[DING!
The ‘Lost and Found System’ strongly suggests checking your pockets for a compass!
Bind now before you accidentally wander into a completely different anime!] I didn’t even bother swatting the glowing blue screen away this time.
I just glared at it until it fizzled out on its own, spitting a glob of sticky mud off the end of my boot.
The environment was a masterpiece of atmospheric misery.
The fog hung so thick it felt like chewing on cotton wool, and every step I took produced a wet, disgusting schhluck that echoed across the stagnant water.
According to my crow, the town of Kaza was Northwest.
According to my entirely broken internal compass, Northwest was currently located somewhere in the middle of a rotting marshland that smelled like dead fish and regret.
I was fifteen minutes away from sitting down in the muck and taking a nap when a frantic rustling sound cut through the heavy air.
I froze, resting my right hand instinctively on the polished oak grip of my sawed-off Nichirin shotgun, while my left hand hovered over the moss-green hilt of my katana.
Through the grey mist, a figure came stumbling into view.
It was a boy about my age, wearing a stark white Demon Slayer corps uniform draped in a haori with a triangle-and-square yellow pattern.
His bright, canary-yellow hair was currently plastered to his forehead with sweat, and he was hyperventilating so hard I thought his lungs were going to launch themselves out of his chest.
Hovering above his head, angrily pecking at his hair, was a tiny brown sparrow.
Agatsuma Zenitsu.
The chronic crier from the Final Selection.
He looked up, saw me standing knee-deep in the swamp mud, and let out a shriek that could have shattered glass.
“GYYYAAAH!
A GHOST!
A MUD-DEMON GHOST!” Zenitsu flailed backward, tripping over his own sandals and landing flat on his back in a particularly slimy puddle.
“I’m too young to die!
I haven’t even gotten married yet!
A cute girl promised to make me rice balls once, and I haven’t collected on that debt!” I let out a long, exhausted sigh, dropping my hand from my shotgun.
“Shut up, lightning-boy.
You’re going to wake every frog within a five-mile radius.
And I’m not a ghost.” Zenitsu blinked, his tear-filled eyes focusing on me.
“G-Genya?
What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?
This isn’t Kaza town!
Are you lost too?” “I am taking the scenic route,” I lied smoothly, adjusting my collar.
“It builds character.
Where are you supposed to be?” “Kaza town!” Zenitsu wailed, sitting up in the mud and pointing a trembling finger at the tiny sparrow.
“This stupid bird keeps dragging me this way!
The crow said girls are being kidnapped every night in Kaza town, and I don’t want to go!
What if the demon eats me?
What if it’s huge and scary?
You have to come with me, Genya!
Protect me!” I looked at the sparrow.
The sparrow looked at me, gave a sharp chirp, and pointed its wing dead ahead through a thick cluster of weeping willows.
I swallowed my pride.
Following a bird was deeply humiliating, but it was better than walking in another three-hour circle.
“Fine,” I grunted, stepping out of the mud puddle.
“Lead the way.
But if you keep crying, I’m using you as bait.” We trekked through the dense marsh for another twenty minutes, guided entirely by Zenitsu’s sparrow.
As we pushed through the final line of reeds, the fog broke, revealing a dark, sprawling town built alongside a series of deep canals.
The streets were completely deserted.
Paper lanterns flickered ominously in the wind, casting long, wavering shadows against the wooden walls of the houses.
“This is Kaza town,” Zenitsu whispered, hiding behind my back and clinging to my uniform.
His super-sensitive hearing was clearly picking something up.
“Genya…
I hear it.
A really, really bad sound.
It sounds like something squishy…
and it’s coming from the canal.” I pushed him off me and stepped toward the edge of the dark water flowing through the center of the street.
Suddenly, the surface of the canal violently erupted.
BOOM.
Mud, water, and rotting reeds exploded into the air as three identical, blue-skinned figures shot out of the water like human-shaped torpedoes.
They wore tattered black kimonos, their eyes were pale and bulging, and their skin rippled with the consistency of semi-liquid water.
Swamp Demons.
In the arms of the center demon was a young girl in a nightgown, completely unconscious.
“Intruders,” the three demons hissed in perfect, unsettling unison, their voices echoing with a strange, liquid vibration.
“Demon Slayers in our hunting ground.” Zenitsu let out another pitch-perfect scream.
His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he immediately fainted, collapsing backward onto the cobblestones with a soft thud.
“Useless,” I muttered, not taking my eyes off the demons.
“Look at this one,” the demon holding the girl sneered, licking its lips.
“He doesn’t even look scared.
We are the terror of Kaza town, boy!
Sixteen girls we’ve taken from their beds!
Sixteen!” “Sixteen?” I repeated, my voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly tone.
I rested my hand on the hilt of my sword.
“That’s right!” the demon on the left bragged, its liquid body bubbling.
“Every girl we consume gives us more power!
Muzan-sama’s blood courses through us, making us stronger with every meal!
By the time Muzan-sama notices us, we will be unstoppable!” “Muzan-sama,” I mocked, a feral grin spreading across my face.
“Sounds like you guys are a bunch of glorified fanboys playing in a puddle.” “Kill him!” the center demon shrieked.
Two of the Swamp Demons lunged at me.
As they leaped through the air, their bodies dissolved into foul-smelling puddles of water, intending to reform directly behind my back to slit my throat.
It was a neat trick.
For a normal swordsman, losing sight of the target was a death sentence.
But I didn’t rely on my eyes alone, and my combat instincts were forged in a much crueler sea.
I pivoted on my heel, dropping low to the cobblestone street.
As I spun, my right hand cleared the holster on my hip with blinding speed.
SHUCK-CLACK.
I didn’t use a Breathing Style.
I didn’t shout an attack name.
I just aimed the sawed-off double barrel directly at the puddle forming behind me and pulled the front trigger.
KABOOM!
The gun barked with the ferocity of a miniature cannon.
The recoil was intense, but my new, coiled musculature handled it perfectly.
A concentrated cone of fire, smoke, and jagged, sunlight-absorbing Nichirin iron sand blasted directly into the reforming demon’s torso.
The Swamp Demon shrieked in absolute, unfiltered agony.
The specialized shrapnel didn’t just pierce its watery flesh; it detonated inside its chest cavity.
The Nichirin ore seared its regenerative cells, blowing a gaping, smoking crater right through its midsection.
The demon was thrown backward into the canal, thrashing wildly as black smoke billowed from its wounds.
It couldn’t turn back into water.
The iron sand was burning it from the inside out.
“What…
what kind of Blood Demon Art is that?!” the second demon stammered, freezing in its tracks and staring at the smoking barrel of my gun.
“He didn’t use a sword!” “It’s called modern engineering,” I grunted.
I didn’t give it time to recover.
I dashed forward, my footwork explosive.
With my left hand, I drew my moss-green Nichirin katana.
Ittoryu (Single Sword Style): Lion’s Song.
I slid past the second demon, the green steel flashing in the moonlight.
The cut was clean, precise, and completely devoid of wasted motion.
The demon’s head detached from its shoulders, its expression frozen in shock as it collapsed into ash.
I turned my attention to the center demon, the one still holding the unconscious girl.
I cracked the shotgun open.
A spent brass shell popped out with a satisfying ping and hit the cobblestones.
I reached into my bandolier, slammed a fresh shell home with my thumb, and snapped the gun shut.
Sword and gun.
Two hands, zero wasted movement.
“Put the girl down,” I whispered, leveling the barrel at the demon’s head.
“Or I’ll see how much of that iron sand your skull can hold.” The demon trembled, slowly lowering the girl to the ground.
“Y-You…
Muzan-sama will kill you!
You can’t interfere in our territory!” Before I could pull the trigger, the entire atmosphere of the town plummeted.
The temperature dropped twenty degrees in a single second.
The foul smell of the swamp was instantly replaced by an overwhelming, suffocating pressure that made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.
It wasn’t just a heavy aura.
It was a physical weight, like the gravity of the world had suddenly doubled.
[WARNING: High-Level Hostile Entity Detected.
Parameter anomaly.
The local narrative has been compromised.] The water in the canal violently parted.
Rising from the depths, stepping onto the surface of the water as if it were solid ground, was a demon that made the swamp creatures look like insignificant gnats.
He was tall, dressed in an extravagant, high-collared crimson kimono.
His skin was pale as moonlight, and his sharp, intelligent eyes burned with a terrifying, absolute authority.
Two jagged horns protruded from his forehead, and a thick, segmented tail lashed behind him.
He didn’t look like a feral beast.
He looked like an aristocratic executioner.
The remaining Swamp Demon immediately dropped to its knees, pressing its face into the dirt, entirely abandoning the kidnapped girl.
“L-Lord…
Lord Akuro!” the Swamp Demon whimpered, trembling so violently it looked like it was having a seizure.
“Fools,” the aristocratic demon—Akuro—echoed across the street.
His voice didn’t sound like it came from his mouth; it vibrated directly inside my skull.
“Making such a pathetic racket in my domain.
I allow you bottom-feeders to collect scraps in Kaza town, and this is how you repay my generosity?
By drawing the Corps to my doorstep?” “Domain?” I muttered, narrowing my eyes.
“I am the undisputed ruler of the Northern Marshes,” Akuro declared coldly, his lips curving into a disdainful smirk.
“I am the demon who will soon ascend to the ranks of the Twelve Kizuki.
Muzan-sama has his eye on this territory, and I will not let a boy with a loud toy and a sleeping coward ruin my ascension.” He raised a single, long-fingered hand.
The air around him began to warp, a sinister, dark purple energy crackling at his fingertips.
[CRITICAL WARNING: The ‘Survival Protocol System’ strongly advises immediate retreat!
This entity exceeds your current vessel’s parameters!
Bind now for instant teleportation!] I didn’t even twitch my hand toward the holographic warning.
I kept my eyes locked on the arrogant, aristocratic demon standing on the water.
I had dealt with warlords, marine captains, and arrogant pirates.
I knew exactly how to handle someone who liked the sound of their own voice.
“You talk too much,” I stated flatly.
I raised my Nichirin shotgun, aimed dead-center at his extravagant crimson kimono, and pulled the trigger.
KABOOM!