You call this a projection?

Even someone with very little knowledge of RPG rockets can find out through the internet how they should be used—specifically, that they should not be used in cramped indoor spaces.

This is because the high-temperature gases emitted upon launch will, through rapid thermal expansion and contraction, create an air blast powerful enough to rupture a person’s internal organs. Of course, this is limited to extremely small spaces; as long as the indoor area is spacious enough, an RPG can actually be fired indoors.

But exactly how high a temperature can Avdol’s [Magician’s Red] generate?

According to Avdol’s description in the original story, he was capable of melting iron bars—like the ones in this detention cell—entirely in mid-air before [Star Platinum] could even throw them at him. The melting point of iron is generally around 1500°C.

However, that is under normal conditions. Given [Star Platinum’s] power and speed, if [Magician’s Red] wanted to melt those bars in such a short window of time, it would have to release temperatures reaching tens of thousands of degrees!

Detonating such a heat source indoors... in the original story, during his battle with Jotaro Kujo, Avdol had the leisure to constrain the diffusion of the surrounding temperature, preventing the worst-case scenario.

One can only say that while [Magician’s Red] has a Precision of C, it’s similar to the elemental Stand [Weather Report], which has a Precision of E yet can manipulate raindrops to knock down pencils and play melodies on a piano. Although it’s unclear exactly what ”Precision” refers to in a Stand’s stat sheet, it certainly isn’t referring to their precision in elemental manipulation.

But Jotaro Kujo didn’t know that.

Despite Jotaro’s cold exterior and his strained relationships with his mother, Holy Kujo, and the local police, if he truly had to choose between his own pride and the lives of others, Jotaro Kujo would choose the latter without hesitation!

Therefore, Jotaro, who had been about to make a move after hearing Joseph’s words, stopped immediately upon hearing Shirou Emiya’s warning.

As for Avdol, even if he was confident that no errors would occur in such a matter, Joseph—who knew Avdol’s capabilities, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked him to step up—called for him to stop at that moment.

Instead, Joseph turned his gaze toward Shirou Emiya.

”It seems you are the one who told my grandson that Avdol and I are Stand users.” Joseph looked at Shirou with a scrutinizing gaze. ”I just don’t understand why you would deliberately use half-baked information to entice my grandson.

Presumably, you wanted to induce my grandson to fight us? But why did you call off the fight at the last moment?

Don’t tell me that someone who can accurately describe Avdol’s information wouldn’t know the capabilities of [Magician’s Red].”

Had Joseph noticed anything unusual after entering the detention center? The answer was a definite yes.

After Jotaro Kujo demonstrated the power of his ”evil spirit,” let alone the officers in the station, even the other prisoners in the detention center had been moved to other rooms. Not only were Jotaro and Shirou Emiya the only ones left in their cell, but a large area surrounding them had been cleared out.

In the face of such an anomaly, Shirou Emiya—who was still sitting beside Jotaro and living in the same cell—was as conspicuous as a customer loudly shouting a promotional slogan at a crossover event between a gacha game and a fast-food joint.

Joseph had specifically called Avdol forward as a test, to some extent. Compared to his own [Hermit Purple], the flame-manipulating [Magician’s Red] was clearly much more dangerous. If Shirou Emiya could see the flames that only a Stand user should see and reacted subconsciously to them, Joseph, who was watching him closely, could confirm that Shirou was a Stand user!

However, the test was interrupted by Shirou Emiya’s self-disclosure before it even began. This made Joseph somewhat uncertain about Shirou’s goal.

”A ’Stand’ is the term for what you habitually call an ’evil spirit,’ Jotaro. As for ’Stand users,’ they are the humans, animals, or even objects that can manipulate these ’spirits’...

Uh, anyway, in the future I see, this profession—which your grandfather, Mr. Joestar, named ’Stand users’—is indeed quite diverse.”

Perhaps as compensation for interfering with the fight, Shirou Emiya revealed the information ahead of time that Joseph had intended for Jotaro to learn through experience.

”After all, a Stand is an image composed of a user’s mental energy. As long as a creator’s mental power is strong enough to leave that spirit within an object, then the objects they forge will possess a Stand. This is true even for inanimate objects, let alone animals.”

Although this wasn’t exactly how Joseph introduced Stands to Jotaro in the original story—where he described them as powerful phantasms created by the user’s life energy—that explanation couldn’t account for the later appearance of [Anubis]. As a lifeless sword, why did it have a Stand? Or why could Yoshikage Kira still summon [Killer Queen] after becoming a soul?

Furthermore, there was the method for evolving a Stand summarized by the vampire DIO. It didn’t rely on a vampire’s talent to drain others’ life energy to strengthen his own; rather, it was about finding a way for his spirit to reach [Heaven].

”Of course, since mental energy and life energy are closely related, someone with sufficiently vigorous life energy will not have weak mental energy,” Shirou added. ”Conversely, a decrease in life energy prevents the brain from receiving enough nutrients, weakening the body’s mental energy.”

”...”

Joseph seemed to be digesting the contents of Shirou’s words. After reflecting for a good while, he spoke: ”A very interesting theory. But since you say you can see the future, you should understand that this isn’t what I want to know...”

”Mr. Joestar, you want to ask about DIO?” Though phrased as a question, Shirou Emiya spoke with a tone of certainty.

”You’re wondering why I—who has no relation to DIO and didn’t awaken a Stand because DIO occupied an ancestor’s body—want to get involved in this, right?

But what if I said that DIO intends to use the nature of Stands to achieve an evolution beyond humanity, just as he did a hundred years ago?”