Luke held Prison Demon with its tip lowered. After hearing Gyutaro’s words, he paused, then shook his head. "You really are strong. Even though you’re a man-eating Demon, you still have something you want to protect. I acknowledge the blade you tempered for the sake of that protection."
Gyutaro’s feeling had not been an illusion. Luke had indeed held back during their fight. Otherwise, with Thunder Breathing enhancing him and Flash Step on top of it, his speed would have utterly surpassed Gyutaro’s.
Thunder Breathing could instantly boost his attributes. In his burst state, Luke’s attributes were not much weaker than Gyutaro’s, while his combat mastery stood above Gyutaro’s. Combined with his speed advantage, if Luke got serious, killing Gyutaro should take fewer than ten moves.
Yet he had still fought the Demon for several minutes, all the way from one end of the street to the other, making it look like an evenly matched, exhilarating battle.
It was not because Luke wanted to humiliate Gyutaro, nor because the thrill of battle had made him want to play around longer. He wanted to see whether any more Explorers from Muzan Kibutsuji’s faction would show themselves.
Today’s battle had been won through an information gap. Once the Explorers from the enemy faction learned how strong he was, finding them afterward would become much harder.
So it would be best to lure out everyone he could and kill more of them in one go. That would ease the burden of his future operations.
After all, he was only one man, while the world was enormous. If the Explorers in Muzan Kibutsuji’s faction scattered and began hunting Hashira across the country, there was not much Luke could do about it.
He had fought Gyutaro for quite a while, yet no new Explorers had appeared. Luke found that deeply regrettable.
"Then use your full strength, you bastard who killed my sister!"
Gyutaro roared and charged Luke. Spiderweb-like cracks lit up across his chest. He was actually going to self-destruct.
Seeing that, Luke gave up on fishing for more enemies. He sheathed his blade, lowered his stance, and drew a deep breath. Steam poured from between his teeth like a white dragon.
The muscles in his calves abruptly swelled. Amid the echo of thunder and the flash of lightning, he became a ray of light piercing through the night.
Lightning streaked down the long street, leaving a lengthy scorched mark in the ground. Luke and Gyutaro passed one another. Beneath the moon, an ugly head spun through the sky, its eyes filled with complicated emotions.
Gyutaro was full of self-reproach. Once again, he had failed to protect his sister. He hated Luke for killing her, yet he also had to thank him for granting him a swift death and sending him to wherever she had gone.
No. He did not want to go to the same place as his sister.
He wanted to go to hell, while he hoped his sister could go to heaven.
Thud—
Gyutaro’s head hit the ground not far from Luke. The tremendous strength of an Upper Rank seemed to let him linger for a few final moments, allowing him to meet Luke’s gaze.
"Go to hell with your sister..."
Luke flicked the blood from his blade. "...Then, once you’ve atoned for your sins, be reincarnated together."
As he spoke, he sheathed his sword and began rummaging through the items he had bought and stored in his inventory.
As for whether heaven, hell, and similar places truly existed in this world, Luke was almost certain they did. Not because scenes of souls passing on and supernatural phenomena frequently appeared in the original story.
It was because he wielded the powers of the world of Soul Society and was a Soul Reaper himself. Whenever he killed an enemy with his Zanpakuto, he could faintly sense certain things.
In the world of Soul Society, when a Hollow that had committed no grave sins was killed by a Zanpakuto, its sins would be purified. Like an ordinary soul, it would be sent to Soul Society to begin a new life.
Conversely, those guilty of heinous crimes would have the Gates of Hell opened for them and be sent to hell.
Luke felt that after his Zanpakuto had been certified by Endspace and brought out of Nimaiya Oh-Etsu’s system, it had not only broken free of those restrictions but also retained some of its original properties, allowing them to function in certain worlds.
Given Gyutaro and Daki’s histories, Luke did not know whether they would go to heaven or hell. But judging from the feeling of it, he thought Daki would most likely go to "heaven," while Gyutaro would go to "hell."
Daki had no memories from before she became a Demon. Debts had their creditors, and the sins of the murders she committed after becoming a Demon should be counted against Muzan Kibutsuji. Gyutaro was different. He had committed plenty of evil deeds even before becoming a Demon, so he was almost certainly headed for hell.
Luke had said that to Gyutaro because, based on the original story, if there truly was some waystation where souls remained before moving on, Daki—or rather, Gyutaro’s younger sister Ume—would certainly choose to go with her brother.
"Can we... be reincarnated... together?"
Gyutaro looked at Luke and spoke in a hoarse voice. He could feel his soul on the verge of fading away.
"You will."
Luke lied. He had no idea how reincarnation worked in this world. After all, this was not the world of Soul Society, and he was only an amateur Soul Reaper.
"Thank you..."
As though he had received tremendous salvation, Gyutaro murmured those words and closed his eyes.
After Gyutaro shut his eyes, Luke took out a box full of empty syringes. He had exchanged for them in his room before entering the world of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
When furnishing a private room, the first batch of furniture was free. Later changes and additions required varying amounts of Endspace Coins. Ordinary furniture was cheap, though; a few dozen Coins could buy a huge pile of it.
Besides furniture, food, clothing, and daily necessities could also be exchanged for with Endspace Coins, all at low prices. Ordinary medical supplies such as syringes were the same. Luke had exchanged ten Endspace Coins for an entire crate and stored it in his inventory.
Knowing he was coming to the world of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, he had not arrived unprepared. Syringes could collect Demon blood, which might prove useful for his future plans.
Since he killed Demons with his Zanpakuto, even after they died, their souls merely passed on. Their bodies did not disintegrate into ash as they would when killed by a Nichirin Blade, so he had ample time to draw their blood afterward.
"He... he won! He defeated an Upper Rank!"
"This must be the first time anyone has done that in centuries, right?"
"He fought eight Demons alone and wiped them all out. Even the strongest Stone Hashira probably couldn’t do that, could he?"
Hinatsuru and the others stood on a rooftop in the distance. Once they realized the battle was over, they could not help marveling at what they had seen.
Hinatsuru recovered first. She jumped down and approached Luke, intending to check whether this powerful Hashira had been injured. "Lord Luke, what are you doing?"
Her tone was respectful, though tinged with confusion. Luke was holding syringes and sticking them into the Demon corpses.
She was not especially surprised that the Demons had not vanished after dying. The Demon Slayer Corps had people like the Insect Hashira, Shinobu Kocho, who killed Demons with poison, and Demons poisoned to death did not disappear immediately either.
"Don’t mind me. Go calm the civilians. I’ll leave the cleanup here to you."
Luke had no intention of having an in-depth conversation with Tengen Uzui’s wives. Explaining the blood collection would be troublesome, and besides, his mind was already occupied by something else.
After this battle, his side quest had clearly yielded a massive haul. The members of that Explorer team seemed to have all become members of the Twelve Kizuki, so Endspace had judged them to meet the requirements for guaranteed chest drops.
He had just made a round through the area. Besides drawing Demon blood, he had also been collecting chests.
Because Daki and Gyutaro were judged to jointly constitute Upper Rank Six, only Gyutaro’s death had dropped a purple chest. Still, Luke was more than satisfied. The Explorers alone had provided six Dead Man’s Chests.
By now, Luke could barely wait to open them. He had never opened a chest since arriving in Endspace, so naturally, he was immensely excited.
Furthermore, while using the syringes to collect the Demons’ blood, he had triggered a hidden quest.
[Hidden Quest: Tamayo’s Research]
Quest Objective: Provide Tamayo with blood samples from the Twelve Kizuki. This can greatly increase the Demon Slayer Corps’ chances of victory. For every blood sample from a member of the Twelve Kizuki that Tamayo has not previously obtained, this quest’s overall evaluation will improve. The overall evaluation will affect the final reward.
Time Limit: Duration of stay in this world.
Quest Difficulty: Easy–Nightmare
Quest Reward: 5,000 Endspace Coins–???
Failure Penalty: None
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