"Hehe, isn't this the Tohsaka girl? What a rare sight. I never thought you'd come here."
Not long after Shen Fei and Tohsaka Rin entered the Matou residence, a short, bald old man with a mummified face and limbs emerged from the corridor. Coupled with the dim lighting, he created an especially eerie atmosphere. Rin instinctively moved closer to Shen Fei. This man was Zouken Matou.
"And who is this?"
As Zouken spoke, his gaze naturally shifted toward Shen Fei. At this late hour, Rin had come to the Matou Family with a stranger, which left him somewhat puzzled.
But only somewhat. He had never considered the possibility that he had been exposed. When it came to lying low, this man had mastered the art—after all, he had been doing it for over five hundred years.
Back then, he had once been a man with grand ideals. Unfortunately, now he had only one conviction left: survival. Other than living on, he had no other pursuits.
There were quite a few ways to achieve immortality in the Moon World. Becoming a Dead Apostle, for instance, was one method with relatively minor Side Effects. Unfortunately, Zouken Matou feared pursuit by the Church and did not dare become a Dead Apostle.
After he gained immortality by devouring his descendants, he basically hid within the Matou Family and rarely showed himself. He feared the Mages Association discovering his secret and placing him under Sealing Designation.
Given Zouken Matou's current condition, if Shen Fei reported him to the Mages Association, the executors of the Sealing Designation would probably arrive the very next moment.
A Sealing Designation was, in the name of protection, the detention and capture of Magicians with rare talents or those who had violated taboos. Someone like Emiya Shirou, who could directly contend