chen stood up, grabbed the standard Guard Department sword along with Chi Xiao, and walked out immediately.
She moved in great haste. Fortunately, Shirou had packed up in advance, otherwise he would have been left behind.
Jogging forward to catch up, Shirou looked at Chen's serious expression and asked,
"Did something happen?"
"There is a bit of trouble on Swire's side. They ran into a group of infected who can use Arts, and there are even attack drones involved. We are taking a squad over there to provide support."
Chen briefly explained the current situation.
"Infected and drones?"
After hearing Chen's explanation, Shirou frowned slightly.
It was not as though they had never encountered infected yesterday. But aside from the group capable of using Arts that he encountered together with Hoshiguma at the very beginning, the others had just been ordinary infected.
And this time there were attack drones as well... that made things more troublesome.
Reconnaissance drones would have been one thing, but attack drones were not equipment ordinary people could easily acquire. That meant the enemy was either a well-organized group or had someone behind them supplying resources.
Of course, the situation might not necessarily be that bad. Perhaps those infected had simply happened to obtain such equipment.
Still, Shirou's instincts leaned more toward the former possibility.
Combined with the fact that Chen's condition did not seem very good either, it looked like he would have to push himself again shortly.