“That’s right, it’s exactly like that. After seeing such a nauseating sight every single day, of course I remember every detail.”
Muzan snorted softly, shifting his vertical red pupils away from Tamayo to lock onto Rin Tsugikuni once more.
“So, the moment I saw you, Lady Rin, I could feel the exact same thick stench of oppressive shackles that bind this woman.”
The man rested his chin on his hand, his terrifying eyes seemingly piercing into Rin’s mind.
“Honestly, at first I had no interest in you at all. However, our short conversation just now truly put me in an excellent mood.”
Muzan’s tongue swept across his pale lips.
“Therefore, I am willing to give you a golden opportunity.”
Rin didn’t blink, maintaining the calm on her gentle face.
“I would like to know what kind of opportunity you mean, Lord Kibutsuji?”
The wild smile on Muzan’s face suddenly faded, replaced by an extremely intense cold expression.
His voice lowered, vibrating in a heavy, serious tone.
“An absolute opportunity that can lead you to true ‘freedom’ and the eternity you have longed for deep in your heart.”
Rin stared straight into the blazing red pupils before her, and at that exact moment, every hair on her body stood on end.
A primal intuition screamed inside her mind, warning her that the man in front of her had transformed into something that was no longer human.
“But it’s fine, Lady Rin. There’s no need to rush into making a decision now.”
Before Rin could analyze the situation further, Muzan had already risen from his wooden chair and adjusted his luxurious black kimono with gold patterns.
“We still have plenty of time stretching out before us. I may return to visit this city again soon. When that day comes, it won’t be too late for you to make your choice…”
“Aren’t you supposed to be meeting someone here?” Rin asked, stopping the Demon King’s footsteps.
Rin knew very well that the initial purpose of this strange pair in coming to the second floor of Sato Restaurant was to fulfill an appointment.
Muzan merely waved his right hand in a careless gesture.
“I won’t waste any more time waiting. Besides, it was most likely just worthless, baseless information. Disappointing things like this have happened countless times over hundreds of years… Oh, that’s right.”
His footsteps halted at the top of the stairs.
Muzan turned his body halfway, looking at Rin while displaying a thin, riddle-filled smile.
“If Lady Rin has any free time between your clan duties, would you be willing to help me search for a certain type of herb?”
“Please tell me,” Rin replied flatly.
“Blue Spider Lily.”
Muzan uttered the name of a plant that had never once crossed Rin’s ears.
“Due to some extremely urgent personal matters, I am in great need of that special flower. If Lady Rin manages to find any information about its whereabouts, please inform me.”
“Understood. I will order my people to keep watch for it,” Rin answered flatly.
Under Tamayo’s widened purple eyes filled with shock, Muzan bowed slightly with extremely elegant formal etiquette before descending the stairs, taking Tamayo with him.
Rin remained motionless in her seat, watching the two human silhouettes walk through the darkness of the city streets from the second-floor window until their shadows were completely swallowed by the night.
*Such a strange pair… They’re both hiding far too many bloody secrets.*
However, Rin quickly brushed the clump of thoughts from her mind.
She didn’t care, because in this mortal world, every living being carried their own dark secrets.
The only thing lingering in Rin’s chest right now was a strange sense of relaxation after the conversation with Muzan.
That blunt, no-holds-barred dialogue—where they seemed to bare each other’s hearts—gave her a freedom she had never felt since stepping foot in the Tsugikuni residence.
In front of that man, she didn’t need to polish her words, didn’t need to worry about clan protocol, and didn’t need to fear whether her actions violated rigid samurai etiquette.
She could simply voice whatever crossed her mind.
*If only he hadn’t left in such a hurry, I would have liked to talk with him longer.*
Rin whispered faintly in her heart.
Yes, even though the man named Kibutsuji Muzan emitted danger signals strong enough to make a wild beast flee, Rin felt a surprising ego alignment between their personalities.
It was exactly like the closing words the man had uttered before disappearing.
*I look forward to our next meeting.*
Meanwhile, under the dim moonlight beginning to dominate the night sky, Muzan and Tamayo walked side by side along the path toward the outskirts of the city.
“It seems you have taken quite an interest in that little girl earlier.”
In the quiet silence of the night, Tamayo finally decided to speak, breaking the frozen tension between them.
“That’s very obvious,” Muzan answered shortly without bothering to turn his head.
Tamayo slowed her steps by one pace, staring at her master’s back with demanding eyes.
“In your judgment, does she have high enough qualifications and value to be turned into one of us?”
“Whether she is valuable or not, the answer will only become clear after my blood flows through her body.”
Perhaps because his mood was at its peak after the restaurant conversation, Muzan showed rare leniency by indulging Tamayo’s question.
“Based on my centuries of experience, the strongest human during their lifetime does not guarantee they will become a powerful demon. Conversely, a weak creature crawling on the ground can mutate into a terrifying monster after receiving my blood.”
The man snorted in amusement.
“There is no absolute calculation between the two.”
Tamayo fell silent upon hearing it.
Her eyes lowered to the ground again, but her visual memory locked onto the subtle anomaly she had caught in Rin Tsugikuni’s physical condition moments ago.
“That girl… is being gnawed by a serious illness,” Tamayo said softly, issuing a warning. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“While at the restaurant earlier, I saw several muscle fibers in her left arm twitching faintly without control. Her fingers were numb and losing motor coordination. Those are definite symptoms of a brain paralysis attack.”
Tamayo paused, drawing a heavy breath.
“Although the damage hasn’t erupted on the surface yet, her body’s shell definitely won’t be able to hold on much longer.”
“Hahaha! Isn’t that fate just perfect?” Muzan’s laughter rang through the night’s silence, sounding both cold and satisfied.
“The closer a human’s feet step toward the grave, the more desperately they will beg to value what remains of their life. They will claw at anything to grasp the only lifeline I extend…”
Muzan suddenly stopped walking, turning his handsome face with a sarcastic grin aimed straight at Tamayo’s chest.
“Tamayo… weren’t you crawling in the exact same way before me hundreds of years ago?”
Hearing the naked taunt that peeled open her old wounds, Tamayo’s hands hidden inside her silk kimono sleeves instantly clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white and trembled violently.
What Muzan had said to Rin at the restaurant earlier was not empty boasting.
Hundreds of years ago, Tamayo was merely an ordinary woman and a physician plagued by an incurable fatal disease.
Because of her pure, overwhelming desire to stay by her young son’s side and watch him grow up, she knelt and accepted Muzan’s blood drop, trading her humanity for eternity.
But the price she had to pay was unbearably bloody.
After transforming into a bloodthirsty demon, on her first night when her consciousness faded and her beastly instincts took control, Tamayo used her own claws to tear apart her husband and son’s flesh, devouring her own family’s blood and flesh until nothing remained.
That brutal tragedy left a black hole in her soul, a bottomless regret that had now mutated into absolute hatred burning her entire existence toward Kibutsuji Muzan.
In Muzan’s own eyes, Tamayo was an extremely ironic and incomprehensible creature.
To the Demon King, all the resentment and rage Tamayo had unleashed over hundreds of years was nothing more than a coward’s escape by a woman who couldn’t accept the reality of her own past sins.
*Hmph, truly an ungrateful creature.*
Even though he knew Tamayo spent every second devising thousands of plans to rip out his heart, Muzan had no intention of executing the woman.
His ability to read the minds of all his demon pawns kept him always ten steps ahead.
As the sole creator, he held absolute control over Tamayo’s life.
As long as demon blood still flowed through the woman’s veins, Tamayo would never be able to launch a physical attack capable of scratching his skin.
Moreover, Muzan still greatly needed Tamayo’s genius medical skills to help him solve various biological mysteries.
For that pragmatic reason, Muzan chose to let the woman continue breathing, dragging her wherever he went like an eternity-chained pet.
The relationship between this pair of night creatures was woven through an extremely complicated and poisonous thread.
To Tamayo, Muzan was the honey-mouthed demon who had thoroughly deceived her.
The man had deliberately hidden the bloody fact that night creatures needed a supply of human flesh to survive, and had intentionally let her lose control without any intention of stopping her fingers when she began tearing open her husband and child’s chests.
Muzan had simply stood upright in the corner of the room, enjoying the sight as she chewed her own family’s flesh piece by piece with bloody tears streaming down her cheeks.
Of course, to Muzan who considered himself a perfect being resembling a god, accusations and moral whining like that were not even worthy of acknowledgment.