Chapter 148: It's So Bizarre! It Must Be a Demon!
Because he had habitually hit [Skip Dialogue] through so many tutorial
conversations, Natsuya only learned after being promoted to Hashira that his job
description included an exceptionally tedious recurring chore:
Whenever the demon population inside the five Final Selection grounds dipped
below operational quota, high-ranking swordsmen and Pillars were tasked with
rounding up fresh wild demons, hauling the unlucky wretches back alive, and
tossing them into the wisteria pens as training fodder for the examinees.
When a Kakushi first informed Natsuya of this duty, the boy felt as though his
entire world had collapsed.
I have to hunt mobs with my own two hands... and I'm not allowed to loot their
XP?!
Fortunately, the Kakushi quickly clarified that the targets didn't need to be
strong. In fact, they specifically needed to be low-tier strays meant only to
temper a recruit's nerves.
Only then did Natsuya's expression begin to thaw.
Weak mobs = negligible XP loss.
Watching his dramatic facial shift, the poor Kakushi had almost believed he'd
uttered some unforgivable blasphemy.
What actually restored Natsuya's sunny disposition, however, was a sudden golden
prompt from his HUD:
[Side Quest: Replenishing the Exam Supplies]
- Objective: Capture and deliver 5 live demons to any designated Final
Selection ground.
- Reward: 1,000 Breathing Style XP (Adaptive Proficiency).
The System truly knows how to treat a player right.
As long as he only rounded up low-tier scrubs with single-digit kill counts, not
only was he not losing out on meaningful combat XP, he was actively making a
massive profit on quest completion rewards.
Over his routine patrol routes during the following weeks, Natsuya had casually
collected several live specimens and tossed them into the holding pens beneath
the pavilion. Elite demons—especially those who had awakened Blood Demon
Arts—were rare anomalies anyway. Writing off two or three hundred combat XP was
a fair trade for a clean thousand-point quest payout.
Besides, his earlier quest to purge the overgrown, over-leveled weeds from the
five Selection grounds was still open.
Let those leeks grow a little taller, Natsuya reasoned. When I personally
deliver this batch of captive livestock, I'll clear the high-tier weeds in one
clean sweep.
Several days later.
Inside the sunlit study of the Karakura Pavilion, Natsuya leaned over a massive
regional map spanning Sendai and the surrounding northern prefectures.
The parchment was densely annotated with red and black ink. Confirmed demon
subjugations, pending reports, suspected supernatural occurrences flagged by the
Kakushi or municipal police, alongside live patrol routes and roster numbers for
every three-man cell currently deployed.
A Kakushi aide knelt beside the low table, delivering a dispatch log:
"...Furthermore, Lord Luminary, these are copies of incident files freshly
acquired from the Sendai municipal constabulary."
"They cover several anomalous deaths that have yet to be officially cataloged in
the civic registry."
"The victims were all prominent merchants or low-ranking samurai families within
the city. On the surface, they look like retaliatory feuds or unfortunate
accidents. However, the timing and murder locations are... suspiciously
clustered."
"More concerningly, most of the remains were never recovered."
Natsuya took the docket, flipping through the pages with a practiced eye.
Merchant guild charters, tangled familial disputes, cutthroat territorial
bidding wars prior to each death...
Ugh. Way too complicated.
A plot this convoluted? 100% a demon.
Drawing upon a lifetime of watching detective dramas and playing mystery RPGs,
Natsuya cut straight to the core question:
"Which clan or merchant house hasn't lost anyone? Or better yet: who gained the
most market share from these deaths?"
The Kakushi blinked, momentarily thrown by the blunt metric. He paused to run
through the city's financial records.
"Let me consider... the Zaizen clan and the Satomi clan have both expanded
aggressively. Also, the Okochi group and the Kikukawa Merchant Guild have
recently absorbed several defunct properties following the disappearances."
"Does Lord Luminary suspect a demon is pulling the strings behind these
commercial rivalries?"
No, I'm just guessing.
Natsuya maintained an impassive, sage-like expression. "Clan infighting? Hired
syndicate assassins? If your logistics network and the local police couldn't
unearth a single physical lead, how could it possibly be an ordinary human
murder?"
Shoot the arrow first, paint the target around it later.
As long as he declared it was a demon, every single plot hole in the police
files vanished.
As for whether an actual monster was involved? And where it was hiding?
All he needed to do was personally take a midnight stroll through those wealthy
estates. One look at their nameplates would settle the question.
Meanwhile.
In the commercial heart of Akita City, miles to the northwest, shadows pooled
heavily inside a windowless sub-chamber beneath a sprawling private estate.
Flickering candle flames cast jittery, grotesque silhouettes across the
floorboards.
Seated in the gloom was a lean figure clad in dark, tailored infiltration gear,
a cloth mask pulled high over its mouth and nose. It casually rolled a
blood-stained jade pendant between its fingers, speaking to a wealthy merchant
prostrating himself on the tatami:
"Who needs to be removed this time?"
Its eyes remained half-shut, actively suppressing the primal, ravenous urge to
snap the human's neck and devour him where he knelt.
A demon.
And the man groveling before it was the patriarch of a prominent local trading
family.
"Lord Minonenmaru, this time it's the senior representatives of the Satomi house
and the Okochi guild," the merchant whispered nervously. "We had an explicit
verbal agreement to transfer the commercial rights of the Third Ward to my
house, yet they've gone back on their word! They have no respect for—"
The demon tossed the bloody jade onto the tatami with a dull clatter, cutting
him off:
"Spare me your mortal squabbles. I care nothing for your trade."
"Bring me their likenesses. Tomorrow night, they will cease to draw breath."
The merchant beamed with greedy delight. "Yes, my lord! Immediately!"
Bowing repeatedly, the human backed out of the secret room.
Hiring this clandestine "assassin" had been the greatest investment his house
had ever made. The creature never questioned who the targets were or how many
bodyguards they kept. As long as a painted portrait was provided, the
competition invariably vanished without a trace by dawn.
True, its temperament was eccentric in the extreme. It never stepped foot out of
this cellar during daylight hours. Even at night, it shunned company unless
departing for an assassination.
And its contractual terms were bizarre: after every kill, it demanded either the
victim's severed head as proof or requested that the family leave the disposal
of the entire corpse strictly to its care.
Once the merchant's scent completely faded from the subterranean corridor,
Minonenmaru yanked down its cloth mask and let out a long, shuddering hiss of
relief.
Holding back the hunger to avoid devouring these human collaborators required
immense mental discipline.
To its mind, the Zaizen clan, their rivals, and every bureaucrat in Akita were
nothing more than livestock.
Disguising itself as a high-end "contract assassin" within human society was a
calculated masterstroke. By accepting murder contracts, it eliminated targets
and took their heads as proof of completion.
This arrangement earned it stacks of human currency—which it used to purchase
properties and secure legal cover—while granting it exclusive ownership of the
slaughtered bodies.
It was infinitely safer than prowling dark mountain roads like a feral animal.
It bypassed the routine patrols of the Demon Slayer Corps while securing a
steady, high-grade diet. Wealthy humans were always manufacturing endless
pretexts to have their fellow mortals exterminated; they happily provided
flawless alibis and scrubbed the crime scenes clean on its behalf.
It had established a comfortable monopoly right here in Akita.
Lately, however, it had been forced to rein in its operations.
Rumors suggested a newly appointed Hashira had taken command of the Northern
Theater.
And beyond that terrifying Pillar, even the standard Demon Slayers operating
across Tohoku seemed to have swallowed strange enhancements. They were becoming
ridiculously difficult to ambush. Several neighboring demons Minonenmaru had
kept tabs on had recently been dismantled by squads of low-ranking swordsmen.
Caution was warranted. Yet Minonenmaru had no intention of closing its
assassination business.
It had reached a critical inflection point in its immortal lifespan.
It was actively preparing to make a bid for the Twelve Kizuki.
Over the past year, multiple Lower Moons had been executed by the Corps in rapid
succession. Slots in the Lower Ranks were opening up left and right.
This meant that even without challenging a superior in a ritualistic Blood
Battle, it stood a very real chance of being directly elevated by the
Progenitor.
Besides, it didn't believe it was inferior to that drum-playing failure who used
to hold the rank of Lower Six.
With several Lower Moons dead, that drum scrub's former rank is practically mine
for the taking, Minonenmaru thought with a cruel grin.
It needed to sprint through this window, consuming as much high-grade meat as
possible to maximize its power level before the vacancies were filled.
Its gaze drifted southeast toward the distant lights of Sendai. An invisible
pressure settled over its chest, stoking a long-forgotten survival instinct:
"I only hope that new Pillar stays in his fancy dojo..."
"And doesn't stick his nose into my promotion."
☆☆☆
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