[MF] Ch 26: Makiri Zolgen

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The front door of the Garan no Dou workshop had a "Closed Today" sign hanging on it. But inside, two people were still there.

They were up on the second floor—inside the storage. The whole four-story building actually belonged to Touko Aozaki, though she'd remodeled each floor for a different purpose.

The fourth floor was the public workshop and office. The third was her personal laboratory. The second served as storage. And the first was a garage packed with miscellaneous junk.

Right now, Kaito and Touko were on the second floor. The reason? Kaito had said he needed to hand her "a lot of stuff" that required a large, open space.

He glanced around the mostly empty warehouse—about two-thirds clear—and rubbed his chin. "Yeah, this'll do. We can clean up later."

"I'll just take everything out first."

Then, as Touko's expression shifted from mild surprise to open shock—and eventually to a numb, thoughtful kind of disbelief—Kaito started unloading everything he'd looted from the Matou household out of his system inventory.

Touko's eyes widened. "Wait… is this that legendary storage space? No, that's not even magic! OMG! You actually know something on that level?"

Her tone was full of awe. Since she couldn't sense any mana flow or magical structure from what Kaito was doing, she filled in the blanks herself—deciding it had to be a mystical art beyond modern magecraft, something from the Age of Gods.

Touko Aozaki didn't understand the System, so her mind automatically invented a theory to fit what she saw.

Kaito, still calmly emptying out the goods, kept up his perfect poker face. Internally, though, he was amused. He'd originally planned to dodge any questions and play the enigmatic "mystery man," which was pretty standard for extraordinary types in worlds like this. He hadn't expected Touko to just… fill in the blanks for him with her own perfectly reasonable headcanon.

For a moment, he even wondered if this world really did have something that worked the same way as his system inventory.

Still, he chose not to confirm or deny it. Instead, he decided to go full Overlord—stoic, cryptic, and endlessly mysterious—while he kept dumping out loot.

As the minutes ticked by, Touko's face grew increasingly complicated. Her mouth twitched. Eventually, she just looked… speechless.

Because—

"Hey," she finally blurted out, "you didn't, uh, rob some ancient family or something, did you? This seriously looks like you stripped a mansion bare. And wait—is that a chunk of wall plaster? Huh? You even took the walls?"

Kaito, perfectly serious, replied, "Everything here has value. Might as well take it all. Besides, this stuff belonged to an old monster who's been hoarding wealth for centuries. Robbing him is basically charity work."

Touko froze. Even in the '90s, when novels had long been part of the Japanese culture, she immediately got the reference and couldn't help but sigh.

Still, she wasn't the type to moralize. She didn't see anything wrong with what Kaito had done—if anything, his mention of an "old monster who's lived for centuries" actually piqued her curiosity.

When Kaito finally finished unloading everything, Touko crossed her arms and asked the question she'd been holding in.

"So… who exactly was this old monster?"

Kaito didn't bother to hide it. "The Matou family of Fuyuki City. One of the three founding houses of the Holy Grail War. I went there last night and took care of their head—the old worm who's been alive for hundreds of years."

He then told her the whole story: how Zouken, founder of the Matou clan, had survived through centuries by infesting others with his grotesque worm-based magic and transferring his soul into new bodies to prolong his existence.

He even mentioned that Zouken wasn't originally Japanese at all—he'd once been a Western magus named Makiri Zolgen, a man who, in his youth, had noble ideals and a burning desire to save the world from suffering.

Yes—that Makiri Zolgen, who could've once held a philosophical debate about "justice" with someone like Kiritsugu Emiya.

Back then, Makiri had sought salvation for all mankind. After learning of the Holy Grail's power, he and the other founders of the Grail War had enlisted the help of the Second Magician, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, to construct the ritual. They'd wanted to use the Grail to achieve world salvation.

But the system was flawed, and the first few wars failed. Each required a fifty-year wait before the next attempt—far too long for mortals to live through.

Desperate to survive long enough to see his dream realized, Makiri resorted to forbidden methods to extend his life.

Yet centuries are far too long for any human mind to endure—especially one that was never that stable to begin with.

Over the years, Makiri Zolgen's idealism decayed into obsession. He forgot why he wanted to live, why he'd wanted the Grail, and what "salvation" even meant. What remained was just Zouken Matou—a rotting parasite that lived simply to keep living, long after his soul had withered.

Until Kaito finally put an end to him.

Touko was silent for a long time after hearing that story. Her expression softened into something thoughtful, almost melancholy.

As a magus herself, she understood that path all too well. If she ever perfected her doll-craft, she too would transcend mortality—living for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

Would she, too, one day become like Zouken? A walking corpse of a soul, living on without purpose?

It was a chilling thought, one with no answer.

In the end, Touko said nothing. She buried her thoughts and looked back at Kaito with open amazement. "That kind of ancient monster had to have all sorts of nasty tricks up his sleeve. And you actually took him down? You don't look like someone who could pull that off."

It wasn't an insult—just genuine disbelief. Kaito had always seemed mysterious, sure, but he'd never shown any overwhelming power. Even his perfect acting didn't fully explain it.

The idea that he'd not only killed Zouken but also looted the entire Matou estate overnight—and then strolled in here the next day like nothing happened—was beyond anything Touko expected.

Not even she could have done that.

Even if she'd faced Zouken back when she was at her peak—before her fateful battle with her sister—she doubted she could've finished him off completely.

An immortal parasite who'd survived centuries and mastered every trick for staying alive was no easy kill.

Yet Kaito had done it in one night. No wonder Touko was floored.

She had briefly wondered if Zouken might've faked his death—tricking Kaito somehow.

But then Kaito casually took out the old man's frozen, shriveled body and asked her to craft a magic device that could keep him sealed permanently.

With that kind of proof right in front of her, even Touko Aozaki couldn't doubt him anymore.

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