Chapter 8: Deduction
This peculiar combination formed Su Xiao's team. He and Bubu Wang needed no further introduction. After some observation, Su Xiao noticed that Sakura Matou was currently a three-nothing little girl—no emotions, no expressions, no words. Aside from occasionally being afraid of him and sticking close to Bubu Wang, he couldn't detect any other emotions.
As for the "Berserker" Kariya Matou, he was quite interesting. At this moment, the guy was covered in the smell of paint and was sticking close to Sakura Matou. The strong paint odor emanating from him made Sakura Matou roll her eyes.
Su Xiao looked at Kariya Matou's calf area. The black paint on the shin armor was still wet. After being rubbed by knee-high weeds, Kariya Matou was peeling paint.
Bubu Wang occasionally snorted and looked at Su Xiao with a pleading gaze, as if saying, "Master, please keep this guy who's emitting black smoke away from me. The smell is way too strong."
Su Xiao ignored Bubu Wang. Although the team now had four members, if a fight broke out, there were no dead weights.
Bubu Wang was responsible for taking Sakura Matou into hiding, while Kariya Matou could do whatever he wanted, as long as he didn't attack Su Xiao. Right now, this guy was very durable. Although his attack power wasn't strong, other Servants couldn't kill him quickly.
Checking the map in his hand, Su Xiao continued searching for Ryuudou Temple. However, after two hours of hard searching, he still hadn't found any trace of it.
Standing in a patch of wild grass, Su Xiao frowned as he examined the map in his hand. He had almost memorized this thing.
According to the directional guidance on the map, the spot beneath his feet should be Ryuudou Temple. But looking around, all he could see was wild grass. There were two possibilities: either the map was wrong, or Ryuudou Temple had been hidden.
The possibility of the map being wrong was low. If Ryuudou Temple were just an ordinary historical site, no one would bother hiding it.
But Ryuudou Temple was not ordinary. The energy used to summon the Holy Grail in the Fifth War came from beneath Ryuudou Temple. This was a large-scale ley line. The amount of mana contained underground was enough to make anyone covet it.
Although this mana couldn't be directly absorbed by magi, after conversion, it could be used to create magical tools or process magical materials.
Moreover, only the mana that naturally drifted out was accessible. As for the deepest mana underground, no one dared to touch it.
Normally, Ryuudou Temple was managed and operated by the declining Ryuudou family. But now was the time of the Holy Grail War. The mana beneath the entire Fuyuki City was unusually active, making it clearly inappropriate for the declining Ryuudou family to manage this place.
Ryuudou Temple was the main venue for the Fifth Holy Grail War. Although this was the Fourth Holy Grail War, and basically no one would come here, there were exceptions—like Su Xiao right now.
Standing in the wilderness, Su Xiao guessed that Ryuudou Temple was most likely hidden by someone. According to information from the original work, Ryuudou Temple was already surrounded by a spirit-banishing barrier. Its complete disappearance now wasn't surprising.
Furthermore, Ryuudou Temple was the designated location for the Talent Awakening Quest. As a quest with a difficulty of LV.26, would Ryuudou Temple be ordinary?
The answer was absolutely not. If Ryuudou Temple were easy to find, the quest deadline wouldn't be set at 4 days. With Su Xiao's travel speed, 4 hours would have been enough.
Quest difficulty LV.3 indicated that finding Ryuudou Temple wasn't dangerous, while the 4-day time limit suggested that finding it was somewhat difficult.
"Since it's called a temple, there should be monks, right?"
Su Xiao muttered to himself, then turned and walked toward Fuyuki City.
If Ryuudou Temple was really hidden, there were two forces that could hide it, or rather, had the authority to hide it: the Mage's Association and the Holy Church. Even if it wasn't them, it must be related to these two groups.
Undoubtedly, these were the two strongest forces in Fuyuki City and its surroundings. One was responsible for managing magi, and the other was responsible for managing the Holy Grail War.
From the scope of their jurisdiction, one could see how powerful these two forces were.
There had been Contractors who ran amok in the Holy Grail World, only to be killed by the "mad dogs" of the Holy Church.
Compared to the Mage's Association, the Holy Church was more likely to have hidden Ryuudou Temple. Currently, Fuyuki City was in the midst of the Holy Grail War, which was entirely under the jurisdiction of the Holy Church.
Finding people from the Holy Church wasn't difficult. Two of them were even participating in this Holy Grail War: father and son, Risei Kotomine and Kirei Kotomine.
Risei Kotomine was ostensibly the priest of the "Kotomine Church" in Fuyuki City, but his true identity was a member of the Holy Church's "Eighth Relics Department." Appointed by the Holy Church, he was responsible for overseeing this Holy Grail War.
As for whether anyone would listen to Risei Kotomine, that was up to fate.
Kirei Kotomine was Risei Kotomine's son and also the Master of Assassin in this Holy Grail War.
These two father and son were both overseers and Masters. More importantly, the two had already allied with Tokiomi Tohsaka, which was why the scene of Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes, "killing" Assassin had occurred earlier.
Assassin wasn't dead. This was just the plan of the three. Before the Holy Grail War officially began, the three had already formed an alliance.
In the eyes of Tokiomi Tohsaka and the old priest Risei Kotomine, this Holy Grail War was a sure thing.
Unfortunately, Kirei Kotomine, Assassin's Master, was somewhat special. He wasn't a villain or a heretic. He just had a flawed personality. He couldn't feel beauty in things that people called beautiful, but he couldn't forget many ugly things. Seeing others' misfortune made him extremely pleased. Although this trait hadn't fully awakened yet, it wasn't far off.
If he wanted to learn about Ryuudou Temple, finding the father and son, Risei Kotomine and Kirei Kotomine, should be the right move. If that didn't work, he could find someone else. The four-day time limit was probably meant for this.
Given that Kirei Kotomine was a Master participating in the Holy Grail War, it would be safer to find the old priest Risei Kotomine.
Su Xiao returned to Fuyuki City from the outskirts. After traveling back and forth, the sky was beginning to lighten, and it was early morning.
The entire Fuyuki City was waking up. The first shops to open in the city were breakfast places. After a busy night, Su Xiao was starving. He turned to look at Kariya Matou. This guy was too conspicuous. Forget entering a breakfast shop; he couldn't even walk openly on the street.
Letting Bubu Wang wait in a small alley, Su Xiao found a random breakfast shop and bought a large amount of food.
More than ten minutes later, Su Xiao sat on the rooftop of a residential building, holding a rice ball in his hand. Behind him was Bubu Wang, his mouth full of food. Further back was Sakura Matou, holding a white steamed bun with both small hands, dry-chewing it and rolling her eyes from choking.
The reason she was dry-chewing the bun was that the other food was closer to Su Xiao, and Sakura didn't dare to take it. Only the bun was farther away from Su Xiao.
Ignoring Sakura, who was choking and rolling her eyes, Su Xiao held a rice ball in one hand and the map in the other.
"Is the Kotomine Church here? Not far from the Tohsaka residence. Sure enough, these two families had dealings before the Holy Grail War began."
Casually, Su Xiao noticed Sakura Matou, who was choking and rolling her eyes. He picked up a bottle of water and tossed it in front of her, then stopped looking at her.
Sakura Matou hesitated for a moment before picking up the bottle of water. With her current weak body, she couldn't even twist off the cap.
"Bubu, Bubu, Bubu, please."
Sakura Matou asked Bubu Wang for help. Bubu Wang took the bottle of water and used its dexterous front paws to twist off the cap.
Seeing the cap opened, Sakura actually showed a smile on her face.
"Roar~"
Kariya Matou let out a low growl, picked up a bottle of water, and with a *pfft* sound, crushed it. Then he handed the crushed bottle of water to Sakura Matou.
PS: (Two more chapters to go. Four chapters today, so it's a bit late.)