Chapter 725: Chapter 3: The Evil Guest Arrives
There is a river running across all of Fuyuki City called the Mifune River.
This great river divides the entire city into two distinctly different parts: the east side is the New Capital, a highly modern city with everything one could want. Although a great fire in 1994 directly destroyed much of the New Capital, after a decade of rebuilding, it has once again become a forest of steel and concrete.
To the north by the sea, there is a port, and the Church is on a hill to the southeast.
The west side is Deep Mountain Town, essentially just a residential area of the Old City, also known as the Old Capital, built entirely along the mountains, with slopes everywhere. Among the three great families, the Makoto Family and the Tohsaka Family are in the Old Capital of Fuyuki. On Yuanzang Mountain to the west is Willow Cave Temple, with a Great Void underground where the Great Holy Grail is set up.
Overall, the map of the Old Capital naturally holds the most exploratory value.
However, considering the urgency and significance, Gu Mo glanced at his temporarily listed plan and decided to follow it in order, with Gilgamesh at the top of the list. He decided to hammer this guy out first, and then deal with other issues slowly.
He gently reached out his hand and waved it by the roadside; the next moment, a taxi screeched to a halt with a sharp brake, stopping steadily in front of him.
"Passenger... do you, do you need a ride?" The driver stuck his head out, his tone somewhat uncertain as he asked, while also looking carefully with some confusion. Under the twilight, with the afterglow of the sunset slanting over, the white-clothed Daoist standing by the roadside was very conspicuous.
Many passing pedestrians couldn’t help but glance over—
A few students, just dismissed from school, turned their heads continuously after passing by. In particular, some young girls, teeming with youthful energy, couldn’t help but whisper to each other, making jokes and frequently turning back to glance, giggling incessantly.
This made the driver, facing a midlife crisis with even his hairline becoming precarious, feel slightly envious, while also lamenting to himself how he didn’t notice such an obvious person whose posture seemed to be glowing in the sunset’s afterglow.
Suddenly seeing someone appear by the roadside ahead startled him quite a bit.
"Yes, I need a ride..."
Unceremoniously, Gu Mo directly opened the back door and sat inside: "Please take me to Yanfeng Church."
"Alright, to the Church then? Please sit tight..." The driver nodded hurriedly, and seeing the passenger in the back seated and buckled up, he stepped on the gas and drove off.
"Are you new to Fuyuki City?"
Perhaps it’s a common trait among taxi drivers worldwide—they love to talk. The driver in the seat glanced curiously at the rearview mirror, looking at the white-clothed Daoist in the back calmly watching the street scene outside, and couldn’t help but start a conversation.
"I just arrived not long ago; landed this afternoon," replied Gu Mo earnestly. "As you can see, I’m a Daoist, currently preparing to visit a fellow Daoist at Yanfeng Church, and maybe stay over..."
"Uh..."
Staying over isn’t something monks would say, what’s that got to do with a Daoist? And why is a Daoist visiting a church to meet a Daoist friend? The driver paused briefly, but without giving it much thought, he continued the conversation: "I see, I thought you came for tourism..."
"I do have plans for that. I heard the city’s hot springs are quite nice," Gu Mo responded calmly.
"Yes, yes, yes, our Fuyuki City’s hot springs are definitely a highlight. Despite the name, it’s not cold in winter at all..."
The taxi driver nodded repeatedly, his tone carrying a slight note of pride. As a native of Fuyuki, discovering that his seaside hometown has gained some fame naturally filled him with a sense of pride, and his voice involuntarily rose slightly.
"If you want to really enjoy Fuyuki’s hot springs, you have to go to the Old City. Many of the old streets and distinctive landscapes are in the Old City; there’s no need to go to the New City, except that the buildings are taller, there’s nothing special there. Plus, there are some unpleasant rumors..."
"Unpleasant rumors?"
Seeing the driver start to show a desire to act as a tour guide, Gu Mo suitably displayed interest and curiosity, fittingly satisfying his motivation to share.
"That’s right, there’s always been some unpleasant gossip about the land over there..." The driver nodded emphatically. "Ten years ago, there was a huge fire that killed an unknown number of people, and even before the fire, there were signs; gas explosions happened every day during that period. Now that I think about it, they were signs indeed..."
"Many elders say it was a warning from the Divine Spirit; if at that time, people could have realized earlier and moved sooner, the tragedy wouldn’t have happened later...but nobody understood. And during that time, neither the Church nor the police took it seriously at all."
At this point, the driver slapped the steering wheel forcefully, seeming somewhat indignant. "There were gas explosions every day, always in remote places; how could there be no problem? It was clearly a Divine Spirit’s warning, but even the Church insisted it was normal, just an accident..."
Gu Mo blinked; this city indeed was fraught with disasters.
"In the end, it was just that huge fire, killing an unknown number of people. The fire spread quickly and urgently, obviously problematic, and it’s still unclear how the fire started. Moreover, many children went missing then, and not even their remains could be found..."
As the driver saw the Mifune River Bridge come into view, his voice unwittingly lowered a bit, as up ahead was the New City’s land.
"I see, that is indeed quite eerie..." Gu Mo nodded gently, echoing a sentiment.
"Yes, it’s very eerie. It couldn’t have really burned away completely, right?"
Glancing at the rearview mirror, the driver nodded in agreement: "What I’m saying is true. You can ask around, and any long-time Fuyuki resident will know about this. Back then, no matter how hard they searched, they couldn’t find anything. Even the Church helped in the search, but the missing children were nowhere to be found..."
The church is helping with the search...
Isn’t this just the thief crying "catch the thief"?
Gu Mo remained expressionless. He naturally knew what was behind the disappearances—Kirei Kotomine, the priest from the church, had captured the children who survived the disaster years ago, imprisoning them in the church’s secret underground chamber as human batteries to supply Gilgamesh with magic power.
It is, of course, impossible to find them.
Even if someone truly fulfilled their sense of responsibility and tirelessly searched without giving up, they might have indeed discovered the church’s basement over these ten years.
—And what would that change?
In an IF line where someone accidentally intruded into the basement, even Emiya Shirou, the protagonist, was doomed. Just an ordinary person finding the church’s basement and discovering the truth would inevitably mark their demise. Not to mention Gilgamesh, the Servant who forcibly remained from the last Holy Grail War, even Kirei Kotomine alone is lethal enough.
Despite being human, his skills are terrifyingly formidable. With just a couple of Baji Fist moves, he could break a tree, and an ordinary person hit by him would suffer shattered bones and ruptured organs, leading to death.
The taxi drove up the southeast slope and stopped some distance from the church.
"You’d better head back! Leave this place."
Gu Mo got out of the car, waved his hand without looking back. The driver, who was about to say something, paused, then silently turned the car around and quickly drove away, his mind rapidly erasing the whole incident, and the fare he received would be stitched into another memory.
Meanwhile—
A few ordinary people inside the church suddenly stood up as if a burst of intuition hit them. They stopped praying and turned to leave.
A lady who was conversing with a priest inside the church also suddenly stopped, abruptly cutting off the conversation, and turned around to walk straight out the church doors, behaving quite rudely... leaving the priest behind, frowning deeply, not knowing what was happening.
The man, draped in a dark purple long overcoat over his clerical robe, with long brown hair, narrowed his eyes.
—What was... going on?
—Could something unbeknownst to me be happening?
Already appearing stern, the priest sensed warning signs. Although without much evidence, he quickly pondered and thought it necessary to remain alert. However, this thought barely formed before he was startled to find that outside the church doors, rather than a twilight sunset, the night sky with stars and a bright moon enveloped him.
It was clearly just a moment’s blink!
Was I... in an illusion?
"Of course, it’s not an illusion, it’s your perception of time that’s become unusually slow, and your thought process has become particularly sluggish. You thought you were merely contemplating for a moment, but that was just your subjective feeling. In actuality, the turn of this thought cost you more than two hours..."
A faint voice arrived, directly addressing the subconscious question in the priest’s heart.
The next moment, a white-clothed Daoist walked in through the doorway.
Gu Mo looked around at this seemingly sacred and solemn, dignified atmosphere of the church, and lightly shook his head. Who could have imagined that to be so glamorous on the outside, yet be the filthiest den of corruption inside. A pleasure-seeker matched with a depraved lunatic formed a nightmare.
Retracting his gaze, he looked directly at the priest who had tensed up and asked seemingly casually:
"Where is Archer?"
He had purposely waited for a while, not just to allow time for the people around to evacuate, but also hoping for a direct two-for-one strike, yet Gilgamesh had not returned. And as he stepped into the church, though faced multiple barriers and illusions inside, he found no other presence deep within.
This seemed to indicate that Gilgamesh indeed was not hiding in the church—
Not even near Fuyuki City for the moment?
Hearing the other directly inquire about Archer, Kirei Kotomine immediately realized they were indeed targeted. He narrowed his eyes to slits, thoughts racing in his mind, but before he had the chance to say or do anything, the white-clothed Daoist opposite nodded.
"So it turns out, he’ll be back in a couple of days?"
"...!!"
His pupils instinctively contracted to their limits, and at that moment, Kirei Kotomine understood that the other was directly extracting information from his mind.
"This is really troublesome..." Gu Mo rubbed his brow and looked at the man at the end of the church: "The disappearances of the children in the New Capital Fire ten years ago, you were the ones who kidnapped them, right?"
