As Shirou spent more and more time living with the Greyrat family, another half a year quickly passed, and Rudeus was already over one year old.
During these six months, Shirou always took Lilia's place in taking care of Rudeus, while also strictly controlling his strange actions.
No matter where Rudeus crawled, Shirou could always find him in time, preventing him from running all over the house.
At the same time, Shirou often spent his free time chatting with Rudeus.
Although the other person was just a baby who couldn't talk much, Shirou knew that Rudeus was no ordinary child. He treated this younger brother, who was obviously born different, the way he used to treat his younger sister Miyu, communicating with him as if he were an adult.
Even though Rudeus still showed obvious distance and fear towards Shirou, Shirou never showed any different attitude, facing this new family member with pure gentleness.
Shirou didn't remember when it started, but Rudeus' distance gradually lessened, and the fear and panic in his eyes were gradually replaced by respect and regard.
Although this was still not the kind of sibling relationship Shirou hoped for, since he couldn't change it, there was no need to force anything.
It was best to let things happen naturally.
…
Another year passed, Rudeus turned two, and Shirou's body was approaching seven, entering the usual development period for children.
Rudeus was becoming more and more like an ordinary baby. He no longer had those strange behaviors, and his previously unpredictable actions began to show a fixed pattern.
He no longer appeared and disappeared without warning, but instead stayed in the corner of Paul's study on the second floor.
Though called a study, it was actually a simple room with only a few books.
Rudeus always stayed in that room and didn't come out. The other people in the house went to observe him and only found him sitting obediently on the ground, reading.
The others in the family felt that a two-year-old child couldn't possibly understand books written with words and that he was purely using them as toys to pass the time, but Shirou clearly felt that Rudeus was reading, and reading without anyone teaching him the words.
This magical phenomenon further proved that Rudeus was a special child, and even if he wasn't as special as his former younger sister Miyu, he was definitely not ordinary.
Ordinary people might fear and be afraid of such a child. For example, the maid Lilia often seemed nervous and uneasy about Rudeus' talents, but Shirou wouldn't show a different attitude towards family members because of special talents.
And if he had to say it, the truly different freak was not Rudeus, but himself.
…
"Splash, splash."
Taking water from the wooden bucket to wash his face, Shirou had already gotten up before the sun rose and came to the Greyrat family's yard.
The Greyrat family's yard was large. Although it wasn't as vast as the Emiya residence from his previous life, it was definitely a very spacious environment.
Shirou stood firmly in the center of the yard, picked up the wooden sword placed to the side for his training, and began his normal swordsmanship training.
In the past year and a half, he had never stopped practicing swordsmanship for a single day, devoting almost all of his time to physical training.
In his previous life, Shirou had never pursued his own strength too much. He always saw exercise as a means of strengthening his body and had never thought of relying on training his body to achieve some goal. He even occasionally relaxed his training, wasting time on meaningless things.
However, after experiencing that snowy night, after experiencing that crazy battle with Ainsworth, Shirou realized the importance of power.
While great power cannot guarantee true happiness, without great power, one is destined to be unable to obtain happiness!
Whenever he recalled the scene of helplessly watching the girl named Sakura die on that snowy night, he couldn't help but increase his strength, treating himself with a more harsh attitude, striving for more difficult training, and wanting to become even stronger.
In this way, almost squeezing his abilities, his body began to improve at an almost abnormal speed.
Although he still hadn't exceeded the limits a seven-year-old could have, everything about him could no longer be described with the word "child."
Of course, Shirou didn't think there was anything special about his current strength.
Because since Paul first taught him how to swing a sword, he had basically stopped paying attention to him and hadn't taught him swordsmanship any further.
The reason wasn't that Paul was neglecting his adopted son, but according to the customs of this world, children need to be seven years old to formally begin swordsmanship practice, constantly training as a knight.
Although this wasn't an absolute restriction, Paul, as a knight lord, still had some rigid rules.
Therefore, for the past year or so, Shirou had been blindly practicing here alone, unable to compare his strength with the outside world.
For this reason, he could only constantly recall the former Servant Emiya, recalling the fighting methods and memories he had gained after using Servant Emiya's card, to treat himself with the demands of that time.
Thus, after experiencing an almost long period of time, he felt a certain bottleneck break.
So Shirou gripped the wooden sword in his hand and came to a large rock placed in the Greyrat family's yard.
The stone was specially moved from afar by Paul, intending for Shirou and Rudeus to use for swordsmanship training.
Although Paul was a noble, he came from a wild background in terms of swordsmanship, self-taught during his time as an adventurer, combining the strengths of many schools. So his requirements for swordsmanship were very simple, which was to be able to destroy such a large stone with a single blow.
Shirou had previously suspected that his Servant Emiya form could easily cut this kind of stone, but he was no longer the Shirou who had the card.
And now he was not just without the card, even his appearance had returned to his childhood...
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't possibly cut this big stone.
However, after a long period of training, Shirou vaguely had a feeling, a not very strong, but unavoidable strong intuition—
He could do it!
"I am the bone of my sword!"
Muttering a strange chant, Shirou's gaze focused on the stone in front of him.
The wooden sword in his hand somehow emitted a strange light, gradually radiating a sharpness that shouldn't belong to this fragile training weapon.
"Ha!"
Without extra skills, and without extra movements, Shirou simply followed his memories of Servant Emiya and swung the weapon in his hand!
"Boom!"
A storm that shouldn't have been released from the hands of a child of this age erupted with amazing vibrations in the quiet yard!
Violent smoke and the sounds of commotion from the Greyrat family rang out.
Shirou stared blankly at the huge rock in front of him, which was the size of an adult, and found that the stone was split in two from the middle, revealing a clear cross-section.
Without a doubt, this huge stone had been cut in half by his sword!