Dream

In the restroom, Kurozawa examined himself in a mirror mounted there.

His clothes were tattered, the exposed flesh was a bloody mess, and he was covered in dust. All in all, he looked thoroughly battered and bedraggled.

Twisting open the faucet, Kurozawa used the steady stream of water to wash the dust and blood from his wounds.

Even the searing pain did not stop him.

Wounds were not supposed to get wet, but he was simply too filthy. Fragments of corroded clothing were still stuck to the mangled flesh, making him feel uncomfortable all over just looking at it.

It took Kurozawa more than ten minutes before he had cleaned himself up enough that he was no longer covered in dust and blood.

Otherwise, looking as he had before, he would probably have caused another commotion the moment he stepped out of the restroom.

"This carriage is pretty far from mine. The disturbance hasn't reached here yet, so no one should recognize me."

He took off the lower half of his ruined haori and wrapped it around his waist, covering the frightening-looking wounds before pushing open the restroom door.

The moment he opened it, he came face-to-face with someone waiting to use the restroom.

Seeing Kurozawa bare-chested with his clothes wrapped around his waist, the man gave him an odd look but said nothing. After a quick glance, he hurried into the restroom.

Kurozawa looked around and saw that this was an ordinary seating carriage, with a narrow aisle down the middle and somewhat cramped seats on both sides.

Since these were seats, roughly a quarter of the passengers had been unable to sleep due to the train's jolting. When they saw a bare-chested man emerge from the restroom, his lean and well-built muscles on display, all sorts of gazes turned toward him.

Kurozawa's keen perception picked up surprise, disdain, envy, and a desire to lick among those stares.

Hey! What was with that weird emotion? What the hell was that desire to lick?!

Veins bulged at Kurozawa's temple, especially after he discovered that the source of that gaze was a weathered, balding middle-aged man.

Ignoring the stares, Kurozawa walked toward the balding man.

As Kurozawa approached step by step, the middle-aged man swallowed and looked up with a smile. Kurozawa returned it with an equally kind smile, then pointed at the man's clothes.

"Help me out."

"What?"

After a brief and pleasant exchange of peaceful opinions, the two reached a consensus regarding Kurozawa's proposal.

A minute later, Kurozawa was wearing a coat and seated in an empty corner seat in another carriage.

Kurozawa folded his arms over his chest, lowered his head, and closed his eyes to rest.

The battle with the female demon might soon spread throughout the entire train, and people might come searching for Kurozawa. More likely, however, the train staff would suppress the news to avoid panic and chaos, isolate the people from that carriage, and hand the matter over to the relevant authorities once the train safely arrived at its destination.

Humanity's usual way of dealing with sudden incidents like this was to stabilize the situation and avoid letting it escalate.

Although he was unsure what the train staff would choose to do, Kurozawa had no interest in thinking about it anymore. It was beyond his ability to interfere with, and whether he thought about it or not would make no difference.

In the darkness behind his closed eyes, he looked at Gray-White.

His four physical attributes had not changed, but Kurozawa was somewhat surprised to find that the Power of Despair had increased by 8 points, while Potential Points had increased by 60. That was rather strange.

Based on the rewards from slaying demons at Mount Fujikasane, Kurozawa believed that the Power of Despair and Potential Points were partially connected. For every point of Power of Despair gained, he would receive roughly ten Potential Points, and any discrepancy should not have been significant.

Yet the gap between eight points of Power of Despair and sixty Potential Points had already exceeded Kurozawa's previous estimate.

"The experience I gained at Mount Fujikasane seems a little off."

"But why is there such a difference?"

Through repeated tests, Kurozawa had already learned that the Power of Despair had nothing to do with how despairing a target was when it died. Whether it died consumed by deep despair or found release in defiant death, demons of similar strength yielded roughly the same amount of Power of Despair.

"Then where is the problem?"

"What is the difference between this female demon and the demons on Mount Fujikasane?"

If he had to name one, the female demon had been well-fed on blood, her aura was much stronger, and her Blood Demon Art was difficult to deal with. She was far more troublesome than the Hand Demon of Mount Fujikasane.

"It can't be just that. There must be something I haven't considered."

Kurozawa took this change very seriously.

Gray-White was extremely important to him. Kurozawa wanted to know what Gray-White truly was, and what he himself was. The Power of Despair of Living Beings, as an independent and unique attribute within Gray-White, was naturally a crucial ability. The more he understood it, the better.

Meanwhile, the independent special attribute that coexisted with the Power of Despair of Living Beings—the Power of Species Annihilation—still remained at zero, without increasing by a single point. Kurozawa had no intention of investigating it. Even if he wanted to, he lacked the ability.

"Let me think carefully. Difference, difference... where is the difference?"

A few breaths later, Kurozawa came up with a new thought.

"Mount Fujikasane is a prison. The Hand Demon inside has even been imprisoned for over forty years."

"The female demon, on the other hand, has always been active in the outside world. That means she understands the world far better than the demons of Mount Fujikasane."

"The difference between a country demon and a city demon... could that be it? Worldliness?"

Kurozawa felt like his head was on fire. Thinking made his skull ache, yet he could not come up with any further differences.

But the idea was rather absurd, and Kurozawa quickly cast it aside.

"Forget it. No more thinking."

"Once I obtain enough Power of Despair, everything will eventually come to light."

Suppressing his doubts, Kurozawa chose to sleep. He had always fallen asleep quickly. Even while sitting upright, he entered sleep within two or three minutes.

As a swordsman, sleeping was also a skill that needed to be mastered. Nearly all swordsmen could enjoy deep, fulfilling sleep, keeping their wandering thoughts under control. So long as there was no warning of danger, they could calm their minds and sleep soundly until dawn.

But this time, Kurozawa dreamed.

In the hazy dream, Kurozawa found himself in the sleeper car from before.

The tall girl who had kept secretly looking at him and seemed to want to speak to him was sitting quietly beside his bed.

Kurozawa possessed a strong will. The instant he appeared in that scene, he understood that he was dreaming.

"Why... didn't you save me?"

A soft murmur escaped the girl's lips.

She had her back to Kurozawa, her long hair hanging loose. Not even the slightest tremor ran through her body; she was like a statue.

"I wanted to save you, but it was already too late."

Kurozawa fell silent for a moment. Though he knew it was a dream, he still answered her.

He could have gathered his mental will and awakened from the dream, but Kurozawa did not do so.

The girl's question appearing in his dream came from Kurozawa's subconscious, and Kurozawa's answer was also an answer to himself.

Kurozawa was not a kind person. If something happened to someone unrelated to him, he would not even blink. But neither was he cold-blooded. After all, he had met this girl and briefly interacted with her, only for her to die before his eyes like that. At the very height of her youth, her life had shattered at a touch. Kurozawa could not simply pretend he had not seen it.

"You wanted to save me. But I still died. Why? Why was I the one who died?" The girl's voice was very low.

Kurozawa had spoken with her before. He remembered that her voice had originally been light and pleasant.

After another moment of silence, Kurozawa sighed softly. "Not even gods can watch over everyone. In the end, it was simply because you were too unfortunate."

"Natural disasters, illness, man-made calamities... all can take a person's life. You died at the hands of a ghostly creature. It is no different from those who die in natural disasters, man-made tragedies, or any other accident."

After a pause, Kurozawa said calmly, "If there must be a difference, then the only difference is probably that you spoke to me. On this moving train, you were a passerby who left me with a good impression."

"That is also why you appeared in my dream."

"Is that so? I understand now." The statue-like girl spoke softly, then her figure faded away and vanished from Kurozawa's dream.

In an instant, the dream shattered, and Kurozawa woke up.

After a long while, he looked through the window at the night sky filled with stars.

"I couldn't save you, but my conscience is clear."