In broad daylight in the town, wearing a fox mask and a hood stands out enormously. People were whispering and glancing, making it incredibly awkward, but there was no choice. Lord Shōjuro had designated this bridge as the meeting place.
"Rei!"
Turning my gaze to the right at the call, I saw Lord Shōjuro running through the crowd. Upon reaching the bridge, Lord Shōjuro first bowed deeply.
"I'm sorry. Have you been waiting long?"
"It's fine. I just arrived too."
He must have been raised well. Lord Shōjuro of the Rengoku family was a polite and kind child.
"Thank you for accepting my sudden request, even though you must be busy."
"I needed a change of pace too, so don't worry about it. Shall we talk while walking if that's okay?"
"Yes."
It would have been nice to sit down and talk at a suitable shop, but with my attire, it was impossible. Even if we went in, the stares would be piercing. It definitely wouldn't be an atmosphere for a calm consultation.
As for consulting at home, this time, that was also difficult.
Walls have ears and sliding doors have eyes. The person Lord Shōjuro wants to give a gift to is currently staying at the Rengoku residence. I haven't heard who it is yet, but I was sure of it.
"First, let me confirm, the gift recipient is Ruka-chan, right?"
"……?!"
At my words, Lord Shōjuro's face turned bright red in shock. But only Rengoku's father, Lord Shōjuro, and Ruka-chan herself hadn't noticed his affection. To my and mother's eyes, it was too obvious.
It's a situation of three against two, but it's not that the two are sharp; it's that the three are too dull.
Ruka-chan is a relative girl of the Rengoku family, who lost her mother early and lived alone with her father.
But when her father fell ill and was hospitalized for several months, it was decided that leaving a girl alone was dangerous, so she was temporarily taken care of by the Rengoku family.
Since I'm occasionally invited to the Rengoku family's dinner table, I've met her a few times. She was a neat-looking girl around Lord Shōjuro's age.
Despite her age, she's sharp, but seeing from the side that she doesn't notice Lord Shōjuro's obvious feelings at all, she seems to have a bit of a naive disposition. It must be the Rengoku family's genes.
"……Yes, that's right."
Rolling his eyes as if wondering how to evade, Lord Shōjuro eventually nodded as if resigned. His flushed face was incredibly fresh.
First love is really nice. This sweet and sour feeling.
"Her father's discharge date has been set, so she'll be returning home next week."
"So you want to give her a gift?"
"Yes…… But pathetically, I can't come up with any good ideas on my own."
"Gifts for girls aren't easy."
"I thought you might know well, Rei, so I'm shamelessly asking. Please share your wisdom."
If another corps member had made this request, they would have responded with jealousy, saying things like, "Asking a gift consultation to a guy with no popularity, are you a devil? Kneel!" or "How about a demon's neck to appeal to reliability☆"
But this is none other than Lord Shōjuro's request. He relied on me, an outsider, not his father or brother.
Then, as an elder, I should give my utmost sincere advice.
"……Hmm, right."
But I've never had a girlfriend until nowーーー!!
I'm sorry, Lord Shōjuro. You chose the wrong person. I am a man where age = period without a girlfriend. A man perpetually seeking a girlfriend!
I'll try to squeeze out non-existent experience and think of something, but I don't know if it will help. I'm sorry, Lord Shōjuro.
"……Wh-what about flowers?"
But squeezing a dry towel won't produce water!
"Flowers…… you say."
Dangerous, Lord Shōjuro's reaction isn't promising.
I hastily added more words.
"No, um…… That might be too obvious…… Ah, but if it's too obvious, might it be embarrassing?!"
"Yes, I'm not at that point yet…… Moreover, she must have received flowers to the point of being sick of them……."
I almost said, "I know~, Ruka-chan is cute~" but barely kept my mouth shut.
Dangerous. Such remarks tend to cause unnecessary misunderstandings and wariness like, "Huh, does this person also……?" I know this pattern well from shoujo manga! Even without experience, I have knowledge learned from sacred texts (manga)!
But if flowers won't work, what's good?
Since we decided to avoid anything too obvious, hairpins or combs are out. Sweets…… might seem like treating her as a child, so rejected.
Something that can be given more naturally would be good. What would Ruka-chan want? What would make her happy?
Think. Trace Ruka-chan's way of thinking, me.
Hello~ I'm Ruka (11)! A girl you can find anywhere……
Ruka-chan isn't that kind of character! Character collapse is a minefield!! And she's not just any cuteness either! Character interpretation is wrong!!
Due to living alone with her father, Ruka-chan was perfect at all household chores, from cleaning to laundry and cooking.
On top of that, she was skilled at flower arranging and tea ceremony, and with her naturally born beauty, it's said that marriage proposals lined up in the village where she used to live. (Source: Rengoku's mother)
In other words, there are a huge number of competitors. While thinking of a gift that doesn't overlap with those guys as much as possible, a good idea suddenly came to mind.
"……Lord Shōjuro, let's buy a container with a lid from that shop over there."
"Huh?"
"One that's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, looks sturdy, and preferably has a cute pattern."
"Uh, um… Is that the gift?"
"No."
Poking Lord Shōjuro's back, who had a question mark over his head, I smiled triumphantly inside my mask.
"Let's give hand cream. I'll teach you a special secret recipe."
Ruka-chan often helps with mother's household chores, so her hands are prone to becoming rough. A girl in the flower of her age would surely be concerned about that.
After finding one cute container like that, we entered a nearby mountain. To gather the ingredients.
"I'll write down the recipe separately later. But let's learn the appearance and identification of the ingredients now."
"Me, who's never done housework, making medicine…… Can I really do it?"
"Don't be nervous. It's really simple."
What we're making is a simple homemade hand cream. Not the difficult Shabana version, but one that anyone can easily make once they get used to it.
The ingredients are easy to obtain, and for such a thing, it's a secret recipe with incredibly effective results. The mother who devised this is truly a genius.
But here, a problem arose.
"Next is the root of sweet dew grass…… I don't see it."
"Uh, what should we do?"
Lord Shōjuro was anxious, but no problem. There's a solution. I raised my index finger.
"In times like this, you can substitute with something else. Instead of sweet dew grass, wild boar eye……."
Stopping mid-sentence, I suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu. The lines I just uttered brushed past me.
Stopping Lord Shōjuro, who was asking, "What's wrong?" with my hand, I traced the identity of the déjà vu.
"Ah."
And I remembered.
A very old memory. A conversation I had with my mother.
＊
"Couldn't find the sweet dew grass?"
"Yes, it was there until before."
At that time, I wanted to make ointment for my dad.
Our house was in the mountains, so my dad went down to the village every day to work. Using his large build for manual labor, my dad's hands were thick and splendid, but they were also full of small wounds and rough.
When I consulted my mother about wanting to make an ointment to make them a little better, she told me to gather the necessary ingredients. But one of them, the sweet dew grass, was nowhere to be seen.
"The raccoons might have dug it up and eaten it. The roots of sweet dew grass are sweet."
"What should I do……? Then I won't be able to make medicine for dad due to lack of ingredients……."
"Oh, that's not necessarily so."
When I raised my head, which had drooped in disappointment, I saw her usual smile. My mother's smile had a mysterious power that reassured just by seeing it.
"In times like this, you can substitute with something else. Instead of sweet dew grass, go gather wild boar eye."
Wild boar eye is a flower that blooms near wild boar dens, characterized by five fluffy petals of a scarlet color.
"But be careful of wild boars. Even if you see a young one, never chase after it. The mother will get angry, so just leave it be."
"Yes~."
When I gathered wild boar eye as told, my mother started plucking the petals and putting them in a bowl. Watching that, I tilted my head.
"Aren't we using the roots like with sweet dew grass?"
"No, we'll use only the flowers."
"Only five petals?"
"The medicinal effect is much stronger than sweet dew grass, so this is enough."
"……I diligently picked a lot, though."
"Huhu, let's make it once more as a review."
My mother completed the medicine with fluid hand movements while smiling like that. Watching the process, I suddenly realized something. The procedure was different from what I learned before.
"Shouldn't we add wild boar eye at this stage?"
"Wild boar eye is correct like this. Unlike sweet dew grass, it's weak to heat, so you can't add it too early. Here, try mixing it."
The completed ointment worked incredibly well on my dad's hands. My dad was so happy and moved that he rubbed his face against my cheek, saying, "With this, I can work much more than now~!" I thought in my heart, please stop, the beard is prickly and irritating.
Thanks to the ointment, my dad's hands became smooth and sleek within a few days. I was surprised that despite changing the ingredients, the quality didn't drop but had the proper effect.
"Like sweet dew grass and wild boar eye, when something is lacking, there is always something to substitute it with. The quantity and procedure change, but if you remember that well, you'll never run out of medicine."
"Not just the quantity, but the preparation method changes too?"
"Is it difficult?"
"Yes, it's difficult."
This time, the ointment only used wild boar eye instead of sweet dew grass, but she said that depending on the medicine, if one ingredient changes, others must be changed accordingly.
Even though my mother taught each one meticulously, I couldn't remember them all at once.
As my head tangled with the profundity and complexity of medicine preparation, my mother gently stroked me and said. In a voice as gentle and soft as a lullaby soothing a newborn.
"It's okay. I'll teach you as many times as it takes until you can remember."
That was a few months before my mother became a demon.
A dear memory before it was buried in snow.
＊
"Rei, thank you so much for today."
"I'm the one who should say thank you. Thank you, Lord Shōjuro."
"?"
"Just talking to myself. Well, I'll be going now."
Around sunset, after teaching how to make hand cream and parting with Lord Shōjuro, I dashed like an arrow to Urokodaki's house.
My heart was pounding. No wonder. I finally found a clue to decrypt the code.
The code that I thought was a mess had a clear rule.
Just like substituting sweet dew grass with wild boar eye, you can replace the written ingredients with others. Then the quantity and procedure change. Repeating that process will surely reveal the correct preparation method.
But the document received from Lord Kagaya is a thick bundle of papers amounting to a hundred sheets. Probably, all together, it's one preparation method.
It must be a secret technique that requires enormous ingredients, time, and effort.
Just thinking that I have to decrypt it makes my mind dizzy, but I can't avoid it. Because my mother deliberately left it in writing and set a code that only she could solve.
Whether it's poison or medicine can't be known until the whole thing is decrypted, but it was definitely something special.
＊
"Pitifully. Let me save you."
With genuine pity, I bid farewell to my life as a human.
Having become a demon and gained a body surpassing ordinary people, I was filled with joy and bowed my head to Lord Muzan several times.
Instead of the frailty that disappeared without a trace from my body, strength dwelled. Legs that were even painful to walk now know no fatigue.
But neither my dad, mom, nor the servants were very happy about me becoming healthy. Was it because I could no longer go out in the sunlight? Or because my hair had turned pure white?
But even if I could only live at night, I wasn't lonely. Even if my hair turned white, I didn't mind. My brother was like that too.
There was only one troublesome point, which was that I had to eat humans.
At first, I disliked it, but once I tasted it, the resistance faded. Why did I think I didn't want to eat something this delicious? It was strange. Lord Muzan said that demons are originally like that.
Lord Muzan was a very kind person when he was in a good mood. He even prepared meals for me, who had just become a demon. "If you accidentally eat your family, it would be painful," he said, showing consideration for me.
But I can't rely on Lord Muzan forever. So since then, I've been going out to hunt on my own.
The resistance to eating people disappeared, but I still knew it was something I shouldn't do.
So I deliberately went far away and only chose people who, even if they disappeared, no one would notice, to fill my stomach. I didn't want to cause a commotion in the familiar village.
But one day, after I carelessly got blood on my kimono and returned, my dad and mom's gazes became suspicious.
Still, they'll surely protect me. After all, they're family.
After becoming a demon, I sneaked out of the house every night and wandered everywhere looking for my brother. But I couldn't find him at all.
No matter how much I searched, no matter how far I ran, my brother didn't leave even a trace.
Even though I knew it was a lie, with a glimmer of hope, I went to the place my mother said was beyond three mountains. But as expected, my brother wasn't there, and there were only a few decaying houses.
On a certain night when I was irritated that nothing was going my way even though I had become a healthy child.
I found out why my brother left home.
"Damn it, that cursed child!"
That night, when I was about to sneak out again, I flinched at the shout heard from the back door. It was the manager's voice.
Hiding my body in the shadows and peeking, I saw my dad was also there. Judging by the lantern in his hand, he seemed to have just returned from searching for my brother.
"Calm down. If you make a loud noise, Rui will wake up."
"I'm sorry, master…… But I'm so furious I can't stand it."
"Ah…… I understand that feeling. I know it well too."
After becoming a demon, my eyesight improved quite a bit. So I could clearly see what face my dad was making now. It was an expression I had never seen before.
As if all warm emotions like joy, happiness, or contentment had fallen away, he had a face that was even tired of crying.
"Damn it, damn it……."
Instead of my dad, who kept his mouth tightly shut, the manager grumbled. Wiping the corner of his eye with his hand, I wondered what made him so angry.
"That Ryōkichi fellow marrying the only daughter of the wholesaler. Instead of divine punishment, he's doing quite well."
My eyes widened at the name I hadn't heard in a long time. Ryōkichi was a clerk who used to work at our store. A hateful person who only picked on my brother, a name stuck in my memory like a stain in the toilet.
I heard he went to another wholesaler in the neighboring village, so why did that name come from the manager's mouth?
Huh, now that I think about it…… Ryōkichi went to another wholesaler clearly after my brother disappeared──
"That bastard, he drove Rei out of here!"
Instantly, my mind went blank.
My feet started running on their own.
When I came to my senses, my vision was soaked in bright red.
＊
Last night, around dawn. It's said that a wholesaler family was found slaughtered in the village north of here.
Seeing the horrific scene, there was no doubt it was the work of a demon. Having received orders to chase and exterminate the demon's traces, Rengoku Shōjuro headed north.
"I thought I could go home today."
It was no wonder he muttered that while running. Recently, missions had been overlapping, leading to busy days without being able to return home.
Not only family, but he also hadn't seen his friend, who was similarly engrossed in missions, for a long time.
He was exchanging letters with his family, but from his friend's side, replies hadn't been coming lately, perhaps because there was no time to write.
Well, that was understandable. Thanks to Lord Kagaya's consideration, he had obtained a research document that he thought he couldn't see until becoming a Pillar, and he had been solely devoted to decrypting it since then.
Gathering information in the village where the incident occurred, the demon's trail was somewhat narrowed down. Following the testimony of a villager who saw a fleeing shadow, his steps arrived at another village.
Demons that cause disturbances in only one place are rare. Last night in that village, tonight in this village, they might eat people──
While thinking that and patrolling, one person wandering late at night caught his eye.
It wasn't a demon, but a human wearing a high-quality kimono. The man seemed to be searching for something while swinging a lantern light.
"Excuse me, what's the matter?"
Seeing the man with shoulders slumped as if bearing all the world's misfortune, Shōjuro unintentionally spoke to him.
Finally noticing someone nearby, the man turned around in a fluster. The lantern in his hand swayed greatly along with it.
"Are you looking for something?"
"Uh…… Yes, a child……."
"A lost child? That's serious. I'll help you look too."
Even though he was on a demon-hunting mission, he couldn't leave it like that for the sake of the mission. Rengoku Shōjuro's goodness exists not to kill demons but to protect people.
Above all, if by any chance that child was found and eaten by a demon, it would be an irreversible event.
Thinking that and speaking, the man shook his head as if perplexed.
"No, to call it a lost child, the age……."
The man scanned Shōjuro from head to toe, then smiled faintly on his tired face.
"If alive, he would probably be around your age."
"……If alive?"
"He left home when he was about eleven."
"May I ask in detail?"
At the unknown youth's question, the man hesitated for a moment, but pushed by the words, "It might be of some help," he began to stammer out the circumstances.
First, he introduced himself as Ayaki.
Ayaki had a brother, and the brother had one child. But because the child was a hindrance to remarriage, the child was left to Ayaki and his wife.
The child, unlike his biological father, was clever. Ayaki and his wife cherished their nephew very much, and the couple's own child born later also followed him like an older brother.
The family lived happily like that. Until one of the servants schemed to drive out the nephew by fabricating baseless talk.
The hurt nephew eventually ran away from home, and since that day, he has been missing until now.
"So since then, I've been searching like this every night."
Saying that, Ayaki let out a tired sigh. If he disappeared several years ago, the possibility of being in this area is almost none.
Still, not being able to give up must be because that child was that precious.
"What is the child's name?"
Hoping to be of even a little help, Shōjuro asked.
Finding a missing boy isn't easy. But the connections between people can be surprisingly linked.
Seeing Shōjuro's serious gaze, Ayaki, grateful for the kindness of the youth whose name he didn't even know, answered.
"……It's Rei."
Hearing a name familiar to himself, Shōjuro was at a loss for words. It wasn't certain whether the 'Rei' Ayaki spoke of was the same person as his known friend.
But the connections between people can truly be surprisingly linked.
"That child named Rei……."
"Master!"
Just as he was about to ask if he had white hair and red eyes, an unknown voice overlapped. An elderly man running with noisy footsteps. Calling Ayaki 'master,' he must be a servant working in his house.
"What is it, manager?"
"What is it? I was worried because you were late returning home……. Hmm, who is that person?"
The man called manager opened his eyes wide in shock the moment he saw Shōjuro. Because a fearsome weapon was stuck in the waist of the youth who didn't seem to be a soldier or policeman.
The manager flusteredly shouted, "Officer, there's a guy with a sword! Officerー!" and because of that, Shōjuro had no choice but to flee the spot.
In the end, he couldn't hear the appearance of the Rei Ayaki spoke of. But he can just ask Rei himself. I should write a letter when the Kasugai Crow returns.
Avoiding the officer's voice heard from afar and patrolling the village, Shōjuro thought that.
──Until the crow informed at dawn that the Flame Hashira, his father, had fallen critically ill.
"Caw──!! Message to Urokodaki Rei, message──! Demon appearance reported in the south!!"
"Got it, I'll go right away!"
"According to eyewitness accounts, demons similar to horse demons! Several, many! Other corps members are also heading there!!"
"Thank you, Hanachiyo-chan!"
"Kokushibo."
"Yes."
"It's tiresome. Those beast demons have appeared again. Go and deal with them."
"As you command, I shall obey……."
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