Oboro returned to his residence, which had been empty for quite some time.
His handmaidens, Chiyoko and Rina, had also been sent back by the Demon Slayer Corps.
"Right now... they probably can't bring themselves to accept my help, can they?" Oboro murmured softly as he sat on the wooden veranda outside the house, gazing at a patch of grass in the courtyard where tender new shoots had just pushed through the soil.
He had no desire to explain himself, nor would he try to prove whether he was right or wrong.
Because there was no one qualified to judge him.
Right and wrong were never absolute truths in the first place. Different values, different ways of thinking, and different perspectives naturally led to vastly different views on everything in the world.
Growth that came gently and easily could never compare to the kind forged through pain... The latter was far more profound and enduring.
In this life, he wasn't merely a traveler passing through the world; his purpose was to elevate and intensify the entire power system of this realm.
Therefore, the death of the Thunder Hashira... from his standpoint and according to his plan, had been absolutely necessary.
"Still... this experience has truly given me a clear and deep understanding of what it means to pass on one's will," Oboro said with a faint smile.
Having witnessed how others carried forward their will, the next step was to find a path that suited his own...
The Demon Slayer Corps was no longer a place capable of nurturing a completely new kind of will; their beliefs and values were already deeply rooted and unshakable.
And so... the only fertile ground left where his vision could take root and grow lay with Muzan and his demons.
"What kind of will do I want to leave behind and pass on?" Oboro wondered to himself.
He thought back on all the experiences he'd had in his previous life.
Was it the pursuit of supreme personal power, standing above all others at the very peak of existence?
Or perhaps... the freedom to act without restraint, unbound by any rules or laws?
But in the world of Demon Slayer, the one thing that could continuously drive the evolution and strengthening of power was conflict.
No matter the time or place, once conflict disappeared... no matter how many promising "seeds" you had, they would never bear truly great fruit.
Looking at the Twelve Kizuki that would appear in the future—all the Upper Ranks and Lower Ranks—what had driven them to become demons could always be traced back to the complexities of human nature, as well as the chaos and moral decay of the society they lived in.
"It won't be like Muzan's desire for eternal life and the ultimate evolution... His selfish ambition is quite similar to how I used to be in my past life. It's a form of personal will, certainly, but selfishness... can never truly be passed down. It exists only within the individual, and when that person dies, so does their will." Oboro murmured to himself.
"It seems I'll have to use a rather drastic approach then."
An idea formed clearly in his mind.
From all the possible forms of will he had considered, he chose one that perfectly aligned with the nature of demons and the underlying tone of this world.
"The one who is wrong isn't me—it is this world!"
"This world is sick... and it needs to be cured..."
This kind of will was undeniably extremely negative. Once it began to spread and take hold, the damage it could inflict upon the world would be incalculable. Yet, there was no other choice. Taking into account the nature of demons and his goal of stimulating the growth of the power system... this was the only path available to him.
Oboro cared little whether others saw him as a good person or a villain.
He viewed everything from a higher plane, as an observer looking down upon the world.
If circumstances had been different, he might well have chosen a more positive, uplifting will to spread. If the Demon Slayer Corps hadn't already been shaped by the legacies of previous generations of swordsmen, he might have found a way to work within their ranks. But that was no longer possible now.
The Demon Slayer Corps, led by the Ubuyashiki family, was already fully formed and set in its ways.
All that remained... were the demons.
This was exactly why he had previously cut off pieces of flesh from the Upper Rank Five and turned them into cards.
"Chiyoko," Oboro called out.
"Yes, my lord," the handmaiden responded, quickly kneeling and moving forward inside the room.
"Prepare yourself. We are going out," Oboro ordered.
"Understood."
...
By afternoon, Oboro had arrived once more at the slums of the Red Light District.
To find someone worthy of inheriting his will, he needed those who had lived long in environments filled with darkness and oppression—only such people could truly understand and carry forward his vision to its full potential. In this regard, Muzan's habit of frequenting abandoned villages, prisons, and places of filth and misery was actually quite shrewd.
Just like the Demon Slayers, including the Hashira themselves. The reason they hated Muzan and the demons so deeply was that they had all suffered at the hands of demons, losing family and friends either directly or indirectly. That shared pain was what drove them to uphold the will of those who came before them—it was the foundation upon which their resolve was built.
Without that foundation, one could still join the Corps, but they would never rise to become high-ranking swordsmen or Hashira.
Oboro needed someone who truly believed deep down that there was something fundamentally wrong with the world itself.
And the slums of the Red Light District were perhaps the most typical example of such a chaotic, broken place in the entire region.
His first stop was a small pleasure house, the kind of establishment known here as a "yūkaku." While it was considered relatively decent by the standards of the slums, it still paled in comparison to the grander establishments found along the main streets.
Upon entering, the madam of the house trembled nervously, not daring to disturb him due to the obvious air of nobility and authority Oboro carried about him. He did not ask for any of the courtesans to attend to him, choosing instead to sit quietly and listen to the chaotic sounds echoing throughout the wooden building. Unlike geishas or performers, whose work centered more on entertainment and artistic skill, these women were there solely to sell their bodies—though of course, given enough money, even the former would offer such services.
Inside the small hall, both the first and second floors were lined with partitioned rooms separated only by thin wooden doors, from behind which came sounds of depravity and misery too shameful to describe.
He had been there for barely an hour when Oboro witnessed the ugliest sides of human nature.
He watched a ragged woman being passed from one client to the next without rest. Some were destitute samurai, others drunken wastrels, and even beggars—for in the slums, there were no wealthy patrons or high-ranking nobles to be found. She served only the lowest dregs of society.
Like a machine, she endured endless abuse and torment, forced to satisfy clients with all sorts of twisted and cruel desires.
Her eyes were dull and lifeless, void of any spark of hope or emotion.
Oboro took one look at her and immediately dismissed her as a candidate.
She wouldn't do.
Her spirit was already too fragile, on the verge of completely breaking at any moment.
She had long since surrendered completely to her fate—in short, she had accepted her suffering as inevitable.
Such a person could never hope to bear or carry forward a will as powerful and transformative as his.
He was searching for those who still felt the sting of injustice, who secretly burned with the desire to fight back—those who might yield to circumstances for now, but only out of necessity, never truly surrendering in their hearts.
"Let's go," Oboro said, standing up as the madam bowed and saw him respectfully to the door.
He then made his way to another location nearby, a place known as "Eight Liang."
This was where the laborers gathered—people called "Eight Liang" because they were considered worth barely that much, the lowest of the low, disposable and easily forgotten.
As Oboro walked through the streets, everyone quickly moved aside to make way for him.
Moving through the crowds, he saw the harsh realities of oppression faced by the poor and powerless.
Men and boys of all ages, from barely ten years old to those with hair white with age, labored tirelessly... He saw one emaciated young boy struggling under the weight of a heavy wooden crate, easily weighing over a hundred pounds. When he stumbled and fell, damaging the goods he carried, the overseer behind him immediately lashed out with a long whip, striking him again and again as if intending to beat the boy to death right then and there.
Yet despite the pain, the boy showed no anger or resentment. Instead, he groveled and apologized profusely, doing everything he could to appease the man beating him.
And this boy was far from an isolated case. There were countless others suffering similar injustices all around him.
Most of them, just like that boy and the woman he had seen earlier, had long since learned to bow their heads and submit to reality.
Among them, there were a few whose eyes still flashed with quiet defiance, whose spirits remained strong... but even these were nowhere near the standard Oboro required.
"It's proving more difficult than I expected... Do I have to settle for second best?" Oboro frowned slightly.
By "second best," he meant taking those whom Muzan had already identified and chosen to become demons in the future.
Doing so would certainly save him the trouble of searching for suitable candidates himself.
Even so, there were only a handful of such people worth considering.
And ultimately, their usefulness would be quite limited.
As for those already chosen by Muzan—like Douma, who was destined to become one of the Twelve Kizuki—they had already been corrupted and influenced by Muzan's will. They were no longer suitable vessels for Oboro's own vision.
For now, the best options available were the brother and sister pair, Gyutaro and Daki.
"I'll keep looking for now..." Oboro thought to himself.
The will he intended to pass on was meant to endure and be carried forward from one generation to the next—it required time and careful nurturing to take root and flourish.
Although there was still quite some time before the main events of this world would unfold, the window of opportunity for Oboro's vision to mature and bear fruit was actually much shorter than it seemed.
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