Near a private house on the outskirts of Fuyuki City.
From a distance, dim lamplight flickered behind the windows—unsteady, like a dying heartbeat.
Two figures soon arrived at the scene.
"…So we were still too late?"
The moment they reached the perimeter, a thick stench of blood hit them head-on. Ritsuka had rushed here the instant he detected the mana anomaly, yet he'd still arrived one step behind. Some things in this world simply weren't so easy to prevent—no matter how prepared you were.
He raised a hand and performed a quick scan with magical detection.
No living presence remained inside.
Only an oppressive reek of blood.
He then called over the insect familiar that had arrived ahead of them to scout. Through the information it relayed, he confirmed that not long ago, something living—and something spiritual—had walked out of this house.
Ryunosuke and Berserker, most likely.
With that in mind, Ritsuka decided to send in a fresh familiar to search the interior for anything usable—any clue, any trail.
If the enemy Master was an ordinary human, and the Servant was a Berserker, they probably wouldn't be able to hide efficiently right away. They couldn't have gotten far yet. If he found even a small lead and pursued immediately, there was still a chance to kill them.
Under Morgan's gaze, Ritsuka lifted a finger, flicked his sleeve lightly—
and two pale-blue butterflies fluttered out, slipping through the doorway into the blood-soaked house.
"Butterflies?"
Morgan's expression shifted with surprise. She'd expected the usual ugly crawling swarm, not something almost delicate.
Ritsuka nodded with a small smile.
"Well… you said you hated insects, didn't you? So I figured if I switched the type of familiar to butterflies, it'd be easier for you to tolerate."
"…I see."
Something subtle changed in Morgan's beautiful face—brief, restrained, but real.
"You're thoughtful."
Ritsuka didn't linger on it. He focused, fully controlling his familiars as they searched for anything of value.
A few minutes later, after circling the interior through the butterflies' shared vision, he confirmed it:
Berserker had already left.
There was no immediate danger inside—
only a corpse that had died not long ago, and a scattering of organs torn out with cruelty.
Counting bodies, there were five dead in total.
And every death had been brutal.
Once he was sure the place was safe, Ritsuka stepped forward and pushed the door open, entering to investigate in person.
Click.
The first thing that met his eyes was a grotesque spread—brains, intestines, hearts—wet, raw, piled like props for a sick ritual. Farther in, a body had been nailed to the wall, mangled beyond recognition.
Ritsuka's brows knitted together. He stepped past the mess and began checking the room methodically.
"What a disgusting taste," he muttered.
Even Morgan, seeing the scene firsthand—something that looked like a cult's blood rite—couldn't help but frown.
"Morgan," Ritsuka asked, "what do you think?"
"Five corpses. A blood-sacrifice ritual array." Her voice carried a chill. "Not difficult to conclude that some unsanctioned magus used a crude blood rite to perform a summoning. And they dared to summon the final Berserker ahead of me—using this method."
Her displeasure sharpened.
"And the one who did it is a talentless amateur. You can tell by the sloppy array and the choice of 'offerings.'"
"Yes," Ritsuka said, not hiding anything. "As expected, he's just an ordinary man—some murderer who copied a circle from an occult book and got lucky."
He explained what he knew about the final Master: Uryuu Ryunosuke.
He did not mention the possibility that Ryunosuke's Servant might have been Gilles de Rais in the original history—because in this timeline, the Caster slot belonged to Morgan, and Ryunosuke had summoned Berserker instead. Ritsuka couldn't be sure who the Servant truly was this time, so he avoided claiming certainty.
As for Ryunosuke's exact appearance, he couldn't recall it. His memory review back then had been too rushed—he'd focused on what mattered. Ryunosuke had been "background noise" compared to other players, so all he retained was the name, the fact he was a serial killer, and that he was the kind of evil that couldn't be tolerated.
After a brief search, Ritsuka found that aside from scattered organs, the most intact "evidence" was the corpse nailed to the wall.
So he performed a quick examination.
Unlike the other remains, the blood in this body was still warm—meaning death had occurred very recently. More importantly, the cause of death was different: it hadn't been done with a knife. It was a single fatal strike—something like a lance, driven straight through.
And that force was absolutely beyond any human.
Staring at the gaping hole through the torso, the cracks spidering across the wall behind it, Ritsuka could vividly imagine the power behind that thrust.
A human couldn't do this.
So… was he killed by Berserker?
Then Ritsuka noticed something even more shocking.
"…Hm?"
A faint abnormal mana fluctuation.
He looked down at the corpse's right hand. On the back of it, a red mark was dissolving—breaking apart into visible red motes and fading rapidly.
Ritsuka knew exactly what it was.
"Command Spells…?"
His voice rose in genuine surprise.
And immediately, a bold hypothesis snapped into place in his mind.
"Morgan. I found a lead."
He called her over at once.
When Morgan saw the nearly-vanished Command Spells, even she looked startled.
She glanced at Ritsuka, then spoke with a hint of uncertainty.
"This man… is the final participant?"
"Yes." Ritsuka nodded. "Command Spells and a summoning circle—there's no room for debate. He's the last Master. Uryuu Ryunosuke."
"Oh?"
Morgan's expression flickered. She lifted a hand and produced the strange old book they'd found inside, speaking in a cool, measured tone.
"If that corpse is the final Master, then the truth becomes much clearer."
Ritsuka took the book. The moment his fingers touched the cover, he felt it—that nauseating texture, unmistakable even without experience.
Human skin.
He flipped through it quickly. The contents were exactly what you'd expect: occult nonsense, twisted rites, blood-soaked "techniques."
Once he was satisfied that Morgan's guess was correct, he raised his hand and conjured flame without hesitation—
burning the book to ash on the spot.
He turned to Morgan.
"The demon-summoning ritual in there overlaps with the Grail ritual in a few places. It's safe to say this belonged to the previous Master. But beyond some vulgar, bloody black magic, it has no value. Something like this is nothing but a plague—so I destroyed it."
"Fine," Morgan said, indifferent. "If it makes you happy."
She clearly had no interest in such third-rate sorcery.
After incinerating the book, Ritsuka went one step further: he gathered the ashes, diluted them thoroughly, and flushed them down the drain.
The material was too unnatural. He didn't trust leaving even dust behind. His way of doing things was simple: eliminate risks completely.
Then Morgan looked again at Ryunosuke's body, curiosity surfacing.
"If he was a Master… how did he end up dead here? And in such a miserable state? Was he found and eliminated by another Servant? That seems too fast."
"He was betrayed by his own Servant," Ritsuka said.
"Betrayed?"
Morgan's brows drew together—an unmistakably sensitive reaction.
"Yes." Ritsuka's tone sharpened slightly. "Betrayed… no. Judged would be more accurate."
He pointed at the damp stain on the floor that wasn't blood, and the snapped rope nearby.
"He used a blood sacrifice to summon a Servant. But most Heroic Spirits—whatever else they may be—don't take kindly to being dragged into the world through filth like this. To a heroic spirit with pride, blood sacrifice is an insult."
"So the situation is obvious."
"…A hero," Morgan murmured. "Yes. A hero would do that."
She could already picture it: a murderer attempting to call a demon with a grotesque rite—only to summon a heroic spirit instead, and be executed on the spot.
Her gaze swept the room again, disgust deepening.
Even she thought the same: if someone dared summon her with such a profane method, she would have punished the summoner first.
So what happened here wasn't difficult to understand.
While Morgan was thinking, Ritsuka moved toward the entryway and checked the area.
When he confirmed that the scene he'd feared—the children stumbling outside with fragile hope, only to be devoured by some monstrous sea fiend—had not happened, he finally released a quiet breath.
So this Berserker wasn't a monster.
And Ryunosuke's fate, then, was easy to reconstruct.
He probably saw Berserker release the children he'd "prepared," panicked and raged—only to be impaled into the wall by a single righteous thrust before he could even understand what was happening.
That was why the dead man's face still wore disbelief.
Ritsuka stared at him and offered a flat verdict.
Good riddance.
A death that couldn't be more satisfying.
Trash like this had no right to live in the world.
Still, when he glanced at the Command Spells—now fully gone, irretrievable—he couldn't help feeling a faint sting of regret.
A tool wasted.
Morgan, having pieced everything together, gave a small scoff.
"In the end, he was only an ordinary man. He didn't even understand what he'd been dragged into—so he died before he could use a single Command Spell. Pathetic. A pitiful little insect."
She wasn't exactly delighted, but she certainly didn't mind watching a fool dig his own grave.
Then Ritsuka spoke again, suddenly.
"…Wait. There's still one problem."
Morgan turned her head, curiosity returning.
"What is it? Did you find something else, Ritsuka?"
"No, I was thinking…" Ritsuka began. "If that Servant released the hostages, then that means—"
He didn't finish.
BANG!
A heavy kick slammed into the front door.
At the same time, shrieking sirens erupted outside. A powerful searchlight washed through the house like daylight poured from a blade. Not only the front entrance—the back door was kicked open as well.
Then a group of armed, fully geared police officers stormed in.
"Everyone inside, listen up! Police!"
"Don't move! Hands where we can see them!"
Shouting and sirens filled the room in a chaotic roar.
Of course—when you feared something, it always arrived.
Ritsuka pressed a hand to his forehead, already getting a headache. He hadn't wanted anything to do with the police. His first instinct was to vanish with magecraft.
No way was he becoming the kind of Master who ends up behind bars.
But then he noticed two small children behind the officers—thin, shaking, crying so hard their voices broke.
Ritsuka changed his mind.
He turned to Morgan and asked quietly, clearly.
"Can you control them… without hurting any of the police?"
"As you wish."
Morgan smiled faintly, as if the request were trivial.
She lifted her hand and snapped her fingers in front of the officers.
In the next instant, abnormal mana surged.
The officers' hostility vanished like fog. Their expressions turned respectful—almost reverent—as they stood straighter and saluted Ritsuka.
"Report, Chief Inspector! Fuyuki Police Investigation Division One is assembled and actively investigating the serial murder case! Please issue your instructions!"
Ritsuka immediately understood: Morgan had rewritten their perception in a single beat—hypnosis through magecraft.
He gave a calm nod and pointed them away with words.
"Good work. The primary crime scene is inside. Go collect evidence."
"Yes, sir!"
"And I have questions for the child witnesses," Ritsuka added. "Do not disturb me."
"Yes!"
No one argued.
Eager to impress the "Chief Inspector" their minds now recognized, the officers moved in a neat rush toward the inner rooms, each one determined to perform.
Ritsuka couldn't resist a dry comment under his breath.
"Everyone really wants that promotion, huh…"
Once the police were out of the way, he walked to the two children.
They were kneeling near Ryunosuke's corpse, still sobbing uncontrollably.
"Don't be afraid," Ritsuka said gently. "The bad man has already been driven away. I just need you to answer a few questions, alright?"
He applied a light mental spell to ease the pressure crushing their minds. Their shaking gradually steadied, and they managed to respond clearly.
Ritsuka asked the key question:
"Did you see who saved you?"
"Yes," one child said. "It was a silver knight… an older knight who came out of the magic circle."
"A silver knight," Ritsuka repeated, eyes narrowing slightly.
That was a major clue.
Morgan's voice drifted beside him, cool and interested.
"That sounds… like very important information."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 80)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 80)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 80)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter50)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter50)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter50)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter50)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 10
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 10
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