A string deep within her heart suddenly trembled…
Tsubone lowered her head and stared blankly at Kuraging. For a moment, emotion caught in her throat, and she couldn't speak.
No one is born wanting to be a servant, spending their days attending to others. Tsubone had to admit that even she, Scarface, One-Eye, and the other old retainers who had been born into service of the Zoldyck family had wavered before. Did living solely to serve the Zoldycks really have any meaning at all?
Because of that, her younger self had once been just as lost. Until one day, while serving Zigg dinner—the night before he secretly slipped out of Kukuroo Mountain with Netero and Linnet to head for the Dark Continent—she heard him say:
"The fact that you can think like that proves you're human, not some machine that only knows how to obey orders."
Tsubone had frozen on the spot back then.
And now, after so many years, she had met young Master Roy and heard him say almost the exact same thing as Master Zigg: that people came first, no matter whether they were a Zoldyck "butler," "maid," "gardener," or "cook"…
The old butler's two pink ponytails hung behind her back. Slowly coming back to herself, she reached out that thick, calloused hand of hers and placed it on Kuraging's head, gently rubbing her forehead.
"Congratulations," she said. "You've become an excellent butler."
A trace of memory lingered in her old eyes as she sighed softly. "Young Master Roy deserves it. You deserve it. Gotoh deserves it too… That's good… truly good…"
Then, under Kuraging's dazed gaze, she pushed the dining cart past her shoulder and walked on, the wheels rumbling softly as she left the girl standing alone by the window in a trance.
Only after a long while did the girl come back to herself. She turned to watch Tsubone's tall figure disappear around the corner, then pressed her lips together and smiled—a brief smile like a night-blooming flower, breathtaking in its beauty.
"So… does this mean I've been acknowledged?"
And to be acknowledged by the highest-ranking, most senior, and most respected chief housekeeper in the Zoldyck household…
Kuraging flicked her high ponytail, gave herself another little boost of energy—"Hup!"—and resumed training.
"Three hundred seventy-one… three hundred seventy-two… three hundred seventy-three…"
Her quiet counting, mixed with the sound of sweat falling, echoed into the black night.
Higher up the mountain, in the Zoldyck family castle on the neighboring peak, Roy handed off everything related to Meteor City to Taiyi, then, as usual, checked Gotoh's status panel.
The panel displayed:
[Believer: Gotoh (Note: Loyalty overflowing)]
[Current State: Evolving...]
[Physique +1 +1 +1 +1...]
[Current: 924 → 1078 compared to before evolution began (Note: Still increasing)]
[Visible Aura Quantity: C+ (14210/100000) → C+ (20412/100000) (Note: Still increasing)]
[Potential Aura Quantity: C+ (87412/100000) → B- (70000/1000000) (Note: Still increasing)]
[Type: Emitter]
[Initial Nen Ability: Coin Conjecture]
[First Embrace Nen Ability: Currently awakening...]
[Awakening Progress: 39%]
[Evaluation: C+]
[Note: Based on comparison with Chimera Ants, your believer "Gotoh" has already reached the level of a top-tier Squadron Leader and is steadily advancing toward B-rank.]
Roy compared him to the Hisoka he had seen earlier that day in the Church.
There were still two days left before the butler's cocoon-breaking countdown ended, yet his [Potential Aura Quantity] had already vaguely crossed into B-rank territory. Which meant… in another two days, once he truly emerged, he would probably be no weaker than Hisoka after receiving the blessing of the [Church of Truth].
Then Roy's thoughts stirred, and he sharply sensed movement in one of the [lines of causality] tied to him.
Without changing expression, he closed Gotoh's panel, located that [line of causality], and sent a Heartbug along it to see where it led.
What he found was Illumi, sitting before a mirror and dressing himself. A silver wig lay on the vanity. He was staring at his own reflection in a daze, and for once, he had not disguised himself as Roy.
He didn't even notice the [HeartWorm] slipping into his heart.
Roy raised an eyebrow.
Intrigued, he quietly took a look through Illumi's heart.
A scene gradually unfolded before him. Reflected there was the very sentence Roy had said to Illumi that afternoon:
"Beat Gotoh first, then talk."
Clearly, that casual remark of his had landed in Illumi's ears and dealt his foolish little brother a far greater blow than Roy had imagined.
Roy's lips curled upward into a smile.
With a thought, he called the Heartbug back out. It turned into a stream of Nen and returned to his body.
"So he's finally realized there's a crisis."
"Good. Pressure is what drives progress."
Roy brushed the back of his left hand, listening to the [Curse] ticking away the seconds of his life—tick, tick—then turned his gaze toward the one remaining [First Embrace] chance resting in his panel. After a moment, he took a deep breath and flipped his hand, bringing Leon Zeppeli's wooden box into it.
Now that Guzman had laid everything bare, Roy had no intention of sitting around waiting to die. Other things could wait. First, he had to find a way to sever the [line of causality] connected above Guzman's head.
Because of that [line of causality], Guzman had been able to cross the barrier of Lake Mobius and appear on the island at its center.
And because of that same [line of causality], he had gained the Nen ability [Substitute Death Doll], allowing him to revive again and again, impossible to kill for good.
Roy thought back to [Targeted Tracking Art]. Since Guzman could use it to [lock onto] targets, and had clearly attained something in the realm of [causality], then perhaps… there were other methods tied to causality that could solve this problem.
On top of that, Roy remembered the mysterious skeleton's meaningful exchange with his great-grandfather on the day Killua was born, and the hints—both open and subtle—about how extraordinary the wooden box was.
Roy was starting to think he had underestimated it.
And perhaps he had also underestimated the significance of Leon Zeppeli choosing it as a birth gift for him.
Buzz—
Late at night, under the dim glow of a single lamp, Roy sat quietly at his desk. He took the wooden box into his hand and, just like before, began pouring Nen into it.
A soft glow of Nen enveloped the box.
But unlike last time, no stream of information emerged and sank into his brow.
"So… my Nen still isn't enough?"
If one-tenth wasn't enough, then one-fifth.
Buzz—
His aura nodes opened, and a torrent of Nen burst out like a broken dam, flowing into the wooden box in a much more powerful stream.
The box trembled—like some ravenous beast that could never have enough—and in the blink of an eye, it devoured all of Roy's Nen dry.
Roy frowned.
Then he tried half his Nen… eighty percent… and finally all of it.
The surge was so violent the bedroom ceiling started shaking. Out of nowhere, he heard Maha cursing:
"You brat! Are you trying to tear the house down?"
Only then did Roy awkwardly let the wooden box go. He sheepishly apologized to Maha, washed up, and went to bed.
Dong—
At one in the morning, the wooden clock in the corner rang out.
Not long after Roy placed the box into his drawer, somewhere in the void…
A vast elephant's cry thundered through the wilderness, unable to hide the turmoil within it.
"Leon, you scared the hell out of me. I really thought he was about to open Jormungandr's shed remains!"
As chaotic streams of space surged around them, they were suddenly smashed apart by a massive elephant trunk. The Elephant Baku—already little more than a dead elephant corpse—actually spoke in a human voice. Its four legs shifted restlessly. It had clearly been badly rattled.
Beside it, the mysterious skeleton, Leon Zeppeli, gently stroked the Elephant Baku's enormous ear. Two ghostly green flames suddenly ignited inside his hollow eye sockets, and reflected within them was the scene of Roy attempting once again to open the wooden box.
This man—once a figure who had stirred up the world, someone even Ging had been unable to read in the slightest—remained silent for a long time.
Then, at last, he sighed faintly and said, "If he comes from the bloodline chosen by [Ai], then how could his older brother be ordinary?"
He paused, then his gaze grew distant. The green flames in his sockets shifted, revealing a fragment of the future—Alluka imprisoned in the basement.
In a deep voice, he continued, "What [Ai] itself likely never imagined… was that a mere human from the lower world would turn out this extraordinary. It truly is… astonishing…"
[Ai]…
That [Ai] who had once become a [god].
That [Ai] who had used [Dreamweaving] to create an entire [Divine Kingdom of Dreams].
The memory of that being surfaced in the Elephant Baku's mind. It let out a snort, then suddenly turned its head toward Leon Zeppeli.
"Do you think… [Ai] chose the Zoldycks because that boy was his younger brother?"
Leon Zeppeli froze.
The green flames in his eye sockets flickered uncertainly, then dimmed.
After a long while, he looked up at the endless web of space-time fractures stretching infinitely overhead and said quietly,
"If that's really the case… then Roy Zoldyck may be far more extraordinary than either of us ever imagined."
Crunch—
A violent spatial current was crushed beneath the Elephant Baku's raised hoof.
The void shuddered in response, just like the hearts of the Elephant Baku and Leon Zeppeli—unable to settle for a very long time.
As for the boy they were watching…
After washing up, he simply threw himself onto the bed, and within moments, sank into deep sleep.
A faint, hoarse snore drifted out…
His consciousness sank inward.
As he entered deep sleep, Roy, as usual, arrived in his [Cognitive World] through the [Gate of Cognition].
At first glance, he saw two small dream vortexes slowly turning beside the vivid, colorful dream passageways, waiting for his summons.
Roy briefly calculated the time. There was still one more night before he needed to preach to Venesha and old Kohler, so he let them continue building his statues and praying to him for now.
Then he stepped into the dream passage and appeared above an endless blue sea.
Whoosh—
Waves rolled and crashed in endless tides.
Several ancient gates stood in a line, eternal and unmoving. The silver-haired boy let his hair fall loose behind him, simply rolled up his pant legs, and waded through the seawater, letting the cool dampness wash through his heart.
He passed one after another by the [Naruto Gate], the [Bleach Gate], the [Cartoon Gate with the Blue Cat Charm], and the [Dark Continent Gate] marked with intricate patterns.
At last, he stopped before the very first gate he had ever opened—
the [Demon Slayer Gate].
He stood there in silence for three breaths, then reached out and pushed it open.
Close your eyes and open them, and a day has passed.
Close your eyes and never open them again, and a lifetime is gone.
Muzan was dead. The sky was clear.
Roy stepped out of the dream and into reality, then slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was…
a brilliantly sunny day.
Whoosh—
A gust of mountain wind swept past, sending his long, flame-red hair flying wildly.
At this moment, descending into this world once more as Kamado Eiichiro, countless emotions, memories, and longing surged into his heart. In an instant, all the heaviness and frustration in Roy's chest were swept away, replaced by a lightness and joy too profound to describe.
That joy came partly from Muzan's death.
Partly from the extinction of demons.
Partly from humanity's victory.
But more than anything…
it came from the urgency of returning home.
The boy stopped in the woods and spread his arms. As Nen surged through him, he used [Reverse Materialization] to pull several boxes of medicine into his hand, tucked them into his clothes, and then moved.
In an instant, he flashed across the forest as smoothly as sunlight itself, sweeping through the mountain woods.
Before long, he heard the sound of chopping wood and spotted a woodcutter.
It was another boy.
A boy with the same flame-red hair as his. A mark showed at his temple, but it wasn't frightening—if anything, it gave him a touch of innocent charm.
As the axe turned in his hands, woodchips flew. At his feet, a tree that had already been partly charred by lightning split cleanly in two. The cut was flat and smooth like a mirror.
Everything about it showed one thing—
this boy had excellent blade skills.
"Chopping wood, huh…"
Warm sunlight drifted through the wind, and the snow had begun to melt.
Roy stepped out from the sunlight and landed lightly behind the boy, smiling as he spoke.
The boy, who had just been wiping the sweat from his brow, visibly stiffened. The axe clanged from his hand onto the ground. He turned his head rigidly—and the moment he saw Roy's face, an enormous burst of joy lit up his eyes.
He shouted uncontrollably,
"Big brother!"
Then he leapt up in a single bound, throwing himself onto Roy just like when he was little, wrapping his arms around Roy's neck, lips trembling as if he were about to cry.
"Big brother… it's you… it really is you… you came back…"
Roy raised a hand and gently stroked the boy's forehead. Taking a deep breath, he said,
"Yes. I'm back."
"You got taller too, Tanjiro."
"But not taller than you, big brother! Nezuko, Takeo, Shigeru, Hanako, Father, Mother, Grandma—we all saw it! We saw you fly into the sky!"
Tanjiro gestured excitedly, spittle flying as he talked, recounting the scene from that day after Roy killed Kibutsuji Muzan—how his body and spirit had briefly become one, how his soul had momentarily left his body and merged into the great sun itself, how he had looked so magnificent and awe-inspiring that people everywhere had fallen to their knees and cried out that a miracle had appeared.
Roy neither denied it nor admitted it.
He just smiled and listened, watched, and quietly savored this long-lost warmth.
So he let Tanjiro hang onto him, picked up the basket full of firewood with one hand, and slowly carried him along just as he had when they were children, step by step through the snowy forest, carving out a path home.
"Big brother, I should get down now…"
Maybe he'd talked himself tired.
Maybe the first rush of excitement had passed.
Maybe he'd simply grown up enough to realize it was embarrassing to cling to his older brother like a child.
Tanjiro flushed and struggled to get down.
But Roy's grip was absurdly strong. Holding him was as effortless as holding air itself.
Roy shot him a mock glare and said, "Am I still your brother?"
"Yes."
"And are you still my little brother?"
"Yes."
"Then be good."
"Okay."
Tanjiro lowered his eyes and, just like when he was small, settled quietly against Roy's back. Roy carried the basket in one hand and moved steadily deeper into the forest.
Before long,
they saw thin trails of cooking smoke rising ahead.
And beyond them, in a small courtyard made of three wooden houses arranged in a pinwheel shape, there stood a couple, several children, and an elderly woman—
slowly coming into view on the horizon.
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 50 Chapters Ahead of Others!